Alt-F4 #43 - The DyWorld Saga 23-07-2021
In issue #43 of Alt-F4, mod-maker extraordinaire Dysoch talks about his history of modding (which started all the way back in Factorio 0.7!), giving a bit of an overview of how his mods evolved over time. Then, he goes into his latest and greatest project that’s due for release very soon. It’s a big overhaul mod that’s focused on an overarching story with the goal to be more immersive than previous big mods. More on the details below!
DyWorld-Dynamics and its history Dysoch
Hello everybody, my name is Dysoch and I’m the creator of all the Dy mods. In this article, I will write a bit about my many years of history with modding Factorio, and the next exciting release that I have been working on for almost a year. But first, I will explain where it all started.
History
Before buying Factorio, I had already been playing it for a year, but I officially bought it when Factorio 0.7 was in development. I simply loved the game but felt it could be better—so I started modding. I had no idea what I was doing, but luckily a nice guy by the name of FreeER came to aid me and taught me to code properly. I took several breaks over the years where I was burned out on modding or had too much to do in my life, but I’ve always had the itch to come back.
Back when I started to mod, there was only a single major overhaul mod called F-Mod (whose old forum page is unfortunately no longer available). I wanted to do the same as that mod and started my own overhaul of the game. It was clunky in the beginning, but after years of hard work, the DyTech franchise touched every aspect of the game. I rewrote it several times under a similar name, but the content stayed mostly the same. By rewriting, I learned to code it better, made it easier to read and edit things. I always had several ideas that were a little out of reach for me, but I strived to put different planets into Factorio since I started modding. Luckily Earendel did that now with Space Exploration, and I can work on other projects
DyTech was very popular back in the day, eventually getting its own section on the Factorio forum. I even played with Xterminator and Oninaig a few times while they were doing a Let’s Play on Youtube. After a few years (with Factorio 0.15), I started to work on the next step of DyTech, DyWorld. A major rewrite after two years of no modding, trying to better fit DyTech into the ever-evolving game of Factorio. This mod was better developed and had more exciting features. I started experimenting with heated furnaces and features that complimented them. I made great strides, and worked on it till just before Factorio 1.0.0. Several content creators played it on Youtube: KatherineOfSky DyWorld Playthrough, Nexxus Gaming DyWorld Playthrough and Lumatan DyWorld Playthrough (German)
Around August of last year, my itch to mod was back, stronger than ever before. I decided to rewrite the mod and tune the content of the mod with one very specific thing in mind: A story. Thus I rewrote DyWorld into DyWorld-Dynamics. But it is now almost a year later, and it is still not released. Well, due to some personal issues I could not do anything for a few months. When that was taken care of, I returned to keep working on it, and now it is getting closer to release. Adding in content around a story is much more work than I previously anticipated, but it is fun to do. Luckily I have several beta testers to help me take care of issues while I write everything.
The Story
This is my main focus with DyWorld-Dynamics. I wrote everything with the story elements in mind, but it will work without it as well. So, what is the story about?
The story starts with a crash landing on a desolate planet, filled with weird flora and fauna. You have no idea how you got there and where you are. As the story progresses, you name the planet, find out why you crash-landed there, learn about other planets and move there, finding an epic conclusion to the story. The conclusion will give you a nice history of fictional spacefaring humans, and their encounter with a mysterious force.
Once it publicly releases, there will be three acts of the story available, with multiple objectives, and travelling between planets powered by the beautiful Space Exploration mod. The first two acts will teach you the basic mechanics of DyWorld-Dynamics with its complex recipes. Act three will completely focus on the story element that you can check out at your own pace. There are several mechanics added into DyWorld-Dynamics, such as a survival system that increases player bonuses (such as mining speed, building reach, etc.) based on what you do, food and water usage, implant usage, scripted attacks and many more.
Recipes are fun and complex as well, with feedback loops, science packs that need actual fluids, space mining, tree farming, agriculture and so much more. This will all tie nicely into Space Exploration while keeping it intact the cool way it is. Informatron is used to display many types of information about surroundings, mechanics and even the story.
Release Date
Currently work is hard underway to get the mod ready. Many small things still have to be done, but it will be ready soon. Since KatherineOfSky played a concept of DyWorld-Dynamics when it was just starting, she will have exclusivity to play it publicly before anybody else. I am currently aiming to get the finished mod to her on the 30th of July. This is still an estimate, but I think I can manage that. Once she has it, a public release will follow shortly after.
As for right now, I will leave you with the start of the story, and I hope to see you all playing DyWorld-Dynamics once it releases, and be sure to stay up to date over on DyWorld Discord. I post regular updates on its development over there.
Commander’s Log #1
Contributing
As always, we’re looking for people that want to contribute to Alt-F4, be it by submitting an article or by helping with translation. If you have something interesting in mind that you want to share with the community in a polished way, this is the place to do it. If you’re not too sure about it we’ll gladly help by discussing content ideas and structure questions. If that sounds like something that’s up your alley, join the Discord to get started!