In my opinion first three science packs are well balanced. Red science teach player to very basics of automation. Ore production, smelting, belts, inserters and assemblers. Green science teaches to automate the most needed thighs in building, belts and inserters. And blue science teaches oil, steel ...

I make always beginning base first. It has typically capacity of about one red belt of iron plates and one or two refineries. I have basic bus but I do not care much about layout or expandability in that phase. Typically I run that base until I get logistic bots and at least first speed and cargo up...

IRL trains that run in both directions have an engine on both ends of the train. I suspect a single headed train CAN reverse, however it would only ever be used to back it out of storage, connecting wagons, correcting position, etc, not for proper travel and certainly not in any automated process. ...

I use console commands to remove ores from by bases.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15170

Why are you so hung up on steam? Been there, done that, want something different. Besides this would mess with any map generation with "Starting area only" for water frequency as you're basically cut off from your end-game power. I like water tubings and also lakes and would never choose ...

I have several active provider chests near my base entrances as trashcans. I have also one trash car in my work train, in which I can put wood, stone, artifacts etc. when I have outdoor works. The trash car is automatically emptied to active provider chests. Because I have no use for wood, I have re...

I agree that it is typically not necessary to use blue belts if you have 4 lines for basic resources. But if you have more belts than four, complexity and area requirements (for example balancing) increase steeply. Computational requirements could also be a practical issue. I am sure that if I repla...

Think of them as ants. Some species of ants are capable of regulating what type of ant (soldier\worker\etc) will develop from a lavrae by changing conditions (nutrition, temperature). So "worker" small biters are changed by a biter adoption to a behemot "soldiers". OK. It makes ...

I think the use of blue belts shows the lack of planning (I do use a few and my statement stands). The use of blue belts every where shows a little laziness in your planing and gives no where to go when you find you do need a little more throughput. In my opinion you think from one side. There are ...

There is one problem. Waiting and boring copying things larger gives you an advantage in next step. That could be quite easy to simulate. Keep in mind what you have sent and mod next game to give them to you at start.

How many robot slots the roboport have? Is it full?

On my last map I used the RSO mod to produce a train friendly spacing of resources with hIgh water frequency set to very big, which produced an interesting map consisting of internconnected peninsulas, some large, some small, which creates some space challenges. I'm currently into the 90th hour of ...

But if you want to put in radioactivity as pollution you need to do the same with coal since you get more radioactive waste from coal ashes than from nuclear power plants. You would need to implement a full waste simulation instead of the general "pollution" factor we have now. Not necess...

Decay chain from uranium to lead takes billions of years. Of course the game should be balanced for gaming but I think that there should be some relation to real world in this kind of game. Your idea that you could make something useful from nuclear waste is good. However, I suggest that instead of ...

I thought that it could be done with some electrolyte stuff or so, but if such a machinery comes into existence it would have to be used by something else too to increase the re-usability, otherwise a Chemplant would have to do, which would also be somewhat weird. Real aluminium is produced by elec...

I don't think the bots will venture outside of a proper roboport boundary (but I haven't tested a loop with a hole in the middle, so I'm not certain on that). You should avoid it. I have corners in my defense line and robots try to run straight over the area without roboports. They lose their charg...

I have had aluminium in my mind. It would be more rare than iron and copper and used for robot frames, flying combat robots and low density structures. Maybe in processing units and higher tier armor equipment too. But I thought that it must have been been suggested about billion times. In my opinio...

There will not be simple general yes/no answer. Economics depends on your personal playstyle and objectives and also performance of your computer. If your playstyle is relatively straightforward run to launch couple of rockets and then you begin a new game, blue belts are probably not the best choic...

I think that better idea would be to make signal colors unambiguous and show color and distance to the next signal to the player. It would be player's responsibility to drive correctly and brake in time but it would also keep possible to break the rules if for example construction work or error in s...

Rails should be made circuit-connectable (as proposed before by others and myself). Then you could simply read the contents of individual wagons. It would also be ridiculously easy to implement. I agree. This would be better solution than additional conditions in train stops. It would keep train st...