Factorio Forums

Type: Mod
Name: Radar 2.0
Description: Adds 3 radar technologies, which unlock the scouting radar (which explores further) and the tactical radar (which keeps less area more updated).
License: GPL (Maintain attribution)
Version: 0.2.0
Release: 2015-08-12
Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.12.3
Category: SimpleExtension
Tags: Free, comma separated (E. g. Textures, User-Interface, Vehicles, fancy tag name)
Download:

I think this mod is awesome) i actually wanted to write something like that myself, but was too lazy, so thank you for sharing this! cheers!

Oh wow, thank you thank you thank you! Especially for that handy picture! Grabbing this right now!

XyLe wrote:i actually wanted to write something like that myself, but was too lazy

Well I started work on this a while ago, almost finished it, and then didn't touch it for two months (most of what I did to "finish" it for publishing was just making screenshots), so...

Clever idea, radars are very useful.

I like this, good idea.

How about adding a sort of passive radar? Meaning a radar that scans 0 chunks, but has the nearby range of the tactical one, but less power usage? Use case would be a radar grid in your base/along trainlines, where you don't need the scaning updates but you just want to see what's going on? I personally hate my trains disappearing from the map along long tracks. Maybe even 2x2 in size, so it fits within the rail grid.

That... is exactly what the tactical radar are for. Their "far" scan range is only 2 chunks beyond their "near" scan range; mostly negligible (and kind of just there to give it something to do). The power usage in the tactical radar isn't really supposed to reflect their scanning, the cost represents what they use to keep watching the nearby area.

If you feel they use too much power you are free to edit the mod for your own use, or if I get lots of convincing arguments that I should reduce it. But remember that nearby 'always on' scans benefit not only the radar itself but also any others that include it in their scan range; it allows them to spend more of their scanning time elsewhere.

If you want a thing that is more or less only for keeping tabs on rail lines, I could see making a 2x2 radar entity (which would be "radar" to the game but not really worthy of the name for game purposes, maybe "Security camera" or something) with a very small scan range. I don't really feel it fits this mod though, would be better as a separate thing.
Like this maybe (cameras also try so very hard to scan adjacent chunks like normal radar, it's cute).
I would like to reiterate that I am not an artist.

Schmendrick wrote:That... is exactly what the tactical radar are for. Their "far" scan range is only 2 chunks beyond their "near" scan range; mostly negligible (and kind of just there to give it something to do). The power usage in the tactical radar isn't really supposed to reflect their scanning, the cost represents what they use to keep watching the nearby area.

Oh well, i should have mentioned that i didn't try your mod, so i have no idea about power usage and such. From the description i simply assumed the tactical radar would go on the border to hostile areas, so you see new bases sooner.

Schmendrick wrote:But remember that nearby 'always on' scans benefit not only the radar itself but also any others that include it in their scan range; it allows them to spend more of their scanning time elsewhere.

Does that mean radars never scan "always-visible" areas with their "normal" scanning? Never really looked at them working in detail. I had an idea for a long-range quick/multidirectional radar. You'd place it down, and the script would create 8 fake/invisible radars at a certain distance, so the one radar you place would reveal 8/9 chunks per scan (high power usage, mainly meant for RSO, where distances are big, and i don't want to explore by hand/wait forever for a long range radar to finish)

Schmendrick wrote: Like this maybe (cameras also try so very hard to scan adjacent chunks like normal radar, it's cute).
I would like to reiterate that I am not an artist.

Awesome

I'll try both mods before making new suggestions

Choumiko wrote:Does that mean radars never scan "always-visible" areas with their "normal" scanning?

Radar have two distances, the near area (always visible) and the scan range. When a radar's progress meter fills up, it reveals either the next 'closest' (in a spiral sort of way of measuring) unexplored chunk, or the most out-of-date chunk - the one scanned longest ago. A chunk is refreshed each time either a player or a radar sees it, so, no, it will never scan an 'always visible' chunk, because that chunk is always up to date!

Choumiko wrote:so the one radar you place would reveal 8/9 chunks per scan (high power usage

This doesn't really need to be simulated via script; all you'd need to do is make the radar scan 8 or 9 times faster. Better to let the Factorio engine handle things when you can; scripting is expensive, and in a big base...

Schmendrick, do you plan on updating this mod to Factorio 0.12? If not, I am interested in maintaining it (w/o any changes to it, besides supporting 0.12). If so, I look forward to your 0.12 update.

I intend on maintaining all my mods (except those that are obsolete; Bumpers will be replaced by a different implementation, for example). Probably won't update for a week or two though, as I am still on vacation and am fulfilling a last minute checklist of sightseeing.

Schmendrick wrote:I intend on maintaining all my mods (except those that are obsolete; Bumpers will be replaced by a different implementation, for example). Probably won't update for a week or two though, as I am still on vacation and am fulfilling a last minute checklist of sightseeing.

Awesome. No rush, enjoy your vacation.

When you get back though, could you consider adding a license to the mod (and, if you are feeling really generous, some sort of source control?)

Glad to hear that you'll update it for 0.12.
Because i already did for myself and it took like 1 minute. Just saying.

awesome - I was looking for new radars

Yay, updated for 0.12.

Schmendrick wrote: License: GPL (Maintain attribution; not for commercial use)

Question, do you understand that GPLv3 allows commercial use? Because either you have GPLv3, and allow commercial use, or you don't have GPLv3 and forbid commercial use. You can't have both. I am going to guess you just made a copy/paste error, but you should definitely fix that.

Afforess wrote:Yay, updated for 0.12.

Schmendrick wrote: License: GPL (Maintain attribution; not for commercial use)

Question, do you understand that GPLv3 allows commercial use? Because either you have GPLv3, and allow commercial use, or you don't have GPLv3 and forbid commercial use. You can't have both. I am going to guess you just made a copy/paste error, but you should definitely fix that.

Actually, this is an error I committed by not reading the license carefully enough. My intention is to disallow any commercial use of my code; I'll fix this in future mods. But this mod is essentially pure data, no code, and as such the closest thing to original content actually generated consists of the recipes and attributes of the radar and tech, which seems to me a fairly silly thing to worry about; it's basically just some extremely simple math and subjective ideas of balance. So I'll just edit my description of the license in this post.

Schmendrick wrote:

Afforess wrote:Yay, updated for 0.12.

Schmendrick wrote: License: GPL (Maintain attribution; not for commercial use)

Question, do you understand that GPLv3 allows commercial use? Because either you have GPLv3, and allow commercial use, or you don't have GPLv3 and forbid commercial use. You can't have both. I am going to guess you just made a copy/paste error, but you should definitely fix that.

Actually, this is an error I committed by not reading the license carefully enough. My intention is to disallow any commercial use of my code; I'll fix this in future mods. But this mod is essentially pure data, no code, and as such the closest thing to original content actually generated consists of the recipes and attributes of the radar and tech, which seems to me a fairly silly thing to worry about; it's basically just some extremely simple math and subjective ideas of balance. So I'll just edit my description of the license in this post.

I think most of the concern with licensing is whether modders will be able to merge re-use someone elses work in a larger modpack, not commercial sales... Anyway, glad you clarified things. I never want to go back to the old radar range/speed.

running factorio 0.12.11 or higher and mod is broken?!

No worries

just open the zip and control.lua and change in line 33 "game" to "script" - done

before: after:

[quote="AncientCulture"][/quote]
I should really just use a migration script for this.