Resources distribution

[Cilya]

I am a bit frustrated that some game elements are not given the usefulness they should have. I think it's the case for trains, which shine the farther you go. If you can find all the resources you need near you, trains have no or little use.

I think the problem is only a balance problem. A simple idea would be to improve the quantities of mineral in spots the farther you are from the spawn area. Larger spots with more mineral by tiles. This would allow to increase the throughput of mining sites and/or decrease the time needed between relocations of the mining sites. Thus it gives more reasons to build larger and larger train stations and network. You know it's useful to spend more time optimizing your train network. Since it's also more dangerous, it gives the player a continuous challenge : face more powerful enemies to get always more raw material for the factory.

I don't think this require much changes. With more contents, for instance with mods, the same concept can be used : 1/ rarer raw material should also be accessible only if you go far enough, 2/ far mining sites may require more efficient mining drill (a tier 3 drill for instance) if the spots are only larger, but the tiles doesn't contain more mineral, or if the mining sites can only be accessed through these new drills (like the underground drill mod)

[slpwnd]

Interesting idea. Actually a mod could do this already. The resources distribution are moddable via the autoplace mechanism.

[ssilk]

This is a cumulated repetition from other threads I wrote into: the current placement of resources would make sense, if the distances get much bigger and if there are not all resources at all places.

But therefore we need some things:
- A much wider resource-radar (for resources only) and/or discover-bots
- A trailer for the current car, to make the current gigantic storage in the car realistic/smaller.
- Something, which is before train. I think to automated cars/trucks. Much simpler than trains, much more flexible, but also much slower, and not so much storage.
- Half-Automated placement of the tracks, signals, poles etc.
- Some expensive construction bot, which can work out of the range of a roboport, or a temporary roboport. Something, which lets you built things up fast.
- Automated supply over far distances to avoid driving the long distances to much.
- Half-Automated creation of train stations, mining sites etc...
- Circuit-Signaling over long distances. And supply by train, without the need to advise every single item.

Otherwise it takes just too long to create all that stuff.

[Cilya]

I'm not sure that all of that is necessary to see a first benefit in a more tuned resource placement. Train network doesn't require so much work, and it's rather a fun thing to do. You can use the car for exploration, and as long as the car system is not automatic, trains still keeps their advantage.

The resources distribution are moddable via the autoplace mechanism.

I will look into that.

edit: I've looked at the autoplace API. I don't think i can add new parameters to the distribution. It would require to change the autoplace mechanism, not to change its settings. Am I wrong ? (And since resource placement can be CPU intensive and has to be consistent, i don't think it's moddable or that it should be moddable in LUA)

[AlexPhoenix]

i don't think it's moddable or that it should be moddable in LUA)

it's not so cpu hungry, but you can mod it from lua, by using onchunkgenerated event.
i experimented with it, but i'm start to work under other things, so it will remain unfinished.

[cube]

edit: I've looked at the autoplace API. I don't think i can add new parameters to the distribution. It would require to change the autoplace mechanism, not to change its settings. Am I wrong ? (And since resource placement can be CPU intensive and has to be consistent, i don't think it's moddable or that it should be moddable in LUA)

What do you mean by new parameters?

[Cilya]

What do you mean by new parameters?

Distance to spawn. For dispersion (so that some resources are absent from some part of the map) more is needed as well.

it's not so cpu hungry, but you can mod it from lua, by using onchunkgenerated event.

It should be consistent noise, do you implement that during the event ?

[AlexPhoenix]

It should be consistent noise, do you implement that during the event ?

yep, but code is lost, cuz i deleted this mod:(
main idea is that you will generate world by small chunks, so load is not huge.

[Cilya]

main idea is that you will generate world by small chunks, so load is not huge.

I know, I already implemented that somewhere else. It can still be CPU intensive if your noise is complex. It's not necessarily much more than a few hundreds of ms. But it may be enough to create a small noticable freeze (it is the case in Factorio 0.8: when you explore, you have very small freezes) which can be bothering. Multi-threading can solve the problem. Using Lua might make it more noticable. Does Factorio embed a Lua JIT compiler ?

I'll give it a try. Do you have some advices ? Should I disable autoplace resources placement and place them with my algorithm ?

[AlexPhoenix]

main idea is that you will generate world by small chunks, so load is not huge.

I'll give it a try. Do you have some advices ? Should I disable autoplace resources placement and place them with my algorithm ?

if you use own generator, than disable custom generator.
also at game start you can request game to generate high amount of chunks to take less time in future.

LuaJIT not yet used as know, but check on your machine, do you have any slopes?