Quick & cheap & early way to mark/colour large areas

[Peter34]

In co-op MP games, it happens again again that we players get in the way of each other when building. More specifically what happens is that a ppayer whose only experience is building low-performing single-player bases fails to comprehent my need for vast tracts of land to build the stuff we're going to need, if we want to have a high-performance low-scarcity base that can cater to the need of multiple players. Especially very early game. The other player sees that I've stopped building, and so he concludes that I'm done, whereas in reality I only stopped because I ran out of building materials and I've so far only built half the Furnaces that I think we'll need.

Verbal communication doesn't go very far. It can also easily be seen as overly aggressive, or even misunderstood to an extreme degree ("Peter doesn't want us to ever build anything anywhere near where he's building").

I think the simplest solution to this is a mod that enables players to visually "reserve" map chunks, 32x32 units, with a single click each. Thus if I want to "reserve" an area 5 chunks tall and 2 chunks wide, I click once on each chunk, ten times total, and it gets covered with a layer of my player colour (or surrounded by a border of my player colour with a more transparent "inside filler", if that's doable) and which is visible to the other players.

Then if I actaually only needed 1.5 chunks wide, there should be an option to quickly un-colour the extra space, and once I'm done using the reserved space there should be a way for me to remove all the colouring completely so that the other players can now see that it' available for use, and so that I can go somewhere else and reserve some new space for some other project (hopefully one more fun than setting up a sufficiently large number of Furnace lines).

It has to be quick to do (which is why I think basing it on map chunks is a good thing), it has to be cheap (basically not costning anything), and it has to be available right from gamestart as opposed to something you have to invent.

[Versepelles]

Attached is the first draft of Chunk Markers. Included are two items which respectively mark and un-mark chunks with hazard concrete. I plan to add items which can mark any rectangular area, and change hazard concrete. Would you be interested in multiple colors of demarcation, or would a single color be enough?

[Versepelles]

I updated Chunk Markers with new colors and variable rectangle sizes. It's on the mod portal now: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Versepel ... unkMarkers

Also, check out the demo video here.

[credomane]

Nice work, Versepelles! For us bad planners this will probably be of use in SP too.

[MatthewGP]

I like it. I am using the Chunk marker sort of like graph paper. Thanks for putting this together!

[Peter34]

Thanks for making this mod!

I haven't tested it yet, but it's now included in the "mod pack" used in my twice-weekly co-op MP game. We've already played for 5-6 hours now, so we might end up not using it at all, but then I assure you it will get used in the next game, once we start over, because that's when I think it'll be most useful.

[Peter34]

And I've just tried starting the game for the first time, after installing this mod, manual install of the 1.2 version from the mods portal. I get this error message:

Error

X

Sprite outside of
"_VersepellesChunkMarkers_/graphics/tiles/blue-hazard-concrete/blu
e-hazard-concrete-left-o.png" (at 63, 31, size 1x1 of 32x32).

OK

I have no idea what that means, but my Factorio was able to start up just fine before I installed the mod.

[Peter34]

I just tried the two older versions, available in the "downloads" tab on the mods portal, and I got an error message too. The same, as far as I can tell. And it occurs during the "loading sprites" phase of the startup. Unsurprisingly.

[Versepelles]

I just tried the two older versions, available in the "downloads" tab on the mods portal, and I got an error message too. The same, as far as I can tell. And it occurs during the "loading sprites" phase of the startup. Unsurprisingly.

Hmm, what Factorio version are you using, and is it multiplayer?

[Peter34]

I was using 0.13.15, and the error happens when I try to start up Factorio, while it's loading the mods, so the question about whether it's multiplayer or not cna't be answered. It happens before I get to make any kind of choice about anything.

[Peter34]

I tried renaming my /mods folder, and then making a new /mods folder, and putting only Chunk Markers into it, no other mod, and now Factorio is able to load.

So apparently what happens is that I'm at the limit of my video memory (1 GB on the card) with the existing mods, and Chunk Markers then pushes me over that limit, and that's what the "out of graphics memory" error msg looks like.

It's just odd, because one of the other players claims to have a downright crappy computer, yet he's able to cope with the old mod pack, still containing a metric wubeload of mods, including ones that add new items to the game. So I had expected him to have a 0.5 GB graphics card, but apparetly that's not the case. Also, this mod doesn't take up a lot of drive space, so presumably I was very close to the limit before trying to use it.

[Versepelles]

I was using 0.13.15, and the error happens when I try to start up Factorio, while it's loading the mods, so the question about whether it's multiplayer or not cna't be answered. It happens before I get to make any kind of choice about anything.

What other mods are installed?

[Peter34]

I was using 0.13.15, and the error happens when I try to start up Factorio, while it's loading the mods, so the question about whether it's multiplayer or not cna't be answered. It happens before I get to make any kind of choice about anything.

What other mods are installed?

Lots of other mods. I think about 40 or 45 total, maybe 50. No overhaul mods like DyTech or Bob's Mods, although I am using RSO, which technically counts as an "overhaul".

Just a bunch of medium-sized and small-sized mods that change gameplay in fairly specific ways.

[Versepelles]

I was using 0.13.15, and the error happens when I try to start up Factorio, while it's loading the mods, so the question about whether it's multiplayer or not cna't be answered. It happens before I get to make any kind of choice about anything.

What other mods are installed?

Lots of other mods. I think about 40 or 45 total, maybe 50. No overhaul mods like DyTech or Bob's Mods, although I am using RSO, which technically counts as an "overhaul".

Just a bunch of medium-sized and small-sized mods that change gameplay in fairly specific ways.

It would probably be difficult to track down exactly which mod(s) are causing conflicts. The most likely culprits would be ones that modify concrete in any way.

[Peter34]

It would probably be difficult to track down exactly which mod(s) are causing conflicts. The most likely culprits would be ones that modify concrete in any way.

So you're pretty sure it's not a question if video card RAM, but rather a mod-mod conflict?

[Versepelles]

It would probably be difficult to track down exactly which mod(s) are causing conflicts. The most likely culprits would be ones that modify concrete in any way.

So you're pretty sure it's not a question if video card RAM, but rather a mod-mod conflict?

I'd put my money on that, but anything is possible.

[Peter34]

I've thought a bit about likely candiate mods, and I have come up with 2, one somewhat more likely than the other. I'll test it this evening, after today's MP session, and report back to you.

[Smoovious]

I got the same error when I added a different mod, with yours loaded (although, I don't think it was enabled)

I can't say for sure which mod it was, but it begins with a C, since those were the ones I enabled last, and looking em over, I would guess it was Concrete Edges, as the others (except for Concrete Lamppost) don't look like they would be dealing with concrete.

Before enabling the C's, Factorio loaded fine.
I enabled the C's, Factorio errored with the exact same error listed a few posts back.
I removed your mod, and Factorio loaded fine.

I'm sorry I don't have enough time to further test...

Using most recent mod versions compatible with 0.13.19
the C's I enabled, were:
Car Light Fix 0.0.1
Chainsaw
Color Coding
Color Picker
Combat Robot Lifeline
Combat Units
Compound Splitters
Concrete Edges
Concrete Lamppost
Cursed Programable Inserters
Curved Rail

Hope this helps in narrowing down the conflict.

-- Smoov

[Peter34]

Yes, I too suspect that it is the Concrete Edges mod that interferes with this one. I haven't tested it, however, and I'm sorry for only getting back to this thread so much later, but really 0.14 broke so many mods that I kinda drifted away from the game, putting my "Grand" MP game on hold until all mods are updated.

[Peter34]

I deleted the Concrete Edges from my /mods folder, and the game now loads with the Chunk Markers mod enabled. So that is indeed the cause of the problem.