Missing rubber trees

[darthmat]

Describe the bug Creating a new map with max starting area size, move rubber trees very very far outside of starting position. When i preview a new map i even don't see any on it. Seems like it shouldn't be depent of starting area that should only affect bugs nest? Or maybe its on purpose because rubber is like more middle/end game stuff?

Factorio version, IR version Factorio: 1.1.74 IR3: 3.0.3

[Deadlock989]

This is very tricky to balance right.

The base game mostly uses the "starting area" concept to block biter spawning within a radius from the starting point, as you say. But it does also use it to define the patch where special starting ores are spawned. Trees use the same "autoplace" system as ores, so if I want to exclude them from the starting area (because otherwise they would spawn all around the starting area water patch and it would be trivially easy to get hold of them), this means the starting area size slider also affects them. If there is a way of controlling that in more detail, I don't know what it is.

It's also extremely weird to me that you can dial up the starting area size to maximum and then turn off biters, which disables the starting area slider (as if it were now meaningless) but still uses whatever value it had before within the game itself, affecting both rubber trees and gem rocks.

If you can give me examples of map exchange strings where you would expect to see rubber trees I can take another look but otherwise my feeling is that by making the difficulty easier by banishing biters out to 600% (in game this is a circle with 1.8km diameter!) you will also have to put up with the 10 minute task of taking a monowheel trip out to wetter ground.

[darthmat]

If you want to look through, here is a map string: >>>eNpjZGBk8AJiIGiwX71Ky46bJTk/MWf1qlV2DAwHHECYKzm/oCC1 SDe/KBVZmDO5qDQlVTc/E1Vxal5qbqVuUmJxKshEGOZIz89JQTeBP7N It6g0KQlodklRamoxiobMovw8dA2sxSX5eSgi7CWZmKowDOMuLUrMyy zNRVfJwLj0daxnQ4scAwj/r2dQ+P8fhIGsB8AAAWEGxgaQSkZGoBgMs CbnZKalMTAoOAKxE0SMEULpOUBZB5IcoEKeeIQYTIAsYzD4bI9gVIus c39YVWLPCFPG4YBgQCRb7KEiDIxMcGLWTBDYCZeC6XpgD5W6ac949gw IvLEHaxXgAxILeoCEggzcD3YwbSIOjGlg8A3mtscwxmV7dJepODDagI yUAxEnQAQrIliALmGEMB36HRgd5GGykgglQP1GDMhuSEH46CTM2sNI9 qM5RMUBHqRY/IEmouKAJWC5QBamwIkXzHDXAMPvAjuM5zDfgZEZxACp +gIUg/BAMjCjILSAA6MIkGJmQIAP9gzXDjaJAACyy65h<<<

but if you said its quite tricky, then just probably a trip is what i can do :)

[Deadlock989]

I did some reading just now and found something I missed for the previous couple of years. It looks like it might be possible to exclude rubber from the world centre without having that exclusion zone tied to starting area size. Fiddling with it now, but with your map string above it already looks promising.

[Deadlock989]

Your map settings in the string above were also disadvantaging you slightly because you have water coverage turned down really low, and the edges of lakes are used by the spawn weighting to make rubber trees appear on terrain where they usually wouldn't, e.g. dry and/or cold areas. So it was almost the worst case scenario: few lakes, pretty dry map, maximum starting area size.

Anyway I'm happy with the new method, which uses a fixed distance from centre instead of starting area size. For your string above, which is not far from the worst that RNGesus might hand you, you get some decent sized rubber tree clumps within the map preview picture using this method, without having to change the rubber tree scale or coverage sliders.

This will be included in the next version (3.0.4).

[AndrewD22]

anyway to fix on existing map? I've explored way out and not a single rubber tree found. My wood settings are default, but upper grass bias a little. biters set to 400% of starting area. https://ibb.co/Fsb4Cc2

[AndrewD22]

could some other mod overwrite rubber tree generation? started new map with all default settings and still didn't find any rubber trees within few hundred chunks of starting area.

[Deadlock989]

could some other mod overwrite rubber tree generation? started new map with all default settings and still didn't find any rubber trees within few hundred chunks of starting area.

It is starting to look like there is something interfering, yes. Can you please list the mods you have installed, and also give me the map exchange string for the screenshot you posted above? Thanks.

[AndrewD22]

exchange string for the screenshot map:

eNpjZGBk8AJiIGiwB2FuluT8xBwI7wAYcyXnFxSkFunmF6UiC3Mm F5WmpOrmZ0IVMzgAkQNXal5qbqVuUmJxKsxEEOZIz89JQTeBP7NIt6g 0KQlodklRamoxiobMovw8dA2sxSX5eSgi7CWZmKowDOMuLUrMyyzNRV fJwCjTkb2noUWOAYT/1zMo/P8PwkDWA6CHQJiBsQGow4GBESgGBYyyy fl5JUX5ObrFqSVA+9OtcvMzi0tKi1KtkjITizkM9IwNQIA1OSczLY2B QcERiJ3AOhkZq0XWuT+smmLPCDFLzwHK+AAVOZAEE/GEMfwccEqpwBg mSOYYg8FnJAbE0hKgFVBVHA4IBkSyBSTJyNj7duuC78cu2DH+Wfnxkm 9Sgj2joavIuw9G6+yAkuwgLzDBiVkzQWAnzCsMMDMf2EOlbtoznj0DA m/sGVlBOkRAhIMFkDjgzczAKMAHZC3oARIKMgwwp9nBjBFxYEwDg28w nzyGMS7bo/sDGBA2IMPlQMQJEAG2EO4yRgjTod+B0UEeJiuJUALUb8S A7IYUhA9Pwqw9jGQ/mkMwIwLZH2giKg5YooELZGEKnHjBDHcNMDwvsM N4DvMdGJlBDJCqL0AxCA+S/SBGQWgBB3Bww2QhaYPhR2vSfwD1tMQZ< <<

[AndrewD22]

mods: miniloader aai-containers actual craft time additional paste settings automatic underground pipe connectors blueprint flip and turn bottleneck colorbindcircuitnetwork deadlockblackrubberbelts even-distribution extended-descriptions factorysearch far-reach fill4me fnei inbuilt_lighting informatron inserter-throughput isnerter_config kux-zooming maxratecalculator power armor mk3 qol_research resourceMarker stdlib stonewaterwell vehiclesnap factoryplanner moduleinserter pickerdollies gui_modifier industrialrevolution-miniloader (I modified this one to be compatible with IR3)

[Deadlock989]

Thanks. So I can rule out any third party mod. It's just that your 400% starting area size equated to an exclusion zone radius of 600m. There are some large patches of rubber trees just outside the area you have explored to the east, and more (without any biters nearby) on the lake shore to the northwest, and more just to the west of the large oil patch on the very edge of your explored area to the south. If you load up the map exchange string from a new single player game generator and fiddle with the starting area size down to 200% or 150%, you'll start to see rubber trees appearing within the preview screen area.

This won't be an issue in 3.0.4 onwards after the rubber tree exclusion zone has been made independent from starting size area. I don't have a way to regenerate any trees in existing chunks but any new chunks explored in existing games will start to generate using the new autoplace method.

[AndrewD22]

thanks for looking into this.