Hi all -
First, a word on immediate issues. I apologize for being gone for so long; it's been about a month since the last update, and I have hardly posted anything either. I actually have had a substantial update almost ready for a while, which I will publish later today. I should have gotten this out earlier, and it's my fault for losing focus. I'm working on Factorio today, but I can't say for sure that I'll be back to regular updates now.
Second, some more details on the current state of my work on the mod. The issue is not entirely a matter of time, since I don't have a huge amount, but I do still have some, enough to do something with. I feel that the main reason I have lost focus is low motivation to keep working on the mod in the way I have been. To clarify, I still very much want to play Factorio, and work on Xander Mod, and I still even get good ideas that come to mind. The trouble is the structure and format I've been working in: I spend such a large fraction of my Factorio time working on the mod, that I don't have any time to play the game - even for testing he mod myself! In more detail, things like bugfixes, responding to comments, discussing features, writing changes to the code, and publishing take up 95% of the time I have for Factorio. Not only does this discourage me, since I rarely get to enjoy playing the mod of my own making, but it also makes my work inefficient and misguided, because I don't have the same first-hand perspective as the people playing and testing the mod. The conclusion is that my typical activity patterns with Factorio are not very conducive to inspiration, creativity, and good mod making.
Don't mistake my meaning as one of blame, I do not fault anyone for this, it just sort of happened this way. Fortunately, now that I recognize the issue, I can try to do something about it.
Third, we come to future plans. The apparent way forward, as it seems to me, is to finish the current mod to a certain point, and then work on a new major version: 2.0.0. Ideally I would like to bring the current version 1.X to a point where it is reasonably possible to launch a rocket with it. Of course this is a very fuzzy distinction, because there is a gradient running from 'technically possible but absurdly difficult' through 'possible and well-balanced', to 'far too easy'. I would be fine with getting XM 1 roughly near playable, even if it is still awkward, for the sake of moving on to XM 2. Perfect balance and optimization, as well as strict realism, should not be my priorities here, even though I have focused on them a lot so far. Now, the reason I want to move on to a new major version has a few different parts. A main one is to establish a new work format: playing through a world, building the mod as I go along, and informally publishing whatever I've got on a regular schedule of every week or two. My hope is that this will do a better job of keeping me motivated. Work style alone doesn't strictly demand a new major version, but other things do: I have a major revision to the ore generation, a handful of big ideas for the bulk material mechanics (and others), and a wide variety of miscellaneous things, built up over the past six months. Of course many things will remain, so I plan to use the current mod as a base to modify instead of completely rebuilding everything, but declaring a new major version will also be an opportune time to improve a lot of naming conventions, file structure, code organization, etc. I should also be able to more fully incorporate the somewhat better knowledge of the game's code that I have learned so far.
My approximate time scale for wrapping up the current version and starting the next is within the next 2 or 3 months, since my schedule will be switching from classes to work for the spring and summer, and I should have significantly more time for the mod.
I am aware that this is heavier stuff than usual for a Factorio mod, and I understand if people just want to have fun and not analyze it too deeply. That being said, we have had a lot of good thoughtful discussion so far, so I ask: what do you think?
Post-script EDIT: Oh gosh that's a real wall of text. Whoops, sorry
