Hi!

I'm currently working on a new mod and have several other mod ideas that all revolve around the same idea of allowing a "true pacifist mode", but for Space Age. (Didn't know about your mod until yesterday when I searched for the term "pacifist", and a day later I see that it got an update ^^)

I generally like it that Space Age gives a lot of the military technologies an alternative non-violent use for space travel, because I always felt like "there's this whole branch of research that you simply don't need when you want to play without enemies, I wish there was some other use for it" and now there is. But it still feels weird to research military technology and unlock shotguns etc. when you just need to defend against asteroids in space...

My initial ideas were just small non-invasive mods, like hiding technologies and recipes that are useless when playing without enemies, while still keeping the types of turrets that can be used against asteroids, and otherwise keeping the tech tree unmodified (so you still need to research Military 1-4, but your crafting menu stays free of useless weapons or combat equipment). Another idea was to rename biter eggs, pentapod eggs, captive biter spawners etc. into something that doesn't directly imply exploitation of the native fauna, although the graphics and mechanics are still the same... Then I also thought about making an entire overhaul mod, partially based on these smaller mods, but with more drastic changes to the technology tree, fully removing biters, replacing the military science stuff, etc., essentially something similar to your mod, but for Space Age.

I'd be curious what you think about these ideas, and whether you think they could fit into your mod while still keeping the spirit of your mod, or whether this is completely out of scope and makes more sense as a completely separate mod. Maybe we could even collaborate in some way, I don't know. 😅

Hi, I like your ideas!
"Hiding technologies and recipes that are useless" is just what this mod does (or rather removing them). It would not take too much effort to actually go ahead and tell pacifist to keep specific entities and their technologies for space age. I have that mechanism already in place for mods like blueprint shotgun and others that introduce non-military guns and ammo.
I have yet to see what happens if I let the "remove units and their spawners" mechanism loose on Gleba and Vulcanus. In any case, we'd need a new source for biter and pentapod eggs.
The renaming part would be less of an issue, I think, that's among the easier tasks.

In general, I think if we find a concept where Pacifist leaves some things in for Space Age without major adjustments to the rest of it, that would be within the scope of the mod. If we require major tweaks then I'd opt for a separate mod that does the other tweaks but can rely on the mechanisms Pacifist provides to remove entities, items, technologies etc.
Pacifist's compatibility mechanism for other mods is quite modular (see https://github.com/Derpumu/Pacifist/blob/0.6.0/docs/compatibility.md), and I am considering to allow other mods to define their Pacifist configuration without Pacifist having to do anything.

I'd be happy to chat and brainstorm with you about the possibilities, you can find me on the Factorio Discord :-)

So, after some brainstorming with you and others, here is a boiled down concept of what would need to be done:

Weapons:

The only weapons we should need are turrets against asteroids. No flamers and tesla turrets, though, as asteroids have 100% resistance for those. Lasers have limited application, I would be willing to add those optionally.

• Turrets should be only placeable on space platforms
• Projectile defense (aka gun turrets) and their ammo should be available with thrusters
• Laser turrets (if applicable) should be available for research after thrusters
• Damage and shooting speed upgrades should only be available after the corresponding turrets and ammo
• Technologies that in vanilla Space Age require only military science but no space science should require space science instead
• The first few levels of projectile bonuses (red/green science only) should be removed, maybe buff turret damage accordingly
• Rocket turrets stay as they are, but rockets themselves are unlocked when the turrets are. Rocket turret tech is available after explosives and carbon fiber
• Railguns stay as they are.

Gleba:

• small and normal egg rafts should be mineable instead of having to whack them to death, mining yields pentapod eggs
• pentapod eggs yield spoilage instead of nothing when spoiled

Nauvis:

Having a rocket launcher only for the capture bot "rocket" may seem weird, and without weapons the only way to get rid of spawners is arduous boxing or driving a tank through them (but tanks are optional), so here are some alternatives to consider:

minable spawners

• the capture bot is replaced by a normal item (same ingredients)
• spawners become mineable and yield an "alien bio mesh" item (name is WIP)
• combine the bio mesh and the capture bot replacement to get a placeable captured spawner
• the Aquilo tech for the captured spawner instead gives a recipe for bio mesh (same ingredients minus the capture bot)
  That way, we can create captured spawners without a one-off rocket launcher. It makes the mechanic a bit easier as it allows us to pick up biter nests.

Throwable capture bot

• convert the capture bot into a kind of grenade (not sure of that's possible), remove the rocket launcher, keep everything as it is

Leave things as they are

• except rocket launcher is unlocked together with the capture bot and can only launch the bot, not actual rockets

Misc

• Spidertron is built without the rocket launchers in Pacifist+vanilla, but in SA it has a rocket turret as ingredient. While those are available as rocket defense, it does not make much sense to have a rocket turret as an ingredient in something that does not shoot rockets. In order for the Spidertron to make sense that late in the tech tree, have it depend on carbon fiber as tech prerequisite and ingredient instead of rocket turrets.

And of course the usual cosmetics - renaming of a few things, changing technology descriptions, maybe a graphics touch-up for one or two things.

This would be a bit more tweaking than usual but not enough to warrant a separate mod, so I think it should be implemented in Pacifist itself.

I am more than happy to discuss alternatives though :-)

I think we solved it and it's implemented as described - marking this as resolved.