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Solar Expansion is now merging with Industrio! I am releasing all future development to Nirahiel and he will carry the torch of adding new features and updating for the latest Factorio versions via his own mod. Thank you everyone for your suggestions and support.

Solar Expansion is a work-in-progress mod extending solar power by adding additional ore, items, solar panels, and technologies. I thrive on feedback so if you have any suggestions to add new content or balance changes (and especially bug reports), please comment!

The Realism Update!
Thanks to FreeER's research advice, I revamped the entire mod after hours of reading on the solar energy topic. This should be a bit more realistic

Features:

• Added 2 new solar panels: Solar Array MK I, Solar Array MK II
• Added 4 new items: Quartz Ore, Silicon Boule, Silicon Wafer, Solar Module
• Added a new accumulator: Advanced Accumulator
• Added 3 new technologies: Silicon Czochralski Process, Single-Crystal Solar Energy 1-2, Advanced Electric Energy Accumulator

Downloads:

• SE v0.3.1 (0.6.x)
• SE v0.3.0 (0.4.x)
• SE v0.2.1 (0.4.x)
• SE v0.2.0 (0.4.x)
• SE v0.1.0 (0.4.x)

Installation:

• Extract to "factorio_directory/mods/"
• If updating from previous version, delete the "solar-expansion" folder and "mod-list" file BEFORE extraction

Change Log:

• 0.3.1
  • added the map color property for quartz ore, to make it compatibile with 0.6.x versions.
• 0.3.0
  • added new resource, Quartz Ore
  • added new item, Silicon Boule
  • added new item, Solar Module
  • added new entity, Solar Array MK I
  • added new entity, Solar Array MK II
  • added new technology, Silicon Czochralski Process
  • added new technology, Silicon-Crystal Solar Energy 1-2
  • removed LV Solar Array
  • removed MV Solar Array
  • removed HV Solar Array
  • removed Advanced Solar Energy 1-3
• 0.2.1
  • fixed Advanced Accumulator recipe typo
• 0.2.0
  • added Advanced Accumulators
  • added technology descriptions
  • changed Advanced Solar Energy 1 required Science Packs from 50 to 100
  • changed Advanced Solar Energy 2 required Science Packs from 50 to 150
  • changed Advanced Solar Energy 3 required Science Packs from 50 to 200
  • updated Solar Arrays for 0.5.x
• 0.1.0
  • First Release

Images

Solar Array MK I | Solar Array MK II | Advanced Accumulator


Quartz Ore | Silicon Boule | Silicon Wafer | Solar Module


Silicon Czochralski Process | Single-Crystal Solar Energy | Advanced Electric Energy Accumulators


Items / Entities

Solar Array MK I

• Produces 90 energy
• Requires Solar Module x16, Advanced Circuit x6, Steel Plate x4

Solar Array MK II

• Produces 120 energy
• Requires Solar Module x24, Advanced Circuit x10, Steel Plate x8

Silicon Boule

• Requires Quartz Ore x8 (smelted)

Silicon Wafer

• Requires Silicon Boule x1 (crafts x32 wafers)

Solar Module

• Requires Silicon Wafers x16, Electronic Circuit x6, Iron Plate x4

Advanced Accumulator

• Stores 10,000 energy
• Requires Advanced Circuit x5, Basic Accumulator x5

Technologies

Silicon Czochralski Process

• Requires Optics, Advanced Electronics
• Requires Science Pack 1-3 x125

Single-Crystal Solar Energy 1

• Requires Silicon Czochralski Process
• Requires Science Pack 1-3 x175

Single-Crystal Solar Energy 2

• Requires Single-Crystal Solar Energy 1
• Requires Science Pack 1-3 x250

Advanced Electric Energy Accumulators

• Requires Science Pack 1-3 x100

(Here used to be a useless post about my opinion on IC, unrelated to the mod)

Thank you for the nice mod addition, seems to be quite balanced (maybe the later research should be little bit more expensive)

In the 0.5 version, the solar panel will need to have electricity specification to be loadable, so if you want to make it compatible in advance, you can add this to all entity specifications of solar panels entities: P.S. Just a detail, but I would clean up the mod files a little, by removing Thumbs.db file in grpahics/entity and graphics/icon as well as the tilda files (change.log~), so people are less confused what to open and the size of the directory is halved.

I appreciate the input on balancing. I did attempt to balance as much as possible on the front-end and the research cost suggestion is a good one.

For 0.5.0, I am updating the files right now for my next version. Thank you for the heads up! You obviously looked over the files/code.

I did notice all the extra files generated by my Linux machine after the upload. I'm going to remove all the extra files in my next release, which will include a new accumulator. Thank you for the response and feedback! I love hearing from the developers and you guys kick ass!

Just foun a typo in the last line. (Its in the Recipe-data, just switch circuit with accumulator and you should be fine)

Thanks for the bug report! I always seem to miss something.

metzyn wrote:

MF- wrote:I admit I haven't checked your mod. I already have enough regular panels and caps to cover my energy consumption.
I guess I don't like the technological concept of "Add 'HV' in front of something and repaint it to improve the production".
I prefer machines to stay plausible and feel realistic, criterion most of the MC or factorio mods don't fulfill.
PS: I am pretty sure something wrong happened to quotes in your post. I haven't said what is in my box.

You are correct in that just adding HV and "repainting" doesn't dynamic content, but I am not good at design or graphics. I'm a coder at heart and saw a need for higher-output solar panels and made what I could. I do take suggestions so I'm all ears.

Figured I'd post this here since it is specifically about your mod, I would suggest looking up how solar panels are made and the current advances that promise to improve the performance of solar panels (nice paper about some materials solar panels are made from and why) and then instead of having the simplistic crafting that is currently in Factorio/SE make it a longer more time consuming (but eventually worth while) process of researching advancements and setting up assembling lines. Thus it's no longer just a recolored image but an actual self-explaining process for why the panels produce more energy (even if the images are not changed much). You could also (if you wanted to leave it as HV) force players to use 'transformers', otherwise any powerlines near the solar panels would be destroyed. And you could always grab images from google and resize them lol

FreeER wrote:Figured I'd post this here since it is specifically about your mod, I would suggest looking up how solar panels are made and the current advances that promise to improve the performance of solar panels (nice paper about some materials solar panels are made from and why) and then instead of having the simplistic crafting that is currently in Factorio/SE make it a longer more time consuming (but eventually worth while) process of researching advancements and setting up assembling lines. Thus it's no longer just a recolored image but an actual self-explaining process for why the panels produce more energy (even if the images are not changed much). You could also (if you wanted to leave it as HV) force players to use 'transformers', otherwise any powerlines near the solar panels would be destroyed. And you could always grab images from google and resize them lol

This is a wonderful idea and I will start exploring the topic. Eventually, I will have new names and technologies for each panel, plus new technologies and items to research and craft. I like this a lot and thank you for the input.

I like this mod, and it needed just one small alteration to make it work in 0.6.4 (adding map_color to quarz ore).
So I made the correction and uploaded the file and added link to first post, I hope you don't mind

kovarex wrote:I like this mod, and it needed just one small alteration to make it work in 0.6.4 (adding map_color to quarz ore).
So I made the correction and uploaded the file and added link to first post, I hope you don't mind

Now THAT'S what I call Dev support for modders!

Have people actually been liking this mod? And I certainly don't mind it if someone made any changes to it at all. That's the great thing about open-source and community-driven projects.

I like this mod a lot, because it adds something that is currently painfully missing in the game.

That's awesome! I feel bad because I stopped playing the game and haven't updated the mod in quite some time. I just started playing 0.7 today... awesome stuff. Feel free to add this into the game... I'd much rather it be core content than a mod.

I was thinking about getting that mod. But I'm not sure if I should.
I like to over-complicate things and I fear this might make me over-complicate even more

metzyn wrote:Feel free to add this into the game... I'd much rather it be core content than a mod.

Actually we have seriously considered it. In the end we have decided to wait for a new graphics for the solar panel / accumulators. And also we need to figure out what resources we want to have in the game when it is finished and based on that maybe tweak the recipes.

Nirahiel wrote: was thinking about getting that mod. But I'm not sure if I should.
I like to over-complicate things and I fear this might make me over-complicate even more

Actually I think it simplifies things in a sense that you can get away with smaller solar panel / accumulator fields.

slpwnd wrote:Actually I think it simplifies things in a sense that you can get away with smaller solar panel / accumulator fields.

That's the thing, I'll still want to make huge / badass looking fields, so i'll have to setup more production lines, and gather more resources

Does this work with 0.7.x ?

The quartz resources would need to contain the autoplace specification at least.

I haven't touched this mod for months and have been doing other things, so I have no idea what would need to be done in order to make this 0.7.x compatible. And I am unsure if I will continue its development unless there is enough interest expressed.

metzyn wrote:I haven't touched this mod for months and have been doing other things, so I have no idea what would need to be done in order to make this 0.7.x compatible. And I am unsure if I will continue its development unless there is enough interest expressed.

It is alright, I will probably update it to the new version, so there are some better energy sources until we make some in the vanilla.