Development and Discussion

[Zyrconia]

Thanks ridesdragons and BlakeMW for the plastic related answers!

I know how to process gases for plastic and have a standard stable build, but it has some problems:
- it is huge
- with the initial tech you only get a small drip of plastic. That huge setup can't keep up with 2 advanced chemical plants going 100% on plastic.
- you end up with a lot of side stuff you can't process with your tech.

The side stuff creates weird loop. You initially can't process it, so yous tore it. You unlock tech, but by this time you have a huge backlog. You build a huge setup to eat your backlog. It goes trough it and you tear up you big processing setup and make a small balanced one that eats up what you produce. You end up with another backlog. Repeat.

Ultimately I end up with so much synthesis gas by the time I can actually use it:
viewtopic.php?f=185&t=19652&p=242658#p242658

So I was thinking that maybe on my newest save I can avoid this problem. Oh well...

The building stuff up so you can tear it up is a actually a weird game flow introduced by Bob a bit and perfected by Angel. I don't necessarily dislike it but you got to admit it is a bit weird.

I attached my latest started base as an example. Arguably, the vanilla Factorio game starts once you unlock green tech. For Bob's, it is more about those basic electronic boards. This goes double for Angel's: you need filter inserters. The game doesn't start before filter inserters because of sorting. So you end up with a big functional base, like in the attachment, only to produce BEBs. After you will tear up most of your smelting and parts of the circuit setup that produces solder.

The entire SW corner of the map is going byebye and will be replaced by sorting + smelting:

image.png (326.98 KiB) Viewed 8631 times

[BlakeMW]

Ultimately I end up with so much synthesis gas by the time I can actually use it:

That does not sound right. Synthesis gas processing is the same tier as oil to synth gas cracking (both are 50 blue science techs) so if you have the ability to make synth gas you should be only a couple of techs away from being able to use it make plastic via methanol->propene.

Also you don't have to store unusable gas fractions.... you can vent them and in the long run it is quite inconsequential if your bootstrap setup was wasteful.

[Zyrconia]

Ultimately I end up with so much synthesis gas by the time I can actually use it:

That does not sound right. Synthesis gas processing is the same tier as oil to synth gas cracking (both are 50 blue science techs) so if you have the ability to make synth gas you should be only a couple of techs away from being able to use it make plastic via methanol->propene.

Also you don't have to store unusable gas fractions.... you can vent them and in the long run it is quite inconsequential if your bootstrap setup was wasteful.

Well, I'll try again today to see. Last time it took me 20 hours to get to the point to have the infrastructure to do all the processing.

[jodokus31]

Maybe you don't even need trains anymore .

I hope, you just kidding. Trains are recommended unless you want a big monolithic monster-base

In my latest map I barely reached green science and blue is still far away, but I can't stop thinking about plastic already.
I'm starting to think that the full Petrochem setup that uses mostly natural gas and a bit of oil and has 20 by-products is more of a late game setup. Am I right?

What setup do you use for just plastic in the early game? Is there something you can set up quickly early game to give you some plastic or should I go with the full setup and many pressure tanks for the by-products that you can't use without blue science or higher?

You can make methanol from wood or green algea if you have bioprocessing, which is a non-petrochem way.
And what about propene from naphta?

[torne]

Sheet metal coils are only 4x the material density of plates, so you're still going to need trains, but you can get away with shorter or less frequent train services if most of the materials you are transporting are in these compressed forms.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

So, I have a question regarding the catalysts in use.

Has there been discussion on their lack of catalytic behavior at all? Because having just gone over the nitric acid chain, I introduced my skull to the keyboard when I noticed that the catalyst only returns the catalyst frame but not the catalytic material. (That, and an engineer that plays the game with me was like: 'What? NO!" when traced that the catalyst consumes the ores you use to make it and doesn't return them. He also pointed out an alternate process for nitric acid production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland ... de_process)


Either way, I'm wondering if catalysts don't have catalyst behavior (They are never consumed, only cycled) because code issue, or recipe shenanigans, or is it a case of 'more complexity because complexity is more to do' ?


Thanks.

[BlakeMW]

Either way, I'm wondering if catalysts don't have catalyst behavior (They are never consumed, only cycled) because code issue, or recipe shenanigans, or is it a case of 'more complexity because complexity is more to do' ?

I think the relevant concept is catalyst deactivation - although a catalyst doesn't get consumed in the chemical reaction per-se, it still becomes less effective over time until it needs to be replaced or regenerated (for example it might get physically gunked up, or react with other chemicals that aren't a part of the primary reaction). In principle it ought to be always possible to regenerate a catalyst and use it again because the raw elements are still there but in practice it will often be easier to just acquire fresh, untainted catalyst. At an industrial level recycling is generally only done if it is the cheapest option, and it often isn't, in Factorio ore is available in great abundance so Factorio engineer would sensibly avoid coming up with catalyst regeneration processes and just waste a bit of extra ore because he is in no fear of running out of it.

Catalyst deactivation, the loss over time of catalytic activity and/or selectivity, is a problem of great and continuing concern in the practice of industrial catalytic processes. Costs to industry for catalyst replacement and process shutdown total billions of dollars per year. Time scales for catalyst deactivation vary considerably; for example, in the case of cracking catalysts, catalyst mortality may be in the order of seconds, while in ammonia synthesis the iron catalyst may last for 5–10 years. But it is inevitable that all catalysts will decay.

-- link

[Durabys]

What I would like as well is not only sheet coil but also sheet iron and sheet steel and sheet 'x'. X being any metal based material in-game.

[Gladaed]

Why do the gases gain in volume when you crack them? It should be 1 to 1 or 1 to <1, As the amount of molecules doesn't change. (1 Mol of atoms of a gas always has the same volume if you change the type of gas.)

[Termak]

Why do the gases gain in volume when you crack them? It should be 1 to 1 or 1 to <1, As the amount of molecules doesn't change. (1 Mol of atoms of a gas always has the same volume if you change the type of gas.)

Looks like 120 -> 120 for me, you forgetting the steam ?

[Zyrconia]

Ultimately I end up with so much synthesis gas by the time I can actually use it:

That does not sound right. Synthesis gas processing is the same tier as oil to synth gas cracking (both are 50 blue science techs) so if you have the ability to make synth gas you should be only a couple of techs away from being able to use it make plastic via methanol->propene.

Also you don't have to store unusable gas fractions.... you can vent them and in the long run it is quite inconsequential if your bootstrap setup was wasteful.

Well, this is Factorio, isn't it? I tend to get super sidetracked. Not on vanilla, but on Angel's there is much to build. Don't you get sidetracked?

It is very easy to want to do processing, but by the time you get to it, hours have passed. Or you want to do it, but lack some sort of resource for the filters. With Angel's it is easy to set up a temporary direct Saph/Stir smelter and don't bother with sorting until you tech up. I know it is inefficient, but it is not important early game. Plus I hate Angel's one ore => multiple ore recipes, because they have so low of a yield and are hard to manage without storage. So I usually wait for trains and the first Jiv outpost.

To give you an example: last time I showed a screenshot, 4:20 hours in. 2-3 small iron lines, a few basic automatic necsities and BEBs. The next goal was to tear down vanilla smelting and go with Angel Sorting and Refining.

With BEBs, I created a new filter inserter setup for all 4 static ores, a big one and then continued to build the build every refining/smelting building + other necessities like belts, poles, lights, rails factory. By the time I was done, 3 hours have passed. I even created the lines and put down the assemblers for T2 buildings, before realizing that they need Assembler 3 and blue science.

Finally I was able to get started with sorting. But sorting is slow, so I thought that I should upgrade to T2 building, so I needed mud. First time doing mud (thanks for the hint on seafloor pumps) and after quite the long time it took me to come up with a perfect setup for mud, I got mud. Alas, T2 sorters go from 0.75 speed to 1.0, so not really worth it. But I have confidence that Angel did the math as always.

After this I did T2 smelting for iron and copper, did gray science and by the time I was done, I ran out of the old copper from the basic vanilla melting, so copper was dead, steel was eaten all up and Rampant mod finally decided to kick in and I'm attacked all the time and have no copper or steel. I need to plop down oxygen in like 2 minutes the next session and restart copper (oxygen was missing from my smelting setup) and set up a wall. Then steel Smelting.

TLDR: sidetracked! I'm now 10 hours in!

Imagine that instead I set up some basic plastic. The side product pressure tanks would pile up like crazy.

But that is what I love about these mods: there is something new to build non-stop and new setups to try. In vanilla, I already know all the setups by heart, there is nothing new to build, only to build really big.

Maybe you don't even need trains anymore .

I hope, you just kidding. Trains are recommended unless you want a big monolithic monster-base

I am joking, but considering that as a beginner on my first maps, I didn't use trains, and that usually I put a blue line/train wagon, with 4x compression, if you run a single blue belt to an ore patch, even a super distant one, you get 4 blue belts. I'm sure you can launch a few rockets with this setup, but it is hardly optimal.

[BlakeMW]

With Angel's it is easy to set up a temporary direct Saph/Stir smelter and don't bother with sorting until you tech up. I know it is inefficient, but it is not important early game.

It's actually pretty efficient, you only really get any gains out of sorting once you start using the advanced smelting, and even then the gains aren't big until you get ore processing.

[Zyrconia]

With Angel's it is easy to set up a temporary direct Saph/Stir smelter and don't bother with sorting until you tech up. I know it is inefficient, but it is not important early game.

It's actually pretty efficient, you only really get any gains out of sorting once you start using the advanced smelting, and even then the gains aren't big until you get ore processing.

If by efficient you mean yield, sure, I agree.

But raw crushed angel ore smelting is less dense than vanilla ore smelting. Or at least it was last year. Maybe Angel tweaked the numbers. You can fit less on a yellow belt. Purely a belt throughput problem, not a yield one. So you need to build bigger. Which can be a small problem early game. You know the drill. You need iron to get iron going. And after you have a base that eats up 3-4 saturated belts or crushed ore, you really will see the difference in belt capacity once you replace ores. Or add an extra line and then you don't care.

PS: I did some experimenting yesterday with Angel's bots and found that while there are some useful differences between construction and cargo ports, the difference is mostly visual. You still need a huge array of extenders, so you can choose based on looks if you wish.

PS2: Has anybody done a pure Angel's logistic bots base? Or a mega base? Nilaus has something.

[BlakeMW]

In the early game density isn't a big deal and the crushing+smelting has high space density (by eliminating the sorter and slag) and high spammability. Before ore processing there really seems very little incentive to use sorting unless you want glass for bob's greenhouses or somesuch.

[Zyrconia]

Oh FFS!

I restarted again! This time with pure Angel's gameplay, smelting from the beginning, no greenhouses and so on. This is the first time I'm doing wood the Angel way and it looks like you can use that to get plastic too. Because I was asking for early game plastic. It takes 30 seconds, but still: you pull it out of thin air. Well, actually you convert your crushed stone to it. Win win.

I got to say Angel, your mods are flowing better and better each version!

[Zyrconia]

So I'm not necessarily stuck on resin, but I'm having a few problems. I could go with Bob's way, but I decided to go with Angel's. So no simple wood to resin. I'm also fairly early, with a pretty well oiled red and greed science base.

I kept going over the options, and I think the easiest way to get it at this stage is though urea gas synthesis and something else synthesis, the one that requires silver and aluminium. Is this the correct way?

If yes, that is a pretty clever way to force you to "tech" up. You need real iron and copper ore, so no more saphirite put into traditional smelters. And you need to get aluminium and silver going, which you don't need early game and you are also forced into chunk sorting for silver.

[Arch666Angel]

So I'm not necessarily stuck on resin, but I'm having a few problems. I could go with Bob's way, but I decided to go with Angel's. So no simple wood to resin. I'm also fairly early, with a pretty well oiled red and greed science base.

I kept going over the options, and I think the easiest way to get it at this stage is though urea gas synthesis and something else synthesis, the one that requires silver and aluminium. Is this the correct way?

If yes, that is a pretty clever way to force you to "tech" up. You need real iron and copper ore, so no more saphirite put into traditional smelters. And you need to get aluminium and silver going, which you don't need early game and you are also forced into chunk sorting for silver.

Easiest way to get some small amounts for the catalysts is actually getting it from crystallization.

[BlakeMW]

Easiest way to get some small amounts for the catalysts is actually getting it from crystallization.

Tho getting silver from crystallizing is annoying due to the tech requirement, resin 1 is green tech and sorting silver/bauxite is green tech, but getting silver/bauxite from crystallizing is blue tech... so if you want to use resin 1 to make white circuits to make blue beakers you need to get silver/bauxite via sorting.

[Raphaello]

I am getting a weird coolant behaviour - I am running a setup of 3 rows per cooling recipe of 2 cooling towers, 4 filtration mk2 units for my 4 strand casting machines. The issue I have is that amount of coolant in this close loop increase over time until the whole system gets blocked.
Filtration is supposed to take coolant away from the system (100 used becomes 80 coolant) so I have no idea where it comes from. Any thoughts?

It's my first run using full AB so I might doing something wrong

[Zyrconia]

Easiest way to get some small amounts for the catalysts is actually getting it from crystallization.

Great idea! Random raw ore belts that go to filter generation never really fit in with the feng shui of my bases. I'll try it!

But that's all I'm going to use it for, not for resin. You see, I need resin to get blue science going, so I need a green science way of doing so.

I'm closing in on 600 hours of Factorio and I don't have one grand base to show off. That's because I love restarting and trying out new builds all the time. Or if I'm closing in on 20 hours on a map and blue science is not running full pelt or otherwise I'm tearing up old builds and thinking that next time I should do it like this from the start, I tend to loose interest in the old map and start designing the new one.

So I restarted since I asked about resin.

Now I'm 12 hours in, red green gray are online, everything is Smelting and Angel style (except for steel) and blue science is almost done, with only the white boards left to do.

I was complaining about early game plastic, but that is either something I did wrong in the past or the recipes have changed since 0.14. Now it is easy to get about 20 plastic/minute with the infrastructure you already got. That is enough. I could raise it up, but my base is 100% brick starved. Or crush stone starved.

I noticed this weird anecdotal rule: you are either are drowning in brick and can pave the world and have a less stable base, or you have a stable base but you have no brick. And nothing in between. Sometimes I need to hang around 30 seconds to grab 20 brick to craft a single building.

I am going to introduce slag artificially in the system to get more crushed stone. Which all comes together, since if you add a new sorting setup for silver, you get slag.

Anyway, in 0.14 plastic was an early game problem. Now resin is one: you need to build up a huge infrastructure of things you don't need otherwise and have to manage byproducts only to get trace amounts of silver. AKA plastic the way I was playing in 0.14.

But I discovered a way to get a good pace of constant progress: set up something first using the easiest way, and once it is working, build it in parallel the Angel way, then disconnect the old one. So I'll build boards with resin from wood, start blue science, and while researching, I'll create the infrastructure for the Angel resin.

If blue is not done by 14 hours, I'm restarting and this time I'll get it under 12.

I need to google if there are any Angel's speed runs .