[MOD 0.17.x] Modular Armor Revamp

[Ranakastrasz]

And it doesn't work in Multiplayer. Apperently the data registration doesn't work in multiplayer. No clue why yet.

Still, works for single player.. Sooooo.

[Marc90]

Sadly... it worked once. But now I got this after loading:

Code: Select all

Error while running event on_tick (ID 0)
__Modular-Armor__/control.lua:372:
bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got nil)

[Ranakastrasz]

._.



ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

[Marc90]

I got the old version back and at least it works now. But I assume the next time I load the save it doesn't work anymore.

[Ranakastrasz]

Version 2.1 should still work fine.

[Ranakastrasz]

V2.6
Hopefully fixed the script error and all the other gamebreaking issues.

Also, Added conduit combat disruption.
-----

Conduits drop to 10% speed for 5 seconds after a shield takes damage (or is installed)
Technobabble reason is that the shield's bubble prevents energy transfer.
Balance reason is so that you cannot totally replace a fusion reactor with the higher power per size superconducting conduit.

[Marc90]

Awesome! Looks like it works now.

[Ranakastrasz]

Hurray!


I still have absolutely no idea how the mod worked in the first place, but since it works now, Thats great!

[Ranakastrasz]

Looks like I screwed up fuel consumption values. Fuel is being eaten at least 10 times faster than it should. I will need to do some math and figure out what I did wrong.


Edit:
Yep, The function that registers fuel values made them 6 times lower than they should be. Will fix shortly.

[Ranakastrasz]

V2.7
Fixed T2 Solar Panel name.
Fixed Fuel Coef.
Adjusted prices.


T2 Solar panel name was lower case, not matching other stuff.

Fuel was all 1/6th as effective as it should be, since I accidently applied a coeficient to it that I wasn't supposed to.

Adjusted prices of some of the equipment again.

[buder5]

standalone mod for fueled fusion reactor and burn etc
i would like that if you can thanks

suggestion ? or already here ?
make reactor/burner stop when the battery are at 50% so my solar power or other can charge the battery ? on an existing i world made some the fuel to test if the reactor stop and it didn'T stop so i wonder

[Ranakastrasz]

Standalone mods would be somewhat tedious. Might be able to make a config thing to disable each part.


The cutoff threshhold used to be used, but I managed to break it a while ago, and had too many other thing to do. Will restore it later.

[Ranakastrasz]

V2.8

Burner Generators stop at 75% stored power
Fusion Reactors stop at 50% stored power.
-----
I still don't really like the way this works, but it will work.


Eventually, I want it to be more like, if you have only burners, go to 100%, but if you have a few solars, only go to 90%. And if you have a good mix, only 75%. Or something like that. Having only fusion reactors, and the batteries only charging to 50% feels completely wrong, even though it lets solar panels get some action in.


Still, it will have to wait a while. Need to wait for the full rewrite at least.

[katalex]

Your mode off in 0.14. Please change number version in file info.json.

[Ranakastrasz]

The mod is not compatible with 0.14 yet. Hence why the version claims to be for v0.13, via the thread title and the OP.

The grid changes break a few things and I havent gotten around to that yet.

While some mods can just change the version number, and it works fine, this one can't.

[AenAllAin]

In my opinion, this is mod is honestly one of the worst in the game; it is definitely one of the worst I have ever tried. I think the main reason for this impression is that it seems to be mis-categorized. This mod is listed under the somewhat benign category of "New Items, Entities, Extensions", so one would only expect to receive various additional things for standard gameplay; however, upon installing this mod you find that it does not just add additional content, but in an effort to make the added content useful and a good fit, it dramatically changes many aspects of the vanilla game; not just limited to the base entities, items, recipes, and technologies, but it even goes so far as to change basic mechanics of the game via script-ticks (which are an unexpected addition to processing burden for a mod that is just supposed to be an extension). So the expectation is just new stuff, and the result is a complete overhaul to some of the gameplay. ...this mod should really be posted under the "Complete Overhauls" section; maybe then it would not leave such a bad taste in the mouth.


PROS:

• + Adds new stuff; I like having new stuff I can add to my game and try out if I want.
• + Creates a tiered armor system; it is nice to have an upgrade path for old equipment.
• + Solar Power boost; the vanilla Solar equipment seems to be under-powered and essentially useless, which severely limits the usefulness of early modular armor. Improvements to the solar equipment are a welcome change.
• + Increased battery capacity; this is also useful.

CONS:

• --- Modifies (increases) the build cost of many vanilla items; Yeah, no ...I don't need you to "fix" the cost of the base items just to accommodate your interpretation of what the game balance should be.
• -- Modifies the recipe prerequisites and rearranges the research tree;if you want to overhaul the way the game works, that's fine, but don't package it as just an extension mod.
• -Tries but fails to implement grid-assisted equipment power; the idea is unique (even good), but the actual result is flaky, unreliable, poorly balanced, poorly indicated, and has no real utility.
• - Adds some amount of processing burden via script-ticks trying to implement the grid-assist mechanism; the fact that you have to resort to such extreme or convoluted methods to get what you need should have been a red-flag indicator to you that either the game was not ready to support it or that it is simply a bad idea.

[Ranakastrasz]

Yes! My first ever negative criticism. Took long enough.

In my opinion, this is mod is honestly one of the worst in the game; it is definitely one of the worst I have ever tried. I think the main reason for this impression is that it seems to be mis-categorized. This mod is listed under the somewhat benign category of "New Items, Entities, Extensions", so one would only expect to receive various additional things for standard gameplay; however, upon installing this mod you find that it does not just add additional content, but in an effort to make the added content useful and a good fit, it dramatically changes many aspects of the vanilla game; not just limited to the base entities, items, recipes, and technologies, but it even goes so far as to change basic mechanics of the game via script-ticks (which are an unexpected addition to processing burden for a mod that is just supposed to be an extension). So the expectation is just new stuff, and the result is a complete overhaul to some of the gameplay. ...this mod should really be posted under the "Complete Overhauls" section; maybe then it would not leave such a bad taste in the mouth.

Ouch.

That is a good point. It used to be very much "New Items, Entities, Extentions". Originally, I added in Conduits and the burner generator. No price changes, no balance changes, etc. I just wanted to have something other than Solar panels until fusion reactor.

Then, I didn't really want to have fusion reactors be the end-all of generators, I wanted the rest of them to be usable in their own situation.

However, having 4 generators, I had to balance them. Which as it turns out, is essentially impossible. Honestly, its as bad as trying to balance steam engines and solar panels in the base game. They both produce power, but in such different ways that you literally cannot compare them, and dozens of threads spawn on the subject.
Here, I have 4 of them. (And splitting 2 of them into 2 tiers made it a bit less problematic) but if I wanted solar panels to be useful, they had to be more powerful than generators, except that generators use fuel so...

Essentially, the whole balance thing is a mess, and I don't know where to start on fixing it.

Then, I also wanted to have the armor available earlier, so I had to reduce the price of T1 equipment, so it doesn't use blue circuits. And then I had to add some smaller versions of some of them. And then I decided that multiple sizes of equipment was more interesting.

It definitely went from a few changes to way too many changes, some of which are probably unnecessary.

Also the Tech tree changes, which only insert new things, add requirements for modular armor stuff only, or add extra tiers. Nothing outside of Armor is changed there.

At the time, I considered overhauls to be mods like Dytech or Bobs Mod, which massively change most aspects of the game, while this one doesn't touch anything outside of modular armor. However, the main issue was that none of the catagories seemed right, so it was either "New Items, Entities, Extensions" or "Gameplay / Vanilla+", neither of which really fit. So I chose one and lived with it.

PROS:

• + Adds new stuff; I like having new stuff I can add to my game and try out if I want.
• + Creates a tiered armor system; it is nice to have an upgrade path for old equipment.
• + Solar Power boost; the vanilla Solar equipment seems to be under-powered and essentially useless, which severely limits the usefulness of early modular armor. Improvements to the solar equipment are a welcome change.
• + Increased battery capacity; this is also useful.

CONS:

New stuff can be good, but too much new stuff can be a problem. Dytech and bobs mod took a while to get into for that reason. Too much STUFF.
The tiers actually took a long time to setup. It was more arbritrary before, until I sat down and decided what went where.
Solar panels suck in vanilla. Hence the separate Pre-Fusion Mod I made.
Battery capacity is not so important anymore. Vanilla increased battery capacity by, I think, 20 times, so it barely matters anymore.

• --- Modifies (increases) the build cost of many vanilla items; Yeah, no ...I don't need you to "fix" the cost of the base items just to accommodate your interpretation of what the game balance should be.
• -- Modifies the recipe prerequisites and rearranges the research tree;if you want to overhaul the way the game works, that's fine, but don't package it as just an extension mod.
• -Tries but fails to implement grid-assisted equipment power; the idea is unique (even good), but the actual result is flaky, unreliable, poorly balanced, poorly indicated, and has no real utility.
• - Adds some amount of processing burden via script-ticks trying to implement the grid-assist mechanism; the fact that you have to resort to such extreme or convoluted methods to get what you need should have been a red-flag indicator to you that either the game was not ready to support it or that it is simply a bad idea.

I do need to review the costs again. Its largely pattern matching and following how vanilla does it. Adding the tier zero items probably throws the price off a lot. The armors themselves are not supposed to have price changed by much, (Just require the previous tier, but still nearly the same)
That said, the fusion reactor is probably way too expensive, and I need to run through stuff and compare it to vanilla at some point.

Only effects Modular armor. The Prerequisites are either just elicidated (Power armor requires speed modules to build, so it now requires speed module research to research) or else inserting a lower tier (T1 shields require Electrostatic shields to build now, so T1 shields require Electrostatic shields to be researched to be researched)

It was unique, and almost certainly was part of the reason why we have a few mods popping up that do something similar. Its reliably varies a lot depending on how you build your power network, and it tends to be extremely reliable in most cases.
What Does flaky mean? I assume its a negative trait, but generally that implies something is falling apart.
As for indicated, Yea, I suck as using UI anything, and my attempt to have it show sparks like an accumulator didn't work out very well. Looked like the player was on fire.
Same with generators and fusion reactor, but at least it says "Out of Fuel"

The Gameloop used to be necessary as is, since at the time, the required events didn't exist. They do now, but until reciently, I hadn't found a mod that used them. I still haven't started messing with it to figure out exactly how it works, so I haven't gotten around to rewriting it yet.
The gameloop is truely terrible, inefficient, and so on. Until I found Robot Army, It also had the highest time cost of any mod I had ever installed.

As for "The game is not ready for this", well, that is nonsense. Someone went and wrote Supreme Commander in Warcraft 3. In which he had to write an entire physics simulator, since the base game didn't support it, and basically scripted everything aside from UI and movement. He pretty much took a game engine entirely unsuited to another RTS, and pretty much overwrite half of the gaming engine to get it to work.



Feedback is highly appreciated.

[AenAllAin]

@Ranakastrasz: I appreciate that you took it constructively as it was meant, and you make some very good counter-points to my criticism. My apologies if I sounded overly negative and harsh (reading it again, I feel like I focused too much on the negative and ignored a lot of the positives). I totally get that it is a work in progress, and you are bringing it along as and when you can. This is a nice mod! It has lots of good features. I like your coding style and structure; it is very clean and efficient. And there are many other Pros that could be added. ...I just want to put that out there as well.

Also, maybe I need to justify the Cons more and give them better context so you can think about how you might improve or change the mod.

• The biggest issue I guess is that some of the changes were unexpected (even though I can see why they are necessary from your viewpoint). I don't know off-hand of a good way to split the mod by up by impact level; i.e. everything that is "game-changing" in a separate mod from things that are only "helpful".
• The second biggest thing that was putting me off are the changes to the base equipment and such; but again, I don't know of a better way to make the new stuff fit well with the existing stuff without changing the existing stuff.
• Corollary to the second issue of changes to the base game is that it was wreaking havoc on my other equipment mods; that may be unrealistic and unreasonable to expect everything to get along, but it is nice when it does. I think if you found a balance that avoided changing the base equipment that is probably the most anyone could expect.
• You know ...I really like the grid-assisted power idea; it's a winner. I think it needs to stay and become a big deal. The issue though, I think, is that there isn't enough of a need for it as it is. The potential here is huge I think. When you put that idea into my head, I was immediately envisioning my armor becoming a real beast of an asset when I was within my own base/power-grid. I really wanted to see things like my exoskeletons becoming super-charged and putting me in overdrive, all my weapon systems coming online and firing at amazing speed with great power, the energy reserves getting filled up, and just becoming an all-round god-like force to be reckoned with when I had my power grid to back me up. I was just hugely disappointed honestly. I think if you could somehow create a player managed use for really exploiting the power grid that it would be a huge must-have success in and of itself. Your large capacity batteries are one good usage of this. The only problem seems to be that you can easily just charge the batteries to full without the power-grid conduits. I don't really have any reason to come back to my base/grid to re-charge them. Battery power isn't really getting exploited as a manageable resource. Another good option, off the top of my head is some sort of variable energy damage weapon that could be tapped to shred aliens at will with enough power.
• Indicator: I don't know; it is just the general feeling that I don't know what my armor power is doing and when it is doing it. I can't look on the power graph and see my personal energy consumption or track the suits power supply/network. If there was some way to open the dummy power network independent of the power grid and see all my equipment power usage using the same type of power graph that would be perfect.
• Flaky: ok, it does not work reliably when I have been using it; but, I have no idea why; maybe one of the other mods I am using, maybe something else. So I can't confirm that this is actually an issue.
• Never mind about the script processing cost. You are right; it is not something to be concerned about really.

Anyway, thanks for making the mod and thanks for taking the time. I hope you come up with some more amazing additions to the game.

[Ranakastrasz]

@Ranakastrasz: I appreciate that you took it constructively as it was meant, and you make some very good counter-points to my criticism. My apologies if I sounded overly negative and harsh (reading it again, I feel like I focused too much on the negative and ignored a lot of the positives). I totally get that it is a work in progress, and you are bringing it along as and when you can. This is a nice mod! It has lots of good features. I like your coding style and structure; it is very clean and efficient. And there are many other Pros that could be added. ...I just want to put that out there as well.

XD.
Well, when you say "Worst mod ever", it generally points to the person being extremely negative.

My coding style.... Well, generally, back in Warcraft 3, I modded abandoned Mods. Which is how I actually learned about scripting. My style tended to mirror each mod's original coding style. Mostly. And it was a mess when I tried to switch to another one.

This mod started out as a copy of , I believe, 5dim's Train stuff. Specifically, I needed to attach a dummy accumulator to a moving entity, and he had a train car with an attached laser turret. So Copy, comment out pretty much everything, and start with the few parts that are useful. I slowly started using other mod's styles, mainly shorthand functions and so on, but that was the starting point. It does not resemble any other mod I've made before.

Also, maybe I need to justify the Cons more and give them better context so you can think about how you might improve or change the mod.
The biggest issue I guess is that some of the changes were unexpected (even though I can see why they are necessary from your viewpoint). I don't know off-hand of a good way to split the mod by up by impact level; i.e. everything that is "game-changing" in a separate mod from things that are only "helpful".

The second biggest thing that was putting me off are the changes to the base equipment and such; but again, I don't know of a better way to make the new stuff fit well with the existing stuff without changing the existing stuff.

Yea, The mod was honestly originally something of a "For Local Use". It was originally part of my "Local" mod which had all the changes I had made to the base game. Originally just changing armor recipes. Since I split the Modular armor into it's ow mod, that part kinda tagged along.

Also, the entire mod is gamechanging. Nothing is just Helpful. As in, not even a UI, since I have no idea how to do one.

Corollary to the second issue of changes to the base game is that it was wreaking havoc on my other equipment mods; that may be unrealistic and unreasonable to expect everything to get along, but it is nice when it does. I think if you found a balance that avoided changing the base equipment that is probably the most anyone could expect.

Yea. Compatability is almost impossible. I mean, if 3 mods add a T3 shield, do they overwrite? which one wins? Are there 3 seperate shield equipmenet instead? Which one is most powerful? GAh.

Main reason I had wanted to change the base equipment was that I wanted to have basic modular armor and a bunch of weak but affordable equipmenet for red circuits before you get lots of blue circuits.

You know ...I really like the grid-assisted power idea; it's a winner. I think it needs to stay and become a big deal. The issue though, I think, is that there isn't enough of a need for it as it is. The potential here is huge I think. When you put that idea into my head, I was immediately envisioning my armor becoming a real beast of an asset when I was within my own base/power-grid. I really wanted to see things like my exoskeletons becoming super-charged and putting me in overdrive, all my weapon systems coming online and firing at amazing speed with great power, the energy reserves getting filled up, and just becoming an all-round god-like force to be reckoned with when I had my power grid to back me up. I was just hugely disappointed honestly. I think if you could somehow create a player managed use for really exploiting the power grid that it would be a huge must-have success in and of itself. Your large capacity batteries are one good usage of this. The only problem seems to be that you can easily just charge the batteries to full without the power-grid conduits. I don't really have any reason to come back to my base/grid to re-charge them. Battery power isn't really getting exploited as a manageable resource. Another good option, off the top of my head is some sort of variable energy damage weapon that could be tapped to shred aliens at will with enough power.

Sudden 180: /Whiplash
You were extremely negative about it. But I see your expectations, and why the mod didn't meet them.

They actually outperform everything else given a grid, and the T2 version either matches or exceeds the fusion reactor itself.
I kept nerfing then buffing them until I eventually split it in half, since they were T1, but I wanted them to be useful in T3 as well.
Thing was, you could drag a power line with you to the battle, break off and restore energy quickly. Now, since shield flaring shuts them down for a few seconds, I could increase it significantly....

The game does not support making equipment more powerful under an arbritary condition. A shame since I wanted to add an overclocking system or something...
Modular Armor weapon systems suck. I buffed them and they still SUCK. Except for finding aliens who are hiding behind tree.

The batteries, again, were only really needed back when vanilla batteies sucked. Now, at 20x power, they are actually great as is.

I totally wanted to make a handheld laser gun that ran on suit power, but I have no idea how to manipulate the ammo inventory to support that. And again, it would use suit power which is always better used on shields or speed.

Indicator: I don't know; it is just the general feeling that I don't know what my armor power is doing and when it is doing it. I can't look on the power graph and see my personal energy consumption or track the suits power supply/network. If there was some way to open the dummy power network independent of the power grid and see all my equipment power usage using the same type of power graph that would be perfect.

Yea. Same. Vanilla has the same problem. You might not even notice your energy is running low until your legs turn off while running from a horde of spitters.... I hate that.
Here, well, I wanted sparks, smoke, and a purple pusling glow for each generator. But its not working out so far in my prototype attempts.

Still, the red, NO FUEL text helps a bit. At least until someone started complaining about it, so I had to add a config to disable it.

Its not really a dummy network. Just a dummy laser turret to absorb power proportional to the demand of the conduits.

Flaky: ok, it does not work reliably when I have been using it; but, I have no idea why; maybe one of the other mods I am using, maybe something else. So I can't confirm that this is actually an issue.

Well, I had some serious gamebreaking bugs a few times a while back, so it might have gone away on latest version. And any other mod that adds new modules will still probably not play nice.

Never mind about the script processing cost. You are right; it is not something to be concerned about really.

Yep. Could be worse, but could be a LOT better.

Anyway, thanks for making the mod and thanks for taking the time. I hope you come up with some more amazing additions to the game.

I currently have 8 other mods, most of which are extremely lightweight.
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Ranakastrasz

Side note, I DO have "Pre-Fusion", which just adds the solar panel buff, and nothing else. Mainly so I could play bobs mod without the whole "Solar panels suck" Problem

[Ranakastrasz]

Error while loading equipmenet prototye "energy-shield-mk2-equipment" (energy-shield-equipmenet): No such node (categories) Modifications: base > Modular-Armor

Joy. They updated the requirements again. Meaning I have to go through EVERYTHING again. Just like LAST TIME when the renamed everything.

Urgh.....

Gonna be a while till 0.1.4
edit:did the update, but the game froze instead of giving me a nice clean errormessage