[MOD 1.1] Xander Mod v3.6.1

[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...

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.

You could keep the icons in the main mod if they often change. And ofc some graphical changes will always happen and trigger an update of the graphics module. But of course if you didn't design the mod around this in the first place it's going to cost some effort to migrate there. It was just a general suggestion

[Therax]

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!

Here's a thought: I just looked and none of the recipes in question have more than 2 fluid outputs. How about using the oil refinery sprite, and swapping the directions of the pipe connections? That gives 3 inputs, and 2 outputs to work with, plus solids.

[Gragorath]

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!"

This has already happened
I'm mainly experienced in robotics engineering so all the chemical/material knowledge is really fascinating.

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!

Here's a thought: I just looked and none of the recipes in question have more than 2 fluid outputs. How about using the oil refinery sprite, and swapping the directions of the pipe connections? That gives 3 inputs, and 2 outputs to work with, plus solids.

I had the same idea but dumped it when I found a disabled recipe with too many fluid outputs. Thinking back on it, that might have been one of the recipes for one of the furnace entities. If you're right, that's a brilliant idea!
I'll take a look at the recipes again sometime tomorrow. If the flip-solution isn't viable, I'll see if I can make a decent graphical fix for the two refinery entities.

Finally got around to setting up my github environment btw. There's a pull request for a rather massive list of fixes to file structure (EOF-newlines & trailing whitespaces) as well as fixes to recipe localization and a few fixes. I'll make a branch for experimenting with the fluid inputs tomorrow.

[Gragorath]

Here's a thought: I just looked and none of the recipes in question have more than 2 fluid outputs. How about using the oil refinery sprite, and swapping the directions of the pipe connections? That gives 3 inputs, and 2 outputs to work with, plus solids.

I had the same idea but dumped it when I found a disabled recipe with too many fluid outputs. Thinking back on it, that might have been one of the recipes for one of the furnace entities. If you're right, that's a brilliant idea!
I'll take a look at the recipes again sometime tomorrow. If the flip-solution isn't viable, I'll see if I can make a decent graphical fix for the two refinery entities.

Well, it works perfectly for the two recipes in question, Synthetic Drugs & Copper Electrowinning with Cobalt Oxide. Unfortunately, the Integrated Chemical Plant is the direct upgrade to the Fractional Distillation Column too and as such needs to be able to handle the oil recipes. Knew there was a good reason for dumping the idea...
Well, maybe the flipped entity for the Integrated Ore Plant is worthwhile for adding a bit of graphical diversity.
I have a branch on my fork of the project with the flipped plants and readded recipes if anyone's interested in having a look:
https://github.com/Gragorath/Xander-Mod ... id-recipes

I'll take a look at the chemical plant tomorrow.

[Therax]

Unfortunately, the Integrated Chemical Plant is the direct upgrade to the Fractional Distillation Column too and as such needs to be able to handle the oil recipes.

At least to me, fractional distillation feels qualitatively different from the other chemical processes. There isn't much in the way of reactions going on or the same sort of tightly controlled pressure/temperature. I'd personally be okay with the Integrated Chem Plant not being able to handle the Distillation Column's recipes, and having fractional distillation performed in a "one off" facility.

[riqotta]

Hey all,

Really liking this mod so far . I've been trying 1.3.2, have run into 2 issues so far, 1 minor 1 major.
minor: I was going to try setting up raw iron smelting, which is green science based, but it looks like there isn't a practical way to filter or dispose of calcaerous slag without blue science? Suggestion: solid waste burial is (expensive) green science research, but it's locked behind slag use, which is blue science. Maybe remove that dependency?

major: looks like blue science isn't currently reachable? Blue science pack requires internal combustion engine unit, which can only be created in assembly 3 or better (and not hand crafted), which is locked behind blue science.

[jodokus31]

major: looks like blue science isn't currently reachable? Blue science pack requires internal combustion engine unit, which can only be created in assembly 3 or better (and not hand crafted), which is locked behind blue science.

Hi too,
I created an issue on Github: https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... /issues/15

[Therax]

Hi too,
I created an issue on Github: https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... /issues/15

Created a PR:
https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... od/pull/16

Please review!

[Airat9000]

please compartible chemicals in angekls mod
2copy in recipes ((

mod, work together, but the problem is that there are fluids of the same type but 2 kinds, and in the end that carbon dioxide 2 times.

[donoya]

please compartible chemicals in angekls mod
2copy in recipes ((

mod, work together, but the problem is that there are fluids of the same type but 2 kinds, and in the end that carbon dioxide 2 times.

Compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority for Xander Mod at this time.

[eradicator]

please compartible chemicals in angekls mod
2copy in recipes ((

mod, work together, but the problem is that there are fluids of the same type but 2 kinds, and in the end that carbon dioxide 2 times.

Compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority for Xander Mod at this time.

Compatibility is not trivial. You can't just make two items the same and ignore balance etcpp. For anyone interested here's a relevant thread.

[Gragorath]

At least to me, fractional distillation feels qualitatively different from the other chemical processes. There isn't much in the way of reactions going on or the same sort of tightly controlled pressure/temperature. I'd personally be okay with the Integrated Chem Plant not being able to handle the Distillation Column's recipes, and having fractional distillation performed in a "one off" facility.

I don't see a problem with separate entities for distillation and chemistry either. As it is now, though, the basic refinery doesn't handle Advanced Oil Processing, and the ICP is 4 times faster.

Anyways, I took a shot at modifying the graphics for the ICP to enable 3in/3out. Not my best photoshopping but it'll do for an initial work I think. If there's interest for the concept, I'll improve it and fix it for all directions.
Here's a picture showcasing all the modified entities for the multi-fluid recipes:

Multi-fluid-entities.jpg (97.21 KiB) Viewed 8207 times

Higher-resolution image at maximum game zoom of the modified graphics:

Graphic-changes.jpg (251.27 KiB) Viewed 8207 times

There's some aliasing errors on the modified pipes of the ICP and the south-western pipe of the furnace is affixed fairly sloppily. Colors are off too for the foundry forge. WIP.
I'll commit this stuff to the multi-fluid branch on my forked repository if anyone's interested in playing around with this stuff:
https://github.com/Gragorath/Xander-Mod ... id-recipes
Let me know if this stuff is worth pursuing.

[Airat9000]

please compartible chemicals in angekls mod
2copy in recipes ((

mod, work together, but the problem is that there are fluids of the same type but 2 kinds, and in the end that carbon dioxide 2 times.

Compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority for Xander Mod at this time.

Compatibility is not trivial. You can't just make two items the same and ignore balance etcpp. For anyone interested here's a relevant thread.

yes addon add recipes compartible

[BlakeMW]

please compartible chemicals in angekls mod
2copy in recipes ((

mod, work together, but the problem is that there are fluids of the same type but 2 kinds, and in the end that carbon dioxide 2 times.

Compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority for Xander Mod at this time.

Compatibility is not trivial. You can't just make two items the same and ignore balance etcpp. For anyone interested here's a relevant thread.

What would be needed to do this properly is something like Kerbal Space Program's Community Resource Pack mod - a mod that defines a lot of resources not in the base game, with standardized properties (in KSP density and so forth), and then other mods can have CRP as a dependency - of course the CRP defines resources not recipes to make those resources. The creation of CRP was of course due to these same kind of issues, two or three mods defining their own uranium or hydrogen or oxygen resource or whatever resulting in conflicts and player confusion. Of course because the CRP only defines resources and not recipes it doesn't guarantee balance, if some modder decides to add a "make uranium out of thin air" recipe it'll screw up the balance of other mods, of course. But it's still an enormous improvement and in practise has worked great.

It is my understanding that a Community Resource Pack style mod for KSP could also handle some housecleaning, like after all other mods have run prune all the unused resources so they don't clutter up the interface.

[eradicator]

It is my understanding that a Community Resource Pack style mod for KSP could also handle some housecleaning, like after all other mods have run prune all the unused resources so they don't clutter up the interface.

Well. Feel free to try and establish something like that in the factorio community ^^. The technical implementation in factorio would be trivial as data is shared in the setup stage. Just supply a list of resources and have mods tell you which ones they're using (or fancy automatic detection).
The difficulty is in making people use and agree with the standards someone else predefined. How much frequency/density/distance from start the ores should be, mining fluids etcpp. For real-world ores you might barely get a consensus. But try more fancy stuff like diamonds, unobtanium etcpp. It quickly becomes a balancing nightmare again if modA wants a simplistic "diamond ore" and modB wants diamond to be a mere byproduct of something [*]. Minecraft has a so called "ore dictionary" which unifies ores as ingredients in recipes after generation. Which results in every mod still generating their own ores (and thus you end up with 3 different types of "copper ore" etc) but in recipes you can use any one of the three. But that is less desirable and less possible in factorio.

[*] As a mod dev myself i care greatly about the balancing and tiering inside my mod. And the thought of my balancing effort becoming completely pointless becaues some other mod author coincidentially decided to use a much more simple recipe for something in his mod is not something i enjoy.

[jodokus31]

At least to me, fractional distillation feels qualitatively different from the other chemical processes. There isn't much in the way of reactions going on or the same sort of tightly controlled pressure/temperature. I'd personally be okay with the Integrated Chem Plant not being able to handle the Distillation Column's recipes, and having fractional distillation performed in a "one off" facility.

I don't see a problem with separate entities for distillation and chemistry either. As it is now, though, the basic refinery doesn't handle Advanced Oil Processing, and the ICP is 4 times faster.

Anyways, I took a shot at modifying the graphics for the ICP to enable 3in/3out. Not my best photoshopping but it'll do for an initial work I think. If there's interest for the concept, I'll improve it and fix it for all directions.
Here's a picture showcasing all the modified entities for the multi-fluid recipes:

Multi-fluid-entities.jpg

Higher-resolution image at maximum game zoom of the modified graphics:

Graphic-changes.jpg

There's some aliasing errors on the modified pipes of the ICP and the south-western pipe of the furnace is affixed fairly sloppily. Colors are off too for the foundry forge. WIP.
I'll commit this stuff to the multi-fluid branch on my forked repository if anyone's interested in playing around with this stuff:
https://github.com/Gragorath/Xander-Mod ... id-recipes
Let me know if this stuff is worth pursuing.

Since, nobody replied to this yet, I want to say, that it looks good to me. If there are machines needed to have that much of inputs (I dont know the recipes exactly), its maybe the way to go. Another possibility could be to invent new buildings like angels mods did. But this kind of graphic development is surely not my strength and i cant even imagine, how much work it would be

[Therax]

I meant to also say that the modified graphics for the Integrated Chemical Plant look good to me. I love kitbashing sprites!

[donoya]

I take it this is going to be eventually updated to 0.16?

[Therax]

I'm currently working on porting to 0.16, and doing a lot of code cleanup along the way.

In related news, I requested got a new feature added to Factorio core that will solve the burner-inserter / chemical-burner-inserter dichotomy: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=54971!

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

A lot has happened since I last had time to look at Factorio! For the past three weeks I have been completely occupied with six or seven large projects, four final exams, and five interviews. So I've had practically zero time, which unfortunately means I've missed a lot of stuff. I only just found out that the 0.16 update came out, and haven't been able to read about it because I'm trying to get my bearings in my stream of development again. Although, I do believe that it includes a fix for some of the terrain problems that we've had with XM paving.

How that I actually have some time during winter break, I intend to go through all the forum posts and GitHub issues I missed over the past weeks. I hope to see some progress on XM again!