[Problem] RSO Resource Gen.

[Seldion]

Love the mod, been using it sense it first came out but I've found a problem with it in the new 15.xx I know its a experimental stage of Factorio but when I start a new game it always places the resources to close or atop or even in each other, I somehow fixed this problem in the older RSO but can't seem to figure it out in this one.

I have Dark Matter Replicators and Alien Walls installed so I know that can have a effect with this problem but its not always a problem with the two mod's ore, some times stone and coal can be mixed in with the iron or copper and uranium.

Also I am using 15.16 version of Factorio and I'm sure others have already had this problem but I can't seem to find the solution anywhere with google or forum searches.

Ideally I'd like it to look like this, tho doesn't have to be as rich or anything but generally I like my Copper and Iron together with space to build processing areas for each, then the Stone and Alien Biomass to make, making walls easier, the tenurant for the DMR doesn't matter, might be deleting the mod soon but the coal and uranium I'd like near the water so I can make early game and uranium powered and production easier too, I play with infinite ores so eventually the yield will go down to 2% and I will need to make outposts to keep production up but I'd like a neat starting zone.

[Syrchalis]

Personally my problem with RSO starting areas (I don't have modded ores, so my space requirement is the minimum) is that it tends to place some resources next to the water, as in ... right next to it, so the ores float over the edge and give no wiggle room for any construction. Water often comes in many small lakes, so it's not rare the resource field is a swiss cheese. Landfill does fix that eventually but up until then it's pretty annoying.

Ores being close to each other is an issue too though, even without any additional ores added by mods.

But that's not all. Sometimes it places the ores "around" a lake, so you have to walk all the way around to get some stone (annoying early).

I would like to see the water moved away from the center of the starting area and ores keep a minimum distance from each other.

[orzelek]

So you would like all the resources partitioned and perfectly separated?

It's not that easy to do especially with many resources and different water configurations in starting area. Trying to do that could would require removal of randomness from starting area completely and just prepositioning resources. And for that there is a map editor where you can create everything as you want. Especially considering that this resource placement is your personal preference - others might like it in a different way.

As for water - RSO doesn't position/modify water in any way so it won't move it around also. It does try to move resource fields to not overlap water and/or themselves where possible. It's not perfect since there needs to be some threshold or a lot of resources wouldn't spawn (it's quite common to have resources overal water a bit for example).

[Seldion]

So you would like all the resources partitioned and perfectly separated?

Pretty much, I use infinate ores so ores so close together are a pain to deal with and become very problematic with the mods I have installed and the way I have beef up bitters to basically take over every chunk they come across.

Especially considering that this resource placement is your personal preference - others might like it in a different way.

This I understand and I am not asking to have it changed for all people, just some help on how I can change it to suit my needs and play style.

And for that there is a map editor where you can create everything as you want.

that is also true but I only want the starting area to be this way while the rest of me map is completely random, I'd like to keep that in for the fun of exploring and the unknown, playing the same map over and over would get very boring.

but that's not all. Sometimes it places the ores "around" a lake, so you have to walk all the way around to get some stone (annoying early).

I use landfill mod so that isn't a problem for me and I generally have my maps with only water in the starting zone to make it where bitters can come from everywhere and there aren't any choke points.

I'm just tiered of restart, restarting, restarting, over and over and over, till I find a map where the coal isn't in the middle of the iron or the copper and iron aren't touching or where all the resources are around the edge of the lake that is in the starting zone.

[orzelek]

Currently there is no option that would allow orderly ore placement on startup.
And AFAIK you can make those in map editor and rest of ores will then spawn as normal - I can't guarantee it working since I didn't check. It might be that RSO will try to spawn starting area again since it will look like new game for it.

Basically you'd like to have random map but not random starting area. It could be tricky since map is random anyway so starting area will have water that needs to be worked around.

[Syrchalis]

What it comes down to is -> roll map you generally like -> save -> command prompt map2scenario -> open scenario in map editor -> edit starting area as you like -> start scenario like a savegame.

If at any point you want to edit your map again you can do the same thing once more.

It's tedious though.

[orzelek]

In general I think that part of the game is handling the randomness.
So making prefabricated starting area with resources placed specifically and grouped seems... strange for me.

[Syrchalis]

In general I think that part of the game is handling the randomness.
So making prefabricated starting area with resources placed specifically and grouped seems... strange for me.

Outside of starting area, sure. Inside starting area all the randomness does is make you walk 200 tiles around a lake to get some stone early game and wasting 300 iron building belts. It's not like there is some cool solution or gameplay involved there, it's just annoying. By mid game it's irrelevant anyway.

Allowing to set min/max size/richness for starting resources in vanilla.lua on the other hand... that would be randomness that has some weight. Imagine you go for size 10-35 - sometimes you will start with plenty of copper and iron, but sometimes you might just have barely any iron and need to get a train going asap.

This is halfway in the game already as starting resources tend to be pretty unpredictable when it comes to size and richness.

[orzelek]

I'm sorry but only good solution is to make a scenario with exact positions of resources as you like them.

Even if I'd try to make them ordered in starting area they would still be random in a way. Currently starting area generation has only one parameter that can be tweaked and it's the size of area it's allowed to place resources in. Also values given in config are randomized so you can get more or less starting resource anyway.

Making starting area always identical is not something I'd like to have. And there are more potential issues with trying to make it ordered - like how to place/group resources with various ore configurations. There are really a lot of possible ore setups with some that change the ores completely. And all of that would add more maintenace and require constant testing to see if it works.

[Syrchalis]

Well, for me it does not need to be all ordered and neat, it just shouldn't have shenanigans like water creating donut shapes, half the resources on the other side of the lake (or any for that matter) or resources overlapping badly (like oil patches inside my iron field).

Even if just half of those weren't the case it would be a huge improvement.

Can't speak for OP though.


Isn't it possible to move the water a certain distance away from the center of the starting area and have the resources spawn close to the center? Feel like that would fix most of the issues already.

[orzelek]

Moving water is tricky. It would basically require whole new code that would generate ground and water tiles.
And since water tends to be close to 0,0 and thats the center used for starting location around which resources are spawned then you end up with stuff like resources around big lake in center. You can use landfill for that but thats a bit later in tech tree.

Resource spawning already tries to reduce overlap with others and water but it's not trying to be 100% accurate since it made performance cost pretty big and caused stuff to not spawn if only one tile was over water. I can increase the threshold - this would help with resources being glued to water or interwinded but they will still be able to touch each other or overlap a bit.

[Syrchalis]

That would help quite a bit already I think.

[Seldion]

What it comes down to is -> roll map you generally like -> save -> command prompt map2scenario -> open scenario in map editor -> edit starting area as you like -> start scenario like a savegame.

If at any point you want to edit your map again you can do the same thing once more.

It's tedious though.

Would that still allow for achievements to be gotten because in custom scenarios they disable achievements.

Outside of starting area, sure. Inside starting area all the randomness does is make you walk 200 tiles around a lake to get some stone early game and wasting 300 iron building belts. It's not like there is some cool solution or gameplay involved there, it's just annoying. By mid game it's irrelevant anyway.

I beg to differ, I've had matches where I've had very few resources because they where all bunched around the water, frankly all I really want is for the ores not to bunch together where I can't use them sense I have infinite ore turned on but the patches are small for balancing.

After restarting latterly 67 times I finally found a start that didn't have any oil in any of the resources, no resources where overlapping each other or the likes, I wish spawning was more like that one map then the others, again I have infinite resources on so its a problem for me if they are to close or overlapping sense they do not disappear, I could use a ore delete mod but I would need all of the starting resources with how difficult I have made the game.

Thank you to all of you for all your help, I am grateful.

[orzelek]

I'm looking at the code and it might be possible to tweak it a little to help with this.
I'm a bit concerned about potential performance costs but it will be quickly visible if it goes very badly.

One thing I can't do much is about resources going to other side of water.
Figuring out programatically whats the "other" side is a bit problematic with way it currently generates starting resources.

I'll try to tweak it a bit and release new version.

[Seldion]

I'll try to tweak it a bit and release new version.

Thank you, anything would be helpful, I enjoy the randomness of Factorio but in the starting area it is just to random, if it was like every few spawns that I got this problem then I wouldn't care, I'd take a less then optimal resource spawn then one that I can't use at all, because I go though 10 spawns before I even get one I can use where the resources aren't all bunched or right up by the water.

[Syrchalis]

It has become a lot better already.

[Seldion]

It has become a lot better already.

Aye it has, I'm getting less and less crappy starts, now I find a decent starting zone every 3ed to 4th start instead of every 15th, also it seems if I don't use only water in starting zone, I get a good set up every time so maybe that was my problem from the start, I love have every chunk filled with bitters tho Y-Y