Factorio Forums

I'm having a problem that doesn't seem to be covered in your tutorials. I'm trying to set up a reliable power supply to power my labs and inserters and the amount of power produced by my steam engines fluctuates wildly,all around the place. The location I'm using is a bit removed from my main base,but still I don't understand why it jumps around like this. I've tried increasing the ratio of boilers to steam engines,relocating them so each one was directly connected to a boiler and nothing seems to work.

The ratio is 14 boilers in chain to 10 steam engines. You shouldn't get any fluctuations if you fuel them constantly

mICHAEL wrote:I'm having a problem that doesn't seem to be covered in your tutorials. I'm trying to set up a reliable power supply to power my labs and inserters and the amount of power produced by my steam engines fluctuates wildly,all around the place. The location I'm using is a bit removed from my main base,but still I don't understand why it jumps around like this. I've tried increasing the ratio of boilers to steam engines,relocating them so each one was directly connected to a boiler and nothing seems to work.

Steam generators only produce what you need. The wildly flucuating power supply may be a function of wildly fluctuating power demand. Make sure you have the boiler to steam engine ratio correct (14 boilers to 10 steam engines as Marbles says) and you should be right. Each bank of 10 steam engines will give 5MW of power.

Ok,thanks for your help. This is all very new to me,so I get confused about such things easily. I was literally pulling my hair out,trying to figure out why my power wasn't doing what I intended it to do,so I could get on with building my industrial base up.I notice that only some of my Boilers are working right now,but I assume that will change as my power usage grows?

mICHAEL wrote:I notice that only some of my Boilers are working right now,but I assume that will change as my power usage grows?

Exactly, the power station will only use whatever boilers it needs to get the water to 100 degrees.

Have fun with it!

I'm sorry to bother you,but I could use some help with my oil production Network. I did have a decent system to start with,but when I started adding multiple Chemical plants into it to refine my heavy and light oil into something I actually needed,I managed to screw up the system to no end. Now I have full storage tanks of various oil types everywhere,and pipes as well everywhere. I'd be better off restarting from scratch,but that would result in loosing a sizeable of oil,which is in my pipes. Would it be possible for you to help me fix it,as I don't know where to stat,frankly. The download link to my save is https://www.dropbox.com/s/t4be4ucwjwpvg ... 3.zip?dl=0

Hey Michael, it sounds like fun and I'll definitely have a crack at it. Shoot the factory through to my email rootnegative at gmail dot com and I'll have a look I do this kind of thing regularly in a series i call Factorio Fixit. The forum thread is here. You can find the playlist to the entire series here.

EDIT;

I figure while I'm here I'll post these as well

Compression & Throughput
Buffer Storage & Overhead
Nimbleness & Intelligence
Modular & Expandable Factories
Efficiency
Negative Feedback Loops
Cracking
Bottlenecks & The Inserter Stack Bonus
Automated Minefield

The latest bunch of tutorials to be added in.

I showed a bit into the videos and for the video Compression & Throughput the throughput in your first example is exactly the same!

I think I need to clarify this a bit.

Speed
Is the speed of the belts. It is measured in tiles per second or tick. See https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... elts#Items
Well, sound stupid, but let's just continue.

Distance
This is how much length of tiles you transport something.

I counted in the video a length of 18 tiles for both belts.

Density
is how much items lay on a length of belt (we are speaking here about belts only, right?). This is measured in item per tile.

So when I stopped the video I could compare it: On the express-belt side there are in general 6 pieces of coal, on the right in general 18.

(You see something: 18 / 6 = 3 ) The items on the left side are 3 time less dense than on the right. But as we all know, the express belts are 3 time faster than the basic. What does that mean?

Throughput

This is items per time. It has nothing to do with speed! And also nothing with the distance.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throughput - this defines it as production speed, which is - well - "items per time".

For the belts it is https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ottlenecks
Why? On the left side is the express belt, but the items have a low density. This can be obviously seen, if you compare it to the right side with the basic belt: the items there have a much bigger density.

And when you think about it clearly: The left and right belt must have the equal throughput, cause they are feed both by basic inserters, with the same speed, this can also be clearly seen in the video.

The only difference is - of course - the speed. The first items on the express belt get faster to the top. But after the belts are filled, there is no difference and you see that also, when you now stop the inserters down, the items on the left and rights side are moved to the top and when you count both chests after the last item on the basic belt, you will see, that there is exactly the same number of items in it.

Edit: ok, there is a small difference in throughput, when we look into the chests! The difference is the amount if items, that are faster in the left side chest, cause the belt is faster. But over time this difference in throughput will get quite small. But when you turn off the lower inserters and wait, till all items are moved into the upper chests, the throughput is again identical.


Compression

Compression is about trying to achieve the maximum density on a belt. A state where the items are placed one after another. In other words:
The maximum density on a belt.

Well, now you need to know, that the density on a belt depends on, if the items are moving or not. This is explained here: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... he_results

This explains the size of items, when they are laying on the belt in maximum compression and moving. The density is the reciprocal value:
This is, when the items on the belts move. When the items stop (cause the belt jams...) the density is of course 3,571428571 item/tile.


Pfff..... hands hurt...

Ok, I hope this helps to be more clear in your videos, because - on my sight - you mix continuously the terms.

PS: I like this series, you have a talent for bringing down complicated concepts to its essential basics.

Nice analysis ssilk. That's more or less what I was thinking as I watched, but wasn't really sure how to put it tactfully, and still explain the problem fully. Again, good job.

Thank you for the tuts -root and big thank you to ssilk. Really helps when we all use the same terms.

ssilk wrote:Ok, I hope this helps to be more clear in your videos, because - on my sight - you mix continuously the terms.

I'll rewatch the video and compare with your notes. Thanks for writing them. I probably do mix up the terms. If I can straighten this out and make the video better, I will. I'll take down the old one and replace it with a new updated version

Three new tutorials going up in the next three days:

Basic Trains
Intermediate Trains
Advancedish Trains

A quick note about the "advancedish trains" tutorial. It's not the "be all & end all" when it comes to train design. Its just some ideas on how to get your train system to work smoothly and some rough rules to base your design on.

The latter two are set to private/friends only? Not public in any case.

They will be released tomorrow and the day after.

Ah, guess the "in the next 3 days" part makes sense in that context.

The first thing I though about when seeing this, was "Tutorial: How to throw grenades under yourself"

ferness setup foall sageis of the game

Fixing a Mainbus....

you didnt fix anything. all you did was give an early heavy user on your main bus an independant sourse of materials. your sollution works only when the belt going to this heavy user backs up. that will only happen if your alternate source (the nwe requester chest) provides more materials than are used by the production on that belt. this does the same thing as disconnecting that belt user from the bus altogether.

So as far as i can tell after watching this video twice, is that your advice for fixing main bus issues is to disconnect the heavy early users from the bus and give it a seperate source of materials, cause otherwise they take materials away from the later users.

in your example with the coal... what "fixed" the problem was no the requester chests, but the fact that you limited space on the providers, and tehreby basicaly stopped production of your "big users that were taking up all the resourses".

I've had small issues with some of your tutorials, but never said anything cause for people who know less then what you're teaching, they're still worth watching. this one is just giving false information as far as i can tell. its misleading, and will make people spend large amounts of time to set up what you suggest, and then see NO difference at all for all their work.

Sorry, I've only just seen this now.

To answer your question, to fix a mainbus, you need to "re prioritize" the heavy users and to try balance out the imbalance inherent in a main bus with splitters. That is, as you go down the line, you get 50% of the input every time and it dwindles to a fractional x% of the original input.

The easiest way to re prioritize is to use an input spike, where you can stuff extra resources into spur. I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I've never seen a situation where this didn't work, so I'd love to see an example.

As for your "issues" with my tutorials, you're welcome to do one of two things. Offer constructive criticism to assist me in making better ones (which I would greatly appreciate and so would the community) or go make your own.

Some of the tutorials are outdated with 0.12. For example train setup without chain signals ("Never cross lines" makes no sense anymore).

Do you plan to update them?