Water Maze

This mod changes the distribution of land and water at the start of a new game.

A variety of terrain generation algorithms are included in the mod, and they can be fully
configured by editing config.lua. By default, the mod generates an infinite maze with path
width 32. This mod can also be used to remove all water from the game.

About

• Type: Mod
• Name: Water maze
• Description: Changes the distribution of water and land at the start of a new game
• License: MIT
• Author: swni
• Version: 0.1.0
• Release: 2016-03-15
• Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.14.21
• Category: Gameplay
• Tags: terrain, water, land

Important Notes

• To configure the mod, edit the configuration section at the top of config.lua. There
  are instructions immediately below the configuration section. For more advanced features
  read the comments in patterns/patterns.lua describing the patterns you are interested in.
• In most configurations, resources are much rarer and harder to reach than in the
  vanilla game. It is strongly recommended to turn resource generation WAY up, probably to
  maximum on size and richness at least. You may also want to turn enemy spawns down.
• The various maze generators can be computationally heavy when exploring new territory
  far from the origin. This is most true for maze2, which may cause problems on ultra large
  maps.
• Thanks to some deep magic, the mod remembers the settings that it had when you started a
  new game. If you change settings you can still reload old games and they will continue to
  generate terrain according to the original settings and ignore the new ones. This allows you
  to have multiple concurrent games going on with different settings. This also allows multiplayer
  to work even if different players have different settings active (host's settings dominate).
  (As of Factorio 0.12.30 this multiplayer feature is no longer true, and there is no way around
  it. You must manually synchronize the settings of all participants in a multiplayer game.)
• The map setting for water size does not have a direct effect on the game. The map setting
  for water does affect the distribution of dry/wet biomes and in particular the amount of
  trees, neither of which the mod modifies.
• You can choose between blue and green water!
• Version changes are likely to be incompatible; I suggest completing any games started with
  an earlier version of the mod before upgrading.
• It is very hard and tedious to thoroughly test this mod, especially the saving/loading
  and multiplayer of each of the many patterns and pattern combinations. Let me know if you
  encounter any bugs.
• Mod has been tested on multiplayer.
• The SquaresAndBridges pattern with a bridge width of 2 does align with railroad tracks properly.

Unimportant Notes

• The maze1 generation algorithm guarantees that all landmasses are infinite in size. With
  probability 1, all land is accessible from the starting location. The algorithm will never
  generate 2x2 regions of solid land or solid water (other than the origin), making it quite
  hard to find places to build a factory. The algorithm will sometimes make loops. This algorithm
  tends to align land in rings centered on the origin. Internally, the algorithm uses the
  union-find algorithm and also
  base Fibonacci. This maze generation
  algorithm was wholly devised by me from scratch.
• The maze2 generation algorithm guarantees that all land is accessible from the origin and
  that the landmass is infinite in size. This algorithm makes a sparser maze than the previous,
  but will never generate a 3x3 region of water. The algorithm infrequently generates 2x2 regions
  of land, making it quite hard to find places to build a factory. This algorithm likes to make
  straight paths, making it the most suitable for train networks of the three maze algorithms,
  and generally makes the nicest looking mazes. Internally, the algorithm builds a
  Diffusion-limited aggregate and
  is based on Wilson's algorithm for maze generation. The diffusion process is quite slow but a
  small advective bias towards the origin is used to prevent the algorithm from taking an
  extremely long time in the worst case.
• The maze3 generation algorithm simply randomly makes each chunk land or water (the former
  with 60% probability). The algorithm guarantees that from the starting square you can travel at
  least 100 chunks north, east, south, and west. Since 60% is above the critical
  percolation threshold
  59.27% for site percolation on a square lattice, it is very likely (but not guaranteed) that
  the starting landmass is infinite. This algorithm frequently generates loops and inaccessible
  islands. This algorithm frequently generates large and irregular chunks of land, making it
  relatively easy to find places to build a factory. The boundary between land and water is
  almost a fractal (it would be a fractal if the probability of land were exactly the critical
  threshold, but in that case land masses would not be infinite).

List of patterns

Patterns (optional arguments show default value)

• Simple patterns
  • AllLand()
  • AllWater()
  • Square(radius = 32)
  • Circle(radius = 32)
  • Halfplane()
  • Quarterplane()
  • Strip(width = 1)
  • Cross(width = 1)
  • Comb()
  • Grid()
  • Checkerboard()
  • Spiral(ratio = 1.4, land = 0.5)
  • ConcentricCircles(ratio = 1.4, land = 0.5)
• Transformations
  • Zoom(pattern. factor = 16)
  • Invert(pattern)
  • Union(pattern1, pattern2)
  • Intersection(pattern1, pattern2)
  • Translate(pattern, dx, dy)
  • Rotate(pattern, angle)
  • Affine(pattern, a, b, c, d, dx, dy)
  • Tile(pattern, xszize, ysize)
  • AngularRepeat(pattern, k)
  • Jitter(pattern, radius = 10)
  • Distort(pattern, wavelengths = distort_light)
  • Smooth(pattern, radius = 3) -- too slow, don't use
• Islands with bridges patterns
  • KroneckerProduct(pattern1, pattern2, sizex, sizey = sizex)
  • Islandify(pattern1, pattern1, sizex, sizey = sizex, bridgelenth = 48, bridgewidth = 2)
  • SquaresAndBridges(islandradius = 32, bridgelength = 48, bridgewidth = 2)
  • CirclesAndBridges(islandradius = 32, bridgelength = 48, bridgewidth = 2)
  • IslandifySquares(pattern, islandradius = 32, bridgelength = 48, bridgewidth = 2)
  • IslandifyCircles(pattern, islandradius = 32, bridgelength = 48, bridgewidth = 2)
• Complicated patterns
  • Barcode(angle = 0, landthickness = 20, waterthickness = 50)
  • JaggedIslands(landratio = 0.5)
  • Mandelbrot(sixe = 100)
  • Maze1()
  • Maze2()
  • Maze3(threshold = 0.6, verify = true)

Screenshots

screenshots

The screenshots show some example terrain generation algorithms possible with this mod; other
variations are possible. See the configuration section at the top of config.lua for more
information.

Screenshots are from pre-0.0.1.

Versions

• 0.1.0 Added Distort, Jitter, Checkerboard, AllLand, AllWater, Rotate, Affine, Tile,
  AngularRepeat, Invert, Smooth, KroneckerProduct, IslandifyCircles, SquaresAndBridges,
  and CirclesAndBridges patterns. Multiple backwards incompatible changes. Made compatible
  with Factorissimo. Fixed bug in loading games saved with JaggedIslands with non-default
  land ratio.
• 0.0.9 Updated for Factorio 0.14.
• 0.0.8 Updated for Factorio 0.13.
• 0.0.7 Added Mandelbrot, JaggedIslands, and Barcode patterns.
• 0.0.6 Partial re-write. Moved configuration to config.lua. Added several new patterns,
  including Spiral and Islandify. Most patterns renamed more sensibly. Total overhaul of saving
  and loading to address earlier limitations that made it impossible to load a game saved with
  certain especially complicated patterns.
• 0.0.5 Removed dependency and fixed the version in info.json
• 0.0.4 Rewrote islands pattern again to align it with railroad tracks in case of path width of 2.
• 0.0.3 Bug fix with big_scans option in multiplayer
• 0.0.2 Improved islands pattern, added no water option, added half and quarter plane options,
  added translate filter
• 0.0.1 Initial release

Known Issues

• This mod behaves poorly if enabled before loading a save where this mod was initially
  disabled (it stops generating water). In future versions I might print an alert to notify the
  user of this problem if it occurs. Unfortunately I can't print an alert to let the user know
  if they forgot to enable the mod before loading a save. Alternatively this problem could be
  solved by just deleting data.lua but this will create minor artifacts in resource
  generation (including trees / rocks / biters / etc.). Example artifacts
• As of v 0.12.30, automatic synchronization of configuration files in multiplayer is now
  impossible. :( You must synchronize your configuration manually. A workaround is to have the
  host create a new game with the desired configuration, save and close the game, reset your
  config file to defaults, open the game, and then invite other players to join.

License

MIT license