LIQUID SCIENCE!!
An alternate way to produce research packs.
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I can be found on the official Factorio discord. Username: 👻Winter👻#4197
If you have any questions feel free to PM or chat to me there ^_^
This mod is currently a work in progress. It works pretty well but some general improvements will follow.
What is this mod?
It's a whole new way to make research packs. I thought the vanilla way of "smoosh items together and magically get a research pack" seemed a bit unrealistic so I've redone the process to include a whole range of fluid.
The general idea is you create various colours which can also be mixed (blue+yellow=green). These colours get mixed with processed fluid and put into vials to make research packs.
You start off with very basic colours: Black, White
Then: Grey Red, Blue, Yellow
And Finally: Pink, Purple, Orange, Green
This means the original way to make research packs is no longer available. Now you have to go this whole new route. I haven't removed the original packs, I've simply changed the name and recipe. For example "research pack 1" is now black instead of red.
How do I use this?
This mod requires bob and angels mods to function as I make use of a lot of the items and materials of the items in those mod packs. Using some mods that change various item recipes can result in issues (AAI industry stops you from actually getting started). I've tested this with omnimatter and it seems to work fine, it just means the whole process is far slower in the beginning. Once you get a functional liquid-science set-up, you should be fine.
As for the mod itself here's the basic idea.
At the beginning of the game you lack access to producing science liquid. You have to craft vials in the vanilla way (albeit a very inefficient way, giving incentive to unlock this mods capabilities). Once you unlock the 1st technology tier you can begin to produce fluid.
There are 2 things to worry about here. Atomized matter and fluid. Atomized matter is what gives all the vibrant colour to the boring fluid. Fluid is created using a mixer and you process it with various machines, if you unlock the technology you can get a better yield to make everything much faster.
Once processed simply put the fluid into a homogenizer, with the desired atom matter and you get that wonderful research fluid.
It's pretty daunting at the beginning, but stick with it and soon you'll be producing a lot of research packs in no time!
What to expect in the future?
At this point just some general improvements. I want to properly implement a better way of producing upgraded fluid recipes, as well as give some balancing and to help the start of the game become a little easier on the player.
CHANGELOG
Version 0.1.0 * Initial release
Version 0.2.0 (I accidentally deleted the 0.2.0 zip from here and never backed it up. Oopsie) * CHANGED some textures * CHANGED a whole bunch of recipes * REMOVED "AAI Industry" dependency
Version 0.3.0 * A MAJOR OVERHAUL of the entire mod as well as the games research pack route. * CHANGED a lot of icons to be nearer the final version * CHANGED recipes for most things * FIXED a bug that stopped the player from progressing
Version 0.3.1 * FIXED air and heat not being unlockable
Version 0.3.2 * FIXED issues with atom matter
Version 0.3.3 * FIXED a broken tech tree * CHANGED recipes to have better ingredient amounts * FIXED a lot of items having broken names
Version 0.3.4 * ADDED atomizer sprite * REMOVED all unnecessary dependencies * CHANGED some fluid colours * FIXED all broken item names * FIXED a couple of wrong item icons