Anti-Tree Poison Capsules, cheap and weak

[Peter34]

I often use Poison Capsules to remove Trees, but it's a fairly late-game tech, and they're also a bit expensive to build.

Therefore, my proposal is something that can be invented and built much earlier, and which is cheaper to build, but which in return works a lot more slowly.

As of 12.6, a Poison Capsule requires Military 3 (which requires the blue magic science potions), and requires these to build:
3 Steel
3 Green Circuit
10 Coal

For some reason, I can't see in-game how long the cloud lasts or how much damage it does, and the Factorio Wiki doesn't say either. But I think it's something like 8 Poison damage per second for 8-9 seconds. Most modders are presumably able to delve into the game's data files and extract the exact figures.



Compared to that, the Agent Orange Capsules should be easier to invent, requiring Military 2 (which only requires the green magic science potions, and only a small quantity of them at that).

They should also be cheaper to build. I suggest 4 Iron, 2 Green Circuit, 2 Coal and 2 Stone. Apparently the crushed stone dust blocks the pores of the plants or something. I'm not an ecologist (I just played one on TV, once). It just works.

Damage-wise, it still needs to do enough damage to destroy a Tree with one Capsule, keeping in mind that Trees have 50 HP and that they (as of alpha 12) regenerate. But it's okay if that damage is applied very slowly. For instance, the Agent Orange Capsule could do 3 Poison damage per second for 20 seconds. That's 60 total, and I'm pretty sure that no normal Tree can regenerate 10 HP in 20 seconds. Or it could do 2 Poion damage per second for 30 seconds. That'd work too.

I would like for the Agent Orange Capsules to be throwable to a further range, perhaps 50% further, or at least 25%, and it'd be nice for them to have a larger effect radius too, perhaps 20% or 25% larger effect radius. The whole idea is that you can stand still, and throw 2-6 of these and start a process that will, over the course of 20 seconds, clear a lot of Trees. Or alternatively that you can stay on the move, as you lob these around, and you can run through the gas clouds without serious risk.

Because Tree removal is a huge problem in the game, until the arrival of Construction Drones, and those arrive quite late. And keep in mind that a DPS of 3 damage/s doesn't have any anti-xeno application. Agent Orange Capsules will be pretty useless against Biters. I think even their Nests have hundreds of HP.

Note that this suggested mod synergizes well with my other proposal from today, a Gas Mask module for the Modular Armor/Power Armor.

[Ranakastrasz]

Actual damage is 2x4 damage per second for 20 seconds. (or 22, depending on how fadeout works)

I agree that something like this is nesseary. Grenades are too weak, Shotgun isn't really able to deal with trees very well unless heavily upgraded, flamethrower is rubbish and late-game anyway, and robots are somewhat late game as well.

[Rseding91]

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =91&t=4757 maybe?

[Peter34]

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =91&t=4757 maybe?

Those seem like they're super-aggressive. A kind of attack that spreads to affect a very wide area-of-effect, jumping from Tree to Tree, rather than affecting only a set radius.

It's also not clear to me that the Termite are an early-game tech invention, the same way the Agent Orange Capsules would be.

[Peter34]

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =91&t=4757 maybe?

Yeah, having now actually tested your mod, it's not really to my liking.

It can be built from game-start, rather than requiring invention, whereas my proposed Agent Orange requires a bit of invention (Military 2, which is much easier to get than the Military 3 for Poison Capsules).

Your mod affects a huge area, even using normal (not Alien) Termites, and I'm frankly concerned that your mod may function in a CPU-intensive fashion that can cause problems in coop MP games.

Your Termites are expensive to build, with one Termite de-foresting a huge area. My proposed Agent Orange Capsules are cheap to build (cheapness is an intrisic part of the idea) and affect a smaller area. They also use an existing game mechanic, the area-of-effect poison cloud, whereas yours seem to spread from Tree to Tree which I imagine requires the use of som kind of iterative script. Again, that leads me to believe that my proposed mod will be much safer to use in coop MP games.

Agent Orange Capsules affect a specific area, although a large one (a bit larger than Poison Capsules), whereas yours affect a huge area, and with the size of the area not really being easily understandable (unlike the numerically limited range of Agent Orange). I use a mod, Large Chests by "Rana*", that means I need Wood in order to make Iron/Steel/Logi chests, and so I don't want extreme deforestation.

So, sorry... I didn't like your mod when I first found out about it, and now that you've reminded me of it (and that I have actually tried it myself), I haven't changed my mind. I still think my proposed Agent Orange Capsules are much better. Even if it isn't possible to add a companion "Gas Mask module" mod. Your mod is a lot better than nothing, but I'd still like to see a mod that's better than yours, at least better according to my criteria.

[Peter34]

Actual damage is 2x4 damage per second for 20 seconds. (or 22, depending on how fadeout works)

I agree that something like this is nesseary. Grenades are too weak, Shotgun isn't really able to deal with trees very well unless heavily upgraded, flamethrower is rubbish and late-game anyway, and robots are somewhat late game as well.

Could you make the mod? I've already done some of the thinking; all that is left is implementing it in the modding language, which I can't do.

I imagine the biggest hurdle might be to get the poison cloud to have a colour other than green, preferably orange. Apart from that, it's just taking an existing item, Poison Capsule, and making a duplicate of it with weaker stats except longer range and cloud radius.

[Ranakastrasz]

Actual damage is 2x4 damage per second for 20 seconds. (or 22, depending on how fadeout works)

I agree that something like this is nesseary. Grenades are too weak, Shotgun isn't really able to deal with trees very well unless heavily upgraded, flamethrower is rubbish and late-game anyway, and robots are somewhat late game as well.

Could you make the mod? I've already done some of the thinking; all that is left is implementing it in the modding language, which I can't do.

I imagine the biggest hurdle might be to get the poison cloud to have a colour other than green, preferably orange. Apart from that, it's just taking an existing item, Poison Capsule, and making a duplicate of it with weaker stats except longer range and cloud radius.

The color is trivial. There is a setting for that. The cloud file, I believe, is actually white, and tinted green via the setting.
The main issue is that the filter can't just hit trees. Poison capsule uses the {"breaths-air"} tag, which includes trees, biters/spitters, and worms.
When I tried to use the full tag list from trees, it presumably accepted any of those filters as opposed to using all three of them. Meaning I need to figure out how to add flags to trees that already exist. That attempt made it degrade rocks, walls, buildings, etc.

I could just not do that, leave it to just the {"breaths-air"} tag, but that would let you damage biters and worms as well. And it isn't trivial amounts of damage. 60 damage no matter how you cut it, since it has to be enough to bypass regeneration, would tear worms down without too much trouble.

----
So, I can try to mess with tags and try to add a new "Plant" tag or something like that.
I can give trees a +1000% or something poison vulnerability or add a new damage type
I could just let it act like a weaker poison capsule.

[Ranakastrasz]

Here is a quick implemntation. No tech requirement at all. 30 second duration, deals 2/second.
Aoe is 15 instead of 11, but the throw range is a bit lower.
Also its got an awesome orange tint.

----
As a side note, each time I see Agent Orange, I think of Larfleeze from DC comics.

[Peter34]

Can you try to give poison resistance specifically to Nests and Worms? Even just 90% resistance? I maintain that Agent Orange doing 2 damage/s vs Biters and Spitters for 30s is of no tactical impact.

As for the area-of-effect, I'd really like the Agent Orange capsules to have both a longer throwing range, and a larger area-of-effect, compared to Poison Capsules. Maybe 50% longer throwing range and 20% or 25% larger area-of-effect radius. The idea is you throw a few of those, at areas you want to de-forest, and then when you come back a minute later, the Trees are all gone.

[Ranakastrasz]

Can't give them poison resistance, at least not without extra interferance.
I could give trees poison vulnerability.

The throw range is a bit shorter, but the effects of that are minimal. The AOE is ~30% larger.

[Peter34]

Poison vulnerability to Trees would work very well.

Can you make the mod cause decimal damage? For instance make it cause 0.5 Poison damage per second for 30 seconds, and then have Trees take x4 damage from Poison? I think that'd be good.

[Ranakastrasz]

That is do-able, but not tonight.

[Peter34]

That is do-able, but not tonight.

There's no rush. But I hope you'll update the mod within a couple of days.

Also, if you can add the tech requirement, so it's not available right from the start, along with the poison damage vulnerability for Trees, then I think you've already arrived at something that's worthy of being posted in the Mods forum, as a genuine mod.