[MOD 0.18] Orbital Ion Cannon 1.8.2

[Supercheese]

Version 1.7.0 released, with many thanks to emperorjimmy who kindly submitted a Pull Request on GitHub covering the preliminary update work! Some additional minor features also made their way in.

Changelog:

• Updated for Factorio 0.17 (thanks emperorjimmy!)
• Updated Russian translation (courtesy of badway)
• Show Admin Panel is no longer checked by default.
• Show Cheat Menu moved to a Mod Setting rather than a checkbox option in top dialog. Disabled by default, this should reduce the visibility of the cheats significantly, as they were a bit too readily accessible before.
• Added a new checkbox in the top dialog to toggle Auto-Targeting. This is exactly the same function as the Mod Setting, just more easily accessible. As with the Mod Setting, only Admins (or single-player, of course) can access this toggle. Toggling this setting takes priority over the Mod Setting.

A couple other bugs were fixed as well, I always do appreciate bug reports!

[jimmy_1283]

-stuff-

I've noticed that the announcer sounds are affected by zoom level and map view, any idea if there is a way around this? I've been trying to figure it out on my own without success.

[Supercheese]

I've noticed that the announcer sounds are affected by zoom level and map view, any idea if there is a way around this? I've been trying to figure it out on my own without success.

This might be something that vanilla Factorio is doing. Have you observed it with other mods that play sound effects?

[jimmy_1283]

This might be something that vanilla Factorio is doing. Have you observed it with other mods that play sound effects?

It seems to be the case for most sounds, I tried setting the announcer audio files up as utility sounds (click/error/etc.) without much success, I'm not really sure if there is any other way around it, as I'm not sure of all the use-cases for 'play-sound'.

[Supercheese]

can you get rid of ion cannons that you spawned by accident via the cheat/admin panel?

You can now in version 1.7.1! Also fixed a bug with Bob's Mods compatibility, and Factorio Standard Library is now a required dependency. The mod portal should automatically download and install it when updating.

[mrvn]

can you get rid of ion cannons that you spawned by accident via the cheat/admin panel?

You can now in version 1.7.1! Also fixed a bug with Bob's Mods compatibility, and Factorio Standard Library is now a required dependency. The mod portal should automatically download and install it when updating.

The mode portal still doesn't do that. It just update LTN and left it broken with missing depends for me.

[dgw]

Hmm, Factorio 0.17.12 was supposed to add auto-install of required dependencies. (source)

[zelazny@gmail.com]

I'm getting an error loading up a save today after adding the standard library (image attached)

IonCannonError.PNG (72.71 KiB) Viewed 7079 times

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong? Thought best to let you know

[Supercheese]

Thank you for the report, fixed in version 1.7.2!

[EquinoxIsWin]

Having a heck of a time trying to get the actual explosion sound to play. The announcers work perfectly but the explosion sound effect doesn't play at all.

I've straight up beamed myself and no noises play. At fifty satellites and growing, I want to hear the thunder of ion beams across the plains!

Side note, maybe I can mod it similarly to how Mushroom Clouds works for sounds?

[Ultros]

I have some suggestions for this mod after playing with it for a bit.

1: The firing cannot be done when the zoom level is above radar range. This initially led me to believe that the ion cannon's firing was broken, since it couldn't fire when I was zoomed out in the map view. Only when I zoom in significantly (to the level that radar view would appear) can the ion cannon be fired. This should be changed to allow firing from any zoom level like artillery (or if there's a good reason for that choice, I'd like to hear it).

2: The firing only reveals one single chunk at the position of impact, which doesn't show the full extent of destruction of the hit. This somewhat reduces the level of enjoyment gained since you can't watch the full carnage if you don't have radar coverage at that location.This would ideally change to reveal all chunks within the blast radius of the cannon target. This works fine for artillery due to the small blast radius, but the ion cannon's radius is much larger.

3: When auto-targeting is disabled, new biter nests revealed by the radar of a fired artillery shell can still cause the ion cannon to auto-target. This should be fixed so that the auto-targeting also takes the artillery shell's radar into account.

[MageKing17]

2: The firing only reveals one single chunk at the position of impact, which doesn't show the full extent of destruction of the hit. This somewhat reduces the level of enjoyment gained since you can't watch the full carnage if you don't have radar coverage at that location.This would ideally change to reveal all chunks within the blast radius of the cannon target.

It would be nice, but it's also incompatible with the goal of not allowing you to target unexplored chunks; if the reveal radius were larger, it would let you fire further and further into the black.

Unrelated, 0.17.36 renders this incapable of targeting anything outside of radar coverage:

Bugfixes

• Fixed that ghosts could be built in fog of war.

[Ultros]

It would be nice, but it's also incompatible with the goal of not allowing you to target unexplored chunks; if the reveal radius were larger, it would let you fire further and further into the black.

That's already possible with normal artillery, though, so I'm not sure if that's a goal (or if it is, whether that goal makes a lot of sense). After all, you can also explore the black by walking to it, or by building artillery next to it.

Unrelated, 0.17.36 renders this incapable of targeting anything outside of radar coverage:

Bugfixes

• Fixed that ghosts could be built in fog of war.

This probably explains why you can't build when zoomed into map mode, since building isn't possible in that mode.

[Qon]

If you can't shoot OIC outside your active radar range then it is completely useless. Artillery has 10 times longer range than the radars active view range after a few pieces of research.

[mrvn]

If you can't shoot OIC outside your active radar range then it is completely useless. Artillery has 10 times longer range than the radars active view range after a few pieces of research.

1) OIC predates the artillery.
2) the OIC can shoot anywhere there is radar cover. The artillery only in a circle around it's location.
3) the OIC doesn't need ammo.
4) the OIC has a larger blast zone.

But yeah, the artillery is competing with the OIC a lot.

[Qon]

2) the OIC can shoot anywhere there is radar cover. The artillery only in a circle around it's location.

It's way harder to get radar coverage far from your base than artillery cover.
The OIC basically makes radars into artillery with much less range than an artillery turret. The advantage is that radars don't need need to be fed ammo. But they still need to be defended if placed in the middle of biter territory so you need some infrastructure for that anyways. And with the range of artillery, there's just not that many stations you need to set up ammo refill for.

And this point is kinda weird. I could just flip it and say "Artillery can shoot anywhere there is artillery cover. The OIC only in a square around your radars location."
You can place several artillery turrets and their area is 100 times larger than a radar. Why pretend that you can only ever build 1 artillery turret but you are free to place as many radars as you wish?

3) the OIC doesn't need ammo.

Firing artillery is cheap. The cost of firing is negligible compared to the range research. And if you want to fire as fast as just 1 artillery turret then you need to send hundreds of OICs into space also.

4) the OIC has a larger blast zone.

The OIC does more damage per shot but both instakill spawners and artillery can cheaply carpet bomb large areas so it's not really a big weakness for it. You get less retaliation with OIC though if you also kill the bitters. But without range, I can't use it and would just use the napalm artillery mod instead of this mod if I want that kind of power.

[mrvn]

2) the OIC can shoot anywhere there is radar cover. The artillery only in a circle around it's location.

It's way harder to get radar coverage far from your base than artillery cover.
The OIC basically makes radars into artillery with much less range than an artillery turret. The advantage is that radars don't need need to be fed ammo. But they still need to be defended if placed in the middle of biter territory so you need some infrastructure for that anyways. And with the range of artillery, there's just not that many stations you need to set up ammo refill for.

And this point is kinda weird. I could just flip it and say "Artillery can shoot anywhere there is artillery cover. The OIC only in a square around your radars location."
You can place several artillery turrets and their area is 100 times larger than a radar. Why pretend that you can only ever build 1 artillery turret but you are free to place as many radars as you wish?

I need the radar cover to see things, place bleuprints and such. So that kind of exists anyway. I also have a ton of mods, one of them gives me radar mk II, III, IV, V. I'm not sure artillery has the range of a radar mk V, at least not before the infinite research for range kicks in but I might be wrong. Never compared the ranges really.

I also thing the artillery turret is kind of useless. I usually build an artillery car and drive it where I need it. For satelite factories you need trains for transport and it's more efficient to transport the artillery shells in the artillery car than a cargo wagon anyway. So I just have one artillery train that drives around from site to site with "inactivity 180s".

[Qon]

Ok if you have a mod that gives the radar the range of artillery then yes then OIC can be useful. But if this is a concern:

It would be nice, but it's also incompatible with the goal of not allowing you to target unexplored chunks; if the reveal radius were larger, it would let you fire further and further into the black.

Then having radars with artillery range already destroys the "balance" that OIC can't be used to (extremely slowly or expensivly) explore outside active radar range.

So it isn't really an argument against letting OIC fire anywhere or otherwise it is useless.

But can the OIC fire on charted chunks (greyed out) and not black chunks or just active (lights up and you can see ground on map view) chunks? I used OIC before the map and radars were updated.

[mrvn]

Ok if you have a mod that gives the radar the range of artillery then yes then OIC can be useful. But if this is a concern:

It would be nice, but it's also incompatible with the goal of not allowing you to target unexplored chunks; if the reveal radius were larger, it would let you fire further and further into the black.

Then having radars with artillery range already destroys the "balance" that OIC can't be used to (extremely slowly or expensivly) explore outside active radar range.

So it isn't really an argument against letting OIC fire anywhere or otherwise it is useless.

But can the OIC fire on charted chunks (greyed out) and not black chunks or just active (lights up and you can see ground on map view) chunks? I used OIC before the map and radars were updated.

That's not what he is talking about there.

Say OIC would reveal a 3x3 chunks area when firing on something. First you select a chunk that is a the edge of your radar range. This reveals chunks that are one chunk further out. So you fire at one of those chunks. That reveals chunks that are 2 chunks out of your radar range. Select one of them and you get even further out. You could creep out as far as you want as long as you have enough OICs to keep firing before a chunk fades.

I agree that OIC shouldn't reveal black chunks but it could show charted chunks. Iiirc you can query the surface if a chunk was charted as opposed to being generated but still black.

[Qon]

That's not what he is talking about there.

I know what he is talking about. But it wouldn't be unbalanced even if you could directly target uncharted chunks without creeping. It's not like this vision far out is something that will benefit you in any way. If you have hundreds of OICs to do this then you are also immortal and can just run over there at high speed safely and just walk through nests as if they aren't even there. This is way past the part of the game where the natives are a threat.

And if you have modded hyper radars then you have already destroyed this non-existent "balance" issue. The modded radars also give you "free" vision far out from your base.

My point stands.