For me, that's what sets Factorio apart from other great games. If it was not for the great mods out there, I'd have had my 60 hour fill and have moved on, now I can't count the hours
Per the Friday facts, here is my list of modding hacks and wishes:
Hidden Entities
I use a lot of HIDDEN entities to accomplish some things in my mods. The reason I use these hidden entities is because the primary entity I’m using does not have all the attributes I need, so I combine two entities to get to what I need.
Entities I currently have to hide include:
Light Source: If I want the building to glow at night, I need to add a hidden light entity. (The Rocket Silo actually has this built in, but that’s on the Silo entity and not Assembly Machine, Furnace or Radar)
Power Poles – Can we give an entity the ability to auto connect to neighboring power poles/other entities within the wire radius? (Keep option to hide the power lines though)
Radius overlay: If I want a range overly, I need to use a hidden turret entity to display the range a building affects. I have an Artifact collector. I need to hide a turret to show the radius. I need a hidden radar to show the player the scan cycle. and a container to actually collect the artifacts. Possibility to display a circle or a square
Image Switch-out: Working vs. Idle or Day / Night. The Light Entity has an on/off image, depending it it’s day or night, so if I want my building to have two different images, depending if it’s day or night, I have to tie it to a hidden lamp.
The On-scan Completion Bar: A lot of times I’d combine my primary entity with a radar. This gives me the ability to show the player the progress of something. I know I can use “on-tick”, but by using “On-Scan-Complete” I have the little progress bar. I use this on my Terraforming station. Every time the scan completes, the evolution gets deducted slightly. (The player can visually see when the action will happen)
Power Generation: I know this is one of the stuff you mentioned in the FF. I’d like to have the ability to also set what type of power gets generated. Solar vs. all the time. Solar will only generate during the day. I sometimes hide a solar panel, so the entity will generate power during the data. Thus, it consumes more energy during the night on net. Related. I’d also like to be able to create a solar boiler. Currently that’s not possible without some hacks that don’t work 100%. I'd like the ability to have a progression bar somehow.
Alternative Options include:
Could we create Modders Entities that have a lot of Attributes associated to them and just have it blank {}, if not used
Have an Assembler, Radar, Furnace—etc. with a host of attributes like:
- Working / Idle Images = {},
- Day / Night Images = {},
- Sector Scanning – Used for display, to show the user when an action is performed. (When the bar is full)
- Light = {},
- An Inventory.
I realize that there can't be a single god entity, but maybe add a few of each to those that can use it without major editing. Like a light source, radius....
This way I won’t need to use hidden entities, but just populate the needed attribute on the Modding Entity.
I’m hoping this is coming across clearly…
Attributes to Rail
Topic here
I know it’s a long shot, but if you don’t ask…
- Rail speed limits
- Powered rail options
- Vehicle type limitation
-- Could be achieved in reverse, by using a track type limitation array on the vehicle, rather than a single entry
This will allow a lot of diversity in Rail and other transport mediums, like roads.
You can have cheap slow rail, high speed rail. Freight rail, Power rail....
More Bio Diversity. (Fauna and Flora)
This should probably be a DLC. Yes I said it! I don’t mind paying a little for adding these features that’s not needed for the core game.
Basically take Earendel's Alien Biomes for the Flora and adding in some more creatures.
Need ability to define flying, jumping, amphibious.
Types of food they eat. Vegetation, Meat, Minerals… (I’d love to be able to create aliens that eat the resources. So you have to go kill them before they eat everything.
Aggression due to pollution
Mutation probability and what they mutate too.
Veden has done wonders in his Rampant mod!
Add Seasons. Rivers freeze in Fall, lakes in winter...
All above has been discussed a little here.
Off Topic
I think the Factorio team is going beyond any other game I’ve seen in terms of getting out a perfect product. So much so that they are hurting themselves. A lot of other companies would have released a lot of these features as DLC’s.
I want to see Factorio team get rewarded for this effort they are putting in. So if you don’t want to release DLC’s to make more money, maybe for the rout of Path of Exile an release cosmetic stuff that does absolutely nothing to change the game mechanics, but just visually change some stuff. (I know this is all currently possible with mods, so make some effects hard coded so you can release something that’s visually different)
Again, I just want to say thanks for all your hard work and polishing the game so well!
