New player, handling mistakes?
New player, handling mistakes?
Hi, I'm a new player (just got my first smelters up). I have iron, copper, stone, feeding in correctly, but i do not like the positioning of belts and want to restructure. This however result in the ore on belts going into my backpack. I can obviously transfer excess to crates, but this seems untidy and time consuming. Might there be a more efficient way of handling early design mistakes? Cheers
Re: New player, handling mistakes?
Cut off the supply (ore in this case) and let the belts drain over time. Can still be pretty annoying as that can take a while when consumption is low. And smelters store a lot of plates in the furnaces when they're backed up. Or it may result in copper not getting used because green circuits are out of iron
Re: New player, handling mistakes?
As Serenity said, start by cutting off the supply of ore - rotating one belt one half turn stops the ore coming from the miners from feeding the furnaces.
Rather than wait for the furnaces to use up the ore already on the belt, I remove the inserters to stop ore feeding into the furnaces. Then I extend the current belt, and wrap it back around to feed the ore already on the belt to where I want the new belt to be. Pick up the old belts as the line of ore moves on. If I am short of belts, I put down a few, go pick up the ones that are now empty, and repeat until I have the belts where I want them to go. Then go back and rotate that first belt back around to start the ore feeding from the miners again.
You can also turn the line of belts around, so the ore is going backwards, but that is time-consuming and fiddly work to turn each belt one at a time, and it is not always easy to see the belt direction when it is full of ore.
And you can do either of these with belts of forged plates coming out of the furnaces as well as the ore going into the furnaces.
One last tip: leave more room! It seems there will always be a few more things that you want to fit in as you update and improve your designs. And I know from having done it that it is sooo frustrating to move everything to a new design, and then too late realize that you have to - or at least want to - move everything all over again.
Rather than wait for the furnaces to use up the ore already on the belt, I remove the inserters to stop ore feeding into the furnaces. Then I extend the current belt, and wrap it back around to feed the ore already on the belt to where I want the new belt to be. Pick up the old belts as the line of ore moves on. If I am short of belts, I put down a few, go pick up the ones that are now empty, and repeat until I have the belts where I want them to go. Then go back and rotate that first belt back around to start the ore feeding from the miners again.
You can also turn the line of belts around, so the ore is going backwards, but that is time-consuming and fiddly work to turn each belt one at a time, and it is not always easy to see the belt direction when it is full of ore.
And you can do either of these with belts of forged plates coming out of the furnaces as well as the ore going into the furnaces.
One last tip: leave more room! It seems there will always be a few more things that you want to fit in as you update and improve your designs. And I know from having done it that it is sooo frustrating to move everything to a new design, and then too late realize that you have to - or at least want to - move everything all over again.
My own personal Factorio super-power - running out of power.
Re: New player, handling mistakes?
CTRL clicking is your friend.
Go ahead, get all that ore from the belts into your inventory. Don’t put it into crates though (unless you need to make room in your inventory); instead, put it into the furnaces after you’ve adjusted their positions. Furnaces can hold a whole stack of ore. Inserters only put a few into them, however, leaving a lot of room for the stray bits and pieces you pick up.
Stone Furnaces can hold one stack of ore(including stone), and one stack of fuel (coal). So if you are clearing an area and get a lot of stone in your inventory, chuck the stuff into the stone furnace column. If you get a lot of coal, chuck it into any of your furnace columns - stone, iron, copper, steel.
Oh, what’s that about CTRL-clicking? Puts the whole stack in, rather than opening the GUI for that machine.
Go ahead, get all that ore from the belts into your inventory. Don’t put it into crates though (unless you need to make room in your inventory); instead, put it into the furnaces after you’ve adjusted their positions. Furnaces can hold a whole stack of ore. Inserters only put a few into them, however, leaving a lot of room for the stray bits and pieces you pick up.
Stone Furnaces can hold one stack of ore(including stone), and one stack of fuel (coal). So if you are clearing an area and get a lot of stone in your inventory, chuck the stuff into the stone furnace column. If you get a lot of coal, chuck it into any of your furnace columns - stone, iron, copper, steel.
Oh, what’s that about CTRL-clicking? Puts the whole stack in, rather than opening the GUI for that machine.
Re: New player, handling mistakes?
Early game I just dump extra coal and ore into furnaces, plates into circuit assemblers, etc. You can ctrl-click and move the mouse over them to drain your inventory quickly.
Later in the game get the "logistics robot"s, then on your character inventory screen you can shift-click items to quick move them to the "trash-slots" and the bots will come take the stuff from you. On the "Logistics" tab you can also set up min-max amounts for bots to deliver to you and auto-trash. Then have chests around that can empty the common waste items delivered by bots, e.g. ore into furnaces, etc. *note, this UI changed a bit between 0.17 stable and 0.18 experimental, the basic idea is the same.
"Construction robot"s also make moving things a lot faster as they can construct and deconstruct belts, buildings, etc. Usually I'll try to make do and leave any major re-design until I get those as the first thing I do with oil.
Later in the game get the "logistics robot"s, then on your character inventory screen you can shift-click items to quick move them to the "trash-slots" and the bots will come take the stuff from you. On the "Logistics" tab you can also set up min-max amounts for bots to deliver to you and auto-trash. Then have chests around that can empty the common waste items delivered by bots, e.g. ore into furnaces, etc. *note, this UI changed a bit between 0.17 stable and 0.18 experimental, the basic idea is the same.
"Construction robot"s also make moving things a lot faster as they can construct and deconstruct belts, buildings, etc. Usually I'll try to make do and leave any major re-design until I get those as the first thing I do with oil.