[MOD 0.15] Portal Research (Asteroid Mining) 0.7.5

[doc]

I'm getting this error (even with 0.7.6):

Fixed along with a load of GUI improvements in 0.7.7. Hopefully didn't break anything else while I was doing that!

[HorusOP]

Hi, sorry to keep appearing with errors, but I found another one. This happens when I try to remove the antenna from an asteroid.

[nucleargen]

Doc, please update mod description. Portal research addon is now moved as part of Factorio cross mod

[doc]

Released 0.7.8:

* Fixed antennas removed while receiving orbital power would crash (HorusOP)
* Mention Factorio Cross Mod in README


Thanks for both reports

[The Zero]

portal-research-bug2.png (96.66 KiB) Viewed 11527 times

This happens when my space telescope runs out of health. The function is not there at all (not commited).

Two notes:
1. You're doing great work and I love the mod, but from what I've seen so far, a lot of errors and fix releases wouldn't happen if you did at least some sanity checks. Bugs are expected, but checking everything works would save us beta testers a lot of trouble. Here's an idea: Expose some API functions which could help you run through a few scenarios very quickly and it will allow everyone else to tinkle with the data.

2. I absolutely hate that satellites die within a few hours. Solar harvester is super resource intensive and for me to just lose it, it doesn't seem fair. It also doesn't fit very well with the overall concept of Factorio, where nothing is ever destroyed (if you don't count biter attacks - and you can defend against those!). Even when you run out of resource patch, you can just disassemble miners and move somewhere else. I know there's plans for shields and repairs etc., but if that's the case, they should have shipped together with decreasing health.

[doc]

1. You're doing great work and I love the mod, but from what I've seen so far, a lot of errors and fix releases wouldn't happen if you did at least some sanity checks. Bugs are expected, but checking everything works would save us beta testers a lot of trouble. Here's an idea: Expose some API functions which could help you run through a few scenarios very quickly and it will allow everyone else to tinkle with the data.

I know (and I did comment on this before). But - that's a great idea to have some API testing functions; normally when I am developing I write unit tests. I was looking into some Lua testing frameworks but to be honest this is also a hobby project and I have somewhat limited time but a lot of features I want to build I do appreciate the patience of yourself and several other people in this thread But things are getting quite close to a really stable point where I will stop adding the big features and stop breaking everything every release!

2. I absolutely hate that satellites die within a few hours. Solar harvester is super resource intensive and for me to just lose it, it doesn't seem fair. It also doesn't fit very well with the overall concept of Factorio, where nothing is ever destroyed (if you don't count biter attacks - and you can defend against those!). Even when you run out of resource patch, you can just disassemble miners and move somewhere else. I know there's plans for shields and repairs etc., but if that's the case, they should have shipped together with decreasing health.

Yes, definitely should have released both together, originally I meant to do this but got stuck into GUI stuff instead, which is also super important. I might add an easy mode option to make satellites invincible though. However I still think it's the right way a go, this is a) a nod to realism - real-life space based solar power has a lot of hazards attached to it, including micrometeorites and solar flares and the like. But I will be increasing the lifetime of the satellites (say 10x or so) because it's definitely too harsh now, even if you were launching repair shuttles. Also I don't think anything should be completely free once you've launched it - almost everything in Factorio comes with an ongoing cost. Solar panels are normally free I know, but here you are paying for convenience.

[foodfactorio]

Hi Doc i think the ISS is like 250 million dollars per year or something, but its a worthy project

btw, i still have to try and find a way to be able to keep my version 0.14 factorio, (which has a current solo and coop campaign that i need to finish with a friend), and to find a way to be able to also try getting v0.15 to try it out, along with your (this) mod, which sounds cool.... if there is such a way to get both versions and (copy paste or switch between them?)

i posted a mod idea at the link below or in my sig, but also mentioned a smaller mod idea near the bottom too, which i think might have a cool way of possibly being something added to this mod which you could do to add a new feature, if you are happy to accept ideas etc

basically, when you outlined your mod on the first page, you mentioned this as one of the bullet points:
"Deploy portals remotely to asteroids so you can travel there to set up a mining outpost"

what if this "mining outpost" actually required some kind of (virtual) mini setting up of a colony?
if something like that could work, then maybe my idea from the idea page, could actually end up simply slotting into your mod (as far as i understand it so far, since i havent actually been able to play it yet), and maybe something like this could be the steps?

a) once your portal is established, some plot text could appear, mentioning something about needing to set up a mini colony of engineers, to act as a Maintenance Crew since things can often go wrong, or maybe its just to be able to provide supplies, and defence from comets or something.

b) in order to do that, they need some kind of forward operating base (or Engineer Colony Base or something)
(maybe this could help to counteract some of the possible aspects about satelites breaking down too often but i still need to try the mod)

c) this could simply be the end product result, of a recipe, which then just gets included on a satelite for launching (or something similar with portal tech)

d) this recipe could require vast amounts of resources, but in order to split things into quicker, easier to manage tasks), they simply make up the sub recipe inputs, maybe as follows:

d1) needs 1000 Compressed Iron Plates (via one of the mods, such as Compressor), Needs 1000 Compressed Copper Plates, and same for some of the other items.
d2) these recipe output something like "Iron Package for Colony", Copper Package for Colony, etc
d3) and the final "Engineer Colony Base" from b) above, could simply be made after taking in its recipe inputs of "X Iron Packages for Colony" + "X Copper Packages for Colony" etc.

d4) X values could be used, instead of just "1", if you wanted, depending on how the newly found asteroids are classified, so that if you had some way in future of finding larger types, then they might require larger amounts, hence the X values)

e) if it is easier to code, and if the game only allows a max amount of inputs for recipes, then maybe the above packages could be split up in Groups, such as:
e1) "Base Metals Package" = made up from say 1000 Iron Plates, Copper Plates, Steel Plates
e2) "Heavy Metals Package" = made up of say, 1000 Titanium, 1000 Cobalt, 1000 Tungsten
e3) "Organics Package" = made up of say, 1000 Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Water Barrels
e4) "Military Package" = made up of say, 1000 Normal Ammo, 1000 Piercing ammo, and 1000 Turrets (or something less if thats too much)
e5) "Electronics/Tech Package" = made up of say, 1000 Gold Plates, Silver Plates, Electronic Boards

f) 1 of each of these "packages" from e) above, could then simply be required to craft the necessary Engineer Colony Base, which then allows you to start mining it
that was the idea (i will add this to that page too)

btw i forgot to paste the link to my main idea page
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=50256

[doc]

0.7.9 released:

* Fixed dying space telescopes would crash the game (The Zero)
* Massively decrease orbital death rate until repair stations are implemented (x100)

[doc]

Hi Doc i think the ISS is like 250 million dollars per year or something, but its a worthy project

My in-mod equivalent of the ISS will be the Orbital Research Station. I have a bit of a plan for this and the repair station which have some similarities to what you described, but without the colony workers (which is a really cool idea btw and something I had thought about a little bit too, more on that below tho).

So initially the repair station will be launched with a supply of repair packs and construction robots (e.g. 1000 repair packs and 100 robots). Similarly the research station will be launched with a "science bundle" which is produced from 1000 of each science pack. I won't be using a separate mod for this, these will be my own recipes, possibly using a new type of assembler. The research station will either just not require space science packs at all, since it's already in space, or consume a greatly reduced quantity of them.

These all get used up over time as you would expect. Then there will be some kind of "resupply shuttle". These can also carry repair bundles and science bundles (the exact mechanics of these recipes are still to be worked out but you get the idea). The resupply shuttles are much cheaper to launch than the original stations - probably by giving them a stack size of 10 meaning you can send up 10 shuttles in a single rocket launch, restocking 10 separate stations. All this needs balancing of course, the idea is it should be clearly very cost-effective to do things this way *but* you do still need to pump increasing levels of resources into expanding your orbital network. The research stations are designed to allow you to keep doing more infinite research and they'll have a big productivity bonus over normal labs. This productivity bonus can also be increased - again not sure the best mechanism for this, it could be additional research but there's something conflicting about the idea of "research to increase research". So my idea for is a ground-based "mainframe" structure which you can build a big farm of to improve the performance of all your orbital units. I have an idea to test out to make this interesting, it won't simply be a case of laying down a field with 1000s of them, there would be complex build/logistical considerations - a bit like nuclear power. I don't really want to spoil all my ideas right now tho, I might already have said too much

Regarding this "output building" idea. I was thinking about something like a "blueprint deployment lander". Using a special machine that allows you to box up all the items you need for a given blueprint and launch it along with the blueprint and some construction robots. So you can semi-automate the process of building new mining outposts.

Colony workers are also a really great idea but this is a huge project in its own right and maybe worthy of considering for a whole new mod?

[featherwinglove]

Hi Doc i think the ISS is like 250 million dollars per year or something, but its a worthy project

The ISS has people on it, and that's most of what makes it expensive (some of what makes it expensive is that the insanity of the Space Shuttle and single-use launch vehicles has overstayed its welcome by fifty years.) A typical spacecraft launched today can last over twenty years with no maintenance at all, save for the intelligence of a few technicians helping it out over the radio. The oldest operational spacecraft are about to turn forty, and have never been visited by a repair mission.

[foodfactorio]

thanks doc, am glad you found it cool

The Orbital Research Station sounds interesting. How about one of these:
O.R.S.A = Orbital Research Station Amplifier
(possibly with an I at the end, if you wanted to go A.I)

or better yet, O.R.S.A.N = Orbital Research Station Amplification Network
(maybe now we just need an abbreviation for W.E.L.L.S too)

or maybe the way to get more research could be actually by spending research packs, in order to attract a famous benefactor, and they sponsor you, like the very famous LH from below?
"LeyLand Hoodini" : Building Better Portals


Jokes aside, it probably will be easier to create new entities and recipes in 1 mod, such as this one, rather than relying on other mods like compressor with dependencies etc, since i guess something could change there and affect this mod too. The science bundle could be essentially the "package" shipments that they need, but sure, if you or anyone wanted to try my idea as a main mod on its own that is cool too - so far no one commented on the page yet so i didnt know if it was a good idea or not

and as you and featherwinglove mention, reusable launchers will definitely cut down on things (spacex had a recent success i think)

[featherwinglove]

Well, eat lotsa llamas /s

[foodfactorio]

is that because part of a llama is also known as the withers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llama
(oops i got the posts mixed up)
viewtopic.php?f=94&t=41892&start=60#p295674

[featherwinglove]

is that because part of a llama is also known as the withers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llama
(oops i got the posts mixed up)
viewtopic.php?f=94&t=41892&start=60#p295674

Oh, I get it.

[Xerus]

Could you suppress the rocket-started-without-satellite popup when a rocket is launched with one of your modules?

Code should be like this:

if remote.interfaces["silo_script"]["set_show_launched_without_satellite"] then
remote.call(silo_script, set_show_launched_without_satellite, false)
end

[Xerus]

the view of the discovered offworld sites does not show em all:


But already a freaking great mod!

[mathturtle]

So I'm just wondering... what do I do with this full chest of 'Factorium Crystal (small)' that I have? I couldn't figure it out, so I went and got "What's it used for" and they aren't used for anything... Can you add a Kovarex-like process to turn them into medium ones so I can make the portal circuits with them? Or make the circuits require small ones?

[mathturtle]

Do you have any way for me to give you patches for stuff? Like a github repo for the source that I can make PRs on. I'm trying out different ideas locally right now for the factorium crystals. I also fixed the temperature of the steam coming out of the plastic forming plant's recipes (15C steam is useless and makes no sense and with prod modules I get so much of it that I have to vent it somehow).

[ikiris]

This mod still maintained? It seems to crash in multiplayer in a few ways due to gui actions.

[lovely_santa]

It is crashing for me as wel on multiplayer on game version 0.15.37:

It happens while (trying) to use the portals:

2017-12-01 14:01:17 [CHAT] snowcat2000: it si supos to teleport players
2944713.877 Error MainLoop.cpp:940: Exception at tick 14604537: Error while running event portal-research::on_gui_click (ID 1)
LuaEntity API call when LuaEntity was invalid.
stack traceback:
portal-research/modules/gui.lua:350: in function 'pickPortalTargets'
portal-research/modules/gui.lua:672: in function <portal-research/modules/gui.lua:629>
2944713.877 Error ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:94: MultiplayerManager failed: "Error while running event portal-research::on_gui_click (ID 1)
LuaEntity API call when LuaEntity was invalid.
stack traceback:
portal-research/modules/gui.lua:350: in function 'pickPortalTargets'
portal-research/modules/gui.lua:672: in function <portal-research/modules/gui.lua:629>"
2944713.877 Info ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:671: mapTick(14604537) changing state from(InGame) to(Failed)
2944714.373 Info ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:140: Quitting multiplayer connection.
2944714.374 Info ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:671: mapTick(-1) changing state from(Failed) to(Closed)
2944714.375 Info HttpSharedState.cpp:44: Downloading https://multiplayer.factorio.com/remove-game/88732
2944714.403 Info HttpSharedState.cpp:111: Status code: 200
2944714.421 Info UDPSocket.cpp:206: Closing socket
2944714.421 Info UDPSocket.cpp:236: Socket closed
2944714.421 Goodbye

Its a wonderfull mod
Greetings
lovely santa
- a fellow modder