first, let me say how much i curse and enjoy this mod at the same time. it brings back all the problems and personal achievements when i could solve even the smallest problem, that i had on my first playthrough of the vanilla game :-)
i have to agree to everything that Kryzeth said.
btw: i also play with some QoL mods like even distribution, picker suite, burner leech, and handy hands which is quite handy to automatically in the background of my backpack keeps some stock of seeds, wood and other basic items.

but there are some details that look unfinished or that need some more balancing ...
(maybe something is caused by those other mods that i use, but i hope that the following is correct)

the tech tree (and the items made available by some techs) has some inconsistencies. this is not game stopping, but was confusing to me since i researched some techs where the newly available items couldn't be produced unless i first did some more researches which had the researched tech as prerequisite, eg :
- "logistic science pack" tech enables logistic science pack items, but to create those items, fish fillet is needed which becomes available only two techs later (after "automation 2" and then "fish")
- "chemical science pack" tech enables chemical science pack items, but to create those items fish fat is needed which becomes available with "big fish" tech (after dna and after spider tech), and it requires some mixed science fluid which also becomes available only later (after science mixed fluid 1)

for quite some time, i used only the most simple recipes to make seeds from wood and wood from seeds. then i looked up how i could produce more and/or faster, but was confused again:

1 assembler makes 3 seeds from 1 wood in 12 seconds. and using fertilizer 1 assembler makes 6 seeds from 1 wood and 1 fertilizer in the same time. thus i can double production by having two assemblers with the simple recipe (very simple to do), or by using 1 wood (corresponds to one such simple assembler) plus 1 fertilizer. to make this worthwile, making the fertilizer shouldn't cost more than setting up one assembler and using 1 wood as ingredient.

BUT 1 fertilizer is made in 50 seconds (thus requires 4-5 assemblers to make one in 12 seconds), and it is made from 1 ash and 1 paper which both are made available in another branch of the tech tree ("fuel lamp", see prerequisite problems above). 1 ash is made from 1 paper in 60 seconds (thus needs 5 burner light sources to make the 1 ash in 12 seconds), and to make 2 paper (1 directly, one for the ash) 2.5 chemplants are needed (it requires 20 seconds). and finally, the maybe 9-12(?) fibers for the paper can be made in one chemplant from 3-4 wood.

i got headaches now after finding all these production chains and calculating it in my head only (please excuse me if numbers are a bit off, but they should clearly show the problem i have with them). in total, maybe 10% or 20% wood can be saved, for the cost of operating maybe 14 machines, lots of inserters, and all their additional need for fuel which is more than only 1 or 2 wood. in summary, i don't see that fertilizer is worth the effort.

speaking of all those little items like fibers, rods, and several fish products, i remember one more annoying detail: for the seeds there is a setting in the mod options whether they have a fuel value and thus are very easily consumed by inserters. but the same also applies to all those little items which have no such setting. could we please get a setting to disable all fuel values for items that have by default less than maybe 1kJ (not even providing enough power to keep the inserter running).

the heat mechanics are a really nice idea and a challenge since we usually don't have to pay a lot of attention to it. but after trying to use the heated inserters, i gave up on using them: they need 116-125 degrees, and the limiting heatpipe causes a max of 120. as a result, there may be max 3 heatpipes, inserters or assemblers directly behind that reduction pipe (eg reduction-assembler-corner-inserter). with all the inserters that are needed anyway to feed machines and get the scrap, there is not much space left, and heatpipes cause even more space to be used (there are no underground heatpipes). wouldn't it be possible to have a little wider usable range than only 116-120 to be able to use heated inserters more easily (eg reduction, 3 assemblers, 3 pipes between and behind them, cause a temperature loss of 8 degrees; range of at least 111-120 would be nice).

Hey Anson_AKB,
this "problem" with the tech tree isnt it. My idea is, first the bottle (player see "ohh new stage" with a new thema) and then all recipe for the bottle. Okay isnt realistic, but... have a structured.

This with the "better seeds" recipe is a fake. Have you a dark night need the player light. Ash is a terrible item but you have 2 plan. 1: all in a chest and destroy. 2: ash - > seeds. 2 version is better but you have right, not a good recipe :p.

With your optional option seed dont have a fuel value, your idea is great. Change in the next update.

And the heat inserter... Hmmm, maybe I change it,... maybe....

And check out this discord for more information: https://discord.gg/Md5kuhu

ah, thanks for the answers ...

as you have explained the tech tree now, it makes sense, although it was a bit confusing since the devs had introduced special researches for the science bottles, (as i understood it) to clearly separate the researches which didn't need this new bottle yet from the techs afterwards. but i grant you that in the end this might be a similar problem if you first research some techs that have no useful application until you research the bottle. with your method and before your answer, i felt a bit robbed of time and effort since (even after 28 hours) i am just producing red and green science with only 1 or 2 assemblers (instead of the usual 5+6 or 10+12 :-) and i move the pistols for military by hand :-)

only now, with this new knowledge did i notice that all branches require this science bottle and thus are locked, except for the two branches which lead to the two techs that are required to make chem bottles (one 1 tech down the branch, the other 3 techs down another branch). maybe it would help a bit if those two branches wouldn't be mixed with the other branches but were the only techs right behind the new bottle, and all other techs that require chem bottles had these two branches as requirement. (otoh, this mod is probably meant to be a bit harder and to surprise people, which i generally enjoy too :-)

i use NO mods that increase the light, but in my factory are enough boilers and smelters to see during dusk and dawn, and my flashlight is good enough for the few hours in between. thus i had skipped the fuel lamp and later had to search the tech tree where i can get fibers for the fishing pole. but even then i only used the fibers and no lights, mostly since i still didn't need them, and partially because i didn't know how they work (the tech tree does not show where paper is used, where ash is produced, and that lamps are machines that "craft" something). Even if i had known, i probably wouldn't have used lights when they need additional belts to be supplied with items and take away other items. there is simply too much "inserter spaghetti" in my base to add non-essential additional belts just for light.

i also was a bit baffled when i saw the second set of recipes for converting seeds and wood: for wood>soft time is identical and only 1 wood is replaced by 1 fertilizer; for soft>hard the time is halved, but 1 fertilizer is added to the 2 wood; and for seed>wood there are no recipes with fertilizer. thus fertilizer might help a little to grow seed from wood, but doesn't help at all when growing trees for wood from the seeds. (at first i also had not seen the production times of the second recipe for wood>coal :-)
to give an incentive for all people who don't use many lights (to not skip fertilizer), maybe production times could be improved for making seeds (with fertilizer) and paper, as well as reducing times for making wood and/or making more wood from the same number of seeds when adding fertilizer there too, maybe ending up in matching the improved production by the better charcoal recipe (110>80 = -27%) so that the same number of piles can still be used ?
(i have to start using lights now, to test how sooty i will become, and how much ash is really produced in a factory :-)
those are things that you probably have tested a lot while everything that i write are only my impressions during my first playthrough of this mod ...

"low energy items" (besides seeds which already have that option) which i already have found: 500J for paper, and 100J each for fiber, paper, fish bones and fish shit. burning them in inserters might be a nice method to get rid of them :-) but creates lots of problems while there are no electric inserters yet. thanks for improving this!

whether you change heat inserters (giving them a lower min heat) mostly is a matter of your opinion, but having the heat limiter at 120 and a higher max temperature of heat inserters at 125 makes no sense. maybe you had the limiter at 125 at first in an older version and thus an old range of 116-125 would result in exactly the same width of the range (and length of "lowheat" heatpipes/heatinserters/assemblers) that i have suggested (111-120).

ps: I'm not yet on discord. didn't use any voice applications for several years since my computer somehow always generates the infamous "Netzbrumm" (that annoys others and myself) no matter which kind of headset or mic i had used, and now they all are old, broken and rotten. thus i can now have radio, tv or yt running in the background all day long :-)

The low energy items are fixed now, but fishshit or bones not. You need this for a recipe and the residual for..... Hmmmm,... heat. ;)

You become a special information for the next update. Plastic bar become a recycling system.... ;)

(I had no idea that you featured me in your description, and I am super proud about that. Anyways~)

Just a random aside, is there a possibility to change the name of "fishshit" to something a little less... slangy? Maybe something a bit more technical, or official.. because the term "fishshit" just sounds so improper, and completely out of place among Factorio.

Maybe something like fish waste.. fish feces.. apparently "detritus" is the official term for fish fecal matter, according to this thread about fishkeeping. I'm not sure how "official-sounding" the term you're using in German is, but it would be nice to have something a little less.. jarring, for the English version.

Hey Kryzeth,

your idea with "fish feces" for "fish shit" is great. Change in the next update :) . The word "detritus" I didnt know

PS: I change in german the word too.... for professional gameplay ;)