Tech tree - With Zircon, Engine research should depend on Zirconia to make spark plugs. Also no need to depend on Basic Alloys.

Medium / Big Power Poles as well as Substations are painfully expensive with the addition of the ACSR cables in raw plates and especially Steel usage.

I'll post back here with anything else I run into rather than spam new topics all over.

Thanks! Removing basic alloys as a prerequisite from engines broadens the tree a little bit, so I like that. I decided to change the car recipe to require 6061 aluminum alloy instead of just aluminum plate as well, so engines kind of branches into vehicles which all require alloys, or fluid/oil stuff which does not require alloys (until far later).

My goal with the power poles, etc is to make the power line wires a bit more expensive, but it does feel like I've overshot by a good amount.

I'm going to do 2 things, both to balance the price:
First, I'll reduce cable amounts needed in recipes. Small pole will require 1 aluminum cable, medium pole: 1 ACSR cable, big: 2 ACSR, and substation: 4 ACSR. Honestly this feels nicer thematically to, based on what each pole can do.

I'll also slightly reduce the raw price of ACSR, also slightly improving the thematic ratios of aluminum to steel:

Instead of 1 Aluminum Cable + 1 Steel plate --> 1 ACSR cable (7 raw to 1)

it will now be 6 Aluminum Cable + 1 Steel plate --> 3 ACSR cable (5.67 raw to 1).

Overall it's still slightly more expensive than vanilla, but not ridiculously so.

I will see how the changes feel, but this does sound like an improvement. My biggest concern was the steel consumption, as Aluminum is easier to get in quantity.

Looking closer, it seems like a bug got fixed somewhere in this process as well. In the previous version the ACSR cables were getting added to the recipe, but it seems they were supposed to be replacing copper plate. So basically the power poles were costing close to double vanilla, not a slight increase. Not sure why it wasn't working before, but it is now.

Between those two, I'm sure this will feel much better to play.

Finished a game up through rocket launch and I don't see any other major issues.
Two minor things though:
- Aluminum-2219 is only used in one place in vanilla recipes - LDS. Though now that I think about it, I suppose LDS is in science and a lot of equipment, so maybe that's actually fine.
- Rockets don't use Aluminum-2219, the 'aerospace alloy.' Whether the silo or rocket parts are a better fit I don't know, but I think it should be used here somewhere.

I think this is coming out to be one of your better resource mods, and I like all of them. Had a bit of a 'duh' moment myself when I upgraded alumina production midgame and forgot that it outputs silica. Not the worst mess that could happen, but definitely an oopsie.

Thanks, glad it seemed to go well!

I didn't add 2219 directly to rocket parts, since LDS are used in rockets, and 2219 alloy is now the only true metal in LDS. My general ongoing plan now for LDS is to preserve the plastic + ceramic + metal core recipe (plus things like diamonds to represent grinding, maybe eventually welding electrodes etc).

But I think you're right that I should try to find at least one more recipe for it in vanilla.

Regarding your "duh" moment, do you think it's worth adding a mod setting to turn off smelting byproducts in each of my mods that has one?

You know, I somehow completely forgot about LDS going into rocket parts. Probably because the rocket parts don't show up in Recipe Book.
Anyway, I would still like to see it in some recipe other than LDS. Maybe robot frames, but I haven't thought about it too hard.

I do like the general direction you're taking LDS, with sort of a priority list of ingredients depending on what combination of mods is active.

And I wouldn't go so far as to (optionally) disable byproducts. That was just meant as an amusing anecdote, along the lines of "I sent stone to my iron smelter and look at this huge mess!" type reddit posts. I mean, if other people ask for the option then sure, but I'm perfectly fine with the byproducts.

Folks haven't asked to turn off byproducts yet, so I won't make that change quite yet.

I do need to figure out what to do about byproducts as the early tech tree gets more complicated. With all of my mods active, there are now multiple cases where a byproduct is created prior to the recipe to use the byproduct being available. I was ok with one of those, as a little challenge, but I'm worried that having too many of those situations becomes a chore.

Also, I think artillery shells are the best second place to put aerospace-grade aluminum alloy. I think they tend to use other alloys than 2219 in real life, but I think that is sufficient for vanilla+ factorio :) I'll make that update soon