BZ Mods - Titanium, Silica & Silicon, Lead, Tungsten, Zirconium...

[brevven]

Announcement for 2.0

BZ Mods will be updated for 2.0 and Space Age. The hope is by end of 2024.

• I will probably start with Titanium, then move on to Lead and Silica & Silicon, and then to the more complex ones.
• Mods may be updated for 2.0 before Space Age, depends on complexity of integrating into Space Age
• Tungsten and Foundry will likely continue to exist in some form for 2.0 non-Space Age, though I might reuse Space Age assets (assuming Wube allows us to use Space Age assets in mods that don't require Space Age). I'm not sure if they will be compatible with Space Age at all.

What are BZ Mods?

This is a loose collection of mods. Each tends to focus on a specific resource, often elemental. Picking and choosing the ones you prefer is supported and encouraged, but they do work together to make something of a mod pack.

Main mods (See also)

• Aluminum - Adds aluminum, cable, alloys, spark plugs, and more. Requires the Foundry accessory mod. Somewhat complex.
• Graphite & Diamonds - Adds graphite, diamonds, graphene, and optionally, fullerenes, nanotubes, and carbon-black. More complex.
• Lead - Adds lead ore & lead plates. Smelting lead ore also yields a small amount of copper ore. Good death world mod.
• Salt & Chlorine - Adds salt, chlorine & some intermediates. Revamps advanced circuits.
• Silica & Silicon - Adds silica, silicon, optical fiber, and other optional intermediates. Part of stone production chain.
• Tin - Adds tin ore, tin plates, solder, organotins. A small step up in complexity from titanium or lead.
• Titanium - Adds titanium ore, titanium plates. A good first mod to try out.
• Tungsten - Adds Wolframite, tungsten plates, tungsten carbide, rocket engine nozzles.
• Zirconium - Adds zircon, zirconia, zirconium plates, and cermet (optional).

• Natural Gas - Adds natural gas, drilling rig, bakelite and more. Revamps green circuits.

Approximate order of complexity. Note, the actual complexity can vary based on which settings and set of mods are used.
Titanium < Lead < Tin < Natural Gas < Tungsten < Zirconium < Silica & Silicon < Aluminum < Graphite & Diamonds < Salt & Chlorine

Accessory mods

• Foundry - A foundry building, for founding and other hot stuff like coking, etc.

Helper mods & Mod packs

• BZ Mods Bridge - A bridge mod for Deadlock Stacked Recipes and other cross-cutting mods that need to load after BZ mods.
• Aluminium localization - Alternate localization for Aluminum mod.
• Optional Advanced BZ Settings - Some settings that apply to all BZ mods. Completely optional.

• Very BZ - A modpack containing all other BZ mods, once they are relatively stable. Contains everything in the below modpacks as well.
• BZ Bee: Basic Metals - A simpler modpack focused on some basic metals.
• BZ Bee: Electronics - A simpler modpack focused on green circuit overhaul with other changes.
• BZ Bee: Intermediates - A simpler modpack focused on intermediate recipes and more complex production chains.

Philosophy and focus

Roughly in order of importance:

• Vanilla support.
  The goal with every mod is to support vanilla Factorio. This means one or more important vanilla recipes will use the resource in question and each resource will be included in vanilla science packs in some way. I will also try to mostly preserve the vanilla feel and aesthetic, with just a slight nudge towards realism.
• Expand breadth.
  These mods attempt to expand the breadth of the game through new resources and production chains. Generally the length is not explicitly expanded much, though a broader game does take longer to finish....
• Simplicity.
  I try to make sure each mod on its own is a simple modification of the game, so players can customize how complex and different their playthroughs are. Different mods are different levels of complexity. Using all the mods together will get increasingly complex.
• Broad compatibility.
  I want these mods to be very plug-and-play, as such, I try to add compatibility for numerous mods of varying sizes. Common ones include RSO, Aircraft, Deadlock Stacking, Deadlock Crating, Simple Compress, Bio Industries, etc.
• Krastorio 2 & Space Exploration support.
  K2 and SE have become a requirement for each of these mods as well, things like ore enrichment, matter, science, delivery cannons, etc will be directly integrated.
• Other "big mod" compatibility.
  I try to support mod packs like 248k, FE+, 5Dims, ModMash, etc. If your favorite mod pack is not supported, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Non-goals.
These mods will vary in their support for Pyanodons, Bob's & Angel's. While compatibility with these mods will be added where able, those modpacks are each very complex and broad, and integrating well into them takes more effort. Mods that rely on them, like Nullius, Sea Block, and MadClown's will also be difficult to support.

Community
Thanks, everyone. Community engagement is very important to these mods. They would not be what they are without input from the wonderful Factorio community. I take every suggestion seriously, and try to incorporate them if readily able, sometimes as an optional mod setting. Even if I don't incorporate it immediately, you might see it later or in a different form.

Thanks to those who have contributed via graphics, code, or localization. Credits are in each individual mod.

Also, consider trying out planetfall's compatible mods:

• If I Had a Nickel - Nickel ore and lots of intermediates
• Brass Tacks - Zinc ore and lots of intermediates

And of course, thanks to folks who make BZ Mods compatible with others.

• Rebecca-X's compatibility mod for Schall Alien Loot
• MdRuz's version of Bob's Electronics for SE/K2/BZ
• yokmp's Molten Metals (works with some BZ mods)
• U.N.Owen's Research Desk fork
• tuxnux21's Rich Blood

Some community odds and ends:

• Krydax has a "Full BZ+" Let's Play
• Matthew Pocock's BZ + Transport Drones base tour.
• Xterminator has released a Factorio Mod Spotlight for Natural Gas

[brevven]

Plans for BZ Mods.

Plans are very much subject to change, I don't have any time estimates. The following list is in no particular order, and other mods might get made before any of these if inspiration strikes. Feedback is always welcome.

Likely upcoming mods (no guarantees):

• Noble metals - Combining Palladium, Platinum, Silver and Gold into one mod.

Planned updates:

• S&S: An alternate method of silica production to add to that mod.
• S&S: Better integration of silica and other modded sand (e.g. sand as "impure", silica as "pure")

Planned compatibility:

• Better support for omnimatter. Some mods are fully compatible, some currently aren't. I ran into trouble when enabling all the raw ores with omnimatter, and will fix this in the future.

Updates under consideration:

• Science mini-overhaul. Updating vanilla science to be a bit different. Minor updates to K2 science. (Maybe a bit for SE)
• Simple recipes option. For people who want to use Very BZ or close to Very BZ, but don't want the "everything requires everything" effect.

Backburner list: These really might not happen, but I'm keeping all of them in mind. Some might be dependent on the above foundry mod. Phosphorous, Rubber, Magnesium, Boron, Mercury, other Hydrocarbons, Yttrium, Antimony, Zinc.

[Legless]

I definitely like your mods, haven't try Tungsten on my current run though, as it requires massive rebuild and scouting for ore far away.
Getting older, can't get enough resolve for A+B run once more. So, for me it's like ideal Vanilla+.

[Xynariz]

These mods look like a fantastic idea! I wish I had known they existed when I started my current playthrough. I will definitely try them out for my next run when my current one is done!

[Mecejide]

Are you ever going to add something with an odd atomic number?

[brevven]

Are you ever going to add something with an odd atomic number?

we'll see

[MnHebi]

There is a hard lock when using Silica & Silicon, Foundry, and Bio Industries together. The Bio Industries Stone Crusher requires Steel, Silica requires Crushed Stone which requires the Stone Crusher, while the Foundry cannot be made without Silica meaning you cannot get Steel to make a Stone Crusher in the first place.

[brevven]

There is a hard lock when using Silica & Silicon, Foundry, and Bio Industries together. The Bio Industries Stone Crusher requires Steel, Silica requires Crushed Stone which requires the Stone Crusher, while the Foundry cannot be made without Silica meaning you cannot get Steel to make a Stone Crusher in the first place.

Thanks for the report! I've updated foundry to not require silica if bio industries is enabled. This should prevent this lock. I kept the research tree the same, but that should not cause any locks.

[brevven]

Released the new Graphite & Diamonds (bzcarbon) mod recently.

Planning to add Foundry to "Very BZ" modpack sometime in the next few weeks, as it seems to be working well.

Graphite & Diamonds will take at least a couple months to get into Very BZ.

[FuryoftheStars]

I really like the idea and concept of all of these, but am finding it difficult to try and merge them into my play style (relaxed start and having resources spread far out to force use of trains) because then sometimes the game won't spawn one of these resources until much too far out. Only way I can manage it is by allowing the resources to spawn densely, which I don't like/seems too unnatural.

Is there the possibility (only if it makes sense, though!) of having some of these new resources work with existing/other resources (vanilla or one of your other added resources)? Similar in idea to like how stone can be made into silica, or processing... which was it? Zircon?... has a chance of giving titanium. Maybe also give choices in some (critical) recipes? Example, bullets, instead of having only 1 recipe for standard bullets that requires all lead, allow a second recipe that can use the standard iron, thus you can adapt based on what materials you have enough of, or even use both at the same time. I mean, I seem to be able to get iron to spawn within a reasonable range of me, but not lead, so my defenses would fail easily (I don't like relying heavily on lasers). But tweaking the sliders and gen settings to try and get lead in closer will often result in no iron or no of something else until an extreme range out.

[brevven]

I really like the idea and concept of all of these, but am finding it difficult to try and merge them into my play style (relaxed start and having resources spread far out to force use of trains) because then sometimes the game won't spawn one of these resources until much too far out. Only way I can manage it is by allowing the resources to spawn densely, which I don't like/seems too unnatural.

Is there the possibility (only if it makes sense, though!) of having some of these new resources work with existing/other resources (vanilla or one of your other added resources)? Similar in idea to like how stone can be made into silica, or processing... which was it? Zircon?... has a chance of giving titanium. Maybe also give choices in some (critical) recipes? Example, bullets, instead of having only 1 recipe for standard bullets that requires all lead, allow a second recipe that can use the standard iron, thus you can adapt based on what materials you have enough of, or even use both at the same time. I mean, I seem to be able to get iron to spawn within a reasonable range of me, but not lead, so my defenses would fail easily (I don't like relying heavily on lasers). But tweaking the sliders and gen settings to try and get lead in closer will often result in no iron or no of something else until an extreme range out.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. Do you have any specific map exchange strings or save files that I can take a look at? (You can PM me if you like).

Resource spawning is a bit arcane, but hopefully there's something to do there. An option for alternative recipes is certainly a possibility as well, but I'll see what I can do on the spawning front first.

[FuryoftheStars]

Yeah, I don't mind sharing more details! So, to preface this, and I should've stated this better before: I know this is my own fault for the way I'm trying to play.

I did forget to mention I'm using RSO. (I've been using RSO for so long now, just for the hey of it I disabled RSO and tried loading the same map exchange string and just adjusted the frequency sliders so all were minimum... holy crap is everything still way so dense for me! )

I'm not sure how much the mods used will affect resource placement in RSO, and I'm using a lot of them (~200, some of which are my own creation that I have not released, yet), so I'll give just the list of mods that add resources I'm using & the exchange string, and I'm also going to attach a screenshot of the map view (used a mod to place the labels, and the revealed map is 8192x8192 (chart command with 4096 for the values), so I had to piecemeal the screenshots and then "hand stitch" them together, so apologies if there are any seams/misalignments). I'm also using the Realistic Ores mod, so copper/iron ore colors are (essentially) swapped.

Mods adding resources:

• All of your BZ mods (minus Graphite & Diamonds seems RSO isn't supporting it yet)
• Cargo Ships (Offshore oil, map label mod marks them as deep_oil)
• Geothermal (I've made some personal edits to that mod to greatly decrease their frequency)
• SigmaOne's Mods: Nuclear (adds Flourine ore)

Map exchange string

>>>eNp9Ur9v00AUvlcTMBBBhyyVqihDBxZXVQGpilB8ZUEVEv8Ak2tf
ykmOL5zvJNoOZOjA0LFLWWAuEjtbpC5FggExsRUmBgYk2MM922e7Scq
T3vN33/vl+2wgQNaNo/mEjOntK6EIYkJGvnVDxFGezokboRgOmfSEZP
W666HUEfMEx+5eWcwSNtj1toOUFXSWavZjLSRPGE55d3JS1jvPhKovc
7kUyfQqN2ZBNE02UiWSC0xTcRUkXA9mSpVkLL1YqpOdVLGZVTe1nDvi
6h6XoUgIoSVFIDr8EY4O2gR98pJ0JhN0g87NldAJjPJKwxW2cMeMUVL
EXsqU4slON9Avun3JnmuWhLvdgY4VH8acSXdt9f4amjfdMRA8VVqy/7
c1wpj3+4R0No0/xPcAgP3W+0ff9478/Bcgq7QAvwtmvG2ZLQue0EtTK
xbcq825m9mfGsiXKrOiqHJpBfLkASYBrEpzAMA1fCyU4fUx2gd7FWJn
nvtF6psPnz+h/fKhgR0tDHTDhPFjh8DiLYPeHprQWS43lYq06fRgq1E
F3JoQD3B4G8MZhkbt5am9+KtTCqMNKLJLVYnpX69OPQpRdcOPVslTC7
7WwGUfomdBa4ZZoXM+w0/HLMy2ZiE7lnpWJ/qGgoMAq/4aLj9hxo7Kn
4s0k9upyWBk+/K0ufwPrrXcfg==<<<

Final notes:

• RSO is set for a spawn region size of 28 chunks, and spawn probability is 100%. I'm still playing with the numbers.
• Map gen, for terrain, the important bits are a water scale of 200% and coverage of 600%. Gives the almost island in the middle for some seeds and lots of waterways for Cargo Ships to actually be of use.
• Resource counts shown in the screenshot are not finalized, either, plus I'm using the Infinite Resource mod in my sig with enabled depletion to 10%.
• Enemy frequency and size are set down to 25% each to keep them from spawning too close to the starting area (increasing starting area slider pushes first resources out exponentially with RSO for some reason) and allow some ease of getting to closer resources, but expansion is enabled.

I'm still map hunting, though. I haven't actually played one like this yet as I haven't been able to get the distribution that I want, so I don't know how actually "viable" any of this really is. Ultimately, I'm looking for a relaxed play at start, can take my time, etc, but then really have to travel out there to get additional flow in or more advanced resources (but, you know, not too far for additional flow on basic/starting resources. I don't care if I have to travel almost 4000 tiles for say uranium or titanium, but if I have to go that far for iron or lead (bullets), that may be a no-go because I like using ammo heavy (but still mixed) defenses, with mod added cannon turrets ).

Well, I guess "haven't actually played one like this yet" isn't exactly true. Back under 0.16, I happened upon a seed that gave me an actual island to start (good sized one, too) and even larger ones surrounding it. I believe I was using only vanilla resources (or perhaps just +SigmaOne's) with RSO set for 21 chunk region size and something like 50% spawn probability. First landmass I went to, had more copper/iron/coal in close-ish reach of where I made landfall. Closest oil, though, was on the other side of this landmass. Iirc, about 3000 tiles from start. Getting to that oil was the most fun I've ever had. I'd like to recapture that, while including the extra resource logistics your suite of mods would add.

I may just have to suck it up and increase the starting richness or size (with infinite resources, larger field size means more miners means higher output, even when fully depleted) of some of the critical resources (like lead) to defense and expansion.



Oh, by the way, while I was looking into RSO to see about manually adding support for your Graphite & Diamonds mod, I noticed that it had the ores from your Tungston mod enabled for the starting area at all times, whereas in your mod itself it's only enabled there when Krastorio2 is enabled.


EDIT: And just for reference, the closest Lead deposit that I'm being given on this map (that I'm seeing) is roughly NW of the start at around (-1390,-1743). So, a little more than 2200 tiles, as the crow flies.

[orzelek]

Few notes from me:
If one of mods is not supported by RSO then config needs to be added - some description of how to spawn it from mod author would be useful. Having config prepared by mod author is ideal.

As for starting area size - you wrote that it changes exponentially and that sounds suspicious.
It should be 32*region size*starting area map setting. (32 is the region size in tiles)
If it's not like that then I might need to check if something is wrong in the code.

And mods that are present will affect RSO ore generation if they have configs in RSO.

[FuryoftheStars]

Few notes from me:
If one of mods is not supported by RSO then config needs to be added - some description of how to spawn it from mod author would be useful. Having config prepared by mod author is ideal.

Thanks orzelek. I think brevven has submitted that, but it was only a few days ago and I just wanted to get it in for personal use, not knowing how long it'd be before you'd get to it. I did find your config files and figured it all out. Only part I needed to puzzle out was vanilla ratios to RSO's.

As for starting area size - you wrote that it changes exponentially and that sounds suspicious.
It should be 32*region size*starting area map setting. (32 is the region size in tiles)
If it's not like that then I might need to check if something is wrong in the code.

Yeah, exponential may have been wrong. It was merely an off the cuff observation, no actual testing to verify. I already made the comment in a different thread you've replied to, but when I was experimenting with 21 region size and 600% starting area to push biters and cliffs out, it was causing the first non-starting resources to appear something like ~2000 tiles away.

And mods that are present will affect RSO ore generation if they have configs in RSO.

Thanks. I just didn't know if whatever seed you used could in some way be impacted by the mere presence of a mod (ie, if you were (or taking something from the game itself that was) creating a seed hash based on several factors, including mod checksums).

[brevven]

Ah great this info is helpful -- So it sounds like lead is one of the bigger problems? Both expected and unexpected. Expected because bullets. But unexpected because when I made the lead config for RSO I overestimated the need a bit, intentionally. See, in Vanilla the richness drops off towards 700 tiles, allowing for a large amount in starting area, but smaller amounts farther away, since lead is not needed as much late game. However, that same should not be true for RSO, since it's harder to find patches anyways!

How much would some optional iron bullet recipes help you? If that really does solve your problem I can implement that option tomorrow, while we think on how to improve lead spawning in RSO, when a lot of resource mods are used alongside.

Oh, by the way, while I was looking into RSO to see about manually adding support for your Graphite & Diamonds mod, I noticed that it had the ores from your Tungston mod enabled for the starting area at all times, whereas in your mod itself it's only enabled there when Krastorio2 is enabled.

This is intentional, but thanks for pointing it out -- I've added a FAQ.

[FuryoftheStars]

How much would some optional iron bullet recipes help you? If that really does solve your problem I can implement that option tomorrow, while we think on how to improve lead spawning in RSO, when a lot of resource mods are used alongside.

I believe it would solve it in my case.

Oh, by the way, while I was looking into RSO to see about manually adding support for your Graphite & Diamonds mod, I noticed that it had the ores from your Tungston mod enabled for the starting area at all times, whereas in your mod itself it's only enabled there when Krastorio2 is enabled.

This is intentional, but thanks for pointing it out -- I've added a FAQ.

Understood, thanks!

[brevven]

Added an option for some new firearm magazine recipes in newest version of lead. They unlock with Military 1 tech.

[FuryoftheStars]

(Updates, fires up new game to check... derp, forgot to enable optional recipes... enable recipes, restarts game, fires up new game to check)
Oh, those are interesting options!

Thanks! Should definitely do the trick!

[FuryoftheStars]

Hahaha... I manually added support for your Graphite & Diamonds mod to RSO (found your config file you had provided) and regened that same map with only other difference is I set Zircon freq to 1 (from 0.75), and wouldn't you know it, lead... less than 1000 tiles away.

EDIT: Well, I may have to make some adjustments that will change that, anyway. Not liking the current layout. Uranium spawned 2 times within 2000 tiles (and a 3rd close to 3000) with no flourine to even make use of it, and only 1 oil in 3000 tiles. Not even offshore oil. While I admit the previous attempt to get at oil that far away was fun, I'm not sure I want to try it on this map.

[brevven]

Hope the new recipes are fun to play around with.

Thinking on resource generation, RSO does have "multi-resource" configuration options. I should probably look into setting those conditionally.