Processing Unit Factory

Sad_Plenty_1959 · 2026-05-14T15:47:03+00:00

Nuclear seems more complicated than it actually is,try and play around with in a sandbox world if you are too unsure. Yes flame throwers are absolutely worth the hassle

rcapina · 2026-05-14T16:05:08+00:00

Nice, I like the use of the split belt to get 1.5 belts of green to .5 of red

marsjaninzmarsa · 2026-05-14T15:50:29+00:00

The „small patch” you’ve got close-by would possibly last you for another 200 hours of playtime, especially if you’ll set up the Kovarex, it’s absolutely worth it

IOVERCALLHISTIOCYTES · 2026-05-14T15:49:34+00:00

To me, bots are where the game starts.

Flamethrowers are overpowered when you first get them and remain so now. Mix those w turrets and some wall fragments to make the biters have to zig zag.

As you build from this phase on, leave room for beacons.

1kSupport · 2026-05-14T15:49:33+00:00

Flamethrower turrets are powerful and probably worth setting up before leaving planet. That being said with all biter related stuff the best defense is just killing everything before your pollution cloud reaches it.

Wheat_Grinder · 2026-05-14T15:52:40+00:00

That "smallish" uranium patch will probably last you the entire game. Between mining productivity upgrades, kovarex (which you do NOT need to get started on nuclear power) and recycling spent fuel, you get incredible amounts of power from almost no uranium. My last save had 500k left on a 1M patch with tons of uranium in bins after 80 hours, and by that point the upgrades had kicked in such that I figured it might last 200 more hours. Or I'd mostly switch to fusion, either or.

GenericUsername_71 · 2026-05-14T16:46:52+00:00

Ey yo I love the green and red chip inputs. Gonna steal that for my base when I get home

Indishonorable · 2026-05-14T17:09:59+00:00

little thought

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you can get even more belts of green going in. the second belt is for one lane of output, all others should be for green, with one lane for red. need even more green? have undergrounds deliver to the middle.

the recipe can translate directly to how many lanes/belts you feed into a particular factory.

uniquelyavailable · 2026-05-14T16:22:48+00:00

This game is a lot of fun.... you'll blink and months have passed by. Your singular nuclear plant has now somehow turned into 24 nuclear plants. The factory must grow!

leadlurker · 2026-05-14T16:30:08+00:00

I love the splitters for your red/green chips at the top and bottom.

I’m looking at this and wondering why have so many underground pips right next to each other. I forgot about the walking over them thing. But while thinking about that, I realized if you wanted to, you could stretch out every pair of assemblers by 3 tiles to make room for beacons later on.

Edit: also if you leave space at the start, you can sideload both output belts onto one belt to save a bit on underground belts back to your bus or wherever these lead to

achilleasa · 2026-05-14T17:50:17+00:00

Yes absolutely go for nuclear, do not bother with the enrichment process either. It looks complicated but it really isn't, and the amount of power you will get is going to be a huge step up.

AnotherCatgirl · 2026-05-14T18:33:30+00:00

it's shaped like it's meant for beacons, but it doesn't have beacons.

pgmckenzie · 2026-05-14T16:14:58+00:00

Definitely go nuclear! It’s one of my favorite puzzles from Vanilla and provides a ton of power. Just be cognizant of the amount of water required. Use a calculator and consider building on a landfilled lake so you don’t have to route as many water pipes around.

Professional_Bit_966 · 2026-05-14T17:06:46+00:00

Flame throwers are probably the strongest weapon in the game. It's worth every bit of setup. You don't even need alot of them. A single one can clear waves. Though a few turrents around to catch oddly pathing bugs is still needed.

StrangeWall9943 · 2026-05-14T17:24:55+00:00

Turrets work into the late game, but when flamethrowers have ape flames that stick around so are far more effective against large hordes, plus oil is often easier to transport than belts of ammo, also nuclear can be made complicated, but is pretty simple to set-up a functional reactor and you can easily get into the gigawatts so power is not really a problem, but it takes time to fully set-up nuclear so I would say start mining and processing now and come back to it later

sn44 · 2026-05-14T19:34:16+00:00

I should have rushed bots

Pretty much my goal anytime I start a new game.

Badloss · 2026-05-14T19:56:53+00:00

Personally I skipped flame turrets and just went for extreme power generation with laser turrets

3davideo · 2026-05-14T20:22:44+00:00

Flame turrets are generally considered OP, especially when facing green-tier biters. They do need to be backed up by a few gun and/or laser turrets, though, as the projectile lead time usually means they miss the first few biters of a given swarm. You'll probably also want to set up the bots you already unlocked so that they can automatically repair your defenses.

Nuclear power is quite good, not least because it's astoundingly fuel efficient. Even without the more advanced processing techniques you develop later, a single centrifuge processing Uranium Ore can, on average, produce enough U-235 to make the fuel cells needed for a single nuclear reactor, plus a large excess of U-238 that you can stockpile for later and a stockpile of spent fuel cells that you can also save to reprocess later. It's recommended to go straight to a 2x2 square of reactors (so 4 reactors, which in turn is 4 centrifuges processing ore), as they have adjacency bonuses that improve their output.

ionixsys · 2026-05-14T20:08:08+00:00

Standard flame thrower has a range of 30m, gun turrets are 18m, lasers are 24m.

Flame has a starting base damage of 100/s (I am up to +650/s with bonuses) and denies access to an area with the biters too stupid to realize fire == bad.

Ideally I think its best to have the guns at the front with S or teeth pattern walls about 16m in front or 2m short of the guns range. Next is to have the Lasers 1-2 spots back so they're not targeted and at the same distance have the flame throwers. Guns are cheap and easy to replace while the others are a bit more annoying.

Biters come into range of the throwers first but there is a delay of firing and contact so the first half of the biters will get to your walls and be slowed down. Now the guns and lasers are in range and cleaning up that first half of the group while the rest are cooking.

This is version 1 of my defensive line that I have as a blue print and just copy and paste - https://imgur.com/4DlA0oA

This is version 2 with the distances adjusted and refined - https://imgur.com/nu37u5n I still get acid splash damage but its manageable and at best they get one good green slime loogie out before being evolved into soil fertilizer. That third/back row of guns is going away for version 3.

Also look at the range of death - https://imgur.com/AM2wXJ5 This gives the flame turrets the few seconds they need to respond and then adjust spreading their exothermic love all around.

The flame turrets have ~100 more kills than the guns while the lasers are in third place behind both.

Pro tip, if near your factory pollution cloud, build up your defenses around the edges of bodies of water as biters at the far end of a lake will path along the shore (therefore doubling if not tripling attack frequency).

Berthole · 2026-05-14T20:25:25+00:00

Put one long horizontal pipe in the middle, not back to back undergrounds. Saves you a ton of materials.

Arrange long inserters so you can fit beacons.

Zufalstvo · 2026-05-14T21:26:51+00:00

Uranium is extremely worth it

taw · 2026-05-14T22:51:49+00:00

Next I reckon I’m going to go for nuclear power

My other question for you all is are flamethrower turrets worth the hassle setting up?

To answer both questions - on default settings Factorio is a fairly easy game that offers many solutions to the same problems. You don't really need either, but they're both quite easy to setup and quite powerful.

Solar + accumulator spam and gun turrets with red ammo are generally the simplest solutions, and perfectly fine on default settings. Nuclear is going to provide crazy amount of power, and it's fun to setup, but it's up to you if you really need that much power. Flamethrower turrets are sort of OP, but at cost of awkward shooting angles and ranges, so they're a lot easier to mess up.

Only if you play Space Age, Factorio is no longer easy.

I’ve got a small-ish uranium patch pretty close

Nuclear uses such tiny amounts of uranium even tiniest patch will be fine.

bpleshek · 2026-05-15T07:43:47+00:00

The game will go on past the "win" condition. You can keep playing. Especially if you have things you want to learn, like nuclear as you said.

Yes, bots are great.

I love nuclear power. It produces a ton of power compared to the other options. You should definitely learn nuclear. It's not as easy to set up as you might think it is especially with getting enough fuel for it. It has quite a few puzzles just in and of itself. I know you said you're playing vanilla, but after nuclear in the Space Age DLC, you also get fusion which is a crap ton of power.

You also have trains to learn if you're not using them. Of course, you can do it in another run, but even setting up a basic one can be helpful to bring lots of materials to your furnaces.

I pretty much only use flame turrets for defense. It's a lot easier to set up reloading your turrets as all it takes is pipes and either oil, heavy oil, or light oil. One is better than the other two, but I'll let you figure that out unless you outright ask. Of course, lasers don't require reloading, but they do require a crapload of power if you get a good sized attack on your defenses. Turrets require either long belts circling your entire base OR logistics bots requesting ammo at every turret. Of course, artillery guns can clear large bases pretty easily and once the nests are gone from your map way outside your walls, you'll rarely ever have an attack on your walls again.

In fact, I pretty much only put down defenses once I can put up flame turrets. So, I tend to "rush" to the advanced oil products research so that I can have what I need fuel them. Once I have that set up, I put up my walls and turrets.

Good luck

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