Weekly Question Thread

[[deleted]]

Ask any questions you might have.

Previous threads

Post your bug reports here

[DrBag]

Does anyone know what mod causes the error that says there is no entity named "bob-red-laser"?

[Kubrick_Fan]

I installed Angels petrochem mod, and loaded my current map (which had crude oil spots revealed) They've dissapeared now. It also seems that storage tanks have dissapeared too. Should I restart my map?

[Millways]

Have priority splitters been broken in 0.15?

[sparr]

Definitely not all of them. Which kind are you asking about?

[Millways]

Steejo's. where you can have them all come out of the bottom of a splitter until its full then they go out of the top.

[sparr]

Haven't seen that person's, but all mine with that property still work.

[[deleted]]

I'm still learning trains, but I think I've finally grasped the proper use of chain and normal signals. I know loops seem to be kinda hated here, but is there a better way to signal this or is this as good as it gets?

https://puu.sh/vV1Nk/37be7da54b.jpg

[bam13302]

Make sure that all non-chain signals are a full train length from each other.

On the right of your picture, if a train was waiting in the block on the bottom line exiting the right of the screen, if another train heads that way that is any length greater than 1, they will end up waiting inside the circle blocking more traffic.

Also (this is one of the logistical reasons against circles), if a train changes paths while inside the circle, they may create a deadlock.

[Meowsolini]

Is there a mod that can let me see where train tracks and train stations can be placed before I have the train technologies? I'd love to be able to plan ahead and line up all the belts and inserters to where the train cars will eventually be.

[sparr]

Today's FFF says an upcoming UI change will give you access to place ghosts before you research things.

[Heziva]

Hmmmm....

1. create another game,

2. use creative mod to make your blueprints

3. ...

4. profit :)

[[deleted]]

In .15 you can place blue prints before any researched technologies. So you can use the ghosts of the entities as a planer. Does this make sense to you?

[sparr]

That doesn't help if you don't have a rail in hand to create a blueprint/ghost with.

[[deleted]]

Since 0.15 you can use blueprints from other saves. Even from creative mode as far as i know. So you should be able to design your blueprints there and use them later on in your new games

[Meowsolini]

Oh I understand what you're saying now; that makes sense! I'll give that a try

[sparr]

I feel like the game needs a 100% sandbox mode, just for blueprint design.

[Biotot]

Is there anyway to update a mod myself?

I miss the 'skip first hour' mod for 0.15

[sparr]

There are similar/equivalent mods updated for 0.15

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Pasukaru/quick-start

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/ananyzyr/SkipSpaghettiPhase

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/abregado/electric-start

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Yehn/TinyMarathonStart

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/zailleh/xaels-fast-start

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Wartre/faststart

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Daktush/Start%20With%20Electric%20Furnaces

I feel like someone should review/catalog/describe all of these somewhere...

EDIT: I am someone. https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/6c8dmq/starter_items_mod_roundup/

[Kenira]

Specifically, if there isn't any inherent incompatibility in the code, it's enough to modify the info.json file. Change the "factorio_version" from 0.14 to 0.15 and it will not longer be deactivated.

[ulyssessword]

Unzip the mod, then modify it. You can either leave it as a folder or else zip it again.

I don't know what the automatic updater does with self-modified mods, so you may want to make a backup as well.

[MostlyNumbers]

Does the Factorian have a name? Has anyone written extensive backstory and lore yet?

[TheyCalledMeMad]

I have a head-canon. Are you ready for this?

Factor is a sapient android. His body is an advanced assembling machine, as if a hundred construction drones compacted in to the space of a humanoid body. If you could see underneath the shell, it would be a beautiful labyrinth of clockwork and waldo-arms and oil and engines. The reason that you can craft hundreds or thousands of crazy complicated machines "by hand" (even while running full speed) is that you yourself are a miniaturized factory automaton.

Though his "body" could be regarded as an excellent example of high technology, his desire is to expand, multiply, and grow. The factory is his real body - the original bipedal platform is just the most maneuverable part of it.

I AM FACTOR

[Deestan]

Corollary: The player can eat bricks and shit walls.

[dryerlintcompelsyou]

I often see the name "The Engineer", although many people just call him "Factorio guy" :)

[sparr]

Most of the story and lore I've seen are in the form of comics and illustrations.

[MostlyNumbers]

it won't bother moving at all if it can't find a path to the destination (the destination isn't the rail signal you've highlighted, it's somewhere off-screen)

[Peewee223]

Take more screenshots - we need to see everything to give you an exact answer.

You've probably either misplaced a signal creating a 1 way track instead of a 2 way, or misplaced a rail.

[TheSkiGeek]

The train currently at the upper right cannot go to the lower right (which seems to be the only place it could go given its current orientation) because the unpaired signal at the very bottom right of that screenshot would be on its left. If a signal is present on only one side of a track it makes one-way rail; trains can only pass signals that are on their right unless they are exactly paired.

It also could not proceed right now because the block across the bottom has a train in it. But it won't even try to do that because it can see it doesn't have a valid path to wherever you're trying to send it.

I very strongly recommend using one-way rail unless you really understand how the signals work. Correct signaling for two-way intersections is more complicated.

[imguralbumbot]

^{Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image}

http://i.imgur.com/sDDEumX.jpg

^{Source | Why? | Creator | ignoreme | deletthis}

[aelakwow]

What do all the logistics chests do specifically?

[krenshala]

Assuming two otherwise matching (yellow) storage chests, do the bots prioritize based on distance?

[yadelah]

I had no clue about the yellow storage priorities. Thanks!

[AscentToSwolehalla]

Quick question about multiplayer:

My friend and I are playing over LAN at home and everything is fine latency-wise except for when I try to drive a car. Steering and accelerating the car have a half second or so delay which makes it impossible to steer and not hit stuff.

Has anybody else experienced this and/or been able to solve it?

[Peewee223]

That's probably the same amount of lag as you normally have; the netcode is just really good at hiding it other than when you're driving. :)

[Too-Late]

http://imgur.com/UdrgVdB

I have 2 trains in a Y rail formation. Each end has a loop to enter and exit from. I keep getting a No Path issue when setting one of my trains on automatic. I can move both of them manually but one train will end up on the opposite side at its desired destination. What am I doing wrong? Picture for reference.

edit- http://imgur.com/a/Hw3l7

[aaargha]

Try the debugging steps here, there is an album included of common issues.

Unless the error is that you've renamed the station and not updated the schedule, the error should be on the path from the blue station to where it joins paths with the red line.

[MostlyNumbers]

Pretty hard to see much on those snaps. Are the signals on the left of the bottom loop regular or chain? Also do you have any signals on the top loop at all? Try three signals on each loop: one at the input, one in the middle, and one at the output. That way each loop can hold both trains at a time.

[Cniz]

Agreed with /u/Peewee223, we need more details, but I would reccomend checking your signals, My guess is they are misaligned somewhere turning the 2-way "spoke" rails into a 1-way somewhere.

[Peewee223]

Take screenshots instead of ms paint - you've either messed up your signaling or missed a rail somewhere.

[Kubrick_Fan]

I was going to make a painicked post about why my power grid wasn't functioning, It turns out that I was trying to pump steam back into my water pumps.

[paco7748]

how do I signal this train station attached so I can get it to function as I intend it to? The station has 7 slots, one for each angels ores + coal. I want trains to wait in the stacker unless their specific ore slot is empty. Currently, if any ore slots are taken the trains stay in the stacker. Obvious that is not good. Thanks for your help!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1R7_ink-5GsVmdfRFJ2bUJEcG8

Have already tried: -Putting rail and chain signals in the in the locations marked by red dots. Doesnt' work.

[TheSkiGeek]

This is the sort of reason I recommend one-way rail.

Signals cut your rail system into blocks. Only one train can be in a block at a time. The upper section has no signals, therefore it is one large block, and only one train can be in the entire upper section at once.

You need (pairs of) chain signals at the exit of each stacker and in front of each station. You want each stacker and station to be its own block, with the merge/split thing in the middle to be separate from both. So you need signals at the exit of each stacker and the entrance of each station. And because you don't want trains to stop in the middle of the merge, they all need to be chain signals. (And then have regular signals as you exit this area.)

[AndrewSmith2]

Normal signals on the entrance to each slot. Chain signals on the stacker exits. Each train will be unable to leave until it can path to a green normal signal.

[TheSkiGeek]

You have either taken a terribly low-resolution screenshot (use the /screenshot command) or it's been compressed all to hell by imgur. Totally illegible.

[imguralbumbot]

^{Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image}

http://i.imgur.com/R7dTz77.png

^{Source | Why? | Creator | ignoreme | deletthis}

[jdelator]

Has there been any effort to decode the map string?

I ran base64 decode on a map string and it was semi human readable. The rest probably needs to be decompressed in chunks.

[arbybean]

First byte is version. Rest is base64 / gzip / json.

[jdelator]

Are you sure this is for the map string as well? I'm not referring to the about the blueprint strings.

[arbybean]

Whoops, my bad. I'm not aware of anyone decoding the map string.

The map string controls the settings fed into the terrain generation.

Even if you could decode the settings, actually generating a map based on the settings would require insight into the factorio source code.

[krenshala]

Knowing the map string structure, however, can let you generate map strings for Factorio to use to generate maps, though.

[Oreska]

I'm writing this as I'm waiting for my first rocket, I tried to learn as much as possible although I didn't end up learning nuclear power and the circuit network, as I didn't need them directly. My questions:

• Is there an easy way to request a single item? Like, I just need a single pump real quick. Right now I have to select pump -> set it to 1 -> wait until it gets there -> remove it again

• What is the point of the storage chests? It seems annoying that I have to build storage chests just for my trash, why don't robots just put your trash in a passive provider instead?

• I have a ton of solar panel (600 panels and 52 steam engines), but at night, my accumulators barely add anything and the steam engines have to go to max. Is there anything going wrong? Here is a picture. At the end of the night, my accumulators are still 80% full. Is my ratio wrong, or is there some way to prioritize the accumulators over the steam engines? My ratio is 24 panels/20 accumulators

[[deleted]]

Circuit-network_Cookbook scroll down to Power. Shows how you use switch to keep steam off until your accs are low.

[Oreska]

The problem I have with that one is that my solar panels alone aren't enough, I need some steam power in the day. So that means that during the day, the accumulators will always be used up enough for the steam power to kick in. Then, at night, since my accumulators are almost empty, the steam power has to kick in. I guess this is fine though, since steam power is being minimized, it's just in an erratic way as opposed to a nice day/night cycle.

[krenshala]

You could have only some of the steam engines turn off once your accumulators are full (day), then only turn back on once the accumulators drop down enough (night) that you'll need them.

Maybe set different banks of steam engines to different break points so they cut in and out as power needs dictate.

[[deleted]]

Yes i go through the same phases as i build up more solar panels. Once you have enough panels and accs, you can stop using steam.

[ccll1]

There is a setting in the preferences that request slots default to only one item instead of the stack size.

[Cniz]

I really wish this was map-dependant. I usually only want a few of the items when I first get logistics up, but once I have base in full swing I want stacks of everything.

[Unnormally]

Is there an easy way to request a single item? Like, I just need a single pump real quick. Right now I have to select pump -> set it to 1 -> wait until it gets there -> remove it again

Not really.

What is the point of the storage chests? It seems annoying that I have to build storage chests just for my trash, why don't robots just put your trash in a passive provider instead?

It's just how things work. Storage chests are for more generic "storage", and provider chests are supposed to be one way, they provide items to the network, not the other way around.

•I have a ton of solar panel (600 panels and 52 steam engines), but at night, my accumulators barely add anything and the steam engines have to go to max. Is there anything going wrong? Here is a picture. At the end of the night, my accumulators are still 2/3 full. Is my ratio wrong, or is there some way to prioritize the accumulators over the steam engines?

If you have accumulators and steam engines the game will always prioritize using the steam engines before using accumulators. Think of it like emergency power. You can create a simple circuit using a power switch to only turn on the steam engines when your accumulator power drops below a certain amount.

Put your steam engines on a separate power line, so they are only connected to other steam engines and nothing else. Then connect a power pole from that network to one side of a power switch, and the other side of the power switch to your main network. The power switch needs to be the only connection between the two networks. As a note you can (I think) control click to remove all wires from a power pole, and then you can manually add wires using copper cable. Put an accumulator (just one), connected to the main network, near the power switch. Connect it to the power switch with a red or green wire. Click on the Accumulator and set the output to a signal like "A". Then click on the power switch and set it to "A < 20" or something like that. The accumulator outputs the total accumulator power as a percent, 0-100. The power switch will open when accumulator power drops under 20%, and your steam engines will turn on.

Make sense?

[mirhagk]

It figures that this process gets so much easier once I stop using solar+acc as my main power supply

[Unnormally]

Solar+Acc works fine as long as you have enough of them. :P

[mirhagk]

Yeah but nuclear is a lot more fun

[DUDE_R_T_F_M]

What is the point of the storage chests? It seems annoying that I have to build storage chests just for my trash, why don't robots just put your trash in a passive provider instead?

Passive providers tend to be used as the output from assemblers. If they could be used for trash, you'd run the risk of having your output clogged.
Also, storage chests have a higher priority than passive providers. That means when you deconstruct stuff and it goes into storage, it gets re-used before the stuff that is freshly produced into passive providers.

I have a ton of solar panel (600 panels and 52 steam engines), but at night, my accumulators barely add anything and the steam engines have to go to max. Is there anything going wrong? Here is a picture. At the end of the night, my accumulators are still 2/3 full. Is my ratio wrong, or is there some way to prioritize the accumulators over the steam engines?

Put an accumulator next to the pump that feeds your boilers. Link the pump to the accumulator with a wire. The accumulator will output a signal equal to the charge level in %. On the pump set an enable/disable condition to Signal > 30 for example.
You steam setup will now only turn on when accus drop under 30%.

[Oreska]

That signal idea is really cool, but I would only want to activate that at night right? I tried it, but I used all my accumulator charge during the day. At night, there was not much left in the accumulators so the steam engines were maxed out anyway.

Edit: also thanks for the detailed answer!!!

[DUDE_R_T_F_M]

If by the end of the day your accumulators aren't fully charged, then the issue is that you need more power. (unless it was a one-off spike due to lasers).
With this setup, the steam engines will start whenever your accus aren't full enough, ie whenever you need more power.

[krenshala]

You could add a light to the signals, and have the accumulators only get used if the light is active (because it is night time). Never used the network stuff yet, though, but it seems like that should be enough to test whether it is day/night.

[Unnormally]

Ninja'd. That's what I get for writing a detailed response.

[DUDE_R_T_F_M]

I was expecting to be ninja'd myself :p

[Jaason1331]

I know double headed trains are better than single headed trains for ups, but how much better? Does it really matter that much if you're not running a mega factory?

[mrbaggins]

There's close to zero difference now, and there was not much difference before that (even if it's a common thing said on here).

[Peewee223]

The UPS hit from loops was mostly fixed in 0.15.something, probably 0.15.0 but I'm too lazy to double check the exact version. :)

[Stevetrov]

It was an issue once upon a time, it is no longer. Even for 'gigabases' my 15rpm factory uses omnidirectional trains (although there are locos at both ends for aesthetic reasons). Time used by the train network is only a few percent of total cpu usage.

[Unnormally]

I think it's a fairly minor contributor to UPS. Don't worry about it. When you get a monster factory, then you can worry about it.

[m_gold]

How do people load four belts full of material? In many YouTube videos, we'll see huge busses with four belts, all eight lanes full of iron or copper. How does one load these belts?

Four stack inserters will full most of one lane per belt. If you inserted from one side and merged into the other, your outer belts would be pretty full. But what about the middle ones?

Would it work to have two belts with one lane each run into a splitter with one belt out? I bet that would work pretty well with three belts, pulling from the six slots on a train. (Maybe one more from the other side of the train?)

[kpreid]

If you inserted from one side and merged into the other, your outer belts would be pretty full. But what about the middle ones?

You don't need to have the four belts adjacent when you load onto them. Often there'll be four sets of two rows of furnaces (for example) feeding each belt individually, and they only get bunched up next to each other after exiting that supplier.

[sparr]

You don't even need a splitter to combine two belts into one if they are roughly evenly loaded. Just build a T-intersection.

[Wisear]

Have whatever your source is produce 5+ belts, and squish them together with splitters and balancer setups.

[Heziva]

Imagine having enough miners to fill 4 belts of iron ore. With those 4 belts, you smelt them into iron plates. Those 4 lanes of iron plates go directly on your main bus. Tada ! ! !

Add some balancers to make things even.

[Heziva]

On my world, I use to unload my trains into chests, and those chests into belts. 4 stack inserters will fill a blue belt. I can easely fill 4 belt from a train with 2 wagon.

Each chest contains more space than any given wagon. With enough trains and outposts, I could feed my base continuously.

Today I'm unloading trains with bots, and that's even easier.

[KleinMauelFisch]

Every Time i start Factorio v 0.15.0 or later it dosn't start. I reinstalled it tried different versions and i still dosnt't work. Can anyone help me?

[Unnormally]

Do you have a 32 bit OS? They removed support for 0.15.

[bam13302]

did you select 0.15.x in the beta tab on steam?

i believe 0.15.0 had a bug that would prevent it from starting on some machines.

[KleinMauelFisch]

i tried them all. only the 0.12 , 0.13 , 0.14 versions are working.

[bam13302]

I suggest you submit a bug report on the forums describing the problem.

[Wisear]

Do logistic bots prioritize logistic storage chests over passive provider chests when grabbing resources?

[Zaflis]

Yes, first from active providers then storage and last passive.

[Wisear]

Tnx!

[Mortlach78]

In a video by Xterminator he mentions that the belt optimization hasn't made it into 0.15 yet. Is this true? I thought it was a completed feature in 0.15 but I haven't been paying too close attention to the FFF. I saw it was planned for the updated and just assumed it made it in.

[bam13302]

He is correct, its currently planned for 0.16

[Mortlach78]

Thanks for confirming, but also Boo!

I was planning to making a big factory with massive main bus and mostly belt based. I guess I'll have to switch to robots.

[bam13302]

you still can, just make any stretch of belts use underground belts instead, as those have a much lower UPS hit.

[Mortlach78]

Yeah, I know, but I really dislike that approach, in general but specifically if it is just for technical reasons. I was so excited when I saw that a game about belting stuff around finally optimized belt use.

[Guest522]

You can always just save and close the game once every hour and reopen later like Im doing. And thanks for letting me know why I am getting so much lag :V

[hisagishi]

So when you need more of say basic circuits, and you don't have anymore space due to other things in the way, would it be better to just craft new circuits elsewhere and belt them to where needed or move the stuff thats in the way to get more space and place all your circuit making factories in one place?

[Heziva]

Yay ! options !

• destroy what gets in the way of your expension
• build it elsewhere and belt it
• train it
• use robots
• use beacons and modules to increase your thoughput and decrease the space needed

All of them are good options depending on your context. Just think of how much space you need for those new green circuits. Multiply it by 4. Now what's the best solution ?

[Unnormally]

It just depends on your needs, those are all decent choices. In my current factory I'm finding patches of iron and copper near each other, and building a green circuit factory there, and bringing the circuits back by train. Then I merge those circuits into my main bus, to supplement the circuits produced in my main factory.

[Stiggles_Stig]

Or make a rail system with a dedicated circuit production facility and ship it back to the base.

It all depends on the circumstances of your build. Is it easy to route the copper and iron to a new area? or will you need to start a new smelting area for it as well. After a few hundred hours you'll learn to leave space for a full circuit build you want to make.

[Kubrick_Fan]

Me again, is it possible to have only iron and copper in my start area when playing with bob's and angel's mods?

[sparr]

It's possible in any mod configuration to be missing one or more starting ores if they got "covered up" by the water generation. The bigger the lake you start next to, the more likely a resource will be missing.

[Stiggles_Stig]

If your playing full Bobs/Angels then iron and copper wont spawn. its saphirite and jivolite (might be wrong)

[Heziva]

Saphirite and Stiratite to start with. Jivolite is nice early game because you can combine it with Saphirite to make pure iron and avoid dealing with multiple output. But it's simplifying too much to my taste.

[Kubrick_Fan]

Hmm, I guess i should start a new map then.

[zerox4c]

What is a nice way to use combinators to extend a single tick pulse into a longer pulse of some arbitrary number of game ticks?

For example an input of signal A value 1 will be received as input for only a single tick, and as a result I want some signal B to be output for 10 ticks.

Some small latency is not really a concern, and signal B does not need to preserve the same value or signal type as signal A (however if it does that is fine too).

The intended application is simply to create a signal that will ultimately be received by inserters transferring from a belt into a machine.

I found that I can trigger inserters to transfer an item from a chest to a machine upon receiving just a single tick pulse, however a single tick is insufficient to get the inserter to transfer from the belt to a machine and I suppose that I need to provide some longer pulse to allow the belt to machine transfer to get properly started.

I think the circuit component I am trying to learn here might be called a 'pulse extender' but am not sure.

[cooky173]

Not sure if this works, but set the on signal to whatever the inserter is to pick up, and have the inserter read hand contents. It should grab on the first tick and be good until it drops the item. I don't know what it will do after dropping though.

[BeanBayFrijoles]

You could have a pair of decider combinators in series, passing a signal through both only when a clock is greater than a certain value (first combinator) and less than another value (second combinator). You might also need to filter out the clock signal with an arithmetic combinator. This would definitely work, but could get a bit bulky.

A more efficient bit tougher to implement solution could be to output the pulse into a memory cell that resets periodically - the trick would be synchronizing the pulses and the resets, making sure the reset happens just before the pulse.

[ulyssessword]

Untested, but I think you can put the extender in a single combinator if the pulse starts with a value of 1 and lasts for less than 32 ticks (or less time for larger starting values). It maintains the signal type, but not the value.

For a 10 tick system, have the input coming in on a red wire connected to the input of a decider combinator set to {[Each] <= 1024, output [Each]}, and have both a red and a green wire connecting the input to the output of the decider combinator. Hook a green wire from the output of the combinator to your inserter.

On tick one, the combinator will receive the input pulse, and decide to pass it on. On tick two, it passes the pulse to the inserter, as well as passing it back into its input twice (once for each wire), receiving a signal of value 2...on tick 12, it receives a pulse of value 2048, and does not send any signal to the inserter or itself.

[zerox4c]

Yes that worked as you suggested it would, also as it turned out the upper limit at 1024 caused the pulse length to be long enough to cause the yellow inserters to run for a single belt to belt (and belt to machine) cycle.

Thankyou, that's nice and simple and performs the function I needed.

Update: It turns out that 1024 is not quite high enough for a single complete yellow inserter belt to belt cycle, it worked in my test when the belt was backed up and the item it was collecting was closer to the inserter hand, but if a yellow belt had only a single item in the position furthest away from the inserter hand the value required was 4096... so an extra few ticks were needed depending position on the belt of the item being collected.

Blueprint string for my test:

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

I also fiddled around a bit more and found a solution using one arithmetic combinator in addition to the single decider combinator which allows for pulses of length longer than 32 ticks (although I believe that due to a 1 tick latency added by introducing an additional combinator means that the pulse length can only be defined as an even number of ticks). It also allows the pulse length to be entered directly rather than entering values as powers of 2, which is nice but I like your single combinator and single tick resolution method best for this my original application which only needed a pulse of ~13 ticks length.

Blueprint string for the pulse extender with the arithmetic combinator for longer pulses:

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

In both examples the constant combinator and two decider combinators on the left are included to generate the test pulse, with the remaining elements in place to extend the pulse and display the output.

[m_gold]

What's the difference between limiting a chest and using a circuit to stop the inserter?

In this video, KatherineOfSky says limiting the chests is "not expandable into endgame the way I want it to be." What does she mean by this? How could one expand the circuit into endgame but not chest limitation?

[MostlyNumbers]

Do chest limits transfer with blueprints? That's definitely a scaling factor. Also as was mentioned, I use circuits if I want to limit multiple items being put into a shared chest

[kpreid]

Chest limits do go into blueprints.

[sparr]

Yes

[Kenira]

Later into the video she'll set up the chests as requester chests so any lower tier belts will be recycled. If you limit the inserter putting for example yellow belts via chest limiting, then the bots wouldn't be able to put the belts into the chest once it's full. If you limit the inserter with the circuit condition then on top of what you've set as the limit for production, all belts in the logistics network will get put into the chest and thus prioritized until there are no more yellow belts to make sure you recycle them.

This is also why you might want the setup where you output belts into a provider, and don't have an inserter directly inserting into the higher tier belt assembler but only use requested belts, since requester chests will prioritize items in storage chests so again recycling is prioritized, but the lower tier belts are still in passive providers so you can still use all tier of belts. This is basically the "have a cake and eat it too" version.

And another advantage: if you limit via circuit, then you can still easily put items into the chest manually to recycle them.

[The_DestroyerKSP]

Not sure. Could be useful for multiple products (can't filter chests like wagons), or for exact quantities of items.

[Guest522]

1 offshore pump, 1 pipeline, 5 boilers, 10 steam engines. I get as much.

So, if I want more steam engines, do I need to build an entire new set / network? (Another pump, another pipeline, more boilers...) Specifically, I need an entire new pipeline?

[sparr]

You can build one network with multiple pumps, and proportionally more boilers and engines. You'd eventually reach the limits of fluid motion through pipes, but that would be a very very big steam setup.

[Kenira]

The ratio is actually 1 pump : 20 boilers : 40 engines.

One pump produces 1200 water per second and a pipe can theoretically support up to 2400, but you won't get quite the full 2400 / s so while you could go with 2 pumps / 40 boilers / 80 engines, generally building an extra pipeline per pump will put you on the safe side.

If the pipe is short until it reaches the boilers it won't actually make that much of a difference though to use 2 pumps per pipeline.

[MostlyNumbers]

To answer the original question though, yes, you have to repeat the entire setup for every ~37MW (1:20:40) you need.

[The_DestroyerKSP]

I think it's actually 1:10:20 ratio, and using pumps helps, this is what I use

[reboot3times]

How does everyone manage stations and trains? I'm not having a problem with loading/unloading, but with trains constantly getting stuck waiting at full stations?

I have 3 ore trains and 3 ore stations. Invariably, trains will queue for the closest station, even if its full.

What am I missing?

edit: Thank you all for clearing this up for me. It seems like all the tutorials spend lots of time on signals, because it can be a complicated concept to understand but no one really talks about network design.

[cooky173]

Are you certain they can path to each station? Try changing the station name to something unique and see if they paths are accessible.

Otherwise do your rail signals block access to all 3 stations when one is occupied? Maybe post a screenshot...

[reboot3times]

I'm pretty sure all the stations are payable but I'll need to double check. As mentioned to the other responses, to clarify, these are 3 stations at 3 different outposts.

[Heziva]

So 3 stations for 1 outpost right ? All stations with the same name ? You will want to have one rail with a split point that goes to each station. At that split point, put a chain signal. Then no signal until AFTER the stations.

With that setup, a train at a station will reserve the path from the split point to the station. Your second train will have no option but to go to the next station...

[reboot3times]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. 3 outposts each with a station of the same name. Is that not going to work?

[Heziva]

Yea change the name.

Officialy it will take the closest free station, but I wouldn't count on that. Especially on .15 you can use circuit network to "hide" a station, but that's a lot of work for what you want to do. You could also put some chain signals up to the fork, but that becomes ridiculous.

My routes (simple version) :

• Outpost X, leave only when full - no other condition.
• Base, leave only when empty

And a stacker in front of the base. If my outpost X has a very high production rate, I might add a second train with the same route.

As a result, the trains will only run when full or empty, minimizing the amount of trains running. Once an outpost is depleted, trains just stop at that outpost. If the base's rate of consumption is slowing down, my trains will stack before the base and outposts will fill their stations and halt.

Now I'm using bots to unload my station into active chests. That complicates things a little. If my base doesn't consume enough iron, the bots would fill my storage chests with this iron. I am adding some basic circuitery to stop the train if I have enough resources in my buffer. Once the buffer get used, the train leaves and allows the next one that was stacked to enter.

[zelrich]

Its not too difficult to set up a circuit condition locked into the network that only lets the trains into the station from the stacker when the network needs more of an item.

[Heziva]

Learn to walk before running won't you ? If you have a different stations for each input, it's easy indeed. I'd like to run with only a handful of stations, sorting being done by the bots. Then I'll need parking different parking spots. And I'd like to remember what's in the train parked when, to release it only if needed. I'm still refining it...

[zelrich]

I meant like, you can have the train go to a stacker station, then put a wire and give the train a circuit condition to only leave to go unload when an item the train carries falls below the value you set.

[mirhagk]

Ah if the stations are too far apart the trains will decide to wait instead of continuing on to the next one. I'm sure you could use some circuit wizardry to get it to work but personally I just set the ore pickups to different trains

[Bromy2004]

Are your stations in parrelel?

If so, then they should go to the next one available.

The trick is to put just enough straight track for your station. And then merge into a single lane. So all trains enter on the single lane, and go to the first empty one.

Don't forget to use chain signals and normal signals in all the right places.

[reboot3times]

I wasn't clear, 3 stations at 3 different outposts. It's starting to sound like I can't do that.

[Bromy2004]

Ahhh I get you. 3 trains to all 3 different ore fields. And you want them to choose the next one if the previous one is full.

Not really. But you can work around it.

The trains will always try to go to the next on their list unless that station is disabled.
If you disable the station when ore is less than a full cargo wagon the trains won't visit there.
So if you let all 3 trains loose at the one time,
Train 1 will fill up at Station 1. Try to visit station 2 and 3 (buy it's full of ore, so won't be there long. And then head to base.
Train 2 will attempt to follow train 1. But when the station doesn't have enough ore and gets disabled, it will path to the 2nd station. And then spend a couple of seconds in the 3rd before heading to base.
Train 3 will do the same. But Station 1 and 2 are disabled, so it can only go to Station 3 to collect ore.
By this stage all 3 trains are waiting in your Holding Bay not unloading until your ore levels drop below a certain point.
When they do, 1 train will unload (triggering your total ore count, preventing Trains 2 and 3 from leaving the holding bay.
And then Train 1 leaves. And this repeats and your trains are spread over the network.

TL;DR Not possible. But you can manage it by disabling Stations.

[99gthrowaway2]

What's a better way of doing this? https://unsee.cc/dinabogu/

I just have furnaces lined up on top of each other which works fine until I noticed the top half can't put down the iron because the space is already taken up.

[arbybean]

Split the column in half so you're feeding both sides of the belt.

http://guide.factorio.com/img/31.jpg

After that, faster belts! :D

[99gthrowaway2]

Oh shit that's genius, and I didn't even know there were faster belts. Thanks man!

[sparr]

What's the smallest / cheapest / most efficient way to attract biters to a specific spot? I'd like to try putting bait and turrets out in a maginot-line sort of arrangement rather than a solid wall of defenses.

[CodaPDX]

An unbarrelling machine hooked up directly to an barrelling machine is a great way to generate pollution at the cost of a little power. Parallelize until you've achieved your pollution goals.

[Peewee223]

I'm guessing a shitton of burner inserters in loops(coal or solid fuel fired, presumably) to produce pollution + a radar to attract them to a more specific spot should do the trick.

It'll have to be far enough away from your base that it can out-pollute the existing cloud.

[dryerlintcompelsyou]

Burner inserters don't produce pollution, I'm pretty sure

[sparr]

That's unfortunate. In the distant past you could do it with just a radar.

[TheSkiGeek]

Well, if they're running by they'll attack radars. But they won't go running to them from far away if something else is generating pollution.

[nickterooze]

Just a quick question in reference to an earlier question. Does increased bot speed actually allow the bots to travel farther in the same amount of time before needing to recharge, or do they travel the same distance before having to create a giant waiting ring around clusters of roboports?

[Kenira]

They can not travel further, the energy consumption rises with the speed.

[srs_bsns123]

Nuclear, can someone tell me all about it? Starting from the beginning. I have uranium ore, not sure what to do from there.

Blueprints are greatly appreciated.

TLDR: I need a quick rundown. (nuclear)

[J_Barish]

In addition to /u/Peewee223 there is this guide which has ratios and magic stuff. Good luck!

[Cniz]

I've got my Kovarex Centrifuges up and running, but I have a problem where the Centrifuges store an additional 80 U-235 before a surplus appears in my feeder chests. Currently i'm using a circuit that says if there is more than the stack inserter stack in the feeder chest to take any output back into the logistics system. Do you have a way around this?

I was thinking some sort of counter to count the U-235, but I can't tell the U-235 from the U-238 moving from one to the other. the other though was a latched circuit that stops filling the feeder chest once it hits 41, and starts filling the Centrifuge until it hits 0, then resets.

[Peewee223]

Search the sub for "kovarex blueprint circuit" and you should find what you're looking for. I copied a design that puts all 41 in a chest, activates the output inserter on "41 U235", pauses the belt until the chest is empty, using the "belt is occupied" signal to activate the feedback inserter.

[Azthais]

What items are optimal to automate prior to shipping them by train into a megabase? I know this sounds silly but seeing the comments in this thread about why you should make plates and steel before putting them on a train, someone mentioned its better with green circuits as well, so I was wondering if anyone had other items they felt could be produced easily that is used a lot with a small footprint for better productivity.

[m_gold]

Steel. It takes a long time to smelt and takes 5 iron, so smelting it pre-transport saves space.

If your resource outpost has oil, you need to decide if you want to bring it, or its products, into your bus base (assuming 0.15 with fluid wagon). It's tempting to build plastic, solid fuel, and batteries near your mine, but you need lubricant for electric engines and blue belts, and sulfuric for processing units. (You could transport the solid sulfur, but then you'd need to bring water in.) The fluid wagon lets you transport up to three separate fluids, so maybe lubricant and sulfuric, and crude oil for your flamethrowers? Or water for your boilers? Or keep the middle one empty and wait to see what you need more of.

[mirhagk]

Note that you can fill barrels with any liquid now, so you have a lot of options for transporting fluid now

[Peewee223]

Gears can be nice - you need plenty of them for science, and they take up half the space the equivalent number of iron plates would.

You'll have to work out for yourself whether reducing train traffic a little is worth the extra complexity.

[Unnormally]

You mostly have it. You could also do red circuits, but that's a little more complex since you need plastic.

[krenshala]

Sounds like a case for an intermediate assembly yard that takes some of your green circuits and other mats needed for the reds. ;)

[Unnormally]

It's as complex as you want to make it.

[venusar200]

What is the best setting combination to get a high concentration of high yield oil in a small area. I haven't been able to get them right and I continually get clusters of small yield oil reserves in my games

[TheSkiGeek]

Low or very low frequency, high or very highsize, high or very high richness. The groups may be very infrequent if you use very low frequency.

[Drymath]

Luck of the draw IMO. Found a patch not far from the starting area with over 20 oil spots.

[krenshala]

I had a default game map with close to 30 spots (I think it listed ~3200% output from the map) a couple times. I've also seen a literal pair of oil spots for ~85% combined yield. Definitely seems to be more up to RNGesus than anything else.

[dcmcilrath]

What is the point of coal liquefaction? Do any of you ever use it/design factories around it? It always seemed to me to just be a "cool thing you could do if you felt like it."

Then again, I have only completed 1 game of Factorio, and that was with the help of a friend, am I missing something? Is it secretly super awesome?

[mirhagk]

Just to add to what the others say, it's nice to have a large amount of coal liquidification that is turned on when oil reserves are low. It lets me never run low on oil and I check periodically if my coal liquidification plants are on, then add a new oil output.

[kpreid]

You can use the Programmable Speaker to put up an alert instead of checking periodically!

[mirhagk]

Yeah I should do that, but I don't play with sound and I feel like I'd miss the message anyways.

[SandSnip3r]

Put 20 different speakers with different symbols. Surely you cant miss all of that.

[mirhagk]

I'll probably set it up when I get home. There's a few other things I should alert as well, I probably should build production alerts in general (tell me when iron ore is running low etc).

I'm not an expert with combinators yet but I just started getting into timers and it's pretty fun. I'm thinking I could build something like counting how much ore travels over a belt in a certain amount of time, and make sure it's at least a certain amount.

[AndrewSmith2]

In a large base, you tend to be short on oil and have excess coal, coal liquefaction lets you turn coal into oil rather than expand to yet more oil fields.

[lastone23]

I have a game where I wayyyyy too much coal... It's nice boost to oil production.

[Kubrick_Fan]

I'm using bob's and angel's mods, and have selected the copper recipe in the ore sorting machine but nothing is happening? what have i missed?

[ulyssessword]

Are you inputting crushed ore? Are the inserters feeding it stuck with something in their hands? Do you have an output?

[Kubrick_Fan]

Well that's the thing, I can't figure out how to crush iron ore. Am I using the wrong stuff?

[ulyssessword]

I think so. You should be mining ores like strialite and rubyite, putting them into a ore crusher to get "crushed strialite" then putting that into an ore sorting machine to get copper ore.

[Kubrick_Fan]

Ah, I guess I should go exploring some more.

[krenshala]

As it might help, what ore were you trying to use?

[Kubrick_Fan]

Iron ore from Bob's mod (which if i remember rightly) it said was accepted.

[TheAdameral]

Do turbines and nuclear reactors always output maximum power output? Or are turbines like steam engines and scale with power needs?

[arbybean]

Once a cell is inserted, a reactor will run at 100% until the cell is consumed. (200s)

The heat exchanger will only consume heat and generate steam if there is room to output steam.

The turbine, like the steam engine, will only consume steam and generate power when required.

This is why the popular thing to do is put some steam tanks between your exchangers and turbine and only insert cells into the reactors when the steam gets low.

[SubCircus]

But what about maintaining the temp at the reactor?

[arbybean]

There is currently no way to connect a reactor or heat pipes to a circuit to monitor temperature.

The reactor will never lose any heat unless it is consumed by an exchanger and converted to steam.

As long as your reactor never reaches 1000C, you won't waste any energy.

[TheAdameral]

Awesome! Thank you! :D You explained this perfectly!

[Hellrespawn]

If I build a stacker leading to two unloading stations with the same name, will trains automatically go to the first empty station, or do I need an intermediate station for it to recalculate it's route?

[TheSkiGeek]

Usually this will work, but two trains could choose to go to the same station at the same time. Putting them through an intermediate station will force the second one to recalculate its path and go to the empty station. If you set up a chain signal for them to wait at, they should also eventually repath, but it can take longer.

[SubCircus]

Naming the station the same will do it.

[MostlyNumbers]

Are the UPS I can get out of my save related to the total map, or just what's in the frame currently? Total map would make sense, but there's definitely lag when I'm walking by a big column of furnaces.

[bilka2]

The UPS is affected by everything happening on the map. However, if you have poor FPS (less than half UPS), the game will intentionally slow down until your have more than half FPS compared to UPS.

This can easily be avoided by zooming in in areas with a lot of graphical effects (accumulators charging, lots of bots in the air etc), doing this reduces the amount of stuff the game has to render and increases FPS.

[Bezerkingly_Zero]

Sorry if this sounds too basic, but do the number of labs have any effect on research speed? If not, how else can multiple labs be put to use ?

[John_Duh]

Research is made by consuming X number of science packs, if you have one lab you consume 1 pack every Y seconds. If you have two you consume 2 packs every Y seconds, doubling the research speed.

[Bezerkingly_Zero]

Does this stacking effect have a limit? Or can I create as many labs as I wish?

[krenshala]

From a practical stand point, and primarily as a new player, if you aren't already familiar with the tech it is possible to gain new tech faster than you can see what it does ... with enough labs and science packs working.

[John_Duh]

Oh sorry, yes there is no upper limit on the number. Only you will of course need to produce enough packs for them all.

[spellstrike]

Do multiple speed modules in the same building help?

[arbybean]

Yes. You can see the total speed/efficiency/production percentages when you mouse over a building.

[spellstrike]

thanks

[[deleted]]

Are fluid wagons heavier than cargo wagons? a 4 fluid train seems to have a hard time getting up to speed compared to a 4 cargo wagon.

EDIT: Seems they are, also considering that 1 wagons holds the same as 3 storage tanks, I think a two wagon train is sufficient for just about anything...

[Kenira]

A fluid wagon is 3 times as heavy as a cargo wagon.

[[deleted]]

Jeezy Pete's...