[MOD 1.1] Xander Mod v3.6.1

[Therax]

Essentially, I could hard-code change them on only my computer, but I can't write a mod file that will change them. I would appreciate if anyone who is familiar with this part of the code could offer some help.

There are remote.call interfaces declared in the free play scenario explicitly to control starting items. You would call them from an on_init handler in your control.lua.

Here’s how I do it for Salvage QuickStart:
https://github.com/mspielberg/factorio- ... l.lua#L121

[Repofme1]

Been a long time fan of the mod and am really to happy to hear you have more free time and is doing well these days! Playing the latest version of the mod it seems that coke production was heavily nerfed to 4 coal -> 9 coke. Why is that the case? I am all for complete realism, but that seems a bit steep and puts a heavy strain on the early to mid game do to the very large amount of coke needed to automate things. Also I noticed that you had selected to change the components that make up the firearm magazines to bronze, lead ingots, and black powder. Why was this changed as well? The old way with lead ingots smelted to bullets, bronze made into casings, and black powder seemed perfectly fine and I had no issues mass producing them either. The new way seems easier and lacks the realism offered before. Also I noticed a graphical bug for the firebrick furnace; when destroyed it has the destruction of the old stone furnaces from base game. I don't know if you just haven't had the time to change such a minor detail or not, but I figured I would bring it up in case it was not known.

Again, absolutely loving the mod and I'm looking forward to updates for it!

Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm! Though I sometimes mentally retreat into an attituded of "well I only made this mod for myself" to justify its flaws, I cannot deny that seeing people enjoy it brings a smile to my face

Fuel in the form of coal coke has long been a balancing issue for me, which I can never seem to get right. When I updated from XM 2 to 3, I pretty much entirely reconstructed the mod, including the recipes and ratios. I suppose the 1:2 coal:coke ratio hasn't changed because I have heard relatively little feedback (especially compared to what XM 2 got), and because it has felt decent in my test world so far. I'm up to red, green, military, and early blue science, with a good-size area defended including 2 more coal deposits, and my starting coal patch is just getting low. That being said, looking at the resource numbers, it seems like the starting coal deposit could use a boost. If only I could figure out how to do that, not as simple as it used to be... Other than that it's nothing but a numbers balance.

I reduced the complexity of weapons manufacture to make early game defense easier, since I recall having a lot of trouble with biters in one of my previous worlds. The current version feels better, maybe even able to bring those components back, but after I have more of the mod complete.

All of the XM machines in fact make the ruins of the base machines whose definitions they are copied from - I simply haven't had the priority time to recolor the remnants graphics when they play a relatively small part in the game for me.

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

I'm working on 3.4.3 to publish soon, which will fix the automation science pack bug. I also have several graphics bugfixes in the works, and a bit more clarity in the crafting menu as well. Hopefully this will be out in the next day or two.

Another thing I'm trying to figure out is changing the starting items to fit with XM better. I can find the file where the freeplay scenario items are defined, but I don't know the path to reference them in Factorio's main data list. Essentially, I could hard-code change them on only my computer, but I can't write a mod file that will change them. I would appreciate if anyone who is familiar with this part of the code could offer some help.

You need to remove them during player creation in control stage. Here's a copy of the code I use in pyblock to add some and remove items.

Code: Select all

  		
script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_created, function(event)
	
  local player = game.players[event.player_index]
  
  player.insert({name="landfill", count=1000})
  player.insert({name="stone", count=200})
  player.insert({name="wood", count=100})
  --player.insert({name="iron-axe", count=1})
 
  player.remove_item("iron-plate")
  player.remove_item("stone-furnace")
  player.remove_item("burner-mining-drill")
  end) 

Essentially, I could hard-code change them on only my computer, but I can't write a mod file that will change them. I would appreciate if anyone who is familiar with this part of the code could offer some help.

There are remote.call interfaces declared in the free play scenario explicitly to control starting items. You would call them from an on_init handler in your control.lua.

Here’s how I do it for Salvage QuickStart:
https://github.com/mspielberg/factorio- ... l.lua#L121

Thanks for such quick responses! This code should be enough for me to figure things out.

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

Like the title says. Available everywhere mods are downloaded. For external use only.

Here's what's new:

Fixed automation science pack recipe unlock missing from its technology
Fixed crude-tier belt graphics
Fixed assembler 1 pipe connection graphics
Fixed iron and copper ore icon graphics
Changed early rail recipe to use wood instead of iron stick. All uses of wood get replaced relatively early.
Modular armor recipe
Military 3: smokeless powder, capsules, combat shotgun
Migrated black and smokeless powders into single gunpowder; all recipes remain
Forced game to show made-in machines for *most* recipes, to help navigate the XM production tree
Hid waste dump recipes from player crafting menu
Updated starting items in Freeplay to be relevant to Xander Mod

[McMaster]

Good !

I am just tired of pyHell i am using instead.

Hey, you used semiconductor image for active electronic components, but recipe telling me about vacuum tubes. All that axes and bushing gone, so sad. All that coils now made without any isolation, You not afraid of short-circuit ?. Electronic just need some semiconductors and bushing things was a good idea. Hey, where is all high voltage electric poles and substations, some pipes longer then base ones. So mush loses but still interesting.

Thanks.

[Repofme1]

Good !

I am just tired of pyHell i am using instead.

Hey, you used semiconductor image for active electronic components, but recipe telling me about vacuum tubes. All that axes and bushing gone, so sad. All that coils now made without any isolation, You not afraid of short-circuit ?. Electronic just need some semiconductors and bushing things was a good idea. Hey, where is all high voltage electric poles and substations, some pipes longer then base ones. So mush loses but still interesting.

Thanks.

Hi there -

Glad you enjoy! ^_^ Here's a little insight on how my mind works:

I have a dilemma with the level 2 electronic component graphics, the trouble being that I need two recipes to make this same item. The early recipe, which uses tungsten and is based on real-life vacuum tubes, is necessary to unlock level 2 circuits at a reasonably low tech level. But once semiconductors are researched, it makes more sense to replace the old (clunky and inefficient) vacuum tubes with silicon. So, I need a new recipe that uses silicon to make level 2 components. I could make a second item for silicon components-2, and add a second recipe for the circuit-2 which uses silicon components-2 instead of vacuum tube components-2. But it's more streamlined to simply use one item for components-2, make 2 different recipes for that same item, and use the single item in the circuit recipe. Frustrating

The wire in insulated with enamel! Look up 'magnet wire'. I thought about coil insulation when I was first adding them, and I decided that it would make the ingredient balance easier if I used phenolic resin to make enamel-insulated copper cable, then just wind it around a core. The other option would be to make cable from plain copper, and add phenolic resin in the coil recipes. This would be a bit more difficult, but I feel also somewhat more realistic, so I may change it in the future.

Improved pipes and electric poles are in the works, I simply haven't finished them yet. I'm not sure what you mean by bushing, but I do kind of miss the old crafted axe items. It made for a cool start where you salvaged some titanium from your ship frame, but it's just a starter because titanium is very hard to work and doesn't actually make very good axes.

[Therax]

Pretty sure he means “axles.” I quite liked the variety of mechanical intermediates in XM2, without the sheer number of them that are in something like Industrial Revolution, and I’m sad to hear that they’re gone now (?). It felt good that even the simplest machines required multiple metals, some in small quantities (lead-tin bearings, etc.).

[khadgarion]

Small request:

Could we make the medium / large power poles in the standard assembling machine? They are "low" on the tech tree but the blue assembler requires a *lot* more stuff to create. I just went to try and make some medium power poles and realized they are WAY far off from where I am (can't make in the standard assembling machine, but I can hand-craft??)

Edit:
Steam locomotives need to be made in AM3's? That's a bit wonky too, considering Railway research is red science only I'd change the recipes to make them craftable in the standard assembling machine but 0.18 made mod changes go way over my head.

Another Edit:

I figured it out, the recipes are limited by the amount of ingredients (like the older versions of factorio). I changed my files to make them all capable of 6 ingredients; The only other solution I could think of is to remove some of the ingredients from the recipe, but I don't want to do that.


Keep up the good work, I forgot how much I enjoyed this mod!

[khadgarion]

Changed early rail recipe to use wood instead of iron stick. All uses of wood get replaced relatively early.

I like this idea but wood is becoming a hassle, need it for tracks, rubber, potash (glass), resin.

I miss having the greenhouses. I do have plenty of trees around on my map, but if someone starts in the desert with few trees there will not be enough wood to get anywhere in the tech tree. Just my opinion though =)

It does look like skipping a lot of the wood using recipes is possible without too much trouble after just doing a bunch of research.

[khadgarion]

Bit of wierdness with the standard electrolyzer;

I have it supplied with sulfuric acid and surface water, but it won't accept the acid. If I break the acid pipe, the building shows it has 2 units of acid, does some work, then stops when it runs out. I reconnect pipe, it doesn't pull acid. Break pipe, machine then uses up 2 units of acid and stops.

I have no idea what's going on here, haha!

Edit: It seems work if I put a pump directly on the input and force feed the acid. Is that how it's supposed to work?

[Therax]

Edit: It seems work if I put a pump directly on the input and force feed the acid. Is that how it's supposed to work?

There are some fluidbox errors. Input fluid boxes should have base_level = -1, and output fluid boxes should have base_level=1. Some of the input fluidboxes have the wrong base_level, so fluid has to flow “uphill” to get in.

I’ve also tweaked my local install so that machines with 4 fluid inputs have 1 fluidbox with 4 pipe connections, instead of 4 fluidboxes with 1 connection each. This lets fluid flow through, like the Assembler Passthrough mod.

[khadgarion]

Edit: It seems work if I put a pump directly on the input and force feed the acid. Is that how it's supposed to work?

There are some fluidbox errors. Input fluid boxes should have base_level = -1, and output fluid boxes should have base_level=1. Some of the input fluidboxes have the wrong base_level, so fluid has to flow “uphill” to get in.

I’ve also tweaked my local install so that machines with 4 fluid inputs have 1 fluidbox with 4 pipe connections, instead of 4 fluidboxes with 1 connection each. This lets fluid flow through, like the Assembler Passthrough mod.

Ah, that makes sense. I am glad the pumps made it work... I really needed to be able to make explosives to take care of some noisy neighbors that keep smashing up my walls

[jakeyjkp]

Not having a good day with Mods... just reloaded a new game with Xander and got this (screen shot)

[khadgarion]

Not having a good day with Mods... just reloaded a new game with Xander and got this (screen shot)

I use lightshot for screenshots. Hit print screen and then can edit, upload to their site, save, copy paste, etc

I dont want to download a random pdf =p

[jakeyjkp]

Ah okay - screen shot that is. Too late now as I've removed the mod from my latest attempt at a game...

I'll probably retry later as I'm not having much luck with games with big mods

[jakeyjkp]

Got this now.

[Pi-C]

Ah okay - screen shot that is.

If you only want to post an error message, just copy the text from factorio-current.log! That not only saves bandwidth and storing space, it also is more useful to modders because they can directly copy search-strings from your posting.

[khadgarion]

Got this now.

Hi, that is a problem with FT tweaks, not the the Xander mod. You may want to post in their thread if there is one (I've used that mod so I am unfamiliar with it).

Good luck

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

It's been quite a while since my last update, so I thought I should at least post some news. To be honest, my interest in the mod - along with Factorio, and computer games in general - has been gradually declining for a while, as I have found myself growing more interested in other activities and hobbies outside the computer. However, I still consider this project important to both myself and the community, and I recognize that it is actually nearing some sense of completion. Therefore, I am committed to finishing the mod, as a better way to conclude my involvement than simply abandoning it - and especially so with the recent release of version 1.0.0!

That being said, the nature of creative work like this is such that it can always be expanded upon, so calling a project finished requires some degree of arbitrary decision. Although I do hope to make the mod feel as complete as I can, according to a few general criteria:

• Try to limit the amount of new work
• Cover the whole tech and production tree, up to launching rockets
• Stick to a modestly low degree of new machine functionality
• Follow the spirit I have established so far, in my notes, mod content, and mind
• Have a moderate and balanced variety of content - types of materials, detail of parts, number of sources and uses for each thing, etc.

Again, these are very vague principles, for only general guidance.

Moving on to more specific topics, here is a summary of the current mod state:

• Circuits nominally complete, up to and including tier 3
• Advanced material refining needs substantial work - currently in-progress
• Highest-tier machines need to be completed
• Robots and utility science upcoming soon
• Nuclear rework not begun
• Rocket production rework not begun

I see also some more discussion in the thread since I last checked, which I will try to address more fully soon.

Anyway, life in general has been picking up for me as of late, which brings more things for me to do, but hopefully also more motivation!

[eradicator]

Hi! Welcome back. And thanks for the update. Looks like life is going mostly good for you. Congratulations if that's appropriate!

I very much respect and welcome your decision of finishing the thing instead of abandoning it. Maybe i'll finally find some time to make a playthrough when it's finished. I think most people understand that a single mod does not have to continuously provide new content. I don't have experience with Bob/Angels or the likes, but i expect they've been "feature complete" for quite a while now, and the changelog reads very much like "maintenance mode". That said, if you're going to permanently move away from factorio, have you thought about who (or if at all) you want to give anybody mod portal etc collaboration rights so that the mod can at least be kept compatible with new factorio versions (info.json updates, possible future api changes, probably some bugfixes along the way)? I think the not-so-recent-anymore Industrial Revolution "incident" has opened many peoples eyes on how fast even popular mods can suddenly vanish. And i'd much prefer if Xander didn't go the way of the dodo just because there's a wrong number in info.json. Or maybe i'm just too out-of-the-loop and you've already found someone for the job.

Have a nice week :D. And the best of luck for fending off the evil feature creep ;).

[Edit 1: Is there a reason that the mod portal doesn't link to the github repository?]