up to date tutorials?

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LoneWolf_LWP
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up to date tutorials?

Post by LoneWolf_LWP »

any good up to date (video preffered) tutorials for a starter out there?

all the ones i found seem to not 100% work with the latest version of factorio.
there's always something missing/not working.

tnx.
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Re: up to date tutorials?

Post by Suf »

I'm in the same situation as you and i've been searching for Factorio modding tutorials that are more visual than just a wall of text; unfortunately there are no up to date ones that i'm aware of(what i can think of now is just one Youtube channel that has 6 videos or so and it didn't get too deep in modding).

I do recommend to check out vanilla lua files and see how the code structures;they're are very helpful for me and they don't use predefined commands like what modders do;so you could learn the best from a just-codes structure like that(or almost just-codes).
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Re: up to date tutorials?

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Suf wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:08 pm I'm in the same situation as you and i've been searching for Factorio modding tutorials that are more visual than just a wall of text;
I personally find videos of people using text editors not that useful. So I wrote several walls of text instead. Up-to-date, works 100% in the latest version. But not nessecarily the best starting point for absolute programming beginners.
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Re: up to date tutorials?

Post by LoneWolf_LWP »

Not a beginner programmer

but if for example the locale/en/foo.cfg is not proccessing the [item-name] lines but it is proccesing [item-description] lines i figure something is forgotten to be explained. either an error in the tutorial or the syntax has changed. although i checked it against the wiki and it should work.

and thats just one of the things thats not behaving like they show/demonstrate.

i'll take a look at the wall of text. it's never harmfull.

and i agree that a text editor is not the best, but there are alternatives like visual studio code/IntelliJ IDEA that provide a lua/factorio layout using the right extensions with syntaxt highlighting and autocompletion etc etc

thnx for the contribution.
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Re: up to date tutorials?

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LoneWolf_LWP wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:53 pm but if for example the locale/en/foo.cfg is not proccessing the [item-name] lines but it is proccesing [item-description] lines i figure something is forgotten to be explained.
The only reason I can think of that would happen would be from interaction between item+recipe+entity (if it's placeable). They complement each other and some take precedence over the other - i.e. if the recipe doesn't have an explicit localization it might take the name of the item instead, but as far as i remember that also depends on if the recipe has multiple outputs or just one. I honestly don't know the exact rules for what overrides what aka "It's complicated" (looking at my own walls of text it looks like the entity-name takes absolute precedence for placeable items). If you really want to get into modding I don't think you can completely avoid having to experimentally reverse-engineer the engine behavior sometimes.
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Re: up to date tutorials?

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eradicator wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:09 pm
LoneWolf_LWP wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:53 pm but if for example the locale/en/foo.cfg is not proccessing the [item-name] lines but it is proccesing [item-description] lines i figure something is forgotten to be explained.
The only reason I can think of that would happen would be from interaction between item+recipe+entity (if it's placeable). They complement each other and some take precedence over the other - i.e. if the recipe doesn't have an explicit localization it might take the name of the item instead, but as far as i remember that also depends on if the recipe has multiple outputs or just one. I honestly don't know the exact rules for what overrides what aka "It's complicated" (looking at my own walls of text it looks like the entity-name takes absolute precedence for placeable items). If you really want to get into modding I don't think you can completely avoid having to experimentally reverse-engineer the engine behavior sometimes.
hmm, ok since i could (until now) not really find anything on what takes precedence over what i'll guess its alot of testing. wish there was a way without reloading factorio so much but thats the way it load its stuff. (a reload/refresh mods without reboot would be nice, i could keep the game open at all time then, meh wishfull thinking i guess :p)

i did however found just a minute ago something very usefull in another post that could shine a light on some of the issues i'm having. Ctlr/Shift/F loads up an ingame inspector of some kind. either i read over it on the wiki or its not documented. but this could be a game changes as i can see how thigs actualy translated over.
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Re: up to date tutorials?

Post by eradicator »

For locales yea...gotta reload, though if you enable prototype+sprite caching that's really fast on an ssd. Oh and there's also game.check_prototype_translations() if you need that. In my setup factorio is auto-restarted when I close it with alt+f4. There's also an option called "runtime-sprite-reload" in The Rest (ctrl+alt+click settings in main menu), but I've never used that. I mostly do control.lua stuff, which auto-reloads when you reload a savegame.

Prototype Explorer is new in 1.1. If you look at the Debug section of the Controls menu it's hidden in plain sight ;).
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Re: up to date tutorials?

Post by Suf »

eradicator wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:30 pm
Suf wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:08 pm I'm in the same situation as you and i've been searching for Factorio modding tutorials that are more visual than just a wall of text;
I personally find videos of people using text editors not that useful. So I wrote several walls of text instead. Up-to-date, works 100% in the latest version. But not nessecarily the best starting point for absolute programming beginners.
I don't know why did you quote my reply here, but sure we can have a discussion.
What did you describe as video tutorials are not any more useful than those documents i found on wiki.
Here what i meant as video tutorials; someone who's willing to be direct and clear about what they're teaching and expecting all levels of skills and knowledge of learners, maybe they'd split their videos into parts and put the level of skill required for each of them which i would appreciate for sure.
However if i just watch a random video of person typing all those codes while minimally explaining things then that wouldn't be that useful would it?

Are wiki and wall of text type of tutorials completely useless? Of course no, if so i wouldn't be here year after still modding would i ? however if i found a channel or videos that explain as the way i mentioned above would i be further in modding or maybe i'd have finished my mod already? certainly.

At the end of day if i have the needed knowledge to make a tutorial i would choose to do both versions, you know for preference, and make my tutorials target a wide range of different skills.
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Re: up to date tutorials?

Post by eradicator »

Suf wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:13 am I don't know why did you quote my reply here, but sure we can have a discussion.
It just seemed appropriate as an introductary reason why I would link a wall-of-text in a thread with people who seem to prefer videos.

But if you want to discuss: I genuinely find text more versatile because it's easy to use full-text search on it when you forgot something, or skim over it to get a rough impression. Videos being a linear format make both of these things impossible to me. Most Videos are not made to be only partially consumed. I have more than once been in a situation (not nessecarily modding related) where I just needed a tiny bit of information that would've been explainable in 1 or 2 sentences, but had to watch a 10 minute video because the script for the video was not published (if there even was one). Texts are also much easier to keep up-to-date because you don't have to redo the whole thing just to change a few sentences. And concerning coding in general I think there's much less benefit to the visual/audio aspect than for things that are difficult to describe with words alone, for example for a cooking recipe, or sport exercise, or a mod spotlight etc.

But, ye know, that's all just me. Everyone has a different preferred learning method. I'm not here to pick a fight. I made a text because I had he equipment and knowledge and motivation for it. And I wish you good luck with your search for well made videos.
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