Bobs + Angel's -- likely a common noob question

[MisterFister]

TLDR; Experienced Factorio player with most gameplay in SP or small LAN-MP with RSO, Rampant, AxialTilt, OreChaos, and other qol mods that enhance challenge and reward endgame play. I'm resolved to finally work toward fully incorporating AngelBob into my mix of mods, but I need more info than I can locate with google and forum and YouTube searches. I have no idea what the various tech trees are, I have no idea how to prioritize my researches with my very VERY time-consuming and enhanced-cost manually-crafted red bottles, I have no idea what byproducts to process and which ones to stockpile for midgame, I have no idea how to make heads or tails of the ratios, and I am entirely unable to bootstrap to the point of having a starter mainbus ready to get me into automated red science. Seeking possible blueprints that are extremely-specific to recent-version AngelBob play, with emphasis on early pre-mainbus burner-tech bootstrapping techniques that can at least help me minimize or make-more-useful my handcrafting queue; spreadsheets even if devoid of filled-in data that might still reveal info about tech tree, ore processing steps, future-proofing concerns for early-bootstrapping layouts, etc.

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Howdy folks! I put Factorio down for a while last fall when v0.15.28 or so was the bleeding edge of experimental, and I have been bitten by the bug again.

I'm a mod-heavy player to begin with (kinda sad that OreChaos and AxialTilt don't seem to be up to snuff for 0.16 :'( ) and I totally like the idea of an AngelBob playthrough. I have a lot of blueprints in my character profile from mostly-vanilla RSO-with-Rampant types of mapgens, and I'm entirely aware that those will end up being chucked out the window.

I've tried to delve into AngelBobs at least three separate hardcore-effort times before this one, and that's not counting the brief flirtations with them where I gave up quickly and reverted to the type of play I'm already familiar with.

I've browsed these forums for days. I've seen posts by TheSAguy and eloquentJane, I've seen the YouTube channels by Nilaus and KoS. I've seen posts discussing accessibility and documentation, so I don't make this new post lightly.

But for serious, I'm lost here. I have offline concerns and plenty of competition in my life for the hours I instead choose to invest at the computer unwinding with some gameplay, and when I come across a few hours over a long weekend, I really enjoy games like Factorio, KSP, the BetterThanWolves mod for Minecraft, PrisonArchitect, etc. So adding challenge to this game through an AngelBob playthrough is exactly what I think will spark an increase in my satisfaction, because I already know that the builds are complicated and power-hungry and very space-consuming on the 2-d map.

My concern here is that in the last week and a half or so, I've restarted after getting more than 4 hours deep into a new map seed, and I've restarted like that more than four times. I'm still attempting to master what is apparently some basic shit here.

To be fair, I also import to my gameplay some mods from my pre-AngelBob habits, such as Rampant and RSO (I set the StartingArea to the largest possible setting I can, because there is just no damn way I can tech through more than two or three research nodes before the biters dismantle me as a result of all the burner-equipment I'm running just to run myself ragged spending so much time manually filtering my output streams (which I recognize are part of the challenge) that I hardly have any opportunity to tinker with the mod.

Somewhat relatedly, I find myself with manual crafting queues stretching past the 60-minute marks, and I know that minimizing my handcrafting is ANOTHER aspect to master which I have an eye to work toward (I even attempted a modlist last year built around MarathonMode, LazyBastard, AngelBob, Rampant, and others, which ended up really making me think that either the modlist itself is an actual legit autoloss that I posted here in the forums about, OR I personally am an autoloss with that list of challenges because of where I am on the learning curve.

I recognize that one possible workaround is to run this modset on peaceful mode, or even a biter-free map, for one or two playthroughs while I get my feet under me, but... not only is that boring to me, it'll be incompletely helpful because part of what I want to master IS the defensive emplacement aspect of this game with these logistical challenges and hurdles.

Can anyone share some info with me? Anything might end up being helpful. I already know that the YouTube tutorials are either time-consuming to watch on their own, or focus on outdated mechanics that are obsolete with the current state of these mods. I'm asking for starter blueprint strings for the bootstrapping phase, or maybe someone has a spreadsheet -- even if the spreadsheet is BLANK, the mere column and row headers will tell me a lot about the tech tree of these mods and what I need to focus my priorities toward during my startup grace period. I have no problem moving over to a creative install to test out some rail blueprints, I have no problem admitting to my own defeat when I fail to accomplish what I already know how to accomplish... but I'm just trying to figure out what to accomplish right now.

Any help?

[MisterFister]

Editing to add: About 8 or 9 gaming-hours ago (two or three play sessions, I think) I discovered that I'd misclicked and ended up not installing a core Bobs component, the library plugin module I think. Sure enough, running with that new module installed broke what little I'd accomplished to that point, plopping me precisely back to square one again, and frankly I was ready for a reset because like all my other attempts, I was more than five hours into the playthrough and almost 50% depleted on my starter patches of ore and I still had no mainbus and no progress toward automating red science -- or at least no progress that wouldn't have involved a three hour handcraft queue.

Maybe I should start at the beginning and ask if someone can help me verify that my mods are properly installed and not conflicting?

[bobingabout]

if you plan to run without biters, don't install the enemies mod, because that activates things in bobtech, bobplates, bobwarfare and bobvehicleequipment that will make it impossible to build things.

other than that, my only real advice is that if you're finding bobangel too hard... step back a bit.

Bob's mods is like Factorio++ hard mode.
Add angels in there and it's like bobmods++ hard mode.

I know this won't make angel happy, but if you're finding things too difficult try playing without angels, just bob's mods, for 1 game to see how far you get, then once you've tried that, re-add angels into the mix.
you might find it a little easier to work into things that way.

[bobingabout]

Editing to add: About 8 or 9 gaming-hours ago (two or three play sessions, I think) I discovered that I'd misclicked and ended up not installing a core Bobs component, the library plugin module I think. Sure enough, running with that new module installed broke what little I'd accomplished to that point, plopping me precisely back to square one again, and frankly I was ready for a reset because like all my other attempts, I was more than five hours into the playthrough and almost 50% depleted on my starter patches of ore and I still had no mainbus and no progress toward automating red science -- or at least no progress that wouldn't have involved a three hour handcraft queue.

Maybe I should start at the beginning and ask if someone can help me verify that my mods are properly installed and not conflicting?

Right, yes, that would be a big killer, and I can only imagine the changes.

post a screenshot (or 2, or 3, I imagine it's a big list) of your mods list for us to see.

[MisterFister]

Good idea. Here's my modlist in the form of a screen snip. Be advised that I think Shiny_icon is erroring out, and I've taken a break from troubleshooting to grab a bite to eat and check on some emails. I likely have to prune and pare down whatever's causing the conflict. I shall update.

[MisterFister]

I imagine it's a big list...

How about this. Can you suggest a mapgen setting loadout, if running your mod exclusively?

And just like your other comment indicated you don't wanna offend Angel, I also don't wanna offend you here: to the best I can tell, there is no google-traffic (that isn't a false hit entirely outside of Factorio to begin with) that I can find that suggests bobs-only playthroughs or guides or tutorials are a thing. I mean, from the dated and previous-version YouTubes I've seen, your two mods do work wonderful together.

[bobingabout]

The number of players who play pure bob mods (all my mods, and nothing else) is likely to be very small, I mean, right off the bat most people who aren't me will install shiny bob, boblocale and RSO, and although the first 2 don't change anything, RSO will completely change the way resources are generated.

Speaking of how resources are generated, I was talking on discord to Bilka, complaining about how the resources on map generation are screwed since the updates to the map generator, and actually discovered that it's just some strange quirk. on vanilla, you'll get patches with an average of 4 or 5 nodes per oil field. Install boblibrary, bobores and bobplates (default ores list from that), and you will have an average of about 12 nodes per oil field.... and I change NOTHING related to how base game resources spawn by default, you can enable stone ore tweaks but that should only effect stone, so why do you get 3 times as much oil? I have no idea. It's even worse for Lithia water and ground water patches that seem to be able to spawn even bigger than oil, despite simply using settings copied from it.

Anyway... map settings? well, just stick with what you'd normally do, if you play defaults in vanilla, stick to defaults. if you play train world, do that. Latest versions should have settings scale to match.
There are some ores used more than others, but for the most part that is taken care of in the settings already. Mostly... silver is actually barely used at all, so in theory you don't need to spawn it because higher tier recipes will extract it out of another ore. Cobalt is also turned off by default for the same reason, you can extract it from Copper.

All you really need to do is when you start on a bob's map... make sure you have Tin, Lead and Quartz in the starting area along with all the usual base game resources, because you'll need tin, lead and wood to start making electronics, and quartz by the time you get to advanced circuits. Other materials like Nickel, Bauxite (Aluminium) and Titanium don't spawn in the starting area anyway, because, in theory, by the time you need to use them, you'll already be able to handle some biters.

[batorfly]

I actually start with bob's mods, (back in 0.14). First time even without electronics, then full bob (0.14-0.15), then angel + bob but again - without electronics. Finally i started full bob+angel. I can say, for me bob's electronic is the pain, makes every mod pack harder instantly. But now i am ready for heavy maths, optimizations, and hours of designing blueprints.

Offtop

I remember back in 0.14, maybe even earlier in 0.13, more than one playthroughs with pure bob, more without electronics, maybe couple with. Bc (YES, SHAME ON ME) at first i pirated factorio But i'm from poland, and my parents monthly payment back in the day was equivalent of maybe 400 dollars? I don't remember exactly PLN to Dollar ratio...
And Bob (thank you) uploaded mods to dropbox so i used bob's mods.
When i legit bought my copy for my own money, and make my friends buy factorio, or even buy copy for them i "accomplished" peaceful conscience (almost).

[orzelek]

I actually start with bob's mods, (back in 0.14). First time even without electronics, then full bob (0.14-0.15), then angel + bob but again - without electronics. Finally i started full bob+angel. I can say, for me bob's electronic is the pain, makes every mod pack harder instantly. But now i am ready for heavy maths, optimizations, and hours of designing blueprints.

I can second this one - electronics is where you will get a lot of added complexity.
Recently also revamp will add to that since rockets need actual bob's materials with it so you'll need a lot more to launch a rocket.