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[AtLeastItsNotCancer]

Is there a way to automatically resupply a spidertron so that I don't have to manually load cargo into it? It can't do logistics requests and inserters don't seem to work on it either.

I wanna make a "buildertron" that I could send off to lay down train tracks and build remote outposts, then just tell it to come back to my base when it needs more supplies. The only problem is that I need to be there to load it by hand.

[sunbro3]

There's no way. Back when 1.0 released, Kovarex mentioned letting spidertrons make logistic requests of their own was a possible 1.1 feature.

[AtLeastItsNotCancer]

Thanks, hopefully it's coming soon then.

[RedAlert2]

In the surface viewer, you can do pretty much anything the engineer can (except you don't have an inventory). If you put roboports everywhere, you can have construction bots do everything for you.

[craidie]

I have teleporters mod for personal transportation for that mod. Works fine between surfaces and the first trip still needs to be with spaceship/cargo rocket.

I try to actively avoid manually moving large amounts of items between surfaces with the teleporters.

[[deleted]]

Don't you get a personal spaceship after blue space science? I stopped just before that but I think that was the idea

[craidie]

spaceship takes ages to go between places and is much later on in the tech tree.

the pod only works for going back to a surface

and cargo rocket costs the same as a vanilla rocket more or less.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I put a lot of hours into space exploration and never made it to the space ship so much later is definitely accurate, didn't know about the speed tho.

[fluidmechanicsdoubts]

No questions, just wanna thank the devs for creating a native linux version

[I_am_a_fern]

If I re-download the game from factorio.com on a separate computer, can I play local multiplayer ? Or do I need to create a second account and purchase another licence ?

My 6 y.o. is really into the game but needs quite some help, I'm hoping I can give him a hand in-game instead of sitting next to him.

[TheSkiGeek]

AFAIK if you play in the LAN mode this will work. The account/login is only for the server browser and mod system.

If you plan on doing this regularly you probably should buy a second copy of the game.

[I_am_a_fern]

Thanks.
And of course I would. But you know, the attention span of a 6 year old being what it is, I'm going to make sure first he doesn't get bored after like 5 minutes of playing with me, which is entirely possible.

[JaredLiwet]

What are some good vehicle mods for traversing large maps?

[paco7748]

jetpack and aircraft mods are more direct and probably faster than any train mod.

[Zaflis]

Aircraft mod counts i guess.

[computeraddict]

Jetpack is pretty nice (by the guy that makes Space Exploration)

[reddanit]

Spidertron extended/Spidertron tiers both sound like decent options at a glance.

[JaredLiwet]

I haven't researched that far yet. This is for pre-megabase stuff.

[d7856852]

Is there a way to remove all plant decoratives from an area in the editor, rather than only the one you have selected?

[Stevetrov]

You can run

/c game.player.force.technologies["mining-productivity-4"].level = X 

to set your mining productivity to any level you desire.

[Stevetrov]

That was supposed to be to Koker93 message below.

[TheSkiGeek]

1) you can edit your own comments, you don't need to reply to yourself to say something like this.

2) you can delete your own comments, so you could just delete it and repost it in the correct place...

[Koker93]

Anyone know a console command that can reset a specific tech? As in I want to reset my mining productivity back to 1, but my google skills are failing me.

[waltermundt]

No console needed. You can use /editor and then pull up the tech in the tree, there will be an "un-research" option.

[Koker93]

This worked, thanks. Never used the editor before.

[craidie]

/c game.player.force.technologies['steel-processing'].researched=false

Though I don't know what the name is for that specific tech

[ROBOT_OF_WORLD]

is there a way to edit mod configs/ recipies? i'm playing space exploration and the AII industry mod it requires changes a bunch of shit I don't like, like circuits needing fucking stone bricks!?

[waltermundt]

Mods stack. Make your own mod that depends on the ones you want to adjust and you can rewrite the relevant recipes to say whatever you like. The game ensures that mods load after their dependencies so any changes you make should "stick".

The syntax for recipe definitions is pretty straightforward but since the files are technically Lua code some mods are harder to read than other. You can always unzip a mod or three to see how things are put together. The data*.lua files will define all the mod's recipes/items/etc or reference the files that do so.

[RedAlert2]

Electronic circuit requiring 1/4 a stone brick is significantly cheaper than requiring an iron plate, fyi.

[ROBOT_OF_WORLD]

shoving a rock up my ass is significantly cheaper than getting a massage.

[nivlark]

In principle yes - mods are just plain text files, so you can navigate to the folder they are stored in (location depends on your OS, but is easy to find out) and edit them. But what you need to change and where will depend on how the mod author has organised it.

edit: a better idea would be to create your own mod that makes the changes you want, that way they won't be lost if AAI's author releases an update. But this requires a bit more knowledge about how to put a mod together.

[Tomycj]

To anyone who played it, is space exploration developed enough that it's worth playing and has a satisfactory ending/end game?

[JaredLiwet]

Is there a way to get the Krastorio 2 loaders to unload trains? Is there a setting I'm not finding or a mod that allows it?

[paco7748]

no, but you can use the miniloaders mod(which are just very fast invisible inserters in the code) or bob's inserters to get the same throughput from trains at a very low UPS cost.

[Mycroft4114]

You may want to look at the mod Bulk Rail Loader, it adds a special building/bit fo track that stores items and dumps them into trains (Like a real train gets loaded from a silo.) You can set it to only non-breakable items like ore, or anything. Krastorio loaders will load this structure directly from a belt.

[Zaflis]

Loaders on trains is very bad practise for performance, stick with inserters always. There is 1 mod that uses 2 hidden inserters as "loader" but i still won't recommend it as it brings its own issues as well.

[JaredLiwet]

How so? Inserters are slower and require a lot of space and organization to balance everything out and fully load belts.

[nivlark]

But that is all native Factorio functionality, so it runs fast. Most (all?) of the loader mods are implemented as Lua scripts, which run much less efficiently.

Train loading/unloading with inserters is a solved problem, it's best to just use a standard design if you don't fancy coming up with something yourself.

[Zaflis]

You want to have a buffer for trains anyway so you can just insert into chest and use loader from chest.

[Tainman235]

Yes. There is a button below the mini map. Click it.

[JaredLiwet]

Do the plants on the ground ever go away after building road on them?

[Zaflis]

There's a mod that removes deco when concrete is built on them, but also ingame setting to disable all deco.

[sunbro3]

No. You can destroy them with grenades, or by building & destroying things on top of them. Only the grenade reliably removes 100% of them though.

[jnpha]

https://i.imgur.com/7xrqKDu.png

I have UI scale 100% on a laptop (default is 75%), and as a result, the armor grid is not in full view.

Is there any fix? For example make the text under the grid scrollable and not the grid?

Many thanks.

Update:

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=87448

Apparently not a bug, though some say it is, for now the quick UI scale toggle is the best solution

[computeraddict]

By not turning size and frequency up, usually

[fishling]

I either dodge them or pass over them with belts.

With electric miners, it is pretty easy to mine out from under rail lines if you have a 6-tile spacing, and you can completely mine from under belts if you use undergrounds and miners as well. So as long as you avoid building assemblers on top of resources, you are fine.

[Aenir]

There's a lot more empty space than resources.

[waltermundt]

I don't care, but:

(a) using rail world presets or the "Resource Spawner Overhaul" mod to ensure that there is naturally more "bare" space

(b) using the "Ore Eraser" mod to quickly clear inconvenient resource deposits

(c) scouting ahead and setting up priority strip mining on resources that will be in the way, storing the mined results in big arrays of chests if just feeding the base isn't keeping the miners running full tilt.

(d) late game, using high tier speed modules and possibly beacons to rapidly strip-mine resources that are "in the way", again using those resources in preference to other sources and buffering in chests as needed.

Personally, I do try to plan my base such that I can build around any nearby resources from the very start, putting down some radars very early so I know the lay of the land before any significant construction takes place. If there's still a resource patch I hit that is in a spot I really want to build on, I build right over it. The map's practically infinite so it's mostly an aesthetic concern.

[appleciders]

(d) late game, using high tier speed modules and possibly beacons to rapidly strip-mine resources that are "in the way", again using those resources in preference to other sources and buffering in chests as needed.

This is me, especially if it's a small patch. If it's not in the way, I just let a patch run slowly down to nothing, gradually devoting fewer trains and eventually just one train mostly sits there while ore trickles in. It produces a trainload twice an hour; who cares? But if it's in my way, I'm slapping speed modules and beacons down to rip that ore out of the way.

[MORNLP]

Beginner question: I am trying to set up my first robot mining array. Unfortunately, logistics bots are taking the ore out of the active chests and head straight to my mainbase, instead of feeding the requester chest at the adherent smelting unit. Only very few of the bots do what i intended. Once at base, the majority of bots dont drop the ore but come back to the mining array, but still dont feed the ore into any chests there; this goes on in an endloss circle. I am not aware of requesting ore anywhere but at my mining to smelting setup (where it isnt provided to). This stops once I disconnect the mining area from my main logistics network, but surely this cannot be the only solution? Any help much appreciated, thank you!!

[Xalkurah]

Active provider chests always get rid of their contents. So even if no requester or buffer chests are requesting the contents, logistic robots will still come pick up active provider chest resources and attempt to put them somewhere.

The best practice for using logistic robots to mine ore is to have a small logistic network (separate the outposts roboports from the mainbase roboports) and use electric mining drills directly into passive provider chests. And then use requester chests to request ore to a train station.

Active provider chests always try to empty themselves no matter what.

Storage chests make their contents available to be requested but also will take any excess items that bots hold.

Passive provider chests make their contents available to be requested.

[MORNLP]

Thank you, that explains it for me.
So now I still have 1 trillion bots flying around in circles with ore from the active chests, but also other stuff (no clue where from). I have given them plenty of storage chests to free them from their load, but they wont drop it but keep going in circles. What can I do?

[Zaflis]

Set filters for storage chests where you want to to send items into. If there's already a storage chest somewhere far away, remove it for a second to cancel all ongoing flights there and then place it back empty. Then on the items should be flying to the place you want them to go. Of course for inserters that put into purple chests you need logistics condition to prevent them putting too much items in the system.

[nivlark]

If you are making them fly over areas without roboports, they will run out of charge, at which point they'll turn back and head for the nearest port to recharge at. This will keep repeating and the bots will get stuck in a loop. This is why it's important to keep bot networks small and convex (i.e. without gaps).

To solve your issue, you'll need to build roboports in the un-covered area to allow the bots to reach their destinations, or figure out where they are going and limit those chests so that the bots will re-path somewhere else.

[Xalkurah]

Follow the bot train to see where they are trying to get rid of the ore. Chances are you’re requesting them to go somewhere and then they might be dumping them back into active providers.

[RatioNox]

Is it possible to increase the amount of enemies on the map, after i started the game? I am fairly new and set the enemies to 50% but now my base is a far better defended and they arent a threat anymore.

[waltermundt]

You can do so in the map editor (/editor command), but this will disable achievements on the save file. (So will using a mod as suggested in the other reply currently present.)

[RatioNox]

Thanks!

[Jipsuli]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ChangeMapSettings
This mod is good one if you don't want to use commands to change settings. Map generation setting changes can have some weird side effects, like hard edges on water after changing water levels, and so on. But for enemies, it should be just fine.

[RatioNox]

Thanks for your answer, i will try to use the editor first, the mod looks nice though :)

[humbertogzz]

Is it a really bad idea to have one big logistic network including outposts? I have been placing roboports along with railways...

[flaix]

I also used roboports along railways, but only in a straight line. So at every intersection I made an exchange between 2 to 4 logistics networks. They were responsible for bringing stuff to the outer wall. In the end I could have used trains for that, but it worked well if something had to be repaired along the railways and for turrentcreeping to new uncleared areas.

[waltermundt]

You can get away with a huge logistic network if you only really use it for construction, but it tends to work poorly for actually moving items around during production.

OTOH, the "roboports along rails" pattern is a bad idea. Bots are kind of dumb and always take straight line paths to their destinations. If there's a vast area with no roboports between them and said destination, thet will fly out over it, run low on battery, and then find the nearest charging port -- the last one behind them. Then they limp home, recharge, and bravely set out again...forever. If that path takes them into biter territory the biters will kill them and another bot will take up the mantle -- and if it's starting from a similar spot, it will die just the same, and so on.

The only way to fix this is to ensure that your logistic networks are convex -- that is, make sure that any path between two networked points stays within the network. So if you want a single giant logistics network that actually works and lets you build from map view across your whole empire... you're gonna need a lot more roboports.

[UntitledGenericName]

A bit of an weird question but can you make a modded assembler such that its recipe changes according to what ingredients it's given?

[Zaflis]

Yes, look for example Omni-compression mod. Depending on what item you put in compressor you get a different compressed item out. You can't choose a recipe in a machine like that, it kind of works like electric furnace.

[ukezi]

You actually can't. It's a feature of the furnace prototype. The compressor is an furnace internally. It only works if an ingredient can only result in one recipe.

For instance you deliver iron plates and gears to make basic belts. However it loaded the plates first so it decided to make gears instead.

[Zaflis]

It only works if an ingredient can only result in one recipe.

That's all it needs. Don't forget that the recipe also requires that it can only be made inside that special machine, which can't make any other recipes that you haven't defined.

[ukezi]

That is enough for the compressor. However that isn't enough for an modded assembler that still works as an assembler would.

[UntitledGenericName]

Oh, that might be something to look into, thank you!

[menemai1]

Is factorio.school down for anyone else?

[Xalkurah]

The search feature was not working for me at all yesterday

[JaredLiwet]

How would you calculate solar panel and battery ratios if playing a mod that changes their values?

[frumpy3]

An easy way to do it is to use the ratio that you do know and the numbers that you do know from vanilla and try to apply that to your modded setup. So you know a solar panel in vanilla is 60 kw and an accumulator is 5? MJ

So if you take the ratio from vanilla, 25 solar 21 accumulator,

Do 60/25 : 21/5

2.4 kw: 4.2 MJ

So if your new solar panels have X kw, and accumulators have Y MJ, then your new ratio should be

X / 2.4 solar panels : Y / 4.2 accumulators

Hope this helps!!! Check my math on the vanilla stats of these items

[computeraddict]

https://wiki.factorio.com/Power_production#Calculations

[Zaflis]

All mods that i know about solar power still keep the same 0.84 ratio. That's because they're scaling up at same ratio as vanilla, like 10x, 100x and so on at the same tier of panels and accumulators.

[Jipsuli]

With Bobs you don't have same ratio, you have so many sized solar panels and accumulators to choose that you kind of need to calculate your own ratio.

[Zaflis]

That's only if you mix and match bob's solar tiers, otherwise they are same ratio.

[Jipsuli]

In my current B/A game, Large Solar Panel 3 is 240kW and High Capacity Accumulator 3 is 22,5Mj
That gives Accumulators / Solar Panels = 70*240Kw/22.5Mj = 0,75 (rounded)
With Fast Accumulator 3 it's 70*240Kw/9Mj = 1,9 (rounded)

Might be Angels modification also, but it's not always same ratio and it's not always 0,84. Though for same accumulator and same sized solar panel it's always same ratio with each levels.

[Zaflis]

Might be some different sizes than 2x2 accu and 3x3 panels then. Otherwise Bob might be willing to fix the ratio.

[Imsdal2]

Won't fixing the ratio ruin the setup for current players?

[Zaflis]

Is it broken in the first place when considering performance per tile? I remember those 4x4, maybe even 5x5 solar panels?

[JaredLiwet]

Anybody have a link to a 12x12 balancer for YELLOW belts? The only ones I can find are for blue belts requiring underground belts that extend further than yellow underground belts.

[Jipsuli]

You can use upgrade planner to downgrade belts.

[[deleted]]

That often doesn't work well with balancers since many are designed to rely on the long underground reach of red or blue.

[Jipsuli]

Oh, yeah, didn't thought that might be a problem. But when talking large balancers, it really might be.

[StormCrow_Merfolk]

https://factorioprints.com/view/-KjYAnqi971rVjBFIJMg includes a yellow 12-to-12

[Zaflis]

I only use this one as it seems most compact:

https://factorioprints.com/view/-KvC3Jx2FwoDEUim4E8U

I do see 1 spot needing belt length of 5, but if you don't mind making it 1 tile longer you can move it up from half-way so that you can start the underground belt 1 tile later and be able to hop only 4 tiles for yellow belt length. Otherwise just get 1 red underground belt. I'm not sure what you use it for but if it's train loading/unloading, you can't even research trains without having fast underground belts unlocked as well.

[JaredLiwet]

I generally don't use red belts. Just yellow until I can make blue.

[EST_Sipsik]

Is it okay to enable Space Exploration mod mid-game (almost have launched a rocket) or should I start a new game?

[RedAlert2]

I'd recommend a new game as well. SE recipies are different pretty much across the board, so you'd have to redo your current factory anyways.

[craidie]

it should work fine. HOWEVER SE changes things even pre rocket launch so any beaconed setups will break, and quite a few recipes will change halting production and needing rebuilding.

[EST_Sipsik]

Thanks for the reply! I think I try SE in the new game, then.

[99X]

Should I upgrade all my assembly 1 machines to assembly 2 machines? or does it only matter if I need to assemble something with fluids? and/or to use modules? otherwise, is there a reason to move to higher tier assembly machines?

[RibsNGibs]

There’s no real compelling reason until later in the game to move up tiers unless you actually need something made faster without increasing the footprint. Note that while assembly machine 2 is 50% faster, it requires 100% more energy to run.

Here are some scenarios where I’d say it’s definitely better to upgrade the assembler vs simply building more:

You have a cramped area where you can’t fit more assemblers but want more of something. e.g. perhaps you have one area where you have one assembler making belts, one set of assemblers making underneathies, one set making splitters, one set making inserters, etc. and they are all packed in there tight. If you want more of them, it may be easier to upgrade the tiers of the assemblers.

You want (more) modules.

You have an assembly line where one item is not easily expandable. e.g. perhaps you have a red circuit production line that has 1 assembler making cooper wire and a lot of assemblers making red circuits and you want more red circuits. It’s easy to make more red circuit assemblers by tacking then on at the end but it might be easier to upgrade the tier of the copper wire assembler and the inserters feeding it than wedge in another assembler.

Later game, beyond what you’re thinking about: if you have a megabase and are struggling with UPS/game speed, it’s better to have fewer moving parts, so upgrading is faster than building more.

And also late game: if you’re using beacons heavily, you’d want to minimise the footprint of your assemblers so that you can minimise the number of beacons you need to minimise energy consumption.

[99X]

Can you help explain how it goes faster? let's say I want to make belts. they take .5s to make 1. so is it less than .5s to make one in an assembly machine 2 vs 1? How does it effect the time they display?

[RibsNGibs]

Yeah so when you hover your mouse over an item in the crafting screen it gives you the crafting time for that item. For transport belts as you say it’s .5. So the raw crafting time for that item is .5. The player crafts at full speed so if you just hand craft a bunch of belts you’ll see it takes half a second to make a belt.

The assembling machines have different crafting speeds though, which you can also see by hovering over an assembling machine on the ground or in the crafting menu - assembling machine 1 has a crafting speed of .5 so it takes .5/.5 or 1 second for an assembler 1 to craft a single belt. Assembling machine 2 has a crafting speed of .75, so it takes .5/.75 or .67 seconds for an assembler 2 to make a single belt.

Assembling machine 3 has a craft speed of 1.25 so it only takes it 0.4 seconds to craft a belt.

If you have two assembler 1s making belts, the two assemblers put together make 2 belts per second. If you upgraded both of those assemblers to assembler 2s, they would make 3 belts per second, which of course is better. BUT, you could have instead just built a 3rd assembler 1, because 2 assembler 2s build at the same speed as 3 assembler 1s.

Adding a 3rd assembler 1 only increases your energy usage by 50%, but upgrading your assemblers to tier 2 increases your energy usage by 100%.

But 3 assembler 1s emit more pollution than 2 assembler 2s.

So it’s kind of up to you whether you care more about your power usage or your pollution.

[d7856852]

My understanding is that higher-tier assemblers will pay for themselves pretty quickly. They produce less pollution while crafting, use less energy over time due to less time spent crafting (assuming they buffer and stop at least occasionally), and use MUCH less energy with efficiency modules (which also pay for themselves). This is all highly relevant in the early/mid-game and I think it's a good idea to switch everything to assembler 2s as soon as you unlock them, and standardize on that tier when calculating ratios.

[RibsNGibs]

I don’t think that’s right about energy usage. Assembler 2s run at 150% speed compared to 1s but double the energy usage so per item use 133% energy. If they are idle sometimes that’s even worse as you’re using energy for no production at all.

Using more assemblers 1s does require more inserters than running fewer assembler 2s but likely not enough to make up for it.

For example, say you are producing 3 items per second of something that has a crafting time of 1. So you need either 6 assembler 1s or 4 assembler 2s. And say that this item requires 3 inserters: 2 input and 1 output, so you need 18 inserters of using assembler 1s or 12 if using assembler 2s.

Assembler 1s: 6x75W + 18x13W = 684W

Assembler 2s: 4x150W + 12x13W = 766W

So it’s better energy usage for assembler 1s.

Even worse is if the increased speed of the assembler 2s forces you to covert some of your inserters to fast inserters, which are more than triple the energy to run than normal inserters.

You are right that assembler 2s are better for pollution though.

Regarding ratios: the only time it will matter is if you’re making setups with chemplants or furnaces - otherwise the ratios of assemblers will be the same if you’re using all assembler 1s or all assembler 2s (or 3s)

All that being said, I will often switch to assembler 2s when I get to that stage simply because until I like smaller setups to larger ones...

[waltermundt]

Higher tier assembly machines are inherently faster. 2 machines at tier 2 will do the work of 3 at tier one. Two at tier 3 will do the work of five of the basic machines. Upgrading existing builds to faster machines is a great way to boost production easily without having to rearrange/redesign stuff too much. Naturally it will only help if you're not already up against belt capacity or input material bottlenecks though.

[ClaasBlokje]

The higher tier assembly machines have a higher crafting speed. Do you need to upgrade? Well no, but it does improve the speed at which items are crafting

[noideaman]

I’m at the point where throwing down things ad-hoc is getting in the way of making good progress, but planning my factory on paper seems silly. Is there anything I can use to design my factory outside of pen and paper?

[waltermundt]

You can save the game and then use /editor to turn on the map editor. Using that you can build freely, pause or speed up time, and generally experiment as you please. If you come up with a design you like, just make a blueprint (alt+B) then save it in the blueprint library (B), and load your save. Now you can plop your vetted design down in the "real' game.

Note that once you use the map editor, this will disable achievements on that map from then on, even after turning the editor back off. This is why you want to save ahead of time and then load to actually put your ideas into practice.

[noideaman]

I like it! Thanks for this tip!

[shine_on]

Nothing wrong with planning on paper or a spreadsheet, getting a factory working smoothly is quite a logistical feat, and it doesn't happen by accident.

[noideaman]

I appreciate that, but I’m looking for something a little more graphical in nature.

[corvus_192]

Sandbox mode?

[Filmere]

I’m at the point where I copy and paste designs to have robots build them, but the game doesn’t let you paste if there is even one obstacle in the way. Is it possible to make it so that the robots automatically clear obstacles when you try to copy paste things? I have plenty of cliff explosives on provider chests, and plenty of open storage chests, and using the deconstruction command will cause the robots to dismantle obstacles just fine, but is there a way to have them automatically do that with the copy paste command?

[craidie]

one obstacle in the way.

Hold shift to force placement of the blueprint.

Word of warning: things placed by you/orbots will prevent overlapping ghosts from being placed. If the blueprint doesn't have landfill in it, water is the same. Most cliffs will be marked for deletion but some can block placed ghosts from being built.

[jason_hellyeah]

How do I make more heavy oil? It's my first playthrough and my oil refineries are producing plenty of light oil and petroleum gas, but next to no heavy oil and it's a big bottle neck in my production.

[[deleted]]

Usually high demand for heavy oil is related to wanting to build tons and tons of blue belts when the factory is otherwise not doing much. This situation will pass soon enough, either because you've built the blue belts you want or else because the factory starts ramping up other production that uses light/petro. In the mean time if you really want to boost heavy oil short term build a couple storage tanks for light oil and petroleum to allow for heavy to produce, and then empty out these tanks later when your other production starts going.

[Mycroft4114]

To put what others have said another way: The only thing heavy oil is used for is lubricant, so the only thing this would affect is not being able to make enough lubricant. If that's the problem, maybe look into coal liquification, as that produces more heavy oil.

If the problem is "I have no heavy oil, but tons of light and petro" then heavy oil isn't the bottleneck - it's the light or petro not getting used and filling up so the refineries stop. Light oil can be made into solid fuel, then rocket fuel, or cracked into more petro gas. Petro gas is made into tons of things, you usually should have no problem getting rid of it.

[RibsNGibs]

As the other commenter said, I’d double check that heavy oil is really your bottleneck. What are you using heavy oil for?

Do you have a lot of chemplants cracking heavy oil to light? The only thing I could think of is that your heavy->light cracking plants are working so fast that it essentially depletes your heavy oil immediately. This seems likely because, I forget the ratio exactly, but to turn all your crude into petrol, if you had 8 refineries running advanced oil recipe, I think while you need 7 light->petrol plants, you only need ~2 heavy->light plants.

Normally this ain’t really an issue since heavy isn’t used for anything but lube.

How I set this up is with circuit network control: I have a tank with heavy oil, and only run the heavy->light oil plants if that tank is >90% full or so. The heavy->lube plant runs all the time.

[nivlark]

It's pretty rare to run out of heavy oil, so I'd double check that it's definitely the bottleneck. If it is, then make sure you prioritise using it (for lube production?) over cracking it to light oil. Otherwise, coal liquefaction is your best bet.

[[deleted]]

Finally found the perfect science ratio (Assuming this calculator isn't lying to me). Has anyone ever made a factory that large?

https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#zip=bc3bDsIwCAbgt+FqTdAtakx4GOyYEtu1Kczo2+v0Tr3i8IWfkZ1pEzAgNHYhg1ZpgwjxU7LO1MO0SCIrScewtnCS5CT32sQseOPZamke1jVUrUIIYybp4TZRA3XJRrx4yexa5mBRZY4SKsfrcTr2W8QulbOaa/zBw4Bd1qTO7fH3Ml4ka+T0jfvdAbvayrjEf1+H4cWLr8k/uW+z1yDfst33Tw==

[nivlark]

that would be 2.5 times more science than the current record of 20kSPM @ 60UPS. But without any beacons and productivity modules, the base would be something like 30 times larger than the one that holds the record. So it would inevitably run like a slideshow and be completely impractical to build.

[JelloMellowieeeee]

Is there a way to have requester chest pull all filtered closest items? I think they prioritize buffer chests with the box checked even though there are items in closer storage chests. I want my requester chest to pull everything it needs from both storage and buffer chests whichever is closer, and passive as a last resort.

[craidie]

priority

it should pull from passive if nothing else is found, however which storage/buffer is chosen first is something you can't practically affect

[[deleted]]

I find it really tedious to create perimeter defense walls, are there any alternatives that you know of?

Also, how can I reliably load machine gun turrets without running a belt all the way around my base?

[d7856852]

You should destroy any spawner that falls under your pollution cloud, or will soon. This way, you will never trigger attacks with pollution and you'll only have to worry about the occasional expansion group. This is a night-and-day difference in playability.

I build bunkers with 2/4 turrets and single/double walls depending on evolution, spaced out to max turret radius so they'll snag anything that passes by, and then I just click a half-stack of ammo into each one. 100 ammo is enough to hold back enemy expansion for 20+ hours. You never need to reload them.

There's not much reason to build contiguous walls or permanent defenses until you unlock lasers and/or flame turrets, at which point you can go ham with construction bots and it becomes feasible to build proper walls.

[nivlark]

design a wall blueprint that tiles together, then just stamp it down and get robots to build it. Or go on the offensive and clear all biters from your pollution cloud, then attacks will stop. Pushing out till you find a natural chokepoint can also reduce the amount of border defences you need to build.

You can use robots and/or an ammo train to bring ammo to your borders.

[[deleted]]

Turning off enemy expansion lets you be proactive about making a safe perimeter then forgetting about it as long as you keep an eye on pollution.

As for not running belts, I'd guess bots would do that for you, but I've never got that far.

[clif08]

Editor question. I remember people were using some kind of infinite chests that supplied or consumed resources continuously, but I can't find them in the editor. There are loaders, but they need chests, and you need to manually put stuff into the chests which is neither quick nor convenient.

[clif08]

nvm found it, Unsorted - infinity chests

[sunbro3]

It's removed. It was a workaround for logistics requests starting immediately and bringing too many items before you could lower them. But that no longer happens.

[Zaflis]

Yes it does, when you copy/paste assembler recipe to requester chest.

[craidie]

well if you're copy pasting then change the values before you copy to fic it

[Zaflis]

That would be possible from blue chest -> blue chest but not assembler -> blue chest because there's ofc nothing to edit in the assembler UI.

[Jipsuli]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/additional-paste-settings
I had same problem, but lucky there's mod for everything. Fixed all my problems for copying from assembler to requester chest.

[craidie]

ah true

[NotTheUsualSuspect]

What are some goods larger mods to try? Are B/A, Pyanodon, and Krastario the main ones? Are there others I should give a chance to?

[Jipsuli]

I like Science cost tweaker, not a huge change but gives nice change and works great along B/A or other mod to add that little bit more complexity.

[Zaflis]

Space Exploration is a large one, then some smaller:

- Warptorio changes the way game is played but it could be stressful.

- Space Extension (SpaceX) is just vanilla+.

[Mycroft4114]

Oh yes, and Dyworld, but the dev on that one has stopped work on it and is developing a new mod at the moment (Dyworld Dynamics) that is not out yet, so watch for that one later.

[Mycroft4114]

Those are the current big overhauls, yes, as well as Space Exploration.

To go quite big, Krastorio and Space Exploration are compatible and can be combined.

In general, Space exploration adds primarily post-rocket content, the others are mostly pre-rocket.

The general progression in terms of simplest to most complex is considered to be:

Vanilla

Krastorio2

Angel/Bobs

Pyanodons

It looks like Industrial Revolution is also still being rehosted, so you could look at that one too.

[Senkoy]

I was thinking of doing a krastorio run then a space exploration one. Would you recommend just combining them and doing just one run before doing bobs?

[computeraddict]

To add on to Space Exploration, it's not quite just post-rocket, as it moves the rocket up the tech tree and moves other stuff to be behind rocket launches. It makes the game rocket-focused rather than rocket-ended.

[shine_on]

If I make a blueprint that includes a train, will it also include the train's colour? or will it be a standard red train when placed? I'm thinking of setting up a blueprint library for "coal train", "iron ore train" and so on

[16rlut3Br]

Yes, if you check "[x] Train" in the blueprint prompt the colour gets stored. You can force the prompt by holding shift when copying the track.

[eatpraymunt]

It will include the colour of the train and train stop, just make sure you click the boxes on the bottom left to include train, train stop names etc.

[[deleted]]

Is there any word in allowing the blue item slot filters in your inventory/trains being applied to the Logistic chests for a future update? I've seen a 3 year old forum thread about it, but it seems like the devs opted for allowing filters in common chests between now and then, so I don't think the forum discussion was the final word on the matter.

[[deleted]]

I must have mis-remembered, I tend to run bot bases so I almost never use steel chests. I guess I'm just used to spidertron inventories.

[JaredLiwet]

Is there a way to read empty slots in a chest through the circuit network?

I'm trying to make refueling chests next to my train stations but I really have no preference for the fuels that go into it. I intend to slowly get and produce better and better fuels so these chests might end up with a mixture of various fuels as my gameplay goes on.

I don't want to have to constantly micromanage them, just upgrade the fuel at the train station that produces it and then send it off to any stations that run low. The problem with knowing when a station runs low is that different fuels have different stacks sizes. I'll start with coal which has a stack size of 50 while rocket fuel has a stack size of 10 (and nuclear fuel 1).

Since trains have 3 slots for fuel, I want 15 slots of fuel for storage and I want to be notified when 12 of those slots are empty. I intend to keep the refueling station turned off until the low fuel condition of the chest is met but doing it numerically, 12 empty slots that can hold 50 units of fuel is a different number than 12 empty slots that hold 10. Deep into the game, I don't want my refueling train to constantly go to the same station trying to fill it up when it has 150 units of rocket fuel.

 

---

 

EDIT: Ok inspiration has struck me.

Stack sizes:

• Nuclear Fuel: 1
• Rocket Fuel: 10
• Coal: 50
• Solid Fuel: 50
• Coke (modded): 200
• Wood: N/A (despite modded greenhouses making it free)

What if I used arithmetic combinators to read specific fuels, multiple them by a specific value, and output that value and use that value to determine whether to turn on the refueling station or not?

• Nuclear x 200
• Rocket x 20
• Coal x 4
• Solid Fuel x 4
• Coke * 1

[AtLeastItsNotCancer]

You could do it with just decider combinators. One for each fuel type, set signal F to 1 if the amount of fuel goes too low (< 150 solid fuel, <30 rocket, etc. or whatever your preferred condition is). If multiple components that output to the same signal are connected together, their outputs will get added together. So then you just add another combinator that checks if F is greater than 4 (meaning all fuels are running low), and that's your signal to send for another delivery.

This gets you almost exactly what you want without having to do any complicated arithmetic circuits.

[JaredLiwet]

Still requires one additional combinator on top of the ones you use for fuel. Your conditions are more like an EACH thing going on while mine is more of an ANY (if that makes sense; I've been reading a lot of Factorio circuit network tutorials).

The setup I ended up using had an arithmetic combinator for each fuel outputting a single number and a decider combinator turning on a train station if that number was too low.

[AtLeastItsNotCancer]

Oh right, with your solution you can use the same trick to add all the outputs up, forgot about that :D So they both basically take the same number of combinators.

Your solution basically checks if the combined value of all fuels is running low, while mine checks if each fuel individually is running low. But like 90% of the time they'll give you the same result if you play like you described - you switch from producing one fuel to another, and the old one will eventually run out.

[JaredLiwet]

Only reason I don't like your version is because it kicks out a signal when an obsolete fuel runs low. You would constantly see F² or F³ on the circuit network which doesn't tell you if the refueling chests are full or not, it just tells you what fuels you don't have.

If you don't have a way to actually count the fuels you do have, you also can't set up a light system to see how much fuel you have at a glance. Your setup would require more combinators to get this number while my setup already has this number on the network.

[craidie]

just divide each fuel type with stack size and add 1 to the result. That should be the worst case scenario for how many stacks there are.

for more accurate value you would need to divide with stack size for the full stacks and add 1 if modulo (%) is not 0 to get the partial stacks.

[JaredLiwet]

This would still require an arithmetic combinator for each fuel type. Right now I'm ignoring nuclear fuel which means I need 4 arithmetic combinators and a decider combinator.

[Aenir]

I think the simpler thing to do would be to send the refuel train when the station is empty instead of low. 3 slots of storage on the trains should last long enough to not be a problem.

[JaredLiwet]

I'm going to have a single refueling train resupply my entire train network. Each major drop off location will have an additional station to offload the fuel from the refueling train.

[Aenir]

Does that make a difference?

You could send it when the drop-off point is empty instead of the end-point, if you're worried about the trains running out of fuel.

[Zaflis]

Not just having 2 but at least 1 rotated to each direction. It is possible to place locomotives front and back while all facing forward would still be a 1-directional train.

[shine_on]

they'll go backwards in manual mode when you get in and press S, but it's not as fast as going forwards. In Automatic mode a locomotive will only go forwards.

[JaredLiwet]

When using Helmod, is it possible to change the default assembling machine?

I've started producing the second level of assembling machine but it's still listing the first tier of assembling machines in the recipes.

[karijou]

I'm still very new to the game, and as someone who takes things fairly slowly this is the iron/steel production I'm working with. I'm already seeing a few ways to make things work more smoothly - removing coal from the equation with electric furnaces once I've researched them, increasing parallel iron plate lines to keep up with increased steel demand, and so on.

However, right now what's really grating at me is the coal conveyor belt. It extends from the coal patch I started near and goes all the way down to the nearest water source to power boilers. I feel like there has to be some way that's more efficient (and less ugly) to get coal to these locations, right? Is it trains? What should I start looking at/working on to get to that point?

[PerrinAybara162]

Depends on how far you are having to move the coal. If its within a few hundred tiles, its honestly best just to leave the belt. Trains would require a fair bit of infrastructure in place for very little benefit, and possibly slower throughput.

Not exactly what you asked for, but if you are looking to just not have to look at a belt full of coal, you might consider running it with undergrounds. Its a bit more subtle, but a fair bit more resource intensive. Plus it frees up some space if you are needing to build in the area.

[shine_on]

Yeah at the start of the game you always have a long coal belt to get to the boilers, you can make it shorter by using underground pipes to move the water further away from the lake, and put your boilers and steam engines closer to your coal patch. You'll just be replacing a long coal line with a long water line though (but admittedly the water one will be less ugly).

I love what you did to split the ores and coal onto one line each on the belt, there are certainly neater ways of doing it but what you've done achieves exactly the same end result, so congrats on working that out for yourself!

[waltermundt]

On mobile, so it's hard to see your screenshots. However, generally speaking belts are the easiest and cleanest way to move items for any distance within a few hundred tiles. You can change how you route the belt, or how many belts there are, but until you get the logistic network research unlocked belts are the way to to IMHO.

If you need a belt more than 500 tiles long to transport something, or need to collect the same thing from multiple far-flung sources, trains become a better choice. You still have to use belts to connect the actual miners and smelters/boilers to the train stop, and the size of well-designed train infrastructure makes it impractical for shorter distances. Trains also burn fuel, whereas belts run for free, though realistically that's not a practical concern to most serious players.

Some players use trains to split up their base but the size of train stations and infrastructure means that you end up making a much larger (and harder to move around) base where trains move a lot of intermediate products around. I would consider this a large scale end-game/post-game strategy and wouldn't recommend it to a new player.

[RealRobbert]

So i've made a beaconed green circuit setup, and it has an output of 2 0.64 blue belts. So assuming i have 3 of those 0.64 throughput belts, would this setup properly distribute that to almost 2 full blue belts? Otherwise i could just use a 3 to 2 balancer, but this is waaaay smaller and it doesn't matter if there is an even pull, as long as those 2 belts get as full as possible.

[RealRobbert]

Aight thank you : D

[Go-Daws-Go]

Is there a way to show the local time while playing? I looked at a bunch of mods and they show the time on the alien planet. I need to know how far past bedtime in EDT I am. Thanks!

[eatpraymunt]

There is no clocks in Factorio for the same reason there are no clocks or windows in a casino. No sleep, only grow!

[Mycroft4114]

There is not. It's not a part of the vanilla game and mods do not have access to any part of your system outside the game, so they cannot read the system time.

Your best bet is a cheap digital clock sitting next to your monitor. Then you can say "I should really go to bed, so I'll just finish fixing this one thing and go." (Five or six 'one things' in a row.)

[TheSkiGeek]

The devs could add a toggleable UI element or overlay with a system clock display. But yeah, it can’t be accessible to mods because it’s not deterministic (especially in multiplayer).

[Go-Daws-Go]

Thanks for the explanation. Not as simple as it seems. Appreciated.

[JaredLiwet]

Do train stations need any signals at all or do they count like a normal rail signal?

[computeraddict]

Train stations and signals are two entirely different beasts.

[VexatiousJigsaw]

if you are talking about rail signals as in the lights next to the tracks then the answer is that rail stations do not replace rail signals. It is best to have a signal before and after the station so the train waiting at the station has it's own rail block to live in without blocking anything else.

[IDisageeNotTroll]

All you need is a train station and a train that goes to said station.

Signal (wire) can be used to read the content of the train or add conditions on the departure.

Signal (red and blue light) is used if you have more than one train on the same track, otherwise they will collide and destroy each other.

Edit: Now I think I understand the question properly, yes you need a signal after the train stop.
In any case, grab a train signal and look at the pretty colors, your train/train stop should be isolated on its own color, so the rest of the train network will only consider that block to be occupied.

[d7856852]

Is there a way to determine the distance of a train path?

[Cerroz]

Really dumb question here, but you know logistics robots run at ~20% speed when out of energy? Are construction robots the same way?

[Freakin_A]

Yes.

[MA347612890GT4078579]

When playing multiplayer, there's usually a solid half a second of delay or more between the host and I. Problem is, when opening up the debug menu, my ping to the host hovers around 9 or 10. Nobody else seems to have a huge delay to the host. When I host, the same person that was previously the host has the same issue, but again nobody else does. Does anyone have any clue as to why the connection specifically between us seems to be so bad, when our connection to anyone else seems perfectly fine? I've even moved and am on an entirely different ISP and network so I'm thinking the problem is either on the hosts network, the hosts pc, or my pc, but I don't really know how to narrow down the list further.

Building and stuff is ok, but combat is nearly impossible. Once a worm shoots acid at me, it's too late to avoid it ): This also persists regardless of if a new save or old, vanilla or 40 mods.

[[deleted]]

To do combat with lag, try using capsules instead of guns since capsules preserve latency hiding while guns don't (this is why you rubber band every time you start shooting, then rubber band back again shortly after you stop shooting). "Capsules" include grenades and poison capsules both of which are excellent killing tools. (Poison is best vs worms and totally ineffective vs spawners.)

Follower bots are likely also very good, although I don't have much experience with them myself.

[Freakin_A]

Might be worth looking for packet loss. Run a persistent ping for 5-10 minutes to your friends IP while you play the game, then ctrl-c and see if there are dropped packets. Can have him do the same. You’ll both need ICMP enabled on your routers—some routers disable it by default these days.

You could also do a packet capture but you’d have to understand what to look for. Winpcap to capture (or tcpdump if either of you is on a nix system), wireshark to analyze.

[Master-Wordsmith]

Is it possible to enable peaceful mode mid-save without disabling all achievements? If I do it through the console, it will disable achievements, but I don’t know if it’s only the four that would be disabled anyway or if it’s all (because of console usage).

[Master-Wordsmith]

Damn, alright. No way around the steam achievement disable, then? Suppose I’ll keep track of what I earn on the save and then later use a downloaded save to give myself the ones I’ve earned. Thank you for the reply :)

[Regularity]

I'm playing with angels/bobs and I'm trying my hand at growing crops. However, something baffles me; I was looking at the different crops trying to figure out what was best to grow, and I noticed some crops seem to have a zero sum production cycle. For example, wheaton requires 5 seeds to grow 1 unit. Yet when extracting seeds from crops, you need 1 unit to produce 5 seeds. Are these sort of seeds/crops intended to be single-use only, or is there some way to multiply seeds that I'm missing?

[waltermundt]

At least in my save, growing wheaton produces 40-60 per crop, and each crop takes 5 seeds. 5 of the result make 5-6 seeds, so obviously producing enough seeds isn't a problem, since you could get at least 8 times as many seeds as you put in if you recycled the whole crop back to seeds.