Hi.

When loading in version 0.18.31 I get unfortunately
following error message:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vErNp9bGqU01bJjgX3I5aQ3hnLINFQiX/view?usp=sharing

I use some mods. Amongst other things
Krastorio 2
Space exploration
And many others.

Thanks for reporting.
Whoops... Missed one conditions check.
Should be fixed in 0.18.2.

Oh great! Thank you!
Then I can reactivate the mod. :)

I read in your other post that you recommended your Mod Schall Alien Tech. Is it also compatible with Krastorio 2 and SE? I use a couple of your Schall Mods. Also Schall Alien Loot. But I don't know which could possibly upset the balance.

I am not sure about Krastorio 2, as I have never installed it.

Tested with the old Krastorio (Legacy), my whole mod set have worked with it. No crashes or whatsoever.
Played with the SE a bit with my whole mod set. Have been running quite smoothly.

Schall Alien Loot makes the aliens dropping alien ores and alien artifacts on death. Alien ores can be "morphed" into the vanilla ores (stone, coal, copper/iron/uranium ores) to supplement the resources. The loot amount can be adjusted to your taste, so don't worry too much loots make your game too simple too easy. :-)
Alien artifacts can still be used as vanilla ores, or can be turned to alien science pack for the new technologies of Schall Alien Tech, which is mainly on the military side. It includes MK3 armor and equipment, which is "mild" upgrade over vanilla MK2. It also includes various particle weapons that adds more varieties to tanks and turrets. They will make the mid to late game slightly more entertaining and relaxing, but still far from being OP.
These two mods do not interfere with old Krastorio and SE, nor compete for resources that much. I would say they could co-exist together.

I know Krastorio 2 as the first Krastorio mod.
I never played Krastorio Legacy. Before that it was "Industrial Revolution". So my first big mod package.
I came across your mods by a friend. He put together a mod package that included your mods.
When I started my own world, I took over a few of them. Schall pickup tower was added later.
Unfortunately I had to add the other mod "SchallPickupTowerEasier" later. The alien attacks became so numerous that I had thousands of alien ores in front of my walls. And I still couldn't get the PickupTower.
Do you know the feeling that you have a mod that you like, but because an important instrument takes forever to get at it, does the mod start to annoy you? That's what happened to Alien Loot.
It shouldn't be a criticism of your mod. Please don't get it wrong.
The pickup tower is simply a must if you play with Alien Loot.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. I'm going to install Schall Alien Tech. I've always wondered what to do with the alien artifacts ... convert to ores? Hmm. Found it wasteful.
With Schall Alien Tech it makes sense!
And always new weapons to make the aliens fire under the butt are really cool. ;)
Especially if you play "rail world" with activated alien expansion. :D

Thanks for the experience sharing.
I may revise the tech cost of pickup towers when I have time. Maybe will do a mod option to allow it researched earlier, have to see...
When they were inserted to the tech tree, I put theme consideration to higher preference. There are only two vanilla entities that have similar "wide area" effect: substation (large power range) and beacon (large module range). Beacon comes even much later, so I picked substation. I feel the power to retrieve things from range is very powerful (as least not yet possible IRL), so I do not want it appear too early. Substation tech cost seems fitting my taste (as a "veteran" player)... Also I thought getting substation is about the time when players begin to get everything automated.
Note that I also have Schall Remains & Pickup for quick manual pickup in early game.

Yea, one of my motivation to Schall Alien Tech, is to give the revived alien artifact and alien science pack some uses. Pre-removal in vanilla (0.14) have them as very late game item, but it means they are useless in major parts of the game.
Another motivation comes from the game is forcing players to put a lot of resources to feed the defenses (or lots of laser turrets that makes the combat part monotonic...) The idea is that what's left by aliens will partly contribute to defeat the aliens.
So I created such mod trying to fulfill my both wishes.

I already use the mod "Schall Remains & Pickup". It is extremely useful to collect the surrounding items with a key combination.
And, I also have to agree with you. For Factorio veterans it is of course easy to explore the Pickup Tower.
I count myself as Factorio veterans. Because I know the game well and have had it for a few years. My game hours also speak for themselves.
But I don't play my game like anyone else. I don't rush my game. I take it easy. Sometimes I just tinker. And consider how I build something. Of course, this leads to very long hours of play until I'm technologically advanced.
Depending on how hairy the attacks are, I am also very busy defending. I like to make it difficult for myself ...
That is why early research into the pickup towers would actually be useful to me. Unfortunately, you cannot collect everything by hand. I can show you a photo of one of my defensive walls. How many alien ores are lying around.
Maybe you could install some kind of light version of the pickup tower. Which can be unlocked with red, green, and perhaps the military packages. Of these, you need a whole battery of pickup towers on a defensive wall in order to be able to work across the board. And the ores are then picked up via inserters and conveyor belts.
And the really good ones, of which you need significantly less on a wall, and with logistics pickup, are researched with the higher research packages. And the further they have been improved, the more efficient and faster they are, and the greater their range.
So just as an idea from me ...

I also liked the factorio developers' earlier idea of ​​collecting alien artifacts to explore more technology. Now that the developers have taken this out, the aliens basically have no point in fighting them. Some players switch off the aliens completely because they have become unimportant.

I also liked the factorio developers' earlier idea of collecting alien artifacts to explore more technology. Now that the developers have taken this out, the aliens basically have no point in fighting them. Some players switch off the aliens completely because they have become unimportant.

Similar to Krastorio 2. The creep. You have to fight the aliens (at least initially) to get biomass.
Your mod does the same. Alien artifacts are needed to get the higher level and powerful machinery and equipment. That makes it less "OP", but more balanced.

But defeating the aliens is an impossible goal. ;)
But should also be so. I need the action on the war front. :D

I already use the mod "Schall Remains & Pickup". It is extremely useful to collect the surrounding items with a key combination.
And, I also have to agree with you. For Factorio veterans it is of course easy to explore the Pickup Tower.
I count myself as Factorio veterans. Because I know the game well and have had it for a few years. My game hours also speak for themselves.
But I don't play my game like anyone else. I don't rush my game. I take it easy. Sometimes I just tinker. And consider how I build something. Of course, this leads to very long hours of play until I'm technologically advanced.
Depending on how hairy the attacks are, I am also very busy defending. I like to make it difficult for myself ...
That is why early research into the pickup towers would actually be useful to me. Unfortunately, you cannot collect everything by hand. I can show you a photo of one of my defensive walls. How many alien ores are lying around.
Maybe you could install some kind of light version of the pickup tower. Which can be unlocked with red, green, and perhaps the military packages. Of these, you need a whole battery of pickup towers on a defensive wall in order to be able to work across the board. And the ores are then picked up via inserters and conveyor belts.
And the really good ones, of which you need significantly less on a wall, and with logistics pickup, are researched with the higher research packages. And the further they have been improved, the more efficient and faster they are, and the greater their range.
So just as an idea from me ...

I also liked the factorio developers' earlier idea of ​​collecting alien artifacts to explore more technology. Now that the developers have taken this out, the aliens basically have no point in fighting them. Some players switch off the aliens completely because they have become unimportant.

Similar to Krastorio 2. The creep. You have to fight the aliens (at least initially) to get biomass.
Your mod does the same. Alien artifacts are needed to get the higher level and powerful machinery and equipment. That makes it less "OP", but more balanced.

But defeating the aliens is an impossible goal. ;)
But should also be so. I need the action on the war front. :D

Can you delete the duplicate post?
I don't know how it happened ...
Sorry ... :(

There is no function to handle (including editing or removal) other's posts. But it is okay.

I will look into the tech cost and prerequisite thing, after I finish the high priority tasks first.

What you mentioned is right. The devs has abandoned the combat aspect since 0.15. Removal of alien artifact means no longer any incentives to fight aliens. I have read some dev posts that they really mentioned NO plans to touch the combat part until 1.0... And no updates in this aspect since then, except for making the already-OP personal laser defense even lower in energy consumption...
The removal of alien artifact was the actual cause that I started to create Schall Alien Loot and Schall Alien Tech. I want to get back this part of the game.

Peaceful mode is great for the learners and more relaxing players. But definitely not for more demaning players, like me. :-D

Annoying with the post ... Well, okay.

Nope, not for me either. :D
It's not for nothing that I take in mods that make the aliens even nastier than they can already be.
I need it. Otherwise I'm bored. :D
But you're right. For learners, and those players who want to build in peace, is the peaceful mode.
Your mods "Schall Alien Loot" and "Schall Alien Tech" have their reason for existence.
Hmm, theoretically you could write a mod that makes the alien science packages important for reaching the missile silo again. Similar as before version 0.15.
For those players who miss that.
Your mods are currently an "optional" target.
And for the ultimate challenge, you go alien hunting.

May I ask what you have planned and is on your agenda?
Or is it currently secret?

I'm curious what is planned for 1.0 ...
Hopefully they won't make Factorio weak.
It's the best game I've ever played ...
I actually hoped Factorio would never finish. Because I have the experience, finished games are no longer developed.
Of course, mod developers always bring something new. Only the game stays on its stand forever. And that would be very sad for a great game like Factorio ...

Not secret actually. :-D
There are two main mods I am trying to finish, before 1.0 comes out.
First one is about railway management, to help spotting trains in trouble (no path, no fuel, waited too long, etc.) and put schedule into trains with a more intuitive and comfortable way. I found the vanilla train GUI or others' train mods not particularly helpful for such purposes. They do not have filters such that the GUI shows only the broken trains.
Second one is about different sizes of lamp and circuit entities, for more useful applications of signal controls.
There are a few more planned major mods in my documents, but it is highly unlikely they can be finished before 1.0...

I guess and hope that the devs will continue some development after 1.0 release.
But yet, based on reading dev's posts and replies, I have the feeling that the devs think Factorio is focused on industry and building. They do not care about the combat system much. Otherwise, they won't remove alien artifact and alien science pack in the first place...
Maybe devs like Klonan will pay attention to that, and some of his mods will be "integrated" to base game. I do not expect other devs will do much to that.
As always, the pace of further development will gradually slow down after official release, as the team will eventually shift to other projects. This is unavoidable...

That sounds very interesting and useful.
I have already asked myself why there is no better train control. I would also like to see where each train is. And why he is not at the destination. LTN does not provide an overview of where which train is. But the management mod for LTN brings more clarity.
Which I also find very unfortunate ... In the past, when you switched the map in the train GUI, you could follow the train while it was traveling. It does not work anymore. And I miss that.
The map overview alone is not enough for me.

What kind of circuit elements and lamps do you install? More virtual signals too? And what about lamp colors?
I have often looked for mods that bring more lamp colors. But I only know Dectorio.
Dectorio is also quite good. But I just wanted more colors at the moment.

Version 1.0 is no longer very far. I also read that the developers want to continue working afterwards. But I think it will only be small things. Nothing really new anymore.
When it comes to elements like battles, Factorio players will have to rely on mod developers like you.
When I think of the beginnings of Factorio ... Unfortunately I didn't know Factorio yet. The biter was still zombies. You were attacked by zombie hordes. : D Oh yes, the times ...
I know Klonan. He seems to be the only co-developer who also creates mods on the side. Wouldn't be surprised if some of his mods were integrated later. Similar to the laser beam for the laser turret.
Will he still do mods later on his own? Remains to be seen ...
Yes, Factorio will soon be a finished project. Unfortunately ...
There will definitely not be a Factorio 2. I'm sure ...
For this, Factorio has the largest modder community ever. In addition to games like Minecraft, for example ...

That sounds encouraging to me. At least one user will find this useful then. ;-)
There are a few ultra-popular train management mods out there, so I am surprised that none of them provide this feature.
I also miss the train following feature. I wanted to make an OpenTTD train windows feature, where users can view the selected trains in action. Unfortunately, it is not available in API of current versions.

The lamp and circuit entities mod is about different sizes. My first motivation is that I love to use such as digital display at train stations and critical belts, to show the number of items stored and item in/out speed respectively. Each digit takes 3×5 tiles, and normally it takes at least three digits for a single type of item. However, the space around train stations and mainbus is usually very tight and valuable. I have tried a few "digit display lamp" (e.g., Nixie tube), but they are not UPS-healthy, unforutnately.
So I want to make a mod to provide especially lamps in "sub-tile" size. Obviously, the tile-alignment can no longer be used. But off-tile free-placement is pretty bad for use cases like mine (lamp array in grids). OCD placement is required. So the difficult part for me is to handle these things...
There are other uses like lamp animations. Factorio performs worse when zoom out too much (by console commands or some mods) to view more "pixels". So finer "pixel size" provided by my planned mod will allow these talented artist to create animations of higher "resolution".

It will not contain any new colours or signals, as I already have Schall Virtual Signal adding them. There are currently not much new colours, just the tertiary colours. I can always add more colour signals if demanded. All you need to do is post a colour request list, which should contains RGB code and name of the new colours.

Factorio is considered almost finished, so any hopes on major changes can only be in a new project...
One thing I really want is height. Something like laying underground pipes and cables in lower layers. On the combat aspect, turrets on hills can shoot further away.
My expected approach about height is like "Gnomoria", or its parent "Dwarf Fortress". A counter example would be "Satisfactory", where the first person view took away the feeling that I am managing a factory to mass produce things, turning the game into more like an adventure game. This is not what I wished for...
I do not know what Wube team will be targeting after Factorio. If they are going for another industry management game, I hope the above is the direction they will look into.

Yes, but definitely! I'm sure I won't be the only player looking for such a feature.
To be honest, I don't currently know of any train management mod.
Can you somehow recreate that? I would really like such a "train following feature" back.

I really appreciate the mod "Nixie Tubes". I love to connect them to chests and to see the content in real time.
Next to it an industrial display plate with the respective icon.
After your explanation I would say it sounds like an extension for your mod "Schall Lamp Contrast".
Based on displays, lamps and signals.
I also like to use the LTN Mod. I want as much control as possible over my moving trains.
And if you could build a device that works similar to Nixie Tubes, that would be awesome.
I don't know how to express myself properly in English. English is a little difficult for me ...
After your name, I would say you probably speak German. But I know that I can / should only write English here ...
Therefore I will try to articulate correctly.

I saw the lamp animation. I do not know how such a thing is possible ... Only an animation from lamps ...
The maker is an artist!
Sounds like your planned mod would be a useful helper mod for other modders. Similar to Earendel's Informatron. He offers other modders an in-game tutorial, tips and tricks and guidelines for mods.
And if your mod helps others, it could result in some more mod wonders. Also in the field of art.

If you already have a first prototype of this mod, I would be happy to try it out.

This is a problem with new lamp colors. Unfortunately, the lamps do not show all vanilla colors. And I miss that, I have to say. Or does that work in your mod?
I have now tried to make Klonan's Mod "Expanded Color Lamps" work for 0.18. There are some colors that are also accepted by the lamps.
Unfortunately, I have no idea about modding. As a hobby I wrote my own local mod for German. She translates some mods I like into German. But that's all I understand about how something works ...

Hmm, I somehow don't believe that Wube Software is aiming for a subsequent project that brings Factorio to a similar dimension as Satisfactory.
Evil tongues would say that Coffe Stain Studios brought a factor into a 3D world in first-person perspective.
Multiple levels would be really useful in Factorio.
Only available as a mod. Only without the ability to lay undergrond pipes from the lower level. Let alone connect the levels. In this mod you can even build a missile silo in the normal level, but a flying island on the level above. It is also not what's imagine. Well ...
Or the range bonus if there are turrets on hills or cliffs. The engine will not be able to do that. Of course, Wube Software could have used a different engine, but they chose it.

It remains to be seen what Wube Software will do in the future. They grew up with Factorio. Either they stick to the topic "factory" or they switch to something completely different.

I can only think of two ways for possible train follow feature, both involve heavy scripting...
1/ One is to remove current player character and place a new one into the train. The disadvantages are user can only control one train (so no split screen multiple train windows like in OpenTTD, and the side effect that user can abuse it to do magical teleportation, and user can die when the train is destroyed.
2/ Another one is to use on_tick event to move camera every a few ticks. The disadvantage is that it can be a bit UPS consuming. Other controls like zooming will be bothersome to add, since they are not provided built-in.
Have to say I am not favourable to both solutions.

My circuit mod will work just like vanilla entities. Users have to use them like vanilla, and design circuits just like vanilla.
Nixie tube is not UPS-efficient enough, that is why I do that.

I prefer to write in English, as it is the language where most amount of users can read. But I can also reply in German or Chinese, if a user chooses to write that way.

For the bug you mentioned about vanilla signals on lamps, is it about my Schall Virtual Signal? Or it being in conflict with your mod set? Or nothing related to it?
I tried "Expanded Color Lamps" before, but I do not like its colours are not in any particularly that makes sense. It makes next to unusable in many colour display circuits applications, where the order (priority) of colours are very important (Vanilla signals also suffer from this, actually). This is why I created my own above-mentioned mod, and gave features like colour order sorting (e.g., colour hue).

Good to know the info.
Yeah I wished for that, but I know it is unlikely to happen, especially when the 2D Factorio and 3D Satisfactory are already in place. The yet-another-game of genre after such short time is not going to attract as much attention. Not to say that 3D graphics (models, etc) is requiring more investments.
Another factor to Factorio's success, IMO, is modding. At least for me, after finishing first few games (from vanilla to slightly modded) and felt bored, I decided to make my own mods. It kept me interested in the game. If the game is 3D, the modding difficulty (mainly about making 3D models) will probably scare off me. Probably I would have already uninstalled the game after finishing it twice, and never touch that again...

Hmm, difficult ...
But how did the developers put that in before? The program code must still exist somewhere.

There is an avatar mod from another mod developer.
I know you can hop from one body to another with "your soul". Okay, bad example ...
Then there is a Timelaps Mod. It takes a photo every game day. And it automatically moves the camera back and forth when you set that.
Maybe not the best example. But do you know what I'm getting at?
It proves there are plenty of ways to build persecutions. Or a kind of teleport of the body.
But first and foremost, I think the code for the previous tracking window must still exist somewhere.
Or can you ask the Factorio developers? Klonan, maybe.
As is well known, he develops some practical functions himself.

I tell you, when they removed the feature from Vanilla, I spent half an hour turning on train tracking mode. It took me half an hour to realize that it no longer exists ...

Nixie-Tubes is not UPS-efficient? Oh, I didn't know. Nevertheless, I like to use them. I love to see at a glance how much is in my chests.
Or is your system similar and also shows such information?
In a YouTube project of mine and two colleagues, we had to throw out Nixie tubes because it caused a crash and threw our savegame 30 minutes into the past ... That was a nuisance! The recording was ruined ...
Unfortunately, the developer of this mod no longer cares. :(

Do you speak fluent Chinese (Mandarin) yourself?
Or do you also translate that with translators?
I would prefer German. I can express myself better about that.

I tried both mods. Yours and the old ones from Klonan.
The signals are recognized, no problem. But the lamps don't shine in color. Only the vanilla colors are accepted by the lamps. If I set one of the colors from your mod, the lamps only shine white. I can not explain it. But it was the reason why I wanted more lamp colors.
I once heard of a mod ... I don't remember its name. The colors shine according to the item type.
With iron ore, they glow light blue. With uranium they glow green. Even with iron plates they shine in their color.

The lamp colors work with all lamps, right? So not just vanilla lamps. I use the mod "Large Lamp", the new "stadium lamp". Or could it be because of it?

I can imagine that a mod for a 3D game is more difficult. But is it as difficult as with Minecraft? Minecraft is actually not modable from Vanilla. A clever modder wrote a mod that made Minecraft capable of mod.
However, I have to admit that modding is difficult for me. No matter what game. Even Factorio. This is because I don't know how to do it. I just manage with the info.json.

Wouldn't you really dare to play a 3D game? Take a look at your successful Factorio Mods. You can do it all!
And you made the textures for your mods yourself.
Theoretically, there would be a Factorio 2 at some point (It certainly won't. It's just theory). Wouldn't you really dare to do it then?
The work is not only defined by experiments. But also through success!
But let's be realistic ... After this, Wube will focus on a completely different genre. It's as safe as the stars in the night sky ...

I suppose the camera follow feature was there but later removed. It was provided in C++ level, so much faster than if I (we) tried to mimic that in Lua level.
If devs decided to remove the function from newer game API, there is no way to dig it out. It is unusable, unless you are willing to play the old version. (Similar to the train bridge feature, which is using a feature gets removed from 0.17.55.)
Most (if not all) of the examples you mentioned are using something like method 1 mentioned above: first removing player character, then put in the "avatar" to the train in either normal mode or god mode. To verify if they are using this method, try looking at where you are originally standing and check if your character still standing there... It is using Lua scripting to perform such hacks.
Honestly, I am not a fan of using heavy scripting in my mods, unless they are absolute necessary, like Schall Recharging Weapon and Schall Geowarfare. Heavy scripting means it is prone to mod compatibility crashes, which will waste a lot of my time to debug. It is a massive time sink. I rather provide features that can be done with minimal scripting, and use the time to implement my long-planned mods.

Nixie tube is a perfect example of heavy scripting. Lots of time have to be spent on debugging and fixing mod incompatibilities. When the mod author does not have that much time and energy to maintain that... This is the price the author and users have to pay.

I can speak Cantonese, and know to write traditional Chinese (正體中文). Simplified Chinese is quite similar to it, so I provided both locale for my own mods.
Later I stopped that in newer mods, only providing what I know myself: English, German, traditional Chinese.

The problem you mentioned in lamp colours, lies in the way they assign the colour signal table to the lamps.
A "reasonable" mod should assign new colours as "addition" (like what I am doing with Schall Lamp Contrast), as what every mod should do.
But some mods assign that as "replacement" (exactly what Expanded Color Lamps is doing), which will make other signals stop working. It is poor programming and the cause of such bug.

I play 3D games, but modding with 3D games is totally another question. I am programmer, not graphics artist. 2D sprite preparation is simple enough for me and do not take too much time, so I can still do that myself.
3D modelling requires exponentially much more time and effort to make, which I am not expertise in. It takes days and weeks to make a 3D model, especially a good enough looking one based on my aesthetic standard... It is such a massive time sink.
3D graphics takes so much energy, no matter for game development or mod development. Do you know why (good) indie games are mostly 2D? A team of 3 developers can make a very good 2D game (just like the games in DOS age).
But for the same team size on a 3D game, it is almost certified it is a crap product! The team has to be expanded to 10 instead, where two-third of them are graphics artist. Do you understand how much more effort in 3D graphics is requiring? You can check how many mods is made for 3D games, then compare that to 2D games.
If I am paid as a job to do that, or if I have a big mod team to share my workload, it is another story. But now I do this as hobby modding, I am maintaining my 45+ mods solo. So it is nonsense to spend so much time in just graphics. If I have that vast amount of time, I would rather use it to start my first 0.18 game.

I think I understand what it looks like behind the Linver and Krastor team ...
Krastorio is such a powerful mod package that brings a lot of new graphics and functions, that has to be a big team. And the "heavy scripting" you mentioned is clear in this mod package! Every little change at the core of the game makes the mod package no longer work.

How that works in general was always a mystery to me anyway. An indie team builds 2D worlds and is successful. Well, mostly!
But a 3D game needs a lot more attention.
Hmm, then what I once heard about the game "Fortresscraft Evolved" cannot be correct ... It is said that it was supposed to be a one-man team. Incredible and now I don't believe a word of it anymore! I also don't know how I fell for this claim. If you look at the graphics, the programming and all other components of this 3D game, it cannot work with just one person. If so, such a development takes years! Longer than Wube needed with Factorio.

However, you must have put great work into your mods. 45+ are a whole lot! (I haven't counted them now.)
But I know that much: 2D graphics are completely different from 3D. Logical ...

Do you really mean? The lamp colors just don't work because the old Klonan mod is causing this problem?
Since the colors of your mod are sufficient for me, I will then deactivate the old mod the next time I play.

Oh-kay, I'm impressed! Many languages ​​that you can speak. Can imagine where you must have studied.
If you are a professional programmer, you have to be able to speak some languages ​​anyway, because you have to be able to offer your services internationally.

If you, like me, and certainly many others, want train tracking back, why don't you just write the developers on it? You ask them about the code and how to implement them again.
You are a programmer who also happens to be fluent in English. You can do something with codes, I can't.
And if I could trust someone to reintroduce this function, it's you.

The "Rail Bridge" ... I saw the mod last year but never installed it. Never thought about how it works. I thought that was design-wise ... strange. Somehow I didn't like it.
It is not thematically about this mod, but I've seen a better mod as far as that is concerned. It worked across several levels. Similar to Factorissimo and Warptorio. That the tunnel is on its own level.
As often as Factorio changes its version, it often happens that old functions disappear but new ones are added. And every time the modders are allowed to adapt their version, some of which have currently given up. Like deadlock. Industrial revolution.
I think if Factorio 1.0 comes out there will be some modders who want to mod again.
I just hope that by then no more useful features like train tracking will disappear ...
Anyway, I'm still playing with the latest version. Even if I could download 0.17 if I wanted. I currently use 4 Factorio versions to make sure I don't break my game.
Too bad that it is not possible to write a library that also allows new functions. Or insert old ones again.

As I mentioned, Factorio is one of the best games on the market!
Many changes are awesome. There were only a few that I didn't understand. The pickaxe: why was it removed against an infinite one?
Armor Wear: Why Does It Now Hold Infinite?
Train tracking ... But that's already listed.

Or do you know more?

Yea, see how many mod conflict and bug reports are in Krastorio 2 discussion page... Heavy scripting means very sensitive to game version changes and mod changes. I never have to time to deal with so many of them.

I have a big news: I have just launched my 46-th mod Schall Railway Controller, as mentioned in my previous reply. Now you can view "stuck" trains quickly with this mod.
Most of the new GUIs should mostly be self-explanatory. The templates and line features maybe a bit non-trivial, where I need some time to write a user guide on that.
Be sure to leave me comments on what you feel, and what to improve after testing with it. Hope it is useful to you.

Train tracking would be a nice-to-add but not-so-urgent feature in my task list. But I probably have no time for it yet.

As I am a mod programmer myself, so maybe I value mods in quite different way to normal users.
"Rail Bridge" to me is a very elegant "exploit" of the game. It merely adjust the collision boxes, so no scripting is needed. It means it is quite safe regarding mod conflicts, and does not consume UPS for such feature. So the code is rather "clean", and I have much more confident that it would not mess up my megabase save file.
In contrast, I do not like "Train Tunnels" much. It relies on events to teleport trains, and alter the train schedules upon teleports. So it is prone to crash if other mods also alter train position and schedule. In earlier versions, it mentioned to restrict the trains to low speed to prevent certain crashes. (I am not sure if it is fixed in current versions.) But it is kind of perfect example of "unexpected bug" when it comes to heavy scripting. This is the kind of mod that after looking in its code, I would definitely not use in my game.
As my only case to use rail bridges is to separate longitudinal trains from latitudinal trains, such that they do not need to stop and wait for others, rail bridges are well enough for me. Solved a lot of waiting at the cross junctions.

Modding is a powerful feature of Factorio. Yet things cannot be done if the API does not support that...
Pickaxe is removed from API permanently. Yet it is possible to write a mod to reverse the armor wear. Simply modifying the related properties of various vanilla armor prototypes will do.

Yes, there are a few changes I do not like... I really do not like personal laser defence consuming even less energy per shot, though it's already mentioned.
0.17.60 made the basic oil processing outputting petroleum gas only. It makes the game easier for newcomers, but also making the oil production too dumb IMO.
0.17.0 consumes solid fuel in chemical science pack, I feel it is a good change to put light oil into a good use. But in favour of 0.17.60 change they take it back, it consumes sulfur instead... So the devs just further nerf the "useless" light oil but buff the "OP" petroleum gas. It is a very unwise choice IMO.
If they hate the light oil and heavy oil so much, why not just remove them? Say, just have crude oil and refined oil. Afterall the light oil, heavy oil and lubricant which are all next to useless! So why the devs are keeping them?
(Lubricant is another thing I don't understand... 1:1 conversion from heavy oil, and only used on express belts. So boring product.)

For the lamp and circuit entities mod about different sizes, it is now finished and get published!
The mod is named as Schall Circuit Scaling.
Please try with it and see if it fits your uses. :-)

Hi. I greet you.

Wasn't there for a long time. Sorry.
A lot to do at the moment. Had no way to play Factorio.

Your new mod sounds very promising! As soon as I found time to play Factorio again, this mod will be installed first!
The manual, do you write it for the Informatron Mod?
I will definitely give you feedback for this mod.

I had never seen it that way. Exploit, yes. But for the benefit of performance. I did not know that the different levels represent a "teleport" and thus cause errors at high speed of the trains.
But hardly surprising for a layperson who has no idea about programming.
Well, Factorio is about to be released ...
There won't be many core changes anymore. Probably not at all.
I think this will be a celebration, especially for mod developers. No longer changing the mod again and again. Finally a stable basic version.

Really? The developers of Factorio have reduced the energy consumption of personal laser defense ??
Why that? No, I don't like that either!
You probably need a tweak mod that cancels this setting.

When it comes to oil processing, I find the German term more confusing ... First the "petroleum gas" was called "Petroleum" in German. There has been a lot of discussion about translation. Because it was mistakenly referred to as "gas" even though it is an oil.
Now it was translated differently. (I can't remember the name right now.)
But also as you mentioned. The recipes that are constantly changing. Heavy oil is the most senseless oil. You only need it for lubricants. Maybe also for flamethrower turrets. Maybe also for the ammunition for flame throwers. (Is it still like this?)
Light oil, I know, is needed for even less. Also flamethrower ammunition. Or flamethrower turret.
Ultimately, you only need light oil to convert it to petroleum gas ...
You don't only need lubricants for express belts. Also for electric motors.
But I am also missing a few more items that make light oil, heavy oil and lubricants more important.

Oh that sounds great. Thank you! As already mentioned, as soon as I have time for Factorio again. Then I install the new Mod Schall Circuit Scaling. I'm really looking forward to it ...

Really, good job!

The idea of Informatron Mod is interesting. Yet, Discord is the only way to contact the mod author, but I do not like using it. (Honestly, I have no idea why users asking a simple question or reporting bugs are forced to install the extra software and need to join the groups.)
Also August is the time for 1.0 release, which I assume a lot of time would be put into the update of my 48 (!) mods. So I guess I will not be doing anything about Informatron soon.

Yes, PLD was consuming 200 kJ per shot in 0.16, but buffed to only 50 kJ per shot. (Compared to 800 kJ per shot in laser turrets.) I raised this balancing concern on Forum, but seems the players and devs were too fond of buffing this already OP equipment.
So later I have added an option to adjust the power consumption of PLD in my Schall Tank Platoon 0.17.8, as I did not see the devs were willing to revert such setting.
Seriously, the only downside of PLD (compared to laser turret) is range, but everything else is too OP to my taste.

What you said is true. It has been a few times of the mod-breaking updates. They happened mostly on Wednesdays to Fridays. Yet I usually not on the mood/place to mods programming on the weekends. I was in great stress having to work on the fixes, as they had disrupted my usual time allocation.
(If the mod-breaking updates happened at 0.x.0 new versions, it would not be any problem. But happened DURING mid versions like 0.17.23 or 0.17.35 were causing me such pain.)
In such aspect, 1.0 release to good the mod authors. We no longer have to face such sudden pressure again. :-D
1.0 means mod authors will spend less time on maintaining (such as handling mod-breaking updates...) and spend more time on developing new contents. So I guess 1.0 is also a good thing to players, in this aspect.

For "normal" games and/or with good computer, maybe mods like that tunnel mod or Nixie Tubes do not cause any noticeable performance issues. But for megabase games with laptop (yay, that's me), the effect is pretty obvious. UPS is good again after disabling them.

Both German and English still have flaws in the text. Like what I proposed on the Forum. The terms are clumsy/dumb in English original text, which leads to ridiculous/stupid translations in German and other languages. I have not revisited them recently (since I have overwritten such stupid text with my own mods), since I guess many of them are still not in correct wordings.

Glad that you also agree with me that the current oils are poorly set and under-used. After 1.0 release and having the time, maybe I can see to find some uses of various oils in some existing recipes, or to make new ones. Yet I am not expert in chemistry or oil processing, so will needs suggestions from someone who knows.

I also have Discord. Under normal circumstances, it would not be a problem for me to report me there. But you know my handicap. English ...
But I fully understand your point of view. I also didn't want to keep installing new software just to get in touch with others. And if you have to report to Discord for Informatron, I think that's pretty stupid too ...
The forum here is completely sufficient, I think.
But when I translated the Informatron Mod into German (German locale), I noticed something ...
The Informatron developer not only discusses the content of the text, but also the graphic. It's about adding an eternal page for your mod that stands out in a good and understandable way.
I understood that from the translation ...
I don't know whether such a clarification is also possible here in the forum. Probably not that good. As far as I know, Earendel would have to embed your text and graphics in his mod. The rest is done through the locale files.
So it was even possible for me to write a German locale for another mod, which was then also displayed in German in the Informatron.

Factorio version 1.0 actually has some advantages. The constant incompatibility of the mods is finally ending.
You, too, can then sit back and take care of other things instead of constantly restoring compatibility. Similar to what happened again with your mod "Schall Alien Tech". For me, too, it no longer runs on version 0.18.45. I have to downgrade to 43, also because the Mod Ammo Loader crashes because of the deactivation of "Schall Alien Tech".
I love new features! But I hate it when updates break the game ...!

You are welcome to reset the modifications made by the Factorio developers in your mods. It is simply illogical if an energy weapon needs too little energy or if it is comparatively totally OP.
Arms and energy systems should be balanced. Realism doesn't hurt. Even if games are logically not realistic. Factorio isn't a simulator either. ;)

Yes, I know the problem with games and laptops ... The same thing over and over again. I often had to help a good friend with laptop breakdowns. It's mostly performance.
You cannot compare a graphics card on a laptop with that on a desktop PC. 8GB / RAM is not the same as 8GB / RAM ...
It may sound strange, but unfortunately it is. : /

The translation with the Cannon Shells? I know them ... * head scratch *
Since English has several references that lead to disasters in the German translation, you have to think for yourself how we would "call" it in German. Or denote.
A translation I wrote initially drove me into similar despair.
I am currently working on a translation for Mod Food Industry 2.0. The developer is also interested in it. However, there are a few words here that are a bit of a headache. I have to think carefully.

There are so many ingenious mods that I would SO much like to have in German. Just because I want to understand her.
Unfortunately, the German language is not available for all mods.
English is the international language. But not everyone understands them. Or has problems with it. (Like me.)
But I have to bite through there. : D

How many translations have you corrected?

I don't think the Factorio developers will change much about the oil anymore. When the 1.0 is out, you have the opportunity to write a mod yourself that gives heavy oil, light oil and petroleum gas more meaning. Make it more important to the game!

Do you have any ideas? I guess so ...
After all, you mentioned it first.

Just in time finished uploading the last batch (supposedly) of updates before 1.0 release...
Schall Pickup Tower 0.18.2 has adjusted the tech requirements and recipe costs, to make PT I much easier and cheaper, while PT IV the opposite. Hope the changes will give a better fit to the game.

I will read and reply your newest post later.

Yes, the game mod-breaking updates were taking too much of my attention. As you have mentioned, the game has been changing the prototype definition of vanilla electric mining drill quite a few times. That leads me having to update Schall Alien Tech a few times solely for that. That was the single most annoying entity that I have to rework and rework again, without providing actual new features in those updates.
BTW, I do not feel anything wrong with our old grandpa electric mining drill. Perhaps I am too attached to it. ;-)

I love realism, but it does not mean I will give up important things (e.g., fun, playability) for that. I accept mild sci-fi, otherwise I would not make mods like Schall Geowarfare, Schall Perpetual Machine or Schall Radioactive Waste. As long as it fits for gameplay and does not break the balance, usually I am fine with that.
I would say balance (rather than realism) is my utmost concern. If something exists IRL, it exists for a good reason, and probably well-balanced with other things. Realism is a good guide, especially when I am in doubt. This is why I love to stick to realism most of the time.
When realism cannot help (say, the PLD), then figures and mathematics are my friends. :-D At least the parameters (like DPS, cost per damage) provided me some guides on how to balance the various different branches of particle/plasma weapons of my "Schall Alien Tech". I would not say the settings are perfect, but at least none of them are especially weak/useless nor super-OP.
Yet realism and/or logic comes in handy to reject some ideas. Whenever I saw some mods introducing some weapons named "Dark matter missile", "Black hole generator", "Singularity bomb", I cannot help myself from LOL laughs. How come utilizing such immense power weapons in terrestrial combats, does not even make a scratch on the planet/tile/terrain? Not even some enormous craters like those on Moon? (I would not object if they are used for space combat, though honestly dangerous weapons should not even be used inside a star system.) This is where real-life science (plus some "logical" extension by sci-fi physics) and realism can help balancing.

I have submitted like a dozen German strings to Crowdin, but there are several problems I have to explain. First of all, there is no place to discuss the original English strings. Just like for the case of Cannon shells I have mentioned above, the devs are totally unaware/unresponsive to my proposals. As the original English strings remained unchanged, the proofreaders of other languages tend to stick to the original crappy English strings... Secondly, the proofreaders (not only German, it is common to other languages also) on Crowdin are unwilling/very slow (more than a year...) in responding to my German proposed changes... Thirdly, those translations based on crappy original English were already "proofread", meaning I can do nothing to push my proposals. I have to rely on proofreaders to "sincerely" think that mine are better than theirs... So after sending that first dozen strings, I decided not to waste more time on that.
So I just replaced the crappy strings in my own theme-related mods, and do not care how vanilla uses anymore. After all, I feel it is way more constructive to provide new mods for new contents and features, rather than staying to "fight" for "word controls".

Good work and good luck providing the translations. Many players are going to thank you for that. (Though vast majority of users are just too shy/lazy to write you a appreciation.)
BTW, if you find any corrections/improvements to my mod locale, do not hesitate to send them to me! I am a "science" guy, who is not good and do not care as much in language grammars. I know my mod locale are going to have a lot of grammatical mistakes.

Talking about the food mod, I have also considered some modding of the theme but later dropped the idea... The reason was the stranded ship contains only one crew: the player character, unless you are going (massive) multiplayer. Food is not a real problem, unlike the real world. The player character hardly needs a lot of food to survive, compared to the scale of metal-related industry. Unless a player can enslave some biters or take command of some human colonists (out of somewhere), food industry does not play an important role of factory in such scale of rocket-building factory, IMO.

Well, a vanilla-fitting oil industry mod is possible. It may require at least 3 important oil-related production recipes to make it worthy as a small mod. I do not have a good idea on what to include yet.

I think the price change for PT1 is great! At first I thought you had ignored my request. ;)
The price for the first PT is fair!
The price for the PT2 is reasonable too!
But ... you mentioned a PT4. But I can't find the PT3 or PT4 in the research tree ...
Or did I misunderstand something?

Oh yes, that surprised me how often the developers changed the design of the vanilla electric mining drill. And that in such a short time ...
I can imagine that that was the most annoying entity in the game. : D
The grandpa design of the electric mining drill wasn't wrong. I was used to it too. : D But hey, they transfer all graphics in HD.
The game's engine isn't the newest either. I don't think a prettier graphic is wrong. Sure it's annoying for you. But the developers have promised to be careful not to break too many mods when updating to 1.0.
It remains to be seen how the 1.0 will be. I'm curious.

I also like science fiction in games! I love science fiction!
That's why I play with Space Exploration!
I am not yet in space in my world. But I am curious!
For me, creative is out of the question. I explore everything in normal survival.
I also installed your mod "Schall Radioactive Waste".
I have already seen "Schall Geowarfare" and "Schall Perpetual Machine". Are cool things. But don't fit into my project. I must have a difficult game. Unfortunately, I get bored too quickly ...
It is delightful to wipe out the aliens with such an evil bomb ...
But I enjoy going up against them personally. :D
And the perpetual machines also have their charm. But I'm a fanatic about electricity. My machines have to use electricity. I need the compulsion to build more and more power plants. ;)

I think realism is - as you said - a good advisor and companion. It dictates what is and would be possible. Similar to the technology from films like Stargate or Star Trek.
I once read about Stargate that astronomical knowledge corresponds to reality and that everything corresponds to a "theory".
Likewise, I always tinker my games in such a way that they don't lose their certain realistic charm. I only make a few exceptions.
For example, when I play a game that is absolutely unrealistic. There are things that don't exist. As with Minecraft the Mod Environmental Tech. The Void Ore Miner. Pull the ores out of the "void". But you also have to coordinate with your colleagues. I am leading a joint project with my YouTube colleague.
Everything has to fit. And must appeal to the audience.
We also have rules. It is forbidden to use teleporters. Or to craft an item that gives you the ability to fly from creative mode.
We also have a Factorio project. Warptorio 2.
But here, too, we make sure that no "nonsense" is included.
However, we only use a few additional mods because otherwise they would change the original package too much.

YES, that's a good example ... Singularity Bombs, Dark Matter Missiles. (Black hole Generator? Reminds me of Minecraft ^^) Full destructive power, but no landscape damage ???
Nonsense! I wouldn't even use this mod for space battles. I don't know what you need such weapons for anyway. The aliens only have a certain HP. If the weapon is so powerful that the HP drops to 0, all aliens are dead anyway. So what such an extreme and unrealistic weapon of mass destruction?
As far as I've seen your weapon mods, they look very good. The sniper turret is a good early game weapon. And your cannon towers are a great advancement. The rocket launcher is awesome too. But rocket ammunition isn't cheap. xD But does good damage!
Your plasma weapons will be added later. The rounds off the package well. I am looking forward to the BFG. I know Doom! Great gun!
Your flamethrower turret has already helped me a lot. It uses petroleum gas, which the Vanilla Flamethrower does not use.
You just have to put it close to the wall because of the short range. But is well balanced for its firepower.

How can it be that the translations have already been proofread and are still so bad? It's one thing if you have to wait forever and three years for reactions before a proposal is accepted. But it is incomprehensible to me that wrong translations are made despite corrections ...
What will you do now You might as well include the correct translations in your "Schall Language Pack" mod.
As you know, I write German translations myself. But since I know they aren't flawless, I keep them mostly to myself. (Exception food industry)
So I don't understand how others who are not able to translate correctly can offer their bad translations to the general public ...
You think ahead anyway. You speak the German language and offer it for your mods in addition to other languages.
But those are your own mods too.

If your effort to help others is not appreciated, I would give up too ...

Oh thank you! I'm sure some German-speaking players will be happy about these translations.
I don't expect to hear a "thank you". But it is also not important to me. I just enjoy doing translations. Even if a few words can give me a headache. Like the example with the Cannon Shells.
Now I've translated Bio Industries. I sat there for 4 days. A lot of text! A lot of sweat ... But I made it. :)
However, I only do this for mods that I like and that are worthwhile.
If someone asked me to write a translation for a mod, I would do that too.
But speaking of your mod about that ... I actually think I saw a little mistake in one of your translations. I don't know where now. But I ignored the mistake because I didn't want to correct you.
Of course. If that's what you want, I'll watch out for mistakes and share them with you.

Doesn't actually belong in here ... But the most noticeable thing is that the mod "Schall Transport Group" didn't take the train, the wagons, train stops and the vanilla tracks into account. They are with me at "logistics".
No idea whether the train signals should also be postponed ...
Normally I would have written you on the correct page. Well ...

Actually yes ... I think.
Imagine that you are stranded on a strange planet. Your job is to survive, to build a factory, a way to get off the planet.
But there is something else ... a normal human need ...
You are hungry, you are thirsty! Oxygen is taken into account through space exploration. So why not eat or drink too?
These are properties that the Mod Food Industry takes into account. I think it's funny that you can also make bite steaks or bite schnitzel. You will also find natural raw materials such as wheat, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, soybeans, rapeseed, potatoes, etc.
What did I eat yesterday? Fries with ketchup. xD And a fish salad. : D
But the practical thing is, you can make capsules of nutrients that give you the ability to mine, craft, heal, and walk faster.
Also useful, for which there is also an achievement: You don't feed your oil processing plant with crude oil!
Instead, you produce petroleum gas, light oil, heavy oil and lubricants from rapeseed oil after researching the technology!
I think that's an interesting approach. Similar to how these oils can be made from wood products with Bio Industry.

And suppose you make a mod that made the oils more important and useful, the mods from Bio Industry and Food Industry would be a brilliant addition!

Missed one thing about the PT reply yesterday. I have not forgotten your request on PT costs. ;-)
I put that to my modding task list (though not very top priority), and forgot to mention it in previous reply. I was too mentally occupied, on bigger tasks like the new info of Schall Radar Alignment, code refactoring of Schall Map Tag and Schall Pickup Tower...

1.0.0 has put the railway items (e.g., rail signals, train stops) to a new subgroup. That was why they stayed on "logistics" group tab.
Please update Schall Transport Group to 1.0.0.

IMO, Schall Geowarfare actually fits for multiple surface game like the Space Exploration mod.
The idea is like, when you are expanding/conquering a new planet, and the native resistances / enemy civilizations are particularly strong and annoying... As the invader, you consider the cost of conventional combat against taking the unresourceful planet is not worthwhile... So you decide to bust the planet and the annoying swarms on it, which is a most cost-effective way for you...
Unfortunately, mods like SE still do not offer such kind of extreme adversial or threat, where forcing you to consider destroying the terrain/planet is a better choice. (Very often, you can just leave the natives there, until coming back with better weapons. The natives hardly know to counter-attack your production planet/surface.)

For those over-advanced weapons, it would be suitable if they also destroy the terrain.
BTW, this was why I made Schall Geowarfare in the first place. :-D

Well, you have quite well concluded my core ideas on uses of various weaponry. Factors (firepower, range, area of effect, speed, cost) have to be balanced. One good must be balanced by at least one bad.

Yes, if you find any spelling and grammatical errors, please notify me. As a modder, I have to devote much more time on the overall design, coding, and also graphics. Thus, the portion of time I can spent on wording would not be much.
If you have your own list of translations over vanilla, you can also send them to me. I can easily put them to my Schall Language Pack. Helps to promote your version of translations. :-D

I will continue to reply to your other points, when I have time. Still checking on further need of 1.0 mod updates...

It's okay that you didn't write anything about it. I was just surprised by your update. And I'm glad you adjusted that. I've already thrown out the tweak mod. The recipe for the PT 1 is affordable. And a lot easier to get!

Ah, I thought something like that. That the 1.0 version brings about such changes.
However, now we know that thanks to 1.0, such updates are no longer necessary.

Since you mention other mods ... you are working on a lot of mods I understand. And you do it with passion. I find it good! I know there is much more to come ...

The thought is good ... makes sense. Geo warfare has its place.
Also perfect for players who like weapons of mass destruction. Well, I liked them in games like Command & Conquer too.
Strange ... At Factorio, I like to play the terminator for insects. : D.
I will reconsider installing your weapon of mass destruction should I have problems with the "indigenous population" on other planets. xD
But you are right about SE. In theory, Earendel could add other types of biters, more dangerous ...
Doesn't Schall Endgame Evolution add other and more dangerous biters?

Hehe. I was already thinking, by what you got inspired to create your GeoWarfare Mod.
It's nice that you like realism too. Otherwise this mod would probably not have been possible. ;)

Exactly! Because if you give everything with positive characteristics, you can play a kind of god right away. It is simply not possible. And some other mod developers should please note that.
Unfortunately they don't ...
There may be some players who don't care. And as I must have already mentioned, I know such a player.
Playing with his mod packs isn't always fun. Then I just don't use some of his mods.
Everything that is good and strong MUST have a weakness to compensate!

Yes OK. I do it with pleasure!
Since I started a new game with version 1.0, I first have to research my way through any technologies. I will pay attention to the translations. If I find something, I'll let you know.
What kind of vanilla translations do you mean specifically?
I don't have a table of general translations, if that's what you mean. I always focus directly on the locale file to be edited.
But if (as an example) you need help with a file now, I'd be happy to help!

But out of honesty I would like to emphasize again: My translations could also contain mistakes, since English is not my strong point. My German grammar is good for that!

No problem. Take your time to answer ...

Sorry to reply late.
Finally I have finished part one of the Spidertron mod plan: Schall Arachnid Platoon. It uses the same tier and class systems as Schall Tank Platoon, but is much more flexible to switch between the 13 weapon choices! Yes, there are BFG Spidertrons, certainly very deadly, clearing alien settlements very quickly...

I am mentally quite tired after the intense mod programming. So now I would spend a few days break (before part two) to refresh my mind. Replying your message would be a good thing to do. :-)

Regarding SE (or any space conquest mods), it would be nice if planets are diverse enough (in terms of local inhabitants). Some worlds are lifeless, some worlds have ultra-violent natives. So at earlier stage (as newbie seafarer/spacefarer) players will only land on the less threatening/challenging planets. With enough tech/military progression, players will then attempt to land on the more hostile worlds, which are assumed to be richer and more resourceful (game balancing perspective to make them attractive.)
This may require to set multiple enemy forces (instead of just one on default freeplay), one force for each planet/world. It will allow some world to be relatively harmless for early game; while the hostile worlds have very high initial evolution factors. (This is easier and better than adding more alien/biter types.)
As discussed previously, it would require an adversial/invasion mechanism that the hostile natives will actually attempt to invade player-owned worlds, to make the game more realistic and challenging. Only this would make "destroying a planet" a worthwhile option.

Regarding vanilla translations, the German locale on fire rate / shooting speed was in a mess. In different ammo and technology bonus text, some were using "Schussgeschwindigkeit", some were using "Feuerrate", or some other variants... Fortunately these are finally fixed, but I am not sure if they are done by the paid company just before 1.0 release, or done by the proofreaders themselves.
The "cannon-shell" also have LOTS of variations in different text, including "Kanonengeschoss", "Kanonenmunition", "Panzergranate", or some I did not find out. I have not checked them again (since I overwrite all of them in my own Schall Tank Platoon mod), so I am not sure if they are made consistent in 1.0.0 now.

No need to rush, but when anytime you have any good corrections (either to vanilla or to my mods), you can send them to me. In that case, please post a new thread on Schall Language Pack discussion page, so a centralized and dedicated place for them.

If I have missed any points you have mentioned, please write again. I may have overlooked them.

I believe you, that you got tired after a long time of work ...
I've already loaded your new mod. But you did a great job there. My respect!
Since I'm playing the Krastorio mod package, I still need something before I can build one of your Spidertrons.
I also like your idea of ​​the chassis. A bot chassis and choose your weapon! And if you want to upgrade the Spidertron, simply dismantle it with your mod "Schall uncraft" and use a new weapon.
Really good! And including BFG! EXCELLENT!
Only one thing confuses me a little. I can be wrong ...
You can build the remote controller on your Spidertrons Level 0. But this needs rocket control electronics.
But I won't get that until I've researched rocket technology, right?
Perhaps one could design an early game controller that could be built from cheaper materials that are available at this technology level. Each controller can be programmed to only one Spidertron.
And later, when you have the better remote controller, several units at the same time?
I'm a long way from rocket technology. So I can't build the remote controller yet.

Have you planned part 2? What does it contain? (I'm curious)

I hadn't got that far. I haven't been to other planets yet. I had an idea about new aliens a few years ago. Regrettably, it was not added. Flying biters!
And matching air defense!
Or imagine an alien home planet. Half the planet covered with "creep". That would be a great planet!
Or planets on which the aliens behave differently.
A planet they are extremely aggressive towards.
Different alien factions wouldn't be bad either. Two biter factions who may attack each other because they don't like each other. And when the human intrudes, both factions attack him.
There are so many possibilities ...

I also find the translation problems strange.
"Schussgeschwindigkeit", "Feuerrate" ...
Of course, when I'm working on the translation, I know how to name it correctly. Just like with "Kanonengeschoss" or "Panzergranate".
The only thing that is confusing is that everyone writes it differently. Call it differently. There doesn't seem to be a single correct word, I almost believe. I want the translation to be as accurate as possible.
I have my doubts that Wube wrote the German translation. I think that's what the free community does.
Hence all the difficulties with the correct translation.
It was exactly the same - as I must have already mentioned - with petroleum gas. This has been renamed so often in the last Factorio versions that I wonder if there is a real word for it in German! And I doubt that it really is called "Flüssiggas"!

All right! I like to do that. I have actually already discovered a mistake with the alien ores. (Wording error)
Unfortunately, I have a lot on my mind at the moment, so it can really take a while before I can respond to your messages.
I then write that in the "Schall Language Pack".

Hence from me too: Sorry if you have to wait longer for my answer.

Thank you.
And yes, I feel really tired in spending a lot of time to keep modding.
Wanted to get away from modding for a week, but then new bug reports and requests keep coming...
So wanted to finish the more important thing and then start my first 1.0 gameplay.

Glad you like the chassis and weapon choices design. A Spidertron work well only if all of its weapons are the same type (or at least the same range), and 13 different classes look really too much (both in gameplay and coding perspective). Then suddenly such chassis and weapon choices idea came into my mind.
BFG is really powerful, but I love the mega particle beam even more.

I have not made any recipe changes to the remote, but I could add an option to allow using cheaper ingredient (e.g., advanced circuit) in the next version.
Actually not much can be done to the vanilla remote, because the API limits to only one controllable Spidertron per remote item. So it is not possible to create more advanced type of remotes.

Actually it is related to my part two of the Spidertron mod plan (guess I said that in your thread on PT):

The "control" and "automated attack" functionalities of Spidertrons allow me to add some new features to the mod too. So this new mod will allow a more convenient and comfortable to attack with multiple Spidertrons en masse.

It means the new mod will allows using hotkey or GUI buttons to select and control multiple Spidertrons.
Therefore, the vanilla remote item is not important in my overall mod construction, so actually not even needed. The item is just there before the part two mod comes out (or those who prefer not to use it).

Actually I have considered air units and dedicated anti-air weapons, when I was creating Schall Missile Command. I wanted to add a whole air-to-ground and anti-air warfare to both PvP and PvE gameplays.
Particularly, the popular aircrafts mods are way too OP, especially aliens have virtually no AA capability.
However, I foresee a lot of problems. For example, introducing my own set of aircrafts will be a big problem, as I really lack the graphics part. I do not expect other mod authors will allow me to use their sprite sheets to make a competitive mod.
It would then make no sense to create with anti-air warfare WITHOUT my own aircrafts.
With such a limiting factor, it is not wise to start such a big project. So I have decided to give it up. (Anyway, I still want to start playing, instead of infinite modding...)

There are some existing mods of multiple alien factions, and they do alien vs alien fights. (At the expense of UPS though.) Yet I do not know any mods trying to implement such concept on different surfaces (planets).

It is natural that the community will provide different versions in translation.
By then it is the proofreaders' job to make the wordings consistent. On Crowdin it is very easy to search for "shooting speed", getting a list of all entries with such keywords, then directly modify them in one go. Yet I have not seen the proofreaders were doing that.

I guess the English word "Petroleum gas" (LPG) is meant to be the Liquefied petroleum gas, and for reaching more general audience thus skipping the "Liquefied" word. This comes the German word "Flüssiggas".
Yet I am neither a chemistry nor oil expert. I am not sure if LPG is an appropriate product from oil cracking.

Sorry for taking long to reply. I feel that I have lost too much of my energy and motivation by the seemingly endless Factorio modding...

So ... now I'll answer you first.

I love how much effort, time and love you put into your mods!
At the moment I'm discussing (?) With another mod developer. He doesn't bother. He's not really interested. He took another mod, ported it to 1.0 and changed it which are really useful.
But unfortunately its mod has bugs that the original mod didn't have.
But instead of actually fixing the bugs, he just wants to remove the features. I think it's a shame ... I try to talk to him about the fact that he takes care of the mod properly. If he doesn't, I'll have to go back to the original ...
He said he had edited the mod for his needs, and that's a good thing. Then why does he make it public?
No idea ...

That would be great! Then you could craft the remote controller earlier.
Hmm, if you add a way to later send multiple Spidertrons into battle at the same time, you could add that as a late-game feature.
Would also be logical ... early game this "technology" is still unknown. However, with later research you will discover the ability to control multiple Spidertrons at the same time.
If the controller can't do that, this would be a good alternative ...

You're right. Somehow it's not quite balanced ... You have powerful weapons, but the aliens have no way of defending themselves. Like the fight between cockroaches and humans. The exterminator destroys them. Finished.
The aliens hardly have a chance to take countermeasures. And if you have an airplane, why shouldn't the aliens have a turret with AA defenses too?
Or special spitters that can shoot down planes?
Can you program that the aliens only develop AA Defense when you have the first missiles and planes?

Because of the graphics. I know that this is where the greatest difficulty lies. I read a long time ago that there is a community in Factorio that offers to develop graphics for other modders.
On the other hand, you can also ask the other modders if you can use graphics from them.

Take a look at the mod "Aircraft Drones" from IngoKnieto.
That would be really good and would fit in.
The aliens only need suitable AA defenses.
Or, as I mentioned before, flying biters!

Yes, I thought it would be difficult to incorporate the function that there are several alien factions.
And then the problem with the UPS. That fall down quickly. Always the limitation due to the performance ...
I have a lot of mods in my world. And as soon as night falls and the will-o'-the-wisps damage my walls and turrets, the hissing of my Repair Turrets starts. My UPS fall very quickly ...

I think it always will be. Translations are always different. You can only hope to have the best translation. And no chaos like I saw in another game, for example. The German translation was a disaster!
Believe me, you'll get eye cancer!

Um ... Are you sure that the by-product of oil processing is liquefied gas? Light oil, of course. Heavy oil, of course. But liquid gas?
Is the product actually called "Liquefied petroleum gas" in English?
Realism screams in me again ... I'm very meticulous about it.
But when you say "Flüssiggas" in German is correct, I am more relaxed.
But we both don't know about chemistry. One can only guess ...

I don't think so ... As I said before. So far I don't know any modder who brings as much motivation into his mods as you.
Or do you feel like you are losing your interest in modding?
Of course, bugs are always annoying. And it's not nice when players keep finding new bugs.
But look at it this way. Your mods are known and loved. The players love your work!
See how many downloads your mods have!

If necessary, write in the description that you are on vacation for a few days and therefore unfortunately cannot fix any errors. Then you take the little break.
Then take some time to play something yourself.
And at intervals you take one mod after the other. Take it easy. Don't put yourself under pressure!

You don't have to worry about answering me either. As you can see, my time is the same as you are.

But I am happy about your answer!

Hope I haven't forgotten anything while answering the message ...

Regarding AA ability of aliens...
Yes, I would add that. Like in the movie Starship Troopers, there is a kind of enormous bug that can fire plasma(?) bolts into planetary orbit(!). Serving as anti-air and even planetary defense. (Video)
But its prerequisite (aircraft sprite sheet) is too big hindrance that I will not bother now.
I will not bother asking other modders. Creating extension mod (like "Aircraft Drones") is probably welcomed by them. But asking for creating competitive mod? Honestly it would be an unfriendly attempt.

Yes there is a subforum for sharing and requesting texture packs. However, it is virtually dead: only requests but no one sharing new stuff.

There are a lot of fancy mods on this portal, but many of them relies on heavy-scripting, posing a threat to UPS. I know to read code, so I will remove all these mods to prevent my game slows down to a crawl.
This is why I do not use some popular mods, even though they are considered by many as "great".

My loss of motivation, probably comes from too much time and energy spent on modding, at least too much to my liking.
By suspending any mod updates or creations for not yet a whole week, reports and requests are already piled up. Taking a longer break will just make the coming life harder, so I do not think I can take that. Instead, I will now chop off the ideas that are not as favoured or worth the effort. Hopefully the task list will be shortened enough, such that I feel achievable.

Wow not bad!
Biters like that would fit into the game.
Well, there are only biters and spitters.
More alien species wouldn't be bad. But without disturbing the balance.

I understand that. What doesn't work, that just doesn't work.
And it probably also needs cooperative modding.

Okay then this forum is pretty pointless. : /
I also have a mod idea, but since I can't modding, and I also have problems with English, I would rather look for a volunteer who would develop this mod based on my ideas.

Which mods - which are also famous - are UPS unfriendly? Please give me a few examples ...
Ammo Loader, I know, can cause some UPS drops.
But there is no UPS-friendly variant, except with inserters to supply turrets with ammunition.

Oh man. Can I introduce myself. Modding is becoming a job that takes up so much time that there is no time for other things. You just don't earn anything. Except maybe through donations.

After all, you brought all of your mods (as far as I could tell) completely to 1.0. That will have been a lot of work ...

Which of your mods do you consider more pointless?
All of your mods have their purpose.

Thanks for your continued support.
Your feedback is important to me, especially when you let me know what features are useful to you, and what need fixing.
This is crucial to me, as sometimes I have to make some decisions when implementing a mod feature. I do not know whether they are good or bad, without explicit comments. This is what I cannot see from just numbers (number of downloads).

Of course, I will try to ensure every of my mods or mod ideas have some point. (Otherwise, I will not even bother thinking of that.)
But as I have lots of idea (too much for my ability), I have to take the "Utilitarianism" approach to select what to implement or not. Too much effort for not enough gain? Then I have to discard that. When I saw my "proudly presented" mod had not received the expected amount of usage, it unmotivated me a LOT. Such experience taught me to over-invest on unsure things. Better use my time and effort wisely, as I already have a list of promising features needing my attention.
The above-discussed air unit and enemies mod is only first of the discarded idea. Actually, I have something similar: I already have a manual anti-missile (also anti-projectile) gun in my existing mod Schall Missile Command, and planned long time for a upgrade of automatic missile interception system to it. Such auto missile defence (can be for both human player and alien forces) will be "THE" counter to the MRV missiles, thus completing the warfare relationship cycle. It has high similaity to anti-air stuff and thus a high potential to adapt to that. However, I have not received a single comment about that, not to say that the mod has quite low downloads. I guess most players do not play PvP, and most of them are just using that for the super crazy atomic MRV missile to wreck aliens.
This is a perfect example of nice idea (esp. to PvP players, and whoever wants a more interesting endgame combat balance), but probably not worth to implement.

There are simple too many mods that are not UPS-friendly. But to allow you comparing their impact, then I would use Turret Shields as the example.
It uses tons of scripting on ticks, in order to check and update the shield values.
Kingdud has modified such code, claiming:

The mod is around 100x faster than original mod, due in large part to onTick() being simplified to a few lines of code that only run on elements that they need to run on. In my savegame the original mod took around .4ms / tick for 1800 turrets, mine takes .004ms/tick.

.4ms / tick is insanely heavy! (I can already notice the impact when over .1ms / tick.)
Yet its mod author dare to say "Lightweight scripted shields" in its description! Maybe he thinks the shields should actually make your PC explode, so if your PC still survives, it can already be considered as "lightweight"?

I do not use poor-written mods, so do not have the patience to compare and verify the claim. If you are interested, you can find the modified version as King's Turret Shields.

OwnlyMe had quite a lot of creative mod ideas, but it seems he was not able or did not care about optimization. Many of his mods were heavily scripted and put a high overhead cost on the game updates.
So although many of his mods are quite interesting and attractive, as a programmer I know they are bad to my laptop and gameplay smoothness.

The super-popular Bottleneck is another example of UPS-unfriendly mod. It has to draw the updated status light to reflect the machine status quite frequently. So it is going to impact your game when the factory becomes larger.

I have considered accepting donations, but eventually prefer not to do it. Because for now I can still make mods as a hobby, I can still have free judgement and time allocation on my liking. When one accepts donations (or whatever monetary gains) and there are some feature requests from users, you start to have struggle between monetary gain and development direction.
The final determining factor to modding as a job, is the amount of money you can earn. For super-popular modders than ArchAngel and Bob, maybe they could have enough users to afford such? (I remembered ArchAngel described donations as "tips for cake for his girlfriend" in some of his past post, so I do not think that is considered much.) For mid-small scale modders like me, I wonder if the gain is even enough for living expenses!
So I would consider modding is mostly irrelevant to monetary gain. Most modders are players themselves, and willing to devote their time into modding out of passion and love only. If wanting to have game-related programming as a job, then even being an indie game dev is a more sane choice.

As you may have already noticed, I have decided to take a break from Factorio modding these weeks, and have nearly no updates during the moment. My current versions are seemingly all working fine with 1.0, so there is nothing to update. (Especially when devs decided not to launch 1.0.1 to fix the game-crashing Spidertron bugs, but delaying to wait for 1.1.)
I will resume the work on new mods (like the promised Spidertron part II mod) and new features, after I regain enough energy to do so. But it is not yet the time.

Hello Schallfalke

Sorry for waiting so long.
At first I didn't have time for a long time, then I was sick for a long time ...

I am happy to read if you find my comments helpful. :)

If I were you, I would not be discouraged if individual ideas and mods are not used or downloaded. You have developed so many mods already. And all of them I've used so far are great! (Okay, I don't know all of them ...)
Mods like "Uncraft" or "Remains & Pickup", or Endgame Evolution ", as well as a few others, are standard for me. In other mod packages I use a few more mods from you.
I am currently playing IR2. I just installed a few more mods from you. (CircuitGroup, TransportGroup & VirtualSignal)
This makes it easier for me to find what I need. And you can't have enough signals.
Admittedly, I don't use any of your PvP mods. I generally don't like PvP games. Even with Empyrion, I avoid PvP battles.
So I can't judge how good your PvP mods are.
Still, go ahead! Don't get discouraged!

Mods that are UPS friendly would of course be desirable. But unfortunately not every mod developer writes "Hey, sorry, but my mod is a UPS killer!" : /

I actually use the original mod "Turret Shields" because in a science fiction game it is just realistic for turrets to have shields.
But ... I was shocked when I read from you what a UPS killer this mod is.
I also tested the Kingdud fork. Initially she had a few bugs. I reported them to him. But he wasn't really interested in maintaining the mod. He was reluctant to release the bug fix.
Worse still, instead of removing a specific bug, he simply removed the feature.
So ... With a combiner you could deactivate the shields of selected turrets.
But this combiner didn't work.
Instead of fixing this bug, he wrote me to remove it.
I don't know if he did it. I'm back to the original mod and ignored his fork mod.

But back to UPS.
It sounds like you doubt that his mod is lightweight, and much, much faster and performs better than the original. Or at least doubt whether it really operates with 0.004ms / tick.
Hmm You're more involved in the modding business. I'm sure if you compared his mod to OwnlyMe's, you could find out the truth.
Also, I think you would make a better TurretShields mod. One that is UPS friendly. And above all without bugs!

I have not yet researched TurretShields technology ... but I am seriously considering removing it and returning to Kingdud's.
My computer is strong! He has a lot of power.
But if OwnlyMe's mods are good but UPS killers, I'd better switch ... Hmm. : /
It's a shame that OwnlyMe no longer takes care of its own mods. But as I read, he had trouble with the Factorio developers in the past because of the script changes.

I beg your pardon?! So also bottleneck?
Damn it! I also like to use this mod. (Only not with IR2)
Next time I'll think twice about using Bottleneck again.
What about the status light that the developers built into the mining drills? If I now have over 100 mining drills, that should also cause performance problems. Or not? Or are the developers using a different technique?

You made it clear why you are modding. Also out of love for the game. Why else would you spend so much time on Factorio and then talk about not taking donations?
Also, don't forget, they're donations! Do not buy!
This means that the player who downloads your mods can voluntarily decide whether to add something to the "coffee cup" for you. Or not.
You don't have to be as tall as ArchAngel or Bob to justify your work. So if you accept donations, it's good! If not, that's good too! Only you can decide.
For my part, I can only tell / write you that your work is good! And I like one or the other mod.

Well, it's been 7 months now, and as I've seen, of course you've updated your mods to 1.1.
But I understand a modding break. After all, you still have a life and you can't mod 24/7.

So, I think that's all for now ... Phew, lots of text!