[MOD 1.1] Xander Mod v3.6.1

[Kungeal]

about to try my third attempt at beating this mod, yup already got stuck on steel bearing and applied the hot fix. i got overrun by behemoth biters cause i had more than 10 steam engines going ; several times that's how i know 10 is the most.
get the bullet upgrades as soon as you can, military science is your third science in this regard, at once you get this automate ap rounds next you'll need about 9 magazines per minute to survive this will allow you to progress to laser turrets and expand power production sooner.

i'm doing it multiplayer but no one ever joins

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

Wow, there's been a lot of activity lately! I didn't expect this much since I have been completely absent since the 1.5.0 update Unfortunately classes and life haven't left me any time for Factorio since then, I haven't even been playing the mod. I know it's frustrating when the mods, projects, etc. that one likes and follows stall, I've been there myself many times (classic case: when I used to play Minecraft with tech mods). So I understand if people feel that way, and at the same time it's something I'd like to avoid. Still, it's difficult. Sometimes I can't even bring myself to post a brief "Hey, I'll be gone this week and next", because of annoying irrational fears.

Regarding the latest bugs -
I found the problem with the diamond crystal recipe a few days ago, the fix was just to put machine in the recipe category quotes as was mentioned. My thanks to eradicator or the hotfixes. I'm working on a small bugfix (only the diamond crystal recipe category and the fluid inputs for the lathe mill), but I'm running into file size problems again, so it's taking a long time to actually get out on the mod portal.

Regarding mod progress, and contributions -
I can tell, that progress on updates and such is pretty slow. And unfortunately, yes, pull requests have not worked very well so far, since they still need a good bit of time. I don't have much experience with version control (GitHub), so I don't really know how to find a balance between the benefits of many people contributing and myself keeping control of the overall direction. Part of my idea with starting XM 2 was that version 1 would be opened to the community, like Therax asked. However I haven't started anything with XM2 yet, and I'm kind of glad for that now. The article linked in Therax's post made me reconsider starting completely from scratch, for a few reasons:

• - Having two parallel versions would be even more confusing and disorganized than one messy one
  - Starting over is a LOT of work
  - If I accept the (relatively low) cost of many updates making it necessary to rebuild in-game systems a lot, then I can probably accomplish the overhaul that I want by just sticking with one Xander Mod. Maybe I'll eventually call it 2.X, but if so that would just be continuing 1.X
  - I don't depend on XM for business or money, but although that's not at stake, the small community we have here kind of is, and I don't want to abandon the mod for a year rebuilding it

A big chunk of the trouble is simply code that has fallen into disarray, which can be fixed, especially with all the offers of help I have seen. There is a lot of potential in this, to build a mod with my ideas and others' skills, that's much greater than I can make alone. But it requires overcoming the difficulty of how to integrate other people's work, like I mentioned several sentences ago. Maybe I just have to get better at GitHub, maybe (this seems likely) there's a way I can give people full access to the repository, accepting pull requests and all. Therax and jodokus31 talked about that a bit, and I agree, it would be more efficient if I spent my Factorio time playing the mod and coming up with ideas, mechanics, etc. That's what I'm good at, while others are much better with things like code quality, where I don't have a clue

I really appreciate seeing people enjoy the mod (especially as much as Prome3us commented! ), and I don't want it to die. I do read everything posted in this thread, so I hear your feedback, even if I don't get a chance to specifically address everything.

Near future outlook: I expect to have little time for Factorio for the next 4-6 weeks, and then my schedule will open up a bit, so hopefully I'll be able to give XM some serious focus around ~the beginning of April. No promises, like usual, but I'm certainly going to try.

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

Version 1.5.1 should be available. Only two changes, I fixed the missing recipe category for the diamond crystal and added fluid pipe connections (with appropriate color graphics) to the machine tool 1.

Sorry for the tiny update, like I talked about just before this I haven't had a lot of time, and troubles with code quality, collaboration, file size, etc. have been bogging me down.

[foodfactorio]

good luck with your classes, and remember, no one's too cool for school

[Repofme1]

good luck with your classes, and remember, no one's too cool for school

Thanks for the encouragement! I tend to do pretty well, partly because I spend so much time studying

[Repofme1]

about to try my third attempt at beating this mod, yup already got stuck on steel bearing and applied the hot fix. i got overrun by behemoth biters cause i had more than 10 steam engines going ; several times that's how i know 10 is the most.
get the bullet upgrades as soon as you can, military science is your third science in this regard, at once you get this automate ap rounds next you'll need about 9 magazines per minute to survive this will allow you to progress to laser turrets and expand power production sooner.

i'm doing it multiplayer but no one ever joins

Glad to hear you're enjoying the mod! Like many people you've already played it way farther than me - part of the reason the balancing is so bad! Increasing the ammo supply is something I want to do as soon as I start really playing and developing in coordination. A while ago I used to think there was no room for balancing in many areas, but now I have some ideas, like just increasing the yield of magazine recipes.

[voidf.0xb3]

about to try my third attempt at beating this mod, yup already got stuck on steel bearing and applied the hot fix. i got overrun by behemoth biters cause i had more than 10 steam engines going ; several times that's how i know 10 is the most.
get the bullet upgrades as soon as you can, military science is your third science in this regard, at once you get this automate ap rounds next you'll need about 9 magazines per minute to survive this will allow you to progress to laser turrets and expand power production sooner.

i'm doing it multiplayer but no one ever joins

What are your game settings? In particular, enemy spawning, enemy expansion, and evolution? I have those set to the lowest possible settings, so I’m not sure if I should also prioritize magazine production just as much…

[Kungeal]

my mod setting are default , and i think the ammo supply is fine i wouldn't change it, I've reorganized my base to work around it, plus now i can get solar panels since you made machine tooling capable of making wafers

[jodokus31]

Hi all -

Version 1.5.1 should be available. Only two changes, I fixed the missing recipe category for the diamond crystal and added fluid pipe connections (with appropriate color graphics) to the machine tool 1.

Sorry for the tiny update, like I talked about just before this I haven't had a lot of time, and troubles with code quality, collaboration, file size, etc. have been bogging me down.

Hi, thank you for the update.
I think its totally ok to have tiny updates for hotfixes.
Regarding filesize problems. Is it because the mod is too big? Maybe it could be splitted somehow. I dont think, the filesize will get reduced while developing for future updates

And generally, this mod is really awesome. It contains so much depth compared to vanilla. Its a big enrichment to the factorio world

[Prome3us]

my mod setting are default , and i think the ammo supply is fine i wouldn't change it, I've reorganized my base to work around it, plus now i can get solar panels since you made machine tooling capable of making wafers

Woah balls of steel mate! i've got all settings on normal, except expansion time set to way higher, minimum expension time at like 25 mins just to keep them from creeping in on me. At that rate handling them with normal ammo is still manageable.

Thanks for the fixes Repofme1, back to loving the experience as always! But as commented, put real life first, we understand.. Rather a late update then an early dropout on your side great sub-community guys, keep it going!

[Airat9000]

beacons not work((

example

2018-02-20_20-15-53.png (816.95 KiB) Viewed 8201 times

[orzelek]

beacons not work((

example

2018-02-20_20-15-53.png

I'm pretty sure that this is a feature.
There was a bug that allowed beacons to spread effects on entities that shouldn't receive them - it was fixed recently (like 3 versions ago). So beacons now abide by normal rules - if you can't put in a module like that into machine itself it won't affect it from beacon.

[The_Crusher862]

This mod has been a lot of fun so far, and i barely have anything automated after 13 hours! I'm gonna get a hell of a lot of procrastination out of this one two notes on recipes i've noticed so far; The iron chest uses a steel shaft instead of an iron one, and the steel rod can be made in the burner assembly machine instead of the automatic feed lathe mill.

[riqotta]

I have purple science now, and i'm working on titanium alloy so I can make the more efficient Electric Refining Furnace recipe.

It looks like Rutile Chlorination can't be crafted. It looks like it's intended to be crafted in an Electric Foundry Forge, but the game won't allow it, the Made in list is blank. I assume it's another problem with fluid I/O: Rutile chlorination has 2 solid inputs, 1 fluid input, and 2 fluid outputs. I assume Electric Foundry Forge only supports 1 fluid output, not 2? I'm not sure if the fix should be to change the recipe or to make 2 fluid outputs on an EFF work.

[purdueme91]

So I'm ~45 hours in and want to post my 2 cents for balancing.

Again, this is probably one of the best mods I've played with the challenge level so hats off to the author yet again.

I am just at a slow trickle of blue science coming in. Have a solid fuel issue trying to fix. Brass and smokeless powder are an absolute mess that needs to be fixed. But really enjoying everything and the progress I'm making.

Here are my observations from earliest to latest so not in any order for priority.

1) brass/piercing rounds/big biters-this might be the worst because it almost made me quit. Just the green science required to get to brass is a long path. I was rushing to it to get heavy armor and the piercing rounds then big biters started showing up. And it wasn't fun. Standard rounds will not stop them and I was losing 3-4-5-6 turrets at a time. Couldn't make standard rounds fast enough. Then got to brass and had to set up reinforced concrete (cement powder, limestone, steel rods and something else) just so I could get oxygen. All it seemed like I was doing was running from top to bottom to side of base replacing turrets and walls. So some thoughts: 1) crude air processor to get oxygen for zinc so don't have to do a distillation column 2) crude magazines which require black powder/wood (cotton gauze)/lead (think black powder muskets) that do same damage as current standard magazine and bump up standard magazine damage with some armor piercing 3) keep standard magazine and piercing magazine as is and add an intermediate magazine with more damage that say uses black powder/bronze/steel/copper or 4) reduce the physical resistance on big biters from 8 to 4 or 5.
2) waste products/oxygen-the speed for generating oxygen is just too slow. Where I'm at with standard distill columns it takes 3 to support one zinc furnace which I think supports 2 electrolyzers. I know it will get better but the fastest recipe is only 1/sec. So if we are going to have to separate gases and waste products like in Angels, there has to be a way to get rid of it. I added the flare stack mod because there is no point at trying to do anything with waste water or flue gas. I guess at some point, I will be able to use up gravel and calcium sulfate and salt. Having a huge tank farm for waste products just takes away from concentrating on other things.
3) Blue science/tungsten-this is where I am at right now. I didn't notice when setting up electronic circuits that blue science needs 4 so I ended up switching to red assemblers (probably already mentioned but those are crafting speed 2 right?!? They seem faster than yellow but the info screen says higher energy, more drain but crafting speed 1) Doesn't matter because I can only keep 1 tungsten block furnace running anyway. At first it was getting enough hydrogen then it was not enough sodium hydroxide and now sulfuric acid needs to be finally addressed. All in all just seems like the build is just going to have to be too big. I'm not remembering the ratios exactly but some of the precursors get ridiculous. 4:1 is for NaOH and it's 2:1 for WO3 to tungsten powder. I am at 8 reactors for the first step (another 4:1?). And that gets me 3 blue science per minute. To get to one per second is going to take me over 100 electrolyzers just for NaOH and same for step 1. Seems like the blue science recipe should be adjusted to use one electronic circuit.

[Bizobinator]

I'm probably asking a question that's been asked a billion & a half times, but does this mod work with Bob's & Angel's mods?

[orzelek]

I'm probably asking a question that's been asked a billion & a half times, but does this mod work with Bob's & Angel's mods?

It doesn't work that well with full bob's set - to many overlaps. You can use few parts of bob's but it will still overlap a lot on most of them and lead to mixed recipes. Or multiple different "same grade" items with power for example.

[waabsheshi]

I've turned my current game into a bit of a bug bash (fixing bugs as I find them while playing) and I'm posting the results to my github. I've taken care of a few already.
https://github.com/george-steel/Xander-Mod

I've noticed that the electronic circuit recipies seem a bit haphazard and unrealistic. Is this something you wanted to fix and balance yourself or should I have a go?

[purdueme91]

I've turned my current game into a bit of a bug bash (fixing bugs as I find them while playing) and I'm posting the results to my github. I've taken care of a few already.
https://github.com/george-steel/Xander-Mod

I've noticed that the electronic circuit recipies seem a bit haphazard and unrealistic. Is this something you wanted to fix and balance yourself or should I have a go?

I agree on the advanced circuit part, the tungsten block is a pain to get throughput. 4 advanced circuits for blue science is also too high.

Also, my current beef is that personal roboport is blocked by purple science on portable solar panel. That seems out of place really because so much of the robot stuff and military stuff after that doesn't even require blue.

[eradicator]

I've played a bit more in multiplayer and from a balancing standpoint the only problems i found is that i seem to need massive amounts of machines for getting metal from "higher tier" ores.
I.e. to get copper from sulfidic ore via Sulfidic ore -> Chalcopyrite Washing -> Chalcopyrite Roasting (Cuprous Oxyde) -> Copper Smelting i have calculated that i need about 30 standard mineral concentrators, 200 electric refining furnaces and a few dozen fractional distillation columns (for the oxygen) in total to get 10 copper plate / second, which isn't even a yellow belt. Oxygen in general is extremly slow, only producing 1 oxygen per second for the fastest recipes. I also tried "Steel forging from raw iron", but it looks like it's going to suffer the same slow recipe/oxygen problems.

I'm playing without any ore-generation changing mods, so i have massive amounts of "higher tier" ores (sulfidic, garnerite, bauxite, apatite, mineral sand) but plain vanilla iron/copper/coal ore is extremely rare. So rare that i had to go back to the map preview screen to locate the nearest iron ore patch when the one at base ran out, and built a 1500 tile long train track to it. The nearest (non-start) coal patch was about 600 tiles, to which we had to build a slow belt lane because we didn't have anything else at the time (It still runs even now :P).

I don't generally mind having to spam machines all over the place (in fact i like being forced to do that by xanders), but the ratios "feel" odd. I.e. I didn't expect to need 1:3 distillation columns/furnaces just for the oxygen. (Are the oxygen recipes from pre 0.15 or something where base-fluid values were multiplied by 10?)

Also the unfavourable ore distribution combined with the need for large amounts of factorioes forced us to first switch to peaceful mode and in the end remove the Rampant mod because standard bullets didn't do enough damage and piercing bullets require automated zinc, which is really slow.

Hopefully we'll manage to get to robots by the end of next month :P

Also my single biggest "annoy" factor is that Assembling Machine 2 can only craft with 4 ingredients. This removes all motivation to use it as i can not automate anything new with it. And due to that i still have to handcraft those 200+ furnaces becaues most electric machines have 5 or 6 ingredients and can not be automated until assembling machine 3 (8 ingredients), so it feels like AM2 should really be able to craft with 5 or 6 ingredients, smoothing the transition to 4/6/8. This also makes more sense when considering base-game mechanics where every assembling machine tier can at least assemble itself (Xanders AM2 can't).

Here's a list that can't be automated with AM2 due to ingredient count limitations:
Electric Foundry Forge (6)
Electric Refining Forge (6)
Standard Electrolyzer (5)
Standard Pumpjack (5)
Solar Panel (5)
Small Lamp (5)
Train Stop/Signal/Chain Signal (requires small lamp)

Oh. My..... I just noticed that all of those things can be automated with Assembling Machine 2. I just never even tried because the description says "Crafts things with up to 4 ingredients", and i've never even tried to build an AM2 because of that, i thought i had to get to AM3 to get any progress at all.

Taking a closer look at crafting category inconsistencies:
As far as i can tell:

• Logging Camp can never be automated?
• Standard Belt can only be made in Assembling Machine 1
• Universal/Computer Machine Tool can craft Express Belt, but no other type of belt or splitter.

@repofme1:
I could make another hotfix if you post what the supposed behavior for those is, as i don't want to balance-by-guess :P. And ofc thanks for the mod and enjoy life ;).