Can't make resin without resin

[gammaprime]

I'm using Bobs + Angels (inc. Bob's Electronics and Angels Biochem) 0.17, and I'm trying to avoid using the Bob's recipe for resin (1 wood -> 1 resin in an assembler), as it seems a bit cheaty and not really in the "spirit" of B+A. Since I will have as much wood as I'll ever need from an arboretum array and a handful of nearby trees for the seed generators, a 1:1 single-step wood->resin recipe is a bit too convenient.

Now, you need resin for solder, which you need for the basic electronic board. You also need it for rubber, but that's not really needed until circuit networks.

You can make liquid resin from raw bio resin using a liquefier mk. 1, which needs only the basic circuit board (which doesn't need solder). However, the raw bio resin itself comes from an arboretum, which does need a BEB (not just a BCB). Additionally, the ethanol gas comes only from chemical plants or gas refineries, both of which need BEBs.

The other liquid resin recipes (urea + formaldehyde; melamine + formaldehye; BPA + epichlohydrin) also need chemical plants (and thus are also locked behind BCB).

Is it expected to have to bootstrap resin though the Bob's recipe, or have I missed a trick?

B+A is great, though!

[insert25c]

Two suggestions to solve your conundrum.

1: run a separate game using only Angels; no Bobs. This will let you know if there’s a different way intended for early game resin that’s been altered by Bobs mod.

Or

2: Use the bare minimum of the 1:1 resin recipe required to start producing with your preferred recipe. Kinda like going for the Lazy B@stard achievement. You don’t want to hand craft, but there’s still a minimum amount you have to do before you’re able to fully automate.

[valneq]

There were a lot of updates to Angel's and Bob's that are only available for Factorio 0.18.

Angel's mods changed this point: Now you don't need resin for solder early game. The earliest you really need resin is for phenolic boards – and you have to use 10 wood to make 1 resin, if you don't make it from liquid resin.

But I am fairly certain that Angel's changed that recipe to 10 wood ->1 resin already in the 0.17 branch … might be misremembering, though.

[MageKing17]

There were a lot of updates to Angel's and Bob's that are only available for Factorio 0.18.

Angel's mods changed this point: Now you don't need resin for solder early game. The earliest you really need resin is for phenolic boards – and you have to use 10 wood to make 1 resin, if you don't make it from liquid resin.

But I am fairly certain that Angel's changed that recipe to 10 wood ->1 resin already in the 0.17 branch … might be misremembering, though.

It was 5 wood -> 1 resin, which comes from petrochem and is still present (even in 0.18); the 10 wood -> 1 resin is new to bioprocessing in 0.18. Specifically, it was added in bioprocessing 0.7.7 and petrochem 0.9.7 makes it take precedence over the modified bob's recipe (with the 5:1 ratio).