Development and Discussion

[Light]

Sounds to me you need to focus more on your ratios and scaling down, or the better option of learning the beauty of circuit networks.

A well designed factory will naturally scale up or down to satisfy demand without wasting resources, basically operating 100% of the time without the need for stockpiles. However, sometimes you want to scale up beyond what you need in case demand increases, which is where using the circuit network to moderate and limit the amount produced is the most accurate option to prevent overloading chests with too much of that product.

My slagless sorting is capable of producing far more than needed, but circuit networks keep production in check by shutting down sections when a quota is reached. This quota is different for each ore and easily adjustable if demands change. It's a quick way to control ratios and prevent overproduction, which is very easy to do with just wires between belts and chests, no crazy logic required.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I <3 me some circuit networks. The issue is that if the mineral (I'm referring to Saphirite et. al. as minerals to differentiate them from the ores) produces iron, well, I try to get as much as I can, which means I'm going to get surpluses of the other ores it generates. If I have a circuit network halt production of, say, Saphirite because my copper ore storage is full (which happened a lot; I had half a million copper ore), then my iron production suffers. Is there a way around that?

What you're describing is not slagless sorting, since you'd only get the single ore from the process. I sometimes use the "dirty sorting" method you're describing which generated a ton of other ores, but not with the intentions of getting copper and iron from it.

What you really should do is use the slagless sorting method where you take saphirite and jivolite and turn them into just pure iron ore. Both iron and copper are required in amounts 10-15 times greater than any other ore in the game, which is the entire reason why you've had a massive surplus of everything else just to feed that heavy demand. If you intend to stick to the dirty sorting method as you have, you should only do so for the exotic ores you will seldom use, never for iron/copper.

That alone will basically solve your entire problem.

[qwerter96]

Sounds to me you need to focus more on your ratios and scaling down, or the better option of learning the beauty of circuit networks.

A well designed factory will naturally scale up or down to satisfy demand without wasting resources, basically operating 100% of the time without the need for stockpiles. However, sometimes you want to scale up beyond what you need in case demand increases, which is where using the circuit network to moderate and limit the amount produced is the most accurate option to prevent overloading chests with too much of that product.

My slagless sorting is capable of producing far more than needed, but circuit networks keep production in check by shutting down sections when a quota is reached. This quota is different for each ore and easily adjustable if demands change. It's a quick way to control ratios and prevent overproduction, which is very easy to do with just wires between belts and chests, no crazy logic required.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I <3 me some circuit networks. The issue is that if the mineral (I'm referring to Saphirite et. al. as minerals to differentiate them from the ores) produces iron, well, I try to get as much as I can, which means I'm going to get surpluses of the other ores it generates. If I have a circuit network halt production of, say, Saphirite because my copper ore storage is full (which happened a lot; I had half a million copper ore), then my iron production suffers. Is there a way around that?

Slagless refining is your best bet. Sorting crushed jivolite+saphirite not only gives you more useful ore from raw ore, but also decouples your ore production from each other.

[BlakeMW]

Another thing which can help with the Iron Imbalance is using the advanced refining recipes:

Iron+Silicon (good for dumping silicon)
Iron+Manganese
Iron+Nickel+Chrome (good for dumping nickel)
Iron+Nickel+Cobalt (for dumping nickel and cobalt)

Especially the recipes using Manganese and Chrome are good because they reduce the amount of saphirite/jivolite which needs to be mined by replacing up to half the mined ore, with ores mined from water (they require a very small input of coal, and natural gas for the top-tier manganese smelting). Dumping into iron alloys can allow getting rid of any excess silicon and nickel from crushing+sorting of rubyte or bobmonium (of course you need to use a priority scheme, where iron ignots are preferentially alloyed with ores to be dumped, and fall back to being smelted with manganese or alone)

It's also worth noting that Saphirite hydro refining produces: 2 iron, 1 copper, 1 silicon, 1 nickel: Since silicon and nickel both appear in the iron alloys you can actually use hydro refining to produce 5 parts iron to 1 part copper (which should be easily dumped into copper smelting, give it priority over primary copper ore production). Saphirite hydro refining thus provides a ready source of sulphuric waste water, slag and and geodes without difficult to dispose of byproducts. Nearly all the other advanced sorting recipes (higher than crushing+sorting) are problematic due to the difficulty of disposing of zinc, aluminium, titanium and silver into research packs.

[foodfactorio]

i used up a lot of nickel in my v0.14 angel bobs game, mainly for invar, (i tried storing as much as possible rather than venting, partly due to being surrounded by biters with pollution), but cobalt, (to get the point across) i hardly used a stack of it... (only to make a Cobalt axe and some armour i think)

[jodokus31]

i used up a lot of nickel in my v0.14 angel bobs game, mainly for invar, (i tried storing as much as possible rather than venting, partly due to being surrounded by biters with pollution), but cobalt, (to get the point across) i hardly used a stack of it... (only to make a Cobalt axe and some armour i think)

What about the metal catalysts or cobalt oxide? Or did you mean the cobalt plates only?
Theres also an alloy cobaltsteel, which seems to be needed more f.e in mining drills mk3 (im not at this point, yet)

[adamant80]

First off I just want to say that I love your mods and hope to see them grow.

I have an idea for the logistics mod:
I have issues with managing both cargo and standard logistic bots. The standard I use for quick supply while I wait for a large order from a cargo bot to reach its destination. I run into the issue of only cargobots taking requests sometimes which cause a shortage of items in the network until the slow movers finish their route. If you add the ability to somehow add the ability to set how many logistic bots are allowed for a requester chest either in general or for each individual box then this would solve cargobot clogging and allow a better flow of just-in-time-management and standard large deliveries.
I understand that this idea is a very complex one to code.

Thanks for listening

[foodfactorio]

oh yes jodokus, i meant cobalt plates sorry, (cobalt itself helps a lot with lithium batteries)

[safan]

Angel, i have a suggestion to avoid the building clutter:

add items like "tier 1 4x4 foundation", made with the regular amounts of iron, stone etc, and let this be the only ingedrient of all the tier 1 4x4x buildings in your mods. Also make it so that when you pick up one of these buildings, you get a foundation back.

benefits:
- no clutter with mistakes ( oh i needed a oil and gas separator, not a steam cracker)
- no problem with upgrades (making a steam cracker 2 and replacing a steam cracker ends up with a steam cracker in the inventory)
- easy expansion (you need a stack of 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 foundations in the highest tier you can afford, and you can build all the buildings you need instead of needing all the stuff for all the tiers, and having to return when you are out of steel)
- easy automation (including taking away lower tier foundations to upgrade them)

i like the range of different buildings that you provide, but managing them takes a lot away of the experience
if you are not intrested in including this i will probably mod it myself.

[Kamuchi]

Thank you for all the work you put into this mod, while just diving into it and installing all of them and seeing some of the models and complexity I was pretty much overwhelmed

As I installed it on an existing game as it said a new save was recommended, it's pretty much mandatory as you don't get natural gas pockets that got my stuck and just gave up to try on a new game which obviously worked.
Could you change that recommendation please so other nubs to the mod will know that using the resource mods requires the new resources?

Then on my new game having the suprise of all the new ores...
Nicely done as I had the feeling of playing Factorio for the first time as it took me hours till this moment to figure out what you've done, and only scratched the surface with a stable iron/copper plate setup (still need to copy the copper but same output)
While trying to figure out where the stone went for some walls and deciding to give the ore crusher a go, jeez crushed stone spam!
As I'm playing on hard mode, disabled the infinite ore, you buncha cheaters , a nubby setup example for some one else to get a hang of getting started.
I did some manual green science crafting to unlock the blue factory/red belts, but it can just keep up and use the end forges as buffer.
Could also add 2 more crushers to have a stable feed to the 4th sorter but no red belts atm to also upgrade the crushed stone belt so keep that in mind



Looking forward to dig through all of the stuff, including the petro and bio.
The trains look awesome and can't wait to use them with LTN (where I ended my last save with adding your mods)to make life a bit easier sorting and moving them all with the sheer amount of resource types

[randomone]

Are the saphirite/Stiratite crushed ore straight to furnace recipes supposed to have such short crafting times? It feels weird sustaining a midgame factory's iron plate line off of 5 steel furnaces, and upgrading to the saphirite/jivolite sorter recipe actually killed my throughput for a bit until I built my furnace line back up.

[jodokus31]

Are the saphirite/Stiratite crushed ore straight to furnace recipes supposed to have such short crafting times? It feels weird sustaining a midgame factory's iron plate line off of 5 steel furnaces, and upgrading to the saphirite/jivolite sorter recipe actually killed my throughput for a bit until I built my furnace line back up.

You can check it via manual calculations or using f.e. https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Helfima/helmod
I checked it in my save and it seems, that you need twice as much furnaces for saphirite ore compared to iron ore:
120 crushed saphirite -> 84 steel furnaces -> 24 iron plates per second (7 seconds for 1 plate)
40 iron ore -> 42 steel furnaces -> 24 iron plates per second (10,5 seconds for 3 plates)
(these are expensive recipes)

The next info you might already know, but I add it for it completion:
If you have iron ore, its much more productive to go for the advanced iron smelting 2 or 3, which produce more out of 1 ore.
usually:
iron ore -> ore processing machine -> (pellet press) -> blast furnace -> induction furnace -> casting machine

Here is a great guide:
viewtopic.php?f=185&t=50437

[randomone]

Are the saphirite/Stiratite crushed ore straight to furnace recipes supposed to have such short crafting times? It feels weird sustaining a midgame factory's iron plate line off of 5 steel furnaces, and upgrading to the saphirite/jivolite sorter recipe actually killed my throughput for a bit until I built my furnace line back up.

You can check it via manual calculations or using f.e. https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Helfima/helmod
I checked it in my save and it seems, that you need twice as much furnaces for saphirite ore compared to iron ore:
120 crushed saphirite -> 84 steel furnaces -> 24 iron plates per second (7 seconds for 1 plate)
40 iron ore -> 42 steel furnaces -> 24 iron plates per second (10,5 seconds for 3 plates)
(these are expensive recipes)

Those numbers seem a lot more reasonable than what I'm getting, and a look at the lua confirms it, so some external factor like another mod is causing my crafting times for those to default back to 0.5 for some reason. How irritating.

[Arch666Angel]

Angel, i have a suggestion to avoid the building clutter:

add items like "tier 1 4x4 foundation", made with the regular amounts of iron, stone etc, and let this be the only ingedrient of all the tier 1 4x4x buildings in your mods. Also make it so that when you pick up one of these buildings, you get a foundation back.

benefits:
- no clutter with mistakes ( oh i needed a oil and gas separator, not a steam cracker)
- no problem with upgrades (making a steam cracker 2 and replacing a steam cracker ends up with a steam cracker in the inventory)
- easy expansion (you need a stack of 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 foundations in the highest tier you can afford, and you can build all the buildings you need instead of needing all the stuff for all the tiers, and having to return when you are out of steel)
- easy automation (including taking away lower tier foundations to upgrade them)

i like the range of different buildings that you provide, but managing them takes a lot away of the experience
if you are not intrested in including this i will probably mod it myself.

I like the general idea, although I would refine it a bit more. But the basic idea would be to just change all the buildings to give its base components back, but this would probably something I will implement with all the other building components, changing the recipes is easy, changing the mined result a bit more dynamic need some code.

---
@Kamuchi
Thanks a lot, I hope you enjoy playing

[ridesdragons]

I noticed that one of the updates since I last played added more advanced smelting recipes, making intermediaries more or an actual item and less of just being an extra step. while this is nice, and finally pushed me to making my modules smaller than before (which I was starting to feel like doing anyway, but felt like compact chains were more efficient, and so avoided things like trains and barreling, so I'm glad for the push)(a boon when adding factorissimo, as I can make each building do only one step, then have the goods shipped to the next building. much less ratio-worrying. and with the new update making intermediaries have multiple potential paths, important), I've noticed an issue that makes this difficult with a particular step in the smelting process.

the advanced recipes for cobalt steel plates require a mix of molten cobalt and molten iron or steel. tin and gold wire coils require both molten copper and molten tin/gold. glass has a number of recipes that mix molten glass with other metals.

the problem, however, is that I'm unable to barrel molten metals. now, from a realism perspective that could make sense, but in game, molten metal can travel miles in pipes while remaining a liquid (because gameplay mechanics), and one could think of multiple ways to keep the metal molten or easily melt it down again once it gets to it's destination (maybe instead of a barrel of molten metal, it could be a metal cube/block, that can be turned back into molten metal once it reaches another barrelling station. or a different building)

most of the recipes, from what I can see, promote a separation of each step in the production chain, but these few new smelting recipes promote instead a compact production chain, which is what I was doing before, when every smeltable resource only really went towards one product.

my suggestion would be to either allow barreling (or a sensible equivalent) of molten metals, or to do what you've added with solder and allow other mixed molten metals (which doesn't seem like that good of an idea, since it doesn't solve cobalt steel's advanced recipes really, glass mixtures would be awkward, and tin/copper or gold/copper mixed metals turning into wire coils wouldn't really make much sense)

[Arch666Angel]

I noticed that one of the updates since I last played added more advanced smelting recipes, making intermediaries more or an actual item and less of just being an extra step. while this is nice, and finally pushed me to making my modules smaller than before (which I was starting to feel like doing anyway, but felt like compact chains were more efficient, and so avoided things like trains and barreling, so I'm glad for the push)(a boon when adding factorissimo, as I can make each building do only one step, then have the goods shipped to the next building. much less ratio-worrying. and with the new update making intermediaries have multiple potential paths, important), I've noticed an issue that makes this difficult with a particular step in the smelting process.

the advanced recipes for cobalt steel plates require a mix of molten cobalt and molten iron or steel. tin and gold wire coils require both molten copper and molten tin/gold. glass has a number of recipes that mix molten glass with other metals.

the problem, however, is that I'm unable to barrel molten metals. now, from a realism perspective that could make sense, but in game, molten metal can travel miles in pipes while remaining a liquid (because gameplay mechanics), and one could think of multiple ways to keep the metal molten or easily melt it down again once it gets to it's destination (maybe instead of a barrel of molten metal, it could be a metal cube/block, that can be turned back into molten metal once it reaches another barrelling station. or a different building)

most of the recipes, from what I can see, promote a separation of each step in the production chain, but these few new smelting recipes promote instead a compact production chain, which is what I was doing before, when every smeltable resource only really went towards one product.

my suggestion would be to either allow barreling (or a sensible equivalent) of molten metals, or to do what you've added with solder and allow other mixed molten metals (which doesn't seem like that good of an idea, since it doesn't solve cobalt steel's advanced recipes really, glass mixtures would be awkward, and tin/copper or gold/copper mixed metals turning into wire coils wouldn't really make much sense)

Sounds like you have something like the smelting extended mod in there, which was made before I did add the bobs alloys and is probably not up to date to work with the current version and/or isnt needed anymore.

[ridesdragons]

Sounds like you have something like the smelting extended mod in there, which was made before I did add the bobs alloys and is probably not up to date to work with the current version and/or isnt needed anymore.

oh, whoops, I thought you made that. I'm sorry, I assumed it was made by you and didn't realize it was an extension made by someone else lol. it's what I get for searching up "angel's", finding a bunch named like your mods, and not reading the creator lol. from what I recall from before/after adding it, it mostly added the stuff you added, but for other things, such as the steel coils, but for brass* (the compression units). I believe the coils (wires) were also part of yours, but that might have just been the copper, and not the tin or gold

still, as-is, the induction furnace must feed directly into a casting furnace, and I can't transport it elsewhere for use (well I probably could with the fluid train, actually, but I was hoping to use the logistics system here for that lol). I can make due and just have the ingots shipped to where they'll be melted down and then immediately turned into the desired product, but an ability to move the molten liquids like others can be would be nice, and would allow me to space out that one section of my factory

EDIT: alright got a chance to start a game up without smelting expanded, and I see that things like tin and gold wire coil, as well as the advanced glass recipes, are still there, using multiple molten metals, so most of my example still stands

*iron compression was a default thing, smelting extended just added brass compression. pretty much the only useful feature for me added by smelting extended would be the ability to make gears and iron pipes directly

[jodokus31]

...I can make due and just have the ingots shipped to where they'll be melted down and then immediately turned into the desired product, but an ability to move the molten liquids like others can be would be nice, and would allow me to space out that one section of my factory

I actually like it, that not everything can be barreled. If we've wanted it easy, we wouldn't play angels mods, would we?
But, just my opinion...

[spitfire_23]

Hi, what are the correct ratios for steel? I'm seeing 1 steel plate as requiring 2 iron plates or 3 iron ingots -> 1 steel ingot -> 10 molten steel. This seems like a bug because the metallurgy version is basically strictly worse at those rates.

[ridesdragons]

I actually like it, that not everything can be barreled. If we've wanted it easy, we wouldn't play angels mods, would we?
But, just my opinion...

but there's a difference between making something harder and making something cumbersome. most of the recent changes also started pushing for a need for logistics, either via trains or bots, as intermediaries are useful elsewhere. however, the fact that you can't really move melted materials around means you must tie them to their end destination. this, I feel, is a step backwards, and runs at odds to the changes to casting recipes.

in factorio 14, iron ingots were used for iron and steel, that's it. molten iron only serves to be made into iron plates. steel into steel plates. cobalt into cobalt steel, etc. there was only 1 path, so it made sense to have entire sections designed for an entire process. you input iron ore one side, get iron plates out the iron. but now that iron can actually be used in several other recipes, with multiple paths, it doesn't make sense to build designs like this, as sometimes you'll want to put iron ore in and get magnesium out in the end (which atm doesn't actually have a use other than boosting iron production, but it'll probably have a use soon, no doubt). so since you don't always want your ingots to go directly to plates, it's a better idea to store the ignots and then ship them to where they're needed. but you can't do this with melted materials. however, melted materials, like the rest of the intermediaries, now have multiple uses, and some recipes require multiple liquids, yet can't be shipped around.

Hi, what are the correct ratios for steel? I'm seeing 1 steel plate as requiring 2 iron plates or 3 iron ingots -> 1 steel ingot -> 10 molten steel. This seems like a bug because the metallurgy version is basically strictly worse at those rates.

the 2 iron -> 1 steel is strictly from bob's mods, due to reducing the cost from 5 to 2 plates. angel's smelting reduces the cost from 5 iron to 4 iron. however, there's still used to steel smelting, just not for making steel plates. for example, cobalt steel. in order to make cobalt steel, you need steel ingots. otherwise, if you need steel plates and you're using bob's mods (which it looks like you are), it's more resource efficient to just smelt iron into steel in a regular furnace.

[BlakeMW]

it's more resource efficient to just smelt iron into steel in a regular furnace.

I've noticed this. Using steel ingots will only ever at best break even with the iron->steel in a furnace, because the steel versions of advanced recipes (i.e. ingot+manganese) are more high tech you usually get more steel by using an iron combining recipe (i.e. iron+manganese, or iron+chrome+nickel) then converting to steel in a regular furnaces. When exploited the combining recipes are very powerful, like manganese straight up doubles plate output per iron ore, at the cost of course of needing to produce a lot of manganese. There seems to be little incentive to use the advanced steel since it's never going to be better than making iron plates (unless you really want to dispose of tungsten into an alloy).