The equipment module "portable solar panel" requires "solar panel" to make it, yet there's no dependence in the tech tree.
Since this makes no sense I'm submitting a bug report.
[0.16] Portable solar panel tech should follow solar panel
[0.16] Portable solar panel tech should follow solar panel
Leading Hebrew translator of Factorio.
Re: [0.16] Portable solar panel tech should follow solar panel
Ah, sorry about the duplicate. In all honesty, I thought the chance that nobody noticed this before me was pretty slim.
However, like other aspects of the game that the developers claim that are "working as designed" yet make little sense to players for whatever reason, perhaps I can use this opportunity to make a feature suggestion.
What if in the tech selection tree, the "Effects" row gets populated dynamically based on the actual entities that get unlocked by the technology (i.e. possible to create with no further research)? This seems like a good compromise that would make everybody satisfied.
Alternatively, splitting manufacturing requirements (which are usually 1-3 technologies per item) from research requirements might allow to keep the current research complexity, while also accommodating the missing information for manufacturing dependencies (which was the original issue presented by this post).
If these ideas are unclear I'd be happy to elaborate.
(I'd probably open a new discussion with this suggestion in the appropriate forum soon)
However, like other aspects of the game that the developers claim that are "working as designed" yet make little sense to players for whatever reason, perhaps I can use this opportunity to make a feature suggestion.
What if in the tech selection tree, the "Effects" row gets populated dynamically based on the actual entities that get unlocked by the technology (i.e. possible to create with no further research)? This seems like a good compromise that would make everybody satisfied.
Alternatively, splitting manufacturing requirements (which are usually 1-3 technologies per item) from research requirements might allow to keep the current research complexity, while also accommodating the missing information for manufacturing dependencies (which was the original issue presented by this post).
If these ideas are unclear I'd be happy to elaborate.
(I'd probably open a new discussion with this suggestion in the appropriate forum soon)
Leading Hebrew translator of Factorio.
Re: [0.16] Portable solar panel tech should follow solar panel
Well there really isn't any missing information. You can see what ingredients you need to make a personal solar panel before you research it. And the tech tree is littered with things like this, in places where you really wouldn't want the techs to depend on each other. eg Nuclear (train) fuel is unlocked by kovarex enrichment tech. It requires rocket fuel as an ingredient (unlocked by missile silo tech). Yet kovarex enrichment is a useful tech even if you never plan to build any Nuclear (train) fuel, and has no reason to depend on rocket silo tech. Yes you could rework the tech tree to separate out these types of dependencies, but why bother? How is the player harmed? If you want to make nuclear (train) fuel, you need to research both rocket silo and Kovarex enrichment. It's going to cost the same amount of science flasks, and the same amount of resources, and take the same time (assuming you can keep the labs full), regardless of of which order you choose to do the research, so why restrict player choice, especially when the player might want to start Kovarex enrichment running, yet have no interest in building any nuclear (train) fuel.
In the case of personal solar panel, consider a player who wants to build a personal roboport, he needs to research personal solar panel, but unless he wants to build personal solar panels, he doesn't need to research solar panels themselves.
In the case of personal solar panel, consider a player who wants to build a personal roboport, he needs to research personal solar panel, but unless he wants to build personal solar panels, he doesn't need to research solar panels themselves.