Factorio Forums

Hi everyone.
Some days ago i had an idea to rework the research system. Since then me and my friend tried to work on a mod to achieve this goal. The objective is to have a single "lab-like" structure from where the research is executed. Our idea was to shift the focus from the material needed to craft science packs to time.

The concpet is that you use the ship AI to conduct all the research, and instead of using science pack you use chips, but we are struggling to achieve one of the main feature, chip recycling. We wanted to give the chance to the player to have a small chance to re-obtain the used chip. Chip are gonna be pretty expensive on their own, and we wanted them to be only needed to run the machine, not the research itself. We are still in the process of trying to use lab and assembling machine, but we weren't succesful with neither of them. We tried to make research progress go up while the assembling machine was running, and we tried to add a new necessary component to the lab... but we failed.

Do you have any suggestion or hint to create this mod? And the question we are asking ourselves the most is, is this even possible?

Hello! Welcome to the modding scene! It can be quite addictive

Unfortunately it's not possible to add a "result" to science packs. Science packs and labs are very limited in what they can do.

But, as most mods have to work with engine limitations, there there are ways to work around it. You could do something similar to what Space Exploration does. You could create a normal "item" that's your "chip", and you then create a science pack from that "item". That way you have a lot of possibilities for your "chip" recipes.

What Space Exploration does it has Datacards, with significant data, and blank data cards. The blank cards are made, data is "placed" on them using some recipe, and then that data card is used to create a science pack in a regular recipe. It then results in blank data cards again, and some broken cards which you need to recycle. So all the complexity is given to the item ingredients of the science packs, and the science pack itself is kept simple.

And it sounds like a cool idea what you're trying to create. I hope this helps!

Rukan01 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 12:21 amwe are struggling to achieve one of the main feature, chip recycling. We wanted to give the chance to the player to have a small chance to re-obtain the used chip.

on_research_finished will let you know when a research finishes, and then you can roll random to see if a chip is going to be returned, and if so, script drop one in an inventory like the inventory of the ship or other container.

Rukan01 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 12:21 am Our idea was to shift the focus from the material needed to craft science packs to time.

The concpet is that you use the ship AI to conduct all the research,...
.....We are still in the process of trying to use lab and assembling machine, but we weren't succesful with neither of them. We tried to make research progress go up while the assembling machine was running, and we tried to add a new necessary component to the lab... but we failed.

If you have too many thing fail by trying to modify an existing system, it may be better to ignore the existing system, disable it completely, and implement your own pattern based on your setup with the ship and cards.