Friday Facts #387 - Swimming in lava

[blazespinnaker]

Voiding into lava... wow. So much awful.

Oh well. Lot of great material here for mods. Using lava as a mining resource is a neat idea.

And certainly not as bad as a flying factory between planets.

"these items ended up in a situation where they only slowed down progression"

Uhh heh. That's literally the entire point of Factorio. I will say SE could use a few more QOL progression techs to go along with stuff like this.

The reason people don't like the intermediate stuff is that it creates perhaps too much complexity. Puzzles that you can solve are sometimes more fun than puzzles that you can't solve.

So, ok, whatever. This all enables SE, can we really complain? And maybe this simplified version will fit on the switch.

[Cerberus]

1.5 times faster, not 3 times faster, you forgot the thing depletes slower.

Ah yeah, 2 times faster then. A 50% increase from 2 is 3 1.5 would be a 100% increase.

That and by that point you can easily just go far enough out to get a better suitable Ore Patch with 2-3 Million Ore, that will most likely last you until the infinitely repeatable Sciences.

That is just a wild assumption. I really doubt the developers playtest their own game, see they never have to switch resource patches, and decide the thing is OK to release.

I like the concept of the Big Drill being all around better than the normal one, but as it is presented right now it is way too powerful. It would already have been amazing with a 9x9 range. At least then you would have had a nice puzzle with how to fit Beacons and Rail Lines into the Ore Patch, instead of the 13x13, where you can fit Rails and Beacons trivially.

I know from past Modpacks just how powerful such a Mining Range is, and how trivial it is to work with any range that sticks out more than 2 tiles from the Miner.

That is why it feels a bit cheaty, because the Big Drill loses all the nice Puzzle Aspects of the Game.

Maybe that is also a hint that resource requirements will be much higher in the expansion, and that's why they give you such a big mining area so you can fit more trains and figure out how to create huge throughput, making it more puzzle-y than regular vanilla outposts, rather than less like you think. Positive thinking

In order to get the space platform self sufficient using the tentacles, crushers, smelters, assemblers and a few inserters, you will not need much in regards of Rockets, the rest can be used to send Modules, Science Packs and Red/Blue Circuits up to space, which all have custom weights so they are even lighter in order to be able to send much more of specifically those things up to Space.

The weights just decide how much can fit in a rocket. I seem to remember we have seen screenshots of a rocket, it is not that huge of an inventory that fits inside. But the way I understand it you need to launch a rocket with a space platform starter pack to create a new space platform, and to send resources you need to send new rockets with the contents you want. So every payload is a new rocket. Do you think you will launch less than 10? I don't think you can finish the game like that, intuitively. That would be boring otherwise.

[GregoriusT]

1.5 times faster, not 3 times faster, you forgot the thing depletes slower.

Ah yeah, 2 times faster then. A 50% increase from 2 is 3 1.5 would be a 100% increase.

Hah, you forgot that -50% is divide by 2 while +50% is multiply by 1.5, aren't percentage directions fun and confusing! XD

That and by that point you can easily just go far enough out to get a better suitable Ore Patch with 2-3 Million Ore, that will most likely last you until the infinitely repeatable Sciences.

That is just a wild assumption. I really doubt the developers playtest their own game, see they never have to switch resource patches, and decide the thing is OK to release.

Well clearly they did that with the base game already, since one Mining Outpost per type of Ore inside the Map Preview Range is literally all you need to do to get to all Technologies using Default Settings without needing to be resourceful at all, so plenty of luxuries.

Sure it takes some time, definitely lots of time to chitchat in that one, but it is easy to do by accident if you are too busy with exploring new Features to make more Outposts (like people new to the game). Maybe you can even skip the Coal Outpost if you go Solar early, or the Stone Outpost because barely anything uses Stone unless it is purple or you are concreting the everything.

I like the concept of the Big Drill being all around better than the normal one, but as it is presented right now it is way too powerful. It would already have been amazing with a 9x9 range. At least then you would have had a nice puzzle with how to fit Beacons and Rail Lines into the Ore Patch, instead of the 13x13, where you can fit Rails and Beacons trivially.

I know from past Modpacks just how powerful such a Mining Range is, and how trivial it is to work with any range that sticks out more than 2 tiles from the Miner.

That is why it feels a bit cheaty, because the Big Drill loses all the nice Puzzle Aspects of the Game.

Maybe that is also a hint that resource requirements will be much higher in the expansion, and that's why they give you such a big mining area so you can fit more trains and figure out how to create huge throughput, making it more puzzle-y than regular vanilla outposts, rather than less like you think. Positive thinking

You only need a 9x9 area to comfortably fit rails in front of the Drills and cover each Big Drill with 8 Beacons each at the same time, netting a +400% speed bonus ontop of the Base Mining Rate which would then be 25x the normal Drill. Then add Modules to the Drill itself and suddenly that's a whopping +600% for a total of 35x the normal Drill.

And I highly doubt the Resource requirements on Nauvis are going to increase at all, because it is balanced well already by giving people options to actually choose between, instead of providing the optimal solution for everything in one Big Drill that is so absurdly good, because of its sheer output, that you dont even need to cover the entire Ore Patch with it to get the amount of Ore that you need.

Unless you're running a Marathon, which is not the most fun thing to expose the general player base to, because oh boy do most people hate unreasonably high resource consumption, I can tell you that from my own personal Dev experience.

In order to get the space platform self sufficient using the tentacles, crushers, smelters, assemblers and a few inserters, you will not need much in regards of Rockets, the rest can be used to send Modules, Science Packs and Red/Blue Circuits up to space, which all have custom weights so they are even lighter in order to be able to send much more of specifically those things up to Space.

The weights just decide how much can fit in a rocket. I seem to remember we have seen screenshots of a rocket, it is not that huge of an inventory that fits inside. But the way I understand it you need to launch a rocket with a space platform starter pack to create a new space platform, and to send resources you need to send new rockets with the contents you want. So every payload is a new rocket. Do you think you will launch less than 10? I don't think you can finish the game like that, intuitively. That would be boring otherwise.

I will actually fucking try that once it's out!

(by that i mean use the first 9 rockets to build the platform, and once it is ready, use the 10th rocket to go up there myself and get it to another planet to start progressing there)

[Cerberus]

1.5 times faster, not 3 times faster, you forgot the thing depletes slower.

Ah yeah, 2 times faster then. A 50% increase from 2 is 3 1.5 would be a 100% increase.

Hah, you forgot that -50% is divide by 2 while +50% is multiply by 1.5, aren't percentage directions fun and confusing! XD

No I did not. If you multiply with 1.5 to calculate big miner vs normal electric miner, if you do the reverse calculation you also have to divide by 1.5, not 2
Otherwise it does not make sense. Logic error!
So if a big miner has a resource "less drain" advantage of 50% compared to a normal miner, then a normal miner has a resource "more drain" disadvantage of 33% compared to the big miner

I will actually fucking try that once it's out!

(by that i mean use the first 9 rockets to build the platform, and once it is ready, use the 10th rocket to go up there myself and get it to another planet to start progressing there)

Yeah, that might be possible, but I was talking about finishing the whole game obviously, not "leaving Nauvis the first time". You will need to go to 4 planets (so probably at the very least four space platforms). And it would also make sense if other planets need shipments from certain resources from Nauvis in order for you to be able to progress there. Stuff that can not be found on the planet. So that is more rockets you need to launch. So in total you will have spent way more resources on all rockets needed to finish the expansion, than on the more expensive vanilla rocket to finish the base game, I assume/predict.
They said in this Friday Facts blog that you can still progress if your Nauvis base is overrun, indicating you do not NEED shipments from Nauvis. But that is to make rockets, so you can go back to Nauvis yourself. It might be the recipe from the science pack in for example Vulcanus needs something from Nauvis in order to be able to manufacture them.
At least, that's what I would do as a developer, at least for at minimum one planet (not necessarily all, as that would be repititive).

[GregoriusT]

On the Maths thing, yeah I am actually very confused as to whether it is "x0.5" or "x(1/(1+0.5))" now...

As for needing resources from Nauvis: Iron, Copper and Stone can be gotten in Space, leaving only Wood, Coal, Oil, Fish and Uranium, and Coal is at least on Vulcanus along with the Coal Liquefaction Tech and some "Trees", so I presume if anything actually needs shipments from Nauvis it is gonna be the radioactive Stuff. What I more expect to happen is all unique resources from the first 3 other planets need to be shipped to the last Planet, and apart from maybe Uranium, there wont be anything unique to Nauvis that would justify not just making it on site instead.

And I feel like doing outposts on Nauvis might no longer be a thing people will do at all, unless you have to build one to make Rockets to send Uranium to the last Planet. So the last Planet might become peoples main base in the future. And even a Rocket Factory in the Base Game is not that expensive to build, since you dont need to do Science Packs or Satellites to send Uranium or Fish to space.

That said, Nauvis ofcourse can still be the place where your Labs are located, so sending special Science Packs back to Nauvis to be combined with the first 6 Science Packs to do Research is ofcourse a good option. Though I still dont think you will need more than one good Ore Patch of each on the Nauvis side, unless you really want the Resources to speed up the Game.

[Qon]

the Big Drill loses all the nice Puzzle Aspects of the Game.

Most Hyperbolic Statement Of All Time!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cerberus]

As for needing resources from Nauvis: Iron, Copper and Stone can be gotten in Space, leaving only Wood, Coal, Oil, Fish and Uranium, and Coal is at least on Vulcanus along with the Coal Liquefaction Tech and some "Trees", so I presume if anything actually needs shipments from Nauvis it is gonna be the radioactive Stuff. What I more expect to happen is all unique resources from the first 3 other planets need to be shipped to the last Planet, and apart from maybe Uranium, there wont be anything unique to Nauvis that would justify not just making it on site instead.

Have the developers confirmed Nauvis will get no new resource types?
And yes, I was thinking Uranium. Fish and wood would make no sense. Maybe Uranium-238 will be needed somehow for production of something special (like a science pack).

That said, Nauvis ofcourse can still be the place where your Labs are located, so sending special Science Packs back to Nauvis to be combined with the first 6 Science Packs to do Research is ofcourse a good option. Though I still dont think you will need more than one good Ore Patch of each on the Nauvis side, unless you really want the Resources to speed up the Game.

Now that I think of it, it would make sense for a patch to last very long, as you can not easily build a new outpost when you are off-planet. Then this would be a good feature. Setting up new outposts for resources is not my favourite part of the game anyway, it is the most "grind-y" element of the game. And I prefer using my brain rather than mindlessly clearing alien nests and putting down lots of walls etc needed for the outpost.

[GregoriusT]

the Big Drill loses all the nice Puzzle Aspects of the Game.

Most Hyperbolic Statement Of All Time!!!!!!!!!!!

How is my Statement Hypersonic? I don't get it. XD

(but yeah ofcourse i meant it in the context of Mining)

Have the developers confirmed Nauvis will get no new resource types?

They have not confirmed that, but it would make sense to leave the Resource Complexity of Nauvis itself as is, because at a certain point it ends up being complexity for complexity sake, and may alienate more casual players. That is why things like Tin and Gold are not in the Base Game.

Also if you add a new Resource you also need to add things that use said Resource, which would result in completely overhauling the Recipes in the Base Game just to make that new Resource useful. And considering Vulcanus uses a Lava to Copper and Iron conversion Recipe (to make all Recipes doable on that Planet), one can safely say that there is no brand new Resource on Nauvis.

[Twisted_Code]

Vulcan sounds more interesting with each FFF

So, recycling an iron plate will just return an iron plate, with 25% chance.

Wouldn't it return the ore? More to my point, why would it return itself?

If you'd include the sentences before that:

This isn't the case for smelting and chemical processes, as the recycler returning ingredients of these transformative recipes just doesn't make any sense. So, recycling an iron plate will just return an iron plate, with 25% chance.

They decided smelter (and chemical) recipes are kept as irreversible. However, for some reason they want the recycler to still accept iron plates, in which case it recycles them to sometimes iron plates.
This might make sense if for some reason you're trying to create quality iron plates (recycle low quality plates through quality module'd recyclers -> loose a lot, but increase the quality of what remains). Or if for some reason you had a mixed feed to a recycler that you can't filter plates out of.
Also, it's an additional way to void items (because most things recycle down to plates etc., and those can be voided by a recycling loop).

I guess I follow, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me unless, as you said, a quality module in the recycler makes it upgrade the quality. Hence why I thought for sure it was a typo.

[Skellitor301]

So with the larger digging radius of the miners, that'll leave a bit of dead area between two different ore types for those that don't like mixed ore belts. Could there be an addition of ore filtering for the higher-tier miners as a QoL addon? It'd be a bit jarring to have so much open space filled with resources between miners of two different mines when the ore patches are touching. I know filtering on belts is a thing but that can easily cause clogging issues if one resource isn't used as much as the other, like if my iron mine is touching a stone mine, and I don't use stone as much as iron I'd rather not have my iron mine shut down cause stone is backed up. With the larger radius I can see this becoming a bigger issue, so solving it at the miner itself would circumvent a lot of headache and issues.

I don't think a filter on a miner would be a good thing. Mixed ore patches offer a challenge that would get solved too trivially this way. There are ways to circumvent the clogging (splitter setups with priority input lanes). I fear adding a filter to miners would solve one of the few puzzle elements the game has, bringing it closer to a pure automation grind.

I'd have to disagree. I've had instances where ore patches were so mixed (especially in modded) that it would make it difficult to keep the belts clean enough to allow throughput. I've had instances where my factory would shutdown and I'd go to find I'd ran out of iron due to another resource I'm not using as much is overloading my splitters and butters. It only works if you've got the space to use everything coming out, and it's hard to see when this issue will happen by watching it, only when it gets close to becoming an issue. Having the option to have a whitelist for the miner would be nice, because sometimes people just play the game to relax and not have to worry about annoying challenges like underused resources clogging the system.

[Cerberus]

So with the larger digging radius of the miners, that'll leave a bit of dead area between two different ore types for those that don't like mixed ore belts. Could there be an addition of ore filtering for the higher-tier miners as a QoL addon? It'd be a bit jarring to have so much open space filled with resources between miners of two different mines when the ore patches are touching. I know filtering on belts is a thing but that can easily cause clogging issues if one resource isn't used as much as the other, like if my iron mine is touching a stone mine, and I don't use stone as much as iron I'd rather not have my iron mine shut down cause stone is backed up. With the larger radius I can see this becoming a bigger issue, so solving it at the miner itself would circumvent a lot of headache and issues.

I don't think a filter on a miner would be a good thing. Mixed ore patches offer a challenge that would get solved too trivially this way. There are ways to circumvent the clogging (splitter setups with priority input lanes). I fear adding a filter to miners would solve one of the few puzzle elements the game has, bringing it closer to a pure automation grind.

I'd have to disagree. I've had instances where ore patches were so mixed (especially in modded) that it would make it difficult to keep the belts clean enough to allow throughput. I've had instances where my factory would shutdown and I'd go to find I'd ran out of iron due to another resource I'm not using as much is overloading my splitters and butters. It only works if you've got the space to use everything coming out, and it's hard to see when this issue will happen by watching it, only when it gets close to becoming an issue. Having the option to have a whitelist for the miner would be nice, because sometimes people just play the game to relax and not have to worry about annoying challenges like underused resources clogging the system.

Then I disagree again by saying you can just "not place a miner on parts of the field that are mixed"

[Skellitor301]

So with the larger digging radius of the miners, that'll leave a bit of dead area between two different ore types for those that don't like mixed ore belts. Could there be an addition of ore filtering for the higher-tier miners as a QoL addon? It'd be a bit jarring to have so much open space filled with resources between miners of two different mines when the ore patches are touching. I know filtering on belts is a thing but that can easily cause clogging issues if one resource isn't used as much as the other, like if my iron mine is touching a stone mine, and I don't use stone as much as iron I'd rather not have my iron mine shut down cause stone is backed up. With the larger radius I can see this becoming a bigger issue, so solving it at the miner itself would circumvent a lot of headache and issues.

I don't think a filter on a miner would be a good thing. Mixed ore patches offer a challenge that would get solved too trivially this way. There are ways to circumvent the clogging (splitter setups with priority input lanes). I fear adding a filter to miners would solve one of the few puzzle elements the game has, bringing it closer to a pure automation grind.

I'd have to disagree. I've had instances where ore patches were so mixed (especially in modded) that it would make it difficult to keep the belts clean enough to allow throughput. I've had instances where my factory would shutdown and I'd go to find I'd ran out of iron due to another resource I'm not using as much is overloading my splitters and butters. It only works if you've got the space to use everything coming out, and it's hard to see when this issue will happen by watching it, only when it gets close to becoming an issue. Having the option to have a whitelist for the miner would be nice, because sometimes people just play the game to relax and not have to worry about annoying challenges like underused resources clogging the system.

Then I disagree again by saying you can just "not place a miner on parts of the field that are mixed"

Not if the miner makes it difficult to not cover multiple fields, especially when you play with larger ore patches that like to have more than two patches touching. Especially in the starting area when some map settings will literally have all 4 be one massive blob

[FuryoftheStars]

So with the larger digging radius of the miners, that'll leave a bit of dead area between two different ore types for those that don't like mixed ore belts. Could there be an addition of ore filtering for the higher-tier miners as a QoL addon? It'd be a bit jarring to have so much open space filled with resources between miners of two different mines when the ore patches are touching. I know filtering on belts is a thing but that can easily cause clogging issues if one resource isn't used as much as the other, like if my iron mine is touching a stone mine, and I don't use stone as much as iron I'd rather not have my iron mine shut down cause stone is backed up. With the larger radius I can see this becoming a bigger issue, so solving it at the miner itself would circumvent a lot of headache and issues.

I don't think a filter on a miner would be a good thing. Mixed ore patches offer a challenge that would get solved too trivially this way. There are ways to circumvent the clogging (splitter setups with priority input lanes). I fear adding a filter to miners would solve one of the few puzzle elements the game has, bringing it closer to a pure automation grind.

I'd have to disagree. I've had instances where ore patches were so mixed (especially in modded) that it would make it difficult to keep the belts clean enough to allow throughput. I've had instances where my factory would shutdown and I'd go to find I'd ran out of iron due to another resource I'm not using as much is overloading my splitters and butters. It only works if you've got the space to use everything coming out, and it's hard to see when this issue will happen by watching it, only when it gets close to becoming an issue. Having the option to have a whitelist for the miner would be nice, because sometimes people just play the game to relax and not have to worry about annoying challenges like underused resources clogging the system.

Then I disagree again by saying you can just "not place a miner on parts of the field that are mixed"

Not if the miner makes it difficult to not cover multiple fields, especially when you play with larger ore patches that like to have more than two patches touching. Especially in the starting area when some map settings will literally have all 4 be one massive blob

First off, you don't have to place the big miner in the areas where it'll draw more than one ore, and then you can cover some of the gaps with the smaller miners to get more coverage while avoiding mixing. You don't have to build the fields using all of one miner type.

Even if you do cover the whole field/draw from the mixed area, you should have the ability to place your miners and belts such that not all of the belts will get mixed. As such, you give the pure belts of the more common ore priority over the mixed, and the mixed belts priority over the pure belts of the less common ore. This in itself will prevent the entire operation from grinding to a halt.

You should also prioritize taking of the less common ore from the mixed fields (vs pure fields).

But ultimately, unless you're playing with a mod that purposely mixes them (meaning they're purposely putting you into that situation because that's part of the challenge for the mod), ore mixing is very uncommon, and you shouldn't only have one ore field of each type of ore you need at any one time.

[MeduSalem]

Calcite is a new resource used as a cleaning/purifying ingredient in various recipes like sulfuric acid neutralization, lava processing, or melting iron/copper ore.

Does this mean we need to ship calcite to Nauvis if we want to use the more efficient smelting recipes there? Or will there be some way to obtain calcite on planets other than Vulcanus?

Maybe a little late reply but...

Either it will also be directly mineable on the other planets (I doubt it), or you have to ship it (if quantities required are worth it)

But that said... and it may be very far-fetched... You could artificially age concrete to get Calcite.
Concrete, or better said the lime inside the cement of concrete, has a tendency to carbonate over time (where the concrete slowly reacts with CO2 from the atmosphere), thereby turning back into CaCO3 = calcite.
For construction business this is bad because it changes the pH-value of the concrete such that the rebar steel will start to corrode, ultimately destroying the reinforced concrete entirely. (Yea, I studied civil engineering)

Anyway... back to Factorio... the game could use such a chemical process to create Calcium out of Concrete on every other planet that has stone & water to make concrete. ^^

Maybe that is how we will do it when there is no natural calcium to be mined. And maybe that is something the Metallurgy research gives. At least I would not be against the game taking such a liberty to do that to give stone a use in late game.^^

[FuryoftheStars]

Anyway... back to Factorio... the game could use such a chemical process to create Calcium out of Concrete on every other planet that has stone & water to make concrete. ^^

Maybe that is how we will do it when there is no natural calcium to be mined. And maybe that is something the Metallurgy research gives. ^^

And maybe that gives a use for all the stone on Fulgora....

Although... don't we get stone from the lava, too? That could create an infinite loop for creating calcite. Could be intended.

[MeduSalem]

And maybe that gives a use for all the stone on Fulgora....

I had exactly the same thought. The ratio for scrap mining may be intentionally the way it is. And it is not only stone (5%), we get even more concrete (6%) itself. ^^

But that said Fulgora has no Iron/Copper ore we could smelt.

But it may still be needed in some other process somewhere.

Maybe to actually improve the smelting of Holmium for doing that superconductor stuff or something. Because I bet there will be a base recipe for electric smelter, but the one in the foundry will be leagues better, and for that you will likely need... calcium. ^^

Although... don't we get stone from the lava, too? That could create an infinite loop for creating calcite. Could be intended.

Possibly, yes, but you also need iron ore to make concrete in the game. And Vulcanus has no natural Iron ore, only lava mining. What a funny coincidence. ^^

The more I think about it, I feel like it is no coincidence at all. But absolutely intentional.

If that concrete->calcium route is a thing, it would be possible to create infinite calcium on Vulcanus, but it is not worth it because you would have to ship iron ore there to do it.

But it is also not worth to ship calcium because it would still be cheaper to just make it locally from concrete, given you have either have concrete available...like on Fulgora - or both stone & iron ore available to make concrete... like on Nauvis.

[Skellitor301]

I don't think a filter on a miner would be a good thing. Mixed ore patches offer a challenge that would get solved too trivially this way. There are ways to circumvent the clogging (splitter setups with priority input lanes). I fear adding a filter to miners would solve one of the few puzzle elements the game has, bringing it closer to a pure automation grind.

I'd have to disagree. I've had instances where ore patches were so mixed (especially in modded) that it would make it difficult to keep the belts clean enough to allow throughput. I've had instances where my factory would shutdown and I'd go to find I'd ran out of iron due to another resource I'm not using as much is overloading my splitters and butters. It only works if you've got the space to use everything coming out, and it's hard to see when this issue will happen by watching it, only when it gets close to becoming an issue. Having the option to have a whitelist for the miner would be nice, because sometimes people just play the game to relax and not have to worry about annoying challenges like underused resources clogging the system.

Then I disagree again by saying you can just "not place a miner on parts of the field that are mixed"

Not if the miner makes it difficult to not cover multiple fields, especially when you play with larger ore patches that like to have more than two patches touching. Especially in the starting area when some map settings will literally have all 4 be one massive blob

First off, you don't have to place the big miner in the areas where it'll draw more than one ore, and then you can cover some of the gaps with the smaller miners to get more coverage while avoiding mixing. You don't have to build the fields using all of one miner type.

Even if you do cover the whole field/draw from the mixed area, you should have the ability to place your miners and belts such that not all of the belts will get mixed. As such, you give the pure belts of the more common ore priority over the mixed, and the mixed belts priority over the pure belts of the less common ore. This in itself will prevent the entire operation from grinding to a halt.

You should also prioritize taking of the less common ore from the mixed fields (vs pure fields).

But ultimately, unless you're playing with a mod that purposely mixes them (meaning they're purposely putting you into that situation because that's part of the challenge for the mod), ore mixing is very uncommon, and you shouldn't only have one ore field of each type of ore you need at any one time.

Have you never played railworld? Or had any starting patches where they are all fully touching? It's not always simply avoid the area where they mix when you either have to break down and rebuild miners each time the area they mine out is depleted. Only to keep doing this until you clean out the massive diagonal line of touching ores. This is especially frustrating when your starting ore patches are touching as an example shown below in the attachments, both vanilla and modded. Legit these screenshots are the first 9 I rolled between modded and vanilla Facotrio. The ones where the ores didn't touch are either too far away or the cliffs were going through them. Before you say "remove the cliffs in the settings" that's part of what I like to play with. I enjoy using cliffs as part of my base especially when it comes to defense. They create natural choke points.
This isn't about the patches mixing, this is about the patches /touching/ and in a way that makes it so a large portion of the mining patches will be mixed if you try to cover the whole patch regardless of which ore you try to focus on.

What you might see as a non issue, other people do have an issue with. This is why suggestions are made. Because touching ores in some terrain generation settings like Railworld or in some mods is very common, especially with the starting ores.

Btw, sorry the attached images are making the post long.

[FuryoftheStars]

Yes, I have. I've dealt with mixed patches many times. I've also used RSO to spread the patches even further out than vanilla allows.

Nothing of what I've said requires advanced skills to perform. I didn't see any there where you couldn't place miners (even covering the entirety of it) in a way that minimizes mixing. Using some priority & filtered splitters with those mixed belts will help clean everything up while preventing the rest from grinding to a halt.

In several of those images, none of those additional patches (of what's starting as touching) are "too far away".

I also don't know what cliffs have to do with anything? So what if a cliff runs through the middle? You don't need to cover every square inch right off the bat and can belt under them to connect the two sides.

[Qon]

WTF

Btw, sorry the attached images are making the post long.

You can hide things

And you can inline the images (there's a button for it) so that you can hide them inside the spoiler tag.

Also do don't have to quote the entire discussion history, you can remove posts inside quotes if they aren't all relevant. And the quote links to the posts anyways so it's not needed anyways.

[XT-248]

Have you never played railworld? Or had any starting patches where they are all fully touching? It's not always simply avoid the area where they mix when you either have to break down and rebuild miners each time the area they mine out is depleted. Only to keep doing this until you clean out the massive diagonal line of touching ores. This is especially frustrating when your starting ore patches are touching as an example shown below in the attachments, both vanilla and modded. Legit these screenshots are the first 9 I rolled between modded and vanilla Facotrio. The ones where the ores didn't touch are either too far away or the cliffs were going through them. Before you say "remove the cliffs in the settings" that's part of what I like to play with. I enjoy using cliffs as part of my base especially when it comes to defense. They create natural choke points.
This isn't about the patches mixing, this is about the patches /touching/ and in a way that makes it so a large portion of the mining patches will be mixed if you try to cover the whole patch regardless of which ore you try to focus on.

What you might see as a non issue, other people do have an issue with. This is why suggestions are made. Because touching ores in some terrain generation settings like Railworld or in some mods is very common, especially with the starting ores.

Btw, sorry the attached images are making the post long.

I agree, despite not playing the same way you do (no railworld), and I touched on this subject on other social media some time ago.


The larger mineable area for the Vulcanis' big miners and the speed at which Vulcanis big miners can pre-stack ore into convey belt bus without the new stack inserter. The need for filtered output on Vulcanis big miners is a more significant quality of life change than it would have been in pre-Space Age Factorio.

We are talking about Vulcanis Big Miners that can pre-stack a belt to have thirty-two items ( max 8 per tile * 4 height = 32 ) per tile. A mixed convey belt will take more empty inventory to 'clean up' once something goes wrong.


A green belt fully stacked from Vulcanis Big Miners mixed patch (eww, a nightmare scenario to fix).