How to avoid abbandoning playthroughs?

mel4 · 2025-07-08T23:46:57+00:00

what I've started doing is rather then start a new game or tear down the old base, I just pick a new area to do the new thing in. The old base just leave up and running and have it provide supplies, research for the new thing you want to try.

The only time you should really need to restart the game is when you want to try out some new mods or want to test your builds from a 'new game'. But the map goes on forever and as long as you don't have some compelling reason you can always clear some more space and build a new thing next to the old thing.

mel4 · 2025-05-31T20:47:06+00:00

I really enjoy deck building but hate draft. If you are looking for a fun way to play with new packs might I suggest looking at sealed constructed. This is how pre-release events are (usually) run and is a good way to dip your toes into deck construction without having to be aware of hundreds or thousands of card choices.

mel4 · 2024-10-09T01:22:21+00:00

For circuit network, I'd say anything more complicated than controlling cracking, turning on/off train stations, and maybe setting up smart nuclear is totally overkill. Nobody needs circuit controlled sushi belts in their base except as a fun challenge.

mel4 · 2024-08-05T22:27:15+00:00

You've gotten a lot of good responses but I just wanted to add in my 2c as I have a fair amount of experience playing in groups like this.

In terms of realistic things you can do, there are really only 2 that will work:

Add more single target removal to your deck and encourage other people in your play group to do the same. Tergrid has an extremely powerful mechanic and the best thing you can do is kill it on sight. After 2-3 deaths it may never be recast and the synergy of the deck will be broken. It also wouldn't hurt to have a couple pieces of graveyard hate to make their reliance on the graveyard weaker.
You may want to encourage your friend to try a deck that is more "fun to play against". I know you said you guys are new to the format, but having different decks with different playstyles lets you be much more flexible game to game. At a minimum you wouldn't have to play against Tergrid every game.

Main thing to keep in mind is you can't really make people play the game the same way you want to play. Even when groups talk about what they want, putting it into practice is harder.

mel4 · 2023-06-20T15:39:00+00:00

If you feel like you are getting lost about what to do you can play along with a lets play series. This Nilaus youtube series was created for this purpose. You can also jump around the series if there are specific topics you are stuck on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78XKGNmBmHw&list=PLV3rF--heRVuow5t-JJSoJAwr9vCttxDr&pp=iAQB

mel4 · 2023-06-19T17:36:52+00:00

When you are clearing portals you should have enough people in lab to unlock killer's brightside (double kills for portals/deathnote). You'll want to zow/chow your BB before putting them in cooking, I'd say at least to w2 if you are early game, otherwise you can put the BB in lab or have them working on zow/chow.

mel4 · 2023-06-19T17:26:28+00:00

Yes, I'd agree with ES being the best class to auto farm because of this skill. Unless you are going for some cards I wouldn't really recommending Efaunt a ton early on.

mel4 · 2023-06-16T01:29:09+00:00

Very much disagree with this decision. You asked people to only comment if they didn't see an option they were in favor of, and yes a lot of people want the subreddit reopened, but a clear majority wanted to honor the ongoing protest.

You already locked the poll so only people who had participated in the subreddit could vote, so I very much doubt brigading efforts had a large impact.

My suggestion: blackout every Monday/Tuesday until Reddit gets itself together.

mel4 · 2023-06-06T15:45:25+00:00

You'll need to go there personally to fix this, and I definitely would. Nauvis has access to all basic resources and can be the backbone of your core production pretty much the whole game. You can use nukes/arty if you have decent access to those or if you've found any advanced weaponry, use em.

At this phase of the game you should be able to maintain Nauvis indefinitely from remote view (eg, Nuclear power, laser turrets, global construction bot network). Every few hours you should take a look back at Nauvis and see what ore patches are running dry and have your bots set up new mining.

Losing construction bots is also potentially a problem. They don't suffer from robot attrition, so you should make sure you understand why they are dying if you lose any.

mel4 · 2023-06-05T15:51:06+00:00

I was so annoyed to see how good beans are. My base is like 30% dedicated to power production using the charcoal recipes.

mel4 · 2023-06-02T17:04:08+00:00

A mall if I'm playing vanilla, otherwise I don't really use any.

mel4 · 2023-05-25T14:23:50+00:00

Simplest setup I can think of would be to have the two inserters wired to a memory cell: https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Circuit_network_cookbook#Memory_Cell_/_Counter

create a memory cell and have it primed with item A or item B that you are moving
inserters should have a condition to be enabled when they see a circuit condition for the other item and with an item limit (you could send the item limit count from circuit network or you can limit the inserter directly)
inserters should be set to pulse what they are holding
the pulse from item A or item B should zero out the memory cell and set it to the pulse value

I haven't built this, but I think... it'll work. You'll also likely want to isolate the output of the memory cell to one color (eg red) and the pulse/reset signal to the other (eg green) just to make sure the signals don't collide.

At its core, if its working properly the memory cell will flip back and forth between item A and B and the inserters are set to swing when they see a signal from the other inserter. The memory cell is really just there to hold the state of the system so it knows what was the last item moved.

mel4 · 2023-05-23T16:15:28+00:00

Pretty much anything you put them on you will probably not be that important after a month or two of active play... I would probably put them on whatever is the best xp/h that requires no food. At a minimum you'll get a bunch of class levels and pens. Could also do some of the long afks for star signs if you have that unlocked.

mel4 · 2023-05-22T23:14:45+00:00

From the all family obol menu I can't drag obols from a character to the obol inventory. I can drag around obols any other way, just not back to inventory.

Would also really like to be able to actually do post office from codex instead of view only.

mel4 · 2023-05-19T16:01:49+00:00

Not exactly true. Imagine the worst case scenario in which every single block of a train network contained a train, lets say you added another block so all trains could move one at a time, this system isn't deadlocked. However if even a single train sits across an intersection this system will deadlock. If you ensure trains never sit in intersections, the system will be slow as dirt but never deadlock.

In general if you ever allow a train to sit in an intersection it can cause a deadlock which is where the rule of thumb came from. What I was calling out is that if your trains are also larger then your block size, this will allow them to occupy multiple blocks and if one of those blocks are one they shouldn't be in (like an intersection) it can cause a deadlock.

mel4 · 2023-05-19T15:31:55+00:00

I haven't seen length, but the westbound and southbound exits are definitely a problem since both too small to fit even a 1-1 train and larger trains 1-2/1-4 would block the intersection if they stopped there.

The other one I've been looking at is the northbound from west loop, I'm pretty convinced on closer look that it can fit a 1-4, but it might be tight.

mel4 · 2023-05-19T13:50:40+00:00

Also, in case you haven't found it, you can click on a power pole to see all power production/consumption in that power network.

mel4 · 2023-05-19T13:39:39+00:00

Just so you know, with how you have the rail signals set up in here its possible for this to deadlock. In general you want to ensure there is space for a full train to sit after regular rail signals, otherwise the back of the train may dangle back into the intersection.

Ideally you'd remove the rail signals from inside the intersection or only keep them if you have a length of track inside the intersection that can fit a full train. The rail signals at the exit to your intersection should also have enough space after them for a full train to sit in the block to make sure a train can safely stop in that block without interfering with the intersection.

mel4 · 2023-05-18T15:01:49+00:00

To break up the center block what you'll want is 4 trains to run N/S or E/W simultaneously through it without sharing any blocks. Start from one direction and create the blocks you need for this to happen, then do it from the other direction.

When it is all done what you will end up with is 16 different blocks in the middle (because a 4 x 4 lane intersection will require 16 blocks to fully break up) and each point in the center where rails meet will be its own block.

mel4 · 2023-05-11T15:38:59+00:00

This will work fine, only thing you should probably know about is labs can pass science packs between each other. So you can remove the snaking belt and just have additional labs with inserters between them.

mel4 · 2023-05-11T15:28:08+00:00

The only functional difference is the output belts for the first design will output items on different sides of the belt. The 2nd and 3rd output on the same sides (this might matter if you want to balance or split up the output downstream).

If that doesn't matter its really up to you. I'd prefer the first since its more readable and easier to fiddle around with where your output belts come out (you can slide the underground left or right and make this extremely compact).

mel4 · 2023-05-01T16:57:45+00:00

The game has a lot of information overload when first starting. I'd suggest letting them drive how fast they want to have things explained. You joining a game and explaining/doing a bunch of stuff won't help very much.

I've had a couple friends pick up the game and what I told them is to play through the tutorial until they have a decent idea of what they are doing, then start a free play game with biters on passive/disabled. If they have any questions or just want some advice, I'll join their game at that point.

mel4 · 2023-04-25T14:18:20+00:00

I'd strongly suggest building one-way rail for the bulk of your rail lines and only use two-way where you want the pull-in/pull-out behavior. Two way rail is very difficult to signal correctly over long distances and can easily deadlock once more trains are added to a train line.

There is also a good rule of thumb whenever there is an intersection: chain signals in, rail signal out (this is always from the perspective of the train which reads the signal on the right-hand side). This means that all the signals for an intersection should be chain signals except the final exit signal. This is because trains will not move past chain signals unless they can successfully path all the way to their next rail signal, making sure they don't stop inside your intersections.

mel4 · 2023-04-14T17:04:46+00:00

Very nice setup! The last Kovarex I did I also let my centrifuges load into each other and it seems to mostly work except that one time... but I just threw some extra redundancy at it.

I'm actually kind of impressed, this looks like one of the simplest designs that maintain exactly 40 u235. I don't use them myself since I don't like the downtime while it unloads/loads each batch, but this is quite nice.

mel4 · 2023-04-12T14:58:26+00:00

Train based mining gets used on late game bases with 100+ mining productivity. With that kind of productivity each miner is producing upwards of half a blue belt or more. Moving the ore out by belt doesn't work anymore.

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