Hey there,

it's great if you want to make an extension to Bob's mods. But please, for the sake of simple minded users like me:

Change the thumbnail!

The current direct copy of Bob's MCI thumbnail suggests this is an official add-on – which it is not!
Especially the stylized B in the top left is misleading. The big "extension" is not different enough to immediately see this is not official.

If you want it to be similar to Bob's mods, you can do something like the thumbnail of this add-on to Bob's mods:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/boblocale

If I wanted to be pedantic, I could emphasize that the license of Bob's mods does not allow the redistribution of changes – and this should also include the thumbnail. So strictly speaking, it is not clear if you violate Bob's mods license.

Hi valneq,

First of all, thank you for notifying me of this issue, it will be fixed right away. Although the icon is just a forum/mod decoration and nothing else regarding gameplay, I do confess its design was oversimplified at first, especially after having to deeply understand how Bob's libraries work to safely implement this mod extension.

The focus of this mod is to provide alternatives to all players who are not satisfied with the existing processes in Bob's mods. I believe it will not only be a valuable & positive feedback, but also a reason for people playing more Factorio with Bob's mods. I'm a very experienced programmer with over 25 years of programming, and also a huge fan of pure Bob's mods with hundreds of hours of gameplay. I simply won't release anything which could harm the gameplay or the challenges provided by Bob's mods: even after installing the mod, it does nothing until the player accesses the mod settings and specifically enables the desired settings.

This mod contains absolutely NO copy of source code or resources provided by any other mods, unless strictly allowed by the previous code/resource owner. I am being careful here, so I can safely say it should not be offending any existing license.

Furthermore, I have chosen the most flexible and permissive license available for this mod, because my main goal is actually to contribute to Bob's mods. In the long run, I do expect Bob to integrate the most popular changes, while this mod 'extension' remains as a lab for the most controversial or non-standard changes.

I personally believe there is absolutely NO POINT in restricting the license of something which is not allowed to be sold commercially anyway, especially a mod of such a great game. The intention with Bob's mod extension is to improve gameplay of Bob's mods, providing valuable alternatives to the player, finally making people play Factorio with Bob's mods installed more than ever before.

Done.

Looks good.

I was only referring to the thumbnail – especially the stylized B – when referring to a possible violation of the license. I understand that you don't re-use any of bob's code in your mod. Whether or not it makes sense for bobingabout to attach a restrictive license to his mods is entirely his choice.

I wish you all the best of luck with your project! I doubt that I will be using your mod anytime soon, though. I usually add Angel's mods when playing with Bob's – and for the time being your extension looks redundant to Angel's mods.

I personally think Angel's got a little bit too far with the amount of new processes and stuff introduced there, but this is entirely a matter of taste being discussed here. For me and my group of friends it got too 'realistic' in its processes, overwhelming the players with too much complexity in the scope of a multiplayer gameplay. So much that playing Angel's with hardcore creep settings / Natural Selection / Rampant is simply a no-go for my group of friends.

In my current point of view, I believe Bob's mods shouldn't be just a basis for Angel's mods, but also a working standalone big-mod possibility. It introduces vanilla Factorio players to a first level of additional complexity, before they step into the deepness of Angel's mods. If Bob's mod loses such ability due to any possible unbalanced processes or whatever, the mod literally loses its identity, and could lead these new players to a negative experience with big complex mods. In this case, we could even assume Bob's just got part of Angel's, which is not true.

Anyway, I'll try to focus my attention on pure Bob's gameplays, trying mostly to provide -optional- balancing features for this kind of setup. That is why I named the mod as an "Extension", and not whatsoever. Whether people want to install additional mods over Bob's mods, this is up to them.

I did not say that Bob's mods are not interesting or not playable as standalone. They are very much enjoyable as standalone. I just said that I won't do it :-P

If you think there are serious balance issues with Bob's mods alone, you can always report them to bobingabout:
https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=88130
While he is not actively modding right now, it's only a matter of time when he will come back to it.

Yes, I hope Bob comes back soon, I've already bothered him with a few requests...

mee to -_-