Is the jump from science pack 2 to 3 too large?

[Tricorius]

The thing is, that with normal-ish settings before you can really get serious about Advanced Circuits, Science Pack 3 and Processing Units you need to massively increase your copper and iron income. To do so, requires securing more territory. To do that, requires combat. The earliest good cost-effective combat gear available is Modular Armor w/ Energy shield (for use with flamethrower) and the Tank. But even without ramping up your resources it's perfectly easy to make a few hundred red circuits and a dozen processing units to get those combat options. (Okay if you're using offensive turrets it doesn't really matter because gun turrets w/ regular ammo will do everything you need until late Big Biter era - but like many players I prefer to abstain from offensive turrets).

Kindred spirits. Heh.

This is *exactly* what I've been doing for my last few playthroughs. I was able to take out mid-sized (10-20 nests) of medium biters/spitters/worms (and one even had a few big worms) with decked out modular armor (solar, batteries, and four shields) and a flamethrower. Man I love that flamethrower now. And *no* offensive turrets or poison capsules. I'm not a big fan of turret creep.

I've found that modular armor will serve me for quite a while. In fact, I find myself taking more time with my base instead of racing to build it up to be able to produce 12 assemblers pumping out blue circuits just so I can get my power armor. I'm set with modular, so I can take more time setting things up as I prefer.

It's no different than how you hand-craft your first 10 or so red science packs. Then set up a quick automation fed from a chest. I actually do this with almost every tech I need small amounts of early on, before I have a more proper "Mark II" setup laid out. (Many of my designs run through several revisions as my bases grow. And I revert back to previous designs for outposts, etc. You don't have to over-architect before you need it. It's fine to do so, but you don't need to.)

[fandingo]

I read through the thread, and call me one of the skeptics. I don't see much problem in the steep jump. I guess no one has described their specific ideas of what "easier" blue and "harder" purple means. Could you post some recipe.lua examples of what you're thinking. It's important to understand what changes to resource consumption people are advocating. Here are the default recipes:

Code: Select all

  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-1",
    energy_required = 5,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"copper-plate", 1},
      {"iron-gear-wheel", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-1"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-2",
    energy_required = 6,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"inserter", 1},
      {"transport-belt", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-2"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-3",
    enabled = false,
    energy_required = 12,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"battery", 1},
      {"advanced-circuit", 1},
      {"filter-inserter", 1},
      {"steel-plate", 1},
    },
    result = "science-pack-3"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "alien-science-pack",
    enabled = false,
    energy_required = 12,
    ingredients = {{"alien-artifact", 1}
    },
    result = "alien-science-pack",
    result_count = 10
  }

[Koub]

My own problem is mass-producing advanced circuits to do my research, and the jump needed to get from the average green tech to the average blue tech interms of logistics, ressource gathering, energy (to power all that mess), and combat power (because I get from little pollution to red minimap in a very short time, which pisses off biters badly), so I'd add : defend my life the the difficulty with blue science.

[MeduSalem]

I also think the 4 science pack tiers should give a feel of regularly increasing complexity, instead of the irregular progression we have now.
Currently, I feel it's like "discover fire", "discover the wheel", "make a nuclear bomb", and finally "learn how to carve a stick". I'd really prefer a smoother progression along the science tiers.

I agree to that. This is really how it feels like currently.



I haven't thought too much about a "worthy" rebalancing of the Science Packs yet, but I might do that throughout the week and present some ideas on how it could be possibly done.

Because a lot of people agree here that the balancing is odd, but nobody has presented actual variants on how it could look like in terms of recipes when rebalanced. Currently the discussion is circling in itself without anyone showing off a possible solution that could be discussed and used as a base to tweak around.


My basic idea/plan is to use the capabilities of assembling machines...

AM1 for SP1/SP2 (meaning 2 items)
AM2 for SP3 (meaning 4 Items)
AM3 for SP4 (meaning 6 items... so yeah it will make you suffer, though one of them is going to be the alien artifact anyways)

I'm also thinking about making the items as a means of progression... meaning that it should be items that you need to automate in order anyways for mass production or for expanding your base.

I'll do some testing on that and will have a look where it leads me to, so I can't gurantee anything today.
But normally I'm a guy who finds a solution for that kind of problems... because that's basically my job: Solving problems.

[lancar]

For the purple tier, combine the alien artifacts with some items that define the blue tech level to make the purple science. That would, at least, straighten out the last tier progression a bit.

But what items would that be?

[MeduSalem]

For the purple tier, combine the alien artifacts with some items that define the blue tech level to make the purple science. That would, at least, straighten out the last tier progression a bit.

But what items would that be?

At least some Processing Units, one of the Engine Units, maybe Stack Inserter, Express Belts... that kind of direction. A good mix of High Tech Intermediates and Logistics items.

One could also argue about Low Density Structures ... if that would be used more in other recipes, which in my opinion wouldn't be a bad idea either. Basically the Low Density Structure is supposed to "migitate" the lack of Aluminum.


Harder stuff than that would probably require a SP5 (which I'm not all that fond of) because of how setting up the above after SP3 is already tough enough with the imposed increase of SP3 resource consumption... so you will be doing a lot of upgrade work to your existing factory anyways additionally to the 5 new items needed for SP4.

But that said I also thought about the upcoming "endless upgrade" technologies... maybe any Endless upgrade requires stuff even beyond what I mentioned.


Currently I'm playing around with the thoughts of following recipes:

• Science Pack 1: Copper Plate, Iron Gear Wheel
• Science Pack 2: Steel Plate, Basic Transport Belt, Inserter
• Science Pack 3: Advanced Circuit, Battery, Fast Transport Belt, Fast Inserter
• Science Pack 4: Low Density Structure, Processing Unit, Engine Unit, Express Transport Belt, Stack Inserter, Alien Artefact.

Basically the Steel Plates get moved to SP2 and SP3 becomes a little bit easier since there's no Smart/Filter Inserter, giving people more time to experiment with Oil Processing stuff instead.

So there would be a more exponential growth of complexity like Koub suggested some pages earlier. Some things are easy upgrades from before while others require to setup new production lines.

If one wants to go more hardcore then it could be Filter Inserter instead of Fast and Filter Stack INserter instead of normal Stack Inserter. Or Electric Engine Unit instead of Engine Units.


Maybe the science packs should only require intermediate items altogether (somewhat like material science) so you learn how to set them up. Getting finished products is then part of your job. Could look something like so:

• Science Pack 1: Copper Plate, Iron Gear Wheel
• Science Pack 2: Steel Plate, Electronic Circuit, Stone Brick
• Science Pack 3: Advanced Circuit, Battery, Engine Unit, Concrete
• Science Pack 4: Low Density Structure, Processing Unit, Electric Engine Unit, Rocket Control Unit, Explosives, Alien Artefact.

[tehroach]

I don't see much problem in the steep jump.

For me I don't really see the problem so much with the steep jump, it is the vast cliff on the other side that worries me

I suppose I would suggest something like

Code: Select all

  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-1",
    energy_required = 5,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"copper-plate", 1},
      {"iron-gear-wheel", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-1"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-2",
    energy_required = 6,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"inserter", 1},
      {"transport-belt", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-2"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-3",
    enabled = false,
    energy_required = 12,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"barrel-of-lube", 1},
      {"solid-fuel", 1},
      {"filter-inserter", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-3"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "alien-science-pack",
    enabled = false,
    energy_required = 18,
    ingredients = 
    {
      {"battery", 1},
      {"advanced-circuit", 1},
      {"stack-inserter", 1},
      {"steel-plate", 1}
    },
    result = "alien-science-pack",
  }

Also I would give the barrels a nurf and reduce their volume to 3-5 rather than the current 25

This would also give a bit of balance to the tanker wagon when it comes because the current cargo wagons can hold 10,000 (25x10x40)
ie 3x10x40 = 1200 or 5x10x40 = 2500, bearing in mind that the current tanks only hold 2500, how much would the tanker wagons need to hold, to compete against the 25unit barrels and still be viable?

[huwp]

Maybe the science packs should only require intermediate items altogether (somewhat like material science) so you learn how to set them up. Getting finished products is then part of your job.

I like this idea a lot!

[orzelek]

Maybe the science packs should only require intermediate items altogether (somewhat like material science) so you learn how to set them up. Getting finished products is then part of your job.

I like this idea a lot!

This is the idea of Science Tweaker mod a bit. It has separate recipes for science packs that use only intermediates that are meant for them (added in the mod).

[fandingo]

I don't see much problem in the steep jump.

For me I don't really see the problem so much with the steep jump, it is the vast cliff on the other side that worries me

I'll be a little intentionally obtuse: What cliff? After building blue science automation, there's tons of stuff to do -- not least of which is getting resources to actually complete research. Outposts to build, assembly lines that to be scaled, laying rail, setting/building robots and roboports, booming electrical production, oil cracking, setting up modules, and dealing with biters just to name a few. If you're speaking about the difficulty of oil, that's always going to be far more difficult than anything else in the game -- so many input/outputs that require more complex routing than belts.

Thanks for posting a concrete idea. There hasn't been much in this thread.

I suppose I would suggest something like

Code: Select all

  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-1",
    energy_required = 5,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"copper-plate", 1},
      {"iron-gear-wheel", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-1"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-2",
    energy_required = 6,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"inserter", 1},
      {"transport-belt", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-2"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "science-pack-3",
    enabled = false,
    energy_required = 12,
    ingredients =
    {
      {"barrel-of-lube", 1},
      {"solid-fuel", 1},
      {"filter-inserter", 1}
    },
    result = "science-pack-3"
  },
  {
    type = "recipe",
    name = "alien-science-pack",
    enabled = false,
    energy_required = 18,
    ingredients = 
    {
      {"battery", 1},
      {"advanced-circuit", 1},
      {"stack-inserter", 1},
      {"steel-plate", 1}
    },
    result = "alien-science-pack",
  }

Did you mean to omit alien artifacts from SP4? Can an AM3 take 5 ingredients? Are AA only useful for crafting advanced military items and module 3s?

I don't like the steel change at all. There aren't many things that require steel, and the only three substantial non-science consumers are more advanced electric poles, solar panels, and AP ammo. I don't think many players are building a substantial amount of solar this early in the game. Sure maybe a handful of arrays, but not much. Anyways, my concern is that for a large portion of the game very little steel is needed. That doesn't seem right. Providing steel at a good clip is an important mid-game necessity for the current SP3, but if you take that away, the player has less incentive to spend time on that until late-game.

I took a look at the raw resource numbers for stock science and your modifications. I was interested how this changed raw resource requirements -- ignoring oil since there's multiple ways to produce the outputs. Since we typically use all levels of science packs simultaneously, here's what's required for a tier-4 science research point. Stock: 18 copper, 21.5 iron, steel 1, 1 alien artifact. Yours: 50 copper, 79 iron, 1 steel. Science is substantially more expensive. I guess that's fine in itself, but the troubling aspect is the large disparity between copper and iron inputs. I would go as far to say that the increased costs and disparities present make the curve steeper than stock. Oil still needs to be setup and actually has more components due to the necessity of solid fuel and lubricant. Presently, it's possible to get 555 SP3 with 1-tank for each output, 1 refinery, and 1 pump jack. Yours requires a lot more setup. Plus, if *barrels* of lubricant are required that requires even more factory components and belt/rail logistics. Additionally, the higher copper requirements makes it a lot more difficult to build rockets (low density structures require 5 copper plate) while performing any research, especially the higher tiers.

Part of the reason I wanted people to post configurations was that it's easy to mod these recipes and play with them. You should try a factory with these science recipes and share your experience.

I don't think that changing the recipes or ratios of raw resources kills any ideas, but I don't think these particulars are reasonable.

Also I would give the barrels a nurf and reduce their volume to 3-5 rather than the current 25

This would also give a bit of balance to the tanker wagon when it comes because the current cargo wagons can hold 10,000 (25x10x40)
ie 3x10x40 = 1200 or 5x10x40 = 2500, bearing in mind that the current tanks only hold 2500, how much would the tanker wagons need to hold, to compete against the 25unit barrels and still be viable?

The capacity of a filled refined oil recipe isn't tied to the same volume as the crude recipe -- make up whatever reason on why they have different volume (eg. more dangerous, different density/compressibility, more value so packaged in smaller quantities, etc.). I don't know about you, but it's impractical to completely fill trains with oil. I send mine when they get to 400 filled barrels; otherwise, it'd take days to get an oil delivery from depleted outposts, even with speed modules and beacons. Additionally, like everything coming off of trains, don't you use the buffer chests? It's not like a trainload needs to be immediately pumped into tanks. I do agree that train wagon capacity is getting absurd, and I wish there was more incentive to use longer trains. But that's a separate topic.

[tehroach]

I'll be a little intentionally obtuse: What cliff?

Good I like someone who gets straight to the point!

After building blue science automation, there's tons of stuff to do -- not least of which is getting resources to actually complete research. Outposts to build, assembly lines that to be scaled, laying rail, setting/building robots and roboports, booming electrical production, oil cracking, setting up modules, and dealing with biters just to name a few. If you're speaking about the difficulty of oil, that's always going to be far more difficult than anything else in the game -- so many input/outputs that require more complex routing than belts.

While I agree with you, there is tons of stuff to do.
I would also have to point out that there is always tons of stuff to do and I am doing most of the above from green science on wards

The cliff I speak of is the fact it generally takes me a good 20mins+ to setup blue science without blueprint, where as it takes seconds to setup purple/alien

Did you mean to omit alien artifacts from SP4? Can an AM3 take 5 ingredients? Are AA only useful for crafting advanced military items and module 3s?

Yes.
For several reasons
- It would make speed runs solely focused on the construction side of the game.
- It was difficult to add 1/10 alien artifact to the recipe.
- I think it would be good if the higher tier military items were vastly more Alien Artifact expensive.
- I am edging for support for and additional tech tree that would be heavily reliant on Alien Artifacts.
there was a few others but I forget ATM, I will tell you them later.

I don't like the steel change at all. There aren't many things that require steel, and the only three substantial non-science consumers are more advanced electric poles, solar panels, and AP ammo. I don't think many players are building a substantial amount of solar this early in the game. Sure maybe a handful of arrays, but not much. Anyways, my concern is that for a large portion of the game very little steel is needed. That doesn't seem right. Providing steel at a good clip is an important mid-game necessity for the current SP3, but if you take that away, the player has less incentive to spend time on that until late-game.

Technically I didn't remove the steel component from the SP3 as you would still require 1 steel it would just be in the form of a barrel.

I took a look at the raw resource numbers for stock science and your modifications. I was interested how this changed raw resource requirements -- ignoring oil since there's multiple ways to produce the outputs. Since we typically use all levels of science packs simultaneously, here's what's required for a tier-4 science research point. Stock: 18 copper, 21.5 iron, steel 1, 1 alien artifact. Yours: 50 copper, 79 iron, 1 steel. Science is substantially more expensive. I guess that's fine in itself, but the troubling aspect is the large disparity between copper and iron inputs. I would go as far to say that the increased costs and disparities present make the curve steeper than stock. Oil still needs to be setup and actually has more components due to the necessity of solid fuel and lubricant. Presently, it's possible to get 555 SP3 with 1-tank for each output, 1 refinery, and 1 pump jack. Yours requires a lot more setup. Plus, if *barrels* of lubricant are required that requires even more factory components and belt/rail logistics. Additionally, the higher copper requirements makes it a lot more difficult to build rockets (low density structures require 5 copper plate) while performing any research, especially the higher tiers.

Ooh yer I suppose I just haphazardly slapped that stack inserter in there, I suppose that will need changing

however I did intend to make SP4 more expensive and SP3 less expensive, with the intent on allowing your first battery plants to be used for solar (accumulators) etc

Part of the reason I wanted people to post configurations was that it's easy to mod these recipes and play with them. You should try a factory with these science recipes and share your experience.

This is a good idea and I will give it ago once I finish my current project and they stop messing with the terrain generator.
I am very new (n008) when it comes to Factorio mods any chance you could post a mod that we could just cut-n-paste our ideas into for testing?

I don't think that changing the recipes or ratios of raw resources kills any ideas, but I don't think these particulars are reasonable.

This is fair enough and thanks for pointing out my rushed mistake!

The capacity of a filled refined oil recipe isn't tied to the same volume as the crude recipe -- make up whatever reason on why they have different volume (eg. more dangerous, different density/compressibility, more value so packaged in smaller quantities, etc.). I don't know about you, but it's impractical to completely fill trains with oil. I send mine when they get to 400 filled barrels; otherwise, it'd take days to get an oil delivery from depleted outposts, even with speed modules and beacons. Additionally, like everything coming off of trains, don't you use the buffer chests? It's not like a trainload needs to be immediately pumped into tanks. I do agree that train wagon capacity is getting absurd, and I wish there was more incentive to use longer trains. But that's a separate topic.

I haven't really had the chance to get anywhere in 0.13.x to warrent train loads of oil, but in 0.12.x we had a couple of trains that would come back fully loaded with oil barrels, they would consume about 10 solid fuel in the journey though.

I would definitely have to agree that there is no good reason to use buffer chests on oil stops, that being said I suppose my idea of a full train wagon of oil is really only half full because I usually partition the wagons to be half full of empty barrels on the way out and half full of full barrels on the way in. To me this just ends up being easier, because the empty barrels are always where they need to be and not clogging up something else.

The way you describe that it takes days to fill up an oil wagon, I believe that you can see my point with the want to reduce the amount of oil in each barrel, as step one it would reduce this wait time and two it would make ground tanks more useful.
ATM even with my half full "full" oil wagons they can carry 2x what the a tank can hold and 4x if you do it properly.
So there is never any reason to have more than 1 oil tank at a drilling site if there is going to be a train waiting, because you are just waiting on the oil jacks.

This is why I proposed a reduction from 25 to 3 as it would weight the tanks to be larger than the wagons.

[fandingo]

I was unsure how the barrel mechanic would work. If the barrel is actually consumed (and not just emptied), that allays my concern with steel.

Yeah, I can make a mod with your recipes. I'll post it in a little bit. We can continue the SP balancing discussion afterwards. You can replace the science pack recipes in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\data\base\prototypes\recipe.lua on Windows or ~/.steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/data/base/prototypes/recipe.lua on Linux.

I haven't really had the chance to get anywhere in 0.13.x to warrent train loads of oil, but in 0.12.x we had a couple of trains that would come back fully loaded with oil barrels, they would consume about 10 solid fuel in the journey though.

I would definitely have to agree that there is no good reason to use buffer chests on oil stops, that being said I suppose my idea of a full train wagon of oil is really only half full because I usually partition the wagons to be half full of empty barrels on the way out and half full of full barrels on the way in. To me this just ends up being easier, because the empty barrels are always where they need to be and not clogging up something else.

I want to take a minute to pimp my setup since I think it's pretty clever. First, all my trains are point to point, so each one visits only one oil depot and then returns to the factory. (I have a wait queue of rails before the main factory station to accommodate so many trains without blocking the main line.) Trains leave the factory oil dropoff once they get >400 empty barrels (no condition on full barrels == 0). That's very simple. The train will leave the depot when it has >400 full barrels (no condition on empty barrels == 0). The important part is that train only leaves the factory when it has enough barrels to satisfy the condition to get it back to factory, or there'd be deadlocks. At the oil depots, I use the circuit network to create complex conditions that prevent barrels from accumulating at the outposts. The entire goal is to prevent too many barrels from getting stuck in a depot depriving the other depots of barrels.



There's three parts to the station:
* The input side (full barrels) has a combinator (division, at the top) and standard confiruation to balance between the three chests. There are some problems with this, but it's not important overall since cargo wagons are so large. This is optional.
* The output from the chests to the belt won't output unless there's >700 crude oil in the tank on the right. This keeps the station from filling the bottom belt with empty barrels, causing 400 barrel ratio to become unstable. 700 was chosen based on belt length to the assembly machine. Basically, if the empty barrel belt if fully loaded, 700 crude is enough to use up all those barrels.
* The magic happens with the addition combinator. It sums the number of empty barrels and full barrels within those 6 chests (outputs signal B) and outputs the the 3 filter inserts unloading empty barrels when B < 400. It keeps the total number of all barrels <400 (B < 400). This prevents the train from unloading too many empty barrels at the depot.

This produces a stable barrel supply without limiting train slots, and even works with multiple destinations. (I have the aforementioned factory oil unloading station and a separate station for creating solid fuel for the power network. Some oil depots serve both destinations.

I standardized the entire factory on 1-3-1 trains, but there's no reason why these trains need to be so long given the 400 barrel conditions.

So there is never any reason to have more than 1 oil tank at a drilling site if there is going to be a train waiting, because you are just waiting on the oil jacks.

This is why I proposed a reduction from 25 to 3 as it would weight the tanks to be larger than the wagons.

It's worth pointing out that if you're consuming oil at any decent rate, the trains will mostly be waiting at the depots instead of the factory. Combine that with how poor most oil wells are and how quickly they deplete to negligible production, that 1 tank will hardly ever be full. I agree that more than 1 tank at a depot is useless, but since the tank isn't ever going to get full anyways, balancing barrel and wagon capacities against a tank doesn't offer much utility. I'm not sure I like changing the barrel capacity. It changes the number of assembly machines for (un)loading.

I would definitely have to agree that there is no good reason to use buffer chests on oil stops

I think buffer chests are necessary on all train stations. They dramatically improve efficiency. In the screenshot above, my factory isn't consuming hardly an oil. The last time this train visited this depot it left some extra empty barrels. Over time these empty barrels were released from the buffer chests (when crude >700 in the tank), and placed into the full barrel buffer chests. Without chests, this work couldn't be done ahead of time, so the next time the train arrives it has to wait for the barrels to be filled. With chests, there's already 400 full barrels ready, so the train can depart much quicker (after dropping off 400 empty barrels and picking up 400 full barrels).

My complaint with wagon capcaity isn't really related to oil. I'm never filling oil trains anyways. My complaint was more directed at my green circuits 1-3-1 train that can hold 24K items.

[tehroach]

Yeah, I can make a mod with your recipes. I'll post it in a little bit. We can continue the SP balancing discussion afterwards. You can replace the science pack recipes in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\data\base\prototypes\recipe.lua on Windows or ~/.steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/data/base/prototypes/recipe.lua on Linux.

Thanks for this info.
Finding where stuff is located and mostly what stuff is called has been the major bottle neck in my Modding process

So there is never any reason to have more than 1 oil tank at a drilling site if there is going to be a train waiting, because you are just waiting on the oil jacks.
This is why I proposed a reduction from 25 to 3 as it would weight the tanks to be larger than the wagons.

It's worth pointing out that if you're consuming oil at any decent rate, the trains will mostly be waiting at the depots instead of the factory. Combine that with how poor most oil wells are and how quickly they deplete to negligible production, that 1 tank will hardly ever be full. I agree that more than 1 tank at a depot is useless, but since the tank isn't ever going to get full anyways, balancing barrel and wagon capacities against a tank doesn't offer much utility. I'm not sure I like changing the barrel capacity. It changes the number of assembly machines for (un)loading.

While I must complement you on your factory, because it looks pretty cool, you have just pointed out a flaw in its design.
Which could also be contributed to the result of the slowed pump jack speed and large capacity of barrels which has been made even worse by the enlargement of cargo wagons capacity.
I could easily see a surplus/famine cycle appearing, while you wait days for the trains to come back.

I standardized the entire factory on 1-3-1 trains, but there's no reason why these trains need to be so long given the 400 barrel conditions.

I can't see the point in arguing with you, while you continue to prove my point for me

This is another great reason for reducing the barrels capacity, however I would opt for a decrease in there fill speed also to maintain throughput.

I would definitely have to agree that there is no good reason to use buffer chests on oil stops

I think buffer chests are necessary on all train stations. They dramatically improve efficiency. In the screenshot above, my factory isn't consuming hardly an oil. The last time this train visited this depot it left some extra empty barrels. Over time these empty barrels were released from the buffer chests (when crude >700 in the tank), and placed into the full barrel buffer chests. Without chests, this work couldn't be done ahead of time, so the next time the train arrives it has to wait for the barrels to be filled. With chests, there's already 400 full barrels ready, so the train can depart much quicker (after dropping off 400 empty barrels and picking up 400 full barrels).

While I will definitely agree that buffer chests improve efficiency in almost every situation involving loading trains.
Oil becomes an exception once the oil extraction rate drops below the barreling rate.

at my oil jacks I tend to use 4 barreling assemblers per train wagon unloaded and loaded directly from train and it doesn't take long before 1 stops working due to starvation and once the oil field runs dry only 1 is ever working at a time meaning that the actual assemblers function as the buffer and the train only needs to stop for the minimum 5 seconds (to maintain maximum throughput) then move on to the next group of oil jacks.

In my factories I tend to use mainly single direction trains.
For me the extra track that is required to turn them around is easier to convert into future track for base expansion than shifting factory components.
also adding more trains to the station is as simple as adding more blocks behind the station.

Hence increasing the throughput of my trains is as easy as simply adding another train.

My complaint with wagon capcaity isn't really related to oil. I'm never filling oil trains anyways. My complaint was more directed at my green circuits 1-3-1 train that can hold 24K items.

I wouldn't object to further adjustments in the slightest

I wont post any pics of my factory here because you can see them here
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25749
Also I would suggest that we continue our conversation there, because I am not going to mind if that thread gets derailed

[Aru]

Research doesn't have to be spaghetti mess, see how I do it in the signature. It kind of is finished now, I haven't played in a while and it works fine.

[aubergine18]

TheWesDude said everything I was going to say, specifically:

it always ends up with people having full tanks of light oil, petroleum tanks empty, and heavy oil almost full wondering why their refineries stopped working.

the problem with blue science is not that it is difficult in and of itself, it is that it is so petroleum demanding it leaves light/heavy out causing frustration in new players not knowing that their first research needs to be advanced oil processing so they can do cracking. seeing as how many things require red circuits, i think a good fix would be to remove red circuits and add solid fuel instead which can be made from light or heavy leaving petroleum only having 1 material required which would make it easier for new players.

then have purple science need red circuits, alien artifacts, and maybe something else or just leave it at red circuits and alien artifacts.

There's too much stuff going on around the Science 3 tier; it was right around the time I was trying to properly get to grips with circuit networks, logistic networks, trains, etc... but I couldn't because of the excess work required to get science 3 packs. It's not that it's difficult as such, it's more that it got in the way of all the other stuff I wanted to do at that stage of the game. Getting the science 3 stuff up and running was an unwelcome and, from my perspective, unappealing annoyance. I wanted to focus on advanced automation and logistics, but had to faff around with science pack 3.

[Azraelle]

Right now I'd rate the difficulty / tedium of setting up each of the science packs, as well as the concepts needed to create them, as thus: (scale of 1 to 10)

SP1: 1 (mining, smelting ore, creating gears in an assembler, laying belts, etc. - basic stuff, really)
SP2: 3 (multiple chains of assemblers making intermediate items - now the player has to start thinking about supply chains and infrastructure)
SP3: 9 (upgrading assembly machines, oil pumping, pipe-laying - fluid->chemical plants->solid item->wait back to fluid->you're kidding me, back to solid?)
SP4: 1 (combat and clearing nests - but the player's probably already figured this out by now so the recipe itself is herp-a-derp stupid)

Ideally, you want the difficulty to ramp up smoothly, and have each level teach the player a new game concept.

I'd love if SP3 were made a little less demanding - have the recipe require petroleum gas pumped directly into the assembler as part of the recipe. That gives the player the objective of hashing out oil processing without also needing battery production just yet. Then ramp up SP4 a bit by including something that is made directly from the alien artifacts - some kind of generic alien device, that keeps the 1 AA = 10 AD ratio - and then have the SP4 recipe include some more advanced items as well, such as processing units, electric engines, express belts, etc. - something that really shows that the player has mastered Factorio concepts.

[Hannu]

In my opinion first three science packs are well balanced. Red science teach player to very basics of automation. Ore production, smelting, belts, inserters and assemblers. Green science teaches to automate the most needed thighs in building, belts and inserters. And blue science teaches oil, steel and red circuit production. Practically all things what is needed in Factorio. It begins a middle game phase which is more concentrated in increasing and optimizing of production, conquering and defending areas, resource outposts and train logistics, advanced bot logistics etc.

However, the alien science seems to be somewhat artificial addition or placeholder. It is good idea to force player to attack enemies but there could be more complex and expensive fabrication process. I suggest that some liquid stuff would be made from alien artifacts, sulfuric acid and heavy oil. It would be packed in barrels and used with blue splitter, robot frame, processing unit, several concrete plates and rocket fuel to make purple science bottles. 6 input recipe would give interesting logistic challenge. Expensive purple science would be needed later and smaller amount than other three science bottles (or one fabrication cycle would give more purple bottles).

[Deadly-Bagel]

There's only three tiers of science (plus alien) so it's either linear or exponential difficulty whichever way you look at it.

When you consider going from "gear wheel + copper plate" to "inserter + belt" it's a fairly substantial leap in difficulty. Going from that to batteries, advanced circuits and steel is (relatively speaking) an equally difficult leap.

Alien science sure is a weird one though. Unless you subscribe to turret creeping it's not particularly easy to get alien artefacts. Sure it's easy to convert them to research but getting them is the problem until you have mk2 power armour. The tank is okay to a point but to be most effective it needs cannon shells which aren't simple to make. I also think it's the most relevant type of research as it's testing the aliens themselves and what sort of weapon calibration, targeting conditions, etc can be used on them. Dunno what a lab does when it unpacks a belt and inserter lol.