My experice with Bobs mod (and some suggestions)

[Catbert]

First i want to say i love Bobs mod. All the realism is great!

After playing a while with it here is what i have observed so far:

- The electrolyser and H2-> solid fuel processes are much too efficient. I suggest a minimal electrolyser power of 450kW like the refinery and 48x H2 for a piece of solid fuel. I read in the forum about a perpetual motion device with burners and H2 generation. I did not build this setup but i used solar panels for H2->solid fuel generation and burned it in furnances and it was much more efficient than electric furnances. But i think it should not be this way.

- What i noticed it is that there is incredible depth in ores etc. but still only a few paths to go through the game. This is very nice at early game and totally like technical evolution (with lead production as a good example). My suggestion is to open up the game in midgame more so more possibilities arrive. For example, hydrogen would be great if it can be used some more, like direct iron reduction to produce steel (8x iron + 2x hydrogen = 2x steel).

- The god modules are too good and ease up things to much, and come quite early. I would remove them, the normal modules are strong enough already.

Still testing bobs warfare, lots of different and interesting possibilities there

[bobingabout]

I pretty much agree with everything you said.

I'm going to re-examine the whole electrolysis thing, make them more expensive, and reduce the amount of sodium hydroxide you get from salt water electrolysis.
The big issue with hydrogen is because you can turn it into solid fuel (Which more realistically would have a high carbon content, not that hydrogen isn't a good fuel, it's just not "Solid"), perhaps doing so could require coal as well, as a coal to solid fuel upgrade? (And there's your carbon content for fuel blocks)

Okay, smelting. I see what you're saying, Lead has 3 recipes, you can just stick it in a furnace and smelt it, you can make lead oxide, and smelt that instead (though it strikes me at far less energy efficient, the only advantage is that you get sulfur dioxide from it, which can be used to make sulfuric acid), or you can reduce it with other resources to gain a little extra lead, and silver too. The only other metal that has such a process is Copper, that gives Cobalt oxide, which is a much needed product in the later game.
So, if I understand what you're suggesting, I should put in some extra higher end smelting recipes similar to the multiple stages I have with lead for the other metals too. low end materials like iron and copper could easily allow for such things, where higher end metals like Aluminium, Titanium and Tungsten are already complex enough.

God modules are overpowered almost on purpose, hence the name God. I think the easiest solution for them (And what I intend to do for the 0.13 release) is simply to disable them by default, forcing you to use the config mod to turn them on if you want them.

[Catbert]

Thanks for the reply.

About smelting: Recipes should be about iron, copper and coal. These are the ones where investing in technology to increase efficiency is the most interesting, because they are used most.
For example, i love the Yuoki washing process where you can dense up iron and copper by washing them, then have the washing water refined into mud from which you can refine more advanced materials.
A more realistic version with coal sorting or pressing would be great!

Another thing i noticed: Solar panels don't upgrade very well. It is not worth upgrading for such a small increase in efficiency. I suggest solar panels upgrade gives more power, like +60% or maybe even +100% (that would also reflect real world technical advance).

[SkyFyre42]

Good points, I agree as well ^^ Except for solar panels, they seem to be plenty strong once produced in bulk at tier 3. Maybe a slight increase for the accumulators as well though if you are going to bump things up


I really came here with a related question though. I noticed your library docs weren't finished, and wanted to know if there was a function I could use to make that sodium hydroxide change as a temporary tweak in my mod.
Because seriously, I have chests and chests of the stuff XD

[bobingabout]

I honestly forgot what I havn't done yet

Recipe's have limited functions

function bobmods.lib.replace_recipe_item (recipe, old, new)
function bobmods.lib.replace_recipe_item_crude (recipe, old, new)
function bobmods.lib.replace_item_all_recipes (old, new)
function bobmods.lib.remove_recipe_item (recipe, item)

function bobmods.lib.add_new_recipe_item (recipe, item)
function bobmods.lib.add_recipe_item (recipe, item)

recipe is always just the NAME of the recipe, as listed on the name= tag.
old and new are both always the item's name.
And this is where it gets confusing, for remove, the item variable is the items name, as with old and new
But for the two that add an item, it is a full recipe ingredient listing (Should probably rename that to ingredient instead of item) that can take the {"name", amount} format, or the {name="name", amount=amount, type=type} format.

All 3 replace_recipe_item functions will find old, and replace it with new, like for like quantity.
replace_recipe_item will delete the old one, then add the new using remove_recipe_item then add_recipe_item.
replace_recipe_item_crude finds the instance of old, and renames it to new, this works as long as you're replacing a like for like with the type tag, otherwise it will cause a crash like "Error, no such item ID "Water"", or "Error, no such fluid ID "wood"".
replace_all_recipe_item doesn't need a recipe name because it will search in every single recipe in the game, and replace the item if found. This is best used if you're trying to remove an item from the game without breaking recipes that use it that aren't in your mod.

remove_recipe_item is fairly obvious, it removes the named item from the recipe.
add_recipe_item will add the amount of the item to the recipe, if the item already exists there or not, if it does, the quantity is added to it.
add_new_recipe_item will add the item ONLY if it isn't already listed.


As you can see, these all change ingredients only, not results... I should add some more functions for these, I already have a function somewhere in item manipulation section... lets give a full list

function bobmods.lib.item (inputs)
This one will take {name="name", amount=amount, type=type} etc, including all optional tags like probability, min_amount, max_amount etc, and build it into a fully complete item table. EG, if you miss amount, and don't specify min or max, it will set amount=1 for you. This is perfect for creating an entry for results= on recipes or resources.

function bobmods.lib.get_item_type(name)
This function will take the Item's name, and return what type of item it is, be it fluid, tool, mining-tool etc, whatever it is, it will return it.

function bobmods.lib.get_basic_item_type(name)
This function does the same as the previous, but only returns either item or fluid (some things like recipes will want item listed as it's type, rather than tool etc)

[Ice Forge]

Good points, I agree as well ^^ Except for solar panels, they seem to be plenty strong once produced in bulk at tier 3. Maybe a slight increase for the accumulators as well though if you are going to bump things up


I really came here with a related question though. I noticed your library docs weren't finished, and wanted to know if there was a function I could use to make that sodium hydroxide change as a temporary tweak in my mod.
Because seriously, I have chests and chests of the stuff XD

I had chests and chests of it until i started making aluminium plate's in large scale....

[Catbert]

After playing some more Bobs mod here are more ideas i have to enhance experience with Bobs world:

Coal: Like i said, there should be advanced coal processes. Here are my suggestions so far:
- Coal de-sulfuring: Researching sulfur enables a process 5x coal -> 4x desulfured coal + 1x sulfur. Desulfured coal burns 1/3 cleaner and 1/3 longer. For Carbon production, it gives 1/3 more carbon.
- Coal pressing: Coal press 1 uses titan to manufacture (so it does not come too early) and gives coal that has 2x density, works for normal and desulfured coal. Coal press 2 uses tungsten parts and adds another 50% density.

Battery and accumulator: I think there is room for improvement of handling of batteries/accumulator. Like the poster before me mentioned, batteries do not upgrade well. Here is my suggestion:

- Enable with lithium research a second basic accumulator using li-ion batteries. It has 1,5x power and capacity of lead accumulator. The MK2 accumulator (the combination of lead + li-ion), then gives the combined power, that is 2,5x power and 2,5x capacity of the basic lead accumulator. That is because it is reasonable to assume that an accumulator only based on li-ion batteries (without lead batteries) is viable too. The same thing should work for MK3 accumulator as well.

Solar panel upgrades: I believe that solar panel handling can be improved, here are my suggestions:

- Basic solar panel uses silicon ore to manufacture.
- MK2 solar panel uses wafer, and doubles output power.
- MK3 solar panel uses CPU board, again doubles output power.
My argument is that in the real world, solar panels also cover a wider range of efficiency. A horrible solar panel will have a efficiency of 2% and a good one 20%. So even a factor of 10 between the weakest and best solar panel would not be unrealistic.

As for iron processing, i still suggest direct iron reduction using hydrogen, and some additional processes with more dense iron products. Just to give an example, the low density structure of the rocket could use another iron product instead of steel which can be produced using more advanced processes, so that it does not use 10x steel but maybe 3x of another in-between-product. This should be implemented as a choice, so you can build a rocket the classic way or using more advanced processes.

So far so good, will post an update if i have more ideas

[bobingabout]

Another thing I've noticed about Iron ore (While looking it up on the internet), is that it's full of all sorts of crap and impurities. It's actually a viable source of numerous other ores I've added.

Coal to Sulfur is actually a reasonable idea as an alternative to getting sulfur from petroleum gas, though I should be looking for more gas uses, not less of them, if you take out the sulfur and the plastics, what's left?


And with the accumulators... well, My theory as to why you start with a basic, then split into 3 specialisations (Slow, fast and high capacity) is that you don't need a MK2 "Basic", because it isn't basic anymore. My High Capacity Accumulator is basically a MK2 basic.

[Catbert]

Coal to Sulfur is actually a reasonable idea as an alternative to getting sulfur from petroleum gas, though I should be looking for more gas uses, not less of them, if you take out the sulfur and the plastics, what's left?

Well you don't have to "take out" anything in that case. You could add more plastic recipes that are more or less efficient. So just adding another plastic recipe with heavy oil for example, that uses 20% less resources and is 30% faster is fine too i guess. You need LOTS of plastic anyway

About accumulators: There could be a li-ion accumulator on the level the High Capacity Accumulator (MK2), as an alternate recipe to get an accumulator with different resources. Then the next upgrade would be combining li-ion accumulator and lead-acid accumulator.

[Catbert]

I just stumbled on this: http://www.essentialchemicalindustry.or ... opene.html

There really is a process to use petrol gas to make plastic, so there is no need to "throw it out".

But if you are looking for more uses for petrol gas: How about a gas turbine that generates electricity? Like in the real world, it could be cleaner than coal, producing about half the pollution.

[bobingabout]

But if you are looking for more uses for petrol gas: How about a gas turbine that generates electricity? Like in the real world, it could be cleaner than coal, producing about half the pollution.

That's like, pretty much how 50% of power in the UK comes from.
Anyway, I'm kind of waiting untill official support for using fluids as fuels happens (Which might be 0.14 now) before I add a fluid fuel.

[Catbert]

I have an idea that solves the hydrogen->solid fuel problem:

1. Change petrol gas cracking so that you get hydrogen + coal
2. Make a reverse cracking process hydrogen + coal = petrol gas
3. Delete hydrogen to solid fuel recipe. Then the path from hydrogen to solid fuel is using petrol gas.

[bobingabout]

I have an idea that solves the hydrogen->solid fuel problem:

1. Change petrol gas cracking so that you get hydrogen + coal
2. Make a reverse cracking process hydrogen + coal = petrol gas
3. Delete hydrogen to solid fuel recipe. Then the path from hydrogen to solid fuel is using petrol gas.

It's not a bad idea, but I've already re-written it for the next release so that you need coal and hydrogen to make fuel blocks, you know, to see how it goes.