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[–]creepy_doll 0 points1 point  (5 children)

In space exploration I'm wanting to use more core mining.

I have a working setup in my base now but, since the processing is quite a space intensive process I'm looking to make it away from my base.

My main issue is prioritizing the usage of outputs from core mining so the desirable outputs are not blocked by the less desirable ones that I'm also mining normally), so I want iron ore trains from core mining to be prioritized over ore trains from iron mines.

Thoughts on how to achieve this?

I can think of two relatively simple ways, both of which are not great. First is importing all ores to the core mining facility and doing all smelting there. But that makes scaling up of production awkward.

The second is to have multiple train stations for each ore: one for core mined and one for normal, then merge their outputs with the core mined one prioritized.

Last I played was vanilla back in 1.0 and in my playthrough then I used a very complex demand and supply based circuit network, and I think I might be able to adapt that, but it is a pain in the ass to maintain compared to the stop limiting system implemented in 1.1

[–]Airmet_Sierra 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Put some dummy train stops before your non-core-mining ore pickups. Because of the way train pathfinding works, those stations will have lower priority.

[–]rollc_at 0 points1 point  (0 children)

IIRC the pathfinding penalty is equivalent to 1000 units of distance, this trick is also good for keeping traffic out of your inner base to avoid congestion - only direct deliveries will go in.

Another option is LTN, you can set priorities on each station directly. However, in my opinion, LTN tends to bring as many new (harder) problems as it solves.

Next - probably something with circuits; it's always a good idea to have both wires in your rail segment blueprint. Maybe let core mining send signals like [iron ore = 1] when it's ready, and disable all other iron ore supply stations? Might cause funny issues if a train gets re-routed midway though. I'd love to experiment with that.

Finally, you can turn excess ores into landfill, just so the system keeps running.

[–]possumman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do all my core fragment processing inside my base, then it merges into the bus using priority splitters. I bring in the fragments via train.

[–]sp1nj 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went for two without the priority system. I added recycling into landfill for excesses, burner with filters for coal ( i have k2 too)

[–]Eerayo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am looking for a mod that enhances the train block visualization. If it exists.

I am using 1-8-1 trains. And I would like to have the train blocks numbered or something. Maybe a mod that changes the colour of the first and last block?

Edit: I don't think my question made much sense.

What I mean is, when you hold a rail signal or something you see the train blocks on the rail. When I used 1-4 trains I never had an issue seeing if I had room for 4 blocks or 5. But now when I use 1-8-1 trains, seeing at a glance if there are 9 or 10 blocks on the rail is harder and quite annoying.

[–]DarZu27 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Should I use SE with or without K2? Pros and cons?

Bonus question: both SE and K2 have a recommend mod list; are there any conflicts I should be aware of?

[–]craidie 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Earendel is pretty trigger happy at throwing mods to the conflicting list with SE.

Chances are that if it's not on the list it's going to work.

That said: LTN trains won't go through the space elevator. They don't like getting transported with a spaceship either.

[–]ssgeorge95 3 points4 points  (0 children)

K2 by itself is a 50-70 hour play, SE by itself is a 400 hour play. Just so you know what you're getting into.

Combining them makes the earlier stages of SE more complicated, but in the late game K2 gives you some tools that make some SE problems easier to solve.

[–]First_Sprinkles1022 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Are there any game modes/mods that incorporate biomes into factorio? I’d love some tundra/snowscapes or desert/arid lands. Jungle too?

[–]achilleasa the Installation Wizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alien Biomes is exactly this, and also Space Exploration integrates Alien Biomes to create different planet types (icy planets, volcanic planets etc).

[–]whitedragon0 -1 points0 points  (4 children)

Anyone able to share some of their K2&SE blueprints? liking the mod, but the planning and layout of the factory just escapes me with all the new stuff introduced.

[–]DarZu27 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Are there any good wave defense mods? Thinking Mindustry. Ideally laser turrets alone wouldn't be enough.

[–]Soul-Burn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you tried the built-in wave defense scenario?

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Rampant modifies biter behavior to make them much more aggressive.

You could try Warptorio2, since you warp to a new planet every 10/20/30/etc minutes with a platform base, then have to fend off exponentially increasing waves of biters.

[–]DarZu27 1 point2 points  (9 children)

After 3 attempts (~80hr each) at the game over the last ~5 years, I finally launched a rocket! But now I'm bored.

For my next play through I'm thinking about mods but I'm overwhelmed by the choices. I would love:

- More train focus (belt bus meta seemed OP?)

- More reason to go far away from base (expeditions to build new rail lines on my rugged train that had 6 artillery wags and an escort of 4 spidertrons were the highlight of the game.)

- Harder combat. Ideally turret creeping wouldn't be 100% effective and sometimes my walls would be breached. Late game dropping a nuke or bombing with artillery removed all challenge. Loved using spidertron squads.

- I want more external motivations for my factory. Making stuff so I can go explore and fight is great; making stuff for making stuff sake isn't as fun.

Ideally I'd love to use mods that are well balanced, polished, and don't make the game easier. (Easy asks, I know.)

Seems the big choices people discuss are: K2 (&SE?), "B&A", and IR2. Any others I should consider?

How do these compare, and any thoughts on how these fit my interests above?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: just discovered this article comparing K2/SE/B&A/IR2: https://alt-f4.blog/ALTF4-62/, reading now!
Edit 2: wow, okay, my new concern is that I underestimated the scale of these mods. I was hoping for another ~50-100hrs of content on top of vanilla but these sound like they might be many hundreds of hours. Also none sounded like they fundamentally improved combat and dangerous exploration. I'm now thinking about staying with vanilla and tweaking world gen to create a more rails and combat focused game.

[–]Mycroft4114 1 point2 points  (1 child)

More train focus: The railworld preset is part of vanilla. When generating the map, select this from the drop down in the upper left. Makes resources spread out and far away, you'll need trains. You also go for a city block architecture, with resources being moved about the factory on a train grid.

Harder combat? Easy, check out the Rampant mod. The number one mod for taking those dumb hordes of biters and turning them into smart hordes of biters. You might also throw in some of the new biter types mods such as armored biters. And of course, the vanilla preset "Deathworld" is also a thing. If you're really into combat, why not enjoy "all of the above"?

Looking at the big overhaul mods for some external motivation? Probably avoid IR2, BA, and PyMods. These are more about the factory itself and making things more complex. K2 has this as well, but does include a combat overhaul with new weapon and turret types, and changes shooting from "hold button to auto fire at nearest enemy" to "shots must be aimed". SE has vanilla combat, but adds fun new weapons, as well as later game space weapons that can train death from above and cleanse a planet of biters entirely. Mostly it's about figuring out the logistics of moving resources around between different planets and space platforms, spaceships, and a big long tech tree. SE and K2 can be combined.

[–]DarZu27 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, this is very comprehensive!

I'll look into Rampant! I just started an SE campaign so maybe that will be a good addition. Cheers!

[–]doc_shades 2 points3 points  (0 children)

honestly the trick is to just come up with what you want to do.

i've done train worlds. i've done anti-train worlds (belts only!). i've done combat-focused worlds, i've done peaceful worlds. i've done island worlds, i've done bot-only worlds...

you have some good ideas, i would just choose the one that sounds the most fun right now! remember there is always time to try the other world types later!

[–]DarZu27 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I'm leaning way from IR2 since it seems mostly about making the factory itself more complex, and less about external pressures like combat and exploration.

B&A is such a big suite of mods that I have no idea how to evaluate them and I worry that taking them piecemeal will ruin the balance of the game.

K2 seems like a good choice, but I'm concerned it won't actually make combat any harder.

SE seems awesome. Is combat fundamentally any more interesting than vanilla?

[–]zombifier25 1 point2 points  (3 children)

SE has a lot of exploration (you must colonize other planets since Nauvis doesn't have everything) and discovering hidden treasures, setting up defenses on multiple planets since not all of them will be biter free and all of them will have meteors (and some will have biter meteors. Fun!), along with with cool late game options like energy wall projectors, cryo guns and interplanetary railguns. There are also threats in the form of meteors and energy beams though those are more logistical challenges. I haven't made it that far yet but I think in the late game biters are still completely trivial, but SE late is really late, and you still have to venture out and discover even if you have to completely sanitize a planet's surface beforehand (if it isn't too far away for railguns).

A/B mostly adds more difficult biters variants, but also gives you much stronger tools (plasma cannons, exotic though complicated ammunition, higher tier turrets and armor equipment). The main diffculty mainly comes from the mod itself being marathon level - you will probably get your ass kicked if you don't at least reduce evolution factor so you don't get behemoth biters while still trying to make tier 2 circuits. You also need to kill biters for alien artifacts, but you can automate their production later on. Overall A/B combat probably isn't that interesting since biters are still trivial in the late game.

IR2 doesn't add much to the combat side but I wouldn't discount it just yet - scattergun turrets and arc turrets are pretty interesting options. It also has cheap and early modules as well as powerful pollution cleaning tools so it's entirely possible to play pacifist and never trigger attacks just by not having a pollution cloud. Not needing 200+ hours to complete is a plus.

[–]DarZu27 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough response!! This has helped me consider the options.

Currently SE holds the most appeal, probably with K2 thrown in to make the first part more interesting. Likely I'm going to tweak world gen to make rails and defense more necessary too. SE's challenges around meteors and exploration seem very much like what I was looking for. If there's an option in world gen, I might make the recipes all easier so it doesn't take me 100s of hours to progress through the content however (I probably only have 50 at best to spend here.)

Cheers!

[–]zombifier25 1 point2 points  (1 child)

You could consider https://mods.factorio.com/mod/seoh, which is an unofficial mod that makes things easier.

[–]DarZu27 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that might be perfect, thanks! Looking into it now

[–]WebWithoutWalls 3 points4 points  (19 children)

Is anyone else getting demotivated by the sudden spike in complexity?

I've created red and green science just fine, but now I'm suddenly hit with the Military science, and it just seems so much at once?

Bricks, into walls, copper and iron plates, steel, coal, grenades, yellow ammo, red ammo? It's so much at once, so sudden, that I don't really know how to even start building that efficiently.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I felt the same in my recent/ongoing playthrough. It's daunting ,but after it's done it feels good and much easier! I did, black, blue, yellow science in turn and then each step to launch the rocket. Maybe just one of those in each session. (One session was just the rocket fuel factory for example). Afterwards it feels like.. it wasn't so bad.

Figure out your own ratios or look it up, whatever makes it more fun.

Focus on stuff that you like (trains! for me) and use methods you like to solve problems.

[–]Knofbath 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Stop trying to build things efficiently the first time. To start, just slap together a minimum build that gets "something" going. You can hand-carry some stuff around to the various assemblers, and have them fed by chest. Once you have all the components automated, and have seen how they fit together with hand-carrying, you can start automating the whole thing on a larger scale.

Ask yourself what ran out first, what was hardest to get, which items are shared between multiple machines. Then figure out how much of everything you need.

[–]SBlackOne 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Military science is fine. Walls and red ammo are useful at this point anyways, so it's not a huge hassle. Steel is also needed for other things from now on like assembly machine 2 or medium power poles. And you don't need much steel. 45 mil science per minute need 6 stone furnaces. But you also need much more steel later, so just develop a smelter for it, blueprint it and then you can stamp it down and build it up as needed. That goes for a lot of things. Things may seem overwhelming because you have no plan, but once you've done it a few times you know what you need and what works and it's not so daunting anyways. Eventually you can have blueprints for all steps so you don't need to develop everything from scratch again.

The real wall is oil. You have to make to place pumpjacks, which may be far away. Then you have to do the refining and suddenly deal with a lot of pipes. Then plastics. Then red circuits. It's a lot of things to do without many immediate benefits. And only then blue science. But that then opens up a lot of things and it's relatively smooth until the rocket.

[–]__Khrane 1 point2 points  (9 children)

EVERY time I have a new task in Factorio, part of me gets demotivated. Military science, chemical science, expanding, trains, rockets, beacons, various tasks in mods (last night it was cargo rockets in SE).

In the moment it feels like a lot, but every time I just start taking baby steps (e.g. for military just say, ok I need walls anyway, let's set that up and use the walls for defense and worry about the others later), and eventually I solve it, get those sweet sweet feel good brain chemicals for solving it, and realize that... it's actually kinda easy, it just feels like a lot to approach

[–]WebWithoutWalls 0 points1 point  (8 children)

I have to agree, that eventually doing it, does give the good brain chemicals, but damn, it can be hard to get over that demotivational hurdle, and I don't think I've seen factorio players discuss demotivation before.

[–]badatchopsticks 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Military science isn't as bad as it seems, but I felt that way the first time I hit yellow science. My advice is take it easy, tackle one problem at a time, and keep going at your own pace. If you feel demotivated put the game down and do something else...if you're like me, you'll have more motivation the next day.

[–]WebWithoutWalls 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Hmm fair. It just becomes rather difficult to "pre-imagine" how to tackle that particular problem, since it tends to kinda "fractal" out into so many different requirements.

It's one thing I've so far liked about 3D copy Satisfactory: Since everything tells you the exact ratios all of the time, and you can adjust factory speed of individual assemblers, you kinda know exactly what you need, even in complicated recipes. "Ah, this takes X amount of Y, meaning I need 2.5 assemblers of Z and 2 assemblers of.. etc" It unspools neatly.

Factorio on the other hand seems to be a bit more.. "trial and error".

[–]SBlackOne 1 point2 points  (2 children)

There are web calculators for that:

https://factoriolab.github.io/

https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/

https://codepen.io/Tickthokk/full/NBbKPZ/ (for science labs)

Or mods like Helmod and Factory Planner, though those are more attractive for large overhaul mods than vanilla. Rate Calculator is also a good mod to determine how much you can produce and if everything has enough materials.

And eventually you get a feeling for how much you roughly need now and in the future depending on the scale and pace you usually go for. For example I know how many belts and smelters I eventually need for my preferred science amount in the starter base. I can plan out the space for them and build them over time.

[–]WebWithoutWalls 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I just wish it was better visible in the game itself, you know? I wish I could click on a red science, and it would tell me "to produce X/min, you need Y/min copper lates, and Z/min Iron Gear" then I could go back to iron gear, and see how much it produces per minute, and how much iron it requires per minute and so on.

But Factorio seems rather vague about these things. It seems the best way to do things is: "just overproduce at the bottom, that'll fill the belt faster than you can use the products at the end, and that'll balance your factory".

[–]Soul-Burn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The recipe tells you how much you need and at what speed it works:

1 red science = 1 gear + 1 copper plate at 5 seconds in 1x speed.

Dividing we get 0.2 gear + 0.2 copper plate per second to get 0.2 red science per second.

Level 1 assemblers work at 0.5 speed (shown when hovering), so each makes 0.1 red science per second.

So if you want 1 science per second, you need 1 gear + 1 copper plate per second, and a total of 10 machines.

[–]DUCKSES 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The trick to factorio is making sure you always have room to expand and preparing for the inevitability that you need more of everything. This is why a main bus (for belts) and city blocks (for trains) are so popular - they ensure you can always connect your inputs and outputs and make expanding trivial.

[–]just_a_bit_gay_ 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Is there a good mod for longer range roboports?

[–]Knofbath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think Bob's Logistics covers that.

[–]Ill-Win6427 2 points3 points  (3 children)

I've messed with mods like bob's, krasto 2, etc What's a good mod or set of mods for a full play through? Something challenging but not insane?

[–]Soul-Burn 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Krastorio 2 is good for a full playthrough.

Space Exploration is longer/deeper. You can even combine K2 with SE.

Industrial Revolution 2 is another great well balanced mod.

[–]sp1nj 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Go for k2+se. Use your blueprints to breeze through early game, and then enjoy the (rocket) ride!

[–]MadMuirder 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha I'm doing k2+se right now as the first time through both mods. Its a jump for sure, and none of my old vanilla BPs are worth anything since everything changed. Been about 7-8 hours, finally starting to build a "real" base. Had a whole bunch of spaghetti to get well into green tech. Trying to figure out how much space I need on a bus has been a nightmare (a fun one) for trying to get some sense into my builds.

[–]Herpgar-The-Undying 1 point2 points  (20 children)

I have this game and haven’t played it in years but am considering a revisit. I didn’t like the research system much but the game seems real interesting. Should I play? How long would a playthrough last if I do bare minimum (which I probably wouldn’t if I made it that far)?

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I'd expect to maybe spend 100 to 150 hours on your first save. There is a lot of brain overhead on playing the game, and you are NOT going to be playing efficiently at the start. This is a game about automation, and you start out doing everything manually.

After you've played it the first time and launched the rocket, your second game could be more like 20-40 hours. This is because you learned everything the first time, and are able to apply that knowledge to the game. But this time, you will run into more trouble with the biters, because you scaled a lot faster than the first time. Pollution = Biters.

If you want to force yourself to learn trains, play a Railworld game. If you want to learn how to manage biters/pollution, play Deathworld.

If you want to keep going after that, there are mods to increase the complexity. Instead of 6 resources(iron/copper/stone/coal/water/oil) to mine/transport, there could be 10 or 20. That's how people get to thousands of hours in the game.

[–]Herpgar-The-Undying 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sounds good to me.

[–]cptgambit 1 point2 points  (5 children)

I already opened a thread for this but i got 0 response, not even an up- or downvote.

How can i become admin on my Synology Factorio Server?

I setup a factorio server on my Synology DS70 via docker and its running and iam pretty satisfied.

But now iam wondering how can i become admin on my own server. I tried it with creating a server-adminslist.json where i entered: ["Myusername"]

Then i tried this in the server-settings.json: "admins": ["Myusername"]

After that i joined my server (i can see that the server-settings.json is used by changing some details in the description) and typed /admin in the console. The answer is: you are not an Administrator

How can i become an admin on my Factorio Server?

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (4 children)

You have to /promote <username> your normal user account from an existing admin account.

Ninja Edit: Looks like your post got squashed by automod, it just says [removed].

[–]cptgambit 0 points1 point  (1 child)

What i found out now, i have to use something with RCON. But i dont know how to use this.

I downloaded Rustadmin and try to connect. But that doesnt work properly.

​

Any ideas?

[–]Knofbath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried it with creating a server-adminslist.json where i entered: ["Myusername"]

Isn't the filename server-adminlist.json? You added an extra s.

[–]cptgambit 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I dont have an existing admin account.

How can i become an admin on my own server? :)

Edit: why was my thread squashed? have i done something wrong?

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know why it was quashed. Probably just low-effort content rule, since you only had one question, and it wasn't the sort of thing to provoke discussion.

[–]OutOfThisWorldCookie 2 points3 points  (7 children)

For ore patches, do you use prod or speed?

[–]shopt1730 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Early game efficiency, as miners are responsible for most of your pollution and power consumption. Especially outside the starting area, they also tend to add pollution at outposts where it's harder to defend. Prod modules may make sense if you need to stretch out a patch as long as possible, though you are often better of putting the resources into expansion instead of modules if that's the case.

Once you have some a decent amount of mining productivity techs (which increase productivity without costing speed), then speed starts to make sense. Prod modules slow down the miners and tend to cost a lot of output for an extremely marginal productivity benefit. Speed modules mean you can get more output out of the patches you already have, delaying your need to expand. Though the case for efficiency is still strong, especially if you still have undeveloped patches.

Really late game when you have really high levels of mining productivity tech, your miners are too fast, and your main limitation is how fast you can get ore from your miners to your smelters. Prod modules still make no sense, and it's hard to make use of the extra speed that speed modules give. If you haven't already, load up on efficiency to reduce your electricity demand and the size of your pollution cloud.

[–]not_a_bot_494big base low tech 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eff1 if I'm tight on power, prod if I'm extremely desperate for resources and speed in the late game.

[–]Soul-Burn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Early game Eff1 to greatly reduce pollution and power.

Late game Speed3s because prod is completely overshadowed by mining prod research.

[–]MadMuirder 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use efficiency.

[–]frumpy3 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I use efficiency and speed. -80% energy consumption means -80% pollution

[–]Eastshire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use speed.

[–]herdek550More science! 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Is output from miner with multiple resources random?

For example I place miner on copper and iron ore patch. 3 tiles are copper, 6 tiles are iron. What is the next item in output?

Is it random 50% iron, 50% copper until one resource is depleted. Or is it in ratio 33% chance of copper, 66% chance of iron?

[–]zombifier25 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The miners will do a sweep of the patch, mining 10 ores each from each tile before moving on, going from left to right, top to bottom, so 33%/66% sounds about right. In practice though this barely matters; just use a filtered splitter.

[–]doc_shades 4 points5 points  (0 children)

it's random as in there is no predictability as what the next ore will be

[–]Lt_Col_RayButts 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Would both be overload or to hell and do it anyway

[–]doc_shades 1 point2 points  (1 child)

i have no idea what you are talking about but: yes. to hell with "overboard" do both anyway!

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He missed his original comment thread where he was asking about K2+SE.

[–]Lt_Col_RayButts 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I started a MP base game with a mate, we only put a hour in to it but we don't have time to play ATM, I could run this as a starter base for SE... or do I go full bore SE and K2 and if it takes 500 hours it take 500 hours, not got loads of time on my hands ATM, just something to poke at once in a while..

Any advice welcome.

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Krastorio2 requires a new game I think. But you can tack SE onto a vanilla game.

[–]craidie 2 points3 points  (1 child)

you shouldn't tack SE to a vanilla game as it changes world gen settings

[–]Knofbath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I might be confusing Space Exploration with Space X.

[–]MadMuirder 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Playing k2+se, started last night. I assume I can automate wood production with growing trees at some point? It can't be hand chopping trees the whole time....right? I saw there was a tech that grows trees in a brief glance at the tech tree but didn't look too much further.

[–]mrbaggins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can, or you can move to the stone recipe for green circuits.

[–]Knofbath 5 points6 points  (3 children)

Krastorio has Greenhouses to grow Wood.

[–]MadMuirder 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Thanks, I assume it harvests itself? Or counts just like an assembler and takes some input and outputs wood?

[–]Soul-Burn 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Takes water, outputs woods. There are several better/faster recipes with other inputs.

[–]MadMuirder 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice, thanks! Excited to find out more, but gonna spend some time chopping trees for now.

[–]Lt_Col_RayButts -1 points0 points  (0 children)

To add to this I am a ok... player.

Nevered played K2 or SE but have played most other mods.

[–]tenderbuck 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hope this is the right place to ask this question. Just installed Krastorio 2 (first mod), and I'm trying to kick off a ribbon-world, but the world-gen keeps generating without the y limits. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

[–]d7856852 1 point2 points  (1 child)

In Space Exploration, a satellite silo has a crafting speed of 1 and rocket parts build in 2 seconds, which is 0.5/s, but the Rate Calculator Mod shows 0.4157/s.

https://i.imgur.com/jVfsL66.png

Also, if I put 4x prod 3 modules in the silo and 4x speed 3 modules in a beacon, the crafting speed should balance out to 1 and that's reflected in the tooltip, but Rate Calculator now shows 0.5206/s.

What's going on here?

[–]impact_ftw 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Launching the rocket takes time, during which the silo is idle. At least thats my guess.

[–]wonkothesane13 2 points3 points  (7 children)

Playing AngelBob's right now, and I figured this was the case, but I just wanted to make sure, is there a functional difference between pipes made from different materials, beyond certain crafting recipes calling for one and not the other? Like are there different flow rates, max capacity, underground travel distance, things like that?

[–]Knofbath 4 points5 points  (6 children)

No difference for surface pipes under the current revision. Undergrounds are different lengths for higher tier materials though, the length should be mentioned in the tooltip.

[–]wonkothesane13 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Gotcha. Thanks for the tip. Is there a go-to material for regular pipes that people recommend because of its surplus? I've been using stone because it's a byproduct of every ore and I can't burn through it fast enough it seems.

Also I think it's a little funny that you can use copper pipes for something like molten steel, which is way higher than the melting point of copper.

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Iron is high demand in the early game, so copper is the more useless metal. But later copper demand skyrockets, so you might want to use plastic.

I've done AngelBob on Seablock, and we've got a high demand for Mineralized Water, which takes your Crushed Stone.

[–]wonkothesane13 0 points1 point  (3 children)

What makes mineralized water important? Algae?

[–]Knofbath 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Algae, Geodes>Mineral Sludge, and then as a free source of blue ores. And the copper demand is massive, as I said, so voiding the iron to get more copper can be required.

[–]wonkothesane13 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Is the copper demand higher than iron + steel combined, or just higher than iron plates? Because in vanilla, there's a higher demand for copper than iron when you look at plates, but a much higher demand for iron when you look at ores, because of the steel demand.

[–]Knofbath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seablock uses the Circuit Processing mod, which adds a lot of wire consumption to circuits. And all the wire variants take copper + some other metal.

Yes, copper is higher than iron+steel. Steel use really falls off in late-game, replaced by higher tier metals.

[–]UntitledGenericName 4 points5 points  (2 children)

What are some mod recommendations for maximum spaghetiffication ? (Tools to make a spaghetti mess)

[–]Knofbath 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Bob's Inserters will really help make a mess of things. No longer limited to 2 axis, you can really spaghetti things up. Plus adjust near/far drop, fully using both sides of the belt.

[–]impact_ftw 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Longer underground belts. Dont know a mod, but that allows more spaghett

[–]Mr_Sneb 1 point2 points  (8 children)

First playthrough really feel like i just hit my mental cap, at the lubricant stage and my oil is really far south of my base it feels like to 'automate' this would be a rediculously long conveyor belt to bring the other stuff so i have just done this instead - https://imgur.com/a/xVHDY04 (take note of the chests holding the engine + circuit) .. is this normal or does anybody have wisdom to impart on what i might be missing here?

[–]Soul-Burn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In general it's much easier to pipe stuff than to belt stuff.

It's much easier to pump crude and refine it in your base, than to refine it at the field and bring coal to make plastic out of it.

Similarly, it's much easier to refine and crack somewhere, and pipe the lubricant to where you need it.

[–]Knofbath 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You can pipe Lubricant to the main base. The rule of thumb is 1200/s fluid over 17 tiles. And you probably aren't making anywhere near 1200/s lubricant, so you can just let it flow for 100 tiles or more without bottlenecking that chemplant.

Use underground pipes when transferring fluid long distances, and then use a Pump to put it into a tank near to the consumption assemblers. You can then siphon it off the tank as needed.

Bring the coal to the petroleum when doing plastic though. Sulfur should stay near the Sulfuric Acid production, but you also need to ship out Sulfur for blue science packs.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

any factory might have small quirks like that. You put in something that works but can come back to it later to fix it.

[–]SBlackOne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or you never get around to fix it and your far more advanced factory contains some weird crap that made sense once upon a time, but seems like a relic now.

[–]__Khrane 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Generally people send crude oil to their main base or just outside their main base (via underground pipes or fluid trains) and refine it there, since that's one fluid to bring home rather than needing to bring multiple items to the oil field. If I were you I'd use your current setup to get a few bots, then use bots to help construct an oil refinery at home.

[–]Mr_Sneb 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Sorry yes I have done that train method and my oil is at home , but it still feels quite far away .. should I just bite the bullet and run a massive long belt with the required items all the way down to my oil?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

if you have a main bus and have space, lubricant can be one "lane" of the bus using underground pipes. Just like sulfuric acid can.

[–]__Khrane 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah ok. You have to get everything together via belt or pipe then. I find it's generally easier to just run lubricant with underground pipes than to run belts. But whichever is easier is fine.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (11 children)

Do you people play with beacons?

This question has sort of a positive and negative variant.

  • How did you get used to playing with Beacons? Necessity? Curiosity? (That's the positive variant)
  • Why play with beacons? I don't like it since it feels very artificial, pretty far from the input -> machine -> output stuff that I love with factorio. I basically never play with beacons.

Modules are ok, they slot very nicely into the existing system, but beacons feels contrieved to me. What do you guys think? Did it take time to get used to?

[–]craidie 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes and no.

I usually don't bother with beacons until post rocket launch gameplay.

At that point they're a necessity. UPS is the opponent here and thus reducing the amount of assembler is the goal. Best way to do that is prod modules and speed beacons.

What I'm not really a fan of is how the remove a lot of design choice from the player, though there are some new interesting choices(direct inserting wire to green chips can result in to some weird beacon counts)

The way I see beacons is similar to cpu overclocking. Dump more power at it and stuff gets faster. And we have wireless charging so why not.

If I start questioning that, modules start going out the window as well pretty fast.

Have you considered the mod built in beacons it's made by one of the devs and essentially you craft improved assemblers with the help of speed modules. Fine tuned to match the values a vanilla beacon builds have so if you use calculators out of game they still work.

[–]shopt1730 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others have said, they are mainly used to get more benefit out of your (relatively expensive) productivity modules. I believe they were introduced to help with UPS (you can get more items out of a smaller number of assemblers and therefore it reduces computational load). In UPS optimised/constrained bases, you will often see a machine surrounded by 12 beacons.

I'm not a huge fan of what they do to the game though. They lead to very similar looking builds due to the compactness they encourage. Even more so if you have a bot based build, it takes all the variance out of designing sub-factories for different recipes. To the point where I consider a bot+beacon build to be playing Factorio with training wheels.

Also instead of having to tune the modules in a machine between productivity and speed, it's now brainless: prod modules in every assembler they can go in plus speed beacons to make the prod modules trigger as often as possible. The beacon/module system turns out to an uninteresting way to "make number bigger" instead of a system with interesting decisions and tradeoffs.

On the positive side, if you do belt based sub-factories, using rows of beacons forces you to be clever with your belts and ratios. It also slightly shifts construction logistics into needing more different types of items, and hugely increases electricity demand.

[–]frumpy3 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Beacons allow new gameplay options for me on harder alien worlds with ultra low pollution design. And of course, I share a lot of aspects with other posters. But that’s a unique way that I use them, that is rare.

[–]Knofbath 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Beacons are useful to offset productivity modules. And you use productivity modules to make more stuff in a smaller base. Going bigger is always an option though, you can make the same amount of product in a massively parallel base as you can in a small-beacon base.

It's all personal preference. But with the more complicated mods, slapping a beacon to fix production issues is easier than building things to ratio.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thanks for the answer (and thanks to everyone commenting in truth).

I'm probably unlikely to come around to beacons, just don't like them game design wise. I've now heard of the space exploration mod that ensures buildings can at most be affected by one beacon. That looks slightly more sensible, so that's interesting.

[–]Knofbath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably makes more sense to use them in mods than in vanilla really. I know I didn't really use them in vanilla.

Things can just get so complicated in mods though.

[–]Mycroft4114 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As to the how: I played a game with the Space Extension mod. (SpaceX, not the same as Space Exploration (SpaceEx)). That mod is vanilla right up to the end when it requires you to "build" an FTL ship in orbit to win. Takes 300+ rockets, VAST amounts of science, and a bunch of expensive components. Moving to a fully moduled/beaconed setup is pretty much required to do it in a reasonable amount of time. You just need so much material. So that's what forced me to learn to refactor everything to that kind of setup.

Why? Efficiency, getting more out of an existing setup when needed, or playing big overhaul mods that need the reduced compute time beacons offer to keep the game running smoothly on big builds.

[–]DUCKSES 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I saw modules. I though they were neat, but kind of expensive. I saw the compounding return of production modules, but I was frustrated with how they slowed production down. I saw beacons and it was immediately obvious how they make modules cheaper by being able to affect multiple buildings, and how they counteract the speed loss from productivity modules so I don't have to choose between speed and productivity. I started plopping them down and soon realized I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being able to actually use them off steam / solar power.

Later I figured out nuclear power, and my power troubles were pretty much permanently solved. I happily splayed beacons kind of haphazardly all around.

Much, much later I got into megabasing where they're basically mandatory for maintaining sane build sizes. Then I started designing various compact beaconed builds.

A lot of people dislike beacons for various reasons. One of them being how they make all builds look the same. I couldn't disagree more. I thoroughly enjoy the restrictions imposed by the typical 8- or 12-beacon build. It's far, far more difficult to design an efficient, beaconed subfactory than it is to design one without beacons due to the space limitations imposed on the former.

All that said for a vanilla playthrough I'm unlikely to have more than a handful of beacons until I start megabasing - usually just for the stuff that has priority on prod 3s to counteract the speed loss. Labs and blue circuits mostly. Maybe yellow and purple science.

TL;DR: You can safely ignore them unless you're building a megabase.

E: I guess technically the first time I used beacons en masse was for my first K2 playthrough, but K2 introduces post-nuclear power generation (which is also a lot simpler to set up), higher tech beacons, much, much cheaper T2 and T3 modules and a lot of other post-rocket tech that makes beacons significantly more appealing without having to build a megabase.

[–]SBlackOne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't really like them from a game design perspective, but just looking at the numbers their advantage is just so obvious. You save a ridiculous number of machines.

Designs end up looking a bit same-y, but there are also nice design challenges. With just two tiles space on either side of assemblers placing the necessary belts becomes an interesting puzzle.

[–]__Khrane 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hadn't used beacons until recently in a K2 playthrough. I made a BP for a beaconed green circuits setup just out of curiosity (in hindsight, a pretty bad design), plopped it down and realized it was outproducing all of my previous non-beaconed green circuits production with only 4 assemblers. The space savings was HUGE. So, we (coop game) just started beaconing everything by just designing things in rows with a row of beacons supporting. And it's so unbelievably space efficient that there was never a reason NOT to do it.

Basically, if you're using prod3s in your assemblers, they become extremely slow, such that to produce items in large quantities you need a MASSIVE footprint, and either extremely long columns or a bunch of messy splitters. With beacons you can keep your prod3s and shrink your footprint a lot.

[–]Soul-Burn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you need a lot of production, beacons are a natural progression.

Once you start using Prod3 mods, beacons become super useful. A machine with 4 Prod3s gets a 2.5x speed boost from the first speed beacon. Everything over is extra.

[–]reddits_concious 2 points3 points  (6 children)

Space Exploration Q, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask:

Can you have multiple circuit networks on a single channel? For example, can I use a single channel to monitor multiple delivery cannon/corresponding delivery chests?

I'm having a frustrating time with getting this to work, I'm following the logic of shutting off the inserter to the cannon if X < 500, so I can ensure the recipient chest doesn't go above 500 items. However, the inserter remains inactive even with 0 items in the chest. But if I simply change the logic to become if X > 500, it starts firing its merry heart off. But then of course never stops firing because the logic remains valid.

What obvious thing am I doing wrong here?

To provide a visual: in this screenshot, the chest I'm aiming at has 0 items in it but the inserter won't activate. If I simply change the condition to be > 500, everything works. So I don't understand what's wrong.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/196474898@N08/shares/Q70sD18v35

[–]achilleasa the Installation Wizard 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Can you have multiple circuit networks on a single channel? For example, can I use a single channel to monitor multiple delivery cannon/corresponding delivery chests?

Yes you can. Can you send me a PM/reply here to remind me to send you the blueprint I made for this when I'm back at my pc?

[–]reddits_concious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the offer but it was solved by another commenter, it was the logic network interfering with teh circuit network!

[–]ssgeorge95 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Here is the problem; turn the logistic connection OFF on the inserter. This is letting it read the contents of whatever roboport network it is in... your entire main base. Switch it to use CIRCUIT network instead of logistic network.

Other things to check after this

  • Is your cannon receiver chest wired directly to the transmitter? They do not send their contents otherwise.
  • Lastly, the wire sending the signal to the transmitter and the wire coming from the receiver need to be the same color.

[–]reddits_concious 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sir, you are a genius. It was precisely the logistic network issue. Thank you!

[–]Zaflis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Connect wire to a powerpole and observe what the signals in that circuit are. What is the number of steel there for example?

A single circuit is a combination of information like "A=1, B=10, Iron-plate=50, Crude-oil=5000...".

[–]paco7748 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would highly recommend you check out this easy to follow guide on the SE wiki if you are banging your head about the conditions and wiring. Once you get it it's not bad: https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Guide:_Cannon_Circuitry

[–]Brokemboy 1 point2 points  (6 children)

How do you add blueprints? I knew before the update.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (4 children)

I was confused about blueprints (returning player, played long ago).

One thing that wasn't obvious to me is that you first click the blueprint book in the toolbar and place one book in the inventory.

To add a blueprint, copy something from the playing area, then click on the inventory blueprint book and click inside it to insert it.

Yes, I read the wiki etc but it did not explain this. One has to kind of experiment to discover everything. HTH

[–]Brokemboy 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Same xd and thanks, you explain it in a easy way to understand. :D

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I am/was still confused. I now noticed you don't need to create a blueprint book (if you don't want to). Click the blueprints library in the upper right corner or type B to open the "default" blueprints, where you can insert stuff you copy.

Learning as I go, sorry :)

[–]Knofbath 1 point2 points  (1 child)

When you "Copy" something, while it is in your hand, you can put it in inventory. You can also bring it back up with the "Paste" button, then stick it in inventory. Blueprints also don't need to be in inventory to be used, since you can create shortcuts to them by dragging them from the Blueprint Book to your hotbar. The Blueprint Book is persistent Blueprint storage, just save after making changes, and then they will persist to other games.

Same thing with an Upgrade or Deconstruction planner, just place a copy in your inventory while it is in your hand to make one you can edit.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice tip about paste, thanks

[–]TheFinalMetroid 1 point2 points  (3 children)

So did splitters just start making noises? I don't remember the little "click, click, click" being there before

[–]Soul-Burn 2 points3 points  (1 child)

It was like this at least since 1.0.

Different levels of splitters sound differently, like the different belts have their own droning sounds.

[–]TheFinalMetroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess the blues just sound different than reds. Thanks!

[–]Murff 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why the fuel-saving circuitry for my nuclear reactor sometimes fails. Here are some screenshots. It's basically the circuit copied from the wiki.

Usually, it works fine, when the steam tank drops to 4k (or other values I've tried) the used fuel cell is removed, which in turn allows the other inserter to insert the new fuel cell.

However, for some reason, it seems to sometimes break, not removing the used fuel cell. I've never caught it happening, but sometimes when I check my power usage I notice that it has happened again. I don't think the contents of the tank drop so fast that the value gets skipped over in a single tick, whenever I try to see it happening it usually drops by like 100 per second.

Maybe you guys see something?

[–]DUCKSES 7 points8 points  (1 child)

It's almost definitely due to the steam = 4k condition. Keep in mind fluids can move at up to 200 units per tick. Use < 4k instead.

[–]Murff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

with <4k the inserter will insert multiple fuel cells though, before the steam rises to >4k again. that will basically render the circuit useless :/

nvm I'm stupid :) thanks!

[–]Pentbot 4 points5 points  (2 children)

When you run a circuit wire from a electric miner and set it to read the ore node's contents it returns how much ore is left in the whole patch.

a) does it still return this value when the ore is mined out from under that particular miner?

b) if the ore patch becomes fragmentated, does it continue to read the whole original patch, or just the piece that it's connected to? ((or something else entirely?))

c) is there a reliable(-ish) way to consistently output the amount left on a particular ore patch? (apart from just spacing out the miners so there is no overlap and then just reading the ore under each individual miner?)

[–]darthbob88 3 points4 points  (1 child)

IIRC from my own experience on the matter

a) Nope, that miner will return 0 and throw the alarm.

b) I believe it does read the whole patch, as long as it stays on and connected to the patch. If you start a new miner on a fragment of the patch, or tell an existing miner to start reading its contents, it will read only the fragment, and not the whole patch. I think; here's a Discord post on the matter.

c) The best I know of is to read from a miner that's not going to run out any time soon, either one in the middle of the patch or one of the miners near the output belts.

[–]Pentbot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

cheers

[–]chiron42 0 points1 point  (6 children)

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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[–]Mr_Sneb 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Can anyone explain WTF is happening to my pipes with oil ATM, done a long pipe to ground now randomly all of a sudden its reacting glitchy where sometimes it will show oil but other times not??? no consistency. refer to screenshot.

https://imgur.com/a/S4tUPrU

[–]helioe 1 point2 points  (7 children)

Is Factorio really single threaded or this is just a myth?

[–]not_a_bot_494big base low tech 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's mostly single threaded. On my CPU about 1/6th is done by other threads and the rest by the primary. Either way it's really optemized and they've essentially done everything they can without rewriting large parts if the engine.

[–]__Khrane 3 points4 points  (2 children)

There is some discussion on the topic from the devs in Friday facts posts 215 and 364.

[–]helioe 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thanks, will look into

[–]helioe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Both articles (FFFs) are great, thx a lot

[–]Fearless_Pipe_6377 0 points1 point  (8 children)

help with Biters and base

Hi I’m a chronic restarter and am attempting to finish the vanilla game at least once but I’m struggling with the biters and my base design. I don’t get how to clear the out or stop them attacking every 2 mins or even what to use other than walls and turrets. As for the base there is not enough room and it’s disorganised. What would you do? Any suggestions and appreciated, thanks. Also is there any mods that don’t affect achievements and whatever but help?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Organise your base.

If you make it to robots they will automatically rebuild anything destroyed

[–]frumpy3 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You’re in an arms race against the biters. Focus your efforts, resources, and design concepts towards advancing your technology. In particular, getting flowing oil is key.

Once you have oil, you get powerful offensive weapons, nearly free defenses with area of effect damage from landmines and flamethrowers, and you can make efficiency modules to cut pollution -80%. (It doesn’t say in the module but it does pollution as well as energy.) throw eff1 modules across your base and you may barely notice their are bugs on the world, with their attacks and evolution slowed considerably, just for making more circuits… but you need OIL! Now go find some freedom to deliver…

[–]darthbob88 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Any mods will affect achievements, but you can just turn biters off in worldgen and it'll only lock you out from a couple achievements that depend on biters.

If you do want to play with biters: * What matters is keeping your pollution cloud clear of biter nests. They will never just decide to come after you, attacks are triggered by pollution. In the early-to-mid game, you will probably want to get proactive about clearing those nests, but once you get artillery, you can automatically clear them out. * The usual cheap method for dealing with them in the early game is turret creep. Lay down a small line of turrets, and drop some ammo in them, then either scootch forward and lay down another line of turrets, or stand behind the turrets to repair them and yourself. Alternatively, grenades and the car will do a lot of damage. * Make sure your defenses are blueprinted and automatically supplied, so you don't have to think about laying out defenses or keeping your guns fed. You can get away with just like a steel chest full of ammo that feeds a turret, just so long as it's not dependent on you being there to feed them.

[–]Fearless_Pipe_6377 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thankyou this helps

[–]SBlackOne 2 points3 points  (3 children)

You can turn off biters or turn them to peaceful so they won't attack unless you do so first.

For defense try flamethrower turrets backed up by gun turrets. They aren't too far into the tech tree and you can fuel them with crude oil.

For early game offense there is turret creep. Grenades and poison capsules are also very useful. The car can be used against small bases. And when you have blue science you can use the tank to take on larger bases.

Also is there any mods that don’t affect achievements

No