Factorio Forums

Type: Mod
Name: Building Platform
Description: Add map-generated building platform and some building can only be placed on them. Now you must do your best to manage available space !
License: GPLv3
Version: 1.2.1
Release: 2020-09-19
Tested-With-Factorio-Version:0.13.20 and 0.14.13 and 0.15.35 and 0.16.0 and 1.0.0 and 1.1.1
Category: Gameplay
Tags: Building, restriction, surface
Git repository: http://git.neemys.name/Neemys/building-platform
Download-Url:

Building platform on Mod Portal !
Building Platform Tweaks on Mod Portal !

Building Platform :

Factorio 1.1.0+ : Factorio 1.0.0+ : Factorio 0.16.0+ : Factorio 0.16.0+ : Factorio 0.15.10+ : Building Platform Tweaks

Factorio 0.15.0+ : Factorio 0.14.0+ : Compatibility mod for those who have a v1.0.4 game with m2cengine concentric-circle generation.

Nice concept!

Even though it's still alpha/beta release, it would still be worth adding to mod portal to get more people testing it. Just make sure to make it clear in mod description or title that it's not yet stable release.

As for the platform texture, it might be better to have it as some sort of smooth rock texture rather than concrete? Concrete seems an odd thing to find on a planet that's only prior inhabitants were biters. trees and fish.

Downside of smooth rock texture is that it would not lend itself to fabrication in the factory, although if you can find a way to allow building on both concrete and smooth rock then player could make concrete to extend the buildable area. This would make concrete a much more useful thing to produce (currently it's primarily aesthetic, and only advantage of increased walking speed doesn't really merit the effort in the base game). Note: The smooth rock could also give a slight walking speed boost, but less than concrete.

One other thing to consider adding is marsh (waterlogged soil) which would first need draining before it's possible to even build concrete on it. Not sure how all that could be achieved. Maybe offshore water pump could be allowed on marsh land, and it would drain the marsh (slowly replacing marsh with soil or grass), until the water in the marsh runs out. The mash water would be a new fluid type, to prevent it being used in boilers, steam engines, chem plants, etc. If possible, it could be refined in a chem plant to produce a) water and b) pitch. Pitch would be new fluid type that could be treated as early source of oil, perhaps before rest of oil tech is available? Or maybe it gets converted to a new form of solid fuel that provides about double the energy of coal?

IMO the following items should not require a rock/concrete base (they would be light enough to go on normal terrain):

* Logistic chests
* Combinators
* Boiler
* Solar panel (solar farms are regularly built on grass/soil fields IRL)
* Radar (undecided about this one)

aubergine18 wrote:Nice concept!

Like I said, the idea doesn't come from me (I should make a proper block to highlight it). But when I improved the initial mod, I ask the author if he want to integrate my modification to his mod or if i should release it myself, as no answer was made for more than a month, I released it

aubergine18 wrote: Even though it's still alpha/beta release, it would still be worth adding to mod portal to get more people testing it. Just make sure to make it clear in mod description or title that it's not yet stable release.

Yeah I know, I wanted to do a full playthrough before even release it anywhere but some people ask for it so I release it here, I will release it on mod portal in some day when I finish my playthrough (and have nice screenshot).

aubergine18 wrote: As for the platform texture, it might be better to have it as some sort of smooth rock texture rather than concrete? Concrete seems an odd thing to find on a planet that's only prior inhabitants were biters. trees and fish.

I definitely want to change the texture, nice idea. I will do it only when the mod is working as expected, I'm still waiting an answer from a dev to see if I can reintegrate visual interditcion for building. So while waiting I'm tweaking the spawn in starting area to make early game less painfull by trying to make platform less scattered.

aubergine18 wrote: Downside of smooth rock texture is that it would not lend itself to fabrication in the factory, although if you can find a way to make it work on both concrete and smooth rock the player could make concrete to extend the buildable area. This would have benefit of making concrete a more useful thing to produce (currently it's primarily aesthetic, and only advantage of increased walking speed makes concrete somewhat useless in base game). Note: The smooth rock could also give a slight walking speed boost.

Having smooth rock at generation and craftable and placeable concrete for platform is not a problem, I can have a hundred different entity to act as platform it doesn't change the coding so yes I can have different texture for natural platform and manmade platform.

aubergine18 wrote: One other thing to consider adding is marsh (waterlogged soil) which would first need draining before it's possible to even build concrete on it. Not sure how all that could be achieved. Maybe offshore water pump could be allowed on marsh land, and it would drain the marsh (slowly replacing marsh with soil or grass), until the water in the marsh runs out. The mash water would be a new fluid type, to prevent it being used in boilers, steam engines, chem plants, etc. If possible, it could be refined in a chem plant to produce a) water and b) pitch. Pitch would be new fluid type that could be treated as early source of oil, perhaps before rest of oil tech is available? Or maybe it gets converted to a new form of solid fuel that provides about double the energy of coal?

Interesting idea. Initially when I made the improved 0.12 version, platform were not craftable. I think that player should deal with what spawn with world generation, but I also don't like to limit player experience so I made multiple crafting recipe in 0.13 version. Everything you said is possible, but when people build platform to place, they usualy place it to make existing platform bigger.

aubergine18 wrote: IMO the following items should not require a rock/concrete base (they would be light enough to go on normal terrain):

* Logistic chests
* Combinators
* Boiler
* Solar panel (solar farms are regularly built on grass/soil fields IRL)
* Radar (undecided about this one)

Yes I know that they can be place on grass in reality, but there are reason i keep them blocked :

• logistic chest : Was not sure to keep it blocked as it could make some train station a bit more difficult to make (refill for example). I will see in my playthrough if I will keep them blocked.
• Combinator : Player will have to integrate circuit network in their design, building huge circuit network to facilitate design are too easy if you can place them next to platform.
• Boiler : Steam engine design are too easy if boiler are outside.
• solar panel : if I limit steam engine to platform why not limiting solar panel, building large solar farm all over the planet is too easy
• Radar : as they can be use to watch ennemy progression arround your base you need to sacrifice a bit of platform for that.

I don't intend to make this mod "real-world-like" as factorio is not (unpowered belt and offshore pump to name just a few). I want to give player a challenge to overcome. I planned to make config entry to let player deactivate the restriction over some building type if they want to. Should be on next release though.

New version :

version 0.0.02 :

• Sligthly changed platform spawning in starting area. They should be a bit larger and the area should contain more patch.
• Adding more config option to control which building will be restricted :
  • unrestrictPower : make boiler, solar panel, steam engine and accumulator placeable outside platform.
  • unrestrictCombinator : make combinator placeable outside platform.
  • unrestrictLogistic: make roboport and logistic chests placeable outside platform.
  • unrestrictRadar: make radar placeable outside platform.
  They are still restricted by default.
• Removed some debug line I forget at release.

Upgrading from existing save should cause no problem unless you haven't discover all starting area. In this case patch might be cut.

There will likely be a week until next release unless a bug appear.

Bug correction :

version 0.0.03 : The script which check if you can place a building should take into account the direction when placing a rotatable entity and shouldn't remove building which was in a correct place.





Building like steam engine when building horizontally at the edge of a platform could sometime be remove because the script was checking the prototype box with the default orientation (vertically).

You can safely update from 0.0.02 in existing save.
You can safely copy and paste your 0.0.02 config file into this 0.0.03 version.

Neemys wrote: Initially when I made the improved 0.12 version, platform were not craftable. I think that player should deal with what spawn with world generation

I agree with you. If player can craft the platform, what is the point?

Neemys wrote:solar panel : if I limit steam engine to platform why not limiting solar panel, building large solar farm all over the planet is too easy

Maybe a trade-off, like you could only build them in desert? Not sure if this is technically doable though.

Maybe a trade-off, like you could only build them in desert? Not sure if this is technically doable though.

It is doable http://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/LuaTile.html

pseudo example:

tile = entity.surface.get_tile(entity.position)
if tile.name="sand"

Thanks. Interesting that it is so simple. I don't recall seeing too much mods making difference between land types.

As a dev granted my request for some new collsiion-layer I finally can re-activate the visual interdiction for non craftable tile, so new version :

• 0.1.0 : Reimplemented visual interdiction to place building using newly added collision-layer. When you try to place a restricted building outside platform, it footprint should be red. The only place that the footprint is not red is if you try to place on any craftable tile as I keep it disabled for them. if I enable it, when you place tile over building platform, buiilding just vanish.
• 0.0.4 :
  • Removed leading zero on last number in mod version.
  • Code cleanup as it is the last version of this mod for factorio 0.13.0 to 0.13.12

Both version can be safely apllied to existing save with older version. (depending on your factorio version)
You can safely applied config file from version 0.0.02 and 0.0.03 to both version. (depending on your factorio version)

imajor wrote:

Neemys wrote:solar panel : if I limit steam engine to platform why not limiting solar panel, building large solar farm all over the planet is too easy

Maybe a trade-off, like you could only build them in desert? Not sure if this is technically doable though.

Desert is too tied to map-generation. People will try to roll a map with desert just to be able to place solar panel. People with high water world will have trouble finding one (this last statement is maybe wrong in 0.13). So I don't see the point to limit it to desert as people will so only play in (or near) desert. But in the actual state of the mod, platform are too small to place lot of solar panel and a factory need at lot of them. Maybe an other solution will be to make solar panel generate more electricity and change the recipe to cost more. So overall, the cost per watt generated is the same but you can squeeze solar farm on platform.

Nexela wrote:

Maybe a trade-off, like you could only build them in desert? Not sure if this is technically doable though.

It is doable http://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/LuaTile.html

pseudo example:

tile = entity.surface.get_tile(entity.position)
if tile.name="sand"

If I implemented it I will use internal collsion check instead of a script. I will add solar-panel have collision with layer-11 (one of the layer a dev add by my request). Then I will add all terrain but desert to have a collision with layer-11. So the game will by himself restrict the placement of solar panel outside desert. I try to do everything without script as it take more time to execute as using factorio code to do the same thing. Sadly I still have a script to check placement on craftable tile though....

Neemys wrote:Maybe an other solution will be to make solar panel generate more electricity and change the recipe to cost more.

I definitely feel that a third way for generating energy is missing from the vanilla game. On my last playthrough I used this mod: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Simdezimon/Nucular and I can highly recommend it. I don't think I will ever do a playthrough without it, unless vanilla introduces something similar.

Yeah me too, an other way of generating electricity is missing. I've already test wind turbine and it was interesting too.

Little bugfix for latest factorio update.


06-08-2016 - 0.1.1 : As a dev rename layer-10 (collision layer I used) in factorio 0.13.14, I changed the layer used to restrict building.


This release can safely be apply to existing save with older version.
You can safely overwrite config file with one from version 0.0.02+.

I'm in the middle of a playthrough with this mod, and I think it is really great. I set the building platform frequency to very low, I'm hoping that I will have separated small factories which will be connected with trains, so I will not only transport raw materials by train, but intermediate products as well. I also increased the platform sizes to big. So at the starting zone I have a pretty big patch, so the beginning of the game wasn't really different from a vanilla game. But as soon as I was running out of space, the game become much more interesting, I had to solve these small puzzles all the time to squeeze more facilities into the factory. I haven't experienced any bugs or problems with the mod. Are you sure it is too early to upload it to the mod portal? That would make it much easier to update it to the most recent version.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your efforts! Great job.

Pretty picture is better if I upload it to mod portal, I am as well in the middle of a game (medium settings, I want to showcase the mod on default settings). In a couple of days, I will launch a rocket, then I will take screenhsot and upload it to mod portal. I haven't enccounter other bug than the rotatable entity one I fix in 0.0.03. I want to show either midgame build where we have the more assembly machine on a platform and endgame build where we use module and beacon to do a more efficient work.

Here is a screenshot (I will probably tidy a bit the setup before posting it on the mod portal, but just to show here) where I was able to squeeze five 10/13/1 steam setup on one platform (so 50 steam engine and 65 boiler). Messy optimized build versus non optimized tidy one is also something I want to show people on the mod portal

This setup is maybe to complicated to show on mod portal though. I will see when I launch a rocket I maybe can optimize it a bit now that I have substation. With only medium pole I needed to make space for them. In the bottom right, the 1 tile space between steam engine (where there is a pipe) is only here to be able to reach every steam engine with pole.

Recently I reached a point where I need oil, so I was trying to set up an outpost for an oil patch with a train station. Then I realized that the storage tank can only be built on top of the platform. So I need to lay down pipes to the closest building platform, and process the oil there, or load it into a train there. This is fine, but it is a bit inconsistent that I can make train load/unload stations for other resources without a platform, except oil. Did you consider making storage tanks buildable without a platform?

The reason behing the limitation over the placement of the storage tank is to force player to build smart factory to process liquid instead of just add more storage when he have too many of one ressource.

I agree that setting a lone assembly machine on a platform to barrel oil is bothersome. While playing I was thinking to add a special pump or assembly to just barrel oil (and maybe other liquid, water can be difficult to get on some platform) and this special one will be buildable outside platform.

Neemys wrote:The reason behing the limitation over the placement of the storage tank is to force player to build smart factory to process liquid instead of just add more storage when he have too many of one ressource.

Makes sense, but I can do this with other resources, since chest can be placed anywhere.
I think that a workaround for the storage tank is to use a bit more pipes. A storage tank can store 2500 units of liquids, while one piece of pipe can store 10 units. So a pipe of the length of 250 is equal to one storage tank, correct me if I'm wrong.

imajor wrote:

Neemys wrote:The reason behing the limitation over the placement of the storage tank is to force player to build smart factory to process liquid instead of just add more storage when he have too many of one ressource.

Makes sense, but I can do this with other resources, since chest can be placed anywhere.
I think that a workaround for the storage tank is to use a bit more pipes. A storage tank can store 2500 units of liquids, while one piece of pipe can store 10 units. So a pipe of the length of 250 is equal to one storage tank, correct me if I'm wrong.

You are right. If people want to place a pipe farm to store liquid they can. It maybe be better to build the necessary chemical plant to do the heay to light and light to gas. When you have advanced oil processing you only need one storage tank of each product to have a working base. And you can store crude oil surplus in chest. Before advanced oil processing it can be a problem to store light and heavy but I don't consider this a big problem, this research is done very quickly most of the time.
I will add an config option to not restrict storage tank for people who want it that way. (like other, still blocked by default).

For the next release (surely by the end of the week), I will add a building to barrel liquid. This building (placable anywhere) will be able to barrel only crude oil to be able to have station near pumpjack.

I will add two more barreling possibility to standard assembly only :

• - Water : As not every platform are near water, and having long line of pipe to bring water is bothersome to setup and protect.
  - Lubricant : If you only need lubricant on a platform, you need to bring oil, then process it, heavy go to lubricant, but you need to transform light and gas to solid fuel. For some people it's not a problem, for other it is as they don't use solid fuel (apart for rocket building). And now those people need to have something that consume petroleum in this platform too. So a barrel of lubricant is needed.

Other fluid don't need barrel to make vanilla playable and enjoyable for most people. Those new recipe will be toggleable to off on config (on by default).

Last thing I want to do is making solar energy playable when restricted to platform. I need to do some testing for this one as I don't know if it is better to have a more powerful 3x3 panel or making a 2x2 panel. Having a little panel will make them more easily placeable on platform.

Finally ! Last factorio update add a way to see under tile. So I will be adding in next release a way to build over any tile that are build over platform. Unfortunately this next release will be tied to latest factorio version.