Q: Is this a mod of excellent quality?
A: I think so! This is my third Factorio mod, and I am not a programmer, but it seems pretty decent by now. This feels like my first "proper" mod, because I studied the game files, wrote and structured the mod from scratch, while thinking carefully about what I want this mod to do.

Q: Why make this mod?
A: My main purpose for this mod is to make the game less tedious and space-consuming, without destroying game balance. I am all about exploring the relations between machines, but have little interest in long rows of machines that do the exact same, trivial thing. This mod helps me focus on what I consider the core gameplay of designing neat, complex factories.

Q: Sounds great! Are you going to change or expand on the mod?
A: Thank you. I haven't quite decided yet. I think it could be really nice if the mining drill had an inherent filter function, but that is probably way too difficult for me to figure out. Aside from that, it would be nice to find some easy way to deal with the extreme fluctuations on the power network, whenever a fast mining drill is underutilized (because it annoys me). I can limit power to it through an array of accumulators, but... euhrm! It will give low energy priority to the mining drills too...

Q: Does the mod really scale properly?
A: Yes! The mod does not change productivity, but the base mining speed. Power consumption, pollution rate and optionally recipe cost scales with it.

Q: How compatible is this mod with similar mods?
A: Mod conflicts should be few, since this mod adds a separate entity, the Custom Electric Mining Drill, and applies all changes to it. In principle, it works with my other mod, Configurable Mining Drills as well.

Q: I noticed that the mining drill doesn't produce any smoke!
A: That's not a question. But yeah, it's a small bug of sorts with the mining drill. If the mining speed is set very high so it produces ore faster than it can offload them onto a belt, the animation slows down (actually the drill turns on and off really quickly), and thus the smoke animation will never get started for real. I don't think I can do anything about it.