Development and Discussion

[jcranmer]

i had started using check valve, then i though out, it would be nice if it has also enable/disable mode. atm. i'm using pumps, connected to tank, to stop/start production of certain facilities (pump disables "flow" at certain tank level).

The idea and the integration for the valve comes straight from GotLags flowcontrol, the basic ideas is to use the storage tank entity and see what's possible within the game to manipulate flow, sadly there is nothing like a real valve you can just turn on/off on conditions with the tank entity. So I'm afraid you have to stick to the pump + tank/checkvalve setup, but the point here is you can place the check valve inline with the pipe and its a 1x1 entity instead of a big 3x3 thing when you just want to check for fluid level.

so it's not possible to add valve, that can stop fluid flow? since overflow valve works on builtin condition, i thought it should be possible add something like control valve, which will be pass trough without conditon (eg. enable mode), or will work on enable/disable condition from logic network (eg. add wiring to tank to read level, and enable/disable on valve)

what i do with pump is in fact opossite of what overflow valve does ... when tank is above level x, it just stops fluid flow, while overflow valve stop fluid flow, when tank is bellow level x

The overflow valve works by quirks of fluid mechanics. It has a base_level of 0.8, which means that adjacent pipes have to be at least 80% full to flow into it. It also means that it can't generate a column height of > 0.2, which really chokes the flow through it. It is a storage-tank as far as the game is concerned (which is nothing more than a pipe that can report to the circuit network). The only fluid item in the game that can be enabled/disabled is the pump, and vanilla small pumps are absolute crap.

[mexmer]

While i appreciate new logistic warehouse, they look great, i think their price is ridiculous, also they are unfortunately totally not worth building, mind 25 x logistic chests provide more storage than 1 logistic warehouse, at lower cost.

also i don't get by what logic logistic warehouse has lower storage capacity than regular warehouse (disregarding cost) this makes it even less worth building.

so atm. only warehouse i build is regular one, because it's in par with steel chests (in space/storage ratio and material ratio, considering you will need to make box/insert/box/insert/box row, to be able to have inserter line at one side for input and other for output)

[Asekhan]

So, I'm doing a playthrough with all your current mods and it's absolutely great, I absolutely love the petrochem mod, it's a great addition to your suite of mods (my last playthrough was on 0.12 while petrochem was only talked about) the latest acid use on refining is a nice use of the new acids and really help the diversification of the refining section, which is always welcome.

I mainly want to talk about the new Smelting mod, I know it's still in it's early phase and you seems to have great plans for it's future, but for now it take so much space, material cost and power that it make very little sense to actually use it. While the building are really well done, they do are big (well, only two of them) and it take arrays upon arrays of them for any decent throughput. While space if technically infinite, you do have to fight biters for it, so doubling the real estate of the whole base for this is a bit much. You could also argue that yellow belt are way better than blue belt, you simply have to use more of them which shouldn't be a problem as space is infinite, yet you don't see many using yellow at all as soon as red is researched, let alone blue.

After your number tweak of 0.1.2 it add some incentive to use them (Thank god for that alumina speed upgrade), almost doubling the iron is great and might be worth the great cost, but might I suggest to adjust the speed of some of them? especially the higher tier are a very small upgrade. If you compare them to their alternative (for, say, iron), the furnaces goes from 1 to 4 (assuming full bob, which is IIRC a prerequisite) and yours go from 0.75 to ~2. And while the speed of individual machine is a bit faster than a normal furnace, factoring the space needed vs an array of furnaces make it overall a lot slower per tile. Not factoring the numerous module slots of the furnace.

Overall It's great to setup a small chain (even if sometimes, why processing, pelleting AND ingoting the ores before SMELTING them make any difference feel a bit weird, after going through all the ore refining is there any impurities left? or is it simply creating more out of nothing? but I digress) and we get to use more of those fine petrochem products, which I love. But all the added complexity over a simple furnace feel like enough of a cost, factor in the space and material needed make it not worth it for us, and it's a shame.

The more I think about it, there is similarities with petrochem (so much more to do, it take a lot more space than basic oil processing) but it doesn't bother at all, maybe because each step is so different and you have multiple choice of what to do (did I mention I love that mod yet?). Yet in smelting, it's almost the same thing 13 times. It didn't bother me much in the 0.12 processing mod, but it was only a 2 step process over normal, now it's 4 step over, and it feel WAY bigger.

I guess if there was less step it would feel a lot better, maybe netting a gain from the plating process as you work with a liquid and it's more efficient than the raw ore, so you would start with a net gain over simple furnace (instead of the gain being at the ingot section for some of the metals) which is nice as the later the gain is, the less machine you will have to build to cope with it. Already having a gain there, you could cut a step, the processing or the pelleting are the only expendable, as you need the ingot part to actually process the ore into usable metal. Add to this some more speed for the machines and I feel the mod would really shine even prior to the planned addition.

And the warehouse cost is really a non-issue for us, it's a nice a building, everything on the same spot and ease of use for multiple inserter, which is added value over simple chests. A slight shame there's no 3x3 (or 2x2) so we cannot actually replace all of the warehouse mod.

Overall, absolutely great works on your mods, I can't see me playing factorio without them anymore. Feel free to do whatever you want with them, it's your mods, it's your time. Thanks for what you did so far.

[mexmer]

Smelting definetly need rebalancing, if nothing else, then number of items it needs/produces. mind at time you get smelting done, you will hardly have fast inserter with maybe +1 stack bonus. that means you need at least 3 or 4 fast inserters at output of some faciliets to not choke them.

while whole smelting process is nice, such things kinda makes it not really useable. you will not redo your whole ore processing line in mid late/game just to get few more plates out, especially not, considering "space" requirements.
technology should be useable (and by useable i mean also economically viable and not hinder your procesing line) when you get it.

tbh. same issue is with algae processing, process need to be shorter, with less output, otherwise without stack inserter it's just pita producing algae.
at time you get tech you have what? basic inserter, fast inserter, and that is, maybe +1 inserter bonus invented (maybe). so start unloading with 5 fast inserters? while it's not bad, you need to take in account costs (energy, mats, space)

to me production chokes are hindrance, that really put me off from using half of new stuff in angels mods. other is (like i posted on few occasion already) space requirements.

one thing i like (in terms of balance and usefullness) are pressure tanks (which imo might cost slightly more), but unfortunatelly they make gas tank and fluid tank from petrochem totally obsolete.
same goes with warehouse vs. ore silo, while warehouse is bigger and costs more, silo is sad when compared to warehouse (i already said silo is much worse than boxes, now with warehouses in, silo is really only decoration)

to me in most later addition to angels mods there is rather big unbalance in tech levels - when you get it, and what you really need to effectively use it.

don't get me wrong, i really like angels mods, but when you start new game, you very shortly find out, you just can't use some things, not because you can't build them, but because it will slow your progress, so you will wait to use it "later" and "later" and then you find, you unlocked other more effective processess, and you still have some thing waiting, but you don't want to use them now, because of space, they now slow, or anything else. there is just too much tech and production routes you unlock very early, that are not viable to be used at time you get them.

[Light]

After your number tweak of 0.1.2 it add some incentive to use them (Thank god for that alumina speed upgrade), almost doubling the iron is great and might be worth the great cost, but might I suggest to adjust the speed of some of them? especially the higher tier are a very small upgrade. If you compare them to their alternative (for, say, iron), the furnaces goes from 1 to 4 (assuming full bob, which is IIRC a prerequisite) and yours go from 0.75 to ~2. And while the speed of individual machine is a bit faster than a normal furnace, factoring the space needed vs an array of furnaces make it overall a lot slower per tile. Not factoring the numerous module slots of the furnace.

Overall It's great to setup a small chain (even if sometimes, why processing, pelleting AND ingoting the ores before SMELTING them make any difference feel a bit weird, after going through all the ore refining is there any impurities left? or is it simply creating more out of nothing? but I digress) and we get to use more of those fine petrochem products, which I love. But all the added complexity over a simple furnace feel like enough of a cost, factor in the space and material needed make it not worth it for us, and it's a shame.

This is the conclusion I've also come to quite some time ago. As I've mentioned that at locations further away from the main bus, I've been relying on furnaces more than the smelting process.
Upgrading the speeds could very well be the proper solution to assist in my throughput issues, given the smelting line is so large in order to keep things going smoothly. It would be great to shrink it down considerably to free up some more land for expanding upon other things.

However, if there's anything I rely on smelting for the most, it's for simplifying some of the plates that are annoying to create. Silicon in particular went from taking a fair bit of real estate for creating calcium chloride and carbon, into simply quartz and coal. Tungsten, Cobalt, and a few others are made slightly easier, thanks to some of them sharing the same chemicals and ingredients. It's those ones that really shine in my book, especially given they're not burned through as quickly as other ores, thus providing a stable throughput with far less.

The more I think about it, there is similarities with petrochem (so much more to do, it take a lot more space than basic oil processing) but it doesn't bother at all, maybe because each step is so different and you have multiple choice of what to do (did I mention I love that mod yet?). Yet in smelting, it's almost the same thing 13 times. It didn't bother me much in the 0.12 processing mod, but it was only a 2 step process over normal, now it's 4 step over, and it feel WAY bigger.

I guess if there was less step it would feel a lot better, maybe netting a gain from the plating process as you work with a liquid and it's more efficient than the raw ore, so you would start with a net gain over simple furnace (instead of the gain being at the ingot section for some of the metals) which is nice as the later the gain is, the less machine you will have to build to cope with it. Already having a gain there, you could cut a step, the processing or the pelleting are the only expendable, as you need the ingot part to actually process the ore into usable metal. Add to this some more speed for the machines and I feel the mod would really shine even prior to the planned addition.

Personally, I like the option to expand the smelting line to get greater yields. If as mentioned, the speed of these buildings were improved, then the additional steps should hopefully feel less restricted and provide better options as the game progresses and increased yields become more of a priority. It would be nice if the pellet and future buildings were more optional from the start though, as from the beginning I felt like I either had to go all-in for me to notice any real benefit, or not bother with smelting at all. Again, it's probably due to the speed.

I'd also be comfortable with more complex smelting options if it means greater yields as well. Having different recipes that are more difficult to synthesize to get additional ores could provide a good option for those who wish to go the extra step to squeeze out more ores than they can currently, but they can also use what's available now if they're not overly concerned with maxing their yields to the limit and just want something to improve them slightly.

An example of this is using either the pellet press to compress ores and create a small gain, or instead using the oven with a more complex recipe to create sheets that make better use of volume and thus gets an additional ore or two worth. The choice is up to the player what ores are worth going either the oven or pellet press, but you're not penalized too much by going the easy route should you take it. This would help somewhat with preventing a large chain of processes and present some choices based on difficulty vs. gain. I know I'd personally mix and match based on the change in needs, without feeling like there's only a single way to get things done with no variety.

And the warehouse cost is really a non-issue for us, it's a nice a building, everything on the same spot and ease of use for multiple inserter, which is added value over simple chests. A slight shame there's no 3x3 (or 2x2) so we cannot actually replace all of the warehouse mod.

The logistics warehouses costed quite a fortune. Just before the reduced cost, I recycled all the ones I made and managed to fill a warehouse in stone bricks alone. Now with the reduced cost, I created a nicely sized island with landfill from all the stone recovered. It now feels just right, and looks great.

Overall, absolutely great works on your mods, I can't see me playing factorio without them anymore. Feel free to do whatever you want with them, it's your mods, it's your time. Thanks for what you did so far.

Agreed. I went back to a vanilla game with a friend and felt totally naked without the added depth these mods provided. Felt great to return to the Angel's game.

[aklesey1]

Arch666Angel can u tell us about new types of your waste water?

[steinio]

Some pictures:

Saphirite and Jivolite crushed ore sorting column

- 18 Ore Crushers MK1 (maybe 16 or 14 are enough - 1 Ore Crusher : 2 Sorting Facility)
- 28 Ore Sorting Facility MK 1
- all express transport belts
- nearly 4000 Iron Ore/m

Angels Sa+Ji.png (992.5 KiB) Viewed 10067 times

Angels Smelting setup with ratios

- 2 Ore Processing Machine MK1
- 1 Pellet Press MK1
- 6 Blast Furnace MK1
- 10 Induction Furnace MK1
- 15 Casting Machine MK1
- 2 columns nearly 700 Iron plates/m

Angels Smelting.png (2.06 MiB) Viewed 10067 times

Greetings steinio

[Arch666Angel]

@Asekhan
Thanks for the kind words.

@mexmer
So in real world production planning you want your machine to run almost every time and with a constant throughput, everything else is a waste of time and resources. You could transfer the same thing to factorio where everything is production, a machine that is not running is wasted.
To your example with the algae farm: the recipe takes 20 seconds to craft and outputs 40 items, that's 2 items per second to unload the machine before the next cycle, which one blue inserter or a yellow one with stack size 1 can handle. Why would you want to unload it faster? If you made enough machine to handle a burst output from the farm they will be idle half the time -> waste of resources.
Also as I always say: This isnt vanilla, there is no "best" way to make something, sometimes you dont want to use the newest and latest tech, the fact that you can research it isnt corresponding if you actually need what you are researching.


--
I will reply to the last few post a bit more in general with what I'm currently thinking about and plans:

First off things will probably slow down considerately because my new semester started and I have other "stuff" to do.

Plan/Changes:
Refining:

• Remove the ore7(gem) and ore8(earths) lines/items and make ore5 (rubyte) the color of ore8.
• Gems - I'm still not happy with the way you can produce gems at the moment so I'm thinking about changing and simplifying it a lot, probably mix the crystal slurry with corresponding minerals and/or catalysts to produce the gems.

Water-Treatment

• Brine Pools - Add brine pools to produce saline water from water and lithia water from thermal without a byproduct, process takes longer but less energy.
• Add Sea ground pump - extracts mud water from the sea ground:
  Mud water -> floatation/filtration -> Black Sand / Mud /
  Mud -> Sand/Clay (for molds in the smelting mod)
  Black Sand -> Monazit / Bastnäsit (rare earth and fluorite) (rare earth for alter use, fluorite in petrochem, (could also be a source for phosphate, thorium and uranium))
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastn%C3% ... te_ore.jpg
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite# ... iagram.jpg
• Coolant water recycling for smelting mod, if I get it to work will work with different temperatures input/output in recipes.

Petrochem

• Change chemical plants to only use recipes with corresponding amount of outputs (1 output fluid -> liquifyer, 2 outputs chemical plant, 3 outputs adv chemical plant)
• Change sulfur from coal to go through floatation as a coal slurry, no intermediate step to make coke, goes directly to pellet -> downside

Tech-Mod

• Overhaul the tech/research

Components

• Will use the full resources the other mods provides

Secret project

• ???

[aklesey1]

Oh great we can wait for tech overhaul
Yes i'm agree with u Arch666Angel again, but can u say that doesn't suit you in present system? in bob mods? And in 0.15 we'll get new packs for our science

Pyanodon mod also will use sand as resource, this mod also will have gravel and limestone
Yuoki mod has resource such as mud and dirt - they can be useful

whether you played in dytech? This mod system contains really many types of intermediate parts for machines and structures in this mod

[Airat9000]

want to know when bio processing mod will be ready mate??

[Timeslice]

want to know when bio processing mod will be ready mate??

Sure, tell us when it will be ready, Airat9000.

[yesimon]

Hi Angel,

Would it be possible to rename the base 'Air filter' machine to something else? Right now it conflicts with the reusable 'Air filter' item used in the popular Air filtering mod. The Air filter Mk2 is unaffected since it has a different name.

TY - Great mods by the way!

[aklesey1]

Waiting for news about bio processing mod
We want to use all types of artifacts again, we want optimized concrete and how petrochem mod will interact with processing mod because we have may types of gases fluids and another products

And question about smelting mod - the chains for silicon, aluminium, tungsten and titan - whether there will be their recipes is irreversible are changed in the future? Or you just want to introduce more variety in production chains? I'm asking because old processing mod considered bob plates recipes scheme

Don't take offense at me for my curiosity Arch666Angel, but all the same there is a wish to learn where you want to use manganese chrome and platinum, i think many people can saw these elements in map editor on in constant combinator menu

Your creativity does well to our Factorio community so we want to support u

[steinio]

According to the latest fff the artifacts are obsolete.

[aklesey1]

According to the latest fff the artifacts are obsolete.

i'm talking about bob artifacts which used for high p[rocessing in refinering mod, from bob enemies mod, i don't care about vanilla artifacts

[jo2k]

Hi, I made an (ugly? wicked?) almost complete graph for the current PetroChem mod within the free yEd Graph Editor.
The forum doesn't let me upload the source file here easily, but you can have a look at my export.

I'm still trying to make it look nice and clear, but that's a challenge...

Have fun (and please let me know about about errors you found).

graph

PetroChem.png (1.21 MiB) Viewed 9598 times

[Light]

Looking at the graph reminds me of the joyful complexity that mods bring.

Although, 'Dirt Water Electrolysis' is new to me. I even tried to find it since skipping purified water for simple water with slag byproduct would be useful, but couldn't find it.
Is this correct?

[jo2k]

I can see it in my crafting UI. "Dirt Water Electrolysis" is the 1st icon in the 3rd row.

Factorio 0.14, petrochem 0.2.1

[hoho]

I can see it in my crafting UI. "Dirt Water Electrolysis" is the 1st icon in the 3rd row.

It's called "dirt water electrolysis" but it uses just regular water you get with offshore pumps.

The "normal" water electrolysis is using purified water. Difference between the two is that dirt water gives slag as an extra

[Light]

Found it under basic chemistry, but needed to reset the research to obtain it.
Another recipe for the migration file.

It's nice to see another alternative to getting precious slag.