Best Mods?

AR3S · Post by **AR3S** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:40 pm

What are the best mods? I'm new here

darkfrei · Post by **darkfrei** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:24 pm

https://mods.factorio.com/downloaded

Serenity · Post by **Serenity** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:57 pm

Really depends on what you are after. There are a number of very useful UI and QoL of life mods that don't change the game much. There are mods that certain machines and items you might be missing (for example I recently added a recycling machine, charcoal from wood and a water pumpjack. Not the best, but they are something I felt I needed). And there a huge mods that completely change the game.

dood · Post by **dood** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:09 am

Some fundamentals are long reach, bottleneck and quick start or nanobots, depending on what you prefer.
Long reach lets you place buildings anywhere on the screen, bottleneck adds a marker to production buildings that shows whether they are active or not and nanobots adds an early form of bots to make the start less grindy.
Next, you can check out bobs mods and angels mods, those are some pretty popular overhaul mods.

darkfrei · Post by **darkfrei** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:02 am

Do you want to make the game easier or harder? Or just new experience?

Deadlock989 · Post by **Deadlock989** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:07 pm

darkfrei wrote:https://mods.factorio.com/downloaded

most downloaded != best

Deadlock989 · Post by **Deadlock989** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:20 pm

AR3S · Post by **AR3S** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:50 pm

I'm mostly looking for QoL mods, but i'd like some harder gameplay mods. Right now, I'm messing with Anony Mods. I heard lots about 'Bobs' and 'Angels' mods. They sound interesting. What are they about?

5thHorseman · Post by **5thHorseman** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:00 pm

Deadlock989 wrote:
darkfrei wrote:https://mods.factorio.com/downloaded
most downloaded != best

With no proper definition of "best," "most downloaded" is a pretty darn good first approximation.

Which of those mods would you consider to not qualify as among the best?

Deadlock989 · Post by **Deadlock989** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:09 pm

5thHorseman wrote:With no proper definition of "best," "most downloaded" is a pretty darn good first approximation.

By that definition, "Happy" by Pharrell Williams is the pinnacle of human culture.

No, it just means they've been around for a relatively long while, or been updated a lot, or both. Not going to get into an internet argument about what "best" means, it's purely a matter of personal taste. I've listed some mods I think are good, more than one of them are actually on that first page of "most downloaded", others aren't, draw your own conclusions.

dood · Post by **dood** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:46 pm

AR3S wrote:I'm mostly looking for QoL mods, but i'd like some harder gameplay mods. Right now, I'm messing with Anony Mods. I heard lots about 'Bobs' and 'Angels' mods. They sound interesting. What are they about?

They're about driving you insane with dozens of new intermediates and ores for you to juggle around in ludicrously complex production lines.

orzelek · Post by **orzelek** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 10:17 pm

dood wrote:
AR3S wrote:I'm mostly looking for QoL mods, but i'd like some harder gameplay mods. Right now, I'm messing with Anony Mods. I heard lots about 'Bobs' and 'Angels' mods. They sound interesting. What are they about?
They're about driving you insane with dozens of new intermediates and ores for you to juggle around in ludicrously complex production lines.

It would go like this (personally did only 1,2,3 from that list and gave up somewhere during 3rd):
1. Bob's first (without electronics is easy mode, with it it's a normal run).
2. Then add whole set of Angel's mods - you are at hard/very hard level.
3. Py mods set with Bob's - might be getting around extreme at this stage.
4. Bob's, Angel's and Py set with added mod to merge them - thats going near masochist level or passing it.

AR3S · Post by **AR3S** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:31 pm

orzelek wrote:
dood wrote:
AR3S wrote:I'm mostly looking for QoL mods, but i'd like some harder gameplay mods. Right now, I'm messing with Anony Mods. I heard lots about 'Bobs' and 'Angels' mods. They sound interesting. What are they about?
They're about driving you insane with dozens of new intermediates and ores for you to juggle around in ludicrously complex production lines.
It would go like this (personally did only 1,2,3 from that list and gave up somewhere during 3rd):
1. Bob's first (without electronics is easy mode, with it it's a normal run).
2. Then add whole set of Angel's mods - you are at hard/very hard level.
3. Py mods set with Bob's - might be getting around extreme at this stage.
4. Bob's, Angel's and Py set with added mod to merge them - thats going near masochist level or passing it.

Well wow. Masochist level sounds immense. I'm currently playing with core game and AnonyMods, but, wow. I thought that was hard but this. It's like leaving the PC on overnight for an iron plate!

McDuff · Post by **McDuff** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:26 pm

Deadlock989 wrote:
5thHorseman wrote:With no proper definition of "best," "most downloaded" is a pretty darn good first approximation.
By that definition, "Happy" by Pharrell Williams is the pinnacle of human culture.

And your point is?

Deadlock989 · Post by **Deadlock989** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:32 pm

McDuff wrote:And your point is?

That "most downloaded" doesn't mean "best". Not sure what is difficult about this.

CageStooge · Post by **CageStooge** » Fri May 11, 2018 10:51 pm

Deadlock989 wrote:
McDuff wrote:And your point is?
That "most downloaded" doesn't mean "best". Not sure what is difficult about this.

I'm with Deadlock on this one. I went down the "most downloaded" path (there was no other real option) and grabbed Angel's and Bob's. I made the mistake of flipping it all on and it was like WTF just happened. I went from playing checkers to playing multi-dimensional chess. It was wayyyy over complicated. Now, I kept a few of Angel's things (I enjoy infinite ores) but most of the stuff in the "top downloaded" area I have downloaded and don't use.

The thing is what happens is an item becomes popular (this applies to anything, not just mods) and so other people say "Oh, people seem to like that let me try it" and then so the "downloaded" count rises, and that attracts more people, which makes the downloaded ever higher and then it starts to feed on itself and just spirals up and up and up.

The problem

Reviews. They don't exist. They are the balance to "most downloaded spiraling out of control". Without those, you have no idea how many people actually continue to USE the mod they downloaded. This leaves you with having no correlation to the number of units moved (downloaded in this case) vs the quality of the item. This is why every site that sells products has a review section and those reviews MATTER to the person selling a good, because it hammers them if they get bad reviews.

Tl;Dr -- If you don't have reviews and you don't have a way of seeing how many people are currently USING a mod, you have no idea if ANYONE is even using the most downloaded mods. They have no correlation with quality.

5thHorseman · Post by **5thHorseman** » Sat May 12, 2018 3:48 pm

CageStooge wrote:If you don't have reviews and you don't have a way of seeing how many people are currently USING a mod, you have no idea if ANYONE is even using the most downloaded mods. They have no correlation with quality.

While I agree, the only way to get those numbers is for the program to report them, and considering how people reacted to bug reporting...

Also, while blindly following the list is not great, reading the descriptions and considering the mods in that order is a pretty good starting place. It was mine, for example.

CageStooge · Post by **CageStooge** » Fri May 18, 2018 9:46 pm

5thHorseman wrote: While I agree, the only way to get those numbers is for the program to report them, and considering how people reacted to bug reporting...

Also, while blindly following the list is not great, reading the descriptions and considering the mods in that order is a pretty good starting place. It was mine, for example.

Yes, it is better than nothing, and I learned quite a bit about what I don't want in a mod by trying out mods that I did not like. Something might sound great, but start using it and realize "this is ruining some aspect of the game for me".

There is no perfect way to find great mods, other than digging and rooting around for them. Like back in the day digging through a giant bin of $5 DVDs at a Wal-Mart. After a couple of hours you could walk out with all those great deals, and never watch them. It was the hunt that made it fun.

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