I feel like the biters encroaching on me is far more limiting than resource acquisition. Conveyors are easy to make, defense/offense is not. and oil fields have a particularly large base pollution factor, which only draws more attention. On top of that, the farther out you build, the bigger the swa...

Oil is a bit messy.. pardon the pun, but it's an accurate description of its problem. Oil is that gremlin that breaks your **** at the drop a hat. if there is ANY kink in design, whether it's layout, consumption ratios, or even delayed research, it will break. Unlike any other process where you can ...

ESC -> Restart
repeat.

I have really bad luck with starting areas.

Yeah, first time can be a hassle. Don't build an oil industry until you have both refinement and fluid logistics. they are worthless without one another. While you're building your oil infrastructure, begin researching plastics, then lubricants, then sulfur. Plastics are what you need to make the pu...

Thanks for the saves guys, I will see what I can come up with :) @Zourin if you could dig up that save that would be great - the screenshot looks promising. I found the save. It's Pre-oil industry era, but there are several good bits and pieces to be had. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6p-KD89Wc...

Distractor bots. Just lay down a small pile of them in the base and let them get to work. Being laser based and unlimited, they're generally better than turrets for most combat situations while you draw off most of the defending force, allowing the bots to wreck base with general impunity, although ...

That may not be a bad idea to extend the 'look for gas' range on them. Some areas, like roboticized train stations, are notorious for having piles of robots activate simultaneously and you can easily predict the need for more than one roboport to service them. For everywhere else, you may have robop...

It's not the 'most recent' version, but still one of my classic screenshots I sometimes show interested friends. Sadly, my friends see that and freak out. It takes a special someone to love inserters.

Now I have to go home and see if I can dig up the save file.

Sexy. Elegant. Efficient.

.. I really have to reconsider my Factorio addiction after finding transportation belts 'sexy'.

Slots! Of course - they have slots! Wow, I knew there had to be some other benefit over steel furnaces besides just using electricity. Also, thank you for the tip about localized steel with electric furnaces. That would also make setting up a wall factory much easier. In anycase, thanks for straigh...

The answer you're looking for is: Distractor Bots Laser based (only thing that works on Big Blues), and you can throw out an unlimited number of them at one time, and don't require purple packs. It's a saving grace of this game's hobbled combat system where you simply can't go Iron Man on the alien ...

Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and I use both. Steel Furnaces are good for refurbished stone smelting where you're already routing coal or solid fuel to them. This is more energy efficient than routing the fuel to steam plants, since you lose energy potential at the boilers. The downside ...

Finish the graphical upgrades.
FInish the new train tweaks
Scrub the tech trees.
Get off the pot and put it on Steam.

Another thing that bothers me is that the game is pretty much linear. Yes, automation is fun, but every time a player starts from a scratch, he/she has to do all the same things from the start. Mine iron, copper, (coal), make automation for red vials, make automation for bullets(that is also option...

to follow up, Pumps are a bit awkward to use, but very useful. Say, for instance, you have a storage tank next to some pumpjacks. If you put a pump to push the oil from the jacks into the tank, you can begin to fill the tank without having to wait for the pipes to fill. Logistics are a nightmare, at...

Given the general size of the 'active' radar area, in combination with the slow explore-rescan process, are both good reasons to deploy multiple radars. Explore faster, and be aware of incoming threats.

Logistic ones are also in conflict with the role of bots: bots are for local transport of few items. They will probably get nerfed a few times, because you still can easily use them to transport all ores and plates. Bots are wholly inferior to the throughput capabilities of belts, not to mention th...

a single train with five wagons has the same 'space' as a car, but can be loaded/unloaded a lot faster (higher throughput), and wholly automated. The only drawback to trains are the huge amounts of space they take up. 4x4 tracks, and huge loading/unloading logistics aren't cheap when it comes to rea...

Belts, or at the very least basic belts, are meant to operate in a zero-electricity (burner) environment.. considering how many tiles of belts a player winds up laying, even small power requirements could cause pretty devastating consumption levels. Although.. that said, the idea of a 'belt circuits...

Deviator wrote:I like to setup a large mine field and make sure I stay far enough ahead while they chase me through it. Why do something clean when you can do it messy and have lots more fun?

This would be entirely feasible, if construction drones replaced the mines.. I wonder.