I've put together a working MVP for a mod that introduces natural gas and a few byproducts. Additionally, I've mapped out the full (current) design in the picture below. Looking for anyone and everyone's input on my "design document" and if it makes sense or has gaps. Design philosophy below so you understand my goals and vision for the reasoning behind this mod.
Design Philosophy
- Rather than an overhaul, I wanted to create a mod that added some extra features to the base game and provide alternative playstyles
- At its heart, this mod is really focused on introducing the combustion of methane for power
- Flipping the paradigm slightly for how power is generated (heat source --> multiple engines/turbines), I wanted a single power plant that required a larger production chain to feed the inputs into a single consumer (i.e., the power plant requires 5 gas refineries to run at full time)
- The natural gas power plant is not intended to be the best solution for power, but it serves as a mid-game alternative to producing power with some added benefits of alternative methods to create other products
- From recently having difficulty finding oil in our rail-world space exploration game with friends, I wanted to provide an avenue/alternative where players can still progress (albeit in a limited and slower fashion) to plastic and sulfur, and eventually even petroleum gas
- Absolutely do not want to modify the base game recipes so I reduce the chance of mod conflicts (this mod is meant to be additive instead of exclusive)
- Ultimately, I want this mod/design to provide players with alternatives and not just a straight upgrade to the base game
- Like the base game for Factorio, I opted to keep the recipes simple and abstraction high, but just a tad more complex to offset the advantages of producing power with a smaller footprint and obtaining plastic/sulfur without the need for oil
- Not listed here are the research dependencies, and I'm aware this is very important to power creep, but it's safe to assume that the majority of the design is available at the same time as oil processing and the petroleum gas recipe as the same time as oil liquefaction
- I'm stuck on whether to show NGLs as liquids or as gases
- I couldn't find a use (yet) for Pentane (another output for NGLs), so I've left that out for now
- I really love petroleum handling and power production in the base Factorio game, so I wanted an excuse to combine the two
- I'm also a big fan of games allowing specialization, so the idea of being able to dive deeper into a single resource (i.e., Natural Gas) really gets me going. Py Coal Processing = <3
- Natural Gas Process Chain.jpg (87.01 KiB) Viewed 149 times