Friday Facts #304 - Small bugs; Big changes

[Theikkru]

It has occurred to me that rebalancing the chemical science packs would probably go a long way towards adjusting demand levels for oil products, and would make it more thematic too. If, for instance, the chemical pack only required 1~2 red circuits, but 3~5 units of solid fuel, then solid fuel would definitely feel a lot less superfluous to a lot of people, and the petroleum gas burden would be alleviated somewhat as well. Bonus points for more chemicals in the chemical pack too.

[IronCartographer]

I'm fine with some of the other technologies being moved behind blue science, and I think rocket fuel should be there too. It feels too powerful to get it with just red and green science. It's caused me to avoid doing anything significant with trains until I've researched it. Moving it behind blue science would change that.

This would be a good distinction (solid fuel with green tier, rocket with blue). It fits well with the nuclear fuel being in productivity tech (meaning blue is lacking one and not being used for tier unlocking right now). Unfortunately it would delay military rockets tech, which is similar to problems mentioned earlier...

I still really prefer the idea of moving sulfur to the heavy oil BOP, and adding that to the chemical science pack recipe (in place of the wires, which are not "chemical-y"). This addresses the concerns of having a 1-in, 1-out recipe which does feel wrong for oil, and it makes more thematic and realism sense as well. Plus it introduces the player to multi-output recipes, while one is still an item and thus easy to deal with. And it addresses the "no useful end products from BOP" concern; here sulfur is directly used in blue science and thus of obvious value.

That's definitely an even better extension from a realism perspective, but it creates a worse problem than the multi-output refining, because you can't convert sulfur into plastic. It also makes things more complicated rather than simpler as the FFF's gas-only recipe is attempting to be. Meanwhile, basic oil fractions all lead to gas which is one of the most versatile ingredients in the game. Granted, you can move away from basic to advanced and solve the problem that way, but it doesn't create gas any sooner.

As per our messages on Discord though, you may be onto something if chemical science used sulfur in addition to solid fuel and something else. The sulfur problem could be solved by moving on to AOP, at which point the two-output problem becomes a three-fluid-output problem, but it's versatile and business as usual.

[Omnifarious]

I'm fine with some of the other technologies being moved behind blue science, and I think rocket fuel should be there too. It feels too powerful to get it with just red and green science. It's caused me to avoid doing anything significant with trains until I've researched it. Moving it behind blue science would change that.

This would be a good distinction (solid fuel with green tier, rocket with blue). It fits well with the nuclear fuel being in productivity tech (meaning blue is lacking one and not being used for tier unlocking right now). Unfortunately it would delay military rockets tech, which is similar to problems mentioned earlier...

The dependency of rocketry on rocket fuel could be broken. HE Rocketry and atomic rockets could depend on rocket fuel, but not base rockets. Because the recipe for rockets does not actually require rocket fuel.

[mmmPI]

I still really prefer the idea of moving sulfur to the heavy oil BOP

but it creates a worse problem than the multi-output refining, because you can't convert sulfur into plastic

For this mod : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SulfurFromOils I thought like you IronCartographer and re-thought the other way, you can use cracking so that you don't create too much sulfur ( in case you do just transform it in acid and get rid of the tank EDIT: well no just shoot the chest ). I was afraid of not being able to get sulfur if there was no petroleum gas consumption ( for vast uranium mining for example) , but in this case , you can use coal liquefaction BOP late game ! It may makes the game a little "harder" but not at the start i'd say. as pointed out next post if you add an unefficient receipe for PG=>sulfur it's fine.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Heavy_Oil ... al_Science This one i fear that it just remove the problem of multi-output, it is in a way too easy to delay it forever with a mediocre setup. Sure that does remove the idea of the wall, but maybe it makes the game too easy in general, and not only easier to understand. maybe i'm biaised too because i think BOP should have multi output, so that you understand right away there COULD BE a problem, and you have a "simple" solution to fix it until you have AOP, that is where you should be happy to solve the puzzle because you understand it's a bit the same as the one before but a bit harder , for better reward.

[Engimage]

I did already mention in my post before
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73443&p=444061#p444061
about moving basic sulfur recipe to heavier oils. Adding a petroleum gas sulfur recipe to AOP will keep the total complexity in check.

Extending further idea of IronCartographer with this will almost enable construction bots before plastic as batteries will be available.

As an addition I would replace solid fuel with sulfur in blue science which will give even better lesson to the player.

[IronCartographer]

For what it's worth, I've updated the heavy oil chemical science mod with a startup setting so it no longer locks gas behind AOP by default.

This maintains the streamlining of oil refining and gradual progression from heavy to light to gas, without playing havoc on the tech tree.

Also moves solid fuel to Flammables as ever.

[FuryoftheStars]

I have to hop offline for a while, so my description here is going to be very short. I'll expand later with exact changes later.

Basically, I just created a mod with kbk's ideas and suggestions (minus flamethrower as that's going to require a bit more time, assuming it's possible to mod), plus the bit from Roxor128 about concrete for refineries (I didn't do chem labs cause I felt like the ingredient list was too long like that?). It's also designed to work in conjunction with the sulfur from oils mod I put up yesterday. There are a couple settings between the two mods that can change the PG sulfur recipe (enable/disable, unlocked by sulfur processing/advanced oil) as well as another setting for the complexity of the alkylation recipes.

Sciences and other techs and unlocks not mentioned are untouched. I obviously have not done proper balancing, so let me know if you try it out and see anything.

(It's sad that work is more conducive for modding...)

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RebalancedOilProduction
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SulfurFromOils

[chandlerj333]

I'm relatively new to the game and have only done one playthrough so far. I didn't find oil processing too hard to figure out, and I liked that the process gave you both high quality material in the form of gas and lower quality material in the form of the oils. The oils then needed to be managed either by creating enough storage to hold it until further research is complete or by biting the bullet and converting them straight to fuel despite the loss of efficiency.

Then adv processing and cracking are unlocked and you earn the ability to utilize the waste products and to reduce the amount of waste being produced in the first place.

I think the simplest way to communicate that an output is blocked would be to have a triangle alert icon appear over the refinery with a tool tip saying "X output is full; process stopped." This alert could also be used for other machines like fabricators and furnaces. It doesn't need to pop up next to the toolbar and make the alert sound, just show up over the machine in question. Alternatively, the refinery could have a small alert icon show up over the specific output that is blocked.

[Therax]

After some consideration, I have a slightly different proposal:

• Change the Basic Oil Processing recipe to output only Light Oil.
• Add the Light->Petroleum gas cracking recipe to the Oil Processing tech.
• Move gas->solid fuel and heavy->solid fuel back to Flammables.

Advantages over the current system:

• Multi-output recipes are deferred to Advanced Oil Processing, so the player can focus on learning fluid and pipe mechanics
• Players are guided to using light oil to produce solid fuel

Advantages over FFF-304

• Players are not forced to build inefficient petroleum gas->solid production, only to tear it down again once advanced oil processing is researched.
• Introduces cracking before Advanced Oil Processing, so the only new skill that has to be learned is working with multi-product fluid recipes, and the possibility of refineries getting backed up. This is the big sticking point, so having it on its own is IMO a big benefit.
• Removes the "problem" that basic oil processing is better in many cases than the advanced version.
• No longer have the immersion stretch that the product that is most complex to obtain (petroleum gas) being now the first oil product. Historically, the first refined oil product was kerosene for fuel. (minor)

This does still defer robots until blue science for lubricant. In my experience this isn't really a big change, since it is extremely common to commit all oil products to researching Advanced Oil Processing before any other technologies. However I'd also consider the possibility of adding an (inefficient) light oil->lubricant recipe if it's desirable for robots to be accessible before blue science.

[BlueTemplar]

That said, I do feel as though there should have been more uses for heavy & light oil put into the game, or less so for petroleum gas. The usage of the oil products is very heavily weighted towards PG.

Sulfur concentration is typically proportional to the mass of the hydrocarbons in the oil. I mean, in real life. So perhaps making this more realistic would also address what you're saying... that is, either pulling sulfur only from or making it more efficient to pull sulfur from the heavier oils, rather than PG (which really would have a very small concentration of sulfur).

Yeah, I had considered this and thought of doing a mod for it, so did some research on it (winding up at hydrodesulfurization) and saw that typically this appears (?) to be done during the refining process. So our refinery would give us the current 3 products plus sulfur. While I'm pretty sure there's a way to do this with sulfur still being locked behind Sulfur Processing (essentially have two versions of BOP: one with no sulfur output, then one with that replaces the other on research. Could use control.lua to look for and swap all the BOP recipes in use upon unlock, and then AOP just always gives sulfur), this then puts us in a situation where we're now outputting 4 items, at different rates, and it'd all be a nightmare to balance, I think.

My thoughts on if the sulfur process was moved from PG to the oils, then it should probably use both of the oils, but then I think we'd still want water input, too (? At least in the hydrodesulfurization process, Hydrogen is needed, which we could theoretically get from water), but I don't think we have anything that takes 3 liquid inputs.

So the other option I see offhand is have two different sulfur processes, one HO/water and one LO/water (this way the player can choose which one to draw down on). EDIT: And actually, maybe still leave a PG version, but have the output highest with HO -> LO -> PG lowest? Though I feel like I'm contributing to bloat, now.

You're more knowledgeable than me on this subject... do you have any input?

My first advice is to not try to over-complicate the final product, of course. You are definitely on the right track. In real life, sulfur is mostly obtained by extracting it in the form of hydrogen sulfide from "sour" natural gas, and also from refined petroleum (but not typically from petroleum gas), but there it's mostly just a waste product that needs to be removed and hopefully the refinery can make a little cash on it. This is done by hydrodesulfurization, and so I agree this is the process to model in the game: this is the process of removing hydrogen sulfide from the petroleum (or natural gas or whatever). In the real world, there is then another process (called the Claus Process) to turn the hydrogen sulfide into elemental sulfur, and I think that's the part we should ignore in the game. So, to me, we're on the same path, here. For hydrodesulfurization, the heavier oils should be more "fertile", if you take my meaning, and it sounds like we think the same, there, too. We don't actually need *water* for hydrodesulfurization, though: what we need is hydrogen gas and heat. However, for simplification, in all of the chemical reactions I've added to the game in my chemistry mod that call for either hydrogen gas or oxygen gas, I just use water or steam and imagine the chemical plant is capable of producing the hydrogen/oxygen gasses from the water.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I agree with you, yes.

In the case that you haven't played bob's mods, here's his take on the subject :

bob_sulfur_processing.png (1.83 MiB) Viewed 8741 times

(This is for 0.16, but I doubt it has changed much in 0.17 ?)
Note that he seems to have kept petroleum gas as more "fertile" for sulfur production, to keep more in line with vanilla, rather than going for more "realism" I guess ?

[FuryoftheStars]

Ok, again, here are the mod links, followed by a better description this time.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RebalancedOilProduction
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SulfurFromOils


Ideas from here down are taken from kbk's post:

Changed BOP to remove LO (so yes, still makes HO and PG) and increased pollution (to represent the lost LO being sent up the refinery's flare stack). The concept here, I believe, is to try to simplify the production of 3 fluids to just 2, simplifying the challenge a bit, while also retaining the primary two ingredients that are used in everything else.
The actual amount of PG and HO produced are unchanged and the extra pollution caused is +33%.

Moved LO to solid fuel recipe to AOP seams only AOP now produces LO.

Created second BOP that takes in water (in addition to crude) and will output steam in addition to HO and PG. With this recipe, the oil fractions that are being "burnt off" with the refinery's flare stack are being repurposed to produce steam for your boilers. And yes... the pollution is still elevated (you're still burning it). This recipe is locked behind a new tech that has a prerequisite of only oil processing with the same costs.
HO & PG production unaltered. Takes in 400 units of water and outputs 400 units of 165-degree steam. A regular boiler can produce 60 units of steam per second, and the BOP recipe runs for 5 seconds. 60 x 5 = 300. I've set it a little higher than this for now based on kbk's comments, but welcome feedback. Pollution still at +33%.

Rebalanced solid fuel to require less HO, more LO, and even more PG, so efficiency goes (from best to worst) heavy -> light -> petroleum.
For 1 solid fuel, each recipe goes 10 HO, 20 LO, 40 PG.

Added new "backwards cracking" (alkylation) recipes. These allow you to combine PG to get LO, and LO to get HO. Concept is to allow the player better fine-tuned control over balancing their fluid needs later. These recipes are locked behind a new tech that has AOP as a prerequisite.
The alkylation recipes require sulfuric acid to work. Defaults for these recipes take a large amount of the lighter oil fraction plus the sulfuric acid to then output the heavier fraction, a small leftover amount of the lighter fraction, and sulfur. There is a startup setting to simplify the recipes, making them use less of the lighter fraction, and output the heavier fraction with only sulfuric acid (no leftover light fraction or sulfur).
Default PG -> LO: Input 50x PG, 30 sulfuric acid. Outputs 30x LO, 10x PG, 1x sulfur.
Alternate PG -> LO: Input 40x PG, 30 sulfuric acid. Outputs 30x LO, 10x sulfuric acid.
Default LO -> HO: Input 40x LO, 30 sulfuric acid. Outputs 20x HO, 10x LO, 1x sulfur.
Alternate LO -> HO: Input 30x LO, 30 sulfuric acid. Outputs 20x HO, 10x sulfuric acid.

Rocket fuel modified to require LO directly in manufacturing. Gives LO a direct purpose.
200 LO -> 1 rocket fuel (equivalent to new LO to solid fuel recipe x10 solid fuel for rocket fuel as previous)

Refined concrete has had its water requirement replaced with lubricant to give further use to HO. The concrete requirements of rocket silos and nuclear reactors are then replaced with refined concrete.
Refined concrete water requirement replaced 1 to 1, for 100 lubricant.
Nuclear reactor and rocket silo concrete requirements replaced 1 to 1, for 500 and 1000 refined concrete, respectively.



This idea is taken from Roxor128's post:

Refinery's stone brick requirement is replaced with regular concrete, to encourage further practice with fluid handling for the water required in concrete.
Refinery's stone brick requirement replaced 1 to 1, for 10 concrete.



Concept for the Sulfur Processing from Oils mod was taken from Adamo's post:

This mod adds recipes for making sulfur from HO & LO and by default removes the PG recipe unlock (there's a setting to allow it still). The concept here was to try and spread the oil fractions use out a bit more off from PG and onto HO & LO. HO & LO are also where you'd find more of the sulfur than PG, anyway.
HO to sulfur is 10 to 1. (I wonder if doing 20 to 2 would be easier to notice the efficiency increase?)
LO to sulfur is 20 to 1.
PG to sulfur is 30 to 1 (if the recipe is not disabled).

If this mod is installed and enabled with the other one, it moves the sulfur from LO recipe to AOP (seems LO is not available until then) and then also adds a requirement of sulfur processing to AOP (so one can't make the sulfur without sulfur processing). (May want to change this? Put sulfur from LO into its own tech that then requires sulfur processing and AOP? Is there a better way, or is the way I'm handling this ok?) It also includes a setting that then moves the sulfur from PG recipe to AOP, assuming the setting from the sulfur processing mod to remove this recipe is disabled.



No other changes to science, techs, or other recipes have been made. This means bots, lasers, accumulators, etc are still available at the same points and should all be makeable from oil processing.

[IronCartographer]

• Change the Basic Oil Processing recipe to output only Light Oil.
• Add the Light->Petroleum gas cracking recipe to the Oil Processing tech.

I like it.

Not a bad idea, though still more complex than the FFF's proposal for new players.

Edit: There are some huge advantages here:

• Avoids the "complete cracking exploit" feeling of a refinery converting oil all the way to gas from the start, with only basic oil and no separate cracking unlocked.. That "water- and infrastructure-free cracking" before the basic cracking is even researched represents my main issue with the FFF's solution...
• Makes the oil industry non-blocking* for the current blue science recipe, just like the FFF's proposal, but without forcing gas->solid fuel as you mentioned.
• Doesn't allow the player to side-step the multi-product balancing problem, despite introducing cracking earlier.

* The player would have to either include some gas-to-solid production as a fallback, or properly regulate the rate of cracking light to gas in some manner. It can be handled just like the full 3-product balancing problem, or serve as a hint for why advanced oil will require careful regulation without forcing a full solution immediately.

• Move gas->solid fuel and heavy->solid fuel back to Flammables.

...

• Players are guided to using light oil to produce solid fuel

...

• Players are not forced to build inefficient petroleum gas->solid production, only to tear it down again once advanced oil processing is researched.

While that last line is true, the "guiding" is actually the other way around here: The text for Flammables describes developing more efficient fuels (which would generally make sense to develop later), despite heavy and gas converting less efficiently. . .

That said, it would work to put light- and gas-based solid fuel in Flammables, and heavy to solid at whichever tech unlocks heavy (as it serves as an incidental heavy oil dump then, rather than a supposed efficiency improvement).

All said, I really like the aesthetics and gradual problem-solving of this model the most if chemical science doesn't change. Light oil becomes the most mundane form, unlocking fuel at the start, and then the player learns how to get at the more useful forms above and below it over time!

Final edit: What would really make this idea shine is adding a basic-cracking tech to unlock light->gas, so that basic oil processing focuses right in on the idea of Pumpjack->Pipes->Refinery, and then further steps are unlocked research by research. That would finish the process of making the initial foray into oil just like every other incremental addition of recipes in the oil tech tree. . .

[IronCartographer]

No other changes to science, techs, or other recipes have been made. This means bots, lasers, accumulators, etc are still available at the same points and should all be makeable from oil processing.

Let me say this first: I really appreciate your effort on implementing these ideas into mods. I hope you can adapt them to whatever solution we end up with after this, as a Vanilla+ bite-sized oil industry flavor-enhancement. Very cool stuff.

Unfortunately, the package as a whole has a very "modded" feel to it, adding complexity and confusion--no matter how much it sounds fun and exciting to experienced vanilla players.

There may be elements here that can be useful for the base game experience, but they would have to be carefully selected!

[MisterDoctor]

Definitely don't like the oil change. Setting up oil is I think my favorite part of every playthrough. It's by far the funnest thing to set up. I've heard this game described as "diesel punk", and it makes sense. Working with oil is one of the best parts of the game. I wish for an even more complex oil setup, and more excuses to ship oil products around, not less.

Another possible downside is that now I can't choose to stay with Basic Oil Processing for more Heavy Oil. I think Heavy Oil is more valuable than you realize, and Advanced Oil Processing doesn't really generate enough of it a lot of the time.

[IronCartographer]

Another possible downside is that now I can't choose to stay with Basic Oil Processing for more Heavy Oil. I think Heavy Oil is more valuable than you realize, and Advanced Oil Processing doesn't really generate enough of it a lot of the time.

Incidentally, if basic refining gave only light oil, players would finally be forced to try out coal liquefaction if they wanted to get more Heavy than AOP provides.

[psihius]

That is actually another balancing downside - in the early game you build a lot of blue level belts - they eat Lubricant like crazy. I always have to switch to Basic Oil Processing for heavy oil until I scale-out significantly, on my last run I was not getting enough heavy oil by far and I was also lacking in petroleum, so I had to resort to Coal Liquefaction to keep my Heavy Oil thirst at bay. Now removing heavy oil from basic recipe screws you over big time. Blue belt us the first thing I go for when I set up my first refinery (i have assemblers ready and waiting by that point for lubricant input).
AOP does not give enough heavy oil by far for that use case, I end up cracking it only when I go past 30-40 refineries (and that's only when I'm not laying lots of belts furiously) and that process takes tens of hours for me, until I scale-out even more and at that point I finally have enough heavy to keep things rolling smoothly.

Honestly, after reading the whole thread and finding tidbits that people point out how they relly on that current Basic Oil Recipe either for solid fuel or lubricant or getting moved to blue science now cause you can't produce the damn thing without intermediate that needs lubricant - it is becoming obvious that the number of layers depending on it is just too damn much.

There is so much balance hinging on the current version of Basic Oil Processing producing heavy oil, that the whole mid-game has to be rebalanced entirely with some late-game consequences.

The basic power armour already comes at a point where it is very hard to fight biters on your own with the heavy and with the spitters and worms slowing you down that became nearly impossible. And now you take away the lube, lasers and the player is basically stuck in his base not having the tech or upgrades to go out and claim the space.
Combat wise right now the balance is right where it should be. Remove the heavy from the basic recipe - and your whole carefully crafter combat balance goes the way of the Dodo. You know I and my peers run a lot of combat scenarios and/or resource challenges and other scenarios - we have a lot of experience accumulated between us and one thing we all agree on is

Do not mess with heavy oil output

Light oil can go, if required, sure. But all 3 outputs have a direct sink - heavy => lubricant, light oil => solid fuel. I mean maybe just teach/hint people at that? But the important one is "heavy => lubricant" - till that is there with basic oil, I will accept other changes regardless if I agree or not.

[psihius]

Another possible downside is that now I can't choose to stay with Basic Oil Processing for more Heavy Oil. I think Heavy Oil is more valuable than you realize, and Advanced Oil Processing doesn't really generate enough of it a lot of the time.

Incidentally, if basic refining gave only light oil, players would finally be forced to try out coal liquefaction if they wanted to get more Heavy than AOP provides.

Well, I know I'm a veteran, so my building speed is the order of magnitude faster, but I'm always starved by heavy. I started to just setup coal liquefaction as soon as it is available to me every game

[IronCartographer]

Well, I know I'm a veteran...but I'm always starved by heavy.

in the early game you build a lot of blue level belts

Subjective game stages based on experience, indeed.

[lacika2000]

TLDR
Please keep the input side changes in refining, but use heavy oil for sulfur and possibly for bitumen (for roads), and delay the introduction of light oil to advanced refining together with all cross-conversion tech. Do not delay con bots any further, pleeeeeease...

Refining in more details:
I love the change on the input side, this makes life much simpler, whether when you start or when you switch between modes of refinery operation. This is great, please keep it!

I really don't like the change to use only one product in simple refining. Chemically speaking this makes no sense at all in the context of refining, and it steps away from the 'lifelike' approach in component requirements that permeates the game.

So I am suggesting the following changes for your consideration:

In the simplest refineries, so-called hydroskimming refineries, you produce some naphtha, some diesel and a lot of heavy oil (this can be up to 80% depending on the type of crude). If we need to simplify, I would suggest to stick to petroleum gas and heavy oil, leaving the light oil out (if we must). The petroleum can be used as is, except that I would not use it for sulfur (sulfur content of light refining product is very small, while there can be up to 5-7 wt% sulfur in the heavies). The use of heavy oil in real life, after removing a mountain of sulfur from it, is for lubricants (con bots, blue belt, etc.), for liquid fuel or solid fuel (the coking process does exactly this, but also provides naphtha or light oil products in real life) for energy and/or transport, and for bitumen/asphalt (together with stones). I really miss bitumen/asphalt from the game as the ultimate smooth option for roads with the highest speed modifier for the player.

If you must throttle simple refining, I would suggest to use 25% petroleum and 25% heavy oil yield from 100% crude intake.

Introducing advanced refining should increase the yields (from the above 50% to 100% on crude oil basis) and produce light oil needed for weapons and other things, and also introduce all the cross-conversion technologies (from heavy to light oil, from light oil to petroleum gas and to solid fuel from everything and perhaps to sulfur from everything).

On con bots:
Nooooooooooooooooo, for the love of everything holy and sacred , please don't delay them further. They are the biggest QoL help in the game when you need to suddenly multiply smelting and capacity across the entire production facility.

[psihius]

Well, I know I'm a veteran...but I'm always starved by heavy.

in the early game you build a lot of blue level belts

Subjective game stages based on experience, indeed.

True, these days if I go for a bus, I just design it for the blue belt from the ground up.