[0.16.x] Bob's Mods: General Discussion

[RocketManChronicles]

I halved it recently, I also halved it not quite so recently, so you get a quarter of what I initially intended.

Hmmm.... well, if you add it to science, bring it all back! With the addition of more aluminum required in other recipes (i.e. belts, inserters) and then the potential of it being in the chemical science pack, I can deal with excess until I really need it. I view it as a progression puzzle that will eventually be easier to solve once you progress far enough with the 'correct' technologies. Then after that, it can become a balance puzzle of how much to produce and where it goes.

[anorganicbear]

I halved it recently, I also halved it not quite so recently, so you get a quarter of what I initially intended.

Hmmm.... well, if you add it to science, bring it all back! With the addition of more aluminum required in other recipes (i.e. belts, inserters) and then the potential of it being in the chemical science pack, I can deal with excess until I really need it. I view it as a progression puzzle that will eventually be easier to solve once you progress far enough with the 'correct' technologies. Then after that, it can become a balance puzzle of how much to produce and where it goes.

I don't think adding more aluminum to recipes really does much. For most items, you make a couple stacks in a mall-like setup and then stop making them until you need more. The amount of input used up eventually tapers off.

For science and secondary production (like oil cracking) it's a constant flow that doesn't taper off. The real problem is that you need some type of non-tapering secondary production chain to handle the fact that high tier circuits require chlorine, which causes sodium hydroxide to be produced. Or a third-party mod that allows you to void solids. So without a non-tapering production chain for sodium hydroxide, you're just going to end up building a storage depot for it until you can add it to a non-tapering production chain after you reach infinite research.

A lot of higher tier items are not efficient at using up NaOH. For example, Logistic zone expander MK2 uses 8 aluminum plates (8 NaOH) but 30 electronic circuit boards. This creates 7.8 NaOH per 8 used (according to my math, 0.26 NaOH is created per electronic circuit board). Roboport charging point MK2 uses 10 aluminum but 45 electronic circuit boards and 2 batteries. This creates more NaOH than it uses (11.7 created per 10 used, not counting batteries). I think you would have to double or triple the aluminum cost of many of these recipes in order to make it use up the stuff.

The problem gets worse as you go up to ultimate-tier items, which no longer use aluminum (except as a requirement that you build the lower-tier item), but still require more and more chlorine-consuming products. I think you're looking at hundreds or thousands of aluminum per item if you really want to turn items into a viable sink for using up the NaOH until you reach space tech. At that point you're just wasting valuable minutes waiting for enough raw materials to enter the assembler in order to keep playing, which again, is bad design IMO.

[RocketManChronicles]

I halved it recently, I also halved it not quite so recently, so you get a quarter of what I initially intended.

Hmmm.... well, if you add it to science, bring it all back! With the addition of more aluminum required in other recipes (i.e. belts, inserters) and then the potential of it being in the chemical science pack, I can deal with excess until I really need it. I view it as a progression puzzle that will eventually be easier to solve once you progress far enough with the 'correct' technologies. Then after that, it can become a balance puzzle of how much to produce and where it goes.

I don't think adding more aluminum to recipes really does much. For most items, you make a couple stacks in a mall-like setup and then stop making them until you need more. The amount of input used up eventually tapers off.

For science and secondary production (like oil cracking) it's a constant flow that doesn't taper off. The real problem is that you need some type of non-tapering secondary production chain to handle the fact that high tier circuits require chlorine, which causes sodium hydroxide to be produced. Or a third-party mod that allows you to void solids. So without a non-tapering production chain for sodium hydroxide, you're just going to end up building a storage depot for it until you can add it to a non-tapering production chain after you reach infinite research.

A lot of higher tier items are not efficient at using up NaOH. For example, Logistic zone expander MK2 uses 8 aluminum plates (8 NaOH) but 30 electronic circuit boards. This creates 7.8 NaOH per 8 used (according to my math, 0.26 NaOH is created per electronic circuit board). Roboport charging point MK2 uses 10 aluminum but 45 electronic circuit boards and 2 batteries. This creates more NaOH than it uses (11.7 created per 10 used, not counting batteries). I think you would have to double or triple the aluminum cost of many of these recipes in order to make it use up the stuff.

The problem gets worse as you go up to ultimate-tier items, which no longer use aluminum (except as a requirement that you build the lower-tier item), but still require more and more chlorine-consuming products. I think you're looking at hundreds or thousands of aluminum per item if you really want to turn items into a viable sink for using up the NaOH until you reach space tech. At that point you're just wasting valuable minutes waiting for enough raw materials to enter the assembler in order to keep playing, which again, is bad design IMO.

You do bring up a lot of good points, as yes, a lot of those higher tiered items require more chlorine than the sodium hydroxide. But there is a secondary chain of usage; gem processing. Iirc, you need alumina to produce one of the intermediates in the gem processing chain. And when using modules and lasers (turrets and hand ammo, but mostly turrets) you can consume a LOT of sodium hydroxide. In my 0.16 heavily modded game, I know there were several points in time I was low on sodium hydroxide, either not enough for modules I wanted, turrets to be built, or even belts to be made. And to your point, we also did lose aluminum consumption in the substations as it was replaced by brass. Maybe I should load up that save and do some math to figure out the production vs consumption to see where it lies.

[anorganicbear]

The problem with using gems as a dump for alumina, is that you then end up producing too many gems of certain varieties instead. So you can potentially solve one problem with non-tapering production chains by adding another.

Also, looking at some of the product chains for modules and laser turrets that use gems, it looks like once again we run into a problem where almost all of these products have extensive use of chlorine in their supply chain. For turrets, these require only 1 alumina in order to create 1 polished gem for the recipe (plus one polished gem for each previous tier). I will have to do the math on some of these later, but I would bet most or all of them are net NaOH producers rather than consumers.

If you ran into a shortage I'm willing to bet it was more because you ran out of buffer, not because you ran out of supply.

[anorganicbear]

NaOH produced:
0.2 per plastic
0.12 per gold plate
0.06 per 5 ferric chloride solution
0.025 per silicon wafer
0.05 per transistor
0.3 per integrated circuit


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raw productivity modules:

1x Module case: 2 plastic 5 aluminum plates
Cost: 5 NaOH
Produces: 0.4 NaOH
Net: -4.6 NaOH

1x Module main board: 5 ferric chloride solution
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 0.06 NaOH

4x Module contact: 4x gold plate
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 0.48 NaOH

1x Effectivity circuit board: 2x transistors (0.1 NaOH) and 1x basic module board (5x ferric chloride = 0.06 NaOH)
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 0.16 NaOH

Total: -3.9 NaOH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

T2 Raw productivity module

1x Raw productivity module 1: -3.9 NaOH

5x Module contacts: 5x gold plates (0.6 NaOH)

2x Effectivity circuit boards: 10x ferric chloride (0.12 NaOH) and 4x transistors (0.2 NaOH)
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 0.32 NaOH

2x Productivity circuit boards: 10x ferric chloride (0.12 NaOH) and 4x transistors (0.2 NaOH)
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 0.32 NaOH

2x Pollution cleaning circuit boards: 10x ferric chloride (0.12 NaOH) and 4x transistors (0.2 NaOH)
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 0.32 NaOH

Total: -2.34 NaOH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

T3 Raw productivity module

1x Raw productivity module 2: -2.34 NaOH

3x Effectivity logic board: 3x module logic board (1.14 NaOH), 6x transistors (0.3 NaOH), and 6x integrated circuits (1.8 NaOH)
Cost: 0 NaOH
Produces: 3.24 NaOH

Same calculations for Productivity logic boards and Pollution cleaning logic boards so 3.24 * 3 = 9.72 NaOH

7x transistors = 0.35

Total: 7.73 NaOH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So T1 modules are a decent aluminum plate sink, but by T3 modules you're already producing significantly more NaOH than you are consuming. The basic modules use a different production chain, so they take a little longer to break even, but without doing the math, I'd guess by T4 you are still producing more NaOH than you consume.

[Light]

FIRST!

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[bobingabout]

FIRST!

(Your video doesn't load for reasons unknown.)

Because youtube is lame and deleted it for being too long.

I'll try again tomorrow, or something, maybe actually do more editing. it took 2 hours to encode, and then looked like crap because I set the bandwidth too low.

[mrvn]

Other than tools there is another thing that uses up over time: Fuel.

So why not make an end stage mining drill that burns fuel and restrict the fuel to mining drill head. Possible?

[bobingabout]

Other than tools there is another thing that uses up over time: Fuel.

So why not make an end stage mining drill that burns fuel and restrict the fuel to mining drill head. Possible?

The thing with fuel is, it'd basically only be powered by that fuel, so it wouldn't also drain electricity.

[mrvn]

Other than tools there is another thing that uses up over time: Fuel.

So why not make an end stage mining drill that burns fuel and restrict the fuel to mining drill head. Possible?

The thing with fuel is, it'd basically only be powered by that fuel, so it wouldn't also drain electricity.

So lets make it an atomic mining drill that takes plutonium batteries. Saves on the long overland line to power mining outposts too. Just needs a few solar cells to power the inserter at the train station and some flame turrets for defense.

[gmilliken83]

Other than tools there is another thing that uses up over time: Fuel.

So why not make an end stage mining drill that burns fuel and restrict the fuel to mining drill head. Possible?

The thing with fuel is, it'd basically only be powered by that fuel, so it wouldn't also drain electricity.

One possible solution here is to front the power cost to the production for the fuel. Either make a special assembler that requires massive power draw to produce the fuel, put something in the recipe that represents a large consumption of electricity, or make the recipe take so long that you need a huge factory to build them.

[Astrella]

Hi,

I just downloaded all Bob's mods and FNUI, but I noticed while setting up the new game that each mod has a bunch of settings associated with it as well and I'm not sure which of them I should turn on. Is there a recommended starter configuration or an overview somewhere?

[GrumpyJoe]

Hi,

I just downloaded all Bob's mods and FNUI, but I noticed while setting up the new game that each mod has a bunch of settings associated with it as well and I'm not sure which of them I should turn on. Is there a recommended starter configuration or an overview somewhere?

best overview are the mod settings themself. You dont get numbers, but a pretty good description if you mouseover every point.

I wouldn´t recommend anything specific, as it comes down to personal preference.
Basicly its trial and error, what you like and what not.
Just test the standard settings and see if you like it.

There are very few instances where you absolutely need to tick a box. I only remember one thing, the vanilla roboports. It was another mod´s reciepe that needed them, and didn´t check if Bob´s was present, so it needed an item that wasn´t craftable in the game.
But you can change those things later. Just needs a restart, as some things are in the startup settings and not configureable while the game is running.

[BlueTemplar]

But vanilla roboports are not disabled by default ?

The non-default settings that I would recommend :

* Bob's Enemies :
- Enable alien artifacts : I'd say yes, mostly personal preference, I like collecting them, they're only start to be useful in late game though...
- Coloured alien artifacts : YMMV, some might say that's too much (all those varieties do take a lot of inventory space !), I like them though, and the way that you need to collect different colors for different bullet effects (and lategame items crafting).
- Enable small alien artifacts : YMMV, might be even more messy (in combination with colors especially), but I like the way how they show from where the attack waves were coming while you weren't around !

* Bob's Logistics :
- Enable the Transport belt overhaul and Inserter overhaul : higher tiers use the new materials !
The Inserter overhaul is IMHO essential since you're using the Adjustable Inserters anyway (and don't forget about keyboard shortcuts for often faster configuration than through the GUI !)
- I'd set Belt distance per tier to 2 : IMHO 2-6-10-... is *way* too strong (and makes higher tier undergrounds a bit pointless if you don't need the speed), 2-4-6-... is IMHO better.
(Leave Belt first tier distance at 3 - it will actually be 2.)
- Underground distance overhaul has to be therefore on too - it also gives higher tier pipes longer range.

* Bob's Modules :
- I turned god modules on to see what they're about, never reached them so far though, I hear they're pretty much ridiculous !
- speed (penalty) on productivity modules : I turned this on, otherwise I don't really see the point/logic of raw productivity modules ?

[RocketManChronicles]

Hi,

I just downloaded all Bob's mods and FNUI, but I noticed while setting up the new game that each mod has a bunch of settings associated with it as well and I'm not sure which of them I should turn on. Is there a recommended starter configuration or an overview somewhere?

There are very few instances where you absolutely need to tick a box. I only remember one thing, the vanilla roboports. It was another mod´s reciepe that needed them, and didn´t check if Bob´s was present, so it needed an item that wasn´t craftable in the game.
But you can change those things later. Just needs a restart, as some things are in the startup settings and not configureable while the game is running.

It was Space Extended mods that required the vanilla mk1 roboports. So, it you are not playing with these mods, no need to worry.

But vanilla roboports are not disabled by default ?

They are enabled by default, but play is highly recommended with them off.

The non-default settings that I would recommend :

* Bob's Enemies :
- Enable alien artifacts : I'd say yes, mostly personal preference, I like collecting them, they're only start to be useful in late game though...
- Coloured alien artifacts : YMMV, some might say that's too much (all those varieties do take a lot of inventory space !), I like them though, and the way that you need to collect different colors for different bullet effects (and lategame items crafting).
- Enable small alien artifacts : YMMV, might be even more messy (in combination with colors especially), but I like the way how they show from where the attack waves were coming while you weren't around !

* Bob's Logistics :
- Enable the Transport belt overhaul and Inserter overhaul : higher tiers use the new materials !
The Inserter overhaul is IMHO essential since you're using the Adjustable Inserters anyway (and don't forget about keyboard shortcuts for often faster configuration than through the GUI !)
- I'd set Belt distance per tier to 2 : IMHO 2-6-10-... is *way* too strong (and makes higher tier undergrounds a bit pointless if you don't need the speed), 2-4-6-... is IMHO better.
(Leave Belt first tier distance at 3 - it will actually be 2.)
- Underground distance overhaul has to be therefore on too - it also gives higher tier pipes longer range.

* Bob's Modules :
- I turned god modules on to see what they're about, never reached them so far though, I hear they're pretty much ridiculous !
- speed (penalty) on productivity modules : I turned this on, otherwise I don't really see the point/logic of raw productivity modules ?

The God modules are what they claim to be, God-like. They are really powerful and can put your production to the game's limit (1 production cycle per tick or 1/60 of a second). I personally find these way too powerful, and once you have them, you are on super ez mode.
The raw modules (speed, productivity, energy) are very good and can make math easier in throughput calculations. In my honest opinion, these are powerful and very helpful when you use them. I do not play with these anymore (5+ playthroughs with Bob's mods), as I personally view them to be good, but I don't feel the penalties for their uses. IF I am boosting speed by 400% and not use additional energy for it, if feels like "free" production. To each their own though.

Definitely use the inserter overhaul and the belt overhaul; you will not regret it. They give you some very good intuitive ways to play through the mods. I use a belt distance per tier of 3, not too long to start and much more fun to use later in the game.

I have some personal preferences that set up Factorio to be extremely hard; like on the edge of your seat about to die any moment extreme. Anyway, welcome to Bob's mods and if you have more questions, feel free to ask any of us. There is always more than one way to play!

[tbelaire]

Re NaOH, looking at wikipedia

Worldwide production in 2004 was approximately 60 million tonnes, while demand was 51 million tonnes.

It seems like there is a similar overproduction in the real world too.

[RocketManChronicles]

Re NaOH, looking at wikipedia

Worldwide production in 2004 was approximately 60 million tonnes, while demand was 51 million tonnes.

It seems like there is a similar overproduction in the real world too.

Nice... lol.

What are the uses listed?

[BlueTemplar]

Cleaning dirty biters !

[Light]

We use it for drilling, but I also like to add some to french fries for that little something extra.

Hopefully the boss didn't notice the missing stock.

[mmppolton]

bob question how do i relable get sufur do i turn the setting one to have it show up as ore in the grund since i need it for blue scince now somthing doint seem
corect
and i also like to use tank shells
which need it too
i doint think i use enouth lead or plastice to get it from oill