Beacon Overhaul

The current implementation of beacons is functional, but not without its faults. Vanilla beacons often act less like broadcasting towers and more like scaffolding when they surround other machines. That said, we want to give players more options, not take them away. So let's find a way to accommodate multiple building styles.

If we want to build crafting machines around beacons instead of the opposite, we need a new beacon with a larger area and more module power. But it also needs to be limited somehow, or else it would just be used in addition to vanilla beacons instead of being an alternative. This is where "exclusion areas" come in.

All beacons now have exclusion areas in addition to their distribution areas. These new areas affect other beacons instead of crafting machines.
By default, other beacons within the exclusion area are disabled. This addresses one of the fundamental balancing problems of beacons, that of beacons with larger areas "reaching past" beacons with smaller areas. Larger and more powerful beacons can be given larger exclusion areas as a balancing factor.

For beacons with smaller areas or less module power, the opposite could be done. But for now, no beacon has an exclusion area smaller than its distribution area. Instead, some beacons will ignore specific beacons in their exclusion areas and not disable them. For example, the standard vanilla beacon only disables non-standard beacons so it is functionally unchanged.

Compatibility

By default, new beacons from other mods will use an exclusion area which is equal to their distribution area. Other changes are covered below. Each beacon's in‑game description covers exactly what it does.

• Krastorio 2 - Singularity beacons are not disabled by standard beacons or other singularity beacons
• Nullius - Small and large beacons don't disable each other
• Pyanodons - AM:FM beacons have strict exclusion areas but don't disable each other; beacon overloading still applies to machines that receive duplicate AM or FM signals
• Exotic Industries - Supercooled beacons have strict exclusion areas and cannot be disabled by other beacons; alien beacons neither disable nor get disabled by any other beacons; beacon overloading still applies to machines which are affected by too many beacons within a short distance
• 248k - Linked beacons have strict exclusion areas but don't disable each other
• Space Exploration - Solo beacons have strict exclusion areas; for now, beacon overloading needs to be disabled manually by editing control.lua and removing the single "beacon" line
• Warptorio 2, Power Crystals - Special beacons neither disable nor get disabled by any other beacons
• Bob's, 5Dim's, Factorio Extended, etc - There are many mods which add tiered beacons so these aren't listed individually. Most use the default exclusion area behavior. Many of these also have stat changes which can be enabled/disabled in the settings.

Beacons with "strict" exclusion areas will disable other beacons from further away than usual - instead of disabling beacons which are in their exclusion area, they'll disable beacons whose distribution areas overlap it. This prevents other beacons from affecting the same machines, effectively making them "solo" beacons. If multiple such beacons ignore each other's exclusion areas, they'll function as independent beacon groups. This system allows different styles of beacons to exist in the same game without interfering with each other.

For example, both the AM:FM beacons from Pyanodons and the beacons from this mod will function as they would normally using either mod alone - they'll just disable each other if beacons from either group are placed too close to each other.

The potential for beacons to still interact with each other spatially means the "spatial puzzle" nature of beacons is preserved and with the right beacons, it can be expanded upon.

New Beacons

This mod includes 5 new beacons, each with a different niche. They can be enabled or disabled individually in the settings.

With these changes, many more beacon layouts become viable options with different advantages and disadvantages. Generally, the more spatially constrained a layout is, the higher module power it will provide for individual machines. Standard 12-beacon layouts are still the go-to for maximum module power among individual 3x3 machines, but other options offer greater density, accessibility, or flexibility. The same concept applies to larger machines too.

• Focused beacons work well in tight spaces. They offer a lot of module power but their small distribution area means an inserter and belt can't fit between them and machines they affect.

• Node beacons are relatively versatile but aren't powerful enough to outmatch standard 8-beacon layouts in terms of module power per machine.

• Conflux beacons provide significant module power while still having a relatively small exclusion area.

• Hub beacons enable a paradigm shift: building machines around beacons instead of beacons around machines. They have wide distribution areas which lessens the spatial constraints and reduces the number of beacons needed, but they also introduce spatial constraints of a different sort due to their wide exclusion areas and unique behavior with other beacons.

• Isolation beacons have even wider distribution areas. They're powerful alone and potentially very convenient, but won't outclass purpose-built beacon layouts.

There's also an option to enable SE-like beacons which emulate the beacons from Space Exploration.

Performance

This mod has zero UPS impact under normal circumstances. There may be a minor impact when beacons are constructed or deconstructed.

Languages

Currently, only English is supported.

Credits

Most new beacons use graphics from Classic Beacon by Kirazy

Hub beacons use graphics from FFF-339 Beacon Graphics by Tedium_0xFF

Isolation beacons and wide-area SE-like beacons use the other graphics from FFF #339 by Albert

Feedback

If you'd like to see compatibility implemented for anything specific or have balance suggestions, feel free to message me or create a discussion thread on the mod portal. Other feedback is welcome too.