Review of Bob's Mods with Suggestions

[siggboy]

Hi,

I've got plenty of hours now in my Bob's Mods campaign, so wanted to share my experience and give some suggestions for improvement.

Overall I very much appreciate the work that has gone into the mods; it makes the game more interesting for veteran players and is a worthy addition to Factorio.

I've played with all mods enabled, and also RSO and the Expensive Research mod that scales up technology cost and time significantly (similar to the Marathon mod in that regard). I have disabled Biters completely so I won't be talking about warfare and defenses.

Now I will list things that, I think, need to be improved or rebalanced:

1. Default settings in the config
They're mostly fine, but a few need to be adjusted. It's not enough that you can change them; the player should get a balanced experience after installing the full mod suite and leaving the default config in place. If you have no experience playing with Bob's Mod (i.e., your first campaign), it's not possible for you to change the config accordingly unless it's balanced out of the box.

• "Galena gives Nickel", "Nickel gives Cobalt": Far too much nickel and cobalt is generated per lead. It complicates the early game and leaves the player with huge unused piles of nickel ore and cobaltite in the later game (and no "clean" way to dispose of it).
  Maybe it would be better to allow Nickel and Cobalt to be generated through a process instead of being dropped right at the quarry. Maybe add something like the advanced lead processing (that takes nickel and gives silver) for nickel and cobalt.
  If you leave it like it is now, those numbers should be lowered significantly in the config file.
• God modules: no, just no. Disable them and make the player decide if they want them or not. There's already too much overpowered stuff in Bob's Mods. The God Modules just take it way too far. (I know they're called "god modules" on purpose and apparently you wanted to put in something OP in that area for some reason, but it should definitely NOT be the default option.)
• Exotic inserters ("long in short out" and friends): should probably be disabled by default, they clog the crafting UI, and honestly I don't think they're that useful in most cases, especially not after you get robots and convoluted belt magic becomes unnecessary.

2. Waste products in the factory
The "gas venting pump" is great, but we don't have that for liquids and solids -- and it's a problem, because there are some outputs that are generated in bulk, but you only need trace amounts of them. The only solution to this is then to store it and try to forget about it, or destroy the storage at some point (related to the "Lead gives Nickel" ratio problem above). The mod must be rebalanced as not to create too many of these waste products, or an item needs to be added that lets us "drain" or "trash" liquids and solids.

It also complicates the game to deal with these waste products, especially before you have robots and Active Provider Chests, but even then it's nasty because it clogs up your storage, and production simply stops if the machine has no free output for the waste product anymore. It's sometimes not even obvious ("why the fuck has production stopped now?") and then you realize it's just that unwanted thing that can't be stored anymore that causes the problem.

Some products I'm thinking of:

• Sodium hydroxide
• Sulfur dioxide
• Sulfuric acid (even with the changed battery recipe you end up with too much of it usually).

In my opinion, unless it can be reasonably expected from the player to balance his production chain in order to not end up with too much of one thing, the products should either not be created at all or we need a way to dispose of them. The oil processing chain in Bob's Mods is also a bit problematic, because suddenly you have way too much demand for Heavy Oil and not enough for Petroleum gas, but at least all of it can be used in some way, as you can make Solid Fuel, which is never useless to have in storage.

I'm not going to use 400,000 Sodium Hydroxide in my campaign, EVER, so don't make me store it.

3. Solid Fuel from Hydrogen
This is just ludicrous. The process that takes water and turns it into solid fuel consumes way less energy than is contained in the fuel (amplified by the fact that the new boilers and steam engines are OP as well). You now have an even better energy source than solar farms (admittedly more interesting to set up, but certainly broken).
I'm aware that you want to require coal for this process which would be a step in the right direction.
As currently implemented, it's just downright broken and defies all common sense and law of physics.
Incidentally it also makes the end game easier, because free solid fuel means free rocket fuel.

4. New steam engines and boilers
I see what you did there: you wanted to increase the amount of power generated per fuel value with increasing tier levels of the boilers and engines.
I don't like the change, because it's impossible for the player to work out the numbers without consulting the forum.
In Factorio, the few things that can be burned for energy (in cars, tanks, trains, furnaces or boilers) do have an advertised "fuel value" in MJ. Boilers also have an advertised efficiency (in Vanilla there's only one with 50% efficiency). This is fine because it allows the player to work out how much fuel is needed per time unit for a given task.

The boilers/engines in Bob's Mods throw all this out of the window due to the impossible efficiency multipliers they add. To make things worse, for steam engines they're not even advertised in the tooltip (the engine appears to generate energy from nothing due to its >100% efficiency).

In my first campaign I assumed that mod was simply broken (bugged) in that area before reading about the efficiency shenanigans that are going on.

Please change it so that an item with a fuel value of "x MJ" can NEVER generate more work than that. If it's 25 MJ, then it's at most 25 MW for a second, and never more.

I think the best way to make steam power late game viable is to add another fuel item that contains a lot of MJ (like liquid fuel canisters), and give us 100% efficiency boilers and steam engines with a high MW throughput. Please don't introduce >100% efficiencies and especially don't hide them under the hood (as in the case of higher tier steam engines).

5. The tech tree is bloated
There are too many tier upgrades in the mod, that add nothing new and only increase speed and energy consumption. A new item tier ("Mk 2") should add new functionality or not be in the game. To increase machine power we already have plenty of modules to choose from.

Sure, it's nice to see a fast factory module run at full steam, with all high tier assemblers and express inserters, but then you realize how pointless it is. You still have the same factory layout, but now it looks like the game runs at 2x speed, except it doesn't, it's just the OP machine upgrades from the mod.

Assemblers in the vanilla game have a tier progression that makes sense to me: they run faster and require more energy, but they also become more powerful at each tier (can craft more items, take liquid inputs, get module slots).

Having said that, there are also too many upgrade levels in the mod (even the vanilla game has too many in some places). Some things in the game are too OP when fully researched. Mk4 robots with full upgrades and fully upgraded infrastructure: why not add matter teleporters instead?

End game should feel powerful, but it should not feel like you've enabled god mode or like the game runs at 8x speed. In Bob's Mods it sometimes does and it gives you the feeling of being cheated out of some personal achievement. E.g. why make a complicated train network that allows for concurrent train, when you can have super fast trains with huge cargo wagons instead? It's not a lot of fun to get spoon fed solutions to real problems by way of technology upgrades.


OK, I'm going to stop here, more could be written but that post is long enough already.

Anyways, thanks for the mod, I've enjoyed it a lot so far and I hope more work will go into it so it remains a staple for Factorio addicts.

[bobingabout]

Hi,

I've got plenty of hours now in my Bob's Mods campaign, so wanted to share my experience and give some suggestions for improvement.

Overall I very much appreciate the work that has gone into the mods; it makes the game more interesting for veteran players and is a worthy addition to Factorio.

I've played with all mods enabled, and also RSO and the Expensive Research mod that scales up technology cost and time significantly (similar to the Marathon mod in that regard). I have disabled Biters completely so I won't be talking about warfare and defenses.

Now I will list things that, I think, need to be improved or rebalanced:

1. Default settings in the config
They're mostly fine, but a few need to be adjusted. It's not enough that you can change them; the player should get a balanced experience after installing the full mod suite and leaving the default config in place. If you have no experience playing with Bob's Mod (i.e., your first campaign), it's not possible for you to change the config accordingly unless it's balanced out of the box.

• "Galena gives Nickel", "Nickel gives Cobalt": Far too much nickel and cobalt is generated per lead. It complicates the early game and leaves the player with huge unused piles of nickel ore and cobaltite in the later game (and no "clean" way to dispose of it).
  Maybe it would be better to allow Nickel and Cobalt to be generated through a process instead of being dropped right at the quarry. Maybe add something like the advanced lead processing (that takes nickel and gives silver) for nickel and cobalt.
  If you leave it like it is now, those numbers should be lowered significantly in the config file.
• God modules: no, just no. Disable them and make the player decide if they want them or not. There's already too much overpowered stuff in Bob's Mods. The God Modules just take it way too far. (I know they're called "god modules" on purpose and apparently you wanted to put in something OP in that area for some reason, but it should definitely NOT be the default option.)
• Exotic inserters ("long in short out" and friends): should probably be disabled by default, they clog the crafting UI, and honestly I don't think they're that useful in most cases, especially not after you get robots and convoluted belt magic becomes unnecessary.

I can agree with most of this. I've not really heard anyone complain about too much Nickel before, but due to the high demand of lead near the start, I can understand this.

In any case, I already have plans to change the default config for some of this for the 0.13 release.
Nickel from Galena will be turned off by default, and Nickel fields will be enabled instead.
Cobalt... a recipe already exists to gain Cobalt Oxide from Copper, upon completing the Cobalt processing research.

Modules, Turn god modules off by default, Turn on "Productivity filters" by default, meaning you can only put the productivity modules in factories producing certain intermediates.

Inserters... again I can understand this, but there is currently no plan to change the setting.

2. Waste products in the factory
The "gas venting pump" is great, but we don't have that for liquids and solids -- and it's a problem, because there are some outputs that are generated in bulk, but you only need trace amounts of them. The only solution to this is then to store it and try to forget about it, or destroy the storage at some point (related to the "Lead gives Nickel" ratio problem above). The mod must be rebalanced as not to create too many of these waste products, or an item needs to be added that lets us "drain" or "trash" liquids and solids.

It also complicates the game to deal with these waste products, especially before you have robots and Active Provider Chests, but even then it's nasty because it clogs up your storage, and production simply stops if the machine has no free output for the waste product anymore. It's sometimes not even obvious ("why the fuck has production stopped now?") and then you realize it's just that unwanted thing that can't be stored anymore that causes the problem.

Some products I'm thinking of:

• Sodium hydroxide
• Sulfur dioxide
• Sulfuric acid (even with the changed battery recipe you end up with too much of it usually).

In my opinion, unless it can be reasonably expected from the player to balance his production chain in order to not end up with too much of one thing, the products should either not be created at all or we need a way to dispose of them. The oil processing chain in Bob's Mods is also a bit problematic, because suddenly you have way too much demand for Heavy Oil and not enough for Petroleum gas, but at least all of it can be used in some way, as you can make Solid Fuel, which is never useless to have in storage.

I'm not going to use 400,000 Sodium Hydroxide in my campaign, EVER, so don't make me store it.

Sodium Hydroxide... I've already rebalanced the recipe to give far less sodium hydroxide. but it will likely still be too much for general production. There are no current plans on how to dispose of it. I am open to other ideas though that don't involve just throwing it away.
Sulfur Dioxide, will be ventable.
Sulfuric acid... is only a problem because it comes from nickel processing, I will be altering the recipe so that it gives sulfur dioxide instead, so you can use water to convert it to sulfuric acid, or vent it when the tanks are full.

3. Solid Fuel from Hydrogen
This is just ludicrous. The process that takes water and turns it into solid fuel consumes way less energy than is contained in the fuel (amplified by the fact that the new boilers and steam engines are OP as well). You now have an even better energy source than solar farms (admittedly more interesting to set up, but certainly broken).
I'm aware that you want to require coal for this process which would be a step in the right direction.
As currently implemented, it's just downright broken and defies all common sense and law of physics.
Incidentally it also makes the end game easier, because free solid fuel means free rocket fuel.

Yes, I calculated that with MK1 everything, a "Ballanced" machine (input = output) would consume about 100 hydrogen to make 1 fuel block.
Ballanced machine for max MK everything is over 1000 hydrogen to make 1 fuel block.

if you assume max MK is 100% efficiency, this gives hydrogen a fuel value of ~25kJ per unit, yet it's current values are more like 1MJ per unit.
With these figures, and the coal value figure, you'd still need 680 hydrogen to upgrade coal to a fuel block... but I'm leaving it at 25 to see how things go.

4. New steam engines and boilers
I see what you did there: you wanted to increase the amount of power generated per fuel value with increasing tier levels of the boilers and engines.
I don't like the change, because it's impossible for the player to work out the numbers without consulting the forum.
In Factorio, the few things that can be burned for energy (in cars, tanks, trains, furnaces or boilers) do have an advertised "fuel value" in MJ. Boilers also have an advertised efficiency (in Vanilla there's only one with 50% efficiency). This is fine because it allows the player to work out how much fuel is needed per time unit for a given task.

The boilers/engines in Bob's Mods throw all this out of the window due to the impossible efficiency multipliers they add. To make things worse, for steam engines they're not even advertised in the tooltip (the engine appears to generate energy from nothing due to its >100% efficiency).

In my first campaign I assumed that mod was simply broken (bugged) in that area before reading about the efficiency shenanigans that are going on.

Please change it so that an item with a fuel value of "x MJ" can NEVER generate more work than that. If it's 25 MJ, then it's at most 25 MW for a second, and never more.

I think the best way to make steam power late game viable is to add another fuel item that contains a lot of MJ (like liquid fuel canisters), and give us 100% efficiency boilers and steam engines with a high MW throughput. Please don't introduce >100% efficiencies and especially don't hide them under the hood (as in the case of higher tier steam engines).

Most of the values used were basically just... +50% energy from the previous. I was at the time looking at competing mods, and trying to make something similar, but different, and this was the result. As with Electrolysis(The recipes, the machines should be fairly balanced already), and hydrogen, these values do need to be rebalanced. I think one of the major issues for me is... sure, the boilers give you +50%, then the steam engine takes 50% less steam to be powered, and on top of that, gives you more power as a result (It's like, 400% efficiency boost to go from a MK1 to MK2 steam engine, yet only 140% efficiency boost from a MK1 to MK4 electrolyser)

I do think I need to change the approach. Perhaps the boilers shouldn't actually be much more efficient, they just burn fuel faster, etc.

5. The tech tree is bloated
There are too many tier upgrades in the mod, that add nothing new and only increase speed and energy consumption. A new item tier ("Mk 2") should add new functionality or not be in the game. To increase machine power we already have plenty of modules to choose from.

Sure, it's nice to see a fast factory module run at full steam, with all high tier assemblers and express inserters, but then you realize how pointless it is. You still have the same factory layout, but now it looks like the game runs at 2x speed, except it doesn't, it's just the OP machine upgrades from the mod.

Assemblers in the vanilla game have a tier progression that makes sense to me: they run faster and require more energy, but they also become more powerful at each tier (can craft more items, take liquid inputs, get module slots).

Having said that, there are also too many upgrade levels in the mod (even the vanilla game has too many in some places). Some things in the game are too OP when fully researched. Mk4 robots with full upgrades and fully upgraded infrastructure: why not add matter teleporters instead?

End game should feel powerful, but it should not feel like you've enabled god mode or like the game runs at 8x speed. In Bob's Mods it sometimes does and it gives you the feeling of being cheated out of some personal achievement. E.g. why make a complicated train network that allows for concurrent train, when you can have super fast trains with huge cargo wagons instead? It's not a lot of fun to get spoon fed solutions to real problems by way of technology upgrades.

Actually, all the machine upgrades do offer SOMETHING other than just speed. The efficiency is a slight improvement (As pointed out above, with electrolysers, a MK4 is 140% efficient when compared to a MK1), but each tier also allows to process additional ingredients per tier. for example, the most complicated modules require 11 and 12 ingredients, these can only be crafted in a MK6 assembling machine. Granted, the actual examples that require more than a MK3 are limited, but you can easily see where in places a MK2 or even MK3 is required. Some of them are just a bit "Here's an upgrade, just for the sake of it" though. Having said that, I don't plan to remove any of them.

Robots are actually another one I was asked to look at recently, and I noticed that each tier upgrade is even more OP than the steam engine.
They have twice as much power, use 20% less, move twice as fast, and carry +2 items! Logistic bots that is, the stats of the construction bots are a bit different. I think that's MK2 being 700% over a MK1. For starters, I was thinking I should reduce this speed and capacity increase to a +50% instead of a +100% per step (from the original) for speed and energy capacity. Should make them less of the logistic god. Perhaps even add that to the config, so people who liked the insane speed can choose to use it again.

Someone even suggested I add even more versions of these robots, so I have versions that aren't that fast, but have a huge carrying capacity, vs the ones I have now that are just faster, and remove the storage increase.

OK, I'm going to stop here, more could be written but that post is long enough already.

Anyways, thanks for the mod, I've enjoyed it a lot so far and I hope more work will go into it so it remains a staple for Factorio addicts.

Glad you enjoyed it!

[seronis]

Having tier progressions that are just speed and efficiency isnt a bad thing. For people with older hardware it is sometimes flat out impossible to build bigger bases without having the entire game come to a crawl. Those higher tier factories that you think are so wasteful and pointless are the only reason that the end game is even playable. It lets the same amount of CPU/GPU processing do more work since the total number of objects being checked stays more constant.

[Catbert]

I do not agree with the balance part of the review.

If you have too much nickel and cobalt, you can still use other processes to balance that, its not that you NEED to use the advanced processes all the time.

Also, i was able to use all sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid that i produced. If it really piles up, you can still make sulfur from SO2 and make tank shells or something.
If you use the solder recipe that uses silver, SO2 and Sulfuric acid will only be produced when making basic batteries, and most of it will be used by the batteries themselves. Only if you use lead for solder with the advanced processes then byproducts can not be disposed, but its a choice you made, so i guess its all fine and up to the player to balance things.

[siggboy]

Sodium Hydroxide... I've already rebalanced the recipe to give far less sodium hydroxide. but it will likely still be too much for general production. There are no current plans on how to dispose of it. I am open to other ideas though that don't involve just throwing it away.

If you think it will still be too much for Aluminum needs, then maybe add another recipe or process that requires it, or a process that converts into into something that is required.

Looking at Wikipedia right now, here's an idea (quoting Wikipedia):

Sodium hydroxide also reacts with acidic oxides, such as sulfur dioxide. Such reactions are often used to "scrub" harmful acidic gases (like SO2 and H2S) produced in the burning of coal and thus prevent their release into the atmosphere.

So, maybe some pollution reduction device could be implemented that makes use of it? That sounds fun and will be useful for making Steam power more viable (more about that below). Maybe make a "clean" burner that can power Steam Engines from carbon based fuel but produces no, or very low, pollution. It would require Sodium Hydroxide as an additional input, or maybe a special fuel that gets processed from coal/solid fuel and Sodium Hydroxide. Food for tought...

Sulfur Dioxide, will be ventable.

That's good. Actually I tried to vent it at first but then realized it's a liquid, so not possible.

(About boiler/engine upgrades:)

Most of the values used were basically just... +50% energy from the previous. I was at the time looking at competing mods, and trying to make something similar, but different, and this was the result. As with Electrolysis(The recipes, the machines should be fairly balanced already), and hydrogen, these values do need to be rebalanced. I think one of the major issues for me is... sure, the boilers give you +50%, then the steam engine takes 50% less steam to be powered, and on top of that, gives you more power as a result (It's like, 400% efficiency boost to go from a MK1 to MK2 steam engine, yet only 140% efficiency boost from a MK1 to MK4 electrolyser)

I do think I need to change the approach. Perhaps the boilers shouldn't actually be much more efficient, they just burn fuel faster, etc.

OK, let me reiterate that I love the fact that late game steam power plants are viable with Bob's Mods. It's just the fact that the added efficiency is not transparent to the player. Currently there's literally no way to figure out where the additional energy comes from, or how much it is. You need to figure out by trial and error what the optimal ratio of boilers and steam engines is. Maybe just adding some tooltip information would be enough as a first step.

I don't think >100% efficiencies should be in the game (at least not in power supply, in machines it's something else, because they never generate power and you can combine modules etc.). >100% efficiency is "energy from nothing" and confuses the player; it also feels like "cheating" if you use it (at least it did to me). However, if you then add powerful steam engines you have to put in vast amounts of fuel to keep them running. Changing the fuel values of existing fuels is not an option because it unbalances too many other areas, like smelting and vehicles.

A 100 MW steam engine is not useful if you can't supply the fuel at a high enough rate.

Maybe the best approach is to add a special fuel that can only be used in special boilers, and that does have a high enough fuel value to make large power plants manageable, as far as fuel throughput is concerned. That idea could be combined with the "clean/green boilers" idea from above, involving Sodium Hydroxide -- solving two problems in one go.

Actually, all the machine upgrades do offer SOMETHING other than just speed. The efficiency is a slight improvement (As pointed out above, with electrolysers, a MK4 is 140% efficient when compared to a MK1), but each tier also allows to process additional ingredients per tier. for example, the most complicated modules require 11 and 12 ingredients, these can only be crafted in a MK6 assembling machine. Granted, the actual examples that require more than a MK3 are limited, but you can easily see where in places a MK2 or even MK3 is required. Some of them are just a bit "Here's an upgrade, just for the sake of it" though. Having said that, I don't plan to remove any of them.

If you leave them in, make them significantly more expensive to build. All the higher tier assemblers should require modules to make them, and possibly additional exotic components as well. Right now you can hand-craft them in bulk from stuff that you have anyway.

Robots are actually another one I was asked to look at recently, and I noticed that each tier upgrade is even more OP than the steam engine.
They have twice as much power, use 20% less, move twice as fast, and carry +2 items! Logistic bots that is, the stats of the construction bots are a bit different. I think that's MK2 being 700% over a MK1. For starters, I was thinking I should reduce this speed and capacity increase to a +50% instead of a +100% per step (from the original) for speed and energy capacity. Should make them less of the logistic god. Perhaps even add that to the config, so people who liked the insane speed can choose to use it again.

Someone even suggested I add even more versions of these robots, so I have versions that aren't that fast, but have a huge carrying capacity, vs the ones I have now that are just faster, and remove the storage increase.

We don't need even more robots, it's already practically impossible to figure out which ones you need in a certain situation, and what infrastructure is required (roboports etc.). You just make the best of everything and put it everywhere (and that's too powerful if you ask me). If you add more options it doesn't change that.

Adding a slow robot with large capacity is the same as having a fast one with low capacity, as long as the throughput is more or less equal -- and it's hard to impossible to weigh the options against eachother. With a transport belt you can see them items on the belt, and you see where you need capacity, and you route the belts yourself. It's something you can adjust and where it makes sense to combine several tiers of technology.

The robots, on the other hand, move automatically, you can't see what they're carrying, and later on they're so fast it all becomes a blur, it's just "whatever". Hence the "matter teleporter" analogy I've made earlier on.

Again, maybe the really good robots (and chargers/roboports) should just be very expensive to make so it's not something anymore that you put everywhere and forget about it. Then it also would make sense for the player to try to figure out where he actually needs them. Then again, they move freely in your factory, so it's just not possible to balance them in the way you can balance belt performance.

Now here are some other points that came to mind while I was writing this:

Pipes
More pipe options are good, but again, I think there are too many, and the differences among them are too small. Another big issue is the fact that the "bigger" pipes (greater size) are actually worse than the smaller ones, because of the weird fluid mechanics in Factorio. The best value are Bronze/Brass pipes, they're only 5 units in size (best throughput), and the underground pipes extend quite far (I think there's one late game upgrade, Tungsten?, not sure right now).

Is there any reason to make any of the other pipes (unless required for a recipe, of course)? As far as I can see they just perform worse, and add nothing.

Trains
So, even the basic (tier 1) cargo wagon already has 4x the capacity of the vanilla one (because of the increasing stack sizes in Bob's Mods). I think it's too easy to move ore around in small trains with the mods, not even talking about the higher tiers that can be unlocked. It takes away too much from the train meta-game (the need for additional rails, larger stations etc.). Probably having larger/faster trains is necessary at some point (since you also have very fast mining equipment), but it might be too OP in the current version.

[bobingabout]

I'm not going to respond to everything right now, but there are a few interesting points there.

Note: I just released 0.12.11, it makes a few of the changes I said I was planning, like Ventable Sulfur Dioxide.

Pipes.... they are mostly just required for recipes. And yes, Every pipe is used in at least 1 recipe.

There are 3 sizes. The large pipes are Stone, Plastic, Ceramic. The medium (normal) sized pipes are Iron, Steel, Titanium and Tungsten. Tungsten being the only T4 pipe. Then the small pipes which are Copper, Bronze, Brass.
Each tier increases the pipe entities health, and the range of the underground pipe. Also note: Size 5 pipes can cause "unstable simulation", where the fluid apears to ripple back and forth down the pipe. I don't know if this can cause a desync, but it is slightly disturbing to watch.

Also, if you look back somewhere (It is only mentioned once, long buried in one place) there is a lost long list of which materials are considered to be which tier, and their speciality usages. Unfortunately, Most of those definitions were written long after most of the items, so you'll find some recipes go up in missmatched steps. Also some use brass, while others use aluminium for the same application. So if you look at those pipes... Iron, Steel, Titanium, Tungsten... well... Titanium is in the "Strength" tree, while Tungsten is in the "Heatproof" tree. Ideally, the entire recipe structure needs to be reformed to make sense. Some though like the electronics were written correctly from the start.... but the higher tiers do need to be a lot more complex. It can take quite some effort to get into the Basic Electronic Circuit Board tree, then just as much into the Electronic Circuit Board, but then Logic Circuit Boards seem considerably easier, and then the Processing era feels like it barely needs anything new at all. In theory, each step should feel like just as much, or more of a challenge as the previous one.

[British_Petroleum]

Hi Bob,

Thanks again for all your mods. So much fun. I also noticed that the hydrogen solid fuel defies physics lol. In my current game I have many mk1 electrolyzers making hydrogen. This powers my entire factory

[bobingabout]

Hi Bob,

Thanks again for all your mods. So much fun. I also noticed that the hydrogen solid fuel defies physics lol. In my current game I have many mk1 electrolyzers making hydrogen. This powers my entire factory

Keep in mind that the latest update changes the recipe to also require coal.

[NoriSilverrage]

~snip

OK, let me reiterate that I love the fact that late game steam power plants are viable with Bob's Mods. It's just the fact that the added efficiency is not transparent to the player. Currently there's literally no way to figure out where the additional energy comes from, or how much it is. You need to figure out by trial and error what the optimal ratio of boilers and steam engines is. Maybe just adding some tooltip information would be enough as a first step.

I don't think >100% efficiencies should be in the game (at least not in power supply, in machines it's something else, because they never generate power and you can combine modules etc.). >100% efficiency is "energy from nothing" and confuses the player; it also feels like "cheating" if you use it (at least it did to me). However, if you then add powerful steam engines you have to put in vast amounts of fuel to keep them running. Changing the fuel values of existing fuels is not an option because it unbalances too many other areas, like smelting and vehicles.

I'm not sure I would agree with this. In the base game steam is only used until you get to solar. Then you go crazy solar farms and steam is only for a backup.
Solar provides essentially free energy. It is impossibly to rate it's efficiency since it doesn't need fuel.

Bob's power gives steam the ability to be used effectively late game without requiring ridiculously large and fuel hungry setups. You pretty much need 100%+ efficiency to make it worth using vs solar. Is it realistic? Not really, but neither is the free power from solar, or the energy creation from productivity modules in chem plants making solid fuel.

I think your idea of having a craftable high density fuel has merit though. But still steam will always be at a disadvantage vs solar when it makes pollution and requires a constant fuel source.

[siggboy]

But still steam will always be at a disadvantage vs solar when it makes pollution and requires a constant fuel source.

Yes, but that's a problem with solar being too low maintenance, it has nothing to do with how steam power should be balanced in order to make it interesting.

I'm not interested at all in building solar farms in Factorio. It's a completely pointless exercise (mass produce, then go to desert and blueprint). Therefore I'm also not interested in the Solar vs. <anything> aspect (solar basically does not exist as far as I'm concerned). Bob's mods takes some step in the right direction of adding more options to steam power, but the efficiency is (un)balanced to the point where it defies all logic and is only confusing for the player.

[bobingabout]

I'm not interested at all in building solar farms in Factorio. It's a completely pointless exercise (mass produce, then go to desert and blueprint). Therefore I'm also not interested in the Solar vs. <anything> aspect (solar basically does not exist as far as I'm concerned). Bob's mods takes some step in the right direction of adding more options to steam power, but the efficiency is (un)balanced to the point where it defies all logic and is only confusing for the player.

Take a look at the new values in the config mod, you can turn on a value override option that uses the values in config mod's data.lua.

The power capacity of the boiler remains the same as before, but the efficiency steps up as 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8 rather than going beyond 100%. The only effect you'll see is it will use more fuel than before on higher levels.
Steam engines start at 100% efficiency, so you can't do a lot with them, so instead of drastically increasing the efficiency and reducing steam consumption, I instead increase steam consumption, and slightly the efficiency (It's goes above 100%, but short of making the base game version worse, there's not much you can do), it will take 150% water for MK2 and 200% at MK3, so you want to put less steam engines on a line instead of more. Efficiency is 110% and 120%.

0.8 * 1.2 is 96%, it may be a bit too efficient still, but at least it doesn't go above 100%, I think it's a good balance, at least something to try.

[Dima]

Hi there
My suggestion is add some localizations for ur mods.
I can help to translate to Hungarian and Russian (native both)

[bobingabout]

Russian already exists in the boblocale mod. (Basically, since I can't maintain translations myself, and don't want to have to update to a new version just for a translation, the locale mod exists for all translations, and contains the locale entries for all other mods) you could go over to the github page and submit a merge request for new translations. the link is in the boblocale mod page first post. viewtopic.php?f=51&t=6987