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

[UberWaffe]

@Ratzap:
I'm glad you seem to be enjoying it. It does take a bit of getting use to in comparison to vanilla science.

Yeah, the science facilities can get rather ridiculous.
It gets better once you have some stable resources coming in.
In my current Bob's Mod + Science Overhaul Mod + RSO play-through I am playing with a rather harsh modifier to science costs of 1x, 6x, 25x, 100x.
Part of me cringes at how slow I am progressing, but then again it is the first time ever that I actually can build and upgrade my factory at roughly the same pace as I research. (I am yet to skip a tier of tech entirely).

The science setup is crazy though, and I by no means have enough oil to keep it running, but at least it is large enough to ramp up if I ever manage to secure more.
(Summary: I have very high cost increase config, I built big enough to cater for late game, cannot possibly keep all running right now, but fun... I think. )
(Note: Also playing with Bob's mods, so recipes differ slightly.)

Science Labs

SCT_Labs.jpg (799.29 KiB) Viewed 9458 times

Red and Green science

SCT_RedGreen.jpg (834.55 KiB) Viewed 9458 times

Blue science

SCT_Blue.jpg (716.72 KiB) Viewed 9458 times

Sidenote: I found that not using advanced oil cracking usually gives you enough light and heavy oil for the blue science, but tends to cause problems with enough petroleum gas for plastic. (As you can see that is my limiter at the moment).
I'm starting to use coal-to-oil cracking (Bob's mods version) and that is helping. But yeah... oil... black gold... terrible and precious.

[Ratzap]

That's very orderly, did you plan it out in advance or just keep redoing it till it fit right? I'm thinking you have a few days racked up in that save

[UberWaffe]

@Ratzap: Yeah, quite a few days.
I've also done other designs in other plays before, and I know the ratios since I coded it, so this design has had quite a bit of 'pre-planning' done.
This current base on this playthrough is probably my proudest work in Factorio so far.
Nowhere near any megabases I've seen on youtube, but its mine, so there's that.

[Ratzap]

That's a big part of the satisfaction from playing Factorio, zooming out and thinking 'I did this, I placed everything here'. And acres of concrete OFC.

[IhanaMies]

@Uberwaffe

I have a weird problem with bobsmods where I can't craft the intermediate products for blue (tier 3) science or the 3rd science lab. I have battery technology researched which should enable the recipes but it doesn't. I can make green science packs and tier 2 lab with your intermediate products. I also have marathon mod and a mod I made for my personal use, but they do not interfere with your mod or any of the prerequisites. Beats me

Edit: This is what I mean

Pictures

Shows the recipe


Doesn't list the ingredients or is shown in inventory crafting screen


Lab shown


But not in inventory

Edit 2: I got it working using /c game.player.force.technologies["battery"].researched = false and re-researching battery technology. I have no idea what was the cause

[UberWaffe]

@IhanaMies:

Have you been using this mod for a while?
I know I had this issue (batteries does not unlock recipes) in mod version 0.12.7, the migration script for that version is supposed to handle that...

Glad you could find a way around it though.
Sorry about the wasted science packs. But I guess the mod is supposed to make science harder so... yay?

[IhanaMies]

@Uberwaffe
Only for this playthrough. There is so much to do and craft that I don't really have time to worry about science packs. Bobsmod + marathon + rso + my own tweakmod (which makes many recipes even harder to make) and extended config of this has kept me quite busy
Really good job with this mod! Love it!

[OvermindDL1]

Slight bug - you can't hide making resin craftable by hand - no ability to craft red science pack then since they need resin.

Drat! Missed that entirely.

EDIT: Hotfix added.

I am curious if you could make this a configurable option? On my server we have a craftable burner assembler that works with recipes of a single item, so we can make resin, so it would be nice to change this back for us.

Also, have you put thought into overhauling bobsmods Science Pack 4's (the Dark Blue ones) in the same vein as the others? Would be fantastic to have it fit in the vein of everything else, and right now it is a lot cheaper than Science Pack 3's / Light Blue. Would also be nice to get the same treatment as was done for the Alien packs for the other 6 bobsmods alien packs as well if possible?

We have almost 4 days in this server so far, and our pollution output has caused... biter issues (the past day has been working on reducing the pollution significantly and setting up about 300 air filters around the outskirts, which has slowed the biter attacks significantly, but their evolution is still near 100%), so we are based on an island with a very well fortified entrance. ^.^
Not yet hit blue science, but should build that today finally. The base is already large and we have far far more to build...

Base Map

[UberWaffe]

@OvermindDL1:
I'll take a look to adding an easier config option for it in a future patch.
For now, you can adjust it yourself by removing this line:

Code: Select all

-- Make resin craftable by hand, so that we can use it in science pack crafting.
	data.raw.recipe["bob-resin-wood"].category = "crafting"

in "ScienceCostTweaker\tweaks\bobsmods\2_final.lua"

Since your game has already started, you might need to run:

Code: Select all

for index, force in pairs(game.forces) do
  force.reset_recipes()
  force.reset_technologies()
end

In the console command.

In my current multiplayer playthrough I'm also up to Dark Blue science packs.
I've started working on overhauling the Dark Blue science packs, but the new version isn't ready yet.

As for custom recipes for all 6 new bobsmods alien packs. Not soon. Unless someone else helps out and submits their work.

Really nice base by the way.
On our game we are mostly doing the expansionist thing, in that we are slapping up massively long walls everywhere we can to keep the aliens out, slowly capturing more and more territory. And everyone, planet included, is paying for it.
Several times I've had to check myself for run-away hairdo's, tiny square mustaches, and / or wearing laurels.

Very ungreen, much red, cough

20160419084337_1.jpg (333.26 KiB) Viewed 9251 times

[OvermindDL1]

@OvermindDL1:
I'll take a look to adding an easier config option for it in a future patch.
For now, you can adjust it yourself by removing this line:

Code: Select all

-- Make resin craftable by hand, so that we can use it in science pack crafting.
	data.raw.recipe["bob-resin-wood"].category = "crafting"

in "ScienceCostTweaker\tweaks\bobsmods\2_final.lua"


Since your game has already started, you might need to run:

Code: Select all

for index, force in pairs(game.forces) do
  force.reset_recipes()
  force.reset_technologies()
end

In the console command.

We are actually almost done with this game. It is mostly a 'hardmode tutorial server' that I am teaching a couple of others how to play a hard modded factorio (my usual base looks substantially different, trying to find an image as I know I have some but not finding them... >.>) and we have almost researched everything. About to start a new server in the next few days with a few more mods (Angel Processing, it basically does to the game what BobsMods did to the late game but to the early game, new processing systems, mining is different, ores have a center chunk of slow/infinite ore surrounded by the usual patch of normal ores to keep mining bases useful as we run trains out, etc...). We have a few hundred research labs (bobs mods mk2 labs, the ones that take all 5 research types, any chance on replacing his lab as well and recipes? They are far too easy) so researching even with this mod is... significantly faster now. Most of the base is dedicated to making things for research and train station bringing in resources to make things for research.

In my current multiplayer playthrough I'm also up to Dark Blue science packs.
I've started working on overhauling the Dark Blue science packs, but the new version isn't ready yet.

Ooo, awesome, I look forward! Perhaps changing the recipe for his lab, upping the power cost (2.5 - 4MW perhaps?), and maybe removing the module capability of it? ^.^

As for custom recipes for all 6 new bobsmods alien packs. Not soon. Unless someone else helps out and submits their work.

Honestly I'd probably just say copy/paste the circuitry for the purple ones and copy it to the 6 new colors, they are all 'the same thing' so the recipes would still make sense just using the respective colors. Even my recoloring texturing skills are poor (I'm a programmer, not an artist ^.^) but if I get time I will try.

Really nice base by the way.
On our game we are mostly doing the expansionist thing, in that we are slapping up massively long walls everywhere we can to keep the aliens out, slowly capturing more and more territory. And everyone, planet included, is paying for it.
Several times I've had to check myself for run-away hairdo's, tiny square mustaches, and / or wearing laurels.

That is what I usually do, 3-thick wall with 6-thick turret-wall behind that and a belt of ammo outside that with inserters passing it 'up' the turret line to the wall and eventually little bases of drones to repair with trains supplying once I get mk4 roboports. You should have seen our current base a couple of days ago, evolution was 100%, pollution was this red cloud permeating to the mainland in vast swaths and everything was angry. There are also mods installed that increase biter/spitter difficulty substantially but they also reduce evolution a little bit during attack waves and various other bits, so the evolution is pretty directly related to how much pollution you are pumping out, regardless of if it reaches spawners or not. Makes you acutely aware of keeping your pollution down in a non-island game as having 80 (buffed) behemoths on your walls, even with the turret setup I usually do, still involves many things exploding. >.>

Very ungreen, much red, cough

Nice train network! We only have 6 stops out-of-island right now but even with the aliens I am trying to show off to the other two players how awesome trains are in Factorio.
If you (or anyone) is interested in my hardmode teaching pack (god modules and such are enabled, though still good luck researching them, but this is not my usual truly hard pack, I'm still building a new one for my next game) I always have it up for my server people to download from at: http://files.minecraftforge.net/Overmin ... tory3e.zip (Edit, updated link to 'e' due to fixing an angels processing bug)

[UberWaffe]

@OvermindDL1:

Ooo, awesome, I look forward! Perhaps changing the recipe for his lab, upping the power cost (2.5 - 4MW perhaps?), and maybe removing the module capability of it? ^.^

I've upped the power usage (and removed the x2 speed boost) of the lab Mk2 in the new version. Changes not on github yet though.

Honestly I'd probably just say copy/paste the circuitry for the purple ones and copy it to the 6 new colors, they are all 'the same thing' so the recipes would still make sense just using the respective colors.

That should be easy enough. I'll try and include that.
My modding is very slow going at the moment.

[OvermindDL1]

@OvermindDL1:

Ooo, awesome, I look forward! Perhaps changing the recipe for his lab, upping the power cost (2.5 - 4MW perhaps?), and maybe removing the module capability of it? ^.^

I've upped the power usage (and removed the x2 speed boost) of the lab Mk2 in the new version. Changes not on github yet though.

Honestly I'd probably just say copy/paste the circuitry for the purple ones and copy it to the 6 new colors, they are all 'the same thing' so the recipes would still make sense just using the respective colors.

That should be easy enough. I'll try and include that.
My modding is very slow going at the moment.

Looking forward! Will be another few days until we start up the new game too, we just entered the end-game on this teaching island and are now completing all research (have a couple hundred labs researching, even the 200k researches are going fast).

[OvermindDL1]

Starting new server now, how goes? ^.^

[UberWaffe]

Tomorrow is a public holiday here. I'll try and get it out then.
No promises though. Kerbals are highly distracting.

[OvermindDL1]

Tomorrow is a public holiday here. I'll try and get it out then.
No promises though. Kerbals are highly distracting.

Heh, yeah I hear that, sadly KSP broke fonts for me on their last update (fonts have vanished! Wtf...) so its been out for me since their latest update.
We should not even have blue yet by tomorrow (maybe even day after) so all good so far.

[UberWaffe]

@OvermindDL1:
I've got a version up on github if you do not mind placeholder graphics.
I think I have a 'different' approach for the dark blue science packs going, and some input would be appreciated.
I think I might need to put up a flowchart for this, but I'd first like some feedback.
Robots will be the easy cop-out. Smart inserters of some form will probably be needed otherwise.
(Note: The ratio is the usual 4 final assemblers for each 1x step 2 assembler for each 1x step 1 assembler).

Also, I haven't gotten to overhauling all the bob's mod science packs.

I'll have them ready for 0.12.15 which will be the next 'official' release, once this is tested a bit more.

EDIT: Already found a bug. Ratio for new packs is off. Intermediates have an assembly time of 30, should be 15.

[IhanaMies]

Damn you! Now I have to redo a 10 chunk Dark Blue Science factory

EDIT: Quick math with Foreman to produce 500 science packs per minute to research tech in reasonable amount of time.
Bobsmods and marathon with your extended option. No modules or robots.

I need:

• Assembler MK 6: 461!
  Electronics Assembler MK 3: 281
  Chemical Plant MK 4: 253
  Electrolyser MK 4: 236
  Electric Chemical Mixing Furnace MK 4 (Crafting Speed 4): 567!!
  Mining Drill MK 4: 281!
  Oil Refinery MK 2 (Crafting Speed 4): 172!!!
  Oil Pump MK 4: 276!!!!!!!!

Easy peazy. You need to make it harder than that

Few things I'd like to see. Using Processing Boards instead of Electronic Logic Board in both VP Core Components (Tier 2) and VP Control (Tier 2) sub-steps and add CPU's to VP Control (Tier 2).

Add Titanium or Copper Tungsten Alloy to VP Containment Plating (Tier 3).

Add Tungsten Oxide to VP Energy Components (Tier 2). Tungsten Oxide is used in various types of infrared absorbing coatings and foils (Wikipedia).

Very interesting productiong chain indeed. But it certainly needs some tweaking. Or I need a biiiig factory

[UberWaffe]

@IhanaMies:
Foreman sounds really useful. I should probably learn how to use it so that I can do some easy sanity checking.

That said, 500 blue science packs a minute is a heck of a lot (at least for me personally).
What I do with blue and golden science packs is that I buffer them a lot (i.e. produce them and store them into chests).
Then I do a research that requires them once I have enough in storage to complete the research.
Inbetween I do other research that only requires the usual red, green, light blue, and alien. Giving the buffers time to refill on the slower to craft packs.
(I admit, I have not yet gotten to doing the research that takes 100,000 of the dark blue science packs).

[Useless side trivia]
Also, I play with a personal tweak mod that makes the overall cost of circuits much cheaper (as well as how many are used in various recipes), but ups the plate and alloy instead.
Mainly because I find it extremely annoying that everything seems to be made by panel-beating circuits together.
(I'm looking at you Factorio campaign plane.)
That said, it does mean that my ratios are usually way off from what everyone else uses.
[/Useless side trivia]

With regards to the suggestions:
Processing boards , CPU's , Copper Tungsten Alloy and (I think) Tungsten Oxide are gated behind dark blue science. So... you know... chickens, eggs, and quantum paradoxes.

I'll add Titanium in some fashion (I want to avoid going over 6 ingredients per assembler).

[NoriSilverrage]

Foreman is cool, but I really like Factorio Planner. Has some nifty features Foreman doesn't have, though it won't load current game items/mods so that's a bummer. I think someone was working on a Bob mod config for it though.

[OvermindDL1]

Starting a single player game with the latest github `master` so I can test, unsure how long it will take to get to dark blue, my single player games are one step past hell difficulty (you have no idea how valuable bob's `green` modules become, keeping evolution down is beyond paramount, not just the map redness, but actual pollution itself since the pollution production of your machines raises evolution, not just what is wafting through the air). I can put it up on my site if anyone wants a copy of my usual SP packs.