Belt vs Bot computing

[siggboy]

how do you deal with needing artifacts?

Alien Science

Yeah, that's obviously required on a No Biter map; it's kind of funny that the game allows you to turn off biters but does not offer such an option in that case. Basically if you turn off biters you make the Vanilla game sort of unplayable .

I might add that the "Alien Science" from the mod is really very expensive, and it forces you to make a lot of beakers if you want to finish research reasonably quickly -- especially so if you use Expensive Research (or Marathon).

[CMH]

Instead I went the way of Bob's mods to add complexity. But I found that finishing it doesn't really require bob's mods, so I made a mod to require the top tier stuff from bob's mods to finish.

Yes, this is great, it's like the "Harder Endgame" mod for Bob's Mods that somebody else made. I've used that during my Bob's Mods campaign, but never got around to finish that playthrough. Maybe I'll have a look at yours for my next game. Yours does require God Modules though, and they're a no-go for me, so I would have to change that.

The problem I have with Bob's Mods is that while it adds a lot of desired complexity, it's very unbalanced in some areas, and it adds way too many things that simply are not needed and add nothing to the game except being overpowered.

I think we need a complete overhaul of Bob's Mods -- like a "Diet" version of Bob's Mods -- that consolidates the many good ideas and removes all the cruft.

I'm thinking there might be a need for what you just mentioned. It is surprisingly balanced for the complexity of it, but you do end up stockpiling a couple of things...

Also note that while God modules are enabled, they are modified to require +150% power rather than -150%. That should balance it some. I'm thinking of halving their other effects too....

[siggboy]

It is surprisingly balanced for the complexity of it, but you do end up stockpiling a couple of things...

When I said "unbalanced" I wasn't talking about the current problem that certain byproducts are piling up (Sodium Hydroxide).

It's just that the mods give you too much of everything, stack sizes are inflated, trains are super fast, robots move at lightning speeds, there's a gazillion tiers of everything even when it's not needed, etc.

I don't want a single-wagon train to be able to carry 9k+ ore at twice the speed of a Vanilla train. It removes too much of the logistic challenge from the game.

Same with assemblers that work super fast, etc.

In order to put it back in line with the spirit of the game, at least the following would have to happen:

• Remove most upgrade tiers
• Remove the broken Hydrogen->Solid Fuel recipe (currently it's free energy, way better than Solar if you don't mind the pollution)
• Make gems way harder to obtain

[CMH]

Now that I've learnt how to mod factorio a bit I might take up the challenge and try to solve a few issues.

I find the "gazillion tiers of everything" kinda fun. Of course, the fact they weren't needed to "win" the game was a bummer, hence my little mod to add the need for mk3 stuff and god-modules in the rocket.

As far as your trains issue, I saw that as a potential issue. I kinda dismissed it as the increased number of products needed to be ferried around means you'd have way too many trains about otherwise. Or having to run trains 16 carriages long.

I'm thinking of creating a mod that would reduce the number of raw ores a bit, but increase the number of multiple-ore ores (think galena which currently produces both nickel and lead) and increase the number of "advanced smelting" to give us all the different plates (ie the choice of smelting other metals such as copper/lead/etc to give gold/silver/cobalt). If anyone can just tell me what the code should look like would save me some time looking for it

I would also look into some of the stuff that's being overproduced. If it cannot be voided (like the gasses) I would either find another use of it, or only require it (or make it a by product) for advanced processing.