Is this custom configuration good for a hard game?

[ZeaWade]

Hi! I'm not sure where to post this question, so if it is in the wrong place please let me know. I'm new to Factorio and I already love it, we want to play it with some friends without looking up anything about the game on the Internet, that way every new technology is a surprise. But it would be useful to know a few things beforehand...

We want settings for a hard and long game, so I configured RSO 1.5.6 to make it -kind of- resemble RSO 1.0.3. I read that that version is better for vanilla, but by using 1.5.6 I can also enable normal enemy generation. I'm not sure if behind the curtains RSO 1.5.6 and 1.0.3 resource and enemy generation work the same way.

• My first question is: is normal generation with very low - very small - regular settings + RSO with absolute_enemy_chance = 0.21 (+ Natural Evolution) too much? Or maybe too little? We want it to be hard but not impossible, although I'd prefer to put it very hard and then change the config midgame if necessary.
  
  And second: with the configuration I created, I got 3 chunks with oil not that far from the starting position with a total of 11 oil wells with 1000%-1400% yield each one. I have no idea how much oil do you need in a normal game, but those numbers seem really high compared with normal map generation. Are they? I don't want to spend the whole time looking for new oil wells but at the same time I don't want to be able to use only those for the whole game.

The multiresource config is the same as 1.0.3 regarding oil, and this is the oil config:

Code: Select all

allotment=65,
spawns_per_region={min=2, max=3},
richness={min=7500, max=36000},
size={min=2, max=4},

starting={richness=3000, size=1, probability=1},

Is this config okay? Maybe I just got lucky; in that case, should I change the map seed for a better 'first time experience'? Or I will need that oil and more?

Thank you!

[orzelek]

Tbh I already thought configuration was tweaked 2-3 times to be closer to 1.0.3 version.
One thing thats missing from it is to reduce the resource chances to 0.3 I think.

As for oil - are you sure you selected the difficulty settings as written?
11 oil wells in one setup should not happen - I'd like the save (map string is enough) and your modified RSO to take a look.

Current version has 2-3 spawns with 1-3 per spawn in region. If they would cluster up it could be up to 9 in theory - that would still not explain the 1000% richness.

Side note - setting everything to very low in map gen settings doesn't change anything in practice. I need to figure out a way to make it work as people expect at some point. Reducing resource chance in config is the way to go.

[ZeaWade]

Oh, about oil, could it be possible that global_size_mult doesn't affect the oil wells? I had:

Code: Select all

global_richness_mult = 1.25
global_size_mult = 0.9

With those two constants now set to 1.0, the oil wells have more variable yields ranging from 200% to 1300% with an average around 800%, I don't know if those values will be too little or too much during gameplay. I wonder what fluidResourcesFactor does, the code that references it in control.lua is commented out. Is it used somewhere else?

But I don't want to bother you with these details, I'll figure it out! What I'd like to know though, is what yield should I aim for (assuming the rest of the config is like 1.0.3, let's say), what would be a reasonable yield value for RSO? And what is your take on my enemy configuration I mentioned in the first post: very low - very small - regular settings + RSO with absolute_enemy_chance = 0.21 (+ Natural Evolution) - keep in mind that I set override_normal_spawn to false (I set all sizes to None in the map generator with the exception of enemies).

Thanks for your supp:]

[orzelek]

Oh, about oil, could it be possible that global_size_mult doesn't affect the oil wells? I had:

Code: Select all

global_richness_mult = 1.25
global_size_mult = 0.9

With those two constants now set to 1.0, the oil wells have more variable yields ranging from 200% to 1300% with an average around 800%, I don't know if those values will be too little or too much during gameplay. I wonder what fluidResourcesFactor does, the code that references it in control.lua is commented out. Is it used somewhere else?

But I don't want to bother you with these details, I'll figure it out! What I'd like to know though, is what yield should I aim for (assuming the rest of the config is like 1.0.3, let's say), what would be a reasonable yield value for RSO? And what is your take on my enemy configuration I mentioned in the first post: very low - very small - regular settings + RSO with absolute_enemy_chance = 0.21 (+ Natural Evolution) - keep in mind that I set override_normal_spawn to false (I set all sizes to None in the map generator with the exception of enemies).

Thanks for your supp:]

Hmm wait a bit. You did set override_normal_spawn to false?
Then what you are getting is not RSO
That option is obsolete and I didn't get around to remove it. It will leave normal generator running so you are not getting RSO at all and any other balancing makes no sense.
Your setting of sizes to None didn't end up with no resources spawned at all? Thats strange. Just tested it and resources set to None and override disabled means no resources at all on map.

As for balance - I can't recommend to you what resource amounts should be
It's a lot of preference based and how much you are willing to travel for your resources. Oil can be quite significant factor in this from what I can see due to RSO spawning less oil wells.

fluidResourcesFactor was an attempt at different approach to oil generation that failed so it's not used anymore.

[ZeaWade]

Hmm wait a bit. You did set override_normal_spawn to false?
Then what you are getting is not RSO
That option is obsolete and I didn't get around to remove it. It will leave normal generator running so you are not getting RSO at all and any other balancing makes no sense.
Your setting of sizes to None didn't end up with no resources spawned at all? Thats strange. Just tested it and resources set to None and override disabled means no resources at all on map.

D:

Mmm but maybe there is something else different here, because any changes I make to config.lua gets reflected on map generation, I've been testing different parameters in the same map by reloading and using remote.call("RSO", "regenerate") and the impact of different configs is clear. I use version 1.5.6, I also wrote override_type = 'partially'. When I try with sizes different from None, the RSO resources remain more and less the same, but I have also normal generation working. Also I get donut-shaped resources when I set that option to true, so it seems to be working fine.

As for balance - I can't recommend to you what resource amounts should be
It's a lot of preference based and how much you are willing to travel for your resources. Oil can be quite significant factor in this from what I can see due to RSO spawning less oil wells.

Oh I see, I only wanted to be sure that my config wouldn't be impossible but also not too easy, but I guess that depends on preference too. Can I ask what oil config do you like to play with? Only to have a very rough approximation of what to expect. That would be all, I promise xD

[orzelek]

I'm playing with default setup with modifiers for resources set to 2. I use at least science cost tweaker mod usually and running some stuff like Natural Evolution so added resources are good to have for a calmer start (no need to rush trains).

Override option is no longer functional - I removed it from next release.

When you have normal generation and RSO resources mght be tad hard to discern which are which. Also regenerate command will remove all resources but it won't respawn the normal ones so you won't have them then only on new chunks.

[ZeaWade]

Good to know that

Override_normal_spawn seems to be changing resource generation somehow, so I might be doing something weird. There is an if in data-updates.lua that calls add_peak for every resource with influence -1000 only when that constant is true, but I don't know if that ends up having any real impact though.

Anyway, I guess I'll just give this config a try and see what happens, thanks again for your time!

[orzelek]

Good to know that

Override_normal_spawn seems to be changing resource generation somehow, so I might be doing something weird. There is an if in data-updates.lua that calls add_peak for every resource with influence -1000 only when that constant is true, but I don't know if that ends up having any real impact though.

Anyway, I guess I'll just give this config a try and see what happens, thanks again for your time!

Thats the code that disables usual resource generation
It's a bit cheaty but it works.