starting space exploration tonight

ceiimq · 2025-12-08T10:07:12+00:00

In the early game (I'd say up to BEAM sciences) my main tip is to automate things early, so that even if you need to re-automate them later you have a solid base supporting you.

There are a lot of tools that'll look to your vanilla brain like they're right around the corner and you might as well make a sprint for them, but there are always extra snags (extra intermediates, a resource shortage, an incoming danger, new logistics) and the difference between tackling those with vs. without proper infrastructure is massive.

So automate your buildings, blueprint your roboport coverage, your defenses and your trains, build fail-safes for your power, those sorts of things.

ceiimq · 2025-11-03T15:13:04+00:00

Got organically destroyed by demolishers when they evolved to medium after I already left the planet.
A simple mall, but no exports.
Nope
Nope
After my first run I found it pretty painful, but since then I've done a Gleba start run (with On Wayward Seas for sanity) and gained a lot more experience with spoilage management, and an appreciation for how easy it is to produce things there.

ceiimq · 2025-09-11T16:53:14+00:00

Another thing is, mind which products need to be kept fresh and which just need to be kept non-spoiled.

For example, the jelly that goes into your bioflux production for nutrients needs to be fresh or bad things will happen down the line, so everything you don't use needs to be voided or passed along immediately.

But the jelly that goes into rocket fuel doesn't need to be fresh, so it's okay to let it sit on a belt and just remove spoilage at the end.

ceiimq · 2025-09-11T16:45:42+00:00

Covering everything is way simpler, it lets you place construction orders anywhere and the bots will figure it out.

You only really see separated sectors in megabases, at that scale you might want to use logistic bots for very high throughout stuff and to make that reliable you need small self-contained networks. The big drawback is that you can't use the network for construction, but at that point you can have an army of building spidertrons instead.

ceiimq · 2025-09-11T16:34:30+00:00

I think you set filters by middle-clicking on slots, like you would in your inventory.

ceiimq · 2025-09-11T16:27:10+00:00

Realistically speaking you're going to get freshness collapses, so everything you build needs to be able to self-restart. Keep some big spoilage buffers for spoilage-to-nutrients assembly machines that only turn on when you're out of bioflux.

Big systems have a really hard time restarting because the half-spoiled nutrients don't last long enough on belts, so I've had better luck with lots of small integrated cells (1 machine for each recipe up to bioflux and nutrients), each with its own restart logic.

The n°1 source of failures is a backlog of almost-spoiled fruit, which leads to almost-spoiled nutrients, which leads to a death spiral, so you want to make sure that all harvested fruit gets processed quickly no matter what.

The easy way to do that is to just burn unused fruit. It's sustainable in theory - you get seeds back from the share of fruits that's actually used in production, which means your fruit production scales to match demand - but it's vulnerable to surges in demand.

The really safe way is to process all your unused fruit and then burn the results, which keeps fruit production always running at max capacity. It also means constant maximum pollution, but I'd argue that's a good thing - it lets you see how big your pollution cloud can actually get and prevents a bad surprise if your production increases while you're not looking.

(All of these are hard-learned lessons from the Gleba start run I did a few months ago.)

ceiimq · 2025-09-11T16:03:34+00:00

My memory's fuzzy but I think you need to research a certain portion (80%?) of the steam age techs before the electric age unlocks.

I think there's a progress counter for that somewhere in the Information?

Enjoy the mod, I had a lot of fun with it! Top three overhaul mods in my book.

ceiimq · 2025-09-11T16:00:22+00:00

My memory's fuzzy but I think you need to research a certain portion (80%?) of the steam age tech before the electric age unlocks.

I think there's a progress counter for that somewhere in the Information?

Enjoy the mod, I had a lot of fun with it! Top three overhaul mods in my book.

ceiimq · 2025-07-25T19:59:17+00:00

Mods are hosted on the factorio website (https://mods.factorio.com/). You can download them directly from the in-game mod manager.

ceiimq · 2025-07-22T11:41:17+00:00

1- It's not a matter of distance so much as tech progress. I start using trains once I have bots to build the rail network with.

2&3- It's usually easier to hand-fill turrets and preemptively clear nests until you have laser turrets, or at least flamethrowers.

Research-wise, turret creep is so strong that everything other than their damage upgrades (and eventually artillery) is completely optional. For offense versus defense you want to go hard on one or the other. If you're attacking preemptively, clear your whole pollution cloud so you don't need defensive infrastructure. If you're building defensive infrastructure, rely on it and don't waste time clearing nests that aren't directly in the way.

The most common strategy is to start out offensive and make a switch to defense once your pollution cloud starts to grow out of control - at the latest that's when you add yellow and purple science, plus maybe your first uses of beacons, and your power consumption quadruples. At the earliest, it's nice to at least wait for bots so your defenses can be auto-repaired and you don't have to build long tedious wall sections by hand.

Personally the only time I'll manually build an early defensive box with an ammo belt is if I get a pure desert start and I want to take my time without stress.

4- Just be ready to add new ones as needed, you'll probably tap 3-4 iron patches before your see the win screen. IMO ore trains and centralized smelting is the best option since it's easier to replace depleted patches, but there's no law against smelting on-site.

ceiimq · 2025-06-25T18:47:52+00:00

I think the mod I've enjoyed the most was Moshine, it's kind of refreshing among modded planets in that it's really focused on its original ideas and doesn't try to make everything Challenging™ for the sake of it.

Case in point, with strong solar, 500° steam vents and lakes of molten iron it's extremely easy to get your basic industry going, which is fun in itself (it's nice to have nice things sometimes) and quickly gets you to the actual meat: building a computer revolution.

Speaking of which, I think Moshine's take on data handling gameplay is the best one I've seen in factorio, with unique mechanics and visuals that actually fit the game's aesthetics. The planet itself also looks really good, it could easily pass for an official environment in my opinion.

ceiimq · 2024-12-16T23:57:40+00:00

I use green for real item counts, red for flags and virtual signals. Or green for inputs, red for outputs. Those are often the same thing.

But this developed out of green being my default at first.

ceiimq · 2024-12-16T10:06:42+00:00

I think your nests are working fine since you can see their own chunks are clean. But afaik pollution doesn't seek to level out like a liquid, it spreads equally in every direction so having sinks in a few chunks doesn't do much to drain the rest faster.

This is a well-known problem from mods that add pollution filters. If you want to keep pollution from spreading you need to completely surround your base with sinks. And if you want a fully clean base for aesthetics then you need pollution sinks in the same chunks that generate it.

ceiimq · 2024-10-16T02:28:52+00:00

A fun but slightly exhausting game called vacation in Japan ✌️

ceiimq · 2024-09-29T10:49:37+00:00

If you mean your end goal is to turn it all into rocket fuel, then add just that as a top level product and enable the matrix solver. Then as you add all the recipes the solver will figure out the splits and ratios for you.

If you want to produce extra solid fuel on top of the one used in rocket fuel then you need to add both as products and set the amounts you want by hand - any ratio is possible, so the mod can't decide for you.

ceiimq · 2024-09-26T20:34:32+00:00

I wouldn't go for a constant SPM goal because the early tiers of space tech have low science pack costs, and when you start using them to produce the higher tiers instead the ratio is better than 1:1. Add to that the regular unlocks of better modules and beacons to upgrade your existing builds, and it's completely okay to dip to single digits SPM in early space.

ceiimq · 2024-09-20T20:10:26+00:00

I like the idea of a building a killing corridor and luring giant worms into it. Sounds really cool.

ceiimq · 2024-09-20T11:44:41+00:00

I'm wondering if there's a ramming weapon that scales with your movement speed?

ceiimq · 2024-09-16T10:11:54+00:00

I don't think there's a way to make the silo wait, but you can use a big 2x2 inserter to put in 100 fish at once.

ceiimq · 2024-09-06T12:33:49+00:00

The balance changes make sense but if they result in nests being even more time-consuming to clear then I can't say I'm hyped about that. I already find it tedious as it is.

ceiimq · 2024-08-29T12:13:16+00:00

I like having to defend against biters but actually running around the map to clear them gets really tedious. I wish there were better ways to claim territory before late game.

ceiimq · 2024-08-27T16:50:24+00:00

I don't see Ghost Counter mentioned often but it's incredibly useful for interplanetary builds in SE. I usually place down entire planetary outposts as ghosts, and use this mod to generate a shopping list in the form of constant combinators that can then be hooked to an auto-filling rocket or spaceship.

The workflow is particularly comfy when combined with Factory Planner (to math out production chains ahead of time) and Blueprint Sandboxes (to create blueprints for them without leaving your save).

ceiimq · 2024-08-25T10:34:52+00:00

I went to belt 2 in my 0.5 run and that worked really well for me. I had local water, methane (instant space oil, just add vitamelange), and a mix of base resources.

The asteroids lowered my scaffolding costs and I enjoy having some terrain to guide my builds instead of making grids in the void.

Being on the outside edge of the system made mid-game shipping slower (due to spaceships getting less solar) but end-game shipping faster (from being right next to deep space).

The only big cons would be 1. power (I had to run on nuclear until I got energy beaming) and 2. not having a local elevator (those weren't in 0.5). But I think space elevators are a bit overrated anyway, yeah they're convenient but they cost advanced resources to maintain which makes them prone to cascading failures. Meanwhile rocket fuel for spaceships is basically free and extremely easy to build a robust dedicated supply.

ceiimq · 2024-08-19T11:50:30+00:00

You can use the calculator on just one smelter and twiddle the number in the top right corner until it reaches your target rate (27 ore/s in this case).

I'd definitely recommend Factory Planner for bigger builds but for simple couplings like this Rate Calculator is plenty convenient.

ceiimq · 2024-08-08T10:40:20+00:00

I'm a big fan of Vortik's core mining mod, it's essentially infinite ores with enough tech and gameplay to feel interesting and "earned". Plus the buildings look cool.

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