Lazy Bastard Mega Mall

[Xaosmaster]

It has actually inspired me to build my own. I wanted to make a version of this that is tiered and can be used throughout the whole game. So I started grabbing pieces of it as separate blueprints and am trying to work them into a new game. It's just for my own purpose, though, so I won't post it anywhere.

Thanks a lot Xaosmaster! But please do post them, even here is fine with me. I'd love to see some different ideas and like I said above, the original idea and credit to the mall belongs to Oozenthor.

With the update of 0.18 dropping today, I don't see any recipe changes, so my updated mall should work fine. Stress tested it for 10 hours too, still 73 SPM output. Since I don't have access to wifi for still a few days, the blueprint might read v0.17 still, but the above mentioned recipes has been fixed.

Would you kindly please let me know if you find any issues or have any other suggestions. Here it is...

Ok so I have played with this in a live map with no console cheats for several days. Fantastic as always, but if you wouldn't mind some minor critique, I made a few notes.

1. Fluid production is a bit starved. Even with 2 trains running oil, and all the tanks consistently hovering near 25K, the factory struggles to produce fluids and fluid products. I'm sure that once everything buffers it might get better (though after 15 hours of gameplay, this still hasn't happened so I'm not sure how long it will take to buffer everything). Low fluid means low red circuit production. Which leads to a bottleneck for everything that needs red circuits. Of course I don't have all the modules installed yet, because lvl 3 modules are not being produced very often due to low red circuit production. Everything else that needs fluid input seems to be in a similar situation, i.e. Blue belt system, rocket fuel, etc. Fluid shortage.

Full belts and oil 25K still can't make enough red circuits:

https://imgur.com/5gjeYMd
https://imgur.com/kYlDTx9

(the missing items on the map are modules and concrete only)

2. After trying to decode the circuit network for nuclear power, I'm at a loss. I'm not sure how to turn it on. I can't seem to get the reactors fed even though I have plenty of fuel. Is there some trick to turning that on? The inserters are looking for "Green Signal" to be 12K. Current signal seems to read Green Signal = -12k.

Ideas & Suggestions:

If you ever feel the ambition to make a version 2.0, might I suggest a few things?

1. Modularize. I would turn this into a book with the mall broken into sections. It is a lot easier to paste over smaller sections than to try and line up the whole mall (as others stated above). You could have 1 blueprint as the template, which would contain the overall shape with walls, inputs/outputs and sections on the ground to show where the pieces (production blocks) fit in.

2. Tier. This is obviously not an early game schematic, but there should be some consistency in regards to what level of the game it should be used. There are 3 tiers of items interwoven throughout the blueprint (yellow, red, and blue belts, all 3 level of assembler, inserters...). Unless underground threading is specifically needed (which it is in several places), I think you should stick with red belts, level 2 assemblers. That way this can be a mid game blueprint (which is the part of the game that this blueprint starts to shine). Avoid beacons (leave a space for them) and pre-inserted modules. This (module placement) is something that most can figure out (and definitely should know) on their own. The main issue I have with the pre-loaded module schematic is that the blue triangle icon that is placed over the top of the assembler prevents me from seeing what the assembler is supposed to be making.

3. Some explanation for some of the gadgets would be helpful. I see there is some sort of clock in the mega blueprint, but not sure how to set it (Or of it is not a clock, what is it supposed to be displaying?). Maybe some info on all the various circuit conditions. Again there seems to be not much consistency with these either. In some places, there are circuits in place to limit item production. Others there is none and it just produces items until the chest is full.

4. (mega blueprint) Train setup. I think it would be better to have the trains come in on one side and leave on the opposite. Having them both come in from the top makes it difficult to try and figure out where the in and out rails need to go when I'm setting up my ore stations. This was by far the biggest setup headache with this blueprint. Maybe have them come in from the top and leave from the bottom. I actually re-did this on my game to make it easier on my sanity lol. It wasn't long before I discovered that the incredibly complex rail roundabout-junctions don't let the tracks cross. You are stuck to either the inside lanes or the outside. I get that this is to accommodate the pax system, but, to me, ore/oil setup is much more important to that.

Overall, as I've told you before, kudos on this as this is my new favorite toy. Appreciate your hard work.

[Xaosmaster]

BTW, your blueprint has inspired me to rave with your little spinny and the lights lol

Rave

Rave.gif (1.52 MiB) Viewed 3157 times

[BHakluyt]

BTW, your blueprint has inspired me to rave with your little spinny and the lights lol

Lol the spinnies are left overs I forgot to remove from the BP. There's 2 I know of...

Feedback otherwise,
#. Yes the petroleum is on the slow side. Some playthroughs it keeps up with pace and rarely bottleneck, other times its a complete standstill. With modules in the end game production seems fine and almost balanced though, and 73 SPM isn't bottlenecked by it. Perhaps I will try and squeeze in another refinery or 2 some time in the future.

#. So a lot of parts of the mall is copied blueprints from other people, so I don't know exactly how all the circuits for everything works and have forgotten how the other half worked...but everything always just works as I play the game out and let the bots build the BP. I've found that the nuclear setup sometimes doesn't work when pasting the BP from creative mode. Anyhow, here is the original BP for the nuke plant. Maybe re-pasting it over will help get it going. No idea whom the BP belongs to, found it somewhere on the internet...

477MW Nuke Plant

LBMM Compact 477MW Nuclear.txt

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#. When Factorio 1.0.0 gets released and all recipes final I will make a bunch of blueprints for each section. Right now its such a hassle with all the changes to update so many BPs.

#. One can build this mall right from the start, but blueprints lacking the feature to double as upgrade planners, makes it a pain to upgrade all yellow belts to red as progressing. I will endeavor to upload a save game with the different examples and there you can copy the BP you like best.

#. Yeah there's a lot of circuit gizmos. Regard all the stuff in the top left corner as place holder examples for your own circuit displays etc. Yes there is a clock, for shits and giggles. Its got a combinator on which you set the green signal to the amount of game time, in ticks, iirc. The kovarex process works best when not interfered at all with because it counts the initial uraniums accumulated. The flashing lights on the corners are just decorations to spice up the bland concrete. Top center above belt production is the memory bank to set production stack sizes. Ensure that green wire connect to inserter, and with red from inserter to chest. If a chest isn't limited it's a mistake and wires should be checked.

4. Please send me a screenshot, would like to see how you rebuilt the railway around the mall...

Also in regards to placing the BP. The smaller one I usually line up the top left corner of wall. The bigger entire blueprint can be placed by lining up the rocket silo. (The silo is relatively close to the center of the large BP.) No need for zoom mods...

Here is that save: http://www.mediafire.com/file/u5i5ks5b4 ... 0.zip/file

[Xaosmaster]

#. So a lot of parts of the mall is copied blueprints from other people, so I don't know exactly how all the circuits for everything works and have forgotten how the other half worked...but everything always just works as I play the game out and let the bots build the BP. I've found that the nuclear setup sometimes doesn't work when pasting the BP from creative mode. Anyhow, here is the original BP for the nuke plant. Maybe re-pasting it over will help get it going. No idea whom the BP belongs to, found it somewhere on the internet...

477MW Nuke Plant

LBMM Compact 477MW Nuclear.txt

So after lots and lots of testing and trial and error for the Nuclear setup (and playing with the supplied original) I have discovered that the system is incredibly delicate and easy to mess something up. It should be isolated from any external grid until it starts working and then connected. I found out the hard way that you can't manually feed fuel into the reactors. It needs to see exactly 1 cell going in and 1 empty coming out or it will not work.

It is designed to watch the 2 center fluid tanks (near the center accumulator). When the combined total of these tanks gets to around 15k (or under), the reactor inserters will add a single fuel cell from their attached requester chests.

The system is set up to purposely under-perform. It is designed around fuel cell economy rather than max output. It does the bare minimum to keep your grid up. It struggles if you suddenly add mass quantities of power draw (such as adding a crap ton of speed modules all at once). It can break if the nuclear grid loses power to the inserters before it can correct the power fluctuation. That's why they added all the extra tanks and accumulators to try and compensate.

#. One can build this mall right from the start, but blueprints lacking the feature to double as upgrade planners, makes it a pain to upgrade all yellow belts to red as progressing. I will endeavor to upload a save game with the different examples and there you can copy the BP you like best.

Yeah I was just wondering why the blueprint was using both lvl 1 and level 3 assemblers in the same blueprint. I thought maybe it was to save on power or pollution. and belts don't make pollution as far as I know, so I don't see any reason why there would be yellow belts in this.

4. Please send me a screenshot, would like to see how you rebuilt the railway around the mall...

As soon as I remember which map it was on, I'll post a screen. Basically I had the trains come in from the top the same as you had it, but I had them leave down the bottom and circle around the mall heading to outposts. That way I can keep my outposts as nice easy blocks where you enter, and then leave continuing the same direction. With yours, my brain couldn't compensate lol. I had to manually get in the trains and drive them around to see where they could go. Having them go both directions on the same track grid confused the hell out of me.

Also in regards to placing the BP. The smaller one I usually line up the top left corner of wall. The bigger entire blueprint can be placed by lining up the rocket silo. (The silo is relatively close to the center of the large BP.) No need for zoom mods...

The mega blueprint really bogs my system down trying to place it, making it even more difficult. I have a pretty good computer and 32GB of ram, so to get that level of lag from a blueprint is pretty impressive.

Based on your idea of having wide open aisles to walk through, I built a shopping mall style to be able to just walk in and pick up anything I want. It will work with both logistic robots and has a belt that winds around so you can do stuff without robots. I am working on the circuit system, so that I can have it request items that get low quantity. It is my first draft. I left space on the lower right for extra stuff in case people have items added by mods or whatever.

https://imgur.com/7hgB42h

Fortress Mall.txt

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