[MOD 0.15.29+] Creative Mode 0.3.12 - Infinite resources

[Qon]

Thank you for this mod. It's a good tool.

The passive provider with all items really helps when you just want an infinite source of everything to build you base. But since I'm building a bot base I often need to exclude certain things that my factory actually build by itself and that should only come from production (so that factory is actually running at 100%) while I want everything else provided for free. Would be nice if you could tell the magic provider chest to not provide items that it recieves on a circuit signal or similar.

The creative source thing can be combined with many different blocks, which makes it great and flexible. I like that it can interact with chests and belts and so on.

This time is mainly for improving UX. Added "Yes for all" buttons and also the ability to preserve config settings.

The dialogue is really hard to understand. I got three options with where nothing was clear what would happen.
Question: "...?"
Possible answers:

• Yes?
• Yes yes! 4!
• Eh?

... ok it was a little bit better but I had to pick one with that seemed right with some guesswork and I think I got lucky.

But then I installed another mod that added technology and I had to research that one manually. Would have been nice if I was given the option to get that one for free too. Test mode mod has a button: "Unlock all tech" that is quite nice. I don't have that mod in 0.13 yet though. Would also be nice if I could selectivly research and "un-research" specific tech. For science.

And now I have permanent daytime. Is there any way to toggle this? Might want to run tests that rely on night time sometimes. I guess I'll have to install test mode for that one too.

I don't mind the purple color on the items. I vote for functionality before graphics. The mod is for testing purposes, not for decorating your survival runs.
Also please give up completely on trying to prevent people from cheating. It's not improving the mod and can't possibly succeed

[Mooncat]

Thanks for your support. Let me answer your questions one by one.

The passive provider with all items really helps when you just want an infinite source of everything to build you base. But since I'm building a bot base I often need to exclude certain things that my factory actually build by itself and that should only come from production (so that factory is actually running at 100%) while I want everything else provided for free. Would be nice if you could tell the magic provider chest to not provide items that it recieves on a circuit signal or similar.

I am afraid it cannot be like this. Chests in Factorio can only provide signals but not receive signals. But I can create another non-logistic chest so it doesn't interact with the robots.

This time is mainly for improving UX. Added "Yes for all" buttons and also the ability to preserve config settings.

The dialogue is really hard to understand. I got three options with where nothing was clear what would happen.
Question: "...?"
Possible answers:

• Yes?
• Yes yes! 4!
• Eh?

... ok it was a little bit better but I had to pick one with that seemed right with some guesswork and I think I got lucky.

Yes, that's just a little bit improvement and I know it is still hard to use for new users. So, I am working on the UI that groups the cheats into one giant popup.

But then I installed another mod that added technology and I had to research that one manually. Would have been nice if I was given the option to get that one for free too. Test mode mod has a button: "Unlock all tech" that is quite nice. I don't have that mod in 0.13 yet though. Would also be nice if I could selectivly research and "un-research" specific tech. For science.

And now I have permanent daytime. Is there any way to toggle this? Might want to run tests that rely on night time sometimes. I guess I'll have to install test mode for that one too.

I am also thinking about making a menu like Test Mode too. But, to be honest, the APIs for making UI is very hard to use. It will take some time to implement, and will not be in the next version.
For now, you can type (copy and paste) the following commands in game:
cheat mode:
/c game.player.cheat_mode = true

no cheat mode:
/c game.player.cheat_mode = false

research all tech:
/c game.player.force.research_all_technologies()

reset all tech:
/c game.player.force.reset()

always day:
/c for _, surface in pairs(game.surfaces) do surface.always_day = true end

not always day:
/c for _, surface in pairs(game.surfaces) do surface.always_day = false end

Also please give up completely on trying to prevent people from cheating. It's not improving the mod and can't possibly succeed

Yeah, that was a stupid idea. How to use this mod should be up to the users.
Anyway, the future updates will make it to be more convenient to use.

[Qon]

Sounds good!

The passive provider with all items really helps when you just want an infinite source of everything to build you base. But since I'm building a bot base I often need to exclude certain things that my factory actually build by itself and that should only come from production (so that factory is actually running at 100%) while I want everything else provided for free. Would be nice if you could tell the magic provider chest to not provide items that it recieves on a circuit signal or similar.

I am afraid it cannot be like this. Chests in Factorio can only provide signals but not receive signals. But I can create another non-logistic chest so it doesn't interact with the robots.

Well the requester chest can recieve signals in Factorio v0.13. Are you saying it isn't a part of the API for making chests? Also you might be able to do this by making a combo entity with an invisible signal recieving entity that takes the signal and modifies the provider. It's fairly common that mods that needs more advanced functionality does this. Klonan does this for is Factorio 0.12 version of KS Power mod. The wind turbine is actually a boiler, a steam engine and a water source that he combined and controls output power of by adding or subtracting coal to the boiler. Because in v0.12 the API didn't have a real power generator API.

This mod has been made quite a while ago if three different people has worked on it. Doesn't it already use these tricks for the energy source and item inserter?

[Mooncat]

Sounds good!

The passive provider with all items really helps when you just want an infinite source of everything to build you base. But since I'm building a bot base I often need to exclude certain things that my factory actually build by itself and that should only come from production (so that factory is actually running at 100%) while I want everything else provided for free. Would be nice if you could tell the magic provider chest to not provide items that it recieves on a circuit signal or similar.

I am afraid it cannot be like this. Chests in Factorio can only provide signals but not receive signals. But I can create another non-logistic chest so it doesn't interact with the robots.

Well the requester chest can recieve signals in Factorio v0.13. Are you saying it isn't a part of the API for making chests? Also you might be able to do this by making a combo entity with an invisible signal recieving entity that takes the signal and modifies the provider. It's fairly common that mods that needs more advanced functionality does this. Klonan does this for is Factorio 0.12 version of KS Power mod. The wind turbine is actually a boiler, a steam engine and a water source that he combined and controls output power of by adding or subtracting coal to the boiler. Because in v0.12 the API didn't have a real power generator API.

This mod has been made quite a while ago if three different people has worked on it. Doesn't it already use these tricks for the energy source and item inserter?

Requester chests receive signals for requesting items, but they cannot provide items. Only passive provider chests / active provider chests / storage chests can provide items, but they don't receive signals.

For the fake entity trick, I am not sure, but it seems that it requires an additional tile for that entity so you can wire on it rather than the chest.

For example in Smart Trains, it creates a constant combinator and lamp besides the train stop so you can wire on them. In this case, it will not work well in our chest because it is just 1x1. Occupying an additional tile is just... weird, and probably not convenient too.

The turbine from KS Power is just a steam generator. It uses script to insert liquid that is hot enough to generate energy. And the objects in our mod are also using script to generate energy/items, so there is just one entity for each object.

Sure I can research on it more. But please forgive me if creating another chest is the only solution I can get.

Edit:

Are you saying it isn't a part of the API for making chests?

Maybe I should explain more:
Currently, if you want to create a new entity, you have to based on the existing ones. You can either create one based on Requester Chest or Provider Chest, but not both. The API is actually quite limited. I was quite surprised too when I started modding. Hopefully it will be improved later but right now, our chest is based on Passive Provider Chest so it cannot receive signals. Script cannot make it to be able to receive signal either.

[Peppe]

Creative mode recipes getting enabled on load?

I said no to all at the start of this game and don't recall seeing the creative tab. But today I noticed the creative tab is there. I have used the mod in other saves, but this save has it off. Believe I started it after the popup was added, for sure on the latest version on mod portal right now. Believe I clicked no to all (4) -- or whatever it asks at the start of the world.

I wrote a small mod to disable all the recipes (to keep achievements on for the save). And played the rest of the session fine. Then quit for lunch and updated a different mod and started went to play my non creative world and the tab was back.

Edit:
Just browsing the code you need a paranthesis on this on configuration changed event:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

The above will enable creative recipes
if creative mode is enabled and isGameChanged is true
or if isAnyModChanged is true.

I think you want this:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged) then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

creative is enabled and one of these is true (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged)

[Mooncat]

Creative mode recipes getting enabled on load?

I said no to all at the start of this game and don't recall seeing the creative tab. But today I noticed the creative tab is there. I have used the mod in other saves, but this save has it off. Believe I started it after the popup was added, for sure on the latest version on mod portal right now. Believe I clicked no to all (4) -- or whatever it asks at the start of the world.

I wrote a small mod to disable all the recipes (to keep achievements on for the save). And played the rest of the session fine. Then quit for lunch and updated a different mod and started went to play my non creative world and the tab was back.

Edit:
Just browsing the code you need a paranthesis on this on configuration changed event:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

The above will enable creative recipes
if creative mode is enabled and isGameChanged is true
or if isAnyModChanged is true.

I think you want this:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged) then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

creative is enabled and one of these is true (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged)

Oh! That was a careless mistake. Thanks for pointing that out, and sorry for the inconvenient.

Actually, you can use command to disable Creative Mode:
/c remote.call("creative-mode", "disable")
This way, popups will be shown to also disable other cheats.
But due to the bug, Creative Mode may still be enabled after any mod is updated.
Will fix it in the next version (very soon, maybe tonight).

[Peppe]

Creative mode recipes getting enabled on load?

I said no to all at the start of this game and don't recall seeing the creative tab. But today I noticed the creative tab is there. I have used the mod in other saves, but this save has it off. Believe I started it after the popup was added, for sure on the latest version on mod portal right now. Believe I clicked no to all (4) -- or whatever it asks at the start of the world.

I wrote a small mod to disable all the recipes (to keep achievements on for the save). And played the rest of the session fine. Then quit for lunch and updated a different mod and started went to play my non creative world and the tab was back.

Edit:
Just browsing the code you need a paranthesis on this on configuration changed event:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

The above will enable creative recipes
if creative mode is enabled and isGameChanged is true
or if isAnyModChanged is true.

I think you want this:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged) then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

creative is enabled and one of these is true (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged)

Oh! That was a careless mistake. Thanks for pointing that out, and sorry for the inconvenient.

Actually, you can use command to disable Creative Mode:
/c remote.call("creative-mode", "disable")
This way, popups will be shown to also disable other cheats.
But due to the bug, Creative Mode may still be enabled after any mod is updated.
Will fix it in the next version (very soon, maybe tonight).

not a big deal as it just me in single player, so I trust myself not to cheat, but I do have exactly 10 crafting tabs/categories when fully teched, so only noticed it because I unlocked enough tech that a third row of crafting icons appeared and resized my inventory area.

I did try the disable command, but it had two issues:
it said creative was not enabled, so I think I would have had to enable it and then disable it to have all the right code run to disable the recipes.
the other is commands disable achievements... being my first .13 game I was trying to keep them enabled for as long as possible.

[Mooncat]

Creative mode recipes getting enabled on load?

I said no to all at the start of this game and don't recall seeing the creative tab. But today I noticed the creative tab is there. I have used the mod in other saves, but this save has it off. Believe I started it after the popup was added, for sure on the latest version on mod portal right now. Believe I clicked no to all (4) -- or whatever it asks at the start of the world.

I wrote a small mod to disable all the recipes (to keep achievements on for the save). And played the rest of the session fine. Then quit for lunch and updated a different mod and started went to play my non creative world and the tab was back.

Edit:
Just browsing the code you need a paranthesis on this on configuration changed event:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

The above will enable creative recipes
if creative mode is enabled and isGameChanged is true
or if isAnyModChanged is true.

I think you want this:

Code: Select all

	if global.creative_mode.enabled and (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged) then
		enable_or_disable_creative_recipes(true)
	end

creative is enabled and one of these is true (isGameChanged or isAnyModChanged)

Oh! That was a careless mistake. Thanks for pointing that out, and sorry for the inconvenient.

Actually, you can use command to disable Creative Mode:
/c remote.call("creative-mode", "disable")
This way, popups will be shown to also disable other cheats.
But due to the bug, Creative Mode may still be enabled after any mod is updated.
Will fix it in the next version (very soon, maybe tonight).

not a big deal as it just me in single player, so I trust myself not to cheat, but I do have exactly 10 crafting tabs/categories when fully teched, so only noticed it because I unlocked enough tech that a third row of crafting icons appeared and resized my inventory area.

I did try the disable command, but it had two issues:
it said creative was not enabled, so I think I would have had to enable it and then disable it to have all the right code run to disable the recipes.
the other is commands disable achievements... being my first .13 game I was trying to keep them enabled for as long as possible.

Oh, I forgot there is a checking to ensure you have properly enabled Creative Mode before you can use the disable command. Seems I am really tired.
For the achievements, I haven't really looked into it. I just know that if it is a modded game, the achievements will not be uploaded to Steam. I will pay attention on it next time.

[Mooncat]

As some of you may have noticed, version 0.1.0 has been released! Just before Factorio 0.13.8!

Item Source and Item Void are now more interactable with transport belts. They can also interact with underground belts and spltters. But beware that Item Source cannot create compressed belts when dropping items directly on underground belts or splitters. It is unfixable unfortunately.

Also, new entity: Duplicator. Before this version, I said I will introduce Item Duplicating Chest and Fluid Duplicating Tank. I rethought about it. Why not have an entity that looks like Item Source but also work with fluids! Also, I want it to be interactable with transport belts. As the result, Duplicator was created.

And about the version number, I realized that I was using the wrong digit before! The three numbers should be major.minor.patch. So, for updates like this one, which introduces completely new entities and new UI, it should go to minor. Therefore, it is now v0.1.0 instead of v0.0.4.

See the version history for more details about this update. The first post has been updated, with new images!

And for the next version, I will work on further improving the UI. I am thinking about making a menu with buttons to enable/disable cheats whenever Creative Mode is enabled, so no need to use commands anymore! However, before that, please allow me to take a few days on making another small mod which I think will be very useful for all Factorio players. But if bug is reported, I will still fix it ASAP.
More details about that small mod will be given soon.

Bonus

My playground to test the interactibility of Item Source/Item Void/Duplicator vs Transport Belt/Underground Belt/Splitter


Also feel free to take a look on the article on my signature. It is something interesting I discovered while developing this mod.

[siggboy]

This mod gets better with every release. I have two suggestions for major features that you could add:

• "Mjollnir" from TestMode; this is a tool that allows the player to fill chests with arbitrary items, create resource patches and remove any entity from the game world. It's the main reason why I currently use TestMode together with Creative Mode.
• Flatland, also from Y.Petreman who made the original Creative Mode. That's a fairly simple mod (currently not updated for 0.13) that can replace the floor of a map with concrete, and it can remove all the doodads, trees and rocks from the map. It asks you if you want to do that when you load into a map. I think it's very useful to create clean sandbox environments, since it's not possible to mass-remove trees and doodads in the map editor. Currently I use Mjollnir from TestMode to remove the junk.

[Mooncat]

This mod gets better with every release. I have two suggestions for major features that you could add:

• "Mjollnir" from TestMode; this is a tool that allows the player to fill chests with arbitrary items, create resource patches and remove any entity from the game world. It's the main reason why I currently use TestMode together with Creative Mode.
• Flatland, also from Y.Petreman who made the original Creative Mode. That's a fairly simple mod (currently not updated for 0.13) that can replace the floor of a map with concrete, and it can remove all the doodads, trees and rocks from the map. It asks you if you want to do that when you load into a map. I think it's very useful to create clean sandbox environments, since it's not possible to mass-remove trees and doodads in the map editor. Currently I use Mjollnir from TestMode to remove the junk.

Yes, I have plan to replicate that powerful Mjollnir, But I think I will separate it into different tools for each purpose, like Ore Spawner, Instant Deconstruction Plan, etc. I don't really like its messy menu. By separating the tools, I can make cleaner UI. It will take some time though to replicate all of its functions. And before I replicate it (and start my evil plan on replacing the whole Test Mode), I think I will make some unique stuff that is not in Test Mode first.

For Flatland, aw, I have missed such a great mod! I will integrate it soon, earlier than Mjollnir since it is not maintained. The latest will be in next next version.

Edit: added in Future Development.

[Mooncat]

Hi all,

There are some days since the last post here. So I decided to type something to prove I am not dead, neither this mod.

First, as I said, I wanted to make a small mod. And here is the result: Concrete Edges
But actually, it wasn't the first idea I wanted to make. I was thinking about making something that can print a message on console or popup when circuit condition is fulfilled, as mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=28832. But since Nexela said he would be doing that, I left it to him and went to the next idea, which is the Concrete Edges. (But yes, I still owe Nexela the new UI.) The development of Concrete Edges is going to the end, so I will come back to this mod soon.

Meanwhile, I didn't completely paused the development here. Some of you may have already known, that the control.lua of this mod was really large. It was the core, the heart and the brain of the mod. In fact, it had over 1.8k lines of code. With this size, I knew it would be more and more difficult to add features. So, I decided to separate the code into different files. But before doing this kind of massive changes, it is always better to do some version control so I can roll back in case something goes wrong. As the result, I set up a repo on github. Please do notify me here if you made a pull request, and I have no experience of handling pull request, so don't expect too much.
Anyway, let's move on. After version control was ready, I went crazy on separating the code. And tada:

New Files.png (11.14 KiB) Viewed 12659 times

The code is now separated into different files according to the functionalities. If anything goes wrong, I can quickly go to the related code.
With these additional files, control.lua now only has 36 lines of code, looks clean and tidy. So the mod is ready to accept more features!

I will continue the development of this mod within this weekend. But before that, I think I might release a patch first, as Joshyman on Mod Portal reported that this mod has issue with multiplayer map. But to be honest, I have no idea how to test multiplayer given that I have no friend playing this game. It will be helpful if anyone can tell me the solution for that. Maybe set up a server and create multiple instances of Factorio to join the server?

That's all what I want to say. Nothing really special. Just a proof of being alive. Hope you enjoyed.

[Qon]

I think you should look at performanc next. Got something like 3 units for this mod from the debug menu, which is very high.

What is the point of the duplicator? I haven't tested it so I'm not sure how it works exactly. But I don't really know any use case for a duplicator when we have item source and the everything provider.

[Mooncat]

I think you should look at performanc next. Got something like 3 units for this mod from the debug menu, which is very high.

What is the point of the duplicator? I haven't tested it so I'm not sure how it works exactly. But I don't really know any use case for a duplicator when we have item source and the everything provider.

hm... I knew the performance of Item Source is really a problem and planned to fix it at some point, but since it is for testing only, it is not in high priority. But if it is too serious, I will reconsider it.

The primary goal of the duplicator is for duplicating things that are hidden from the filter slot, like the items from this mod. They are always hidden because there is no way to unhide them, if you ask.

[Nexela]

Slight small tiny feature request -

config option to force enable the mod without all the popups and messages. for testing mod development of course.

[Mooncat]

Slight small tiny feature request -

config option to force enable the mod without all the popups and messages. for testing mod development of course.

Request accepted.

[Nexela]

Awesome! Thanks



Also I am making some progress on the circuit gui stuff not as fast as I would like but I am still learning!

In the mean time I am finishing up a neat little mod. Should have it done tonight.

[Mooncat]

Awesome! Thanks



Also I am making some progress on the circuit gui stuff not as fast as I would like but I am still learning!

In the mean time I am finishing up a neat little mod. Should have it done tonight.

Great! Take your time. Sorry I really can't promise when I can give you the gui stuff. I am too busy. 24 hours a day are not enough.

[Mooncat]

v0.1.1 is released!

It is my first try on optimization. Item Source, Item Void and Duplicator now have better performance when working on transport belts, static entities with inventory or static entities with fluidbox.
In one of my test games, FPS/UPS is increased from 54 to 60, and also 40 to 52 in another one. But it is still not recommended to build too many of them.

Added auto-enable suggested by Nexela.

Fixed some bugs.

Also, I am aware of the recent changes on LuaSurface::find_entities_filtered, so the mod now requires Factorio v0.13.11+

[siggboy]

I still love the mod. I'm not playing any real game anymore because it has become so much fun to play in a 200x200 all concrete box with Creative Mode .

Some stuff that is missing:

Ability to create filled oil barrels directly (the Duplicator works for this, but you need to setup a fluid source + assembler to get at least 1 oil barrel first)

Adjustable power source and power drain, i.e. an entity that can provide any amount of power up to a limit, same for power drain

A magic chest that provides only the items that you want (like the creative provider chest with a filter, maybe also as a normal chest that won't be accessible to robots). This magic chest is probably the thing that I miss most, because right now you always have to combine an item source + normal chest if you want to fill a chest with items. In fact I still use TestMode+Mjollnir a lot to have a chest with stuff in it (maybe auto-refilling, maybe not).

Combinator-related helpers: a digital readout, like Smart display, would be really good. Of course there are separate mods for this but it could be a part of Creative Mode. Combinators that provide a clock, provide a single pulse signal (optionally from an input).

Maybe an entity that can spawn biters and spitters? That could be nice to test defenses. I'm personally not into combat, but I suppose some people might love it.

Some of these ideas you might consider out of scope, just food for thought.