Hey there! I have started a playthrough with some planet-related and recipe-related mods (e.g. Lignumis, Transplutonic, Scienception, etc.). I just want to thank you for making two mods (this and Space Age Galore) that really, really, really expand the awesome variety and flexibility of things. I also wanted to give you an idea of the types of mods I play with and how the Galore mods interact with them, just to give you a sense of how real-life players are using your stuff. :)

Early-game alternate recipes: Because my playthrough uses Lignumis/Wooden Industries, the alternate recipe for wood circuits was a lifesaver to try to stretch my tiny Nauvis starter iron patch! So was the steel gear recipe, which I was pleasantly surprised to find out is actually more iron-efficient even before foundries or prod modules! So much thought has gone into these little recipes that I find it fantastic! It's awesome to be able to start looking at using these alternates so much sooner than I thought - I don't have to wait for oil or steel for them to already be coming in handy.

Not focusing exclusively on iron/copper: All too often in vanilla, players end up with many and/or massive production areas of iron, copper, and their associated outputs, but will have very few/small setups for stone, uranium, and/or coal. The alternate recipes provided have already given me a number of options about how to use stone in different ways, and I'm excited to try them out .... after I tap a few more patches, my wood science from Lignumis being required in every single science pack's recipe chain is really draining my starter patch.

Recipe names: I appreciate the way you've named your recipes. Because I'm playing with some other mods too (e.g. the BZ mods that have been updated to 2.0), I've made a personal compatibility mod that makes many changes to your recipes (e.g. adding graphite/solder to circuits, adding prerequisite science packs to science recipes). The naming convention of your recipes is definitely sufficient to not cause naming conflicts, yet is also super understandable and not difficult to work with.

Balanced recipes: When I mixed this mod with Scienceception, one of the things I was most looking forward to was being able to sit down and look at different recipe chains in Factory Planner and evaluate what I wanted to use for different packs, etc. And I was not disappointed at all - the recipes are so well balanced that there doesn't seem to be a single pack that has an "obviously better" recipe (e.g. recipes with fewer raw resources will also require more processing steps).

Interesting design choices: It's fascinating, especially once I start getting into the mid-game intermediates (e.g. engines, electric furnaces, advanced circuits, etc.), that I can choose whether I value efficiency or simplicity. I can choose whether I want each little sub-factory to be the most resource-efficient it can be, or if I want to make the factory more cohesive as a whole and simply logistics. For example, many subfactories with iron ingredients (plates, sticks, gears) can have iron plate completely removed from their chains in favor of steel! So it gives me the option to make a massive steel factory and use that as much as possible, or to ship in more ingredients for a different outcome!

Interoperability between recipes: This is related to the above point a bit, but I like that a lot of the alternate recipes use the same items. I never would have thought I'd seriously be considering making a sub-factory dedicated to making yellow/red belts, but since both are used in a number of alternate recipes it might actually be worth it to do so. Similarly, I may end up shipping assembling machines around! Just the concept of using the same low-to-mid tier items to make more of the mid-tier ingredients or even machines/belts makes it so what I can consider a "useful intermediate" or "main-bus-able item" changes, and that's fantastic!

No/low research cost: One of the things that annoys me most about Satisfactory is that when I want to have the option to use specific recipe chains (e.g. solid steel), I am forced to put in a ton of effort to get the recipe (getting all the unlock costs for the drop pods, actually collecting all the hard drives, hoping I roll the right recipe, etc.) I really appreciate how the Galore mods will either put the alternate recipes in where they make sense (e.g. iron gears from steel being unlocked at steel processing), or will make a new technology node that isn't a pain in the butt. The technology nodes serve as kind of checkpoints (you've gotta have chemical science to unlock X recipe) but they don't punish me for it. It's like the mod says "Look. You don't have to use this alternate recipe, but if you want it, it's here, enjoy it!" instead of the Satisfactory model of "we will let you pick, but you've gotta stop growing your factory, you've gotta go explore in hazardous areas, and you've gotta hope you get lucky."

Focus on keeping Galore on Vanilla stuff: I'm not super far into my playthrough yet (just starting oil stuff), but I can already see that many of the recipes work well with other mods, both early-game mods (e.g. Wooden Industries and Lignumis) and also later-game mods (e.g. Janus, Maraxis). I think this largely works because those mods balance around vanilla progression. Having different ways to make vanilla items is a very useful mechanic when many other mods require those intermediates. So the focus, or "pact" as you phrased it, to keep your changes to only vanilla recipes, is paying off in ways that I, as a player, really enjoy. I'm sure I'll find some mods that really don't interact with Galore at all, and that's fine, but there's already so many possibilities!

I'm super excited to see what I end up doing on this playthrough, and how the different interactions between mods produces new and unexpected results. I want to thank you for the Galore mods, which have become a centerpiece of that philosophy!

Woah… Thanks for your kind words!! This has to be one of the longest, most well-constructed compliments I have ever gotten. Thanks again! :D

I'm glad you're enjoying the mod(s)! I put a lot of time into them, and it makes me really happy to see it's paying off. :)

e.g. the BZ mods that have been updated to 2.0), I've made a personal compatibility mod that makes many changes to your recipes (e.g. adding graphite/solder to circuits, adding prerequisite science packs to science recipes

BZ support is planned for the future. From what I've heard, I think I could just make a script that does not require too much maintenance, like I did with Maraxsis and Demolisher Scales. I do wonder what you mean by adding prerequisite science packs, since Scienceception seems to work with the alternate science recipes. Maybe I could include what your issue is in a future bugfix.

No/low research cost

I'm glad you're enjoying the node system! Originally meant to be temporary until proper techs, but it has actually grown on me quite a bit... I am still thinking of possibly grouping some nodes together, but, well, I will not fix what isn't broken. The low tech costs will stay.

So the focus, or "pact" as you phrased it, to keep your changes to only vanilla recipes, is paying off in ways that I, as a player, really enjoy.

I don't change any vanilla recipes, but I think I know what you mean. :)  
Anyways, again, I'm glad you're enjoying the mods, and thanks for your feedback - I will hold it close to heart.

Good luck with your playthrough, and if you see anything you dislike, just let me hear it. (´∀`)b

(Sorry for the short response, had to cut it a bit because it was just me repeating "thank you" lol)

Woah… Thanks for your kind words!! This has to be one of the longest, most well-constructed compliments I have ever gotten. Thanks again! :D

Awww, thanks for your kind response too! :)

BZ support is planned for the future. From what I've heard, I think I could just make a script that does not require too much maintenance, like I did with Maraxsis and Demolisher Scales. I do wonder what you mean by adding prerequisite science packs, since Scienceception seems to work with the alternate science recipes. Maybe I could include what your issue is in a future bugfix.

You're welcome to take a look at what I've done. My current save, along with my very basic and very poorly commented mod can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WGJey871tZWnLjr1oUmv_howrbjJ9doI. Most of my changes fall in one of three camps:
1) Adding BZ materials to other mods (graphite/solder to circuits, lead to pipes, crucible to electric furnaces, diamonds to LDS recipes, etc.)
2) Tiering prerequisites (making sure basic/wooden tiers are included in other chains, making armor a proper chain, tiering AFH items, etc.)
3) Hooking science recipes together. I had to remove the steam -> automation link in Scienception, as gold is not available on Nauvis and you can't get it back until chemical science. Because of this, I added wood to most automation science packs, and then I did want to add steam back in to space, production, and utility sciences. Those explain nearly all the science pack changes between them.
There's a few other changes, such as adding wood into burner inserter recipes, but nothing too crazy.

I am totally open to trying to coordinate with you in some way if that's helpful (you can find me in the Factorio Discord with the same name), but I have a weird way of playing the game that may not appeal to everyone. I just kind of figured nobody else would want to play the way I do with the groups I do, so it was easier to make the changes myself than to try to get other mods to change for my playstyle. That being said, some kind of automated BZ support would be fantastic, but I don't know if that'd be done on your end, Brevven's end, or both...

I'm glad you're enjoying the node system! Originally meant to be temporary until proper techs, but it has actually grown on me quite a bit... I am still thinking of possibly grouping some nodes together, but, well, I will not fix what isn't broken. The low tech costs will stay.

I'm just glad that it's not so painful to get the alternate recipes. I don't mind if they're individual nodes or grouped together or whatnot, especially since 10 packs is not expensive at all.

I don't change any vanilla recipes, but I think I know what you mean. :)  

Yeah, I meant the fact you don't add new items, and only add new recipes for existing items. :)

Good luck with your playthrough, and if you see anything you dislike, just let me hear it. (´∀`)b

I'll definitely let you know if that happens but I don't see it happening yet. Then again, I've only been on two planets so who knows what will change...

(Sorry for the short response, had to cut it a bit because it was just me repeating "thank you" lol)

<3

That being said, some kind of automated BZ support would be fantastic

Your wish has been granted, fully automated BZ support is now available in the latest version (both Space Age and Vanilla Galore)!

It took me a while, but I really should have done this sooner. The only currently known issues are:

• Recipes involving carbon fiber have slightly weird icons.
• The ordering of certain recipes is a bit off.

Both of these will be fixed in future releases.

If you notice any other issues with compatibility, please let me know! There's always a chance I missed something. Since the script is designed to be fully automatic, I've kept balancing of individual recipes to a minimum. I don't personally play with BZ mods, so I'm not familiar with the relative "worth" of every item. While most adjustments were as simple as adding an ingredient, some recipes proved to be more difficult.

You're welcome to take a look at what I've done. My current save, along with my very basic and very poorly commented mod can be found here

I took a look at your mod, helped a lot with coding the compat, thank you! I hope you don't mind me making the majority of the code obsolete though.. XD
(I didn't have time to look at the save though, I'll do that somewhere tomorrow.)

I am totally open to trying to coordinate with you in some way if that's helpful (you can find me in the Factorio Discord with the same name)

Oh nice! I'll keep that in mind. I also go by the same name, (JTnadrooi) and my DMs are open if you need anything. I can also be found in said server.

Thanks for playing! (´∀`)b

I took a look at your mod, helped a lot with coding the compat, thank you! I hope you don't mind me making the majority of the code obsolete though.. XD

I don't mind at all, it wasn't hard to comment out some lines that hopefully I'll get around to deleting. ;)

(I didn't have time to look at the save though, I'll do that somewhere tomorrow.)
No worries at all, I just provided it as a potential example of a base right between logistic and chemical that may be useful to you. Or maybe not!

The changes look amazing! I reached out to you via DM about a few small things I noticed but your integration was amazing! I also like how you thought to include things like Carbon black that I had totally neglected.

I'll definitely let you know if I see anything else that's weird!