Upgrading the Tutorial Factory

[GreatWyrmGold]

After weeks of watching too many Factorio videos, I recently tried the demo and bought the game. Despite having watched those videos and played that demo, I didn't have much confidence in my understanding of the game (which is a good thing—I might understand how to organize a main bus, but that knowledge isn't worth much if I struggle with assembling it or don't know how many of each thing I'll need).
I started the "New Hope" campaign and settled down for some learning and crafting. The factory provided didn't look very scalable, but my experience with the First Steps campaign taught me that I wouldn't be spending long enough on any one map for that to matter. As I started researching the things I'd need to make green science and then cars, I slowly began to realize that that wouldn't be the case here. I was constantly trying to find new ways to expand facilities (those that came with the map and those I made) which were never intended to be expanded, and in the process created an ever-more-unworkable tangle of spaghetti. Eventually, I wound up frustrated enough to quit and come to the forums for help. (Getting killed by biters probably didn't help.)

What's the best way to make the New Hope factory more scalable, and to add more functions to it? (I'm hoping for general tips and ideas, not specific premade factories.) Should I tear it all down and start over, or can the initial factory be salvaged? Is there a point to making a microbus, or should I make a production square or a preplanned spaghetti or what? (And is there a trick to dealing with the biters other than remembering to reload the turrets before the biters start attacking them?)

[Koub]

My perception of the current campain is that it's not designed to bring you to make what we all call "a factory", but to teach you the basics os how everything works on Factorio. Inserters, assembling machines, turrets, power generation, automation, ...
It does not teach the different ways to build a maintainable, upgradable factory that can make it to space science and beyond. This, you learn from streams and let's plays.
The campaign is expected a complete rewrite before 1.0 launch however, so things may/should change.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm more or less aware of that. However, I still think it's worth my time...though it's not quite worth the time it takes to complete the campaign with only one red science assembler. But I found it difficult to modify the existing factory to provide more than that, so I figured I'd ask if there was any way to salvage it or if I should go scorched-Earth.

[Mr. Tact]

If you are saying that in your efforts to build a more extensive factory and have run out of resources, then no -- there's nothing for you to do but restart or go on.

[Jap2.0]

Resources aren't a problem. I spent probably 15 hours on New Hope 3 in the demo - I might be able to find some pictures or something sometime. The main problem is the lack of logistics 1, so you have to design your factory without splitters (which is fairly easily done with inserters), and the main challenge, no underground belts (or anything like red inserters that can do similar things). This means that you have to keep all your resources in seperate rings around your factory (note: you can use double-sided belts, which I probably should have more), so if an assembler needs multiple resources, it needs to fit between those belts. No fast inserters or second tier assemblers also pose comparatively minor challenges.

[bobucles]

The new hope missions are old. Very old. New Hope 4 is actually super bugged and broken because of all the core patch changes over the years.

By "new hope" base I assume OP is referring to NH2. It is a very substantial mission and there is a lot to be done. Here's a few tips:
1) The car and chest at the very start have a lot of items hidden inside. Grab them!
2) Use the starting resources. The starting coal should be enough for the whole mission.
3) Gobble up all the laser turrets on the map. There's a nearly destroyed laser turret near the steam engines, 2 wounded ones at the SE copper outpost, and 8 (EIGHT!) at the NW iron outpost. These are your babies. Defend your hottest combat spots with lasers to save ammo.
4) You will NEED to grab iron from the iron outpost, but you may not have enough iron to actually build the train. Drive over by car car and pick up the ore manually. I need to take 2-3 loads of ore before the train is rolling.
5) The final objective is a lot of busy work. Build up a lot of smelters to get the sheer amount of iron, steel and red ammo the mission demands.

Combat tips:
1) Use your 11 laser turrets to remove biters west and north of iron outpost. These are the most annoying nests in the entire mission. Scout out the nests south of the ore mine, draw a line from them to your ore mine, and hold them off with a wall next to the lake + 2-3 lasers. Pretty easy.
2) Remove the biter nests north of your main base. There is a choke point near the water that can be defended with walls and minimal firepower.
3) There's a choke point east of your boilers. This can be defended with walls and minimal firepower.
4) The rest of the lasers can protect your main base. The worst attacks will come from the south west and south east because you already cleared out the most annoying north+NW nests.
5) don't lose your lasers! They are irreplaceable, you can't research them or build more. Keep the walls thick, repair them to full, and support them with gun turrets. Let the pewpew do the heavy lifting.

I spent probably 15 hours on New Hope 3 in the demo - I might be able to find some pictures or something sometime. The main problem is the lack of logistics 1, so you have to design your factory without splitters

New hope 3

Design your factory

Uh. What? I understand the mission technically gives you assemblers and a heap of starting resources, but there's no reason to use those at all. If anything they're a distraction from the mission as a whole.

The most appropriate description of NH3 is a combat tutorial. The player starts with a lot of guns and grenades, and your main goal is to murderhobo through a few biter nests to the end. Along the way you get fancy new weapons to play with. All very tutorial like.

[Aeternus]

Scaling the new hope mission factories won't work without modifying the maps they are on. There aren't enough resources on the map to maintain production for very long. In my playthrough I completely depleted the iron mine... Had to set up an auxiliary from a small ore field closer to my base.

[Jap2.0]

The new hope missions are old. Very old. New Hope 4 is actually super bugged and broken because of all the core patch changes over the years.

By "new hope" base I assume OP is referring to NH2. It is a very substantial mission and there is a lot to be done. Here's a few tips:
1) The car and chest at the very start have a lot of items hidden inside. Grab them!
2) Use the starting resources. The starting coal should be enough for the whole mission.
3) Gobble up all the laser turrets on the map. There's a nearly destroyed laser turret near the steam engines, 2 wounded ones at the SE copper outpost, and 8 (EIGHT!) at the NW iron outpost. These are your babies. Defend your hottest combat spots with lasers to save ammo.
4) You will NEED to grab iron from the iron outpost, but you may not have enough iron to actually build the train. Drive over by car car and pick up the ore manually. I need to take 2-3 loads of ore before the train is rolling.
5) The final objective is a lot of busy work. Build up a lot of smelters to get the sheer amount of iron, steel and red ammo the mission demands.

Combat tips:
1) Use your 11 laser turrets to remove biters west and north of iron outpost. These are the most annoying nests in the entire mission. Scout out the nests south of the ore mine, draw a line from them to your ore mine, and hold them off with a wall next to the lake + 2-3 lasers. Pretty easy.
2) Remove the biter nests north of your main base. There is a choke point near the water that can be defended with walls and minimal firepower.
3) There's a choke point east of your boilers. This can be defended with walls and minimal firepower.
4) The rest of the lasers can protect your main base. The worst attacks will come from the south west and south east because you already cleared out the most annoying north+NW nests.
5) don't lose your lasers! They are irreplaceable, you can't research them or build more. Keep the walls thick, repair them to full, and support them with gun turrets. Let the pewpew do the heavy lifting.

I spent probably 15 hours on New Hope 3 in the demo - I might be able to find some pictures or something sometime. The main problem is the lack of logistics 1, so you have to design your factory without splitters

New hope 3

Design your factory

Uh. What? I understand the mission technically gives you assemblers and a heap of starting resources, but there's no reason to use those at all. If anything they're a distraction from the mission as a whole.

The most appropriate description of NH3 is a combat tutorial. The player starts with a lot of guns and grenades, and your main goal is to murderhobo through a few biter nests to the end. Along the way you get fancy new weapons to play with. All very tutorial like.

I don't think we;re talking about the same page here - I think I might have a wrong name. It's the third (and last) level of the tutorial - it might actually be First Steps. It's the one on this map (sorry for the bad pic - I'm just pulling something out from an old bug report I made. It actually allowed you to make stone brocks/paths as well, which I made use of. Anyway, back on topic):



Looking back, it is first steps - sorry for giving it the wrong name. New Hope isn't included in the demo.

[Jap2.0]

Hey guys, I feel stupid now. It is New Hope - I read that he was playing the demo and then must have missed the part about him buying the game and playing New Hope.

[bobucles]

New Hope 1 is a continuation of the First steps tutorial. It gives a good starting point to jump into research.

The starting area is a bit claustrophobic for everything the mission demands. I recommend moving the smelters or the power supply to the west end of the map to make more room. You'll likely need to cut down the SW trees to use that space. DON'T try building north of the dirty lake. You will have a bad time. Treat the starting power poles as your northern limit.

The starting iron isn't really enough but the starting coal and copper should get you through with little difficulty. There's a good ore patch to the south east that's pretty easy to grab.

One thing that players may struggle with is that biters have an "aggro zone" that isn't shown anywhere in the game. If you build too close to a nest they will send merciless wave after wave against you, but if you pull back just a few tiles they will stop completely. It is very easy for a newbie to expand into biter territory thinking it's "safe", and then get completely overwhelmed by the attacks. The devs should definitely try to make this concept more clear to players because it is easily the difference between a normal game and getting ganked.

[Jap2.0]

Okay, thanks for that. It's been quite a while since I've played the campaign (I don't think I ever actually finishied it - I should do that sometime)