Circuit City has become the third stop on my railway, as it rapidly became clear that all I was doing was moving all my resources from one side of the map to the other and I needed to plan the construction chain first, and then provide the materials. It's not pretty, but it's less of a spaghetti mess of backed-up belts than I've managed before.
Thanks to my stockpiles and a glorious inserter>fast inserter>smart inserter production chain I'm now creating blue science, and once I can crack heavy oil with the chemical plant I'll be able to kick my plastic production into overdrive.
I've also resolved to use solar power for all my new settlements, as it clears loads of room once given over to fuel and water transportation. It's pretty space-intensive, but it does the job.
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
+1
Options
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
The nicest thing about solar is the 'set it and forget it'. As long as there's enough of 'em there's no resources to consume so you won't have to worry about keeping them fed.
A wonderful contrast to my southern iron mine, which I've resorted to fuelling using solid fuel cubes due to panicking once its coal ran out. Because it's so remote, often the first I know of a fault in the fuel supply is when iron ore starts clogging up my train depot.
As has happened now.
Maybe it's a sign to switch completely to electric furnaces.
The nicest thing about solar is the 'set it and forget it'. As long as there's enough of 'em there's no resources to consume so you won't have to worry about keeping them fed.
Though there is something to be said in converting depleted oil wells into solid fuel producers and burning that in steam boilers...
Don't forget you can have your entire base and all outposts connected to the same power network by running big power lines along your railways. It's pretty much the best and I can't imagine having separate networks for all my outposts.
+2
Options
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Don't forget you can have your entire base and all outposts connected to the same power network by running big power lines along your railways. It's pretty much the best and I can't imagine having separate networks for all my outposts.
I usually have most of my power generated in and around my main base because powerlines running along the rail tracks just looks right.
At the moment I like having separate power supplies for my bases because that way if one part breaks the whole thing doesn't come crashing down around my ears.
My next goal to figure out how the fuck fluids actually work in this game, fix my oil supplies and then try and figure out these little drone things.
On the oil situation, am I right in in assuming that a refinery produces only minimal output if the storage for one of the 3 main outputs (light, heavy and petroleum) is full to capacity? To put it another way, if my heavy oil tanks are totally full, will that reduce my petroleum and light oil throughput?
If your storage for light/heavy is full, all processing stops even if you can still use the petroleum gas.
Just make more storage tanks and when the time comes, empty them one at a time using pumps or just keep a large storage complex just in case
Edit: The lovely thing about fluids (and I suppose gases as well) is that you don't need to have the storage facility at the start of the feed line unlike iron/copper/etc. It can be in the middle so just branch off a pipeline from your bus and hook it up to a massive storage depot. And you're probably going to need one anyhow to store all the crude the trains are hauling back.
The problem was more subtle. I was trying to use the map editor to view how RSO distributes ore, and RSO doesn't spawn things until live play.
That said, I set RSO's density to 1 and the result was...kind of hilarious. 14 seconds to biter death.
Phoenix-D on
+1
Options
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I left everything at default for RSO and there are HUUUUUUUGE deposits of stone fucking everywhere. :P There also was a reasonable gap from starting point to the first outpost deposits, but after that they are super frequent.
Gonna take some playing to get the resource distribution I want.
Man, I swear you just need too many green circuits and red circuits. Making over 2000 green circuits a minute and I could probably triple it and still use all of them.
Considering making an offsite green circuit factory and just training more in and abusing logistics bots to deal with it since my green circuit area can't handle any more on the belt.
Anyway, did a lot today so finally feel up to posting some screenshots.
Production Statistics
Power Statistics
Map overview for scale. I have an oil field off to the left of the screenshot as well but it's a bit far. All the external walls are double thick with a single deep laser turret wall backed with roboports for repair while also automating construction. http://i.imgur.com/jT3m0d5.jpg
Next goal is to finish walling off the south west region and expand circuit production. I just cleared it out tonight (rip 500 destroyer capsules, you did good)
edit: bonus image! went to fix my oil sign real quick since it bothered me once I looked at it on the screenshot, and both my copper and iron plate trains came in at once. that blob of storage containers on the right has 300k each of iron and copper. well, copper is down to ~270k now since production is slightly slower than consumption. other storage container section is everything else and my various one off manufacturing area for stuff like mining drills, electric furnaces, electric poles, various shooty implements and walls.
I keep falling into the trap of teching up to bots/roboport and then not being anywhere close to having the infrastructure to actually make them. Which is quite the turnaround from my first play through where they were almost the last thing I decided to take a look at.
I was stuck for a bit - I wanted to get the personal roboport up because it makes altering outpost defenses super easy (I've got one outpost that's nearly within sight of THREE biter nests that I can't yet take out because they have big worms, so trying to push out to claim more of the resource field is.....intense. Some of the laser turrets have over 1000 kills so far) but I couldn't make power armour until just recently.
I'm finally over the hump, though. I have the first Power Armour, a couple level 2 shields, the reactor, exoskeleton and roboport. I can do most of the biter nests. The three that I mentioned above are still a bit too much with multiple big worms until I get Power Armour 2 and can stack the shields and also can field more than 5 drones, but I've got enough of the copper field to get me there.
Can't you just throw poison capsules?
0
Options
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
A serious one, actually. :P Last time I played right to the end it was still that missile launcher placeholder.
I can't ramp up production for the sake of ramping up production, that's boring. I need to have purpose. So I was just wondering if all that production was actually progressing, because if so, hey, it's awesome that the game has enough stuff to do to make that practical!
But if not, then it's not something I would be able to find fun to do. That's okay! That's not a critical statement!
Just wondering if what you're doing would apply to me is all.
It's kind of insane how there is ALWAYS something else to do. Whether it be connecting new resource outposts, moving through the tech tree, optimizing what you already have... Finally got a roboport up and running and oh my god why have I never used these before.
Last night I finally bit the bullet and redid my first iron ore mining complex, with electric furnaces, a solar array, and an improved layout. Now I shouldn't have to worry about unrefined ore clogging up my belt network due to lack of fuel.
Now all I have to do is work through the massive gridlock of iron ore already in the system, which also solves the problem of what to do with the massive gridlock of coal. Then it's just clearing the huge backlog of iron rods left over from my railway factory, the gears that piled up while my science assemblers were out of commission, and I can breathe easy. It might just come down to loading everything into individual boxes and putting them next to relevant assemblers, which would then allow me to redo my conveyor belt spaghetti.
Probably because it's one of the oldest hooks for games. You're given almost everything you want, but there's something missing and you want it. But getting that missing something is only going to introduce a new lack of something you want.
Probably because it's one of the oldest hooks for games. You're given almost everything you want, but there's something missing and you want it. But getting that missing something is only going to introduce a new lack of something you want.
Plus, it's tangible progression
Also, there's something so very satisfying (to me) about watching things move on conveyor belts and thinking, "Yes, I made this. This is mine."
In addition, having construction bots to place my stuff for me is great.
+4
Options
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Downloaded RSO and Bob's Mods. It was late when I did it, so I just thought to myself, I'll just start a new map and play around with it a little and see what new things it has. Next thing I know it's 1:30 in the morning. Whooooooooooooooooops.
I played for four hours straight yesterday without realizing it.
Speaking of, I started a new map with much lower resource settings. The nearest resource deposits aren't that far, but there's nothing around them. I've only found one iron, one copper and 4 oil wells (Grouped in a single area - sorta). Lots of stone and coal, but that's normal, it seems.
My new base is going to have expandable science production so I can ramp that up - the game I was playing the science was just taking too long.
I just had a five hour stretch as Mrs Rhesus is out with her sisters.
I'm now rocking a fusion-powered set of power armour with multiple energy shields, and I've fully automated my solar panel production. I'm now in a cycle of wandering off to kill things, then coming back and expanding my solar array, then wandering off again. Eventually I'm going to have to bite the bullet and strike out to a new site, so I'm stripping my original production network down and minimising the transport of finished goods to make bottlenecks less likely. Then when everything is running like clockwork, I can funnel all the finished products into my train station, and head out for pastures new.
But first I need to eat because I've just realised that I skipped breakfast and lunch.
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
+2
Options
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
Does anyone know if there's a kind of "quick start" mod out there? I've been meaning to start a new game, but every time I load into a new world I realize that there's going to be a half hour or more of getting wood/stone, loading drills and smelters, and doing fuck all otherwise until I can get electricity up.
Just starting with a pump, engine, some burners, and some electric drills would be a real boon.
Does anyone know if there's a kind of "quick start" mod out there? I've been meaning to start a new game, but every time I load into a new world I realize that there's going to be a half hour or more of getting wood/stone, loading drills and smelters, and doing fuck all otherwise until I can get electricity up.
Just starting with a pump, engine, some burners, and some electric drills would be a real boon.
There are I think but you can also create a custom map to edit your inventory
Friends, do not be like me and crack your entire heavy oil supply into light oil. I vastly underestimated how much I would want lubricant as I rolled into the late game. Fifteen storage tanks filled to the brim with heavy oil, and now there is none.
I have a fluid mod that has an overflow valve, so I only crack heavy oil to light oil when my lubricant tank is full. It's a lifesaver for dealing with fluids since it also has pipes that are forced straight, elbows or Ts so you can lay pipes right next to each other of different types without them connecting automatically.
It's not hard once you understand how wire networks and conditions work.
You can connect red and green wires to things to create a wire network. The wire network will have stats on all the things that are connected together with that color of wire.
So say you connect a storage tank for heavy oil to a simple pump with a green wire. You now have a network consisting of just heavy oil (the amount in the network is exactly what's in that one single tank).
You can go to the pump and say "Filter on Green Network, Heavy Oil = 2500", and that pump will run when the tank is completely full (since a tank holds 2500 units of whatever). This will stutter a bit (since as soon as it turns on, it will be pull the tank below 2500 and shut off. You could do like "Heavy Oil > 2450" or something and just be okay with not having completely full tanks.
What I do for my heavy -> light -> petrol is have green wires connected to a single tank for each type of oil/gas and Lubricant, then wires run to every pump.
For my heavy -> light plants, I have two pumps. One that does "Lubricant > 2450", which lets me make Lubricant with my heavy before I crack it to Light, then one with "Heavy > Light", which lets me keep a balance of oil products as I crack. (That one is mostly so that I don't over crack light into petrol and cause things to stall because of full petrol tanks)
For light -> petrol, I have a pump which does "Light > Petrol".
Finally launched my first rocket. Expansion was going kind of slow until I realized how frickin amazing robots and blueprints are.
Map of my end game sprawl:
IT took me ages to get to this point, but in fairness I was feeling out most of the advanced systems for the first time. I had a lot of headaches trying to set up an oil industry using the barrels, but once I got the hang of it further expansion was a breeze thanks to blueprints. I might have died to biters a handful of times but really it was nothing compared to the countless times I was crushed by my own trains.
I'm excited to start over now that I have a better idea how to get to the endgame, but I definitely need a bit of a Factorio break. It's scary how much time the game can consume, there is always something else to do.
On another note, does anyone have tips for avoiding barrel migration?
Over time as your remote oil stations produce less oil they tend to accumulate a lot of excess empty barrels. My solution was to just have my oil trains wait at my unloading station long enough so that the full barrels they brought for processing could be emptied and loaded back on the train. It wasn't the worst solution, but it did build up some long lines to get into the home rail station.
On another note, does anyone have tips for avoiding barrel migration?
Over time as your remote oil stations produce less oil they tend to accumulate a lot of excess empty barrels. My solution was to just have my oil trains wait at my unloading station long enough so that the full barrels they brought for processing could be emptied and loaded back on the train. It wasn't the worst solution, but it did build up some long lines to get into the home rail station.
You can set filtered slots on your train cars. So for my train cars that actually get full, I have 15 slots set for full barrels, and 15 slots set for empty barrels. Then you go to your outposts and block out the slots so the chest you unload empty barrels into at your outposts can't take more barrels than the train has so they don't pool there when you run low on oil. This prevents too many barrels from wandering while still letting you use the same station for multiple trains. I have 4 trains unloading oil barrels to the same station right now and it's worked out great.
Posts
Thanks to my stockpiles and a glorious inserter>fast inserter>smart inserter production chain I'm now creating blue science, and once I can crack heavy oil with the chemical plant I'll be able to kick my plastic production into overdrive.
I've also resolved to use solar power for all my new settlements, as it clears loads of room once given over to fuel and water transportation. It's pretty space-intensive, but it does the job.
As has happened now.
Maybe it's a sign to switch completely to electric furnaces.
Though there is something to be said in converting depleted oil wells into solid fuel producers and burning that in steam boilers...
I usually have most of my power generated in and around my main base because powerlines running along the rail tracks just looks right.
On the oil situation, am I right in in assuming that a refinery produces only minimal output if the storage for one of the 3 main outputs (light, heavy and petroleum) is full to capacity? To put it another way, if my heavy oil tanks are totally full, will that reduce my petroleum and light oil throughput?
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Just make more storage tanks and when the time comes, empty them one at a time using pumps or just keep a large storage complex just in case
Edit: The lovely thing about fluids (and I suppose gases as well) is that you don't need to have the storage facility at the start of the feed line unlike iron/copper/etc. It can be in the middle so just branch off a pipeline from your bus and hook it up to a massive storage depot. And you're probably going to need one anyhow to store all the crude the trains are hauling back.
I'm using an RSO variant, and the stuff is there. It's probably just really really far. Most of my outposts are multiple minutes away by train.
That said, I set RSO's density to 1 and the result was...kind of hilarious. 14 seconds to biter death.
Gonna take some playing to get the resource distribution I want.
Considering making an offsite green circuit factory and just training more in and abusing logistics bots to deal with it since my green circuit area can't handle any more on the belt.
Production Statistics
Power Statistics
Map overview for scale. I have an oil field off to the left of the screenshot as well but it's a bit far. All the external walls are double thick with a single deep laser turret wall backed with roboports for repair while also automating construction.
http://i.imgur.com/jT3m0d5.jpg
And yonder factory
http://i.imgur.com/SKAtIhH.jpg
Next goal is to finish walling off the south west region and expand circuit production. I just cleared it out tonight (rip 500 destroyer capsules, you did good)
edit: bonus image! went to fix my oil sign real quick since it bothered me once I looked at it on the screenshot, and both my copper and iron plate trains came in at once. that blob of storage containers on the right has 300k each of iron and copper. well, copper is down to ~270k now since production is slightly slower than consumption. other storage container section is everything else and my various one off manufacturing area for stuff like mining drills, electric furnaces, electric poles, various shooty implements and walls.
Logistics ho!
http://i.imgur.com/KyMIC16.jpg
Can't you just throw poison capsules?
You have to scale up your production so you have the resources you need to scale up your production.
A serious one, actually. :P Last time I played right to the end it was still that missile launcher placeholder.
I can't ramp up production for the sake of ramping up production, that's boring. I need to have purpose. So I was just wondering if all that production was actually progressing, because if so, hey, it's awesome that the game has enough stuff to do to make that practical!
But if not, then it's not something I would be able to find fun to do. That's okay! That's not a critical statement!
Just wondering if what you're doing would apply to me is all.
Now all I have to do is work through the massive gridlock of iron ore already in the system, which also solves the problem of what to do with the massive gridlock of coal. Then it's just clearing the huge backlog of iron rods left over from my railway factory, the gears that piled up while my science assemblers were out of commission, and I can breathe easy. It might just come down to loading everything into individual boxes and putting them next to relevant assemblers, which would then allow me to redo my conveyor belt spaghetti.
How am I finding this fun?
Probably because it's one of the oldest hooks for games. You're given almost everything you want, but there's something missing and you want it. But getting that missing something is only going to introduce a new lack of something you want.
Plus, it's tangible progression
Also, there's something so very satisfying (to me) about watching things move on conveyor belts and thinking, "Yes, I made this. This is mine."
In addition, having construction bots to place my stuff for me is great.
I played for four hours straight yesterday without realizing it.
Speaking of, I started a new map with much lower resource settings. The nearest resource deposits aren't that far, but there's nothing around them. I've only found one iron, one copper and 4 oil wells (Grouped in a single area - sorta). Lots of stone and coal, but that's normal, it seems.
My new base is going to have expandable science production so I can ramp that up - the game I was playing the science was just taking too long.
I'm now rocking a fusion-powered set of power armour with multiple energy shields, and I've fully automated my solar panel production. I'm now in a cycle of wandering off to kill things, then coming back and expanding my solar array, then wandering off again. Eventually I'm going to have to bite the bullet and strike out to a new site, so I'm stripping my original production network down and minimising the transport of finished goods to make bottlenecks less likely. Then when everything is running like clockwork, I can funnel all the finished products into my train station, and head out for pastures new.
But first I need to eat because I've just realised that I skipped breakfast and lunch.
Just starting with a pump, engine, some burners, and some electric drills would be a real boon.
There are I think but you can also create a custom map to edit your inventory
You can connect red and green wires to things to create a wire network. The wire network will have stats on all the things that are connected together with that color of wire.
So say you connect a storage tank for heavy oil to a simple pump with a green wire. You now have a network consisting of just heavy oil (the amount in the network is exactly what's in that one single tank).
You can go to the pump and say "Filter on Green Network, Heavy Oil = 2500", and that pump will run when the tank is completely full (since a tank holds 2500 units of whatever). This will stutter a bit (since as soon as it turns on, it will be pull the tank below 2500 and shut off. You could do like "Heavy Oil > 2450" or something and just be okay with not having completely full tanks.
What I do for my heavy -> light -> petrol is have green wires connected to a single tank for each type of oil/gas and Lubricant, then wires run to every pump.
For my heavy -> light plants, I have two pumps. One that does "Lubricant > 2450", which lets me make Lubricant with my heavy before I crack it to Light, then one with "Heavy > Light", which lets me keep a balance of oil products as I crack. (That one is mostly so that I don't over crack light into petrol and cause things to stall because of full petrol tanks)
For light -> petrol, I have a pump which does "Light > Petrol".
Map of my end game sprawl:
IT took me ages to get to this point, but in fairness I was feeling out most of the advanced systems for the first time. I had a lot of headaches trying to set up an oil industry using the barrels, but once I got the hang of it further expansion was a breeze thanks to blueprints. I might have died to biters a handful of times but really it was nothing compared to the countless times I was crushed by my own trains.
I'm excited to start over now that I have a better idea how to get to the endgame, but I definitely need a bit of a Factorio break. It's scary how much time the game can consume, there is always something else to do.
Over time as your remote oil stations produce less oil they tend to accumulate a lot of excess empty barrels. My solution was to just have my oil trains wait at my unloading station long enough so that the full barrels they brought for processing could be emptied and loaded back on the train. It wasn't the worst solution, but it did build up some long lines to get into the home rail station.
You can set filtered slots on your train cars. So for my train cars that actually get full, I have 15 slots set for full barrels, and 15 slots set for empty barrels. Then you go to your outposts and block out the slots so the chest you unload empty barrels into at your outposts can't take more barrels than the train has so they don't pool there when you run low on oil. This prevents too many barrels from wandering while still letting you use the same station for multiple trains. I have 4 trains unloading oil barrels to the same station right now and it's worked out great.
But it's not an option that may appeal to everyone.