Dark Matter Replicators Reborn

Forked from nihilistzsche's Dark Matter Replicators Space Age — maintained by Jaer985

Adds replicators — machines that produce almost any item using only electricity. From ores to planetary science packs, if it can be crafted, it can be replicated.

How it works

Replication costs are calculated from each item's ingredient chain and capped into per-tier time bands, so everything is balanced automatically for any modlist. Replication is not free: the energy is the cost — higher-tier replicators consume far more power, and rare ores cost more to replicate.

Replicator Tiers (1–5)

Higher tiers replicate faster (crafting speed 1×–6.55×) but pay more energy per item — the balance lives in the power grid, exactly like the original mod ("lower tiers are the most energy efficient"). Tier 1 can replace depleted mining drills; every replicator can duplicate itself (tier-N replicator replicates in tier N).

Cross-tier replication: a tier-N replicator accepts items from any tier ≤ N (tier-5 mass-produces basic inserters at 0.46s — but pays 30 MW while doing it).

Machines pay more: entities with crafting (assembling machines, centrifuges, labs, furnaces, solar panels, steam engines, roboports, factorissimo factories...) get a per-tier multiplier (1.5×–3.5×) — a machine is harder to replicate than a plate.

Planetary Replicators (Space Age)

Specialized replicators for Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo (40/80 MW — the most expensive machines in the game). Planet-specific items (tungsten, holmium, yumako, fluoroketone, scrap, asteroid chunks) route to their home planet's replicator.

Research Mirror (tech progression)

Each original technology gets its own "Replication: <tech>" mirror tech, unlocked by researching the original + the tier's raw materials. Five Replication Materials techs (tenemut → scoop → transducer → conduit) unlock the base materials of each tier. Tenemut itself is only replicable at tier 5 — "Mastery of Dark Matter".

Replicable: virtually every craftable item — including replicators themselves (duplicate your machines), combat capsules, mines, combat robots (tier = vanilla unlock), turrets, ammo, fuel cells, seeds, raw-fish (tier 4, Gleba), quality-gated items via the Refiner.
Not replicable: weapons, armors, vehicles, vehicle equipment, personal equipment (except solar panels/batteries), wires/remotes/planners, filled barrels, internal step items.

Quality Refiner (with Quality mods)

The only DMR path to quality: a dedicated machine that upgrades a replicable item one quality step (never skips): 1% → uncommon, 0.5% → rare, 0.25% → epic, 0.1% → legendary, with a 5% destruction risk. Costs 3× the replication energy (4 MW machine).

Rebalance v4.2 (cost model)

• Times: clamp( min(vanilla, solver) × CT(tier) × machine, band ) — an item never costs more than crafting it, nor than its own recipe chain. Bands: 2.7-16 / 5.3-32 / 10.6-64 / 20-120 / 33.3-200s (nominal; real time divides by replicator speed). Fluids are clamped per LOT (water ~2s/lot, not 50s).
• Ore rarity: rare ores cost more (mining_time × 4).
• Research: 10×tier repetitions per tech (not per item), research packs per tier.
• Difficulty also scales replication times: Easy ×1.0 / Medium ×1.5 / High ×2.0 / Very Hard ×3.0.

Dark Matter Synthesis (play without tenemut ore)

A new startup setting, Tenemut source, controls where tenemut comes from:

In the two synthesis modes, the Dark Matter Synthesizer (1 MW, 4 seconds per tenemut) produces tenemut out of nothing but electricity — it consumes no items at all, so a continuous 1 MW grid feed is the only requirement. Its energy-only recipe deliberately never accepts productivity modules. It is unlocked early by a technology that needs automation science packs only.

The setting only affects new worlds: tenemut patches already present on an existing map are not removed when you switch to "Synthesis only".

A second setting, Require DMR material packs for research (on by default), controls whether replication technologies demand the tier's DMR material pack (tenemut, dark-matter scoop, transducer, matter conduit) as a research pack. Turn it off to research replication with vanilla science packs only.

Compatibility

• Factorio 2.1 + Space Age (2.0 dropped in v4.0)
• Optional support: Quality, Elevated Rails, Bob's, Angel's, Krastorio 2, Space Exploration, Yuoki, factorissimo, AAII, omnimatter, bzgold, lane balancers...
• Replication recipes are generated dynamically for any mod's items (no per-mod tables needed)
• Load-order hardening: optional deps in info.json + data-final-fixes re-validates prereqs (moon-eneas, overhaul mods)

Settings (excerpt)