[MOD 1.1] Xander Mod v3.6.1

[ironchefpython]

new version bug fixed?

While the current master branch on GitHub has fixed several bugs and typos, it has not fixed the issue of Heavy Mineral Sands being unused. I have created https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... d/issues/3 to track the issue.

[jodokus31]

Xander Mod is now on GitHub!

https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/Xander-Mod to be specific.

Gragorath's changes have been merged, you can download an update from https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... master.zip

Please feel free to open issues for defects.

Great, thanks. I'll definitly try to contribute.

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

Just a quick announcement that the latest version is out. And yep, mineral sand washing should be fixed! Along with many other changes. I'll post the full log tomorrow when it's not so late.

[Airat9000]

I wanted to know.
Here is the combination with bob angels?

Suppose now I'm playing at my work perfectly. (except for some technology)
Only here liquids of 2 kinds for example, and products.

I now like the electronics works well, mostly fluid a lot turns out.
example work

2017-11-16_3-22-08.png (2.32 MiB) Viewed 8518 times

[Therax]

There's a significant gap between when you start producing Waste Water (Bauxite Sediment Classifying, red science) and have the ability to treat it (Chemical Reactor I, red science, but construction is gated behind Basic Nickel Smelting, green science). You also don't have any way to store the waste, since Fluid Handling is also green science. I see a few of approaches here:

1) Change Fluid Handling to red science only, if you want players to build up a stock of toxic water before treatment facilities become available,
2) Change Basic Nickel Smelting to red science only, so a Standard Chemical Reactor can be built earlier,
3) Change the Crude Waste Water Treatment recipe to be possible in a Crude Chemical Reactor.

Glad to see you're on Github now. I'm submitting a pull request that implements 3), but I think any of the above would be fine.

In writing 1.3.1, I did intend for circuit-1 to lose the dependency on wood by replacing it with fiberglass. But I implemented it with a later recipe for the finished circuit-1 using board-2, which is made of fiberglass-phenolic. The idea is that one board-2 could represent a single moderate complexity etched pattern board, or two very simple patterns on the same physical piece, which would then be split in half. That's why only 1 board-2 is needed per 2 circuit-1. Although I had it need only the metallized-2, which doesn't make sense, so I'll change that to etched-2 for the next update.

I do see this circuit-1-b recipe, but it's not attached to any techs, so it's inaccessible. I presume it's intended to be unlocked by Circuit Substrates II?

Happy to see some of my suggestions making it in. This is the first time I've gotten involved in mod development, and I'm quite optimistic about XM's future.

[Repofme1]

There's a significant gap between when you start producing Waste Water (Bauxite Sediment Classifying, red science) and have the ability to treat it (Chemical Reactor I, red science, but construction is gated behind Basic Nickel Smelting, green science). You also don't have any way to store the waste, since Fluid Handling is also green science. I see a few of approaches here:

1) Change Fluid Handling to red science only, if you want players to build up a stock of toxic water before treatment facilities become available,
2) Change Basic Nickel Smelting to red science only, so a Standard Chemical Reactor can be built earlier,
3) Change the Crude Waste Water Treatment recipe to be possible in a Crude Chemical Reactor.

Glad to see you're on Github now. I'm submitting a pull request that implements 3), but I think any of the above would be fine.

In writing 1.3.1, I did intend for circuit-1 to lose the dependency on wood by replacing it with fiberglass. But I implemented it with a later recipe for the finished circuit-1 using board-2, which is made of fiberglass-phenolic. The idea is that one board-2 could represent a single moderate complexity etched pattern board, or two very simple patterns on the same physical piece, which would then be split in half. That's why only 1 board-2 is needed per 2 circuit-1. Although I had it need only the metallized-2, which doesn't make sense, so I'll change that to etched-2 for the next update.

I do see this circuit-1-b recipe, but it's not attached to any techs, so it's inaccessible. I presume it's intended to be unlocked by Circuit Substrates II?

Happy to see some of my suggestions making it in. This is the first time I've gotten involved in mod development, and I'm quite optimistic about XM's future.

Yeah, waste processing was a very big block of issues hat I didn't address in 1.3.2. I mean to do a lot of thinking and changes here, since I really haven't kept waste treatment on par with improvements elsewhere. Path 3 would be a good hotfix, but as I just put out an update, I have some time before the next one. That gives me time spend some time thinking about waste treatment in more detail, which I'd like to do. Oh, and thanks for the tip on circuit-1-b, I added it to Substrates II real quick so as to not load Advanced Circuits too heavily.

I'm glad you're enjoying helping out, and that you feel good about the mod! I really do too, it seems to be going places!

[ironchefpython]

Path 3 would be a good hotfix, but as I just put out an update, I have some time before the next one. That gives me time spend some time thinking about waste treatment in more detail, which I'd like to do. Oh, and thanks for the tip on circuit-1-b, I added it to Substrates II real quick so as to not load Advanced Circuits too heavily.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if you released those two fixes as 1.3.3, as getting people a working version will let them progress past the current blockers.

[orzelek]

Path 3 would be a good hotfix, but as I just put out an update, I have some time before the next one. That gives me time spend some time thinking about waste treatment in more detail, which I'd like to do. Oh, and thanks for the tip on circuit-1-b, I added it to Substrates II real quick so as to not load Advanced Circuits too heavily.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if you released those two fixes as 1.3.3, as getting people a working version will let them progress past the current blockers.

It would be nice to have those - I'm preparing for longer play and wanted to try the mod again

[jodokus31]

There's no problem to release even small changes, esp hot fixes. (It could be a bit tedious to upload it to the mod platform so often...)
Another possibility could be, to clone the current master from github, if the fixes are checked-in.

[Repofme1]

Path 3 would be a good hotfix, but as I just put out an update, I have some time before the next one. That gives me time spend some time thinking about waste treatment in more detail, which I'd like to do. Oh, and thanks for the tip on circuit-1-b, I added it to Substrates II real quick so as to not load Advanced Circuits too heavily.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if you released those two fixes as 1.3.3, as getting people a working version will let them progress past the current blockers.

It would be nice to have those - I'm preparing for longer play and wanted to try the mod again

There's no problem to release even small changes, esp hot fixes. (It could be a bit tedious to upload it to the mod platform so often...)
Another possibility could be, to clone the current master from github, if the fixes are checked-in.

Well, that's a pretty quick response of "aye"! My only real hesitation is what jodokus said, that's it's a bit tedious to upload so many versions to the mod portal. Especially since the mod is rather large and a new copy takes up a fair bit of space for such small (data-wise) changes. Then again, that's probably just my mind thinking towards data conservation a bit too much, I'll likely get 1.3.3 together pretty soon since people clearly want it! I guess that's what the last minor version number is for, isn't it? Hotfixes and the like? I don't really understand that numbering convention, just been going with what feels right. Although sometimes it feels like, almost all of the changes are like hotfixes, and then it seems more efficient to group them all in one big update. Eh, I don't know. I'll do a small fix for now since it might be a little while until I have the time & inspiration to properly address waste generation & treatment.

Hope you enjoyed the fresh stream of consciousness

[eradicator]

Especially since the mod is rather large and a new copy takes up a fair bit of space for such small (data-wise) changes.

Technically it's possible to put all of the graphics into a seperate mod (e.g. "Xander Mod Graphics Pack") that only has to be updated if any of the graphics change or are added. That way hotfixes only require uploading of the lua part (<1MB) of the mod. I think yuoki has at least thought about doing it that way. No clue if he or any other mod authors actually did tho...

[Therax]

I don't really understand that numbering convention, just been going with what feels right.

http://semver.org

In the context of a Factorio mod, the major version number wouldn't change short of a full rewrite of the mod that completely breaks existing saves and requires a full restart. My impression is that this isn't likely to come for XM for a very long time; the vision seems both consistent and comprehensive at the moment.

A minor version change would be a significant addition of functionality, like a completely rebuilt waste-processing system, for example. Existing maps would be largely fine, but players might need to rebuild some areas of processing.

Bug-fixes that don't change featureset would be in the final patch version, but there's no hard and fast rule about how much in terms of changes and fixes justifies a release. That's really up to you as the author.

Just remember that a bugfix patch that follows 1.3.9 would be 1.3.10, not 1.4.0. These aren't decimal numbers.

[BlakeMW]

Cool mod.

If I may make a suggestion, one thing which can always be annoying is the start. Adding more starting items is one solution, but some players actually prefer to start with almost nothing. I've always thought a really neat solution to this would be what I'll jokingly call "Crashite"\*, a special ore which is found only in the starting area and when mined produces (probabilistically) useful intermediates, like pipes, gears, iron rods and engines and stuff. Now the neat thing is that ore generation is completely baked into the base game and makes a useful difficulty feature: if a player wants no help they set Crashite to minimal, but if they find the slow bootstrap tedious they set it to very large, very rich and can mine thousands of useful intermediates.

\* Perhaps less whimsically, Spaceship Debris or something.

[ironchefpython]

Perhaps less whimsically, Spaceship Debris or something.

Nice idea, my recommendation is to make it a separate mod.

[eradicator]

\* Perhaps less whimsically, Spaceship Debris or something.

As a concept on paper i agree that that sounds really cool, as a mod designer myself i'd inadvertently think of the balancing issue tho. You say it's easy because the player can just choose how much he wants...but i'm not so sure of that. By making it an ore you're competing for a very expensive resource - the players hand-mining time. It can also not (realistically) be automated because a (burner) mining drill would just turn any still usable components into scrap.

So...now you've added another resource the player has to mine while he's already busy with handmining all the other stuff. To make picking through debies valuable to the player again you need to make it more efficient than mining other metals, say 5-10 times more efficient. But due to the random nature of debries you can't guarantee that. So instead of betting on some random chance the player is going to prefer mining normal ores because a) he knows he's going to get what he wants 100% chance, and b) he knows he's going to need to do this later anyway.

Also i don't think people who play xanders are the sort of people who mind a slow start that much .

Hm...writing this...i had another thought. If this is really a desired feature how about presenting the (first) player with a dialoge on map start: "You managed to eject from your spacecraft before it crashed into the ground. How far away did your spacecraft crash? [50 meters (easy)],[500 meters (normal)], [2000 meters (hard)]. Then you spawn in a crashed spacecraft at that distance to the player and mark it on the map. The spacecraft contains the bonus starting equipment (i.e. like a chest).

[Gragorath]

Hi.
Sorry I haven't responded for so long.

Wow, that's a lot of fixes!
...
Otherwise it looks pretty good, thank you so much for all that work! And I'm glad you like the mod, when I was making it I didn't expect it to get so popular!

You're very welcome!
I haven't had much chance to play recently, but it's really entertaining to put a setup together to solve the untrivial recipes in this mod. With more than 500 added recipes, there's room for a lot of fun!

Xander Mod is now on GitHub!

https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/Xander-Mod to be specific.

Gragorath's changes have been merged, you can download an update from https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... master.zip

Please feel free to open issues for defects.

Great work! I'll set up an account and contribute there when I have some spare time. Glad my patch was useful.

Also, I think some of the 3-fluid-ingredient recipes are in the category for the XM Integrated Chemical Plant, which should actually have three fluid inputs (I just duct taped one on to the oil refinery graphic).

Seems like my simplified recipes got placed on the master branch unmodified.
I looked into the Integrated Chemical Plant and didn't notice any 3rd input, neither in lua or graphics. I guess those changes never made it online.

It's very easy to add the inputs in code and I'm currently using 1.3.1 pre-Gragorath recipes with modified production entities with extra inputs. Graphically, this works reasonably well with the affected furnaces (Refining & Arc furnaces), but the Integrated Chemical & Ore plants need graphical tweaking.

What's your thought on those recipes? Is it worth reimplementing them with modified production entities? I wouldn't mind fixing the graphics if you find it useful.

[Repofme1]

I don't really understand that numbering convention, just been going with what feels right.

http://semver.org

In the context of a Factorio mod, the major version number wouldn't change short of a full rewrite of the mod that completely breaks existing saves and requires a full restart. My impression is that this isn't likely to come for XM for a very long time; the vision seems both consistent and comprehensive at the moment.

A minor version change would be a significant addition of functionality, like a completely rebuilt waste-processing system, for example. Existing maps would be largely fine, but players might need to rebuild some areas of processing.

Bug-fixes that don't change featureset would be in the final patch version, but there's no hard and fast rule about how much in terms of changes and fixes justifies a release. That's really up to you as the author.

Just remember that a bugfix patch that follows 1.3.9 would be 1.3.10, not 1.4.0. These aren't decimal numbers.

Thanks for the advice, this mostly lines up with what I sort of expected. The major version number is, if anything, rather bigger than I thought; I've got some accumulated major feature changes that - collectively - felt like they would justify a 2.X somewhere down the line, but now I'm not so sure. I might just slowly add the ones that I can, and that still hold up to my 'good idea' scrutiny after this time, during regular XM 1 development. Each one would probably approximate a minor version number, depending. I'm glad you see the mod as having a sound vision, it makes me happy to have a good general feeling of the overall path. Just for reference, future development as I see it is approximately like continuing to upgrade various features of the mod, with a rather sporadic focus as inspiration strikes and people raise ideas. At first it was mostly a linear development in line with advancing through the early game, to make things actually possible, but now that the main body has been reached it looks to me like we're progressing to looking at most stages of the game at the same time.

Yep, I have seen the use of non-decimal numbers plenty of times before, mostly in my old Minecraft days but also in other general software. Maybe v1.11.25 for a hypothetical example Good to point out though.

[Repofme1]

\* Perhaps less whimsically, Spaceship Debris or something.

As a concept on paper i agree that that sounds really cool, as a mod designer myself i'd inadvertently think of the balancing issue tho. You say it's easy because the player can just choose how much he wants...but i'm not so sure of that. By making it an ore you're competing for a very expensive resource - the players hand-mining time. It can also not (realistically) be automated because a (burner) mining drill would just turn any still usable components into scrap.

So...now you've added another resource the player has to mine while he's already busy with handmining all the other stuff. To make picking through debies valuable to the player again you need to make it more efficient than mining other metals, say 5-10 times more efficient. But due to the random nature of debries you can't guarantee that. So instead of betting on some random chance the player is going to prefer mining normal ores because a) he knows he's going to get what he wants 100% chance, and b) he knows he's going to need to do this later anyway.

Also i don't think people who play xanders are the sort of people who mind a slow start that much .

Hm...writing this...i had another thought. If this is really a desired feature how about presenting the (first) player with a dialoge on map start: "You managed to eject from your spacecraft before it crashed into the ground. How far away did your spacecraft crash? [50 meters (easy)],[500 meters (normal)], [2000 meters (hard)]. Then you spawn in a crashed spacecraft at that distance to the player and mark it on the map. The spacecraft contains the bonus starting equipment (i.e. like a chest).

Personally I see a lot of good points here. The fact that miners can only produce one kind of item from an ore, the limitation of the mining drill to only produce ond kind of item, and the general nature of us players who like XM or other marathon mods in general

About the point of unbalancing from the random nature of debris, it seems that if this sort of thing were to be implemented, there would be quite a few (maybe hundreds in total) of items coming from the ruins of the crashed ship. My first hunch would be that this is enough number of items to significantly smooth out the randomness factor, and make the total yield roughly controllable by setting the probabilities of each item. I also wouldn't imagine more than about ten different kinds of items, because much more than that and I feel like it would be a headache to sort them out. Also, more item variety makes the total yield more subject to randomness from having low numbers of each. Just like when rolling dice, if you only make 10 rolls you won't get an even amount of each number 1-6, but if you make 1000 it will be more evenly distributed.

Overall, a greater variety of player choice in the immediate starting difficulty would be a useful feature, but it's pretty low on my priority list for consideration. It feels like a subject for another mod, like ironchefpython said.

[Repofme1]

Hi.
Sorry I haven't responded for so long.

Wow, that's a lot of fixes!
...
Otherwise it looks pretty good, thank you so much for all that work! And I'm glad you like the mod, when I was making it I didn't expect it to get so popular!

You're very welcome!
I haven't had much chance to play recently, but it's really entertaining to put a setup together to solve the untrivial recipes in this mod. With more than 500 added recipes, there's room for a lot of fun!

Xander Mod is now on GitHub!

https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/Xander-Mod to be specific.

Gragorath's changes have been merged, you can download an update from https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... master.zip

Please feel free to open issues for defects.

Great work! I'll set up an account and contribute there when I have some spare time. Glad my patch was useful.

Also, I think some of the 3-fluid-ingredient recipes are in the category for the XM Integrated Chemical Plant, which should actually have three fluid inputs (I just duct taped one on to the oil refinery graphic).

Seems like my simplified recipes got placed on the master branch unmodified.
I looked into the Integrated Chemical Plant and didn't notice any 3rd input, neither in lua or graphics. I guess those changes never made it online.

It's very easy to add the inputs in code and I'm currently using 1.3.1 pre-Gragorath recipes with modified production entities with extra inputs. Graphically, this works reasonably well with the affected furnaces (Refining & Arc furnaces), but the Integrated Chemical & Ore plants need graphical tweaking.

What's your thought on those recipes? Is it worth reimplementing them with modified production entities? I wouldn't mind fixing the graphics if you find it useful.

Glad you find enjoyment and fun in the mod, maybe one day you'll learn some random thing in real life and think "Hey, I recognize that from Xander!"

I thought that I had added the third input to just the code of the integrated chemical plant, but I guess I didn't (I just looked too). Anyway, I just added it now, I'll include that with the waste update. I didn't actually want to mess with the texture yet because it would probably end up initially looking worse, unless I put a lot of time into it. I do fine those three-fluid recipes really useful, though, I actually wrote out the theoretical reactions and then added them all up to get the three-fluid versions I wasn't thinking about it much when I originally looked at your patch, because it's a late-game thing and I didn't think most people had gotten there yet, so I just used the cut to 2 fluids and moved on to closer things. Now that I realize the only issue was that I didn't actually add the third input, I'll re-add those ingredients. Since there will be three inputs, though, the pipes won't line up of course, and if you want to patch that up I would really appreciate it!

[Repofme1]

Especially since the mod is rather large and a new copy takes up a fair bit of space for such small (data-wise) changes.

Technically it's possible to put all of the graphics into a seperate mod (e.g. "Xander Mod Graphics Pack") that only has to be updated if any of the graphics change or are added. That way hotfixes only require uploading of the lua part (<1MB) of the mod. I think yuoki has at least thought about doing it that way. No clue if he or any other mod authors actually did tho...

This sounds like a worthwhile possibility to explore, since most of the data is images, but from bringing the mod to this point it seems like I often end up making graphical changes alongside the code changes. Part of the reason for this is that XM has so many fun, intricate recipes that need their own icons! It would be a pretty big concerted push though, and for now I feel like I have a good balance of update size and frequency, so it's not high on my priority list.