eloquentJane's Modular Overhauls Development Thread

[septemberWaves]

eloquentJane's Modular Overhauls
Development Discussion

Introduction
This is the early development thread for my new series of overhaul mods. The mods will be designed to imitate realism (to a reasonable degree) and add extra complexity to various aspects of the game, without sacrificing playability or enjoyability. And as the name implies, they will be almost fully modular, so that a player can pick which mods they wish to use with limited changes to unrelated aspects of the game. I have limited experience with coding, but I am entirely sure I will be able to learn what I need as I go along (though it means that the more difficult-to-code aspects of the mods will probably take longer to be integrated).

This thread is for discussion of the mods as they develop, suggestions about how things might be done or what could be added, and feedback. I'll also use it to announce my ideas, as well as any early releases when they happen (though hopefully by the time the mods are properly playable I'll be able to move discussion to a subforum rather than a single thread).

The Plan
All of my mods will be based around a core mod called Universal Chemistry (at least, that is the name I'm working with for now). The reason for the name is that this core mod will only add items and fluids (chemicals, specifically), but those items will be able to be used by every other mod I add (as well as anyone else who wishes to use Universal Chemistry to help unify chemicals within the modding community). It will include every stable element (and several radioactive ones), as well as many chemical compounds and ores (added as necessary or by request). The ores will be based on real ores (e.g. hematite instead of "iron ore"), but the degree of complexity for acquiring the products from those ores will vary depending on which mods are installed - so, for example, if someone has Universal Chemistry but not the ore processing mod, hematite will be smelted in a vanilla furnace to iron plates, but with the ore processing mod it will have a more challenging production chain with byproducts.

Beyond the core mod, various separate mods will add things like:
• Early-game expansion based on historical pre-industrial-age metallurgy
• Advanced ore processing methods with complexity and yield increasing with technology tier
• Tree farms, and possibly crop farming (and uses for crop products)
• An enormous expansion to the circuit system (with technology ranging from old-fashioned thermionic triode transistors to modern PCBs)
• A complete overhaul of science production (using things like rare chemicals and eventually particle accelerators to consume power and material in exchange for science packs)
• Changes to the oil industry (including fractional distillation and different types of plastic)
• Hydrocarbon-based power overhaul
• Renewable energy overhaul (altering solar panels and adding new energy generation methods)
• Nuclear power overhaul (more realistic uranium processing and reactors, thorium reactors, plutonium, nuclear waste, and possibly nuclear fusion)
• Space industry overhaul (including changes to rocket assembly, better rocket fuel, and acoustic damage to entities close to the launch site)
• Production machinery overhaul (so that rather than universal "assembly machines" that produce almost everything, components will have to be manufactured with more realistic processes before being assembled into an end product)
• Military expansion (changing recipes and adding more tiers of turrets as well as a few extra turrets and ammunition types)
• Vehicle expansion (adding early-game steam locomotives and specialized rail cars, making cars and diesel locomotives actually run on diesel)

And a few other ideas which I don't yet know how they'll fit in with the rest of the mods:
• More realistic lighting (including tungsten filament lamps, noble gas lamps, and other forms of lighting)
• Difficulty handling certain chemicals without protection (such as a risk of fire damage when holding pure caesium, or damage when handling radioactive material without a hazmat suit)

Other Notes
Each mod will be designed to adapt to the presence or absence of my other mods, so recipes will change depending on which are present (e.g. circuits will be vanilla circuits if the circuit overhaul is not installed). For the most part there shouldn't be dependencies other than Universal Chemistry, but I think it'll probably work best to use all of the mods in conjunction with each other since they will be designed for that purpose.

Most of the mods will contain multiple processing chains for the same product. For example, there will be several methods of producing steel (though they'll be unlocked at various tiers), so the player will have the option either to use the more complicated method for a higher yield, or the lower-yield methods in exchange for a simpler process that's cheaper to set up.

I do not plan on including the ability to universally void waste substances. I will provide methods of dealing with excess resources, such as slag heaps for bulk storage of waste from ore processing (though slag will have its uses if you don't want to store it), canisters for storing radioactive waste, and incinerators (though not all items will be able to be incinerated, and the process will produce ash as well as a lot of pollution).