Wanted to share what I made for myself. There isn't a plug&play solution. A little setup legwork is required, so don't expect the ideal solution...this is the only solution I know of though, and I did hours of troubleshooting already.

It uses narc0tiq's python-based updater I found, and I made a ...

The robot animations are awesome!

We made some changes in 0.18.3, and will continue to make changes anyway to the sounds

Moving this to resolved
Both sound problems still exist as of 0.18.6 and I haven't seen any changelog mention of attempted fixes, either.
Because of "will continue to make changes anyway", I'm not sure how to ...

mining-wood-3.ogg cuts off too harshly.
It's better (but still not very good) when played outside of the game. With the significant db reduction within the game, mining-wood-3.ogg sounds like it was cut short before the sound was actually finished playing.

mining-wood-4.ogg sounds like it ...

Is the data caching going to be implemented in 0.18?

I love the immersion changes--new/tweaked/higher-fidelity background music when loading the game, various sound effects, and the moving trees and water! The trees really make the game seem less static and more alive. The color changes look nice ...

Thanks for the information. It's always interesting to hear!

If it wasn't a horsehair worm infestation, I'm curious to hear what was causing the odd behavior.

One approach, which doesn't drastically alter the look from how it is now, is to change in factorio.min.js:
$(".custom-dropdown").hover(function() {
$(this).children("ul").stop(true, true).slideDown(300)
}, function() {
$(this).children("ul").stop(true, true).slideUp(300)
});
to this ...

No issue on my end.

EDIT:

Klonan wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:32 am Seems to only happen in 'normal' sprite resolution, high res was fine

Yep.

Not sure if it relates but I noticed a few days ago that factorio.com fails to go through ssllabs.com testing due to a "certificate name mismatch" and then "unable to obtain certificate" after clicking to proceed anyway. I've tested it, many times, in the past and it went through without a hitch ...

Does this fix also apply to this situation?

Trying out the new tooltips and the first thing i painfully notice on my 3Ghz potato is that they lag really hard. I've set tooltip delay to 0 but it feels more like 100~300ms when chaos-mousing over the crafting menu. Seems to be worst for items that i have lots of stacks in my inventory off ...

These new tooltips are excellent, and the bot batch building will make multiplayer more enjoyable. Thanks!

TL;DR
Shortcuts can't be arranged in an intuitive manner, and dragging the actual shortcuts within the UI would work far better.
Since item shortcuts are called a quickbar and not a shortcut, don't confuse those shortcuts...with shortcuts. The video shows which shortcuts I'm talking about ...

Not getting stuck on belts isn't a buff, not at all. The key is being combined with the new non-collision mechanism. It makes me wonder if it could be used to comfortably funnel aliens into a narrow and focused kill zone. A bottleneck surrounded by walls.

Are the disappearing biters/spitters just how the game works and we never notice it, or is it not supposed to happen?

The non-colliding aliens are excellent.

Please don't ever become swayed to buff/nerf/reduce the weapons/aliens/attackers in the future, as a result of this change. The way they act now is much better, and I'm a player who plays exclusively in peaceful mode. The difficulty of managing defenses is ...

So, it's just a matter of time in cases with lots of aliens?

Same save...
Should random aliens be sitting around, by themselves?
https://youtu.be/T6gXdA3_X7Y?t=625

While trying to see how the random, lonely aliens react, I noticed some disappearing. Is this normal?
https://youtu.be/T6gXdA3_X7Y?t ...

When I manually attack with artillery or wait ~10 minutes for artillery to automatically attack again, the hit/nearby aliens move, briefly, but don't attack.

There is a noticeable improvement with the new, non-collision mechanism, but others seems to just be sitting around.

Save:
https://forums ...

Attached is the requested log for missing pick axe graphics.