Q: Is this a mod of excellent quality?
A: It seems pretty all right! This is the second Factorio mod that I have released, and even though I am not a programmer, it seems pretty decent by now, both in terms of its basic functions and mod compatibility.
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: How compatible is this mod with other mods?
A: The mod changes parameters of all entities (vanilla and modded) that belong to the "mining-drill" prototype (this includes the mining drills with solid output and the pumpjacks with fluid output). Most mods will probably change parameters before their values are multiplied or added to by this mod, but their changes may not be picked up if they, too, load at the third (and last) data load stage. That may be fixable, though, by pointing out the mod so I can add it as an optional dependency, making it load first. Quite a few mods have already been checked and added.
Any mining drill with a mining area no more than 1x1 are excluded from having that area increased further, along with two mining drills in particular from the mod Tiny Mining Drill. Temporary fixes to some parameter values have been provided for the mods Mini Miner, and Big Pumpjack. And if you discover that there are drills, which you don't actually want to change, you can add them to a comma-separated list in Startup Settings, optionally with prefixes to exclude just their mining speed, mining area size or module slot amount (made to work with Cursed Filter Mining Drill as well).
The mods "Instant Mining Drill" and "Mining Drill Bigger Area", which this mod was originally based on, have been marked as incompatible, since they just further multiply values.
Q: Wait, how do I find the internal name of a mining drill for the manual exclusion feature?
A: One way is to activate Debug Settings in-game by pressing F4, then select show-debug-info-in-tooltips. Hovering the mouse over an entity should now display its internal name at the bottom of the tooltip.
Q: Are you going to change or expand on the mod?
A: No particular plans right now, aside from fixing bugs and improving mod compatibility. Feedback is welcome.