Some "will it mod" questions

[pfooti]

I'm pretty okay at writing code, but totally unfamiliar with factorio. Before i set off on a journey of discovery to find that I'm in a dead end, I'd like to get a sense of feasibility on some ideas I have for modding the game. For each of these, I'm interesting in knowing whether the modding system would the idea at all, and if so what the rough effort scale is (T shirt sizing).

1) separate circuit networks on assemblers, inserters, etc. I really want to do stuff like "read out current contents to the red network, and set recipe on the green network" instead of having to do a ton of circuit isolation at each point (having an arithmetic that does (signal I want) + 0 output each mostly does what I want, but it's fiddly and annoying).

2) recipes can mix-and-match quality of inputs, which contributes to the quality value of the craft (so if you put in a rare iron plate and a common copper wire, you can get a green circuit out, with some distribution of common, uncommon and rare based on the percentages of inputs). Quality mods in this scenario would contribute as well. Still gambling, but this general mechanic is something I would like to play with - quality outputs can choke your belts, and remembering to have a version of the recipe for each quality level set somewhere is also a pain.

3) more signalling on space platforms. i sure would like to control which items get sent and how they get sent. As an example: i am recycling quality scrap on fulgora and doing a lot of quality building there, but i do most of my quality botmall stuff on nauvis. So i want to be able to say "put any extra epic+ stuff on this ship if it is in orbit" and "once this ship is full, or if it has an item onboard that nauvis needs (from this logistic item group) go to nauvis and drop it". I would also like to be able to manually drops from space to the surface via circuit stuff and not rely on the surface requesting it or me manually clicking.

4) interplanetary circuit transmissions (like radar does on each surface), some kind of radio receiver.

5) some kinds of copy-paste and apply-changes interface to the logistic group UI. I find the "import from this planet" UI super-tedious, especially since you cannot edit that on a combinator or anything other than a ship, even though it is applied everywhere. Because I lack some of the other controls above, I end up with a lot of logistic groups. It sure would be nice to be able to say "this group is the same as that group, but it is all import-from-vulcanus instead of import-from-nauvis" or "copy this group, paste it and change it to import-from-fulgora and set the quality to rare". This is the kind of "set requests from combinator" type stuff that I want in circuit signals on space platforms.

6) maybe more colors of wire. I dunno, if i had a third wire color i'd probably want a fourth, so just red/green is a good design constraint, and I can do signal multiplexing on a timer if i really want to get fancy.

7) condensed combinators. Something like factorissimo but for combinators where you have a box that's 2x2 or 3x3 tiles on the main map but contains a big inner space for combinators plus some input and output poles. I enjoy the silliness of my giant train station logic block as much as the next guy, but sometimes I want to be able to make a simpler bloop that just is a thing that has inputs and outputs and does what it is supposed to do. It helps a lot with reusable designs.

Anyway, if there are existing mods that do this stuff, I can install them directly. I'm interested to hear from the experienced modders which would be relatively straightforward scripts that override item / recipe properties, and which would be "you need to add entirely new mechanics to the engine to support that"

[DaveMcW]

1. No engine support, but you can write a mod to help you automate it.
2. No engine support.
3. Mods can connect wires across surfaces.
4. Mods can connect wires across surfaces.
5. No engine support, but you can write a mod to help you automate it.
6. No engine support.
7. Mods can connect wires across surfaces.

[Stringweasel]

Some of these mods already exist. You can just use them, or base your new mod off them.

4) interplanetary circuit transmissions (like radar does on each surface), some kind of radio receiver.

For this the goto mod is AAI SIgnal Transmission

7) condensed combinators. Something like factorissimo but for combinators where you have a box that's 2x2 or 3x3 tiles on the main map but contains a big inner space for combinators plus some input and output poles. I enjoy the silliness of my giant train station logic block as much as the next guy, but sometimes I want to be able to make a simpler bloop that just is a thing that has inputs and outputs and does what it is supposed to do. It helps a lot with reusable designs.

For this the goto mod is Compact Circuits