I think I've modded myself into an autoloss
Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2017 4:31 am
I have a confession to make: I think I officially outsmarted myself.
TLDR -- I am wondering if, after reading my description below of my bootstrap efforts so far, if this modlist is even winnable in single player.
Running a lot (i.e., many dozens) of errata-type mods that are largely irrelevant to my overall point here, such as Cardinal, Asphalt Roads, TrainSpeedLimit, the non-Angels Warehouse Mod (in addition to Angels, see below) Flow Control, Bottleneck, etc.
But. I decided to challenge myself. "Push the envelope," as it were. Hard mode. Masochist. Steeper difficulty curves make for more rewarding milestones, yes?
Well, now, I'm wondering if survival in these modded conditions is even possible. Behold:
Full Bobs (first time)
Full Angels (also first time... yeah, yeah, I know...)
RSO (experienced with it)
Rampant (experienced with it on a MP server with me and a second player, not experienced 1p)
Axial Tilt (for that extra spicy aftertaste once you climb the hump into solar power)
Mk 3 and Mk 4 Armor mods (various overlapping)
Dirt Path (turns land tiles into desert if heavily traveled -- note that desert tiles allow pollution to spread more quickly, inconsequential in small scale, but with greater surface area of tiles transmuted to desert biome.... See above, "Rampant.")
NoHandCraft (first time, going for Lazy Bastard achievement -- facepalm buffering 50% complete)
Marathon Mod on top of default-option marathon-mode settings (facepalm buffering 95% complete)
OreChaos (facepalm buffering complete, continue)
Map ore settings (RSO, Angels, Bobs) universal default except water very large very rare, to allow for large lakes and oceans with lots of opportunity for natural chokepoints. First bootstrap attempt, 4 hours in, no steam electricity yet, manual everything, manual filter everything with OreChaos on all ores including starter area.
After 4 hours with no ammo beyond starter ammo and starter pistol, depleted starter area of coal, no ability to contest biters to expand for new (and still coal burner everything with less than two stacks of belt, and with no electricity that means no starter research dome) I wised up and said funk dat and re-rolled the same mape string but disallowed OreChaos on starter area resource patches.
With that re-roll and some carryover knowledge of map layout and starter biter locations, I "raced" to bootstrap as much as possible, as quick as possible. Marathon settings make everything SUPER expensive, even before NoHandCraft. Tech researches STARTED at costs of 100 red bottles and up. TEN copper plate to one copper coil, NINE copper coil to one low-tier circuit (analog for vanilla green circuit.) ONE HUNDRED FIFTY iron plate to yield THREE steel plate. Filter inserters and electric ore crushers both require mid-tier circuits. Depleted starter coal, was lucky enough that the next logical coal expansion (OreChaos contaminated) is 1.3M and on a peninsula such that most of its pollution cloud only aggros over water chunks.
I'm nineteen hours into the setup. Scaled up to 8 boilers / 16 steam gens. I estimate that I have about 3-ish hours of manually and tediously transferring ores and intermediary ingredients to eke out the bare minimum of filter inserters to properly decontaminate the coal ore and to finally get started on electric burners for a single yellow belt each of automated iron, steel, copper, lead, and tin.
And note the inflated ratios -- NINETY copper plate to ONE basic circuit.
My problem is that the EVOgui indicates 60% evo. Medium biters already take 5 or 6 turrets to focus down successfully (TWENTY iron plate to ONE yellow ammo cartridge.) Within the last ninety minutes of gameplay I've seen a sudden uptick of biter nest expansions inward toward my starter area. THREE crushed stone to ONE stone, FIVE stone to smelt ONE stone brick, FIVE stone brick to ONE wall segment. FIVE iron plate into ONE iron gear. I have a choice that I can EITHER invest my iron into research, OR into ammo and turret creep, OR into filter inserters and electric crushers. Any of those three choices seems to foreclose the other two, and there's a new biter nest that just spawned on the outskirts of my pollution cloud.
I can re-roll, or I can restart from the same seed. I ENJOY a challenge, I am NOT complaining. Instead, I am asking if winning is even possible on this super-hard-mode mod combination I've curated.
I'm new to Factorio forums, I can post screenies / modlist / savefile upon request if someone explains how.
PS -- the delightful side effect of the crafting ratios above is that with these settings, it actually becomes worthwhile to contemplate dedicating whole mainbus channels to intermediaries such as iron gears and copper coils, since they compress down from ore so drastically.
TLDR -- I am wondering if, after reading my description below of my bootstrap efforts so far, if this modlist is even winnable in single player.
Running a lot (i.e., many dozens) of errata-type mods that are largely irrelevant to my overall point here, such as Cardinal, Asphalt Roads, TrainSpeedLimit, the non-Angels Warehouse Mod (in addition to Angels, see below) Flow Control, Bottleneck, etc.
But. I decided to challenge myself. "Push the envelope," as it were. Hard mode. Masochist. Steeper difficulty curves make for more rewarding milestones, yes?
Well, now, I'm wondering if survival in these modded conditions is even possible. Behold:
Full Bobs (first time)
Full Angels (also first time... yeah, yeah, I know...)
RSO (experienced with it)
Rampant (experienced with it on a MP server with me and a second player, not experienced 1p)
Axial Tilt (for that extra spicy aftertaste once you climb the hump into solar power)
Mk 3 and Mk 4 Armor mods (various overlapping)
Dirt Path (turns land tiles into desert if heavily traveled -- note that desert tiles allow pollution to spread more quickly, inconsequential in small scale, but with greater surface area of tiles transmuted to desert biome.... See above, "Rampant.")
NoHandCraft (first time, going for Lazy Bastard achievement -- facepalm buffering 50% complete)
Marathon Mod on top of default-option marathon-mode settings (facepalm buffering 95% complete)
OreChaos (facepalm buffering complete, continue)
Map ore settings (RSO, Angels, Bobs) universal default except water very large very rare, to allow for large lakes and oceans with lots of opportunity for natural chokepoints. First bootstrap attempt, 4 hours in, no steam electricity yet, manual everything, manual filter everything with OreChaos on all ores including starter area.
After 4 hours with no ammo beyond starter ammo and starter pistol, depleted starter area of coal, no ability to contest biters to expand for new (and still coal burner everything with less than two stacks of belt, and with no electricity that means no starter research dome) I wised up and said funk dat and re-rolled the same mape string but disallowed OreChaos on starter area resource patches.
With that re-roll and some carryover knowledge of map layout and starter biter locations, I "raced" to bootstrap as much as possible, as quick as possible. Marathon settings make everything SUPER expensive, even before NoHandCraft. Tech researches STARTED at costs of 100 red bottles and up. TEN copper plate to one copper coil, NINE copper coil to one low-tier circuit (analog for vanilla green circuit.) ONE HUNDRED FIFTY iron plate to yield THREE steel plate. Filter inserters and electric ore crushers both require mid-tier circuits. Depleted starter coal, was lucky enough that the next logical coal expansion (OreChaos contaminated) is 1.3M and on a peninsula such that most of its pollution cloud only aggros over water chunks.
I'm nineteen hours into the setup. Scaled up to 8 boilers / 16 steam gens. I estimate that I have about 3-ish hours of manually and tediously transferring ores and intermediary ingredients to eke out the bare minimum of filter inserters to properly decontaminate the coal ore and to finally get started on electric burners for a single yellow belt each of automated iron, steel, copper, lead, and tin.
And note the inflated ratios -- NINETY copper plate to ONE basic circuit.
My problem is that the EVOgui indicates 60% evo. Medium biters already take 5 or 6 turrets to focus down successfully (TWENTY iron plate to ONE yellow ammo cartridge.) Within the last ninety minutes of gameplay I've seen a sudden uptick of biter nest expansions inward toward my starter area. THREE crushed stone to ONE stone, FIVE stone to smelt ONE stone brick, FIVE stone brick to ONE wall segment. FIVE iron plate into ONE iron gear. I have a choice that I can EITHER invest my iron into research, OR into ammo and turret creep, OR into filter inserters and electric crushers. Any of those three choices seems to foreclose the other two, and there's a new biter nest that just spawned on the outskirts of my pollution cloud.
I can re-roll, or I can restart from the same seed. I ENJOY a challenge, I am NOT complaining. Instead, I am asking if winning is even possible on this super-hard-mode mod combination I've curated.
I'm new to Factorio forums, I can post screenies / modlist / savefile upon request if someone explains how.
PS -- the delightful side effect of the crafting ratios above is that with these settings, it actually becomes worthwhile to contemplate dedicating whole mainbus channels to intermediaries such as iron gears and copper coils, since they compress down from ore so drastically.
