[MOD 0.17.x] Modular Armor Revamp

[Ranakastrasz]

a few ideas for your perusing:

personal crafting machine, boosts the players crafting speed when installed, and consumes power while they are crafting,
power arm, boosts manual mining speed and consumes an amount of power per mined object

This was something I had planned for a while.
In single player, this is technically possible. In multiplayer, it won't work.
The only way to change crafting or mining speed is to change it on the force, which has the unfortunate effect of effecting all allied players. If I screw with alliances, it would cause comparability issues, and presumably many, many others, so I am not doing this.

personal gun defense, adds a small shoulder mounted gun turret, a ammo consuming alternative to the personal laser turret with the same (dis)advantages as the gun turret, much lower powerusage (just to autoaim the gun), but lower range and is affected by physical defence, a lower-tier alternative to the personal laser, (2wx1h?), have it mirror the dps of the pistol?

Might be possible, via a dummy gun turret attachment. How to get ammo from the player to it, and how to restrict it when using energy, i am unsure. Probably not going to happen.

also an more farfetched idea that im not sure is possible is a "railgun power transfer unit" along with activating and making work the already in code railgun weapon, since railguns use inert ammo and electrical power, have the "power transfer unit" consume suit power every time the railgun is fired, along with its ammunition.

I considered making a hand-held laser gun, which uses power to recharge itself. some technical issues, namely not being able to prevent someone from moving the ammo out of the slot makes this infeasible for the time being.

[Peter34]

I'm playing an SP game now, with this mod and a few others.

It's a neat mod, but I'm unsure about some things. For instance, how does the Burner Generator work? I've tried to move fuel items into it, but that doesn't seem to work. Does it take fuel items from my inventory? If yes, how often? What is its preference, e.g. if I have both Solid Fuel, Coal and Wood in my inventory? What will it take then? Will it take combustible non-fuel items such as Wood Chests or Small Electric Poles that I might prefer to retain so that I can use them for other purposes?

[Ranakastrasz]

I'm playing an SP game now, with this mod and a few others.

It's a neat mod, but I'm unsure about some things. For instance, how does the Burner Generator work? I've tried to move fuel items into it, but that doesn't seem to work. Does it take fuel items from my inventory? If yes, how often? What is its preference, e.g. if I have both Solid Fuel, Coal and Wood in my inventory? What will it take then? Will it take combustible non-fuel items such as Wood Chests or Small Electric Poles that I might prefer to retain so that I can use them for other purposes?

Burner generator uses items from the inventory. It takes solid fuel, then coal, then raw wood. It cannot take anything else.

The generator produces 500KW of power, and converts the stored energy in the fuel. You can do the math.
Solid Fuel has 25 MJ, so will last for 50 seconds
Coal has 8 MJ, and lasts for 16 seconds.
Raw wood has 4 MJ, and lasts for 8 seconds.

My plan is to make a custom fuel slot at some point, but I need to do a lot of experimenting.
I pretty much will need to script it from scratch, so that is a temporary shortcut.

[Peter34]

Thanks for the info!

[Peter34]

While you're at it, have you thought about adding intermediate Armor sizes?

The current progression of 5x5, 7x7 and 10x10 was chosen, I'm sure, because each step offers almost exactly twice as many slots in the grid as the previous one: 25, 49, 100.

I can see some value in having a much-easier-to-make but also much-smaller 4x4 armor, as well as a beefier 8x9 armour in between the 7x7 and 10x10 one. That way the slot progression is 16, 25, 49, 72, 100.

Or if it has to be square, for whatever reason (aestethics or hardcodeD), try 3x3, 5x5, 7x7, 9x9 and then 11x11 as the epitome armour. That dumps the neat doubling progression, since it's then 9, 25, 49, 81 and 121.

(I know that there was a mod, for a11, that offered huge armor grid sizes. It kept the 5x5, 7x7 and 10x10 ones from vanilla, but then offered increasingly larger super-advanced armors, of I think 12x12, 15x15 and a whooping 20x20, but to be honest, I think that's obscene. 400 slots is bizarre. I'd be strongly disinclined to ever try such a mod, whereas your mod looks neat and serious, and well-thought out)

[Ranakastrasz]

While you're at it, have you thought about adding intermediate Armor sizes?
The current progression of 5x5, 7x7 and 10x10 was chosen, I'm sure, because each step offers almost exactly twice as many slots in the grid as the previous one: 25, 49, 100.

Heh. I only discovered that when working on this mod, because I was trying to figure out if there was a way to dynamically add the passive transfer rate for modded armor, decided that grid size might work, and realized that it was pretty much doubled each tier.

I can see some value in having a much-easier-to-make but also much-smaller 4x4 armor, as well as a beefier 8x9 armour in between the 7x7 and 10x10 one. That way the slot progression is 16, 25, 49, 72, 100.

I considered steel armor being 3x3 actually. Not sure why you chose 8x9 tho.
this mod makes the 5x5 armor easier to make, as it doesn't use processing units anymore. Since all modules use advanced circuits as well (I think) anything lower wouldn't work out so well.

Or if it has to be square, for whatever reason (aestethics or hardcodeD), try 3x3, 5x5, 7x7, 9x9 and then 11x11 as the epitome armour. That dumps the neat doubling progression, since it's then 9, 25, 49, 81 and 121.

Aesthetics, certainly. Not hardcoded, but if it gets too far from square I think it looks wrong.

(I know that there was a mod, for a11, that offered huge armor grid sizes. It kept the 5x5, 7x7 and 10x10 ones from vanilla, but then offered increasingly larger super-advanced armors, of I think 12x12, 15x15 and a whooping 20x20, but to be honest, I think that's obscene. 400 slots is bizarre. I'd be strongly disinclined to ever try such a mod, whereas your mod looks neat and serious, and well-thought out)

Yep. Dytech has a 15x15, but considering the enemy power, that is sane. As it is, 14x14, for 196 slots is at least an option. Might do that in the future, but it isn't a priority.
Don't know what mod added a 20x20, but that seems extreme unless enemies get REALLY nasty, and you don't also get higher space-efficient modules.

[AlexTheNotsogreat]

a few ideas for your perusing:

personal crafting machine, boosts the players crafting speed when installed, and consumes power while they are crafting,
power arm, boosts manual mining speed and consumes an amount of power per mined object

There are different mods in place for upgrades in mining and crafting, the faster crafting and upgraded tools mods allow researches in what you desire.

[Ranakastrasz]

a few ideas for your perusing:

personal crafting machine, boosts the players crafting speed when installed, and consumes power while they are crafting,
power arm, boosts manual mining speed and consumes an amount of power per mined object

There are different mods in place for upgrades in mining and crafting, the faster crafting and upgraded tools mods allow researches in what you desire.

unfortunately wont work. That effects everyone on a force. I can't filter it for a single player.

[FalcoGer]

it's MW, not mW
Capital M is mega (10^6), small m is milli (10^(-3))

[Peter34]

I've noticed some unexpected behaviour.

I built a Modular Armor, the one with the 5x5 grid, and fitted it with some 1x2 primitive Exoskeletons and some 1x1 primitive Batteries. I then noticed that I hadn't invented the Power Conduit yet, so I decided to invent that as soon as my current invention process was done.

But even before that happened, I noticed that my Armor had some energy in it.

It's as if it somehow recharges anyway, even though it has no way to recharge, no Burner installed or Reactor, nor any Solar Panels or Power Conduit. I haven't seen it recharge, that way (seeing that would require a numerical readout of energy percentage, which I don't know exists), but I have seen it have some amount of energy in the green enery bar, perhaps 5% or 8%, where I would have expected it to consistently have none, having a fully empty bar.

What gives? Is this a bug?

It clearly recharges quickly once the Power Conduit was installed, but it seemed as if it had recharged a bit even before that, and that's not consistent with my understanding of the workings of this mod.

[Ranakastrasz]

I've noticed some unexpected behaviour.

I built a Modular Armor, the one with the 5x5 grid, and fitted it with some 1x2 primitive Exoskeletons and some 1x1 primitive Batteries. I then noticed that I hadn't invented the Power Conduit yet, so I decided to invent that as soon as my current invention process was done.

But even before that happened, I noticed that my Armor had some energy in it.

It's as if it somehow recharges anyway, even though it has no way to recharge, no Burner installed or Reactor, nor any Solar Panels or Power Conduit. I haven't seen it recharge, that way (seeing that would require a numerical readout of energy percentage, which I don't know exists), but I have seen it have some amount of energy in the green enery bar, perhaps 5% or 8%, where I would have expected it to consistently have none, having a fully empty bar.

What gives? Is this a bug?

It clearly recharges quickly once the Power Conduit was installed, but it seemed as if it had recharged a bit even before that, and that's not consistent with my understanding of the workings of this mod.

Intended behavior. Admittedly, due to limitations of tooltips and UI manipulation (or my skill in bypassing them) the data on this is limited. It is only in the main post I believe.
Modular armor by default has some amount of conduit transfer rate proportional to it's number of slots. Its not a lot, but enough for at least some power.

Essentially, once you added the battery and stood in a power field, it started charging. Once you left the field, it stopped charging.

I am considering removing it, as it doesn't add much to the game, but haven't gotten to it yet.

[Peter34]

I'm not sure if the non-conduit recharge is good or not, but the one thing I'd like to see added to your mod is a larger and more efficient MkII Conduit. Something like one that's 2x2 tiles and is x5.5 or x6 times as efficient as the standard 1x1 conduit. Or whatever scaling system you have used for the other modules.

[Ranakastrasz]

I'm not sure if the non-conduit recharge is good or not, but the one thing I'd like to see added to your mod is a larger and more efficient MkII Conduit. Something like one that's 2x2 tiles and is x5.5 or x6 times as efficient as the standard 1x1 conduit. Or whatever scaling system you have used for the other modules.

Yep. I am going to remove it next version. It doesn't really add anything.
As for the Mk2 Conduit. My first, rough draft had a 2x2 and 4x4 version, but I cut them out, since the 1x1 conduit was intended to largely be a filler-type module. As in, you fill all the empty space remaining with it. A 2x2 version might work.

Scaling wise, yea, that kind of multiplier is probably reasonable.
I end up looking at stats per tile, and the larger something is(and higher tier) the more stats per tile it gets. In the case of the T2 shield, I increased it from 2x2 to 3x3, which is 2.25x the size. Since it's stats were already significantly increased, I just multiplied the stats by that.

Will at least consider a t2 version.

[orzelek]

Any idea if this mod conflicts with bob's warfare in any way - it adds some new items for power armor.
There is also improved personal roboport mod - similar question for it ?
I'm assuming a bit strange stuff might happen with different scales of energy values.

[Ranakastrasz]

Any idea if this mod conflicts with bob's warfare in any way - it adds some new items for power armor.
There is also improved personal roboport mod - similar question for it ?
I'm assuming a bit strange stuff might happen with different scales of energy values.

Powered armor itself won't be effected.
Power generation equipment will be heavily ineffective, and anything using power will be trivially easy to power.
I am still trying to figure out how I might have my mod look at all other mods, and dynamically alter those values, unfortunately, I don't yet know how.

Originally, back before personal roboports were added, I was going to add a 1000x multiplier for power. Mainly because I had origianlly misread the power levels, not noticing them missing "kilo-" indicator. Back then, a shield took 20w per hitpoint, for example. They increased all values by 100x while I was still working on it. Although I had just altered the multiplier to 10x, I was getting excessively confused whether or not I had converted between internal and external power that I gave up and just altered the module values instead.

[orzelek]

You can alter values that other mods add by using data-updates.lua or data-final-fixes.lua and iterating over all the power armor mods for example.

I haven't looked at your mod so I'm not sure how effective this would be - altering power values should be quite simple.

Since you are making power armor available earlier it would be nice if you could integrate simple change from night vision mod - it makes night vision actually useful.

[Ranakastrasz]

You can alter values that other mods add by using data-updates.lua or data-final-fixes.lua and iterating over all the power armor mods for example.

I haven't looked at your mod so I'm not sure how effective this would be - altering power values should be quite simple.

Since you are making power armor available earlier it would be nice if you could integrate simple change from night vision mod - it makes night vision actually useful.

I've seen the nightvision mod. I don't really see the appeal. I like the green tint personally. I can see far easier with it on than off, but it also makes it possible to know if it is day or night easier. That said, I don't THINK the mod is incompatible. Doesn't it just alter one of the settings? I just altered the power settings. I don't think any collision will occur.

Edit: Working on it. Ran into a roadblock. Can't figure out correct format for the loop thingy, but working on it.

[Darloth]

I am still trying to figure out how I might have my mod look at all other mods, and dynamically alter those values, unfortunately, I don't yet know how.

If you need an example that already does this, you could look at Bob's Electronics overhaul, and what he does in data-final-fixes.lua
which in short checks every recipe, and then replaces all vanilla electronics with his own specific electronics. Since this is run after most mods, it also updates all of the mod recipes.

You'll need to do a bit more filtering because you only want to change equipment, but from a quick look over the equipment types, everything with "equipment" in its type name is probably valid. Then you'll just have to work out how to multiply the power / energy lines, which are not quite numbers, so you might need to parse them to work out how big they are (difference between 150W and 150KW for example) then write back the new values in whatever format Factorio wants.

It's all doable though, I hope you manage!

[Ranakastrasz]

I've got a partial solution, but it isn't working correctly yet. I have a plan of attack which ought to work, but I don't have much time today.

[Ranakastrasz]

A quick look at bob's warfare says that it isn't really possible for it to be compatible. not fully anyhow. Aside from the custom fusion reactor, and id collision between our batteries, I don't really know how to resolve that mess. Both mods overwrite some of the tech as well.
That said, I have something that might work for next version, at least partially.