[MOD 0.18] Orbital Ion Cannon 1.8.2

[OvermindDL1]

Have you thought about adding research that increases the damage and ups the damage range of the ion cannon strike? Would be some fantastic late game expensive research.

[bNarFProfCrazy]

Created a german translation for this mod:
https://github.com/Suprcheese/Orbital-Ion-Cannon/pull/1

Thanks for this mod.

[Supercheese]

Created a german translation for this mod:
https://github.com/Suprcheese/Orbital-Ion-Cannon/pull/1

Thanks for this mod.

You're welcome, and thanks for the translation. It is merged on Github and will be added in the next version.

[doggie015]

This is a seriously awesome mod. Although it's a bit too OP in Peaceful mode. It really should tick off the surviving biters to seek out and attack your home base after firing. But that's a minor issue and I am certainly enjoying the 1-button alien artifact farming ability.

[Supercheese]

New update, version 1.1.0.

The most significant change is the addition of two new Announcer voice styles to choose from, similar to the Red Alerts mod (specifically the final two voices there): Tiberian Sun EVA & Tiberian Sun CABAL. Select your favorite voice in config.lua!

[Qon]

I love this mod. It is great for a little late game fun. One addition that might be fun. A radar targeting facility. Once constructed, orbital ion cannons could be placed in automatic mode. In automatic mode, they will automatically target any biter spawners in active radar range. Note that they will only target spawners, not individual biters. They will also only target those that show up in current active radar. You might also want to add a little logic so that if two cannons become ready at the same time they don't target spawners immediately adjacent to each other.

+1
Factorio is about automation. If OIC could be used as base defence to replace turrets in the late game that would turn it into something useful for defence and not just for manual offence. Manual only is the biggest weakness atm imo. Might try it even if you don't add this but I'm not sure.

[Sedar]

I love this mod. It is great for a little late game fun. One addition that might be fun. A radar targeting facility. Once constructed, orbital ion cannons could be placed in automatic mode. In automatic mode, they will automatically target any biter spawners in active radar range. Note that they will only target spawners, not individual biters. They will also only target those that show up in current active radar. You might also want to add a little logic so that if two cannons become ready at the same time they don't target spawners immediately adjacent to each other.

+1
Factorio is about automation. If OIC could be used as base defence to replace turrets in the late game that would turn it into something useful for defence and not just for manual offence. Manual only is the biggest weakness atm imo. Might try it even if you don't add this but I'm not sure.

Cool idea, could be called an auto clearing the planet. For example with each launched ion cannon you will obtained an "ion cannon controller", like modules, and you can put this controller in different buildings, like radar or so, wich will be control this cannon for autofire.

[Quazar]

Oh my goodness, putting this on the must-try list for my next planet! Personally I have no trouble with OP mods, that one needs to work to set up.

Currently enjoying Depleted Uranium Rounds with the occasional Nuke Shell for grins, but this looks even better that way

[BreathlessBanana]

Me and a friend used this mod on our world and we got a problem we launched it it loaded up fine we made the device but when we try to fire it somewhere it allways says friendly character in critical proximity zone even if we zoom out and try to place it in the corner

[Supercheese]

Me and a friend used this mod on our world and we got a problem we launched it it loaded up fine we made the device but when we try to fire it somewhere it allways says friendly character in critical proximity zone even if we zoom out and try to place it in the corner

This happens if you are also using the Long Reach mod. To fix, go into config.lua and disable the proximity check:

Code: Select all

-- When designating an ion cannon target, perform a check to see if any friendly character is too close to the target zone.
-- It is strongly recommended to disable this check if you are using the "Long Reach" mod, since a side effect of that mod causes the radius of this check to excessively increase.
proximityCheck = false

[BreathlessBanana]

Thank you very much i kinda guessed it is the long reach mod ^^

[AbyssalMage]

In the Ion cannon mod Compact and Full are mixed up
(just to let you know)

[Supercheese]

In the Ion cannon mod Compact and Full are mixed up
(just to let you know)

When you have only 1, yeah -- but not when you have 50 ion cannons in orbit

[Qon]

Bug: Can't be crafted in assembly machine 3 because of it's 8 ingredient recipe. You should not create recipes that can only be hand crafted. It goes against the purpose of the game. Instead of having everything a satellite needs + some more stuff, the recipe should use a satellite + some more stuff. Less items in the recipe to worry about and an Ion cannon is a satellite with a cannon on anyways.

Ion cannons needs 3 hits to kill behemoth biters. Seems a bit weak to me, destroyer capsules (+ maybe some plasma shotgun shells lol) are superior and cheaper. Plasma shells aren't really balanced though but there's still destroyers as comparison. 1 or maybe 2 if it fired with less delay from targeting seems reasonable.

Instead of giving Ion cannons a limit on how many times they can be used, make a nuclear warhead instead that can be used once but has a bigger radious. The warhead is inserted into the rocket and those work like Ion cannons but have a one time use. Maybe.

And after testing this I still feel that automated targeting is the most needed feature for this. Even with satellite uplink it's a chore to travel with your target marker to the closest native homes when they are far away. With automated targeting there needs to be some degree of control though. I mine some alien bases for small alien artifacts and don't want those targeted. But it would be awesome to replace turret defence with Ion cannons, especially for remote outposts.

Maybe the klaxon sound should also only play one at a time instead when using in quick succession.

[Supercheese]

Bug: Can't be crafted in assembly machine 3 because of it's 8 ingredient recipe. You should not create recipes that can only be hand crafted. It goes against the purpose of the game. Instead of having everything a satellite needs + some more stuff, the recipe should use a satellite + some more stuff. Less items in the recipe to worry about and an Ion cannon is a satellite with a cannon on anyways.

Ion cannons needs 3 hits to kill behemoth biters. Seems a bit weak to me, destroyer capsules (+ maybe some plasma shotgun shells lol) are superior and cheaper. Plasma shells aren't really balanced though but there's still destroyers as comparison. 1 or maybe 2 if it fired with less delay from targeting seems reasonable.

Instead of giving Ion cannons a limit on how many times they can be used, make a nuclear warhead instead that can be used once but has a bigger radious. The warhead is inserted into the rocket and those work like Ion cannons but have a one time use. Maybe.

And after testing this I still feel that automated targeting is the most needed feature for this. Even with satellite uplink it's a chore to travel with your target marker to the closest native homes when they are far away. With automated targeting there needs to be some degree of control though. I mine some alien bases for small alien artifacts and don't want those targeted. But it would be awesome to replace turret defence with Ion cannons, especially for remote outposts.

Maybe the klaxon sound should also only play one at a time instead when using in quick succession.

For Assembling Machine 3, the mod has featured the following code for quite some time:

Code: Select all

if not data.raw["assembling-machine"]["assembling-machine-4"] then
	data.raw["assembling-machine"]["assembling-machine-3"].ingredient_count = 8
end

If you can't craft them in your game, then it is likely because you have mods and thus must use an Assembler Mk4 for them.

With default settings, it should take 2 blasts to kill Behemoth Biters, the only enemies that can withstand a single blast. This is intentional, but you are free to edit the config file to adjust the damage as you see fit.

I would like to make a separate ICBM mod that will feature single-launch warheads with a much larger area of effect (as opposed to the re-usability of ion cannons).

Finally, I am already on track for automated targeting. I'm testing a mod for that now.

[Qon]

For Assembling Machine 3, the mod has featured the following code for quite some time:

Code: Select all

if not data.raw["assembling-machine"]["assembling-machine-4"] then
	data.raw["assembling-machine"]["assembling-machine-3"].ingredient_count = 8
end

If you can't craft them in your game, then it is likely because you have mods and thus must use an Assembler Mk4 for them.

No, I can not. I see the bug in your code. The mk4 and 5 assembler machines only have 6 ingredient slots. Testing for existence of mk4 assemblers instead of existence or 8 ingredient assemblers is wrong since there is no guarantee that mk4 assemblers have 8 slots. You are making unfounded assumptions.

And instead of editing the assemblers I still think you should use a satellite in the recipe instead. Makes more sense. And 10 electric engines doesn't really add anything of value to the mod when they are so cheap to make. The only purpose of them seems to be to make it uncraftable in assembly machines.

With default settings, it should take 2 blasts to kill Behemoth Biters, the only enemies that can withstand a single blast. This is intentional, but you are free to edit the config file to adjust the damage as you see fit.

"Default settings" of what? I haven't modded the biters or the Ion cannon damage values and they don't die in 2 hits. Can you tell me how you calculated 2 hits? Ion cannon deals 2k laser damage and 500 explosive damage. Behemoth biters have 5k health and 10/20% explosive resistance which means that they take 2392 damage from a blast. Have you actually tried using your mod on behemoth biters or did you just set the damage values to behemoth health/2?

I would like to make a separate ICBM mod that will feature single-launch warheads with a much larger area of effect (as opposed to the re-usability of ion cannons).

That works too

Finally, I am already on track for automated targeting. I'm testing a mod for that now.

Awesome!

I'm thinking that Ion cannons could have a targeting turret with a 300 tile range or something that instead of shooting enemies marks them for BBQing. A single Ion cannon targeting turret is then all that is needed to be built for most outposts then.
The warhead targeting would instead be based on radar findings (so only limited by radar range) and would target native bases primarily instead of the natives themselves. So you would need radars to actually update the map continously or you would not detect new bases. But I have radar mods with extended range so it's maybe not viable without that. But maybe it's a good combo with viewtopic.php?f=93&t=23704 (which is buggy and probably underpowered but can be fixed).

[Supercheese]

I was just going off of Bob's assemblers. Not sure which assemblers you have installed.

[Qon]

I was just going off of Bob's assemblers. Not sure which assemblers you have installed.

Well it doesn't matter which ones I do have. That is the point. I refuse to tell you which assembler mod I use. If you try to patch it for the particular mod I use then you are doing it wrong. You are supposed to read the ingredient count of the assembler machines, not set it.

Pseudocode

Code: Select all

for machine in data.raw["assembling-machine"] do
  if machine.ingredient_count >= 8 then
    use_big_recipe()
    return
  end
  use_small_recipe()
end

But nothing else in vanilla factorio and almost every other mod uses 6 ingredients at most. Your mod doesn't need 8 ingredient slots either if you fix the recipe to something sensible. The ingredients needed for a single ion cannon can make 2 satellites. Why not use 2 satellites in the recipe?

Code: Select all

  type = "recipe",
  name = "orbital-ion-cannon",
  energy_required = 60,
  enabled = false,
  ingredients =
  {
   {"satellite", 2},
   {"electric-engine-unit", 10},
   {"laser-turret", 25},
  },
  result = "orbital-ion-cannon"

10 electric engines and 25 laser turrets is still very little but I don't really care about that so whatever.
Works flawlessly and doesn't create ugly and huge recipes that are just duplicating something else. This is what I use now and I can now automate Ion cannon production. To make automatic launches possible I also edited my control.lua so that the game doesn't freeze when launched "without a satellite". Hope factorio will support modding that file in future versions.

Also, the "Ion cannon ready" voice should only play when you have no cannons ready and one becomes ready. If you have Ion cannons ready you probably don't want to hear "Ion cannon ready" spammed 180 times when it doesn't change anything. I don't want to disable it completely. But once you have multiple cannons it becomes annoying since every single one that gets ready is announced.

There's some small annoyances here and there, but once those are solved and autotargeting is implemented then this mod will be so amazing. So thank you for what is already implemented and thank you for your future updates.

[timelordStarlord]

just installed the mod along with the Satellite Uplink Station mod and now i'm getting this error when i try to load my saved game. whats going on?

[Supercheese]

just installed the mod along with the Satellite Uplink Station mod and now i'm getting this error when i try to load my saved game. whats going on?

Which Factorio version are you using? I'm guessing you need to update to 0.12.33.