Friday Facts #304 - Small bugs; Big changes

[Pi-C]

I really miss bitumen/asphalt from the game as the ultimate smooth option for roads with the highest speed modifier for the player.

While I agree that it would be nice to have these in vanilla, there are mods if you really, really can't do without bitumen/asphalt.

[kbk]

Hahaha, I just started to submerge myself in mod creation — and here I am, totally stripped of any intent to continue further

Thank you for implementing this in a mod! I'm definitely going to playtest it later today and I'll post back on when I'm done.

[Yijare]

Hahaha, I just started to submerge myself in mod creation

programming in lua isn't that hard but it's nice when more people do it, because that makes the community stronger and longer lasting.

[FuryoftheStars]

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!

Well, in my defense, the same could be said about a lot of solutions. I obviously haven't been able to tweak numbers for balance, as really, I'm not sure what they should be. And while I do like the concept of having the alkylation recipes for further fluid management, for Vanilla purposes, the recipes could be simplified further (outputting only the heavier fraction, making them very similar to the cracking ones) or just omitted. The second version BOP with the steam output wouldn't be needed for vanilla, either, if that just made things too complex. I think it was mainly an idea to give the "wasted" fuel from it a purpose so that BOP wasn't 100% looked down on later. But with this mod, both the steam BOP and alkylation recipes are in separate techs that are independent and not required by anything, so if someone wanted to test without them, it'd just be a matter of ignoring the techs.

I just feel strongly that simplifying BOP all the way down to 1 in 1 out and putting in basic cracking (depending on the 1 out) isn't a good strategy, either. *shrug* IMO, it just adds a longer chain for the new players to have to set up before they can get the coveted PG, and/or potentially pushes valuable techs out further. It also pushes the multiple out handling puzzle until later. And frankly, it doesn't make a lot of sense why one can do basic cracking outside of the refinery but not in it at this stage. This (again, just IMO) adds an unneeded layer of complexity to me.

Producing both HO and PG allows for a player to still deal with the multiple out puzzle, but now they only have to juggle 2 fluids instead of 3, which I think would reduce the complexity greatly. It also allows for the techs to remain as they are (if desired) as the needed products are being produced right there without the need to setup another complexity chain for cracking.

The rest, to include the separate sulfur mod, while yes are more "realistic" (it's not a bad word, I swear! ), also have the benefit of distributing the fluid usage out a bit. Before, vanilla was using something like 80-90% PG out of the gate, which is what really causes the imbalances. Hopefully the redistribution of everything balances this out more. It hopefully also encourages using more than all AOP with only 1 or 2 BOP/coal liquefaction setups for your HO needs.

Although, in the end, I do feel as though the devs will need to do more at the UI/UX level to further convey the fluid backup as obviously the multiple signs and signals they've already put in are not being seen as has been demonstrated by the numerous comments in this thread.

Hahaha, I just started to submerge myself in mod creation — and here I am, totally stripped of any intent to continue further

Thank you for implementing this in a mod! I'm definitely going to playtest it later today and I'll post back on when I'm done.

D'oh! Sorry about that! If you want, I can leave you the flamethrower....

[Reika]

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.

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.

I second this. Additionally, I am still uncertain of the value of AOP for the player who does not care about efficiency - ie, most players, especially new ones - if the BOP recipe gives both PG and Heavy Oil, as either can be used to make solid fuel and thus light oil is entirely optional.

[Amarula]

The use of heavy oil in real life, after removing a mountain of sulfur from it, is for lubricants

Ooooh that would be really cool: pipe heavy oil into chemical plant, out comes "a mountain" of sulfur and a pipe of lubricant. I haven't tried the mod so I don't know if it includes this or something like it but I really like the idea.

[FuryoftheStars]

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.

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.

I second this. Additionally, I am still uncertain of the value of AOP for the player who does not care about efficiency - ie, most players, especially new ones - if the BOP recipe gives both PG and Heavy Oil, as either can be used to make solid fuel and thus light oil is entirely optional.

Not if you then also change rocket fuel to require LO instead of solid fuel, which has been pointed out to be closer to the actual way rocket fuel is made.

The balance also still favors needing more PG than HO, just not by as wide of a margin.

[BlueTemplar]

This mod represents the collective discussion and input of many people. It makes surprisingly few direct changes, considering its effects on the learning process through obtaining oil and chemical science in this manner.

Please take a look at how the in-game tech tree is affected, and what a new player would experience while going through it. There are techs unlocked post-blue with only red+green science costs that need to be rebalanced, but otherwise it should be fairly comprehensive.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Heavy_Oil ... al_Science

This sounds great !

I just feel strongly that simplifying BOP all the way down to 1 in 1 out and putting in basic cracking (depending on the 1 out) isn't a good strategy, either. *shrug* IMO, it just adds a longer chain for the new players to have to set up before they can get the coveted PG, and/or potentially pushes valuable techs out further. It also pushes the multiple out handling puzzle until later. And frankly, it doesn't make a lot of sense why one can do basic cracking outside of the refinery but not in it at this stage. This (again, just IMO) adds an unneeded layer of complexity to me.

But Heavy Oil Chemical Science does NOT add a basic cracking recipe, it moves the advanced cracking recipe to basic oil processing :
you still need to bring the water in !
This might not seem to be a big deal for experienced players, but will still be a huge one for newbies !

Ooooh that would be really cool: pipe heavy oil into chemical plant, out comes "a mountain" of sulfur and a pipe of lubricant. I haven't tried the mod so I don't know if it includes this or something like it but I really like the idea.

This sounds an interesting option for an advanced recipe ? (Maybe require another input, like water ? Vanilla lubricant always seemed a bit too simple...)

Wouldn't this delay sulfur processing and, by extension, batteries (accumulators, bots) and explosives?

It spreads out the oil learning and building process, yes. While it does reduce choice (enhancing focus on the fundamentals of basic fluid handling) at first, unlocking blue science happens quickly and advanced oil is displayed prominently.

Countless new players have rushed to exciting new technologies while disregarding advanced oil processing until it's too late. These changes push back the complications just long enough so that when they hit the full complexity increase of oil they will still be unlocking new things--driving production and scaling of their oil industry in order to try out the new toys.

It's an inversion of the philosophy of forcing advanced circuits through science directly, but one that just might work as there are so many other reasons to want them in abundance.

Uh, too late for what ??
It would still be nice if sulfur was changed to be made from heavy oil : both for gameplay and "realism" reasons...
I don't see how delaying explosives (if only by requiring double-cracking) is good for gameplay : don't forget that with chemical science comes the TANK, which makes the previous offensive weapons pretty much obsolete (at least for a while...)
It would be nice if late green science weapons like flamethrower, mines, rocket launcher (,defender bots?) had at least some time when they're dominant...
(Also, delaying cliff explosives is probably not that great either...)

In any case, Logistic science was far too vast, and this helps reel it in a little. I always hate how in the early game, I can automate green/red science and basically tear through 50 different researches without having to make decisions as to what I'm getting. It goes by so fast, and automatically! You'd think it'd just be a few new techs, before having to upgrade research a bit more.

Nobody forces you to get all the green techs before doing blue ones, and wasting resources/pollution in the process. And the game doesn't have automatic research, even the research queue is only enabled by default after the game is finished...

I haven't heard anyone mention the fact that it pushes back laser turrets, which I typically start making well before I even worry about explosives -- doesn't everyone? They're the best weapon, by far, at this point in the game. This would also be a problem.

Ah, yeah, and Accumulators too...
But no, this sounds more like a solution for laser turrets being too good compared to the alternatives... (or at least too easy to use, since, as I already mentioned, flame turrets are already earlier and better)

I like in the Heavy Oil Chemical Science mod that you make your way from low tier products to high tier products. This feels really good. This solution also seems well balanced, as the same chemical science throughput can be achieved with the same number of assembling machines.

I'd prefer however to have 4 instead of 1 , as automating red wire production isn't crucial and can be avoided by :
- not using circuit network at all
- Ctrl-C Ctrl-V an unlimited free amount of wires when building (kind of)
But that's debatable, and quite minor.

The whole point is to give a hint to the player to start using circuits.
And free wires from blueprints is kind of an exploit... though we've been here before, as, from I've heard, one first had to craft blueprints from circuits at some point ?

[BlueTemplar]

I don't think the changes to Basic Oil Processing are the way to go. I think it's attacking the problem of the Oil Spike from the wrong angle.

The way I see it, the problem with the Oil Spike is in three parts:

1. It's the first time the player needs to get serious about fluid handling.
2. It's the first time the player needs to deal with multiple outputs from a single recipe.
3. It's hard to tell which of the multiple outputs is blocked.

For solutions, I offer the following suggestions:

1a. Add or move a few recipes that need fluids to before oil refining. The obvious example would be concrete. Make refineries and chemical plants require it and force the player to build a production line that needs a fluid input. You have the fluid-accepting Assembling Machine 2 by that point, anyway.

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?).
[...]
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RebalancedOilProduction
[...]

Uh, no. Have you seen the science cost of Concrete (or even Steel Furnaces)?! This would probably delay conbots even more than the FFF proposal !
Today, one can decide to rush blue science without going through the expensive green science techs like concrete, solar, rockets... I'd like to be able to keep this option !
Now, what might work, is to split concrete into two techs :
- basic concrete : cheap green tech (maybe even without the steel furnace tech requirement?)
- advanced concrete : expensive green (or maybe even cheap blue?) tech, and maybe including the previous lubricant proposition ?

[*] Refined concrete might be crafted with the use of Lubricant and might be used in Silo/Reactor construction. This is to provide additional stimuli to use Heavy oil and to prolong the Steam/Solar power supply era a tiny bit[/list]

I would also like to re-iterate that other than construction drones, 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.

Rocket is kind of weak though, especially the "non-explosive" one, especially compared to Tank.
Rocket fuel is one of these expensive green techs that one is likely to get after setting up blue science...

----

1b. Split oil extraction and refining into two technologies. The extraction technology would enable building pumpjacks and a fluid-fuelled boiler for the power plant that can take anything the flamethrower turret can, with the associated bonuses, so as to provide an incentive to go to more sophisticated fuels once you get oil refining. Main point is to give the player practice handling fluids other than water. The rest of the basic oil stuff (refinery, chemical plants, solid fuel, basic processing) would be moved to the refining technology.

Sounds great !

2. Add recipes to earlier parts of the game that produce multiple outputs. Let the player get their head around the concept in the familiar context of belts and inserters before trying it with fluids.

Maybe Engine units would be a good candidate for multiple outputs?
Something like + + -> + .
The engine units need to be made in an assembler (thus no workaround by handcrafting) and the resulting iron plate can be easily fed back into ingredients crafting.

However, I'm not sure how to evaluate the probability of a new player encountering and solving the desired lesson (i.e. engine units not being produced because of full iron plates output). Although the reverse (full engine units output with no iron plates) seems to be very likely.

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.

Add an "overflow oil burner" (flare stack, but for fluid). It should have an circuit connection to enable/disable.

1) Solves the need to constantly store extra light/heavy oil before cracking is researched

Isn't this essentially what making solid fuel out of the excess and feeding it to your boilers, smelters, and trains does?

No, it's different, since it only involves fluids. As already mentioned, it's much easier to understand when items back up...

[BlueTemplar]

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!

Indeed !

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.

Yeah, I gave it as an example, but turning vanilla into another bob's petrochem (or Factorio Spaghetti Monster forbid, angel's or py's petrochem), is certainly not the way to go...
(Still, pretty cool as a standalone mod - and bob's mods tend to have a lot of other complexity that some players might not want to deal with...)

Also : sulfur from heavy and light oil : is that really an AND or a OR ?
Even if it just an OR, it makes heavy/light oil less unique, which doesn't seem that good... (and there's already solid fuel for "getting rid" of all petrochem products...)

Hahaha, I just started to submerge myself in mod creation — and here I am, totally stripped of any intent to continue further

Thank you for implementing this in a mod! I'm definitely going to playtest it later today and I'll post back on when I'm done.

As you can see, it's not the first mod changing oil, and won't be the last... feel free to show us your own vision !

[mrvn]

Why is the inserter chasing items pointlessly at all? Why can't the inserter compute the time and location where it would catch up to the item and see that the location is outside of its reach. It can then go for the next item right from the start.

Since belts now have information about gaps and non-gaps shouldn't it also be possible for the inserter to know when the next item will arrive (if nobody else takes it) and position itself even before the item enters the tile the inserter picks up from? That would make it possible to pick up items on the wrong side of a belt better. Or for stack inserters know when to wait for more items and when not to.

[IronCartographer]

This mod represents the collective discussion and input of many people. It makes surprisingly few direct changes, considering its effects on the learning process through obtaining oil and chemical science in this manner.

Please take a look at how the in-game tech tree is affected, and what a new player would experience while going through it. There are techs unlocked post-blue with only red+green science costs that need to be rebalanced, but otherwise it should be fairly comprehensive.This is now an optional behavior from a mod setting for reasons explained in the detailed description. Very few techs are changed by default.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Heavy_Oil ... al_Science

This sounds great !

Wouldn't this delay sulfur processing and, by extension, batteries (accumulators, bots) and explosives?

It spreads out the oil learning and building process, yes. While it does reduce choice (enhancing focus on the fundamentals of basic fluid handling) at first, unlocking blue science happens quickly and advanced oil is displayed prominently.

Countless new players have rushed to exciting new technologies while disregarding advanced oil processing until it's too late. These changes push back the complications just long enough so that when they hit the full complexity increase of oil they will still be unlocking new things--driving production and scaling of their oil industry in order to try out the new toys.

It's an inversion of the philosophy of forcing advanced circuits through science directly, but one that just might work as there are so many other reasons to want them in abundance.

Uh, too late for what ??
It would still be nice if sulfur was changed to be made from heavy oil : both for gameplay and "realism" reasons...
I don't see how delaying explosives (if only by requiring double-cracking) is good for gameplay : don't forget that with chemical science comes the TANK, which makes the previous offensive weapons pretty much obsolete (at least for a while...)
It would be nice if late green science weapons like flamethrower, mines, rocket launcher (,defender bots?) had at least some time when they're dominant...
(Also, delaying cliff explosives is probably not that great either...)

See strikethrough changes in the original comment. I should have updated it to reflect the new mod defaults.

tl;dr: It's simpler now, and doesn't delay any techs at all (in fact, cracking is fully available from the start, while still being unnecessary for chemical science).

For those keeping score: Light-only BOP wins if the multi-output problem must be unavoidable, and gas-only BOP wins as per FFF from a simplicity standpoint while also maintaining the multi-output problem.

I still wish for solid fuel to be on Flammables, as oil processing has 7 unlocks vs. the next highest tech at 4. Moving flammables would make it on-par.

[FuryoftheStars]

I just feel strongly that simplifying BOP all the way down to 1 in 1 out and putting in basic cracking (depending on the 1 out) isn't a good strategy, either. *shrug* IMO, it just adds a longer chain for the new players to have to set up before they can get the coveted PG, and/or potentially pushes valuable techs out further. It also pushes the multiple out handling puzzle until later. And frankly, it doesn't make a lot of sense why one can do basic cracking outside of the refinery but not in it at this stage. This (again, just IMO) adds an unneeded layer of complexity to me.

But Heavy Oil Chemical Science does NOT add a basic cracking recipe, it moves the advanced cracking recipe to basic oil processing :
you still need to bring the water in !
This might not seem to be a big deal for experienced players, but will still be a huge one for newbies !

Which I would consider to be just as bad. Again, if we can crack it outside of the refinery, basic or not, why isn't some of this being done in the refinery? Cracking should be left to advanced oil, imo, and the refinery should continue to output (at minimum) the fluids that actually have a use at the time it's unlocked... HO and PG. Further, you are increasing the complexity of basic by doing this.

I don't think the changes to Basic Oil Processing are the way to go. I think it's attacking the problem of the Oil Spike from the wrong angle.

The way I see it, the problem with the Oil Spike is in three parts:

1. It's the first time the player needs to get serious about fluid handling.
2. It's the first time the player needs to deal with multiple outputs from a single recipe.
3. It's hard to tell which of the multiple outputs is blocked.

For solutions, I offer the following suggestions:

1a. Add or move a few recipes that need fluids to before oil refining. The obvious example would be concrete. Make refineries and chemical plants require it and force the player to build a production line that needs a fluid input. You have the fluid-accepting Assembling Machine 2 by that point, anyway.

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?).
[...]
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RebalancedOilProduction
[...]

Uh, no. Have you seen the science cost of Concrete (or even Steel Furnaces)?! This would probably delay conbots even more than the FFF proposal !
Today, one can decide to rush blue science without going through the expensive green science techs like concrete, solar, rockets... I'd like to be able to keep this option !
Now, what might work, is to split concrete into two techs :
- basic concrete : cheap green tech (maybe even without the steel furnace tech requirement?)
- advanced concrete : expensive green (or maybe even cheap blue?) tech, and maybe including the previous lubricant proposition ?

[*] Refined concrete might be crafted with the use of Lubricant and might be used in Silo/Reactor construction. This is to provide additional stimuli to use Heavy oil and to prolong the Steam/Solar power supply era a tiny bit[/list]

I think you misunderstood. Regular concrete, which is what you're referring to as basic concrete, has had no recipe change. I merely changed refineries to use it instead of stone brick.

Refined concrete, what you are referring to as advanced concrete, unless my eyes deceived me, previously had no uses beyond paths. Their recipe has been modified as per kbk's post and then were given a purpose, replacing "basic" concrete from nuclear reactors and rocket silos.

EDIT: Strike that, I misunderstood. Ok, so the techs can be split and regular concrete can be made cheaper to research, although I do seriously question how "expensive" the concrete tech is.

Add an "overflow oil burner" (flare stack, but for fluid). It should have an circuit connection to enable/disable.

1) Solves the need to constantly store extra light/heavy oil before cracking is researched

Isn't this essentially what making solid fuel out of the excess and feeding it to your boilers, smelters, and trains does?

No, it's different, since it only involves fluids. As already mentioned, it's much easier to understand when items back up...

I'm confused by this one. It's easier to understand when items back up, which is what solid fuel is, and the overflow oil burner (flare stack) is only fluid in pipes hiding the backup.... ???

Hahaha, I just started to submerge myself in mod creation — and here I am, totally stripped of any intent to continue further

Thank you for implementing this in a mod! I'm definitely going to playtest it later today and I'll post back on when I'm done.

As you can see, it's not the first mod changing oil, and won't be the last... feel free to show us your own vision !

Well, it was his list of suggestions that I did in a mod...

[IronCartographer]

Why is the inserter chasing items pointlessly at all? Why can't the inserter compute the time and location where it would catch up to the item and see that the location is outside of its reach. It can then go for the next item right from the start.

Imagine two inserters on different power networks reaching for the same item. One of those power networks loses some power before either of them can succeed, determining the victor. But which network? When? Determining those things in advance would be insanely complex, and this sort of problem being everywhere is why Factorio doesn't support multithreading for much of the simulation.

[Hexicube]

Why is the inserter chasing items pointlessly at all? Why can't the inserter compute the time and location where it would catch up to the item and see that the location is outside of its reach. It can then go for the next item right from the start.

Imagine two inserters on different power networks reaching for the same item. One of those power networks loses some power before either of them can succeed, determining the victor. But which network? When? Determining those things in advance would be insanely complex, and this sort of problem being everywhere is why Factorio doesn't support multithreading for much of the simulation.

The inserter wouldn't care about other inserters and would assume 100% power. If it cannot reach an item before it leaves the belt, it does not try to. It would be a somewhat simple equation at that point.

[Reika]

The use of heavy oil in real life, after removing a mountain of sulfur from it, is for lubricants

Ooooh that would be really cool: pipe heavy oil into chemical plant, out comes "a mountain" of sulfur and a pipe of lubricant. I haven't tried the mod so I don't know if it includes this or something like it but I really like the idea.

I like this better than my sulfur as a byproduct from the refinery idea. It feels more fitting, and the player still has a recipe with one fluid in and one fluid and one item out, but in a slightly more workable package (chemplant vs refinery).

[FuryoftheStars]

The use of heavy oil in real life, after removing a mountain of sulfur from it, is for lubricants

Ooooh that would be really cool: pipe heavy oil into chemical plant, out comes "a mountain" of sulfur and a pipe of lubricant. I haven't tried the mod so I don't know if it includes this or something like it but I really like the idea.

I like this better than my sulfur as a byproduct from the refinery idea. It feels more fitting, and the player still has a recipe with one fluid in and one fluid and one item out, but in a slightly more workable package (chemplant vs refinery).

Sounds good, but I see a potential problem: you're now tying lubricant and sulfuric acid productions together. Need lube? You're going to end up making more sulfur whether you need it, or have the room, or not. Same vice versa with sulfuric acid. I think it isn't as bad with HO <-> PG as I feel those have more options to deal with the excess.

You'd have the same issue with it coming directly from the refinery (which is where I think it actually happens?), which is why I didn't go down that path in my sulfur mod.

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. {...} 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.

[Ecu]

Really like the changes. Speaking specifically of oil, can we get the ability to bury oil patches via explosives? When building decorative bases, having unmovable oil patches is kind of a pain.

I suppose an alternative or additional suggestion would be to allow paving tiles over resources (bricks, concrete, etc.). This would be another method to achieve the same goal for decorative bases, while leaving the resources where there.

[FuryoftheStars]

I don't think the changes to Basic Oil Processing are the way to go. I think it's attacking the problem of the Oil Spike from the wrong angle.

The way I see it, the problem with the Oil Spike is in three parts:

1. It's the first time the player needs to get serious about fluid handling.
2. It's the first time the player needs to deal with multiple outputs from a single recipe.
3. It's hard to tell which of the multiple outputs is blocked.

For solutions, I offer the following suggestions:

1a. Add or move a few recipes that need fluids to before oil refining. The obvious example would be concrete. Make refineries and chemical plants require it and force the player to build a production line that needs a fluid input. You have the fluid-accepting Assembling Machine 2 by that point, anyway.

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?).
[...]
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RebalancedOilProduction
[...]

Uh, no. Have you seen the science cost of Concrete (or even Steel Furnaces)?! This would probably delay conbots even more than the FFF proposal !
Today, one can decide to rush blue science without going through the expensive green science techs like concrete, solar, rockets... I'd like to be able to keep this option !
Now, what might work, is to split concrete into two techs :
- basic concrete : cheap green tech (maybe even without the steel furnace tech requirement?)
- advanced concrete : expensive green (or maybe even cheap blue?) tech, and maybe including the previous lubricant proposition ?

[*] Refined concrete might be crafted with the use of Lubricant and might be used in Silo/Reactor construction. This is to provide additional stimuli to use Heavy oil and to prolong the Steam/Solar power supply era a tiny bit[/list]

Fixed.

Concrete is also now split into 2 techs. The original concrete tech has been made cheaper and only unlocks regular concrete and its hazard variant. It is also now a prerequisite of the oil processing tech.
Tech costs: 50x red & green

The second tech has been named Refined concrete, requires blue science and concrete, and unlocks refined concrete and its hazard variant. Uranium processing and rocket silo techs have had their prerequisites updated to the new refined concrete tech.
Tech costs: x75 red, green, & blue

[Therax]

Why is the inserter chasing items pointlessly at all? Why can't the inserter compute the time and location where it would catch up to the item and see that the location is outside of its reach. It can then go for the next item right from the start.

This would be simple if inserters moved at a constant velocity to their target position, but they don't. They have two separate speeds, extension speed and rotation speed, so you need to solve a system of equations where some equations are in polar coordinates and others are in Cartesian coordinates, which introduces transcendental functions to the mess.