Haven't dug too deep into this yet but there's a few things I'd like to request.

1. An option to disable each skill. Leave it as a required step for progression, but allow me to disable a certain skill if I so choose. Will let me pick/choose what I am looking to augment, but keep the base system in place. Don't see the need to change anything else, still keeps the cost high to get certain things, but I really dislike the movement speed boosts, but are required to get hand craft speed, and overclock for the capstone system. I realize I can just remove legendary legs, but there doesn't seem to be a nice balance when I'm trying to get fine movement speed aside from disabling my exo-skeleton.

2. Add values into the settings menu for things like long reach, movement speed modifiers(might be an option to fine-tune a specific skill). I would ask you keep the disabling option as well as this to fine-tune things, like if I really really want to run across the planet like the flash I can just re-enable the skill in the system.

3. Adding this when I'm already 300+ hours into the game didn't give me much chance to really build on it, and a lot of the things are of no use to me, it'll be fine in a new game, but for existing versions, perhaps adding a one-time bonus for each planet opened? Not quite sure how you'd do that, maybe by checking which planets have been researched and adding a flat bonus for each??? Not anything crazy, but just a half-level for each planet would give 4-10 levels if you have lots of planets?

Haven't dug too deep into this yet but there's a few things I'd like to request.

1. An option to disable each skill. Leave it as a required step for progression, but allow me to disable a certain skill if I so choose. Will let me pick/choose what I am looking to augment, but keep the base system in place. Don't see the need to change anything else, still keeps the cost high to get certain things, but I really dislike the movement speed boosts, but are required to get hand craft speed, and overclock for the capstone system. I realize I can just remove legendary legs, but there doesn't seem to be a nice balance when I'm trying to get fine movement speed aside from disabling my exo-skeleton.

2. Add values into the settings menu for things like long reach, movement speed modifiers(might be an option to fine-tune a specific skill). I would ask you keep the disabling option as well as this to fine-tune things, like if I really really want to run across the planet like the flash I can just re-enable the skill in the system.

3. Adding this when I'm already 300+ hours into the game didn't give me much chance to really build on it, and a lot of the things are of no use to me, it'll be fine in a new game, but for existing versions, perhaps adding a one-time bonus for each planet opened? Not quite sure how you'd do that, maybe by checking which planets have been researched and adding a flat bonus for each??? Not anything crazy, but just a half-level for each planet would give 4-10 levels if you have lots of planets?

1) You're in luck, this is on my list today! Lone wolf was not playing well, and whilst I love being speed, there is a time and a place. I am sure this can be extended to other player altering skills in the same way that releasing combat robots was (removed as it was pointless overall)

2) This is also on a list, maybe not for today, but I do want the player to have more control over those sort of settings.

3) Yes, it probably suits being there from the start of the game, or some kind of catch up mechanic, this almost certainly will take a bit more time. In the mean time there is the debug menu (Alt+Shift+K) to give levels/ skill points.

Thankyou for the suggestions :)

Edit: Well this has turned out into a bigger process than I imagined. Implementing them both at the same time was not a good idea, hopfully out today, but alot of changes for how character speed is handled, likely bugs if/when I do get it out.

2nd Edit: So many bugs found with application of player speed. hopefully I will have disable skill working tonight, but the options setting is going to take more time!

I think a simple way to allow hop in progression if you install the mod after having already started the game is to have each science research give XP so that you start with a bunch of levels thanks to having already done a lot of re search. The XP given would have to be significant enough to give you about 1 level per research, maybe a bit less than 1 per research.

I think a simple way to allow hop in progression if you install the mod after having already started the game is to have each science research give XP so that you start with a bunch of levels thanks to having already done a lot of re search. The XP given would have to be significant enough to give you about 1 level per research, maybe a bit less than 1 per research.

Yeah, that seems pretty simple, I have added that to 1.9.5 along with a bit more clean up for removing the mod as some values where being preserved after being removed.

Edit: It was not simple! but this is due to my own save game outliers, working through it now.

Edit2: I have learnt a lot about prompts and AI with this addition, so thankyou both . In short, we know AI loves to agree with you, it also likes to go down complex routes that do just too much. I feel that this is probably the cleanest solution and when I ask it to apply this method to the rest of the code it will probably remove a few bugs I am not aware of and introduce a few more! At this point I feel I should be back at 0.xx, but I promise you that the early early versions where horrible.

Oh yeah, AI can go strange places and is often just a yes-men. you have to be specific with your prompts so that it won't just agree with you or go in tangent.

But I've been thinking about this issue of opt in XP scaling. You could base it on how many types of science pack it's using. If you want to make sure the Progression isn't too reliant on Research but that Re search is still significant. Research could give a Level bonus for each of them researched and it could be 20% of a level per Science Pact Type or maybe 10%, it could be independent from the XP scaling. Though I fear there might not be enough skills to pour points in to really make that work. But it's an idea!

Oh yeah, AI can go strange places and is often just a yes-men. you have to be specific with your prompts so that it won't just agree with you or go in tangent.

Kind of the reason I am enjoying this process. Yeah, I don't have them time to dedicate to creating it myself, but I can conduct it's creation. It's why I wanted to be totally upfront and honest about how this mod has been made. It's AI slop, but for me it's my heavily curated AI Slop that I have spent hours upon hours refining it's instructions. It's not the same, but I believe that there is an art to prompts. Would still have loved it more to have time to invest it actually learning it for myself.

For anyone starting a similar process I have the following advice at the start:

Tell it not to agree with you, challenge what you are asking or you'll get a tonne of "good idea, lets implement it like this"
When suggesting something new, ask how it could impact other gameplay items or the gameplay loop.
Tell it to use best practice for better integration - This mod should work with multiplayer (although probably won't be used for it, the functionality remains)
Tell it to only build/ increment build when you ask for it
Regularly ask it to reassess the code base
Ask are we doing this the simplest way? I do have a background in coding and a good understanding of the factorio modding system so have been able to direct it to events/ hooks, but if you have none that question should capture some issues.

Gone off on a tangent there, I am defo somewhere on the spectrum!

But I've been thinking about this issue of opt in XP scaling. You could base it on how many types of science pack it's using. If you want to make sure the Progression isn't too reliant on Research but that Re search is still significant. Research could give a Level bonus for each of them researched and it could be 20% of a level per Science Pact Type or maybe 10%, it could be independent from the XP scaling. Though I fear there might not be enough skills to pour points in to really make that work. But it's an idea!

This is something I probably need to address later for the late game. A small bit of background. I could go the route of you only have so many skill points so make them count, it's not my favoured thing. I like if you invest the time, have it all. That comes at the expense of not making it feel boring or to overpowered. I could be loving a save and then a mod kicks in and removes any sort of challenge, depending on the aim for that game it could kill it, god modules is a good example of this.

I do want to make sure that level ups can always happen and I am not going to stop anyone from having them fast, but ultimately I want it to supplement gameplay without being too cheaty - and there are definite too cheaty elements in for some. I need to look at the level deltas and at some points address skill points per level and skill cost. I just like getting alot of skill points on level up so I can do stuff with them.

This mod was initially created only for me, I uploaded it on a whim. It's turned out to be a good idea as I have had some great feedback and bugs reported, so thankyou for you points, the level curve will be looked at to ensure progress remains meaningful without hammering the level up sound too much and overloading on skills so it becomes a drain/chore to allocate them.

Edit: I will add, whilst the mod is AI, all the forum posts are by me, no AI input. I take the time to read and digest all the posts, my spelling and grammatical errors are my own....