I recently started a new playthrough of Factorio, after not playing for almost a full year. I'd like to share my newest playthrough with a simple forum thread, a little bit of description and a couple of screenshots. This is currently all work in progress, and i'm going to update this thread, after i finished building some more. Due to my limited time for Factorio, it may take a while between updates. Feel free to leave comments, suggestions or criticism, so i can learn something from other players.
For my current game: My goal is to build a factory dedicated to launching rockets. This factory should be independent from my current main base and produce only stuff needed for the rocket. Imports will only be ores, coal, oil, water and power. Everything is smelted, refined and assembled on site.
I decided not to build everything for maximum efficiency, throughput or design, but rather build like i feel it should be build or look. As result, my creations can probably be improved a lot, but i generally don't care much. I'm playing the game like i want it to play.
I set myself the following rules/limitations or design specifications:
1. I will use steam power only. Just because i can.
2. I will use primarily gun turrets, laser turrets only for places like power poles between bases. The reason beeing that i just like the look of 20 gun turrets opening fire at a wave of biters. Gun turrets are just awesome.
I am using the following helper mods to make my life little bit easier, or alter gameplay slightly:
1. RSO: I want to include long train rides into my game. Having the ressources some distance apart helps with that
2. FARL: It makes laying tracks over long distances a lot easier and faster
3. Rail Tanker: For transporting Oil and Water like it should be done.
4. Smart Trains: For more control over trains, like leave when empty or full
5. YARM: Monitoring of ressource patches.
So enough talk, here are some pictures of my current base:
This is an overview of the current situation. I am 25 hours into the game. For map generation i used all the standart settings with RSO, except the water beeing set to low. Still, the ressource patches are a little bit close together for my liking. So, i decided to skip some of the smaller ones, and only build bases on the bigger ones. The big base in the center is my main base and starting location. The one to the north of that is where i am building my rocket factory. All the others are ressource outpost. As you can see, some tracks are single line tracks, some are double. I used the single line tracks for the first outposts, to save ressources. Later i build newer tracks as double tracks, but left the old ones like they where.
Here is my train station at the main base. Nothing special, stations for all ressources, simple loading system, but enough throughput for my main factory. The station on the far right is my FARL-Station. It is set up to store everything i need to build a new outpost in the cargo wagon. Rails, signals, power poles for track building, as well as turrets, walls, belts, inserters and ammo for outpost building. I normally just grap a roboport, some provider chests and robots, and get going. I can get a new outpost with tracks and defenses created fairly quickly. Everything there is produced in the factory and then loaded to the train. If i need more supplies, just bring the train back, wait a minute, and drive back. To the south is my main base so far. It is some kind of main-bus design, but not completely. Capable of supplying 6-10 labs simultaneously, depending on research, and also providing all my ammo, robots, and other stuff i might need. Altough it lacks smelting capabilities if i have everything running at the same time, but the chances of this happening are rather remote. Currently it is not doing much, most of the science is completed, and i'm out of alien artifacts and not really in the mood to get more at the moment.
My power station. 100 Boilers in 10 colums with the 10/14/1 ratio. Fueled primarily with solid fuel and coal as backup, depending on availabillity of solid fuel. I'm pretty sure i will net at least two more for the rocket factory.
Also you can see part of my oil production. 3 Refineries, some cracking and solid fuel. Set up with pumps to automatically start cracking or producing solid fuel out of light oil or petroleum gas, depending on storage levels. I know that producing solid fuel out of petroleum gas is not the best thing to do, but it helps keep my oil production running in times of low demand for gas. Also, i have lots of oil.
One of my ressource outposts. I use trains with 6 wagons and one diesel locomotive for these. I like the long and slow cargo trains, and in my mind, that is how such a train should look like. Also, there are loops in every outpost. I thing double headed trains in two directions is something passenger trains do, but not cargo trains. In this picture you can see my defense setup. Just a wall, gun turrets and a belt feeder system. There is room for improvement, like leaving a space between wall and turret, but at the current evolution level, no biter is getting even near the walls. Total overkill, but as mentioned before, i like the sight of 15 turrets opening fire simultaneously.
Last, my new cargo station for the new factory. It does not look good, but should be functional. One track for each ressource, this includes space for a second train for each ressource to wait. The plan here is to set the timetable with smart trains to leave the station when empty. In the future, i plan on having multiple ressource outpost for each ressource, with one train each. The train is leaving the outpost with a full load, or 9K of the ressource, then waits in this station till empty, and returns. If a train from a different outpost has to wait, it can do that without blocking the other trains. This should ensure that there is always one train of each ressource at unloading. I have only build the unloading systems on one side off the train, mostly because i got lazy. If i need more throughput, i can add a second row of inserters later on.
That's it for now. I started with the smelting area and oil processing, but it is not quite finished yet. This will be my next task, i will update this when it's done.
I hope you enjoyed, thx for reading.
