Mylon's Many Mods

[Mylon]

Oh, good catch! You're right, it's a silly ugly typo. Thanks again.

[Anson]

Dirt Path - Latest vresion 0.8.1
Frequently trafficked areas turn to dirt.

really nice idea. will we also get some small walking speed bonus from those paths ?

but first of all: where is the mod?
looking for the mod on the portal without problems, but the above link in the forum is bad:
URLs on the portal website seem to be case sensitive !? correct link is Dirt_Path

Prospector - Latest version 0.7.1

yet another nice mod, based on some alternate method to get more ore.

some minor improvement: the prospectors and advanced miners should get different icons (for crafting window as well as inventory). currently i have advanced drills from several mods, 4 of them are recolors and 2 have letters added in the corner of the icon, but 6 are identical: vanilla drills, the two prospectors, the 2 advanced drills from this mod, and the bucket wheel excavator. i don't expect fancy new graphics, but another unique recolor and/or a simple "P" in the corner would be nice to find those four new items, and to distinguish prospectors from drills.

It would also be nice if i could place (and fast-replace) the advanced drills and/or replace the old drills on veins already while the prospector is still working and the new ore isn't found yet.

what's the range of prospectors ?
there is no indicator, and i already found out that the prospector doesn't work only on the current chunk ...

[Mylon]

Yes, you have the right link for dirt path. I fixed my starter post with the right link.

Also, no, walking is slower over dirt. And pollution is slightly worse. But that's why we have bricks and concrete!

As for Prospector mod, been kinda lazy with the graphics. But miners are fast-replacable. The range of prospectors is 12 tiles. I would like to add an indicator, but the indicator that miners use is one of those entity-specific traits that we cannot edit.

[Anson]

(1) Yes, you have the right link for dirt path. I fixed my starter post with the right link.
(2) Also, no, walking is slower over dirt. And pollution is slightly worse. But that's why we have bricks and concrete!

(1) yes, it is working now, and also the the vresion number is fixed :-)

(2) from the description
"Running back and forth ... Now you'll see results with Dirt Path! Frequently used paths will now change to show their use. May also give you tips on where you need to put down bricks or concrete!"
i had hoped for a result similar to reality where grass and other ground turns into trails which are easier to travel and thus give a small bonus until those trails would be paved with stone, concrete, asphalt, etc for even increasingly faster travel.

using 0.8.3, when i tried running back and forth 50 tiles for more than a full day (using A and D while watching TV :-), only 2 tiles had turned into dirt, and another 5 after 1 or 2 more days. when i walk all around my factory or to outposts (instead of strictly back and forth) this would mean walking for months until spots appear, and for years until visible paths start to appear !? by that time, i probably have paved what is important and wouldn't like random single spots on old travel paths turn into dirt when i rarely walk there any longer.

(1) But miners are fast-replacable.
(2) The range of prospectors is 12 tiles.
(3) I would like to add an indicator, but the indicator that miners use is one of those entity-specific traits that we cannot edit.

(1) you missed the second half of the question :
"[place or replace] old drills on veins already while the prospector is still working and the new ore isn't found yet."
if ore turned to depleted ore fields, i can no longer place or replace miners. i don't know whether this is possible, but it would be nice if i could place a prospector on a (partially) depleted field and immediately place or replace all miners (including those that have no more ore under them) before the prospector has finished its work.

(2) circle with radius 12 like turrets, or square with coordinates -12 to +12 tiles similar to radars ?
without an indicator, it's nice to be told that range. maybe you can add that to the description of the mod ?

(3) did you chose 12 tiles for balancing ?
for turrets, 12 is a nice value to get overlapping circles (circle with radius 12 just covers an entire chunk),
but for squares, 16 would be easier to handle since chunks are 32x32,
or maybe prospecting the entire chunk (with a MK3 :-), no matter where in the chunk the prospector is ...

do i need both tiers of prospectors, or is it possible to place only MK2 prospectors to first discover ore at veins and then at seams ? this would be useful in the late game when i build a new outpost on an ore field and want it to work until depleted completely.

[HerrGohlem]

Hallo

i found a bug on your Hardcore Survival Mod

after 3 -5 min it crasch with the text

Error while running event on_tick (ID 0)
Entity is not unit.
stack traceback:
__Hardcore_Survival__/control.lua:291: in function 'massAttack'
__Hardcore_Survival__/control.lua:573: in function <__Hardcore_Survival__/control.lua:571>

The Idear bhind this mod is great i hope that will make my life harder at the moment no biter can conquer my base

[Mylon]

Oh, I guess that's what happens when you add it to a game after it starts. It's meant to run without bases, I'll have to decide how it works in a pre-existing game.

[HerrGohlem]

I use a new map with no mods and get the same error

Are you using a beta build ?

[Demosthenex]

Regarding Bluebuild 1.0.2, I found that it didn't respect different player forces. I play MP and each team has a different force. I patched control.lua, included below. My test after patching was successful, I was able to construct and deconstruct.

Code: Select all

--- control.lua.orig	2017-01-16 11:29:05.093211299 +0100
+++ control.lua	2017-01-16 11:29:27.311209780 +0100
@@ -82,8 +82,8 @@
 	-- local reachDistance = data.raw.player.player.reach_distance
 	local reachDistance = 7
 	local searchArea = {{pos.x - reachDistance, pos.y - reachDistance}, {pos.x + reachDistance, pos.y + reachDistance}}
-	local areaList = builder.surface.find_entities_filtered{area = searchArea, type = "entity-ghost", force=game.forces.player }
-	local tileList = builder.surface.find_entities_filtered{area = searchArea, type = "tile-ghost", force=game.forces.player }
+	local areaList = builder.surface.find_entities_filtered{area = searchArea, type = "entity-ghost", force=builder.force }
+	local tileList = builder.surface.find_entities_filtered{area = searchArea, type = "tile-ghost", force=builder.force }
 	-- Merge the lists
 	for key, value in pairs(tileList) do
 		if not areaList then

[Mylon]

I pushed out a fix, HerrGohlem.

[HerrGohlem]

IT WORK

and it is FUN

and my old save work

thx for your great mod

[Anson]

concerning bluebuild and textplates:
already a few days ago, the author of textplates has replied at the portal and posted a new control.lua for bluebuild in his thread that works with textplates ...

concerning prospector:
i have built your miners mk3 and the copper ore is depleted. then i placed a prospector next to the field and waited for hours, but nothing happened. i am also confused about all the ore types. on that field i first had copper ore, and now i have depleted copper ore and copper ore veins. the MK3 drills are still there, but they don't produce anything.
on the second half of the ore field, i have a prospektor and a prospector mk2. result: many ore types (depleted vein, seam, etc etc), but also here, nothing happens and no copper is produced. one prospector turned into "depleted prospector", the other is still running for hours realtime.

[Mylon]

Prospectors should stop moving when they aren't working anymore because there's no more ore/veins in range to prospect so you can use that as an indication of whether it's done or not. Prospector Mk2s are meant to take a while so it is recommended you use multiple of them. Seams disappear entirely when mined so if you see depleted ore then there's still stuff to prospect.

Re Textplates. I'm still unsure of how the code works. I've looked at it but if I'm not sure how it works, how other mods might be compatible, what other mods would even need this, or if there is an option to change only textplates, and it would need testing. Overall this seems like a very niche case and I've already got my hands full developing other mods.

[Rhamphoryncus]

Concreep attempts to build concrete 1 tile beyond the coverage area on the southern and eastern edges, including marking trees for destruction. Naturally it never gets built.

Additionally, it marks trees for destruction on the northern and western edges when they touch the concrete even when their center points are outside the coverage are. They never get removed.

Interestingly, trees are only handled when concrete is added. Manually concreting an area before placing a roboport will prevent concreep from removing trees. Seems odd.

[Mylon]

I wasn't too sure how I should be handling tree removal. It's not entirely within the scope of Concreep, but a neat and very related function. I'll probably just scan for all trees in the radius instead of only doing it at time of placing the concrete.

I noticed the bottom/right edge problem but just figured it wasn't a big enough issue to push out a patch. I was waiting to find some other issues I wanted to change first.

[Anson]

Prospector Mk2s are meant to take a while so it is recommended you use multiple of them.

i only had a single prospector MK2 and let it run for many hours realtime while i went afk, and nothing happened.

after some detailed tests, i found the reason why i thought that nothing happened :
when the prospector has found and converted some ore, the drills don't mine that new ore.
first you need to setup the drills again, even if you already built the MK3 drills.

as a result, you have to do a lot of work :
to get the next level of ore, you can start prospecting at any time, but after an ore field is completely(!) depleted and prospected, you need to setup all drills again (even if you already have placed MK2 or MK3 drills). if you do this earlier to already get ore from veins, you'll have to repeat this several times.
to go from veins to seams, the same has to be done again, but only after all ore is completely gone or you might skip some veins (converting depleted ore directly to seams)
since you only get few ore per minute when a field is almost depleted, you already need a new field earlier anyway, and then can prospect (and update all drills) to get a little "late bonus" on the field, using the existing belts and train stations, etc.
on an ore field that gave 45k iron ore, i got some small amount of additional ore from veins and 7k from seams.
when looking at the time (see below for prospecting time) and work (see below for ore types and refreshing all drills) that is needed to get maybe 20% or even 50% extra from an ore field, is it really worth this work ?

about my problem with the ore types: ore turns into depleted ore and when prospected it turns into veins. if veins are depleted they turn into depleted veins and when prospected they turn into seams. BUT: when you start mining veins while the prospector is still working, you'll get more ore types at the same time, and (this is probably a bug) when you have a prospector working on an ore field and another MK2 prospector on the same area (to immediately turn depleted veins into seams), the MK2 prospector will (at least sometimes immediately, and after a long time for all ore) turn the entire field from ore(!) and veins directly into seams.

thus you really need to do the above steps one after the other:
1. mine an ore field until it is depleted. a prospector probably can be used already during this time.
2. when the ore field is completely depleted, wait for the prospector to finish its work.
(when done, it takes only one cycle to set it up again and test whether some depleted ore might have been skipped)
3. when the prospector is completly done (stops rotating), update all drills.
4. mine a vein field until it is depleted. a prospector MK2 probably can be used already during this time.
5. when the vein field is completely depleted, wait for the prospector MK2 to finish its work.
(when done, it takes only one cycle to set it up again and test whether some depleted vein might have been skipped)
6. when the prospector MK2 is completly done (stops rotating), update all drills.
7. mine the seam field until it is depleted

about the speed of prospecting: MK1 takes around 30 sec, and MK2 more than 2 minutes (and no modules allowed)
even when you cover the entire field with prospectors, each of them has to prospect 9 tiles, for a total minimum time of 4.5 minutes for MK1 (more than half a gameday), and for MK2 it even takes at least 20 minutes (more than 3 ingame days).
prospecting veins to seams for the whole coverage area of a prospector with a single prospector MK2 will probably take more than 20 realtime hours (or 1+ hours when using 20 prospectors).

together with the above limits of only doing one step after the other for the entire field, for me it's not worth it:
although the idea and most of it are very nice and would improve "the mining experience", I'll stop using the prospector mod until handling the prospecting is a bit easier (let both levels of prospectors work nicely at the same time, never convert all ore directly to seams, and automatically start drilling upgraded tiles; then the prospecting speed might be ok too).

Re Textplates. I'm still unsure of how the code works. ...
Overall this seems like a very niche case and I've already got my hands full developing other mods.

someone just reported that he has similar problems with bobsinserters (i didn't test that myself). "private data" of items needs to be stored somehow in the items when making blueprints. if you only revive items without handling that "private data", the items are built only as their base form and not adjusted (for textplates only one type of plate is built, and for bobsinserters only the default inserter is built without the desired and needed modifications). when robots build those items from a blueprint, this special handling is done, but not when you only revive them. similar probably will also apply to many other mods which build additional and/or invisible items when you place one of their items.

(temporary?) fix : since textplates and bobsinserters might be considered mid to late game, I'll enjoy using bluebuild in the early game before i get robots and those advanced inserters, and as soon as i have the personal bots, I'll disable your autobuild functionality and let the bots do the work.
the autodeconstruct should still be useful, eg when all personal bots pickup items to place and some obstacles need to be removed first which causes a deadlock on the bots since they want to place their items first before going back and removing the obstacles.

[Mylon]

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately the map generation code is not accessible so I can't look at the code to see how resource amounts are determined. This means I had to guess how much ore prospector should be adding and clearly I guessed wrong. I'm going to have to increase the amount of ore prospecting adds.

Can you tell me the conditions behind your 45k iron ore (and then +7k when upgraded to seams)? What richness setting are you playing on? Was this very far from spawn?

A note is that unprospected ore does not immediately go to seams, it first gets upgraded to veins and then upgraded to seams. Given how slow Mk 2 prospectors are, I suppose I could let them skip the vein step (but still add the ore they would have gained from the vein step). I would like to make prospectors able to use speed/efficiency modules, but that's not available for the radar entity. I could use an assembler, but that would take some black magic to make sure it fires properly. I can increase the range of prospectors so you can place more around the field also. The design goal is that, in late game, a player uses a design with drills and prospectors together at the initial setup to increase the lifetime of the ore patch. Prospecting first and then placing drills is also an option, but drilling and then prospecting is only intended for early game.

I've noticed that veins and seams mine super slowly. This is an artifact of how the game handles ore hardness. I don't want Mk 2 and Mk 3 drills to be super fast so I don't give them too much mining power and this results in slow drilling. Maybe if I nerf the mining power of Mk 1 drills and then buff their mining time I can bring the numbers more in line. I also need to upgrade the range of Mk 3 drills to fullfill the design goal.

I'll have to play more with the behavior of Mk 2 drills on regular ore patches. It might be as simple as doing miningdrill.active = true when ore gets prospected.

Re: Textplates. After looking into the mod, it uses entities of type combinator to work. It's a weird method and I think the best solution is to blacklist textplates objects in my mod instead of modifying both mods to be compatible with each other. Been too busy with other mod ideas to update Bluebuild though.

[Mylon]

I updated Hardcore Survival to play nicely with other mods. Particularly Bobs and Angels. The difficulty ramps up much slower if those mods are present.

[HerrGohlem]

Hallo

After update your mod Hardcore Survival i get this bug

Error while running the on_configuration_changed: __Hardcore_Survival__/control.lua:733: bad argument #1 to 'raise_event' (number expected, got nil)

I have testet with many mod´s and with only your mod and get the same Bug message
Only by Save Games by New Games it Works

[Mylon]

Hello HerrGohlem. Thanks for your report. I pushed out a fix it earlier today. Please update to the latest version.

[Mylon]

I updated Prospector mod to offer better returns on ore. Should be a better deal now to upgrade ore patches.