Transport_Drones_Continued support

[andrevdm]

Summary

• Adds support for Transport_Drones_Continued
Transport_Drones_Continued seems to be the most actively supported transport drone fork. Meglinge fork says that it can corrupt save games, so I think Continued is the safer target.
• The Continued fork is close enough to the old Transport Drones setup that most of the Nullius compatibility work is mechanical.
• Continued does add a few new items and capabilities though, e.g active-depot, storage-depot, drone-dispatcher, depot priorities, and depots that can act as logistic containers. But the new items are similar enough to make recipe selection easy.

Changes & Notes

• Supersedes Support Transport_Drones_Meglinge_Fork #73
• Added support for Transport_Drones_Continued.
• Disallowed Transport_Drones_Meglinge_Fork and Transport_Drones. Given the names are so close, this makes it clearer to users what is currently supported. I also don't think its worth the effort to try support Transport_Drones_Meglinge_Fork yet until it looks active again.
• Made the Nullius recipe overrides code more explicit. It is a bit more code, but should be more robust if the mod changes again or if other forks need support later.
• Added recipes for the Continued-only items: active-depot, storage-depot, and drone-dispatcher.
• Kept fast-road expensive because this matches the existing Nullius recipe choice, though it might still be worth discussing whether it should use regular boxed concrete instead of boxed black concrete. TODO
• Continued currently has a quality GUI item & minor road mining bug. I've got a patch I'm trying to submit there to get those fixed.
• drones tech don't gate any non-drone tech. So if someone uses the modpack but does not want drones they can skip it entirely.

Early drones on/off setting

There was some disagreement with people using the compatibility mod. Most seemed to want the drones as a replacement for trains, and did not want to be forced to wait until much later to get trains. But there were a few players who though drones should only come after robotics-1

I've created an early drones setting that supports both modes. I've set it to on by default because that is my bias. But I can see the argument either way.

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Detail

Early Drones On

Tech Tree

• transport-system

  • Prerequisites: nullius-traffic-control, nullius-personal-transportation-1, nullius-pumping-2
  • Science: geology, climatology, mechanical, electrical
  • Unlocks: transport-drone, road, supply-depot, fluid-depot, request-depot

• transport-fluids / Transport depot infrastructure

  • Prerequisite: transport-system
  • Science: geology, climatology, mechanical, electrical
  • Unlocks: buffer-depot, fuel-depot, optional drone-dispatcher

• transport-multi-pipe

  • Prerequisites: transport-fluids, nullius-pumping-2
  • Science: geology, climatology, mechanical, electrical, chemical

• transport-active-supply

  • Prerequisites: transport-fluids, nullius-distribution-2

Key Recipes

• transport-drone: nullius-car-1, arithmetic combinators, programmable speakers, bob-turbo-inserter
• supply-depot: nullius-large-chest-1, steel beams, glass, train stop
• fluid-depot: supply-depot, nullius-medium-tank-2, nullius-barrel-pump-1
• request-depot: fluid-depot, train stop, nullius-sensor-1, arithmetic combinator, programmable speaker, red wire
• buffer-depot: request-depot, train stop
• fuel-depot: buffer-depot, nullius-pump-2
• drone-dispatcher: fuel-depot, train stop, sensors, arithmetic combinators, programmable speaker, green wire
• active-depot: supply-depot, large supply chest, nullius-hangar-1, green wire

Early Drones Off

Tech Tree

• transport-system

  • Prerequisites: nullius-robotics-1, nullius-personal-transportation-1, nullius-pumping-2
  • Science: geology, climatology, mechanical, electrical
  • Unlocks: transport-drone, road, supply-depot, fluid-depot, request-depot

• transport-fluids / Transport depot infrastructure

  • Prerequisite: transport-system
  • Science: geology, climatology, mechanical, electrical, chemical
  • Unlocks: buffer-depot, fuel-depot, optional drone-dispatcher

• transport-multi-pipe

  • Prerequisites: transport-fluids, nullius-pumping-2
  • Science: geology, climatology, mechanical, electrical, chemical

• transport-active-supply

  • Prerequisites: transport-fluids, nullius-distribution-2

Key Recipes

• transport-drone: nullius-car-1, arithmetic combinators, programmable speakers, bob-turbo-inserter
• supply-depot: nullius-large-chest-1, steel beams, glass, train stop
• fluid-depot: supply-depot, nullius-medium-tank-2, nullius-barrel-pump-1
• request-depot: fluid-depot, nullius-hangar-1
• buffer-depot: request-depot, train stop
• fuel-depot: buffer-depot, nullius-pump-2
• drone-dispatcher: fuel-depot, nullius-hangar-1, arithmetic combinators, green wire
• active-depot: supply-depot, large supply chest, nullius-hangar-1, green wire

Changes

• In both scenarios there are are a few changes to the tree and recipes vs the original code.
• This was required because there were some weird requirements either. (request-depot needs a fluid depot to be crafted so should not be researched fist).
• Personally I'd argue for early-drones to be the default because you can use e.g. cybersyn etc with trains long before logistics. I think drones fill the same niche. And if a player has installed drones, odds are they want to use drones not trains for the base. But obviously I'd defer to the maintainers. So the default setting value can be changed as seen fit in the merge :)

[andrevdm]

I've created a standalone compatibility mod for this code: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/nullius-compat-transport-drones-continued

If you think that is better than having to merge and maintain I'll be happy to close this and my other two compatability PRs.

[andrevdm]

[andrevdm]

Several people playing the monthly map with nullius & drones have commented that the way the tech tree splits things, mainly fuel depots being later than the main tech is confusing.

Its possible to work without fuel-depots but it requires a pipe built on the road and that seems weird at best, maybe even a bug that its allowed at all.

Buffer depots are required to make fuel depots, so those need to move as well. Which would leave only drone dispatchers separate, and that makes no sense.

So this change unlocks everything from the first two techs and increases the research cost to compensate.

Again I still think that the "early-mode" is the better default. If someone chose to install the drones mod its because they want drones :D. Having it later pretty much would require a factory redesign and I'm not sure thats a great thing to force on players.