Friday Facts #205 - Teaching the things that everybody knows

[Koub]

I guess there is no release date for that update ?

As soon as it's ready

[Lubricus]

I have a couple of thousand hours.
Fluids - I've never needed to think about those. Alright, it's annoying they can't touch, but that's not a big deal (just use undergrounds for long parallel runs).

Note on fluids. It's far from obvious that it's better with underground pipes than above ground pipes for long distance piping. That is something you either have to find on the forum or make special test setups to find out (should rather be fixed than having info on the cause is that a segment of underground pipe is just two fluid boxes much fewer than corresponding above ground pipes).

[nljr]

I have a couple of thousand hours.
Fluids - I've never needed to think about those. Alright, it's annoying they can't touch, but that's not a big deal (just use undergrounds for long parallel runs).

Note on fluids. It's far from obvious that it's better with underground pipes than above ground pipes for long distance piping. That is something you either have to find on the forum or make special test setups to find out (should rather be fixed than having info on the cause is that a segment of underground pipe is just two fluid boxes much fewer than corresponding above ground pipes).

It's better to go underground, isn't it? Or am I the only terrible driver out there?

[HurkWurk]

about 300 hours in. fluids are still the worst for me.

what do pumps actually do? how far can they "pull" a liquid? what level of pressure do tanks provide? if i use mods that have large and small capacity pipes, which are better when, and why ? do fluids have viscosity? how much? what does that mean? what should a proper long range fluid line look like? whats the ratio of distance to pumps? do i need more than 1 pipe of a fluid to meet a demand? whats the highest thruput of pipes?

for train signaling, the number 1 problem i had was thinking that chain signals were chained on. they are not. chain signals replace normal signals, then you add a normal signal where i thought i would use a chain signal.
This means thats when you are looking at where trains can collide, chain signals are always on the right side of the train as its traveling. and they are always before the intersection.

[nljr]

This means thats when you are looking at where trains can collide, chain signals are always on the right side of the train as its traveling. and they are always before the intersection.

This is a good point that should be taught in the tutorials. Chain signals go before intersections and inside complex intersections. Regular signals always go AFTER the intersection when you have chains.

[Jap2.0]

Size for concreter is +/- on the keypad.

For the passive provider/requester loop, see the Logistics Buffer Chest (FFF #203), which is planned for 0.16 and I think is what you are looking for.

To get rid of stuff forever, put it in a chest and shoot it.

Thanks, yes the buffer chest seems to be the solution i was asking for
I guess there is no release date for that update ?

Because I'm to lazy to sumarize it, go read the comments of the thread on version 15.34 .

[Littleman9Mew2]

Since everyone here is talking about fluids...
I'm surprised that the train tutorial doesn't touch the Fluid Train Car, but does use the transport car, and I remember I was confused when I first built a fluid car on how to use it!

[Lrbaumard]

On a related note, can you guys make it so its impossible to drop your armor and therefore everything in it and the associated inventory slots
I have done that standing near an express main beltway
I just reloaded the save it was such a mess

[Koub]

Since everyone here is talking about fluids...
I'm surprised that the train tutorial doesn't touch the Fluid Train Car, but does use the transport car, and I remember I was confused when I first built a fluid car on how to use it!

It might be because the fluid wagon didn't exist when the train tutorial was created .

[argbla]

I disagree with a number of suggestions here. A solid part of the gameplay is figuring things out through experiments and experience. This isn't to say there aren't things which could use more clarity.

A big one is same name train stops. Without same name train stops, trains networks are frustratingly terrible. Initially I assumed you either couldn't name train stops the same or that if you did they'd internally be kept distinct. I even went to the forums to vent because I couldn't believe how terribly nonfunctional trains were. Luckily while reading a thread about adding to train logic someone mentioned the same name trick. With the trick trains are pretty nice. It should at least be mentioned/indicated somewhere on the train UI or in the tutorials.

[mrvn]

For upgrading belts, assembler and inserters install the upgrade planner mod. It can either upgrade stuff directly if you have the items in your inventory (and seem to have unlimited reach) or using shift place entities for the construction robots. It can also update your blueprints.

As for trees ... I also love the AAI miner. I have a setup that clears all trees and rocks in an outward going spiral from my base.

I find that late game with construction robots and (personal) roboports trees are felled rather quickly. But as you say the collected wood can be annoying. As for the inventory use the auto trash slots. For the general storage I've found 2 solutions for this: First you can use a requester quest to request all wood and then feed it onto a belt that goes to your furnaces. Feed coal onto the same belt from the side so coal is only used when no wood is available. Works for boilers too. It might surprise you how much wood you can burn per second later in the game.

The other solution is more general than just wood, is for when you use a main bus and doesn't require requester chests. Put all storage chests at the beginning of your bus and use filter inserters to put items from the storage chests back onto the bus. If you don't use a Storage Warehouse (mod) you can have just one storage chest, an inserter into a train car and then filter inserters emptying the train car again. Items you don't have on the bus you can sort into provider chests.

[QGamer]

It would be helpful if there was a tutorial on fluid wagons that mentioned that the pumps do not interact with fluid wagons if the train is in manual mode!

[bobucles]

A picture can be far better than words. I don't only mean things like showing nice pictures of all the tricks that belts/trains/inserters/etc. can do (but that would be nice). There are a lot of keyboard functions that go unknown because they don't show any immediate feedback. This is especially true of all the mouse modifying buttons (ctrl.shift,alt,etc.). I think some of this can be fixed by using custom mouse pointers. That way when players push a button they can immediately know that "oh this does SOMETHING..." even if they haven't yet figured out what it is.

[mrvn]

It would be helpful if there was a tutorial on fluid wagons that mentioned that the pumps do not interact with fluid wagons if the train is in manual mode!

Also train stop signals don't work.

[bobucles]

Also train stop signals don't work.

But that part makes sense. Manual mode overrides the train network. Nothing unintuitive about that.

It would be helpful if there was a tutorial on fluid wagons that mentioned that the pumps do not interact with fluid wagons if the train is in manual mode!

In a quick test I found that their hook up point is REALLY specific (maybe 1/3 tile on N/S) so it's pretty damn hard to hit manually.

[Durabys]

Suggestion: I want to be able to replace wooden poles with medium poles by clicking with a medium pole on top of a wooden pole.

[mrvn]

Suggestion: I want to be able to replace wooden poles with medium poles by clicking with a medium pole on top of a wooden pole.

Works for me with Bob's and AAI mods except that circuit wires (red/green) are lost.

[nljr]

Suggestion: I want to be able to replace wooden poles with medium poles by clicking with a medium pole on top of a wooden pole.

It's been suggested before. (I even suggested it once, but that was considered a duplicate.) A fact of life right now is that in Factorio's engine, in-place swaps are always bidirectional. If you can replace A with B, then you can always replace B with A.

So the counter-argument to in-place swaps for small/medium power poles is that replacing medium poles with small would make a royal mess of things in many situations.

I don't buy this argument *AT ALL*, because in-place downgrades can quite often make a royal mess of things.

Build a level 3 assembler that makes level 2 assemblers, add all your mods to it, and then try to add some level 1 factories... if you miss the ctrl button, your assembler will instantly lose all mods, and its manufacturing orders.

In a set of parallel adjacent conveyors, if you misclick on an in-place replace, you can dump the content of one belt onto another, or worse, block it without realizing you did.

Personally, I'd say in-place downgrades are generally a bad idea, with the possible exception of conveyors running the same direction. The engine could be updated to limit the opportunity to downgrade anything else. (Like require an override button to allow it.)

[pleegwat]

And underground belt upgrades aren't bidirectional either.

[nljr]

And underground belt upgrades aren't bidirectional either.

I'm pretty sure that depends on what you mean by bidirectional. If you have a red underground belt, you can downgrade it to yellow, even if that breaks the belt because of length. (Done that one more than a few times!)