Great mod, though I have a small nitpick.
Would it be possible to add mod setting to alter generation of underground deposits of Oil and Stone ores.
IMO Oil wells make more sense to be pumped from surface only rather than via pumpjacks underground(poor visibility of oil wells underground is an issue too).
Similarly a setting to allow for stone patches to be generated under surface just like other resources.

Why would you need stone patches? You get a lot of stone from digging

Because the digging requires micromanaging.

Because the digging requires micromanaging.

How do you mean that?

Because the digging requires micromanaging.

How do you mean that?

I mean i need to actively be present to give new areas to clear in order to get more stone and check that my AAI vehicles ain't stuck as they tend to do.
Bots ain't better, since i only can define rather small area to clear at a time. For some reason defining large area to clear eats up UPS like crazy.

Compare this to stone patches that may last for several hours without any additional attention.

This got especially bad when i started making production science.

I'll think of it, an idea is to have stone patches in the underground, maybe smaller spots but more frequent and less dense

Hi Natha,

great mod.

I’d really like to have an option for stone patches, at least on the surface. Maybe you could add a setting for that?

many thanks for your work.

Hello all.
I was recently thinking of adding stone patches on the surface as you suggested. My current idea is that they will be quite rare but extremely rich. What do you think?
An issue might be that once the starting stone patch is depleted, you'll have a long distance to the next one which might be too much for your base defenses. Which means that likely there won'be be any stone patch during mid-game. I don't know if I can ensure that there is a patch in a distance that you can reach mid-game.

I don't know why you're incessant with this. Factorio is a game about automation and your direction is completely against this.
You can not have players micro-manage non-stop to keep getting stone and by having players expand their maps endlessly. Using buggy AAI vehicles for this is also just going to be taxing on UPS.
I don't care for AAI vehicles, the other parts of your mod are pretty good but I don't agree with your idea of balancing with stone at all.

I don't know why you're incessant with this. Factorio is a game about automation and your direction is completely against this.
You can not have players micro-manage non-stop to keep getting stone and by having players expand their maps endlessly. Using buggy AAI vehicles for this is also just going to be taxing on UPS.
I don't care for AAI vehicles, the other parts of your mod are pretty good but I don't agree with your idea of balancing with stone at all.

Balancing is important in a challenge-adding mod.
So I asked what people think about my idea. They can also share other ideas.

I don't know why you're incessant with this. Factorio is a game about automation and your direction is completely against this.
You can not have players micro-manage non-stop to keep getting stone and by having players expand their maps endlessly. Using buggy AAI vehicles for this is also just going to be taxing on UPS.
I don't care for AAI vehicles, the other parts of your mod are pretty good but I don't agree with your idea of balancing with stone at all.

Balancing is important in a challenge-adding mod.
So I asked what people think about my idea. They can also share other ideas.

Yes and pure attrition is not the way to balance this.
You've already made a great concept with interesting logistics like the surface ores having denser ones below, managing pollution underground and connecting it all through the holes. The potential of multi-layered factories is interesting too.

It's ruined by making an essential material non-existent and having you hold right click on rock walls underground all the time or to install a separate mod to automate it, which has its own issues like pathing, UPS usage and the increase in world size.

Just making stone generation act like how the other ores do, would already have fixed this problem.

Hi Natha,

I personally can live with your idea; I play Train Worlds.

However, EmmiLime has a strong point regarding automation.

My suggestion would be a compromise (when possible): add multiple options in the mod settings.

Hard: Like it is right now.
Classic: Stone generation behaves like in the world settings (I think stone patches in the subsurface are not needed).
Light: Your idea with fewer but richer stone patches.

This mod really need an option to allow standard stone generation. 30 hours in and my starter 250k stone patch is running out. So now my only options are spamming drills on the surface for stone, trying to dig as deep as possible to get the prod bonuses, installing an additional mod and micromanaging that, patching out the code manually, or just cheating in stone patches.

None of these are a great option when people expect vanilla resources from a non-resource adding mod. Its not like this is a custom planet where stone gets its own production tree.

I will change that in the next release

My suggestion would be a compromise (when possible): add multiple options in the mod settings.

Hard: Like it is right now.
Classic: Stone generation behaves like in the world settings (I think stone patches in the subsurface are not needed).
Light: Your idea with fewer but richer stone patches.

Thats a nice idea. I think this is something for new games in the map generation dialog.