Name: Xander Mod
Description: An overhaul emphasizing detailed, realistic materials and production. Extends the base game to marathon-style complexity.
License: GNU GPLv3
Source: https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/Xander_Mod_3/
Download: mods.factorio.com
Version: 3.6.1
Release: 2021-5-14
Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 1.1.32
Category: big-mods
Tags: big-mods, logistics, manufacture, mining
Download-Url: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Repofme1/xander-mod
Website: viewtopic.php?f=97&t=51868
============
New GitHub repo for XM version 3+! Link above.
============
'Ad pitch' -
[ad]
Are you an experienced Factorio player looking for a challenge?
Having trouble believing a solid hunk of metal makes a circuit?
Are you tired of repetitive, formulaic content?
Do you dream of something other than froot loops to fill your ore and metal bins?
Would you like to break your addiction to plant and animal products?!
Then try out Xander Mod! Now available in NEW version 3+!
[/ad]
============
Introduction
------
Like in the one line description, this mod overhauls the Factorio production system to make the materials and parts more realistic and interesting. My motivation comes from things like the base green circuit recipe, which seems to be just a pile of iron and copper - nothing but a short circuit. This really breaks my immersion in the game, so I want to make it more believable, at least to my knowledge of chemistry, materials, and general tehnology. For this, the mod has new ores for new metals, detailed refining processes, complex sequences of intermediate parts, and a few new machines to help handle it all. Designing logistic and production systems is my favorite part of the game, since it is the foundation for making all the other features. While I know several other mods that put much effort into this part of the game, they still feel lacking in a way that makes me want to share my own perspective. Read on for more!
------
Updates during my long hiatus - 12019-10-11
I finally graduated university! This has given me more time to focus on my own interests, including Factorio. I feel that seeing Xander Mod with fresh eyes has been of great benefit to both me and its content - many of the problems in the prevous version now simply melted away before me. First of all, I completed the new list-function code structure that I had been working on with help from a few dedicated fans. This has let me work with a much clearer mind and awareness of interconnected features. Second, I did decide to newly rebuild the entire mod content. I am using many of the same ideas from before, but little of the exact code - I realize now that it was rather large and clunky, and the widely scattered bugs made my workflow very inefficient. My new construction process is much more aligned with following the tech progression from the bottom up. And third, with this, I have been able to bury two of the huge problems in previous versions: the dependence on wood products, and the very tedious slog to automation. In my latest test world, I was able to reach mostly electric automation in 5 hours, using only 200 or 300 wood. This is about where the mod tops out for now, although there is still a bit of chemistry that I have not played yet. Fortunately, content progress has been very rapid, and I believe that I can continue this for the near future.
============
LICENSE
============
LONG DESCRIPTION
============
------
Background -
Some ideas which are not exactly content (like items or recipes), but maybe still interesting
The superposition.
------
Although I find the base game great fun, including its very nice, atmospheric graphics, I often find my immersion in this world being broken by the relatively simplistic items and recipes. I happen to have a fairly substantial knowledge of how things work in real life, so my mind is always automatically finding issues for me to think about. After seeing and playing a few other overhaul mods, I got the idea to make my own, in a way that would be more believable to me. You might call this a 'hard-realism' approach, although of course a perfect model is impossible, and even getting beyond a certain level of accuracy becomes impractical. Therefore I consider it 'harder-than-what's-out-there-so-far' realism. To satisfy myself with a model at a reasonably low level of detail, I came up with 'content superposition', which is kind of like quantum superposition, but less rigorous and hard to understand. This core idea is that one thing in the model (game) can stand for multiple things in reality. For example, copper in the default game might represent gold, tin, lead, nickel, or a bunch of other metals. And all assembling machines (of the same tier) are built of the same components, but they can be set up to do different recipes that would actually require very different parts to do. Thirdly, Factorio pipes are made from iron, yet they can hold both oil (works in real life) and sulfuric acid (dissolves iron in real life). In this case, I would say that the Factorio pipe represents a superposition of multiple real-life pipes - multiple materials, multiple diameters, etc. This applies to everything in the base game, and Xander Mod as well. If something is missing - it's implicitly hidden inside of a superposition with something else
.
Content accuracy.
------
Having said that everything is an approximate model, where does the realism in Xander Mod lie? My goal is something high but still playable, although it may require an unusual style. My exact choice of identities for things comes from a combination of general knowledge, casual research into technology that I don't know yet, and an effort to make a balanced game (giving most items multiple uses, making the ratios not insanely expensive, etc.). For the majority of things, the in-game content I make is an accurate or plausible translation of a real-life process onto the surface of Nauvis. For instance: bronze really is made of copper and tin, sulfuric acid was once actually produced from sulfur and saltpeter using the historical Chamber Process, early electronics did often use phenolic resin for insulating components, and a basic steam locomotive can in fact be made without the use of any petroleum products. And yes, this does mean you could actually learn something real from the mod! It's often historical and somewhat approximated, but hey, this is a computer game after all
. Anyway, I hope you find this interesting. On to the content summary 
!
------
Resources -
New ores, and changes to the base resources to fit Xander Mod style
* Coal Seam
* Porphry Copper Deposit
* Crude Oil
* Evaporite Salt Formation
* Igneous Sulfide Ore
* Banded Iron Formation
* Laterite Deposit
* Magnetic Ore
* Mass Sulfide Ore
* Natural Gas
* Phosphorite Deposit
* Economic Sand Deposit
* Skarn-Type Ore
* Economic Stone Formation
* Pegmatite-Type Ore
------
Materials and Parts (Partial list) -
* Borax, limestone, kaolin clay, quartz sand, fluorite, scheelite
* Aluminum, nickel, tin, tungsten, solder, bronze, cast iron, alloy steel
* Clay bricks, magnesia refractory, porcelain, glass, silicon carbide
* Potash, saltpeter, cryolite
* Raw and vulcanized rubber; phenolic resin - the first synthetic plastic
* Hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine
* Brine and distilled waters, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride
* Steel parts, standard and improved inductive coils
* Circuits made from patterned boards, component sets, and solder
* Steam and internal combustion engine units,
* New crude science pack, new recipes for automation and chemical packs
------
Processes and Machines (Partial list) -
* Pyrolysis of wood and coal to make charcoal and coke
* Fluxed metal smelting for higher yield
* Bayer Process and Hall-Heroult Process aluminum production
* Chamber process sulfuric acid production
* Air distillation and Haber-Bosch Process ammonia
* Chloralkali process for chlorine, hydrogen, sodium hydroxide
* New ore processor, to wash ores into separate components
* Overhauled furnace tiers for much greater versatility
* New machine tool, to produce simple parts from stock material
* Early burner versions of most machines
------
Technologies (Partial list) -
* Crude first steps: coal coke, glass, steel, firearms, ore washing, steam-driven machinery
* Metal refining: nickel, tungsten, aluminum, silicon
* Nonmetal chemistry: boron, carbon, nitrogen, fluorine, chlorine
* Intermediates thoroughly integrated in tech tree: electricity, electronics 1 and 2, steel parts, induction motor
* Coherent prerequisites to unlock better machines
------
Equipment and Combat -
* Crude transport belts for inexpensive early automation
* Black powder for early firearms
------
Gameplay -
* Easier balancing for increased playability
* Faster and more rewarding progression
* Greater consistency in degree and detail of approximations
* Original graphical models
The early game has been extended for greater realism and sense of accomplishment. Reaching the standard electric machines in the base game is now a noticeable achievement. The goal is to create a greater contrast between the crude start and standard automation, to heighten the sense of accomplishment from progressing through the entire technology tree.
Most early machines and supplies have been balanced to a similar raw resource cost as in vanilla, but the expanded detail in everything boosts the difficulty. Later in the game, I plan to increase the expense of things somewhat, to create a more marathon-like experience throughout.
Background -
Some ideas which are not exactly content (like items or recipes), but maybe still interesting
The superposition.
------
Although I find the base game great fun, including its very nice, atmospheric graphics, I often find my immersion in this world being broken by the relatively simplistic items and recipes. I happen to have a fairly substantial knowledge of how things work in real life, so my mind is always automatically finding issues for me to think about. After seeing and playing a few other overhaul mods, I got the idea to make my own, in a way that would be more believable to me. You might call this a 'hard-realism' approach, although of course a perfect model is impossible, and even getting beyond a certain level of accuracy becomes impractical. Therefore I consider it 'harder-than-what's-out-there-so-far' realism. To satisfy myself with a model at a reasonably low level of detail, I came up with 'content superposition', which is kind of like quantum superposition, but less rigorous and hard to understand. This core idea is that one thing in the model (game) can stand for multiple things in reality. For example, copper in the default game might represent gold, tin, lead, nickel, or a bunch of other metals. And all assembling machines (of the same tier) are built of the same components, but they can be set up to do different recipes that would actually require very different parts to do. Thirdly, Factorio pipes are made from iron, yet they can hold both oil (works in real life) and sulfuric acid (dissolves iron in real life). In this case, I would say that the Factorio pipe represents a superposition of multiple real-life pipes - multiple materials, multiple diameters, etc. This applies to everything in the base game, and Xander Mod as well. If something is missing - it's implicitly hidden inside of a superposition with something else
.Content accuracy.
------
Having said that everything is an approximate model, where does the realism in Xander Mod lie? My goal is something high but still playable, although it may require an unusual style. My exact choice of identities for things comes from a combination of general knowledge, casual research into technology that I don't know yet, and an effort to make a balanced game (giving most items multiple uses, making the ratios not insanely expensive, etc.). For the majority of things, the in-game content I make is an accurate or plausible translation of a real-life process onto the surface of Nauvis. For instance: bronze really is made of copper and tin, sulfuric acid was once actually produced from sulfur and saltpeter using the historical Chamber Process, early electronics did often use phenolic resin for insulating components, and a basic steam locomotive can in fact be made without the use of any petroleum products. And yes, this does mean you could actually learn something real from the mod! It's often historical and somewhat approximated, but hey, this is a computer game after all
. Anyway, I hope you find this interesting. On to the content summary !------
Resources -
New ores, and changes to the base resources to fit Xander Mod style
* Coal Seam
* Porphry Copper Deposit
* Crude Oil
* Evaporite Salt Formation
* Igneous Sulfide Ore
* Banded Iron Formation
* Laterite Deposit
* Magnetic Ore
* Mass Sulfide Ore
* Natural Gas
* Phosphorite Deposit
* Economic Sand Deposit
* Skarn-Type Ore
* Economic Stone Formation
* Pegmatite-Type Ore
------
Materials and Parts (Partial list) -
* Borax, limestone, kaolin clay, quartz sand, fluorite, scheelite
* Aluminum, nickel, tin, tungsten, solder, bronze, cast iron, alloy steel
* Clay bricks, magnesia refractory, porcelain, glass, silicon carbide
* Potash, saltpeter, cryolite
* Raw and vulcanized rubber; phenolic resin - the first synthetic plastic
* Hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine
* Brine and distilled waters, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride
* Steel parts, standard and improved inductive coils
* Circuits made from patterned boards, component sets, and solder
* Steam and internal combustion engine units,
* New crude science pack, new recipes for automation and chemical packs
------
Processes and Machines (Partial list) -
* Pyrolysis of wood and coal to make charcoal and coke
* Fluxed metal smelting for higher yield
* Bayer Process and Hall-Heroult Process aluminum production
* Chamber process sulfuric acid production
* Air distillation and Haber-Bosch Process ammonia
* Chloralkali process for chlorine, hydrogen, sodium hydroxide
* New ore processor, to wash ores into separate components
* Overhauled furnace tiers for much greater versatility
* New machine tool, to produce simple parts from stock material
* Early burner versions of most machines
------
Technologies (Partial list) -
* Crude first steps: coal coke, glass, steel, firearms, ore washing, steam-driven machinery
* Metal refining: nickel, tungsten, aluminum, silicon
* Nonmetal chemistry: boron, carbon, nitrogen, fluorine, chlorine
* Intermediates thoroughly integrated in tech tree: electricity, electronics 1 and 2, steel parts, induction motor
* Coherent prerequisites to unlock better machines
------
Equipment and Combat -
* Crude transport belts for inexpensive early automation
* Black powder for early firearms
------
Gameplay -
* Easier balancing for increased playability
* Faster and more rewarding progression
* Greater consistency in degree and detail of approximations
* Original graphical models
The early game has been extended for greater realism and sense of accomplishment. Reaching the standard electric machines in the base game is now a noticeable achievement. The goal is to create a greater contrast between the crude start and standard automation, to heighten the sense of accomplishment from progressing through the entire technology tree.
Most early machines and supplies have been balanced to a similar raw resource cost as in vanilla, but the expanded detail in everything boosts the difficulty. Later in the game, I plan to increase the expense of things somewhat, to create a more marathon-like experience throughout.
Images
============
Screenshots from one of my test worlds at various times. Researched up to middle green science in about 11 hours.
------
Early furnace setup.
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Basic science automation.
------
Beginnings of larger, more organized layout.
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Smelting columns filled out; automation of circuits, red science, and green science.
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Map showing defensive perimeter and newly established rail line to bring in igneous sulfide ore for nickel.
------
------
Early furnace setup.
- Test world 3 0:40
- Base 3-1.png (3.43 MiB) Viewed 19536 times
Basic science automation.
- Test world 3 2:15
- Base 3-2.png (3.32 MiB) Viewed 19536 times
Beginnings of larger, more organized layout.
- Test world 3 4:00
- Base 3-3.png (3.38 MiB) Viewed 19536 times
Smelting columns filled out; automation of circuits, red science, and green science.
- Test world 3 6:30
- Base 3-4.png (3.44 MiB) Viewed 19536 times
Map showing defensive perimeter and newly established rail line to bring in igneous sulfide ore for nickel.
- Test world 3 10:30 - map
- Base 3-5 Map.png (375.37 KiB) Viewed 19536 times
STORY - DEPRECATED
============
I decided to write this with a somewhat story feeling, because I like including that sort of thing. It's a *little* bit lacking in the base game. Let me know if you like this style, or if I should switch to something else.
- Beginning
So, you're crashed on an alien planet. One that fortunately is amenable to life. Having used most of your ship's
emergency supplies on setting up basic food, water, and shelter, it's now time to start considering how to improve your
predicament. You first look to the surrounding environment - and there sure is a lot of it, nothing but trees and rocks
it seems. Your emergency transceiver has returned nothing but static to your broadcasts, this planet is uninhabited.
It's strangely familiar, in a way. Plants, water, gentle hills, a few small animals so far - not too different from the
time you visited the Homeworld, Earth. If the sunlight was more orange and not so white, it could almost be the deep
outback on your own sparsely settled native planet. You recall fond memories of wandering to study the geology, for your
degree and job later, and think maybe you won't do so badly here. Sitting by your campfire, you ponder your observations
to date...
- Wood:
The alien trees on this planet are rather small, brightly colored, and oddly-shaped, but still familiar. Their wood burns easily enough, especially one variety that oozes spitting sap when heated by the flame.
- Rocks:
...It's liks a geologist's paradise...Saltpeter, sulfur, coal,diamonds, bamboo tubes, natural fiber, Gorn......
This place is full of a stunning variety of minerals, for which you acknowledge your good fortune. Many of them seem reasonably familiar from your studies, the challenge will be utilizing them without the advanced refining technology of an interstellar civilization. The colors and high density tell you they must have some quantity of metals in them, you would be happy reovering even half of the total content at this early stage. You also remember some common mineral associations, for example that traces of cobalt like to shack up with copper. You'll have to test if those you worked with before hold in this different landscape. These are your first guesses at the ores you see:
You managed to rescue a handful of simple and rugged parts from your crashed ship.
You've tried some archaic smelting, but the wood only produces traces of metal, and the coal makes a rotten product that cracks as soon as you bend it. These fuels will need to be purified somehow, maybe pre-baking will drive off the impurities. You heard there was a niche company that did this with some of the coal back home, they specialized in historical refining supplies for hobbyists.
- Fuel:
You remember that early refining methods can't just rip the metals out of their ores, but that something else (often carbon) is needed in almost equal amounts to switch places with the metal. Wood is carbon-based, so you can work out something there, but trees grow slowly and cutting them is hard work. Very soon you'll need to mine coal as a denser source of carbon. However you know it's possible to (re-)cycle the carbon dioxide produced back into solid carbon, and since this area seems richer in metals than coal, you anticipate needing to do that at some point. Ultimately, if fuels turn out to be as scarce everywhere as they are here, you expect to need to save most fossil hydrocarbon sources for building parts like plastic, wire insulation, and synthetic resins.
- Chemistry:
Your chemistry courses taught you that you can never create new matter, but only convert it, and you will have to keep this in mind when setting up automatic production. Distinct substances generally have fixed compositions, and the balance of elements in a reaction is always preserved. Fortunately your ship's computer survived with an updated copy of the human chemistry database, including the following entries on hydrocarbons:
In general, at least moderate quality is needed for many applications to work. Exceptions are made mostly for
the sake of making progression through the game actually possible, but using early, initially accessible materials usually comes with disincentives. For example, this wrought iron you're capable of smelting at first is nothing compared to the steel from back home. This will give you trouble like greater material requirements, slow assembly, or inability to automate something at all. You'll need better materials and parts to withstand going through automated machines, which lack the careful touch of hand crafting.
- Automation:
Unfortunately your ship's molecular forge didn't survive the crash, so you will have to build automation from the ground up. This is more challenging than it seems, and requires a lot of mechanical ingenuity as well as improved parts. To reach this point, unfortunately, requires a lot of work to bootstrap up the quality.
- Beginning
So, you're crashed on an alien planet. One that fortunately is amenable to life. Having used most of your ship's
emergency supplies on setting up basic food, water, and shelter, it's now time to start considering how to improve your
predicament. You first look to the surrounding environment - and there sure is a lot of it, nothing but trees and rocks
it seems. Your emergency transceiver has returned nothing but static to your broadcasts, this planet is uninhabited.
It's strangely familiar, in a way. Plants, water, gentle hills, a few small animals so far - not too different from the
time you visited the Homeworld, Earth. If the sunlight was more orange and not so white, it could almost be the deep
outback on your own sparsely settled native planet. You recall fond memories of wandering to study the geology, for your
degree and job later, and think maybe you won't do so badly here. Sitting by your campfire, you ponder your observations
to date...
- Wood:
The alien trees on this planet are rather small, brightly colored, and oddly-shaped, but still familiar. Their wood burns easily enough, especially one variety that oozes spitting sap when heated by the flame.
- Rocks:
...It's liks a geologist's paradise...Saltpeter, sulfur, coal,
This place is full of a stunning variety of minerals, for which you acknowledge your good fortune. Many of them seem reasonably familiar from your studies, the challenge will be utilizing them without the advanced refining technology of an interstellar civilization. The colors and high density tell you they must have some quantity of metals in them, you would be happy reovering even half of the total content at this early stage. You also remember some common mineral associations, for example that traces of cobalt like to shack up with copper. You'll have to test if those you worked with before hold in this different landscape. These are your first guesses at the ores you see:
- - Dull red: hematite, Fe2O3
- Metallic blue: chalcocite, Cu2S
- Dark metallic gray: galena, PbS
- Dark yellow-brown, translucent: cassiterite, SnO2
- Orange, earthen: bauxite, impure Al2O3 with SiO2 and clay
- Pale tan: impure calcite, CaCO3
- Light green: garnierite, impure NiO
- Glowing green: pitchblende, must be something in the air that makes its weak radioactivity glow like that
- Blue-green: apatite, calcium fluoride and phosphate
- Metallic yellow: chalcopyrite, CuFeS2
- Purple-tinged gray: Heavy mineral sand, mixture of grains of heavy element oxides
- Water flowing from the ground: tastes bitter, must contain a lot of dissolved salts
- Crude Oil: probably complex liquid hydrocarbons
- Natural Gas: probably complex gaseous hydrocarbons
- Water: H2O, sometimes muddy, sometimes clear, sometimes salty. The most common ions back home were Na+, Cl-, and Mg2+, I wdoner if it's the same here.
- Air: Seems to be oxygen-nitrogen, otherwise I would be in trouble! There must be at least a trace of CO2 as well, to keep these plants going.
- Some resources, although technically finite, are practically infinite. The planet has more than enough air and water for your purposes, namely, building rockets to establish some orbital presence and call home. Solid resources are still finite, fluid wells are still smei-infinite.
You managed to rescue a handful of simple and rugged parts from your crashed ship.
- - Scrap iron
- Titanium alloy hull plates
- Copper electrical wiring
- Electric motors
- Miscellaneous mechanical parts like gears, linkages, armatures, slides, etc.
- Even a pair of old cargo-handling bots that were crudely converted to stationary diggers.
You've tried some archaic smelting, but the wood only produces traces of metal, and the coal makes a rotten product that cracks as soon as you bend it. These fuels will need to be purified somehow, maybe pre-baking will drive off the impurities. You heard there was a niche company that did this with some of the coal back home, they specialized in historical refining supplies for hobbyists.
- Fuel:
You remember that early refining methods can't just rip the metals out of their ores, but that something else (often carbon) is needed in almost equal amounts to switch places with the metal. Wood is carbon-based, so you can work out something there, but trees grow slowly and cutting them is hard work. Very soon you'll need to mine coal as a denser source of carbon. However you know it's possible to (re-)cycle the carbon dioxide produced back into solid carbon, and since this area seems richer in metals than coal, you anticipate needing to do that at some point. Ultimately, if fuels turn out to be as scarce everywhere as they are here, you expect to need to save most fossil hydrocarbon sources for building parts like plastic, wire insulation, and synthetic resins.
- Chemistry:
Your chemistry courses taught you that you can never create new matter, but only convert it, and you will have to keep this in mind when setting up automatic production. Distinct substances generally have fixed compositions, and the balance of elements in a reaction is always preserved. Fortunately your ship's computer survived with an updated copy of the human chemistry database, including the following entries on hydrocarbons:
- - Coal: approx. C4H2
- Crude Oil: approx. C6H12
- Natural gas: approx. C2H5.5
- Methane: CH4
- Ethylene: C2H4
- Propylene: C3H6
- Light Oil: C6H12
- Benzene: C6H6
- Heavy Oil: C12H24
- Heavy Naptha: C12H18
In general, at least moderate quality is needed for many applications to work. Exceptions are made mostly for
the sake of making progression through the game actually possible, but using early, initially accessible materials usually comes with disincentives. For example, this wrought iron you're capable of smelting at first is nothing compared to the steel from back home. This will give you trouble like greater material requirements, slow assembly, or inability to automate something at all. You'll need better materials and parts to withstand going through automated machines, which lack the careful touch of hand crafting.
- Automation:
Unfortunately your ship's molecular forge didn't survive the crash, so you will have to build automation from the ground up. This is more challenging than it seems, and requires a lot of mechanical ingenuity as well as improved parts. To reach this point, unfortunately, requires a lot of work to bootstrap up the quality.
KNOWN ISSUES AND COMPATIBILITY
============
------
Xander Mod has been on GitHub for some while now, so bug reports may also be routed to: https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... d_3/issues
GitHub has a nice unified format, that is good at keeping track of these .
------
As always, when you find a problem, post it below or on GitHub and I will add it to the list of issues to be dealt with when possible. For more detailed discussions you can always send me a PM. Unfortunately, I am not always so good at talking with people, and can often be unresponsive for a bit. This usually means I have seen something, but am still figuring out my thoughts. In the past, I have found myself visiting both this post and GitHub, when I check the community for news. However, I have an irregular schedule (or absence thereof?) for going online to see how the mod is, instead preferring to spend my time on the content. I will consider the posts or issues I see, and do my best to work fixes into the mod, although I might not reply directly to every notice.
------
Regarding bugs, hopefully there will be few crashes and loading failures - my local testing has solved all of these that I found. Broken features, however, will probably be more common, simply because the mod goes to such depth. I am of course aware of the large break in game progression at the forefront of my development.
------
Regarding all other mods, their interaction with XM is almost wholly untested. The reason for this is that my priority remains completing XM to a satisfactory degree before trying other mods. Furthermore, I expect that there will likely never be good compatibility with other major overhauls such as Bob's, Angel's, PyTech, Industrial Revolution, Krastorio, 5Dim's, DyWorld, Yuoki, etc., etc. Xander Mod itself extensively overhauls the materials-parts-production foundation in particular, but does add a few new end-use features as well. However, the mod also changes the meanings and uses of several features to 'flow' together into a more coherent whole. Additionally, some of the internal code structure has been improved in ways that do not strictly follow the base defaults. Because of the presence of conflicting production chains and other content, XM is not likely to cooperate with other overhauls anytime soon, if ever. While I imagine that the XM tech tree could make a decent basis for a variety of other content, integrating and cleaning up overlap would take a substantial effort.
------
Regarding updates, I cannot guarantee a regular schedule, but will try to post once I have a good size chunk ready. I have been generally working my way up the tech tree, leaving relatively stable content as I go. Stuff near the frontier is probably more likely to change, but I may end up having to rework existing things too. Essentially, Xander Mod is in the same experimental condition as the latest base game patches, so plan accordingly. I believe the resource gen is complete, so worlds shouldn't have to be totally scrapped.
------
Xander Mod has been on GitHub for some while now, so bug reports may also be routed to: https://github.com/Factorio-Xander-Mod/ ... d_3/issues
GitHub has a nice unified format, that is good at keeping track of these
.------
As always, when you find a problem, post it below or on GitHub and I will add it to the list of issues to be dealt with when possible. For more detailed discussions you can always send me a PM. Unfortunately, I am not always so good at talking with people, and can often be unresponsive for a bit. This usually means I have seen something, but am still figuring out my thoughts. In the past, I have found myself visiting both this post and GitHub, when I check the community for news. However, I have an irregular schedule (or absence thereof?) for going online to see how the mod is, instead preferring to spend my time on the content. I will consider the posts or issues I see, and do my best to work fixes into the mod, although I might not reply directly to every notice.
------
Regarding bugs, hopefully there will be few crashes and loading failures - my local testing has solved all of these that I found. Broken features, however, will probably be more common, simply because the mod goes to such depth. I am of course aware of the large break in game progression at the forefront of my development.
------
Regarding all other mods, their interaction with XM is almost wholly untested. The reason for this is that my priority remains completing XM to a satisfactory degree before trying other mods. Furthermore, I expect that there will likely never be good compatibility with other major overhauls such as Bob's, Angel's, PyTech, Industrial Revolution, Krastorio, 5Dim's, DyWorld, Yuoki, etc., etc. Xander Mod itself extensively overhauls the materials-parts-production foundation in particular, but does add a few new end-use features as well. However, the mod also changes the meanings and uses of several features to 'flow' together into a more coherent whole. Additionally, some of the internal code structure has been improved in ways that do not strictly follow the base defaults. Because of the presence of conflicting production chains and other content, XM is not likely to cooperate with other overhauls anytime soon, if ever. While I imagine that the XM tech tree could make a decent basis for a variety of other content, integrating and cleaning up overlap would take a substantial effort.
------
Regarding updates, I cannot guarantee a regular schedule, but will try to post once I have a good size chunk ready. I have been generally working my way up the tech tree, leaving relatively stable content as I go. Stuff near the frontier is probably more likely to change, but I may end up having to rework existing things too. Essentially, Xander Mod is in the same experimental condition as the latest base game patches, so plan accordingly. I believe the resource gen is complete, so worlds shouldn't have to be totally scrapped.
------
ABBREVIATED CHANGELOG
============
------
For 3.0.0:
Full reconstruction of the mod as described in my update section above.
Condensing and organizing forum and mod portal pages.
For 3.1.0:
Content rewrought up to late green science - gaps and poor balance present, some degree of change nearly certain
Playtested up to middle green science - content feels okay, change moderately likely
Nominally complete up to all red science - content and balance feels good, major change unlikely
Added migrations for 3.0.0 worlds - should be complete, but (as always) I might have missed something
For 3.2.0:
Content overhauled just up to blue science pack
Playtested up to middle green science - similar to last update
Nominally complete up to middle green science - content and balance feel good, major change unlikely
Added migrations for 3.1.0 worlds - should be complete, but (as always) I might have missed something
For 3.3.0:
Content overhauled slightly past blue science pack
Most new material consists of hydrocarbon refining - petrochemistry
Also tweaked machine models to look better and correctly work with pipes
Playtested up to middle green science - not much news
Nominally complete just up to blue science - content and balance feel okay, major change unlikely
No new migrations, since it didn't seem this update needed them - as always, I might have missed something
For 3.4.0:
Update to base 0.18, including high-res mipmap icons
For 3.4.1:
Content overhauled to early blue science
Fully implemented mid-tier steam temperature (300 C)
Modules, tier 1 and 2
Playtested up to late green science - not much news
Nominally complete up to early blue science - content and balance feel okay, major change unlikely
One migrated recipe for cast iron tier 2 - as always, I might have missed something
For 3.4.2:
Hotfix for incorrect graphics pack dependency
For 3.4.3:
Fixed automation science pack recipe unlock missing from its technology
Fixed crude-tier belt graphics
Fixed assembler 1 pipe connection graphics
Fixed iron and copper ore icon graphics
Changed early rail recipe to use wood instead of iron stick. All uses of wood get replaced relatively early.
Modular armor recipe
Military 3 - smokeless powder, capsules, combat shotgun
Migrated black and smokeless powders into single gunpowder; all recipes remain
Forced game to show made-in machines for *most* recipes, to help navigate the XM production tree
Hid waste dump recipes from player crafting menu
Updated starting items in Freeplay to be relevant to Xander Mod
For 3.5.0:
Advanced Refining - copper, nickel, chromium, platinum, gold, silver, semiconductor silicon, some petroleum
Materials & Parts - stainless steel, epoxy resin, all circuits tentatively complete
Machines & Equipment - small-lamp additional recipe, solar panels, electrical substation, flamethrowers
Various other smaller things I can't remember
For 3.5.1:
Fixed bug in piercing ammo recipes and rewrought military-4 into XM
Fixed bug with electrolyzer fluid boxes
Expanded advanced refining & materials: top tier tin and lead, nylon plastic
Added induction 3 tech, as well as top-tier copper cable, coil, and motor
Added electric mining drill 2
Added electric plasma furnace
Added concentrating solar panel
Rewrought flying robots
Rewrought utility science pack
Rewrought low-density structure
For 3.5.2:
Partial fix for bug: gun turret damage upgrades didn't apply to high-power rifled turret
Fixed (hopefully) bug with polyethylene pellets production - I think recipes will still need to be re-selected, my apologies
Increased assembler 1 ingredient count to 4, by popular request
Added high-tension big electric pole (no new sprite yet - sorry!)
Added some iron gears to starting items
For 3.5.3:
Bugfixes:
*Gun turret damage upgrades should be completely fixed
*Corrected diesel-electric locomotive, car, and tank to accept both crude and chemical fuel
*Fixed processing unit recipe not having changed from base
Tweaks:
*Refactored recipe categories and ingredient counts (internal code structure), so that crafting categories govern which recipes a machine is capable of
*First small lamp recipe uses cast iron machine parts instead of blanks, to represent the feed mechanism in real-life early arc lamps
*Minimally changed some advanced refining tech so the prerequisites make more sense
*Corrected violation of conservation of energy in coke production (Doubled coal fuel value from 4 -> 8 MJ, and reduced coke output from 9 to 8)
*Added braking force 1 as prereq for railway 2
*Added clay to landfill recipe, to stick everything together
*Increased polyethylene plastic bar cost by 50%
*Tweaked recipes: standard transport belt, standard underground belt, fast underground belt, fast splitter
*Increased wood yield per tree from 4 to 24
*Halved speed of Kvaerner recipes
New:
*Rewrought base coal liquefaction
*Rewrought base rocket fuel
*Added zirconium
*Added recycling tech: smelt crude machinery into raw iron, small pylons to copper, and bullets to bronze
*Completed top two transport belt tiers: added expedited as tier 3, and rewrought base express to be tier 4
For 3.6.0:
Bugfixes:
*Fixed high-tension electric pole recipe
*Fixed chem reactor quick-replace
*Added missing recipe unlock for gold wire to advanced electronics 2 tech, plus migration
*Corrected high-temperature boiler to accept crude fuel as well as chemical
*Fixed cyclical dependency where assembler 3 could only be made in an assembler 3
Tweaks:
*Increased unit cost of laser tech
*Added laser as prerequisite for advanced electronics 2
*Moved first stack bonus for regular inserters back to inserter capacity upgrade 2 tech
*Changed piercing shotgun shells to use alloy steel instead of regular steel
*Changed batteries to use plastic instead of glass
*Changed accumulator recipe to use coils and cast iron parts instead of cable and cast iron blanks
*Changed second plastic bar recipe to use polyethylene in addition to nylon
*Changed laser turrets prereq from military science pack to military 3
*Increased unit cost of explosive rockets tech
*Reduced recipe time for air cryo-distillation from 10 to 5 seconds
*Increased recipe time of improved railroad track from 0.5 to 1 second
*Changed advanced steel production to better resemble real processes (direct ore reduction plus oxygen steel conversion)
*Rebalanced solder wire to use less phenol
*Halved time of gold wire recipe
*Reduced recipe times for circuit wafers
*Reduced recipe time for silicon boule
*Changed VLSI wafers to use aluminum instead of chromium, to remove anomalous dependence on production science
*Rebalanced explosives in recipes
*Tweaked advanced oil processing to make more liquid oil and less petroleum gas
*Halved recipe time for water distillation
*Reduced a few recipe ingredient costs in chromium and stainless steel production chain
*New graphic for electrolyzer 2
*Changed stack sizes for low density structure, rocket fuel, and rocket control unit to 20
*Reduced sodium hydroxide consumption in bauxite -> aluminum hydroxide refining
New:
*Rewrought laser turrets (again), and added a tier 2 laser turret
*Rewrought rocket launcher & ammo
*Rewrought tanks & ammo
*Rewrought combat robotics
*Rewrought cliff explosives again, better
*Finished rework of modules, including tier 3
*Rewrought beacons
*Rewrought power armor mark 1 & 2
*Rewrought portable equipment: portable solar panel, portable fusion reactor, personal battery 1 & 2, belt immunity, exoskeleton, personal roboport 1 & 2, night vision, energy shields 1 & 2, personal laser defense, discharge defense
*Rewrought nuclear industry: uranium processing, power, kovarex enrichment, weapons
*Rewrought automation 3
*Added new tier 3 catalytic chemical plant, an upgraded combined chemical reactor and oil refinery
*Added first aid
*Rewrought artillery
*Rewrought spidertron
For 3.6.1:
Features:
*Added tier 2 fluid handling: longer underground pipe, larger storage tank, faster pump
*Added high-capacity accumulator
*Added tier 2 wall (reinforced concrete) and gate (alloy steel)
*New(-ish) entity graphics: high-pressure steam turbine, high-tension big electric pole, concentrating solar panel, high-power gun turret, high-intensity laser turret
*Updated several item and tech icons
Bugfixes:
*Added correct unlock of gold wire recipe to advanced electronics 2
Tweaks:
*Adjusted balance of several logistics and production machines
*A few extra descriptions
------
For 3.0.0:
Full reconstruction of the mod as described in my update section above.
Condensing and organizing forum and mod portal pages.
For 3.1.0:
Content rewrought up to late green science - gaps and poor balance present, some degree of change nearly certain
Playtested up to middle green science - content feels okay, change moderately likely
Nominally complete up to all red science - content and balance feels good, major change unlikely
Added migrations for 3.0.0 worlds - should be complete, but (as always) I might have missed something
For 3.2.0:
Content overhauled just up to blue science pack
Playtested up to middle green science - similar to last update
Nominally complete up to middle green science - content and balance feel good, major change unlikely
Added migrations for 3.1.0 worlds - should be complete, but (as always) I might have missed something
For 3.3.0:
Content overhauled slightly past blue science pack
Most new material consists of hydrocarbon refining - petrochemistry
Also tweaked machine models to look better and correctly work with pipes
Playtested up to middle green science - not much news
Nominally complete just up to blue science - content and balance feel okay, major change unlikely
No new migrations, since it didn't seem this update needed them - as always, I might have missed something
For 3.4.0:
Update to base 0.18, including high-res mipmap icons
For 3.4.1:
Content overhauled to early blue science
Fully implemented mid-tier steam temperature (300 C)
Modules, tier 1 and 2
Playtested up to late green science - not much news
Nominally complete up to early blue science - content and balance feel okay, major change unlikely
One migrated recipe for cast iron tier 2 - as always, I might have missed something
For 3.4.2:
Hotfix for incorrect graphics pack dependency
For 3.4.3:
Fixed automation science pack recipe unlock missing from its technology
Fixed crude-tier belt graphics
Fixed assembler 1 pipe connection graphics
Fixed iron and copper ore icon graphics
Changed early rail recipe to use wood instead of iron stick. All uses of wood get replaced relatively early.
Modular armor recipe
Military 3 - smokeless powder, capsules, combat shotgun
Migrated black and smokeless powders into single gunpowder; all recipes remain
Forced game to show made-in machines for *most* recipes, to help navigate the XM production tree
Hid waste dump recipes from player crafting menu
Updated starting items in Freeplay to be relevant to Xander Mod
For 3.5.0:
Advanced Refining - copper, nickel, chromium, platinum, gold, silver, semiconductor silicon, some petroleum
Materials & Parts - stainless steel, epoxy resin, all circuits tentatively complete
Machines & Equipment - small-lamp additional recipe, solar panels, electrical substation, flamethrowers
Various other smaller things I can't remember
For 3.5.1:
Fixed bug in piercing ammo recipes and rewrought military-4 into XM
Fixed bug with electrolyzer fluid boxes
Expanded advanced refining & materials: top tier tin and lead, nylon plastic
Added induction 3 tech, as well as top-tier copper cable, coil, and motor
Added electric mining drill 2
Added electric plasma furnace
Added concentrating solar panel
Rewrought flying robots
Rewrought utility science pack
Rewrought low-density structure
For 3.5.2:
Partial fix for bug: gun turret damage upgrades didn't apply to high-power rifled turret
Fixed (hopefully) bug with polyethylene pellets production - I think recipes will still need to be re-selected, my apologies
Increased assembler 1 ingredient count to 4, by popular request
Added high-tension big electric pole (no new sprite yet - sorry!)
Added some iron gears to starting items
For 3.5.3:
Bugfixes:
*Gun turret damage upgrades should be completely fixed
*Corrected diesel-electric locomotive, car, and tank to accept both crude and chemical fuel
*Fixed processing unit recipe not having changed from base
Tweaks:
*Refactored recipe categories and ingredient counts (internal code structure), so that crafting categories govern which recipes a machine is capable of
*First small lamp recipe uses cast iron machine parts instead of blanks, to represent the feed mechanism in real-life early arc lamps
*Minimally changed some advanced refining tech so the prerequisites make more sense
*Corrected violation of conservation of energy in coke production
(Doubled coal fuel value from 4 -> 8 MJ, and reduced coke output from 9 to 8)*Added braking force 1 as prereq for railway 2
*Added clay to landfill recipe, to stick everything together
*Increased polyethylene plastic bar cost by 50%
*Tweaked recipes: standard transport belt, standard underground belt, fast underground belt, fast splitter
*Increased wood yield per tree from 4 to 24
*Halved speed of Kvaerner recipes
New:
*Rewrought base coal liquefaction
*Rewrought base rocket fuel
*Added zirconium
*Added recycling tech: smelt crude machinery into raw iron, small pylons to copper, and bullets to bronze
*Completed top two transport belt tiers: added expedited as tier 3, and rewrought base express to be tier 4
For 3.6.0:
Bugfixes:
*Fixed high-tension electric pole recipe
*Fixed chem reactor quick-replace
*Added missing recipe unlock for gold wire to advanced electronics 2 tech, plus migration
*Corrected high-temperature boiler to accept crude fuel as well as chemical
*Fixed cyclical dependency where assembler 3 could only be made in an assembler 3
Tweaks:
*Increased unit cost of laser tech
*Added laser as prerequisite for advanced electronics 2
*Moved first stack bonus for regular inserters back to inserter capacity upgrade 2 tech
*Changed piercing shotgun shells to use alloy steel instead of regular steel
*Changed batteries to use plastic instead of glass
*Changed accumulator recipe to use coils and cast iron parts instead of cable and cast iron blanks
*Changed second plastic bar recipe to use polyethylene in addition to nylon
*Changed laser turrets prereq from military science pack to military 3
*Increased unit cost of explosive rockets tech
*Reduced recipe time for air cryo-distillation from 10 to 5 seconds
*Increased recipe time of improved railroad track from 0.5 to 1 second
*Changed advanced steel production to better resemble real processes (direct ore reduction plus oxygen steel conversion)
*Rebalanced solder wire to use less phenol
*Halved time of gold wire recipe
*Reduced recipe times for circuit wafers
*Reduced recipe time for silicon boule
*Changed VLSI wafers to use aluminum instead of chromium, to remove anomalous dependence on production science
*Rebalanced explosives in recipes
*Tweaked advanced oil processing to make more liquid oil and less petroleum gas
*Halved recipe time for water distillation
*Reduced a few recipe ingredient costs in chromium and stainless steel production chain
*New graphic for electrolyzer 2
*Changed stack sizes for low density structure, rocket fuel, and rocket control unit to 20
*Reduced sodium hydroxide consumption in bauxite -> aluminum hydroxide refining
New:
*Rewrought laser turrets (again), and added a tier 2 laser turret
*Rewrought rocket launcher & ammo
*Rewrought tanks & ammo
*Rewrought combat robotics
*Rewrought cliff explosives again, better
*Finished rework of modules, including tier 3
*Rewrought beacons
*Rewrought power armor mark 1 & 2
*Rewrought portable equipment: portable solar panel, portable fusion reactor, personal battery 1 & 2, belt immunity, exoskeleton, personal roboport 1 & 2, night vision, energy shields 1 & 2, personal laser defense, discharge defense
*Rewrought nuclear industry: uranium processing, power, kovarex enrichment, weapons
*Rewrought automation 3
*Added new tier 3 catalytic chemical plant, an upgraded combined chemical reactor and oil refinery
*Added first aid
*Rewrought artillery
*Rewrought spidertron
For 3.6.1:
Features:
*Added tier 2 fluid handling: longer underground pipe, larger storage tank, faster pump
*Added high-capacity accumulator
*Added tier 2 wall (reinforced concrete) and gate (alloy steel)
*New(-ish) entity graphics: high-pressure steam turbine, high-tension big electric pole, concentrating solar panel, high-power gun turret, high-intensity laser turret
*Updated several item and tech icons
Bugfixes:
*Added correct unlock of gold wire recipe to advanced electronics 2
Tweaks:
*Adjusted balance of several logistics and production machines
*A few extra descriptions
------
INSPIRATION
============
Thanks & Inspiration -
------
First of all to the Factorio team for making such an amazing game. It's my favorite game of all the ones I've ever found.
Secondly to the various overhaul and chemistry mods out there, for having interesting ideas:
Bob's - The first Factorio overhaul that I played in detail, way back in 0.12, inspiring me to make my own.
Angel's - Adding a whole new level of complexity for me to aspire to.
Pyanodon's - Offers a somewhat different perspective than the two above.
Industrial Revolution - Really dedicated to graphics, even redid many base sprites
.
Likely others I can't remember at the moment.
------
A Note -
In making this mod, I have tried my best to work with the base assets and my own custom constructions, but I may have missed a copied placeholder or something. If you find something that should not be there, please tell me specifically what it is, and I will try to rectify the matter as soon as possible.
------
------
First of all to the Factorio team for making such an amazing game. It's my favorite game of all the ones I've ever found.
Secondly to the various overhaul and chemistry mods out there, for having interesting ideas:
Bob's - The first Factorio overhaul that I played in detail, way back in 0.12, inspiring me to make my own.
Angel's - Adding a whole new level of complexity for me to aspire to.
Pyanodon's - Offers a somewhat different perspective than the two above.
Industrial Revolution - Really dedicated to graphics, even redid many base sprites
.Likely others I can't remember at the moment.
------
A Note -
In making this mod, I have tried my best to work with the base assets and my own custom constructions, but I may have missed a copied placeholder or something. If you find something that should not be there, please tell me specifically what it is, and I will try to rectify the matter as soon as possible.
------
Deprecated RSO config
RSO Config for XM 2.1.1:
- xander.lua
- New RSO config for 1.3.0, starting resources doubled
- (5.54 KiB) Downloaded 481 times
Like the circuit for example, I feel the exact same way! It's just a hunk of metal!
