Factorio - building your own Foxconn

ShadowHearth

Well well well, I spent today about 7 hours in this damn little game and I barely know what am I doing. One of the rare gems that is not wide known, but once you sink your teeth in it its worse then crack. Its crazy how this game makes you think outside of the box and try to make stuff done without your input. Basically makes your brain work so you cam be lazy.

Only have this game few days and any day I got day off I dont play anything, but factorio.
On my second try and so far I advanced a good bit.

Automated so far:
Full oil products
All circuits
Green and red sciense
Electric engines
Armor piercing and flame thrower ammo

My to do list:

Playing around and trying to learn robotics. Managed to build dock and make my drones to clear forests. Next time I am off I will try to set up some logistic centre where I will stack stuff and organise it. So I dont need to drive miles away to pick up flame thrower ammo, then go a few miles of traveling to pick up steel. All be controlled by robotics. Will have a lot of learning to do!
Due to my map spawn position I am low on iron. The next deposit is deep in allien territory. So some cleansing awaits. That newly built flame thrower ammo line will come in handy.


Plans in a longer run:

Still dont have automated blue sciense. Just so much needed for those special inserters. I kind of have all bits on manufacturing, but need to set it all up. Need more dedicated space for it, which I will have after some deforesting.
Trains, trains, trains! I want to learn it and might do new campaign map, which was introduced last friday, for it. Most likely will use it for oil as my current patch is going dry and new one is really far away.

Battleflag

I absolutley love Factorio, have sunk about 70 hours into it and still only managed to launch one rocket. Spent far too much time playing it when I should have been writing the dissertation.

Trying to get everything as efficent and neat as possible was always my downfall as I never took into account the expansion that would be needed for the late game but sure that's half the fun.

Check out the achievements, some of them are ridiculous but apparently manageable i.e. finishing the game in 8 hours!!

ShadowHearth

Battleflag wrote: »

I absolutley love Factorio, have sunk about 70 hours into it and still only managed to launch one rocket. Spent far too much time playing it when I should have been writing the dissertation.

Trying to get everything as efficent and neat as possible was always my downfall as I never took into account the expansion that would be needed for the late game but sure that's half the fun.

Check out the achievements, some of them are ridiculous but apparently manageable i.e. finishing the game in 8 hours!!

I haven't even got near rocket lol. I am not focused on it though, I am more of a learning monkey right now.
My efficiency is arse too hehe. As I said its my second try as at my first go I did not knew I can do trick with belts and have one item on one side and other item on the other side hehe. Quill18 lets play helped a lot so far, but I watched it up to oil extraction. I need to resume his vodeos as I am going blind in with tobotics lol.

I havent been hooked on game like this in very long time. Cant wait for thursday off, misses at work until 6 too.

VinLieger

Just started playing last week ive automated blue science and have my robot ports running now, but need to basically redesign by main bus and figure out how to bring red circuits onto it in a decent rate and amount, next step is purple science which im not looking forward to and automating solar panels to power the next project

Once im done with all the research ill move onto setting up my 2nd and main factory with a view to getting up to automating rockets. Have seen some crazy designs and think ill be going with a 4 lane bus for copper and iron, and then have green circuits and steel on 2 lanes and everything else on one. Its gonna need some epic sized foundries to feed the beast

IvoryTower

waiting for it to be on sale, heard its a great game

ShadowHearth

IvoryTower wrote: »

waiting for it to be on sale, heard its a great game

Good luck with that. It never goes on sale. I was waiting for very long time and checked every steam sale and it never goes down. I think they know they got a gem and it sells well enough already. Its price is even weird. I think dead on 20,00eu, no 19,99eu bull****.

It sucks I am working until Thursday, cant wait to stick my teeth in it again!

IvoryTower

i noticed that alright but im in for the long haul

ShadowHearth

IvoryTower wrote: »

i noticed that alright but im in for the long haul

To be honest, its worth it. 20eu is very low price to pay for spmething so unique and cool. I am actually annoyed with myself lol. When it just came out in early access I showed it to my buddy as I though e would love it, he payed less then a tenner for it. Now a lot of time later I payed a full wack lol.

I bought gta 5 and factorio same time and so far 17h in factorio and less theb 3 hours gta online, which most of it I spent looking at loading screens... after paying 15eu for rust, factorio is best 20 quid spent!

ElNino

The best deal for it seems to be on the humblebundle store if you are a monthly bundle subscriber. You get a 10% discount and you can divert another 5% to your wallet to use against future purchases.

Wossack

its a great game, but I burnt myself out on it a good while ago

Battleflag

IvoryTower wrote: »

waiting for it to be on sale, heard its a great game

The game will never go on sale

We state it on our steam page, but people are still asking about it so I want to state it officially. We don't plan any Factorio sale. I'm aware, that the sale can make a lot of money in a short period of time, but I believe that it is not worth it in the long run, and since we are not in financial pressure we can afford to think in the long run. We don't like sales for the same reason we don't like the 9.99 prices. We want to be honest with our customers. When it costs 20, we don't want to make it feel like 10 and something. The same is with the sale, as you are basically saying, that someone who doesn't want to waste his time by searching for sales or special offers has to pay more."

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-140

IvoryTower

Interesting. Will have to buy it so!

Sephiroth_dude

I got this game while it was still in alpha almost three years ago now, once you get the hang of it and you understand it it's very easy too get lost in it . I've haven't played it in a while now but when everything works out its a very rewarding game.

cruizer101

Great game I've sank far too much time into it and only ever launched one rocket. The first time I played I didn't even really know that was the objective.

As much as I love watching video I would encourage you to try things out a bit before looking up tutorials. Blue science, yeah its a nightmare to get all setup.

Have a look into mods also, Robot Army is a favourite of mine to avoid having to kill biters myself.

Maybe we shoukd try get a boards multiplayer server going

Battleflag

Boards multiplayer is a great idea! Never tried it but it would be awesome to see everyone's setups or co-operating to produce ridicously huge resources

Played this years ago. Very addictive. I didn't get very far though. I'd love a boards server. I just jumped onto a random public server just to watch.

ShadowHearth

I guess I have a problem....

Finished work last night at 9:30 and was home for 10:30, quick shower and just went to play. Emmmmmm, I still did not go to sleep. :pac:

Cant remember last time I pulled an all nigter after 11h shift at work.


So I am actually doing really well, but My factory became a mess and chaos! Everything is all over the place, but I advanced and learned a lot!

I finally learned trains and make my own train line, which is delivering iron ore in massive amount. Supplies my whole base. Took a bit to learn it, but was worth it. Trains are just so cool and so efficient to transport stuff.
Learned pretty much all I needed from robotics. Have a nice network and pretty much rely on them to deliver high end materials for more important items. They are so handy, specially when alieans start to go ape****.


Thing is aliens are very damn strong now. I can do anything to them! Even with tank! Still working on my last exo-suit, but I doubt it will help. They respawn at some rate too. Was so hard to do stuff, because I got attacked everywhere and had to manually replace defences. Thanks god for robotics. Those little devils repair and replace damaged stuff so handy!

I should go to sleep now, but dont really want. I will give a little break to Factorio.

Dcully

Followed this thread last few days, only dawned on my now you lads are not talking about rimworld,dont ask me where I got that idea from lol.

ShadowHearth

Got only a bit to play today. Might sneak out after dinner for a bit.
In this short time I played a bit with my main base. Removed one coal electricity block as my solar panels doing great job and I got enough accumulators to sustain power over night. It freed up some space.
Finally did a small logistics hib where my drones bring main stuff I need. Like iron plates, steel, drone chassis, pipes, all types of circuits, laser turrets, acumulators, solar panels etc. No more running around the place collecting stuff.
Then I finally managed to build mk2 power armour and I finally badass again, 5 personal laser turrets, 3 mk2 shields, 2 reactors. Cleaned up alliens around base again.
My train now delivers oil in addition to iron. After I cleaned up map I opened up one more oil patch. Already set it up, but I will need to put pipes to connect to second base that has train stop. It will help with my oil supply.
One thing I need to figure out is how to send back empty drums to second base. I dont have enough to fill all train. So might do something with timers.

ShadowHearth

Okay, looks like its my blog now lol.

I did another train woth copper. All good and running.

Decided just to go for end game rocket and finish this play through, but when I sow what I need to build actual rocket, it showed massive issues with my production line. So much more learned!
Now I wil rush half arsed rocket and Finnish it, just so I can say I did it and then start brand new map for third time and apply what I learned. My third factory will be better.

Battleflag

ShadowHearth wrote: »

My third factory will be better.

Until you finish the third factory and claim your fourth one will be better!

I've got an itch to play it now, might look into some mods and see if I can change it up a bit

ShadowHearth

Battleflag wrote: »

Until you finish the third factory and claim your fourth one will be better!

I've got an itch to play it now, might look into some mods and see if I can change it up a bit

Yup, I think thats whats its all about lol.

Do first one, realise how much of an idiot you are, do second one - still an idiot. Third one will be best! Nope still an idiot, do one more. And it goes on and on.

Anyway, I did it! finally launched damn rocket! game won in 29hr! 38h total played on steam. I love this game!

Going to put another factory now. Will make tree density a bit smaller.
this time.

I heard new uranium recourse is coming in next patch, woot! Some nuclear suckers?

ShadowHearth

I have not abandoned factorio! Just a lot of work lately!

I am on my next factory and I am already doing way better. More organised and I got a lot more lucky with my location. Big patch of oil near by and I rushed technology a bit to be able to harvest it. Put up pumps with a good few tanks to stockpile crude oil for later. Those patches do lose their potency with time, so trying to get best bang out of them.

Got a proper dedicated space for my solar powerplant. Already got accumulators and panels production automated. It will be dedicated areas instead of plant them where ever I got space. Hopefully will replace my 4 sets of steam engines soon.


Other then that I am still loving it and cant wait for the new patch, its a shame it takes then so long.

IvoryTower

ive been following this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkypwNoQvkY to get me started

im trying to get power now which is about half way through that video to the end. my burner inserters are not doing anything and i dont know why, heres what i have

2 coal miners with power lines to them
transportbelt to the boilers(the coal is carried there no problem)
there is a pipeline in the water that connects to the boilers
the boilers connect to a line of steam engines (14 boilers connected to 10 steam engiones as per video)
the steam engines have power
but the coal has just filled up on the belt in front of the boilers/burner inserters

I've tried rotating the burner inserters but nothing

any ideas what i could be doing wrong?

cruizer101

Have you put coal into the inserters, burner inserters need to be primed with some fuel then once they are moving coal they will self feed their fuel and be fine.

IvoryTower

cruizer101 wrote: »

Have you put coal into the inserters, burner inserters need to be primed with some fuel then once they are moving coal they will self feed their fuel and be fine.

yep i just checked and they all have coal, both boilers and inserters have coal

Wossack

if the boilers have coal, I dont think the inserters will do anything. Try letting one run out, or remove all coal from one

IvoryTower

Wossack wrote: »

if the boilers have coal, I dont think the inserters will do anything. Try letting one run out, or remove all coal from one

no joy im afraid, removed the first 2 and replaced them with new ones and they workl for a few seconds and stop

this is embarrassing :D

Wossack

they wont fill the boilers, just keep them topped up enough so that they are always running. Reckon this is normal behavior!

/edit

if they unnecessarily kept filling boilers, if theres a long row of them (quite typical), the last one may never get coal/items. They do the same with assemblers.

Chests are filled with the behavior you're expecting - filled till full (or as much as you allow)

Battleflag

Take a screenshot and post here, might be able to figure it out from there

IvoryTower

[IMG][/img]

IvoryTower

i turned the first burner inserter arond there just to see, then tried a few of them, no joy

Battleflag

There is no pipe connecting the last burner to the steam engines

IvoryTower

i removed the last steam engine there and put pipes from boiler to next steam engine and it looked like it was going to work for a second and then stopped

Battleflag

Do you need the power? If the steam engines aren't supplying any electric devices then it won't produce energy

Wossack

shouldnt need a pipe - boilers can go directly into engines

how is the water pressure? from the screenshot, I think you've got too many boilers for that one pump... try removing half of them and putting pipe in place

IvoryTower

ive only started so i doubt i need the power, would that make a difference? like all thats connecting is the steam engines right now?

tried less boilers same thing.

Battleflag

If there is nothing connected to the electricity network then it won't produce any electricity . Try putting down some electric mining drills or electric inserters and connect it using the electric poles

IvoryTower

Battleflag wrote: »

If there is nothing connected to the electricity network then it won't produce any electricity . Try putting down some electric mining drills or electric inserters and connect it using the electric poles

ha okay i build a lab and a radar as thats all thats available and it seems to have kicked in, morto

ShadowHearth

I was sure I posted about whole inserters and power thing. Sorry for that, at least its sorted.

I was off today and had time before and after dentist pulled one of my wisdom teeth...

As I looked and my factory I realised it is still very big mess. Not as big as last one though lol. I expanded a bit to get 3 more passive oil patces. I had to go for it as I am really desperate. I am really unlucky with it.
Good thing is I found a massive oil spot, but a bad thing is its very far away and pretty much surrounded with biters. Another good thing is though that now I will need to make a train again!
I did some research on "main bus" today. It looks very effective and in a way impressive, but at the same time boring... too tidy and efficient if that makes any sense.
I kind of wanted to give it a go, but now I kind of want to expand to separate bases for separate operations and make a massive central base for off loading stuff. All connected by trains. It will be a mess, but I will make organised chaos.

ShooterSF

Ok. Im hooked green science feels like a massive achievement even if I have belts coming from all over the place to make it work. Watching some tutorials to get a better idea of some tricks. I can see me putting hours into this game and it is still early access?!

ShadowHearth

ShooterSF wrote: »

Ok. Im hooked green science feels like a massive achievement even if I have belts coming from all over the place to make it work. Watching some tutorials to get a better idea of some tricks. I can see me putting hours into this game and it is still early access?!

As they say in reddit: One of us, one of us!

Trust me, its addictive as drugs. My misses and little darling went off yesterday and I had off. I played non stop pretty much 7 hours! I have total of 57h and I dont even have it for a month. Thats taking in to account my busy life with work and family!!! This game has tetris effect on people, I could talk for hours how good and awesome this game is and how much more popular it should be, but unt you sink your teeth in to it, you wont get it why.

Your first factory should be a mess and I bet you got an itchy foot now to start a new one and make it a lot better as you learned a lot of stuff, then there will be a third factory... and 56th...
Definitely watch some youtube stuff. I would recomend watching quills18 noob playthrough and then his under 8h one. They are both terrible, but you will pick up a few life hacks in them. He is definitely not the best player and even I watch him now and cringe at stuff he does, but it helps to make your brain work.
This game is almost a puzzle game, but it makes no rules for you to follow, you have to find solution yourself and there is no one answer to any problem.

As gor my own progress: My factory starting to expand! Alredy looking forward to my next one on bases,what I learned already.
I got 2 trains going now. One for copper and one for crude oil. Copper one is pretty much standard affair, but I am really proud of my oil train!
As always nothing is given to me, so my next big oil patch is miles away and in the nest of biters. I had to do some seriuos purging to clean it up. I even had to setup a post with turrets and solar panels tp defend, before I even could lay pumps. Took me a good few runs to get a foothold as it was constantly attacked! Though in the end I secured it and got oil running. Best thing is this time my trains is fully automated for crude oil. I got full barrels going in to train, and when its in main base it unloads them, and here comes best part, it loads up all empty barrels back on the train. So when its coming back to outpost its off loads empty barrels and full ones go back in!
Its such a minor thing, but I did it and felt like a big achievment.
I have some amount of ore procesing now in main base, but space starting to get limited and one belt is not enough anymore.
My next plan will be to make a separate outpost for smelting and another few for pure mining raw ore. All connected by trains and fully done plates will go back to main base. Might even get wrid of all smelting in main base after ore is depleted.

ShadowHearth

Well,I finally started taking steps in to expanding out of my base.
Cleared a good bit of region to open up some spots. Lots of trees and biters burned or were killed by my destroyer bots.
First station for iron ore set for a separate smelting facility. Got facility spot planed out and got some defence put down there.

One more thing I finally learned! How to use blueprints and personal roboport together! Its god damn amazing. I got a cut of wall made with turrets and polls as blueprint. So now when I expand or drop new oitpost, I just drop a few of those blueprints and my little robots do the rest!


I honestly cant go back to any of those minecraft crafting games anymore. Doing crap myself just feels... crap!!! It made me so lazy lol, I am looking for better solutions so I would do less work.

cruizer101

Yeah robots make it so much easier, especially deconstruction for clearing trees. You can have multiple personal robo-ports also.

Sounds like you might need to have a go at getting the Lazy Bastard achievement.

ShadowHearth

cruizer101 wrote: »

Yeah robots make it so much easier, especially deconstruction for clearing trees. You can have multiple personal robo-ports also.

Sounds like you might need to have a go at getting the Lazy Bastard achievement.

Yup, thats what I do fpr trees. If its near base, I throw power line and set up roboport, clear all and push powerline firther to expand. If I am a bit further I use personal roboport. Very handy.

I think I will go for it after. At this playthrough I am just going to get all research achievement amd see if I can get more of those production achievemens.

I dont want to do new factory now as I have a feeling new patch will be soon, which changes a lot of stuff. Will start a brand new factory for it.

Tempted to mod it too. Bobs and angels looks interesting.

ShooterSF

I finally got an oil train going as I need me my blue science. But my base needs a total reshape and thats probably the next couple of hours of play to get that done. Biter attacks are still very few and weak, I think my early investment in solar might be helping that...
'

cruizer101

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I dont want to do new factory now as I have a feeling new patch will be soon, which changes a lot of stuff. Will start a brand new factory for it.

Yeah I think it is coming pretty soon, do you follow the friday blog posts, https://www.factorio.com/blog
Its nice to see regular updates from the devs.
There is nuclear power coming anyway so looking forward to that.

I also want to try get into doing stuff with circuits a bit more, I havn't really used them much, and there is so much potential, check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgfwwqwxdxY

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Tempted to mod it too. Bobs and angels looks interesting.

I plan looking at bobs and angels at some stage but I've watched a few videos and it looks like serious commitment, vanilla can already be a massive timesink so not sure I should take the plunge til I have bit more free time.

I use a few mods now though, longreach is very handy, bottleneck is great for improving your factory efficiency. I also like robot army for not having to deal with biters myself.

ShadowHearth

ShooterSF wrote: »

I finally got an oil train going as I need me my blue science. But my base needs a total reshape and thats probably the next couple of hours of play to get that done. Biter attacks are still very few and weak, I think my early investment in solar might be helping that...
'

Just a few tips m8.

Use efficiency modules in pumps while they still have resources in them, when those depleted, use fast modules. Then eventually add some of those stations that transmit modules to nearby stuff. Ot all stacks. Every bit of oil helps, trust me.
Another tip: make sure to start your solar "plantation" in one dedicated area with massive amount of expansion. Preferably a bit further away from your main factory. You will be shocked how much space you will need and amount of solar panels that you end up with.

ShadowHearth

cruizer101 wrote: »

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I dont want to do new factory now as I have a feeling new patch will be soon, which changes a lot of stuff. Will start a brand new factory for it.

Yeah I think it is coming pretty soon, do you follow the friday blog posts, https://www.factorio.com/blog
Its nice to see regular updates from the devs.
There is nuclear power coming anyway so looking forward to that.

I also want to try get into doing stuff with circuits a bit more, I havn't really used them much, and there is so much potential, check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgfwwqwxdxY

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Tempted to mod it too. Bobs and angels looks interesting.

I plan looking at bobs and angels at some stage but I've watched a few videos and it looks like serious commitment, vanilla can already be a massive timesink so not sure I should take the plunge til I have bit more free time.

I use a few mods now though, longreach is very handy, bottleneck is great for improving your factory efficiency. I also like robot army for not having to deal with biters myself.

Yeah, the new uranium ore is soooo awesome. Nuclear power yo! I hope theu will add some weaponry that uses it!
Oil tanker is another thing I look forward to.

I know what you mean about bobs and angels. Its just stupidity complex, though I love that about it. More challange. Factorio just got me so hooked, that I dont play anything else anymore. If Manage to get free time with my pc, factorio and spotify gets loaded and I am gone. Cant remember last time I was so addictive to a game. Would love to get small laptop to play it in bedroom while misses sleeps. She will kill me though.

ShadowHearth

I finally got day off and misses away pretty much all day. Babysitting was grand too, she was on a tablet all time.

So! I went further with my factory.

Expanded a lot! Got one more massove dedocated solar complex, which by the end pf thee dayi almost filled up ffs. Looks like will need tp expand that more next time!

Moved my walls a lot and trying to get mpre space everywhere I can. With each boarders push I open up myself new recourses too.

My biggest achievement of today! Spent hours trying to do proper train routes with stops and circulating movement.
Took my ages though and I only sorted out my iron ore logistics! Stations had to be redone, learning signals, laying tracks.
In the end it was worth it! I got 2 mining outposts and one mega smelting base. 2 trains on same tracks going around and visit mining outposts, then off loading to smelter and rinse and repeat! And my trains do that without crashing in to each other!

Canis Lupus

What is this nightmare you've got me into. I've seen vids of it before but dismissed it but because you were jabbering on about it I decided to give it a go.... I lost my entire night to it and all I have to show for it is production belts everwhere, a few mines and a mess of electricity poles. I'm not sure I have the kind of structured mind to get the most out of this game but definitely willing to give it a go. There's something deeply satisfying about watching an automated system makes all the bits n bobs for you. It's a bit like the X series where you create your own economy of factories.

Some initial thoughts, I dislike electricity poles. Unless I just haven't unlocked extra doohickeys getting electricity to things makes everything looks messy. This displeases me. I also wish research was a bit more intuitive.

I think personally I might start a new game tonight as I started the game without anything nasty to attack me and I realise now that this takes away a bit of urgency and the need for lots of sexy gun turrets. Also in this initial game my water source is ages away from a good spot of ores. Might try and generate somewhere new with a better starting area.