[MOD 0.12.x] Science Overhaul Mod A.K.A Science Cost Tweaker

[Timeslice]

I'm not sure if the dependancy can be fixed on your side, but can you get your ["lab"] recipe to load before Dytech Core so that the iron gears in your recipe get properly replaced with stone gears? Dytech locks iron gears behind Automation 1 research, which obviously isn't possible to do if the lab takes iron gears to craft.

[UberWaffe]

I'm not sure if the dependancy can be fixed on your side, but can you get your ["lab"] recipe to load before Dytech Core so that the iron gears in your recipe get properly replaced with stone gears? Dytech locks iron gears behind Automation 1 research, which obviously isn't possible to do if the lab takes iron gears to craft.

To fix it using load orders, the Dytech Core mod would have to add this mod as an optional dependency.

Alternatively, I could add Dytech Core as an optional dependency, and if it is detected, I could setup the recipe for the lab differently.
Would that be preferable?
If so, what should I use instead of gears? (I have not yet played Dytech, so I do not know.)

[Timeslice]

I'm not sure if the dependancy can be fixed on your side, but can you get your ["lab"] recipe to load before Dytech Core so that the iron gears in your recipe get properly replaced with stone gears? Dytech locks iron gears behind Automation 1 research, which obviously isn't possible to do if the lab takes iron gears to craft.

To fix it using load orders, the Dytech Core mod would have to add this mod as an optional dependency.

Alternatively, I could add Dytech Core as an optional dependency, and if it is detected, I could setup the recipe for the lab differently.
Would that be preferable?
If so, what should I use instead of gears? (I have not yet played Dytech, so I do not know.)

Dytech automatically replaces the iron gears in several (but not all) recipes with stone gears. This is to allow iron gears to be gated behind automation 1, so anything you need to be able to have before then (such as belts, inserters, and red science packs) use stone gears instead. Technically it would be cleaner for dytech core to add SCT as an optional dependancy, as everything would be handled automatically from there. However it would be a simple matter for you to just use stone gears in the lab recipe when dytech is detected.

I'll let you decide.

In the mean time I actually removed SCT for now as I wasn't interested in the science cost tweaks to begin with (ironic, I know), and the intermediates, my favorite part, ended up being too cheap due to circumventing bob's intermediates. I took a look at your science intermediates and didn't immediately see an easy way to use bob's intermediates that I liked. I tend to build fairly small scale (compared to what I see other people do), so the cost tweaks didn't make much sense for me, but that may change in the future. Or if you ever feel like integrating bob's intermediates somehow I'd probably pick it back up again as well.

I definitely think this mod is a step in the right direction though, so I will be keeping an eye on it. And thanks for being so responsive to all of the issues that I apprently reported to the wrong threads

[Timeslice]

I was thinking that using the bob's circuit intermediates in yours would be easier than trying to integrate the circuits themselves into your recipes.

[UberWaffe]

However it would be a simple matter for you to just use stone gears in the lab recipe when dytech is detected.
I'll let you decide.

I'll add the use of stone gears to SCT, since I have no control over Dytech, only SCT.

In the mean time I actually removed SCT for now as I wasn't interested in the science cost tweaks to begin with (ironic, I know), and the intermediates, my favorite part, ended up being too cheap due to circumventing bob's intermediates. I took a look at your science intermediates and didn't immediately see an easy way to use bob's intermediates that I liked. I tend to build fairly small scale (compared to what I see other people do), so the cost tweaks didn't make much sense for me, but that may change in the future. Or if you ever feel like integrating bob's intermediates somehow I'd probably pick it back up again as well.

I definitely think this mod is a step in the right direction though, so I will be keeping an eye on it.

I'll take a look at rebalancing the

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sciencecosttweaker.options.bobsmods.useNewOres = true

option. It was last balanced before the new Bob's Electronics mod.

And thanks for being so responsive to all of the issues that I apprently reported to the wrong threads

No worries.

EDIT:
@Timeslice: Could you give me more info as to how the new intermediates were too cheap compared to normal Bob's Intermediates?

• Which tiers of science packs are too cheap? Red? Green? Light Blue? Alien? All of them?
• Is it that they cost too little resources? Or is it that they aren't complex enough? (I.e. do not have enough intermediate steps, so production lines are too easy to setup?)

[Timeslice]

Reds were fine, as bob doesn't change those (dytech does, but I didn't mind that yours cost iron instead of stone, as your intermediates made a compelling argument). Greens weren't too bad, but blues were way off. Here are some flowcharts I slapped together. I didn't remember to indicate the processing machine, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. I didn't cover how to make sulfuric acid or petroleum gas, as there are several ways, and you know what those are anyways.

http://imgur.com/a/uXO8f

Bob also adds a dark blue science pack and several alien science packs, but I don't see any reason for you to worry about those.

*edit*: And I forgot to label the coal...

[UberWaffe]

Reds were fine, as bob doesn't change those (dytech does, but I didn't mind that yours cost iron instead of stone, as your intermediates made a compelling argument). Greens weren't too bad, but blues were way off. Here are some flowcharts I slapped together. I didn't remember to indicate the processing machine, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. I didn't cover how to make sulfuric acid or petroleum gas, as there are several ways, and you know what those are anyways.

http://imgur.com/a/uXO8f

Bob also adds a dark blue science pack and several alien science packs, but I don't see any reason for you to worry about those.

*edit*: And I forgot to label the coal...

Ah, thanks. That will be really helpful.

[hoho]

Greens weren't too bad, but blues were way off.

I think blues are way off only if comparing them to the alien science packs. Alien packs are trivial to make with this mod compared to blues, not *that* much harder than greens.

In other words, I don't personally think that blues are too hard to make but I do think that alien science packs are waaay too simple.

[UberWaffe]

... but I do think that alien science packs are waaay too simple.

Previously I had a comment that with the increased science pack costs, alien science research ended up costing too many artifacts.
Hence why I upped the amount of science packs created per alien artifact.

Would it make sense to make the amount of alien science packs per artifact configurable in the config files?

Or am I guessing wrong and "too simple" refers to something else concerning their production?

[Timeslice]

I... don't think hoho understands that we were talking about Bob's Mods.

[UberWaffe]

I... don't think hoho understands that we were talking about Bob's Mods.

@Timeslice: Even if that is the case, I'm suspecting that the 'too simple alien science packs' is a separate issue on its own.

[Timeslice]

I... don't think hoho understands that we were talking about Bob's Mods.

@Timeslice: Even if that is the case, I'm suspecting that the 'too simple alien science packs' is a separate issue on its own.

I'm not sure it's even an issue at all. They're already made from a finite expendable resource that makes sense to study. It doesn't make sense to study transport belts and inserters. It makes perfect sense to study alien artifacts.

[hoho]

Sorry for the massive delay in replying. I had some RL issues that needed to be taken care of.

First, don't get me wrong. I absolutely love this mod to death. It's made the game MUCH more interesting and challenging for me and probably countless other people as well. Only thing I'm trying to say is that alien science packs are relatively trivial to produce compared to other science packs when taking the respective technology levels into account. I simply assume that higher tier tech should be more complex to produce than lower tier stuff. In other words, I'm attempting to provide constructive criticism. I hope I don't come across as hostile in any way. Feel free to tell me to bugger off if you want, I'd completely understand

I... don't think hoho understands that we were talking about Bob's Mods.

Actually, I've always played with Bob's mods.

When I said I considered alien research packs (sacrificial QL Bio-processors) to be too cheap compared to blue ones (sacrificial atomic manipulator), I meant when playing with this mod + Bobs stuff the production chain complexity for alien pack was trivial compared to blue one. I ignored the cost of resources to make the packs. Though, even material cost is rather low for the alien pack considering on what tier it is.

To make alien packs one only needed two components, one of each:
1) QL bio processor
2) neural overclocker

#1 takes 1 alien artefact and 40x of iron and copper each while producing 30 items as a result
#2 takes some water and 2 iron and copper each while producing 4 items as a result.

So, essentially ignoring melting the plates, to make an alien science pack one needs just three assemblers:
one for each component + one to combine them to the science pack.

In my last game I had just one assembler producing #1 and about 10 producing #2. Getting 30 components for a single "craft" seems like way too high to me. I'd prefer to have less input materials and more processing time so that the amount of assemblers needed for both components would be roughly comparable. Alternatively, having the #1 take more complex source materials would also be fine. Asymmetry isn't inherently bad. I consider it bad in the current case as #1 uses essentially raw resources as input that are pumped out in masses anyway.

Total material cost per alien pack comes down to 2 copper, 2 iron, 1/30'th alien artefact and 1 water. I think in vanilla game (haven't played without mods since around 0.7 so it might be different now) one alien artifact produced 10 science packs so in terms of artifacts, this mod makes it even easier to get the packs than vanilla game. Sure, this mod adds a bit of water, copper and iron to the cost but it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things.


Now, blue pack is put together from two components:
1) femto laser array
2) atomic sensor array

Femto laser array takes four components:
1) femto laser emitter
2) femto laser foci
3) chemical laser flash fuel
4) water

Femto laser emitter takes three components:
1) battery
2) basic electronic board
3) plastic bar
4) sulfuric acid

Not going to go deeper here, surely people know what it takes to produce those components

Femto laser foci takes three components:
1) steel
2) copper
3) sulfuric acid


Chemical laser flash fuel is again three components:
1) steel plate
2) heavy oil
3) light oil

It should be quite clear that it takes dozens of assemblers with different recipes and tons of piping in order to produce the blue science packs. I'd rather not try to calculate how much materials each pack costs (probably not *that* much) but the processing chain itself is insanely more complex compared to the alien science pack. Hell, I'd say the alien science pack production line is roughly comparable to the red science pack and red pack is even harder to make than alien one when using DyTech (DyTech adds stone gears for red science packs).


___

Obviously big part of the complexity for blue science packs comes from Bob's mods and how it drastically changes how electronic stuff is produced (and I'm perfectly happy with that). What I'd like to see is that this mod would make producing alien science packs more complex than it already is. I fully understand that coming up with processing chains isn't exactly simple. I also know this mod is yours and I have no right to tell you how you should do it. I'll be using the mod as-is, I'm just describing what sort of changes would make it even more interesting for me than it already is. Other people might disagree here, of course.

___

I obviously have no idea on what sort of picture you had in your mind when designing the current alien science pack processing chain so I wouldn't be surprised if what I'm about to offer here goes completely against your original ideas. Take this just as some ideas I thought up during typing this reply. I haven't put much thought in it but if you wish, I can try to brainstorm it in more depth.


I like the general idea of it being some sort of mix of quantum physics and bio-processors.
I'd probably add a few steps to process the alien artifacts to make them usable in one or both of the component parts of the final science pack. Perhaps use some sort of fluids to produce different kind of products from the artifacts (e.g sulfuric acid in vanilla and sulfuric-nitric acid mixture with Bobs mods. Something completely new is also always a possibility). Those products might be combined further with different types of electronics and/or chemicals and perhaps even production modules before reaching the final two components for the science pack. E.g speed and efficiency modules might make sense. Perhaps the alien artifact products might be in fluid form as well. I know many people don't really like messing with piping but I consider it as extra challenge when designing the layouts of my base.

[hoho]

I'd also say that I consider the artifact cost of the science packs to be somewhat of a low side, at least when playing with Bobs mods.

Main reason is that by the time one even reaches the level where they start building alien science packs, they'll likely have thousands of small artifacts from the mobs that attack their base. Not to mention a whole bunch more from clearing out the nests for expansion. If one uses production modules for combining the artifacts they'll likely have *way* more of them they can ever use.

I know that technically, artifacts aren't something you can mine or produce easily as you can with other resources. I don't agree that they are scarce by any way.


Though, again, I play with Bobs mods. It might be completely different when not using them. On the whole, yes, I'd like if it was possible to configure the amount of alien artifacts to be used if people really do have different experience with abundance of the artifacts in their games.

[UberWaffe]

In other words, I'm attempting to provide constructive criticism.

No worries, I understand it as such.
When I use the term "issue" I am using in this https://help.github.com/articles/github-glossary/#issue context.

... the whole post...

I'm starting to lean more and more towards expanding the config options to include more modular options for science pack recipes as well.
I'll have to play a bit with how the config is structured and things get loaded / picked, but that will should ultimately give more flexibility in letting people customize it further.

The reason I mention this, is because the original reason I had upped the number of alien science packs per alien artifact to 30 (from 10) is because there were comments about the increased science costs requiring too many artifacts.
Along with that, the general design approach was to keep alien science pack costs 'somewhat' similar to vanilla costs (or either vanilla Factorio or 'vanilla' Bob's mods).

What I'll do:
I'll basically expand the flexibility of the config option (and the default included config files) to allow for more variety in science pack costs.

I'll probably only still actively maintain vanilla and Bob's mods configs, but the new planned configs should make it possible for other people to post config files for inclusion in the mod.
https://github.com/UberWaffe/ScienceCos ... r/issues/2

[Timeslice]

That's a great idea, UberWaffe.

@hoho, while I can't speak to the scaled research costs to research tech that needs purple packs (it may indeed need a lower output) as I haven't played with SCT that far, but the original (core factorio) design philosophy behind the alien science packs was not as an ultimate expression of science and technology, but as a mechanism to ensure that the player actually went out and conquered some of the world, and a utilization of a resource which doesn't come from the player (you can get iron and copper from "plenty" of places in the universe).

To that end while I don't really support the idea of making alien science packs significantly more complex, tweaking the output is obviously a great thing to focus on for balance.

And depending on how comprehensive UberWaffe wants to make his new configs it sounds like we can both be happy

[UberWaffe]

New version 0.12.10 is uploaded.
Changelog:

• Cost config files no longer have to specify multipliers for all possible research. Research tiers without specific multipliers are simply ignored.
• Changed science pack costs to use a more modular config approach. Should make more config options easier to implement.
• Added noadjustment science pack config option as well. "Tweak all the nothings!".
• Added cheaper alien (vanilla) science pack config. Which modifies the normal vanilla config. (This is an example of configs that use and then modify other configs).
• Added science cost multiplier config - darkmatteronly.

I have not yet created a science pack config option for very complex alien science packs in vanilla or Bobsmods, but all the work to easily support such a config option is done.

I'd love to hear more suggestions as to what a 'complex' production chain for alien science packs in Bobsmods would look like.

[hoho]

I've seen that this mod changes the recipes of science packs some time before data_final_fixes.lua gets run. This means whenever some other mod changes the recipes it'll either override the recipes or as it's the case for me, adds the components of whatever the other mod adds.

E.g Natural Evolution mod attempts to double the cost of science packs (turned on by default) by first removing the *original* ingredients and then adding whatever cost it was:

Code: Select all

	function ChangeRecipe(Name, Ingredient1, Ingredient2, Amount)
		for k, v in pairs(data.raw["recipe"][Name].ingredients) do
			if v[1] == Ingredient1 then table.remove(data.raw["recipe"][Name].ingredients, k) end
		end
	table.insert(data.raw["recipe"][Name].ingredients,{Ingredient2, Amount})
	end

	ChangeRecipe("science-pack-1", "copper-plate", "copper-plate", 2)

This code doesn't remove the ingredients this mod sets them to and it adds the vanilla-style ingredients on top of it.

I'm not sure how to handle this. I've made a hacky "fix" for myself by just adding require("tweaks.tweakedsciencepacks") at the end of this mods data-final-fixes.lua. I'll report this to natural evolution mod as well as it'd probably make more sense to change it on that side.

[UberWaffe]

@hoho:
Thanks for reporting this.

Your 'hacky' fix isn't a hacky fix at all. That is in fact what should happen.

Currently

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require("tweaks.tweakedsciencepacks")

resides in 0_initial.lua (For both vanilla and bobsmods directories).
It should in fact be moved the the 2_final.lua files as you did.
I've moved them to just below the

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require("tweaks.newlabs")

in the 2_final.lua files.

This fix will be part of the next release, for which I first want to play some Factorio again and get a good idea how to handle the new science packs from Bobingabout's mods.
Until then your above fix should work.

[Timeslice]

I see you posted an update to solve the recipe cost issue with bob's mods. Excellent (thank you)! I wish I'd noticed that before I got 10 hours into this world without using the bob's settings...
Unlike vanilla labs your labs don't have module slots. Was this a deliberate decision, or an oversight? Or have you changed it and I'm just dumb?