An extensive overhaul, emphasizing detailed and realistic chemistry, materials, and production. Extends the base game to marathon-style scope and difficulty.
Standard chemical reactor requires nickel plates to make. However, it can be researched before any nickel plate crafting is available, making the player unable to craft it. Ideally, this should be avoided.
However, I’m not quite sure how to do this best. There are three ways to make nickel plates:
basic recipe with garnierite and limestone, unlocked by “Basic nickel smelting”;
“Nickel Electrotwinning with Platinum Sponge”, unlocked by “Nickel-Platinum Co-Refining”;
“Nickel Smelting”, unlocked by “Nickel Refining”.
(2) can be safely ignored, because the “Nickel-Platinum Co-Refining” tech depends on “Nickel Refining”, and also because it can only be made in an electrolyzer, which is made out of a standard chemical reactor. But both of the remaining recipes can be used before any standard chemical reactors are crafted, and neither depends (directly or indirectly) on the other. Ideally, standard chemical reactors should be researchable after either of them has been researched, but it’s probably impossible to do that in Factorio.
One possible solution that I can see is to make “Nickel Refining” depend on “Basic nickel smelting”, because it seems to be a more advanced version of producing nickel plates, and then make “Chemical Reactor I” depend on “Basic nickel smelting” as well, because then it’s guaranteed to be the first available method of producing nickel plates.
Standard chemical reactor requires nickel plates to make. However, it can be researched before any nickel plate crafting is available, making the player unable to craft it. Ideally, this should be avoided.
However, I’m not quite sure how to do this best. There are three ways to make nickel plates:
(2) can be safely ignored, because the “Nickel-Platinum Co-Refining” tech depends on “Nickel Refining”, and also because it can only be made in an electrolyzer, which is made out of a standard chemical reactor. But both of the remaining recipes can be used before any standard chemical reactors are crafted, and neither depends (directly or indirectly) on the other. Ideally, standard chemical reactors should be researchable after either of them has been researched, but it’s probably impossible to do that in Factorio.
One possible solution that I can see is to make “Nickel Refining” depend on “Basic nickel smelting”, because it seems to be a more advanced version of producing nickel plates, and then make “Chemical Reactor I” depend on “Basic nickel smelting” as well, because then it’s guaranteed to be the first available method of producing nickel plates.