Factorio - Factories, Conveyors, Pollution and Monsters - alpha

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CPX

CPX

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  • #2,481
    Scotttheking said:
    Makes sense. Great to hear about CyberSyn, the mandatory return to depot put too much lag in the train system. How many SPM are you aiming for?
    Click to expand...

    Well last time I got my 1K SPM blocks built on blue belt transit decently handled with only some UPS loss, so I figure...2.5-3k? Maybe full 5k? I didn't really do the post-space mining efficiency over to full train bus nor did I eliminate nuke plants to reclaim UPS, so we'll see.

    But that train not returning to depot can't go understated. It not only lagged block input but also forced total supply chain consolidation to right by the LTN depots to make them any sort of efficient. Not needing colocation to the train depot allows me to seed any type of supply in the grid where ever I need instead of just by the train depot. No more needing one massive transfer arrangement for iron, copper, steel, plastic, etc. in one spot.
     
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    sryan2k1

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  • #2,482
    I've hit the burnout cycle of my playthroughs. I'm at sustained 5k SPM, there are a few more videos in the Nilaus' series and I think it ends up at 10k but at this point it's not any harder, all the design is done, it's just scaling up.


    I think I do want to do SE next, I've considered K2+SE but I'll stick to one. I've been playing various other easy stuff just to do something else for a while.
     
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    Jeff3F

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  • #2,483
    I know my games are pedestrian versus some of you all, but I'm in the midst of a rather large conversion project. I built a super large and sprawling spaghetti base, and I'd like to begin installing city-block blueprints here and there. They someone else's blueprints, but that's OK as I've gotten to the point where I want to organize a mega base now. It's like Katamari Damashi where the scale increased, I guess.

    So it's a big challenge:
    1) I found a good corner of my base to begin - rather than build it out entirely from scratch I recently installed a bunch of mines that aren't being used yet due to distance from rest of factory. So I could convert these to a city block style car loading but this is delicate due to amount of ore that needs to be picked up (I considered using green missiles to clear full chests but decided not to).

    2) hookups between existing tracks and new tracks is complicated as the new blueprints are opposite train directions so requires criss-cross action

    3) the blueprints use 1+8+1 trains I think, which is semicompatible with my existing 1+4 trains but with wrinkles

    4) the blueprints station naming scheme is different.

    I'm OK cheesing blueprints that are premade now, otherwise the choice is get bored and start a new factory and redo the early/mid/pre-late grinds. And, this is a great new project for me. It's exposing the inadequacies of my existing spider armies for demolition (grossly insufficient numbers of these guys to tear down ore-bearing belts - I will avoid tearing down full chests as it's more spaghetti to arrange for those chests to eventually empty into the nearby belts (chests left over from original 1+4 spaghetti train station).

    I guess I could just move off to the side, but I want to transition from my current mines/factories into the larger ones without just starting them up de novo. I also don't look forward to clearing out entirely new areas yet (kill biters, fill in waters, destroy hills etc).

    So I think that I've found a pointless factory expansion project that will take a very long time and will keep me engineering for a while, probably until they release the expansion/2.0!
     
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    CPX

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  • #2,484
    2 mods that I consider QoL are Nanobots and Flare Stack. One has Terminates to get rid of trees by the bunch and the other has incinerators which destroy items (making it possible to automate with logbots). Might help dispose of base parts you don't want.

    The only extraction-type operations I'll run in a city grid system are usually straight coal extraction since its just extract to load and crude>AOR>PG builds since I can set acid plants in the adjacent grid. I keep metal extraction>smelt, liquefaction, and uranium builds separate since those take up more space for additional production stages on site (iron plates, steel, gears, copper plates, plastic, lubricant, rocket fuel, and anything uranium).
     
    CuriouslySane

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  • #2,485
    How do folks deal with biters? Passive mode? Mods? Or are they just not as big a problem as I've found them to be? I haven't gotten very far, but it feels like I'm micromanaging against escalating aggression just to survive more than learning fundamentals, and I worry about getting painted into a corner and overrun. On the other hand, a lot of the tech tree is about combat/defense which seems like it would damage the experience to turn off. I just don't trust the balance based on what I've experienced so far.
     
    CPX

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  • #2,486
    CuriouslySane said:
    How do folks deal with biters? Passive mode? Mods? Or are they just not as big a problem as I've found them to be? I haven't gotten very far, but it feels like I'm micromanaging against escalating aggression just to survive more than learning fundamentals, and I worry about getting painted into a corner and overrun. On the other hand, a lot of the tech tree is about combat/defense which seems like it would damage the experience to turn off. I just don't trust the balance based on what I've experienced so far.
    Click to expand...

    Passive or off right now. But artillery wagons are the real permanent way.
     
    malor

    malor

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  • #2,491
    My last game I played with active biters, but set to a low evolution rate. That worked out pretty well; I had to build and maintain defenses, but the difficulty scaled up very slowly, primarily from me clearing out nests.

    But on the whole I'm not real fond of them, because you can't realistically control pollution in the base game. I imagine there must be mods to make that better, but I've never really looked into that. Sans modding, IMO passive or no biters are preferable.

    I'm pretty sure you can set the biters to passive in a game that's already going, so you don't lose your factory.
     
    malor

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  • #2,493
    dmsilev said:
    If you don’t care about gathering achievement badges in a particular save, you can do pretty much anything to the biter settings through console commands.
    Click to expand...
    I have a vague memory of a UI checkbox for that setting, although I don't know if it disables achievements. I haven't built a serious factory for several years.
     
    Lt_Storm

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  • #2,495
    CuriouslySane said:
    How do folks deal with biters? Passive mode? Mods? Or are they just not as big a problem as I've found them to be? I haven't gotten very far, but it feels like I'm micromanaging against escalating aggression just to survive more than learning fundamentals, and I worry about getting painted into a corner and overrun. On the other hand, a lot of the tech tree is about combat/defense which seems like it would damage the experience to turn off. I just don't trust the balance based on what I've experienced so far.
    Click to expand...
    Walls and lasers, flame throwers, and turrets. They aren't that threatening so long as you have a defensive line and boys to perform repairs. For expansion, artillery trains defended by walls and lasers. Overall, they aren't that dangerous.
     
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    Drizzt321

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  • #2,496
    Lt_Storm said:
    Walls and lasers, flame throwers, and turrets. They aren't that threatening so long as you have a defensive line and boys to perform repairs. For expansion, artillery trains defended by walls and lasers. Overall, they aren't that dangerous.
    Click to expand...
    As long as you ensure you have a decent amount of power for the lasers.

    Also early on, before you start getting artillery and such, you can use the 1st level of power suit with constructor bots and do a power tower + 8 laser turrets and creep your way into biter creep to eliminate them. Preferably lots of repair packs and extra constructor bots, because things will take damage and get destroyed.



    Speaking of which, is there any grid isolate stuff? So I can isolate segments of my grid (e.g. defenses) and keep them powered from accumulators and some solar panels, such that if the rest uses too much power, the defenses will stay up fine? And likewise, if the solar from those segments has full accumulators, it can backfeed the extra to the rest of the grid?
     
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  • #2,497
    Drizzt321 said:
    Speaking of which, is there any grid isolate stuff? So I can isolate segments of my grid (e.g. defenses) and keep them powered from accumulators and some solar panels, such that if the rest uses too much power, the defenses will stay up fine? And likewise, if the solar from those segments has full accumulators, it can backfeed the extra to the rest of the grid?
    Click to expand...
    Power switches and circuit logic.
     
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    Scotttheking

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  • #2,500
    this burst of energy is nice.
    so I build in regular game, not creative mode, for whatever weird reason. space exploration is more difficult logistically in that there are byproducts and multiple steps in a production chain.
    The last few days was building a material refining factory (holmite) on the outpost I’m working on. Since my computer isn’t the fastest, rather than slapping down the buildings I aimed to do direct insertion, beacons, and accurate ratios. After testing ended up making a bunch of changes both for errors (did I forget an input for last step, why yes I did!) and to make things more efficient as this is a multi blue belt feed factory. While it can’t be fed at full speed yet, it shouldn’t be possible to deadlock, and letting it run for several hours it seems to be doing ok. It backed up at points due to me blocking most of the processors so less to purge if an oops, but always cleared itself.

    Edit: awful screenshots of the left half. Right is identical but flipped, they link over the beacons on the bottom image.
    5 inputs, 3 outputs (2 waste byproducts).

    1709599439639.png
    1709599455346.png
     
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    malor

    malor

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  • #2,501
    Lt_Storm said:
    Power switches and circuit logic.
    Click to expand...
    I always just used manual switches, since that took zero thought and cost almost no resources. I'd run separate powerlines into the main base, each with a switch, so I could instantly cut off everything, or just segments. And then I'd be real careful about keeping all my power-generation circuitry on the same isolated segment.
    Xanrael said:
    For biters, clearing out your pollution cloud makes a huge difference. Artillery makes that a lot easier, but it's worth some manual effort before then.
    Click to expand...

    In the vanilla game, is there any way to actually remove pollution, other than watching trees die?
     
    CuriouslySane

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  • #2,502
    malor said:
    In the vanilla game, is there any way to actually remove pollution, other than watching trees die?
    Click to expand...
    I read it as going after the nests in that perimeter, which I was doing, but it required a lot of attention, and the bugs were getting meaner faster than it seemed like I had a chance to build out my logistics against.
     
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    Xanrael

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  • #2,503
    Yeah, I meant clearing out nests inside your pollution cloud. The pollution will trigger attacks from the biters that spawn at the nests, so if you don't keep up with wiping nests, you'll continually get attack waves. You don't necessarily need to kill everything, but if the nests get too dense, it can get overwhelming.
     
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    Scotttheking

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  • #2,504
    Building logic with circuits is surprisingly fun.

    Outpost spaceport.
    Requests come in via the satellite dishes at the top, are compared against what is already in the rocket, and then sent for fulfillment.
    Each chest has a pair of circuits per pad which set the filter to activate the inserter only for chests that have the item in it.

    The right silo has one extra combinator which, upon the top "junk" box filling up, activates an inserter to dump everything in to the rocket. Rockets auto launch when all slots are full. Since they might not have a full stack, the full signal activates a 30 second timer which enables all inserters to attempt to fill any slots it can. This one is imperfect but better than nothing.
    Screenshot 2024-03-05 at 12.33.19 AM.png
     
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    Scotttheking

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  • #2,506
    CPX said:
    Definitely more effort into a circuit than I ever have. Most complicated original design I managed involves adding latches for whatevs.
    Click to expand...
    Happy to share any info I’ve learned. But looking at what some others have done, I feel like a rookie.

    I also built a pulse generator which activated the satellite (signal receiver) for 2 seconds out of sixty, then kept it on if there was an active request, before deciding that using 15? combinators doing it for a building which uses 2MW probably isn’t worth it.
    signal senders only activate if they have a request, because that’s one combinator and a power switch. But they also use a lot more power.
     
    CPX

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  • #2,512
    I recently discovered that circuited belts are way easier to use for balancing throughput than balancers. Basically, pick any input or output point that's equivalent and slap a hold reader on every second-to-last belt and an enable "only if resource greater than or equal to" with the setting being resource * 8 * number of belts. Got a block that produces 16 belts of output to trains? Set the limit to 128 so the train only loads when the belt segment prior is fully compressed.

    That's way easier on processing and space than a fucking 16x16 balancer.
     
    CPX

    CPX

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  • #2,514
    Drizzt321 said:
    Or get yourself mini loaders or Krastorio which has their own loader version.
    Click to expand...

    I've got Mini Loaders and three different standalone loaders, but none of them address belt balancing directly. When you get certain large factory blocks with significant lengths from the trains, they don't always consume/produce perfectly even. Farther ASM lines have a significant "spool up" time while closer ASMs may run dry even though the supplying train stop reads enough supplies to prevent a new delivery, leading to the output production lines going to the supplying train station for pickup having some uneven loading itself (spool-up/run dry lanes).

    The simplest fix is to ensure lanes never ever run dry but having at least some insurance at the output loading station for even loading can prevent other problems.
     
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    Drizzt321

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  • #2,515
    CPX said:
    I've got Mini Loaders and three different standalone loaders, but none of them address belt balancing directly. When you get certain large factory blocks with significant lengths from the trains, they don't always consume/produce perfectly even. Farther ASM lines have a significant "spool up" time while closer ASMs may run dry even though the supplying train stop reads enough supplies to prevent a new delivery, leading to the output production lines going to the supplying train station for pickup having some uneven loading itself (spool-up/run dry lanes).

    The simplest fix is to ensure lanes never ever run dry but having at least some insurance at the output loading station for even loading can prevent other problems.
    Click to expand...
    For me, loaders balance just fine. Well, only when the output belt on one side is full. For me it outputs to either side from input either side.

    Or, potentially, put a small chest in between 2 loaders.
     
    CPX

    CPX

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  • #2,516
    Drizzt321 said:
    For me, loaders balance just fine. Well, only when the output belt on one side is full. For me it outputs to either side from input either side.

    Or, potentially, put a small chest in between 2 loaders.
    Click to expand...

    Hm? That's not what's going on. I mean big picture stuff. I'll try to get screencaps of what I mean later.
     
    CPX

    CPX

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  • #2,518
    I will say I finally figured out the Constructron mod. It's fantastic for anything that isn't pavement, landfill, and Factorissimo. The major drawback is that it they get hung up of a certain supply type isn't available. But unlike trying to use a train solution like CyberSyn, the Constructrons will move back to their home base and auto-trash all contents.

    Best to have some way of pushing coal, wood, and stone (if needed) from your mall somewhere that needs it...or an incinerator if you have that mod.

    But it is damn nice to drop an empty train block or tile print and only need to think about belt connections to the stations rather than having to park over it, figure out I forgot something else, go back to the mall, come back to the site, etc. Need to drop a dozen solar blocks? Plop the prints and don't even worry about loading the spider up.
     
    CPX

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  • #2,519
    Drizzt321 said:
    Ah, ok. Guess I'm not quite sure what you mean then.
    Click to expand...

    Okay, so here's what's going on:

    factorio highlight.jpg

    The red boxes highlight input lag caused by belts of differing length. Depending on the type of block, the platforms may simply read insufficiently empty or in the case of this green circuit built just require a fuckton of throughput.

    The blue box highlights a solution at the loading end where the loader-adjacent belts only operate when they detect 128 green circuits (8 items per straight belt x 16 belts). This isn't a problem with things like blue circuits or low density structures since they need such massive space for even a single compressed blue belt, but it's far more elegant for stuff like green circuits where the problem isn't getting lanes but rather keeping them even for the purposes of loading the platform.
     
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