[MOD 0.13.x] Advanced Personal Defense

[AutoMcD]

Type: Mod
Name: Advanced_Personal_defense
Description: Adds 2 items- an advanced laser defense, and a gun defense (equipment for modular armor).
License: MIT License
Version: 0.1.2
Release: 2016-6-3
Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.13.x
Category: (Item)
Tags: Equipment, laser, gun, weapon
Download-Url: https://www.dropbox.com/s/okgg8u6nn6s7r ... 2.zip?dl=0
Mod Portal link: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/AutoMcD/ ... al_Defense
Website:

License

License
License
The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2016 David McDonough

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

Long description

Long description
What's one thing that you could always use help automating? Removing faces from biters of course!

Advanced laser defense:

Basically a Mk.II version of the basic laser defense. It does 25 damage instead of 5, slightly more range, and has a larger buffer.
Energy per shot is the same. I balanced this by requiring an Efficiency 3 module, artifacts, and laser turret lvl 6 tech upgrades.

Personal gun defense:

This is a lower tech version which uses ammo instead of electricity. It's a low-power turret with high ROF.
Damage based upon ammo which includes bullet tech upgrades.
The only tech requirement is turrets and modular armor, it becomes available early on.
Different armor slot shape just for fun.

Notes:
This gun has a few quirks to it.
It's shoehorned into the laser equipment programming structure. When you mouseover it, you'll see the energy storage buffer, this is now the internal magazine but I'm unable to rename it. It refills from ammo in your inventory, can hold a full stack of 100 clips. As it fires, this energy bar is slowly depleted. It then will refill using ammo from inventory.. So there's 1 layer of quirk but basically it uses ammo.
In addition, It will only load from main inventory, NOT from your other weapon inventory. The bullets in your primary gun will stay there.
It also will stop automatically loading when there are only 10 clips left in main inventory. This is another precaution to prevent you from ending up in the middle of nowhere without ammo.

Special thanks to Adil for programming help! And by help I mean taking the ball and rewriting all of it.

Pictures

Pictures





Notice guns and lasers while shotgun is in hand.


Notice large biter getting his face removed as I run away!

Version history

Version history
0.1.3 (8.27.2016): Mod has been updated for Factorio 0.14. Special thanks to David Merillat!
Inreased gun cooldown from 2 to 3, seemed like it was shooting too fast. It's still faster than rifle by a bit.
Link on mod portal. The dropbox links seem redundant.
0.1.2 (8.11.2016): Gun returns ammo when removed from armor. Updated tech req a bit, reduced costs.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/okgg8u6nn6s7r ... 2.zip?dl=0
0.1.1 (7.5.2016): Updated for version .13
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vrrhbo0ajc2pk ... 1.zip?dl=0
0.1.0 (6.3.2016): Initial release
https://www.dropbox.com/s/az4s2167u34ut ... 0.zip?dl=0

[AutoMcD]

After the .13 release it should be easier to iron out the quirks. Works well enough for now!


I do hope next version is easier, I've got a few more toys I'd like to add to the armor.

[Degraine]

You have my attention.

[sporefreak]

You should just make an iron man modular armour suit

[AutoMcD]

I have aspirations to make all the parts show on the character, it's a long ways off though. A lot of work to generate the animations.
I'd love to do this all modularly though. I'll see how things look in 0.13 before getting too crazy. After coming up with graphics would have to figure out the programming. Maybe bug Adil for help again. Plus I'm hoping some quirks with the gun can get ironed out.

A full War Machine conversion would definitely be fun!
This particular mod was just filling a particular niche in what was given to us, I didn't want to go off the rails from stock. War Machine obviously would be different. Nightvision helmet, arm guns, missile turret, etc. Would kick some ass for sure.

[AutoMcD]

Edited the OP w/ more screens and better description of how the gun+ammo thing works.

For those that try this out, I would like some feedback regarding game balance on both of the parts. Particularly the laser, I'm shooting for an end-game "useful but not overpowered" area that fits well in the vanilla game. I ask because I'm considering raising the damage output to 35 or 40. At 25 I'm still having trouble justifying packing 2 of these instead of the 3 shields I could have in that space. Thoughts?

[Slayer1557]

Edited the OP w/ more screens and better description of how the gun+ammo thing works.

For those that try this out, I would like some feedback regarding game balance on both of the parts. Particularly the laser, I'm shooting for an end-game "useful but not overpowered" area that fits well in the vanilla game. I ask because I'm considering raising the damage output to 35 or 40. At 25 I'm still having trouble justifying packing 2 of these instead of the 3 shields I could have in that space. Thoughts?

Consider a destroyer capsule does 20+20 damage I believe, at a rate of 2/s x5 robots. I haven't tried your mod, but I would use destroyer capsules as the balancing point. How powerful compared to a destroyer should it be worth? Would it be too strong if you stack a lot of them? Is one worthwhile? This is what you need to ask yourself.

My gut feeling, without testing it, would be to make it as strong as one destroyer capsule. But I dunno.

[AutoMcD]

Edited the OP w/ more screens and better description of how the gun+ammo thing works.

For those that try this out, I would like some feedback regarding game balance on both of the parts. Particularly the laser, I'm shooting for an end-game "useful but not overpowered" area that fits well in the vanilla game. I ask because I'm considering raising the damage output to 35 or 40. At 25 I'm still having trouble justifying packing 2 of these instead of the 3 shields I could have in that space. Thoughts?

Consider a destroyer capsule does 20+20 damage I believe, at a rate of 2/s x5 robots. I haven't tried your mod, but I would use destroyer capsules as the balancing point. How powerful compared to a destroyer should it be worth? Would it be too strong if you stack a lot of them? Is one worthwhile? This is what you need to ask yourself.

My gut feeling, without testing it, would be to make it as strong as one destroyer capsule. But I dunno.

Based on that, destroyer cap is capable of 400DPS.
Our little laser friend dishes out 25dmg at 5/s, 125DPS. So if that's how we compare then it could use a buff.

The other thing is I'm thinking the energy buffer holding 10 shots is actually what might be OP about the whole thing. I'll back that off to 5 shots when I raise the damage.

[SomeDuder]

Based on that, destroyer cap is capable of 400DPS.
Our little laser friend dishes out 25dmg at 5/s, 125DPS. So if that's how we compare then it could use a buff.

The Destroyer bots do have a timer tho. And while the bullet-version of this gun may run out of ammo, ammo, even AP, is a LOT easier and cheaper to craft than even a single Destroyer.

What I'm saying is that if you buff this thing too much, it may make Destroyer bots irrelevant. I feel that it'd be way too powerful. Destroyer bots should always be needed to take on the big & behemoth biters. Otherwise, you may as well play in peaceful mode, since there'd be no challenge either way.

[Slayer1557]

Based on that, destroyer cap is capable of 400DPS.
Our little laser friend dishes out 25dmg at 5/s, 125DPS. So if that's how we compare then it could use a buff.

The Destroyer bots do have a timer tho. And while the bullet-version of this gun may run out of ammo, ammo, even AP, is a LOT easier and cheaper to craft than even a single Destroyer.

What I'm saying is that if you buff this thing too much, it may make Destroyer bots irrelevant. I feel that it'd be way too powerful. Destroyer bots should always be needed to take on the big & behemoth biters. Otherwise, you may as well play in peaceful mode, since there'd be no challenge either way.

I agree. But when you use Destroyer Capsules, you generally use a lot. I think balancing an end game Power Armor module to be worth maybe one capsule is reasonable (Depending on how many fit into the grid. Obviously we don't want to go overboard)

It should be able to kill big/behemoth biters at least somewhat effectively while running around, but if you're in a nest, you're gonna need more help.

[AutoMcD]

Giant biters, sure. I haven't tangled w the behemoths yet but I'm under the impression that if this laser can single handedly take one down then it's probably too powerful. Maybe if you have 6 of them cooking!

[AutoMcD]

UPDATED.

It now works in version .13.

I will follow up with some tweaks shortly, for now the main hurdle was just getting it running again.

[AutoMcD]

From the portal:

loading multiplayer save game ends with crash

126.735 Error MainLoop.cpp:373: Exception at tick 899582: Error while running the event handler: Advanced_Personal_Defense/control.lua:39: User isn't connected; can't read character

I'll see if Adil can help.

[Pasmans23]

Since the mod version 0.1.1 is for Factorio v0.13, I'm assuming version 0.1.0 was for Factorio v0.12? Is it still available for download somewhere?

[AutoMcD]

Updated.
Gun now returns unused ammo to inventory when removed from armor.
Costs reduced a little.
Added armor research requirement to gun because it's relevant.

Currently the enhanced laser is almost not needed, I'm having such an easy time clearing bases with the flame thrower, in addition to the battery+shield buff. So I will not be increasing the stats on it (as I was considering previously). 1 reactor and 2 batts can easily power 4 of these, casually stroll through spawn camps.

The gun on the other hand, VERY useful for early/mid game. It burns through ammo too quickly to rely on it, still should use flamer for the heavy lifting. But it's pretty great. 2 of them in modular armor keeps you plenty safe.

Still have to test multiplayer.

Since the mod version 0.1.1 is for Factorio v0.13, I'm assuming version 0.1.0 was for Factorio v0.12? Is it still available for download somewhere?

added links to previous versions.

[Zarnoo]

getting this error when I try to use the gun (the laser is ok):

Error while running event on_tick(ID 0)
__Advanced_Personal_Defense__/control.lua:1
36: bad argument #1 to 'pairs' (table expected,
got nil)

Any ideas ?

Otherwise, great mod

[AutoMcD]

getting this error when I try to use the gun (the laser is ok):

Error while running event on_tick(ID 0)
__Advanced_Personal_Defense__/control.lua:1
36: bad argument #1 to 'pairs' (table expected,
got nil)

Any ideas ?

Otherwise, great mod

That's odd, it's been working great for me. Can you give any more detail about the game mode and other mods you are running? And this is latest version?

[DUMBHA]

Posted this on mod portal, but posting here in case you don't manage to get around checking that.

After a quick check in sandbox mode, I found that the Mk1/vanilla Personal Laser Defense is affected by the laser tower damage/speed upgrades while your Mk2 one is not,so the Mk1 ends up being better then your Mk2 PLD once you get all those upgrades researched. Any chance you could look into that?

[AutoMcD]

Posted this on mod portal, but posting here in case you don't manage to get around checking that.

After a quick check in sandbox mode, I found that the Mk1/vanilla Personal Laser Defense is affected by the laser tower damage/speed upgrades while your Mk2 one is not,so the Mk1 ends up being better then your Mk2 PLD once you get all those upgrades researched. Any chance you could look into that?

What method are you checking this? From both the tooltips and from the bonus information panel, I do not see bonuses applied to either of the personal laser defense units. Only the normal laser turret.

Although now that I'm taking another look, the shooting speed of the defense gun seems very high, no wonder it burns through ammo so quickly!

[Zarnoo]

getting this error when I try to use the gun (the laser is ok):

Error while running event on_tick(ID 0)
__Advanced_Personal_Defense__/control.lua:1
36: bad argument #1 to 'pairs' (table expected,
got nil)

Any ideas ?

Otherwise, great mod

That's odd, it's been working great for me. Can you give any more detail about the game mode and other mods you are running? And this is latest version?

So, after a bit of trial and error I worked out which other mod was causing the problem, and it's either AmmoBox or AmmoBox_Autorequest. Either way, I like your mod more than that one, so I dumped it. Now I can install the unit without the error, but it just sits at 0% power. After reading your note I realised that was the "quirky" ammo counter, but I didn't have any standard ammo (which is why it wasn't increasing), and unfortunately your mod doesn't use mod'd ammo (e.g. Shattering bullets from FactorioExtended-Weaponry, or the biological bullets from Natural_Evolution_Enemies).

Anyway, hope my fault-finding helps..