Factorio Forums

I don't think this can work but I figured I'd ask anyway.

Is it possible to make a radar that scans only for resources, without spawning and revealing chunks? So for instance it would give you an approximate region to check for a resource but wouldn't tell you anything about the terrain in that area, but it could be longer range and operate more quickly.

Without revealing. Yes.
Without generating chunks. You'd have to take over the map generation process.

I wish it were reworked such that it could determine the location of resource nodes, trees, spawners, water, and other features/objects without generating terrain--or made so that each item can be accessed separately based on the seed alone.

This would be potentially possible when using RSO since it can "plan" resources for given location in deterministic way.
It would still not be 100% accurate - if it ends up over water resource might not spawn for example.

orzelek wrote:It would still not be 100% accurate - if it ends up over water resource might not spawn for example.

That's actually fine. Call it an inaccessible underwater resource.

My prospector mod already kinda does this. Except instead of revealing new ore it upgrades existing ore.

It wouldn't be too difficult for it to spawn ore instead. The key element is the prospector is a 'radar' with 0 revealing range and 0 scanning range so it doesn't reveal sectors.