Development and Discussion

[Cabble]

Yep! Pretty much. Though I'd really like to have a good copper sink.

Btw. some months ago I made a little donation for you (10€ I think) but got no reponse.

[Arch666Angel]

Yep! Pretty much. Though I'd really like to have a good copper sink.

Btw. some months ago I made a little donation for you (10€ I think) but got no reponse.

I read that and thank you I usually don't write answers directly to these messages, but donators might end up as a name giver for a new plant/crop or something else I'm creating for the mods

[Cabble]

Sounds nice!
Keep the good work going!

[BlueTemplar]

Getting nickel and cobalt lets you use a better steel recipe.

And then you also want nickel + steel and cobalt + steel for the cobalt steel and nickitol so it's nice to have those right there.

Well, the first ones are Steel 3, so I'm still far away from that,
I haven't used Invar much, uses for Nitinol are still far away (that's one example of a tech that seems to be misplaced in the Blue Science ?)
but I see that nickel can be used in the Iron 3 recipes, which is pretty close - thanks !

[mrvn]

The thing with Ferrous/Cupric ore is that it has no waste product and no catalyst or other. Just plain crushed ore to finished product(s). It's the most efficient way to create plates (I'm not considering power, but I think it wins there too).

I don't see anything I get from later Ferrous/Cupric that I can't get otherwise and the mixed sorting lets me make up any ratio imbalances I have imho cheaper than using the later Ferrous/Cupric methods with their different ratios. But that's a gut feeling so far.

Two things, one, you need to add cupric chloride to complete the ferrous chain, and vice versa for Cupric, so there is some "catalyst" used up. Not to mention sodium hydroxide.

Two, you need to run the full Ferric process to get Chrome for black circuits. And everything from the iron chain can be used to make steel and iron, so it's possible to use it instead of combo sorting to get iron, and pull off only as much chrome as you need.

With Cupric, I don't see it. Sure, making circuit boards and tinned copper wire requires 1:1 copper and tin, which isn't bad, but I'm not really sure what to do with the higher levels. I've got one facility that does the lv 2, with silicon and tin and copper, and also does combo aluminum sorting, and produces tinned copper wire / plates, and aluminum but that's not that impressive.

I would actually really like it if I could run the higher levels without getting nearly as much copper. I'm not sure what to do with it all. I don't need that much copper wire. (I think? I haven't actually done the full math on that, and I produce copper wire separately in an older part of the base, with copper from mixed sorting I think). As it is, I don't really see a reason to do full Cupric chain.

I was talking about the first tier of Ferrous/Cupric. That way my point. The first stage is the most efficient way to make plates. After that it becomes less efficient for the added benefit of more complexity.

[zero318]

From having looked through the mod files, it looks like the cupric chain is eventually intended to also yield platinum once the components in the industries mod are finished. It always felt a little lopsided with only the ferric chain yielding a unique ore.

Those recipes don't seem to have changed for quite awhile though, so that may or may not be relevant anymore.

[qwerter96]

Not to rush you Angel, but is there a rough ETA fr a 0.17 release?

[safan]

I suggest starting a new tread with the 0.17 release, It's pretty hard to search if something has been asked before

[BlueTemplar]

Or even better : since Angels Mods have their own forum, maybe incentivize one thread per topic ?

[raisins]

Couple of balance notes on bio processing. This is perspective from a half-finished seablocks campaign (ended for now by 0.17 coming out), so maybe I'm just misunderstanding.

Tree farming seems undertuned. The basic version is fairly powerful but limited by the number of trees you can find, which is fair. But the "advanced" versions, which you could scale, aren't worth using. The amount of plastic/rubber is negligible and the amount of wood is not even that attractive. Seems uncompetitive with farming cellulose. Perhaps you could get a "tree farm" feeling by emphasizing the use of space as a cost. Make them even slower but very low electricity, the biological equivalent to solar panels.

Similarly I can't fathom Puffers. They require all these chemical support structures and maintenance of attrition, so using them is an interesting challenge. But the actual products don't seem to justify it. Do they even end up much smaller than the alternative setups? They cost more power. So it seems like they basically condense a few chains of chemical plants and such, but do a worse job. I feel like they want to have a higher constant cost to run in exchange for a more explicit reward.

[Light]

Couple of balance notes on bio processing. This is perspective from a half-finished seablocks campaign (ended for now by 0.17 coming out), so maybe I'm just misunderstanding.

Tree farming seems undertuned. The basic version is fairly powerful but limited by the number of trees you can find, which is fair. But the "advanced" versions, which you could scale, aren't worth using. The amount of plastic/rubber is negligible and the amount of wood is not even that attractive. Seems uncompetitive with farming cellulose. Perhaps you could get a "tree farm" feeling by emphasizing the use of space as a cost. Make them even slower but very low electricity, the biological equivalent to solar panels.

Similarly I can't fathom Puffers. They require all these chemical support structures and maintenance of attrition, so using them is an interesting challenge. But the actual products don't seem to justify it. Do they even end up much smaller than the alternative setups? They cost more power. So it seems like they basically condense a few chains of chemical plants and such, but do a worse job. I feel like they want to have a higher constant cost to run in exchange for a more explicit reward.

After several months of development since the mods experimental release, I'm also hoping that we'll see a more finished result in 0.17. The bio industries chains have great potential, but they're quite underpowered and incomplete which allows more polished bio-tech mods to rise above.

It makes sense given the mod is experimental and mostly placeholder. The next release may very well include all the nice things we've been waiting a while for. We may also see the Angel's Science mod that has been in development for almost a year as well, so keep an eye out on the latest releases.

[BlueTemplar]

Advanced Tree A(r)boretums have probably the advantage of being less "scary" than Angel's Petrochem !

[ukezi]

Tree farming seems undertuned. The basic version is fairly powerful but limited by the number of trees you can find, which is fair. But the "advanced" versions, which you could scale, aren't worth using. The amount of plastic/rubber is negligible and the amount of wood is not even that attractive. Seems uncompetitive with farming cellulose. Perhaps you could get a "tree farm" feeling by emphasizing the use of space as a cost. Make them even slower but very low electricity, the biological equivalent to solar panels.

What way are you using to farm cellulose? The "advanced" versions are indeed not worth it at all. However, normal tree farming is by far the most energy and space efficient way to get charcoal I have found yet.

Similarly I can't fathom Puffers. They require all these chemical support structures and maintenance of attrition, so using them is an interesting challenge. But the actual products don't seem to justify it. Do they even end up much smaller than the alternative setups? They cost more power. So it seems like they basically condense a few chains of chemical plants and such, but do a worse job. I feel like they want to have a higher constant cost to run in exchange for a more explicit reward.

They do seem like one of Angel's halve done chains.

[BlueTemplar]

Well duh, seen "[ALPHA UPDATE]" in the mod title ?

[raisins]

Tree farming seems undertuned. The basic version is fairly powerful but limited by the number of trees you can find, which is fair. But the "advanced" versions, which you could scale, aren't worth using. The amount of plastic/rubber is negligible and the amount of wood is not even that attractive. Seems uncompetitive with farming cellulose. Perhaps you could get a "tree farm" feeling by emphasizing the use of space as a cost. Make them even slower but very low electricity, the biological equivalent to solar panels.

What way are you using to farm cellulose? The "advanced" versions are indeed not worth it at all. However, normal tree farming is by far the most energy and space efficient way to get charcoal I have found yet.

I can't load my map to look at my blueprints or play with helmod because I foolishly didn't back up the 0.16 mods. It was farm -> bioprocessor -> cellulose or something, for whichever crop I had handy that made the most cellulose per megawatt. I think I worked out that one of the swamp ones was technically the best, but I didn't bother because I already had the other biomes set up.

My normal tree farm made the wood and charcoal I was using, I hadn't collected many trees. The cellulose farm was for petro stuff. Power was a different crop for vegetable oil into fuel cubes.

[BlueTemplar]

Perhaps you could get a "tree farm" feeling by emphasizing the use of space as a cost. Make them even slower but very low electricity, the biological equivalent to solar panels.

Emphasizing the use of space as a cost seems to be what the Farms (unlike A(r)boretums) are already for.
(Though I don't remember, can all 3 of temperate/swamp/desert farms make cellulose ?)

[brokenshakles]

I really like the bio processing stuff, especially the algae farms, but I do agree the orchard tech is a bit underpowered in terms of efficiency. I like the idea of increasing the space cost and decreasing the electric cost. The idea of tree farms as a solar panel substitute is apropos.

One thing that bugs me though, is the requirements for solid catalysts (green metal catalyst etc.) for certain processes in a number of chains, that require carriers. I understand that it is used for the best process, but really snarls up my favored lazy bastard on marathon approach, and makes Rail logistic network mini stations really complicated (as does anything which requires a "carrier/barrel" be transported over rail). I would appreciate if the red/green/blue metal catalysts did not require the carriers like the filters do (I dont mind filter carriers, those are easy to localize and keep off of the rails with ceramics) instead working more like the Mineral catalyst line, which do not require carriers. It's just an un-fun mechanic for certain playstyles. Maybe a config option?

[BlueTemplar]

I know that this goes a bit against the Factorio spirit (and Lazy Bastard spirit even more), but since those are catalysts, and are consumed rather slowly, have you tried resupplying them "manually" ?
(Or maybe with LogiCarts?.)

[brokenshakles]

This is factorio, once you scale up enough, there is no "consumed rather slowly". And my stations already require 2 dozen logic combinators each, carriers just makes that number multiply, especially since I would need a central switching station to track the number of used/filled carriers across the system.

[Cabble]

In my opinion single ore sorting needs to be buffed or catalytic sortings needs to be nerfed ( i highly prefer the buff!). If my maths is not wrong, single ore sorting and catalytic ore sorting (sorting 2-3 base ores + catalyst to a single ore) yield the same ore count (1 basic ore -> 1 sorted ore). Because I can easily get a very large amount of catalysts I see no reason why I should use single ore sorting (for example sort purified saphirite). It's much harder to utilize a constant flow of 5(?) different ores than crafting catalysts to get the specific single ores I need, but both recipes yield 1:1 base->target ores. Don't get me wrong; i love the catalyst sorting, but I'd like to have a reason to go for non-catalyst sorting in lategame. Maybe increase the yield from 1:1 to 1:1.5 for chunks and 1:2 for purified? I'm also open for other ratios or some different approach (maybe another useful byproduct).
TLDR: I really like catalytic sorting as it is, but I need a reason to struggle with single ore sorting instead (or best: combine both sortings).