In my game, several of the graphics are missing, both the icons in the build menu, the tech tree, and even as buildings on the map.

Am I alone here? Or am I missing some prerequisite add-ons?

Seems like it's not just graphics, either. The nursery only says "Resource" and "Result" for the input and output tooltips.

The tooltip issue is both intended and unfixable, because the only way to make a machine not require a recipe is to hide it as a furnace. If you look at any other mod, the tooltips for these kinds of buildings are the same. (Examples: Angel's Flare Stack, Vanilla furnaces.

The other issue that you present is a concern however. I have installed the latest version or NPBees redux on many machines, in many iterations of 0.16, and have not encountered this issue. I strongly doubt that this is your fault, because missing graphics should stick out like a sore thumb.

Could you tell me a few more details about the missing sprites?
What operating system do you use?
Exactly what sprites are missing?
What version of Factorio are you using?
Thank you

PS: If anyone else experiences this bug, please tell give me the three details above in this discussion.

BTW, Factorio crashes if it can't find sprites

Actually, I just had a theory about why this bug is happening. In my mod, sprites are generated based on the color you see when you look at an ore in the map. It's possible that another mod is adding ores without setting the minimap color. This might explain why only some of the sprites are missing. To test this, could you also give me your mods list?

Hi - thanks for the quick response.

I started a new game with all other mods turned off, and also by loading various previous versions of your mod (and also NPBees "original" going back to version 16.30 IIRC). All the versions I tested have the same issue.

I'm wondering if it's something to do with the PNG itself, since, as you point out, Factorio would exit if it couldn't find the file.

It's as if the entire PNG is just a transparent image.

For example, I created an Apiary, and Factorio will render the Vertical (n-apiary-v2.png) entity on the map, but not when rotated horizontally (it just disappears, but I can still place the building).

All the building entities are affected (both as icons in the build menu, and also as buildings on the map, when placed and as ghosts). All the larvae are also affected. The "bee" icons are all fine.

I was playing on a Mac laptop, factorio version 16.36.

Hmm, it must have something to do with you using Mac, and me picking the wrong sort of layering. This is a big problem though, because I don't have access to Mac. I think the only way to debug this is to ask another modder for help, or find a Mac somehow.

It might be something strange in Factorio itself, because I can view the graphics with Preview (the mac program ).

Out of interest, I opened apiary-h.png and apiary-v2.png (from graphics/entity/) in Preview, then I used "File/Export" on both. For the first one, I see options for depth (16 bits/channel or 8 bits/channel), but for v2, I don't see that option. (Factorio will display -v2 png, but not the -h one).

I also recalled that the honey and propolis icons work, but most of the other icons don't.

So I checked them, and it seems that all the icons that work have no option to select depth on export, but the ones that break do.

I'm going to save all of these as 8bit PNGs, when I get home later, to see if that fixes the issue for me, and I'll get back to you.

Saving in 8bit depth seems to have fixed the issue.

This is definitely the solution. Exporting all the graphics in 8bits/channel instead of 16 completely fixed my problems on the Mac. I suspect that this is a problem with Factorio itself.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics

"The scanning of pixel values for binary transparency is supposed to be performed before any color reduction to avoid pixels' becoming unintentionally transparent. This is most likely to pose an issue for systems that can decode 16-bits-per-channel images (as they must to be compliant with the specification) but only output at 8 bits per channel (the norm for all but the highest end systems)."

Alright, this was very useful. Can I send a prototype version of the mod to you with these changes?

missing graphics may also be the cause of this mod not playing nice with Research Queue, which crashes when trying to use it to research technology from NPBees. This could be a naming problem, or actually because the icons aren't there. not sure. But to ensure mod compatibility, check that graphic sizes and naming conventions are correct.

Well, my tech doesn't use icons. It uses a body of a bee layered with wings and stripes that are tinted based on ore colors. I think this is not my fault, because it seems Research Queue can't deal with layered sprites. I will post a bug report.