Eneas

Greetings.

Hello you! Welcome to my mod, Eneas. This has been a passion project of mine for the last year, and it is finally in a state that I can show publically. By no means does this mean this mod is finished, there is still alot of work to be done and I am actively working and maintaining this mod. . Feedback is deeply appreaciated. You can find me on the foundry discord server, link is at the top. Just look for the dedicated Eneas channel, or simply message me directly under "Amelie#3606".

Everything is playable, but there are going to be some missing animations, descriptions and lore entries at the moment. Recipes might be unbalanced.

What is Eneas?

Eneas is both a planet mod and a mini expansion trying to add more lore and immersion to the factorio playing experience. It also adds quality of life improvements when starting over on a new save.

At the center of it all is the mysterious superintelligence called Unit-05, who will contact you very early in your factorio playthrough. Unit-05 is a fully fledged character with hundreds of written lines of dialogue. It will comment on your progress, give helpful advice and even support you on your journey with supplies. Unit-05 is also vital to the gameplay loop on Eneas, where it acts as a solitary giant lab that can process the new science packs introduced by the mod. While many of the new interactions are connected to the Eneas content, some are linked to vanilla techs. If you want to experience everything the mod has to offer, starting a new save file is recommended.

Using the Informatron mod, the player is able to unlock lore entries provided by Unit-05, that shine a light on the complicated history of this particular star system. This lore is based on an extensive story written by yours truly, trying to stay as close as possible to the vanilla vibe. Since this is no official material, think of it more as an "what if" type of deal. This should also give other mods the opportunity to integrate themselves into a larger narrative. My dream would be to unite as many planet mods as possible into a shared narrative universe, creating some cohesion between all the different approaches of planet mod making.

This version of Eneas includes content up until the three initial space age planets. Story for Aquilo, the shattered planet and finale is already written but will only be added together with that content releasing in the future "Eneas part 2".

Compatability

The progression and new elements run parallel to the vanilla game. This means that the mod does not touch any vanilla recipes or items, it does not change tech progression or change the order in which you unlock features.

This should make compatability between Eneas and other mods less complicated. At the same time Eneas uses timed scripting to handle the events it introduces. These can be a problem, especially for multiplayer. While I personally have tested Eneas in multiplayer extensively without desync, there have been some reports of it happening from testers that we weren't able to reproduce so far. Take this into consideration when making a multiplayer save with Eneas enabled

Since Eneas is very self contained, adding or removing it should be rather safe, however I cannot give a guarantee on that. I recommend to always make a backup of a save when adding larger content mods like Eneas.

Gameplay

Eneas introduces many new (and sometimes experimental) mechanics. Starting out on Nauvis the player will discover crashing pieces of debris, originally belonging to Eneas. Mining these artifacs will reward the player with the "Weathered artifact", the core of the mods new recipes. The artifact is a representation of all the ancient technology that is connected to the moon of Eneas and therefore extremely flexible in its applications. Processing the artifacts will yield multiple component items, which then can be refined using the technology of the space age planets.

Artifacts are especially useful in the early game, as they can be used to "cheat" out certain items before they become officialy availabe in the tech progression. The mod also introducese a way to automatically handle the minig of dynamically created entities, making the automation of artifacts on Nauvis a possibility.

On Eneas itself, everything revolves around Unit-05. As the operating system of the now ruined world, it can control the few remaining pieces of equipment to produce a steady stream of resources for the player. Every cycle of 15 minutes, the machine will produce a small amount of free resources, which can be improved via research.

Supply productivity is also impacted by pollution. Eneas is bursting with toxic fumes and other pollutants and will release some with each cycle. If the pollution on the surface gets too high, the resource output of Unit-05 will be diminished. At the most cricital levels of pollution, Unit-05 will cease its function as a lab, halting all research until conditions are improved.

You can help diminish the pollution levels using new tools introduced by new modded buildings unlocked on Eneas, for example the clarifier:

It fullfills two roles at once:

1. It can refine ores from the dirty mud water present on Eneas, giving you access to more raw resources without depending on Unit-05's generation

2. It removes pollution with each crafting step, allowing you to scale up your factory in size without adding to the pollution level.

These are just a few examples on what you can expect on Eneas!

Assets

Assets in my mods are made by me using a process called "kitbashing", where I remix and splice together already existing assets into a new form. Apart from assets belonging to the vanilla game, I am also using assets from two other mods, namely

1. Krastorio 2

You can find a more detailed breakdown in README of my asset mod "Mimi's graphics part 2"

AI use

I want to be transparent about the use of generative AI in my work. While I won't mark down every single line or icon individually, I will instead refer to areas of the mod as a whole. If you're interested in a more detailed breakdown you can contact me under the links provided on the mod homepage.

1. Prototypes: minimal AI use, at most for formatting issues.

2. Scripts: Heavy AI use, as I am incompetent when it comes to scripting in LUA. Expect most files in the script folder to be affected.

3. Entity graphics: No AI use, all entity sprites have been created by me through a process called kitbashing, see "Assets".

4. Icon graphics: Minimal AI use. Some items upscaled, very few have a generated base that was then corrected by hand (servorfish for example)

5. Music: No AI use. Refer to "special thanks" section to find a link to the artist

Special thanks to:

• the foundry disord server for their continued support in my hopeless misadventures

• the concept of machine learning for enabling my rampant abuse of scripted events

• composer JonJon for graciously providing many amazing tracks of music for the Eneas project

• mod creator Talandar for his constant advice and help getting this mod off the ground

• mod creator and beta tester Syen who also contributed a great thumbnail