Simple request: UnderGround Pipes more time to craft

[Peter34]

It takes 0.5 seconds to make 1 above-ground Pipe from 1 Iron Plate... So far so good.

But then to use 10 such Pipes and 5 additional Iron Plates to make not one but two UnderGround Pipes takes only a further 0.5 seconds. That's ridiculous, especially given the large amount of mats involved.

For the last many months, I've made a point of always carrying with me a supply of both kinds of Pipes, but it turns out I don't need to carry UnderPipes with me - provided I have a tonne of normal Pipes and some Iron Plate, I can make them super-fast when needed. Being able to insta-craft a somewhat complex item is silly.

I therefore request a mod that changes the crafting time for 2 UnderGround Pipes from 0.5 second to 5 seconds. A super small change, but it'll make the game feel a lot more realistic.



Also, it's the kind of super simple mod that will be easy for mod-curious people to examine and scrutinize, trying to achieve an understanding of how it is mods work, what they do, how they're structured, since in this particular case it's a mod that takes an existing vanilla game and alters it, rather than adding a wholly new item to the game but placing it somewhere within the existing crafting structure.

Not saying I'll be doing that. But it would serve a useful purpose as "a model mod", showing how it's done.

Me, though? I just want the game more balanced and more realistic.

[Ranakastrasz]

I could argue that you ARE making one pipe. It's a two-part assembly. Still, I agree that, like many of the complex machines, assembly time is quite low.
Honestly, I plan to eventually go through all recipes and make sure that everything with the default .5 time should have it.

[Peter34]

I could argue that you ARE making one pipe. It's a two-part assembly. Still, I agree that, like many of the complex machines, assembly time is quite low.
Honestly, I plan to eventually go through all recipes and make sure that everything with the default .5 time should have it.

Yeah, I often get the feel that in many cases modders, or in some cases even the devs themselves, simply couldn't be arsed to stop and think about how much time it ought to take to craft X, and so they just opted for the default value.

I think UnderGround Pipes are the worst example in the vanilla game, though. Can you make such a mod? I imagine you could make it very quickly, and it'd be interesting to see how popular it gets...

[prg]

info.json

Code: Select all

{
  "name": "bla",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "title": "Bla",
  "author": "prg",
  "description": "Longer pipe-to-ground crafting time.",
  "dependencies": ["base >= 0.12.6"]
}

data-updates.lua

Code: Select all

data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].energy_required = 5

[FishSandwich]

10 normal pipes, 5 seconds.

10 normal pipes + underground pipe, 5.5 seconds.

Underground pipes take 5.5 seconds to make.

[Ranakastrasz]

I note that in most cases, while the machine or otherwise doesn't take that long to make, the components can take quite a bit of time. However, if you already have the components, it takes the fraction of a second.

[Peter34]

I note that in most cases, while the machine or otherwise doesn't take that long to make, the components can take quite a bit of time. However, if you already have the components, it takes the fraction of a second.

That is true, and often it's good. I always carry with me a lot of Gear Wheels and Electronic Circuits, and even set up a "taker" area that manufactures some just for my personal use (and the use of the other players in coop MP).

I just don't think it's good in the case of UnderGround Pipes.

[Peter34]

info.json

Code: Select all

{
  "name": "bla",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "title": "Bla",
  "author": "prg",
  "description": "Longer pipe-to-ground crafting time.",
  "dependencies": ["base >= 0.12.6"]
}

data-updates.lua

Code: Select all

data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].energy_required = 5

I just make two such files in Windows Notepad, and make a mod folder for them, ZIP it up, and it'll automatically override the relevant sections of the vanilla game data files?

[Ranakastrasz]

Should work. Should work in a single folder too. Make sure the folder/zip name matches the info file.

"bla_0.1.0"

[Peter34]

Thanks! This sounds like it's a lot easier to do than I assumed. I'll try it and report back!

[Peter34]

OK, it worked (after the usual obligatory fixing names/terms to match, I had to change fixing-under-pipes to fixing_under_pipes etc).

But has anything been omitted? The info file currently reads like this:

Code: Select all

{
  "name": "fixed_under_pipes",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "title": "Fixed UnderGround Pipes",
  "author": "Peter34 (with much help from prg)",
  "description": "Longer pipe-to-ground crafting time.",
  "dependencies": ["base >= 0.12.6"]
}

Are there any other mandatory data points that should be added? Is there a place where the standard format of info.json is documented?

Also, rather more interestingly, what do I do if I want to make further changes to UnderGround Pipes? Right now this:

Code: Select all

data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].energy_required = 5

changes the crafting time to 5 seconds. What if I also want to alter the mats required, so that e.g. instead of 10 Pipes and 5 Iron Plate it's 8 Pipes and 3 Iron Plates? How exactly do I include multiple alterations to the recipe, as opposed to just one?

[Peter34]

Okay, I just changed the data file to this:

Code: Select all

data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].energy_required = 5
data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].ingredients =     {      {"pipe", 8},      {"iron-plate", 3}    }

and that seemed to work. The ingredients requirements were changed, without that change overriding the previous "energy required" change. Instead, both changes apply.

So is that really all there is to it? If all I want to do is to mod existing items?

(The major hurdle, apart from just actually trying-random-crap-to-see-if-it-works, was finding the ingredients recipe file in the first place. It seems as if Factorio's ingredients lists are distributed between two file sets, one for items that appear in the demos and one for items that don't, which I consider to be rather messy...)

[Ranakastrasz]

Okay, I just changed the data file to this:

Code: Select all

data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].energy_required = 5
data.raw.recipe["pipe-to-ground"].ingredients =     {      {"pipe", 8},      {"iron-plate", 3}    }

and that seemed to work. The ingredients requirements were changed, without that change overriding the previous "energy required" change. Instead, both changes apply.

So is that really all there is to it? If all I want to do is to mod existing items?

(The major hurdle, apart from just actually trying-random-crap-to-see-if-it-works, was finding the ingredients recipe file in the first place. It seems as if Factorio's ingredients lists are distributed between two file sets, one for items that appear in the demos and one for items that don't, which I consider to be rather messy...)

Looks right to me.

Also, I imagine that is to make it easier to have a demo version which updates with the main game. If they had it all in one file and essentially disabled non-demo things, it would be really easy to enable it manually. Probably. But yea, it is really messy and annoying.