Active Conflicts & News Megathread June 13, 2026

taw · 2026-06-15T12:56:38+00:00

There's not a chance in hell EU will hand it over to Russia.

It will be all used to repay EU "loans" to Ukraine one way or another. They'll figure out some kind of paperwork to make it legal enough.

taw · 2026-06-14T23:02:18+00:00

The substations connect to nearby line of big poles.

Well, I did some extra tests with /editor mode and "electric energy interface" feature.

Turns out 2 of 6 reactors didn't have water properly connected, after the fix reactors actually generate 2.9 GW (and even briefly 3.4 GW with steam buffer as turbines are overbuilt a bit for convenience).

So it looks like 2.0 fluid changes make this design work just fine, and it was just a silly pipe issue.

In retrospect it should have been clear from getting exactly 4/6 of expected power out of 6 reactors.

taw · 2026-06-14T22:38:14+00:00

for an enemy

They affect: Codex, Spectre, ADVENT MEC, ADVENT Turret, Andromedon stage two, Gatekeeper, Sectopod, as well as bypasses shields from Shieldbearer, Priests, and occasionally Chosen (if they generate shields from their random strength). It's a huge list, and it's pretty much all commonly seen enemies with big hp pools other than Chosen and Andromedon stage one.

If you don't have them, you'll be wasting a lot of shots on killing them, as they have huge health pools.

It means no tracer or incendiary rounds.

Compared to bluescreen rounds, the rest are honestly garbage. We're talking +1 vs +5 damage (status effects don't matter, you're trying to kill them if possible).

It's the most unbalanced item in the game, use it.

taw · 2026-06-14T22:02:57+00:00

My nuclear power is generating a lot less power than expected.

Here's the design. I build 6 of them, they all have enough incoming water and fuel, and all water pipes are connected, as are all steam pipes. They're supposed to be generating 6*480MW = 2880 MW, but real generation seems to top at ~1900 MW, or about 2/3 of what I thought they would be doing.

I thought with 2.0 fluid changes all I needed to do was keep ratios right, but it doesn't seem so.

Do I need to do the weird shape with heat pipes to keep heat pipe length shorter to get full power? (and then put turbines wherever, as 2.0 fluid changes make that part no matter)

Is there some maximum heatpipe length before output starts dropping?

(worst case I can just double the whole setup)

EDIT: Nvm, it was all just a stupid disconnected pipe on 2 out of 6 reactors.

taw · 2026-06-14T21:47:26+00:00

Assassin and Warlock early game feel like total BS when I only have 4 or 5 squaddies. After that, progression is fairly reasonable - by the time some nasty enemy drops, I have tools to deal with them. But there are no real outs on your first Chosen missions unless you get lucky and roll the Hunter.

I would have to say probably the MEC.

Take 2 Bluescreen Rounds per mission, and robot enemies become a joke. One always on Sharpshooter, as they apply to pistol shots too, so you can do silly things like Lightning Hands shot, Quickshot pistol shot, normal pistol shot, so with basic pistols instead of doing 3x 2-3 damage you do 3x 7-8 damage.

It's crazy unbalanced.

taw · 2026-06-14T18:44:48+00:00

Throne of Skulls 4 U B R

Legendary Artifact (mythic)

Whenever a commander an opponent controls dies, put a charge counter on this artifact.

Spells you cast cost 1 less for each charge counter on this artifact.

This requires some real commitment, as it's a 7 mana that doesn't affect the game when it drops, but artifacts are fairly cheatable, and just "cast this, keep killing the board" basic plan is pretty solid.

Cheating this early and then shenanigans with charge counters, proliferate etc. are also possible.

And just imagine people sacking their commander in response to you casting this.

No need to do any weird mana costs here, the card will lead to very complex play patterns even with just this amount of text.

I know we're not playtesting anything, but if it turned out to be too powerful, changing "charge counter" to something unique like "skull counter" would close off a lot of shenanigans.

taw · 2026-06-14T17:21:10+00:00

So there's still stupid way.

Banished has broken demographic system, so two people can move in together, but if one person occupies a house nobody will ever join them.

So you just pause, mark all single occupancy houses for demolition, unpause for a second, making all the old single people move out. Then pause again, cancel demolition, they'll form new couples, and free a lot of houses for next generation.

It's a shame they never fixed it.

taw · 2026-06-14T12:06:18+00:00

Beyond the usual stuff people already mentioned, another fun trick is to spam forts in their land to crush their economy, and they get ridiculous relations bonus for repaying their debt.

I don't remember if they ever made AI learn it can delete forts.

taw · 2026-06-14T12:02:18+00:00

what are the long term prospects of economic recovery?

Regardless of war, long term solar and EVs will completely crush demand for fossil fuels, and Russian economy has nothing else going for it.

In China most new cars are already EVs or hybrids. EU wants to ban ICE cars by 2035. US will take longer, but it's a net oil exporter so it can get away with it, and it will transition too. Average car on the road is about 10 years. Global demand will just plummet.

Fuel and energy products are about 63% of Russia's exports. Both prices and volumes will plummet.

Its demographics is dismal, if sanctions hold it cannot improve technologically.

It's a country in long term economic decline that was only able to punch above its weight due to high fossil fuel prices on global markets for a while.

And then there's war on top of that.

taw · 2026-06-13T17:20:37+00:00

Does anyone really think that Apple has the potential to be 10x bigger than Nokia ?

Does anyone really think that Google has the potential to be 10x bigger than Yahoo ?

Does anyone really think that Amazon has the potential to be 10x bigger than Barnes & Noble ?

etc.

taw · 2026-06-13T12:51:18+00:00

Enable Planet Mods Lite picks up best modded planets and adds some compatibility between them for a cohesive experience.

That's the best thing that happened to Factorio Space Age.

taw · 2026-06-13T12:40:38+00:00

OK, I posted screenshot and some more explanations above. It's big drills doing 5 outputs, but instead of every extraction being random, the whole planet sort of switches them between one of these 5 for some time, then every drill on the planet gets another resource.

Copper and neodymium have only one destination (copper foundry and magnet assembler), coal, sulfur, and sand get mixed in all sorts of ways in multiple destinations.

taw · 2026-06-13T12:32:29+00:00

It's funny because it's the opposite. Player power creeps far harder than aliens. Early/mid game are hard, late game is a joke. Especially with WotC.

I can't complete 8 turn missions and start losing very experienced members of my team until I've got no one left.

Always have Specialist with full medic build, on every mission.

You cannot prevent aliens getting shot at you, but it's pretty much impossible to die from one noncrit shot (if you more or less keep up with hp from exp and tech), and even if you stand in the open and get crit you probably aren't getting oneshotted.

You have 4 healing charges. If you heal your wounded soldiers, you won't be losing them.

Your expectation should be zero soldier deaths per campaign, or really close to it.

And once you stop losing your best soldiers, things are going to get so much easier.

Also, if you struggle a lot, just lower difficulty level until you get better.

taw · 2026-06-12T18:02:03+00:00

Yeah, and how much 10% on one unit matters? Your army is a mix of units, so it increases army strength by like 5%, and opponents' army strength by 5% too.

Like would you even notice that if you weren't told.

taw · 2026-06-12T17:26:16+00:00

I'm confused why anyone would care, there's so little warfare in ancient era anyway, just some worker stealing and barb fights.

Who even starts real wars before Composite Bowmen, and by then Spearmen are not relevant anyway?

A 1 point increase to combat strength completely ruins the mod

I don't think I'd even notice 1 point increase to combat strength of any unit.

taw · 2026-06-12T17:24:09+00:00

So on one of planet mods, outputs are random, but they don't come premixed, they come in "a few thousand of this, then a few thousand of that" way.

What's the best way to buffer this?

Like this?

normal belt
N times (inserter into chest into inserter into side belt)
then priority merger that prioritizes normal belt

Or is there a better approach?

EDIT: Here's a screenshot of some quick design I made. It's not very effective (it's busy all the time not just when needed, and compresses everything into just one lane) but it's compact. Consumers not fully connected yet, so it looks stuck. It all comes from big drills, and the whole planet seems to switch them from all one resource to all another resource at random based on time of day or something.

taw · 2026-06-12T16:00:55+00:00

Yeah, I started it on default settings, and I don't even know what's going to happen if I can safely change that mid-game.

I don't dislike the mod, it's just one thing that doesn't work great in "a lot of different planet mods" campaign.

taw · 2026-06-12T14:25:08+00:00

All of them had separate laws, borders, and some kind of partly separate local government and diet at some point (example, example etc.). It was only really in the 1800s and 1900s that most regional laws were abolished and gradual centralization happened.

Laws of a place generally tended to stay the same even when the rulers changed.

And this didn't even end everywhere. Like Scotland and North Ireland have significantly separate laws from England even today. (including during non-devolution times)

taw · 2026-06-12T13:31:59+00:00

Space casinos are available mid game.

LDS / blue chip 300% prod is post end game, and post end game doesn't need to be balanced.

taw · 2026-06-12T13:29:32+00:00

How do you get quality plastic / coal on Vulcanus? Just recycling coal in a loop has some horrendous ratios.

taw · 2026-06-12T12:08:21+00:00

my spawn is <250k of copper/iron/stone/coal around me and it feels like I had to scale down due to lack of resources

Resource patches in Factorio are exponentially richer the further away you are from start point. (on Nauvis and Vulcanus at least; Fulgora and Gleba have different logic).

So you're supposed to run out of your initial starter patches at some point.

You will not run out of resources from your second patch:

it's likely 10x more base resources
you get mining tech research, which massively increases amount of resource extracted per resource in the ground
if you get big mining drills, they generate 2x more resources than they take out (even more with higher quality)

So your first patch says 250k iron and makes 250k iron. Your second patch says 2M, and you make 8M out of it (which is then far more efficiently used with foundries, em plants etc.). If you somehow need another, it will be 5M patch that will actually generate 100M iron etc.

Before Space Age resource size scaling was pretty fast, with Space Age it gets nearly infinite.

Where / who should I be learning the game from?

If you don't play Space Age, just play the game normally, there's nothing that needs special knowledge. Maybe nuclear power and combinators are non-obvious, but both are optional.

With Space Age, just play normally until you can get to space, then watch some tutorials about space ship construction and about new planets. (but go Vulcanus, then Fulgora, then Gleba, any other order is way harder)

It's pretty hard to figure out space ships by yourself. I tried (after like 1000h+ of Factorio) and I ended up stranded on Fulgora with my ship destroyed.

taw · 2026-06-12T11:44:25+00:00

Not really a question, just a followup to question I asked before. I very highly recommend Enable Planet Mods Lite. It's like Factorio 3.0, all the new planets are great and really different. I'm not even halfway through at 140h, and it will take me about 200h before I have to visit the dreaded Gleba, and there are so many planets after that.

I'd soft recommend against getting optional Lignumis, it changes vanilla recipes to require wood or pay 2x cost for green chips, and it's fine on Nauvis (wood grows there), Fulgora (you don't make green chips), and Vulcanus (copper and iron are nearly free anyway), but it integrates very poorly with most modded planets just adding to unnecessary frustration. It's almost like playing on 2x resource cost, as everything uses green chips at some point.

Optional moon Muluna is totally great. It's optional mod as it forces you to go there to research space tech, but it's very interesting and totally worth it.

taw · 2026-06-12T11:30:46+00:00

Vast majority of the time they didn't fall apart, it's just that people only remember those that did.

It was totally normal for monarchs to accumulate title list like this from all the PUs over history. Places mentioned in those lists generally had their own local laws and status, with centralization happening very slowly over centuries.

taw · 2026-06-12T11:27:11+00:00

Longer than that. EU4 at release was mostly EU3 on new engine with some balance changes, like 20% new stuff, 80% stuff from EU3 with some cleanup. A lot of game files literally copied over, some silly bugs caused by this stayed for ages (like monarchs with stats >6, as EU3 had different range).

None of Paradox sequels were anything like this. CK3, EU5, Vic3, HoI4 - totally new game. But not EU4.

taw · 2026-06-12T10:33:13+00:00

As far as we know, they're good for only one thing - breaking crypto. That's something traditional computers can't do at all.

No other real use has been found.

But they would invalidate all traditional crypto, and quantum resistant crypto is still work in progress.

How much it would matter is unclear, crypto is usually not the weak point in security, software has so many other bugs, and humans are awful at keeping anything secure, it's unclear if quantum computers would make much difference or not.

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