What mods are currently used to make the game harder?

[Maniac]

In the past i used Angels and Bobs Mods but seems like they are no longer updating them so are the any similar mods?

[Fel]

Usually they only update them when they need to make changes or when factorio itself updated and made the mods no longer work.

It depends on how far down the rabbit hole you intend on going, because the craziest among these are the mods from pyanodon (pycoal I think is the main mod's name).

[Maniac]

so they still work? because when i started the game it showed the mods as red

[Fel]

It's been a while since I played with them, so I had to try them out to be sure.
You will have to update them, and some of angel's stuff either moved to other mods or were stopped.
The ore silos and warehouses are now in "storage options" for example.

The mods are enabled just fine on my end, none are red.
If you have some mods that are red it could be because they are incompatible with other mods or for older versions of the game.

[Nico]

I am currently doing a Seablock run which uses angel&bob and I have absolutely no issues, so bob&angel should still work fine. I think red mods mean incompatible mods or missing dependencies, but no idea which of your mods is incompatible with it. And I also thought that the main reason why they are currently not updating bob&angel is because the mods are basically done and there aren't any game updates that break any of them, so there is just no need to update them.

But other than those you can also do Krastorio 2 or Space Exploration, or both together (yes, they're actually compatible) or Nullius or Industrial Revolution 2 or 3 or 248k or, if you're really crazy, you can even try out pyanodon, which I think is even comatible with angel&bob.

[Gregor Samsanite]

Originally posted by Maniac:

so they still work? because when i started the game it showed the mods as red

They still work. Make sure all mods are up to date, and then make sure all the prereqs are properly enabled.

Seablock is mostly Angel + Bob based and is still a popular way to play those mods, though it's a big mod pack that can be a little tricky to install properly.

Nullius is a newer one that you should probably check out at some point if you're a fan of Bob and Angels. It has some clear parallels, but is a very different experience. It uses a lot of Angels graphics, but remixed for different purposes, and it's all new tech and recipes. Unlike most overhauls it doesn't extend the vanilla tech tree, but replaces it entirely.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Maniac:

What mods are currently used to make the game harder?

For the absolute max:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PyBlock
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/pyhardmode

If those two paired won't do it for you, then literally nothing on this green Earth will.

Originally posted by Nico:

But other than those you can also do Krastorio 2 or Space Exploration, or both together (yes, they're actually compatible)

I would recommend against combining the two.
It basically takes all the overhead from K2; combines it with all the overhead from AAI (which is a hard dependency of SE); pushes all the powerful stuff from K2 way into the back of SE's space science trees; nerfs the K2 early game stuff (such as making the wood recipes in greenhouses ridiculously expensive); and for good measure dumps some of K2's ingredients into SE recipes to further complicate those without giving anything back for it.

K2: Fine.
SE: Passable.
K2SE: Hell no!

You basically need to slather third-party balancing mods on top to actually balance out the 'balance fixes' the official K2SE integration imposes. I would recommend Xor's tweaks[mods.factorio.com].

( Full disclosure: I'm playing K2SE myself right now, mostly out of morbid curiosity for how bad it actually gets. I'm at a point where I've barely started on space sciences and am something like 80 hours in. Verdict so far: it gets pretty damned bad. )

Originally posted by Nico:

you can even try out pyanodon, which I think is even comatible with angel&bob.

There's the "Py Coal touched by an Angel"-mod to glue 'em together, but it's not exactly in high-compatibility territory and is likely to break things when you involve the full Py suite of mods.

[Fel]

Py and bob+angel with the compatibility mod isn't all that great anyway, it causes a lot of short-circuits in recipe chains, especially on py's side that end up not really being all that complex thanks to being able to use bob and angel's products and vice-versa.

It's better to pick one or the other.

[UnderTow]

the only good expansion mod with a reason to exist was space exploration imo

[Tsulan]

You could try !Rampant
It makes the biters ai smarter.

[RiO]

Originally posted by UnderTow:

the only good expansion mod with a reason to exist was space exploration imo

That's a highly subjective opinion, I'd wager.
There are plenty of people that prefer other total-conversion or game-expanding mods; just as there are plenty who refuse to play Space Exploration because they believe it's a boring grind- or because they don't like how its author essentially pushes you into their one preferred style of play.

[Khaylain]

Warptorio 2 is an amazing conversion mod as well. (I really recommend trying this for a very different gameplay experience)
Seablock is an amazing conversion mod.

The claim that the "only good expansion mod with a reason to exist was space exploration" seems to be pretty ignorant. Either in not knowing about the other good mods, or dismissing them because you don't like them. Either way one should provide proof (or at least some arguments) of why that is, since extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.

[vts6482]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by Maniac:

What mods are currently used to make the game harder?

For the absolute max:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PyBlock
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/pyhardmode

If those two paired won't do it for you, then literally nothing on this green Earth will.

Got me curious... but is it more Pyanodon-style fun or just added grind?

[RiO]

Originally posted by vts6482:

Originally posted by RiO:

For the absolute max:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PyBlock
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/pyhardmode

If those two paired won't do it for you, then literally nothing on this green Earth will.

Got me curious... but is it more Pyanodon-style fun or just added grind?

Pyblock is basically Seablock, but with the Py suite of mods instead of B&A.

Py Hard Mode nerfs the yields on some recipes to make them harder to work with, or introduces additional ingredients. In particular many of the previously optional species added by Py Alien Life, are no longer optional. You need them for ingredients in several key recipes.

PyHM also nerfs or removes some of the conveniences that Py gives you wrt voiding excess materials, making it quite a bit harder to do so. E.g. you can't void gasses without consuming filters.

It also adds a new challenge to the mix, by making more recipes and machines require heat. Even early game, prior to nuclear. It opens up new ways to generate heat early game; for which you also have to lay out logistics.


TL;DR
Consult the friendly flowchart[assets-mod.factorio.com]

[Fel]

That chart is quite helpful indeed, but I'd put "re-evaluate life choices" in all of them because even just the first research item requires so much work that you kind of need to ask yourself if you are ready for something like that.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Fel:

That chart is quite helpful indeed, but I'd put "re-evaluate life choices" in all of them because even just the first research item requires so much work that you kind of need to ask yourself if you are ready for something like that.

That's why it says "re-evaluate your life choices." It assumes you already evaluated your life choices once, when you considered starting on basic Pyanodon, and chose poorly.