Avoid lategame brutal expansion: RSO or ER:Depletion?

[paouk]

Hello there,

I read many thread, on reddit and on this forum, about the annoying late game forced expansion you need to perpetrate to have sufficent resource amount.
I was able to find out many different interesting tips (mods, console commands ecc) but i've been going for the mod way.

I like the idea of the limited resources and the need to have more of them going on the late mass rocket production.
But "mass ore request" also mean, minimal duration of an ore patch.

In particular i've tried RSO at first. I don't like much how it manages biter bases spreading around the map and i still had the problem of totally useless old miningpost.
Also, i've tried it for a sort of speedrun in 0.14 waiting for 0.15 release, so i wasn't able to find the biggest distant ore patches often mentioned in RSO reguarding posts.
Anyway, i'm not so convinced that i'd like the idea of having very huge minigfield destinated to die.

I recently decided to try Endles Resources: Depletion.
I'm getting good for now. With a pair of beaconed and prod-moduled old fields (minimum yeld boosted) and another brand new one (both iron and copper), im' sustaining my rockets (just one every 10-15 min). I'm now planning to continue getting more and more (actually the fantastic Factorio power).

Anyway, i'm still a bit confused about the most enjoyable way to deal with this situation.

So i'd like to konw what do you think about it.

What do you think is better between RSO and Endless resource, and why? Pros & Cons?
Or do you know a different solution not involving console commands, spawning new ore pathces or other similar "cheaty trick" ?
How you usualy deal with it?


P.S. i posted it here, "general" 'cause i'm loosing myself thinking the really appropriate specific thread.

[Syrchalis]

viewtopic.php?f=79&p=283818#p283818

I just made this thread sharing my RSO settings.

I dislike expanding due to resource depletion because you don't actually expand, you just relocate. I prefer infinite resources and small patches so you need to expand for more throughput.

[Nich]

When it comes to expansion speed is your friend. If you watch KOS she does mining outposts all wrong. You should not be using a blue print for miners, a blue print for rail station blue print for in and out tracks and then manually hooking up each lane to the station. This takes far too long. Simply blueprint the largest mining patch with train station and mainline connection you have on the map and place it on every patch you have available. Then connect the main lines and power. it should take about 3-5 minutes. Don't bother picking up the extra bits until the station is completely dead. The cost of the extra power polls and belts are minuscule. I also name all of my mining post "Iron Ore Out" or "Copper Ore Out" and they have a wiring condition to close the station if they do not have enough in chests to fill a train. This has bitten me in a butt a couple times when I place an Iron station on a copper field and forget to change the condition. Unfortunately I still don't understand the difference between anything and everything but that would make it universal and I would not even have to fiddle with that. I am playing normal so I have much smaller patches that run out in about an hour but I have been able to sustain a rocket every 7-8 minutes for about 2 hours now.

For clearing bitters I was using nukes but that is a little expensive. Next I am going to try a 1km span of roboports and lasers connected by wooden poles in a grid. I am sure the losses will be high but I suspect it will be less then the 30-40 nukes I use clearing the area by hand. In addition it scales better Just need to expand my power plant into the 10 GW range first to support all the lasers

[paouk]

I just made this thread sharing my RSO settings.

Yep, it seems interesting, i've read about extremely configurable RSO setting, but i've never really understand/tried it.
This is interesting, i should definitively give it a try.
Thanks!


This

When it comes to expansion speed is your friend.

..and thath..

I am playing normal so I have much smaller patches that run out in about an hour

..are precisely the type of things i'm try to avoid.

Also,

name all of my mining post "Iron Ore Out" or "Copper Ore Out"

I learned on my own skin what a complex problems this type of configuration gives, especially when you're dealing with high throughput ore trains.
A particular problem here, in my opinion, is the station balancing. You train, departing from main base, would take always the nearest station as first choice, so it is not so powerfull to have two stations at the same time. Instead, I usually prefer multiple platform (same name) station for max throughpu and organized traffic on the main line.

Anyway, I wold never blueprint a mining filed for reasons, as I'd never be able to say what is all wrong in a game like this. Math aside, i think the key to enjoy this game is make your factory seems just YOUR factory not "one of the factorio modular organized megabases".

Greetings!

[Aeternus]

I also name all of my mining post "Iron Ore Out" or "Copper Ore Out" and they have a wiring condition to close the station if they do not have enough in chests to fill a train. This has bitten me in a butt a couple times when I place an Iron station on a copper field and forget to change the condition.

Just set "Anything > 8000" for ore, or "Anything > 16000" if you smelt iron/copper at the mines. That way, you don't need to worry about changing ore types anymore.

[Shokubai]

As a note on RSO i believe there is a MOD setting to enable vanilla biter generation if you prefer.

[garath]

As a note on RSO i believe there is a MOD setting to enable vanilla biter generation if you prefer.

Can you please tell me the difference between RSO biter generation and vanilla biter generation?

[Nich]

Truth be told I am only running 4 trains on 15 stations in my network so I am very low bandwidth. Trains tend to prefer closer stations but if a station is closed they will continue on to a station that is open. My system can break down in theory if all the iron stations are closed then all iron trains will go to the closest iron station and overflow the parking backing out into the main line. Most of the stations can only be serviced by 1/4 or 1/8 of a trains bandwidth. I am only running LCCCC

[orzelek]

As a note on RSO i believe there is a MOD setting to enable vanilla biter generation if you prefer.

Can you please tell me the difference between RSO biter generation and vanilla biter generation?

RSO biter generation is much more sparse then vanilla.

[paouk]

As a note on RSO i believe there is a MOD setting to enable vanilla biter generation if you prefer.

Can you please tell me the difference between RSO biter generation and vanilla biter generation?

RSO biter generation is much more sparse then vanilla.

yes. Using RSO , you'll be able to build a rail "slalom" between spawned biter nests. Almost without need of attack and war phases.

[authorized411]

I also name all of my mining post "Iron Ore Out" or "Copper Ore Out" and they have a wiring condition to close the station if they do not have enough in chests to fill a train. This has bitten me in a butt a couple times when I place an Iron station on a copper field and forget to change the condition.

This has intrigued me. I'm curious what happens when the mining outposts start to slow down in production due to it being mined. Here's the situation I see, a station is open and a train gets there and starts to load up. This causes the train stop's condition to close it. If there is no other "Iron Ore Out," in this example, available then any train that happened to be heading there now stops on the tracks if it has no other station to go to or cannot get to. So the schedule ends up looking like this:

Iron Ore In/Dropoff/Unload
X Iron Ore Out

The train will skip the "X Iron Ore Out" because it is closed but if you don't have a loop some where, the train will stop on the tracks. However, if you do have a loop, then with this same schedule the train will head back to "Iron Ore In" to sit and wait for an "Out" to become available causing it to fill a spot that could be used for a train that actually has ore.

So I'm curious, Nich, how do you deal with a situation like this...cuz I wanna try it .

For clearing bitters I was using nukes but that is a little expensive. Next I am going to try a 1km span of roboports and lasers connected by wooden poles in a grid. I am sure the losses will be high but I suspect it will be less then the 30-40 nukes I use clearing the area by hand. In addition it scales better Just need to expand my power plant into the 10 GW range first to support all the lasers

I also tried nukes. It was amazing how fast I could use 50 of them, that's 20,000 (400 per bomb) green circuits. With the new infinite research, I went back to a tried and true method: destroyers. One stack (100) of destroyers is about 7000 green circuits. I have now started using destroyers, tank, mod armor with personal robo, and the nuclear bullets. My bullet damage and robot dmg are both at research 10. With this setup, I don't ever have to stop moving cuz the bots heal the tank, the destroyers kill any behemoths that get my way, and with the bullets I take out the spawners and worms. I can also take out a lot more bases with the destroyers than I can with bombs for the same amount of circuits.

[paouk]

I can also take out a lot more bases with the destroyers than I can with bombs for the same amount of circuits.

Wow! It sounds interesting.
It seems that such a big investmen in research has finally given its fantastic benefits.

Good to know in case my nukes will no more be able to guarantee my expansion rhythms.

[iceman_1212]

Every vanilla factory will eventually reach a point where it's impossible to continue growing income because all time is spent replacing existing sources of income. We can delay reaching this point by sourcing from way more patches than necessary in the earlier part of the game. For example: instead of saturating 16 blue belts of iron from 20 ore patches, you can do so from 40 or ore patches and you'll now have more time to do other stuff before these sources need to be replaced. The downside to this approach is that it takes a bit longer to build up to that point as it requires clearing more nests and laying down more outposts. Aside from mods and game settings, this is another way to avoid having all time consumed by the outpost replacement cycle (aside from just building a smaller factory).

[Nich]

I also name all of my mining post "Iron Ore Out" or "Copper Ore Out" and they have a wiring condition to close the station if they do not have enough in chests to fill a train. This has bitten me in a butt a couple times when I place an Iron station on a copper field and forget to change the condition.

This has intrigued me. I'm curious what happens when the mining outposts start to slow down in production due to it being mined. Here's the situation I see, a station is open and a train gets there and starts to load up. This causes the train stop's condition to close it. If there is no other "Iron Ore Out," in this example, available then any train that happened to be heading there now stops on the tracks if it has no other station to go to or cannot get to. So the schedule ends up looking like this:

Iron Ore In/Dropoff/Unload
X Iron Ore Out

The train will skip the "X Iron Ore Out" because it is closed but if you don't have a loop some where, the train will stop on the tracks. However, if you do have a loop, then with this same schedule the train will head back to "Iron Ore In" to sit and wait for an "Out" to become available causing it to fill a spot that could be used for a train that actually has ore.

So I'm curious, Nich, how do you deal with a situation like this...cuz I wanna try it .

For clearing bitters I was using nukes but that is a little expensive. Next I am going to try a 1km span of roboports and lasers connected by wooden poles in a grid. I am sure the losses will be high but I suspect it will be less then the 30-40 nukes I use clearing the area by hand. In addition it scales better Just need to expand my power plant into the 10 GW range first to support all the lasers

I also tried nukes. It was amazing how fast I could use 50 of them, that's 20,000 (400 per bomb) green circuits. With the new infinite research, I went back to a tried and true method: destroyers. One stack (100) of destroyers is about 7000 green circuits. I have now started using destroyers, tank, mod armor with personal robo, and the nuclear bullets. My bullet damage and robot dmg are both at research 10. With this setup, I don't ever have to stop moving cuz the bots heal the tank, the destroyers kill any behemoths that get my way, and with the bullets I take out the spawners and worms. I can also take out a lot more bases with the destroyers than I can with bombs for the same amount of circuits.

The stations are not actually closed. The train block is marked as full. This causes any inbound trains to pick another station letting the closest stations fill up. I am playing with default settings so my mining patches are quite small. I have 2 trains servicing 8 iron outpost. At any given time 6/8 outpost are closed via a circuit condition on the block that contains the loading station because they do not have enough ore to fill a train. Once all 8 run out of ore I suspect they will all go to the closest station and wait. If that station has run out of ore completely they would be stuck permanently.

The only solution I can think of to this is every station (or at least the closest station to base) would need an escape route that does not go through the station. This way they have a place to park until a station opens up. In addition their is another case where There is only one station open and 2 trains leave the base at the same time going to the same station. Train 1 takes the last possible load of ore and train 2 becomes trapped forever. Although this would also be fixed via an escape route. The major problem with this is every station will require a parking spot for every train. This is not bad when you only have 2-10 trains however it is not really expandable. When I have 100 trains running and I tap a 50k ore patch i would have to put in 100 parking spots. It also makes all of your old stations not backwards compatible. If all your stations have 10 parking spots and you add 5 more trains to your network you then need to go back to all your old stations and add 5 more parking spots.

My current system does not have any parking and relies on the fact that their is always a station open. If all stations are closed trains end up clogging the main line which is not necessarly a bad thing. If I am out of iron adding more copper and oil to the base will not help me produce any more and when an iron station opens up everything starts flowing again.

[Hannu]

Every vanilla factory will eventually reach a point where it's impossible to continue growing income because all time is spent replacing existing sources of income.

Theoretically you are right, but practically it takes probably years of play time with normal settings and normal desktop computer. Actually the resource defending becomes easier when your base grows because the area (amount of resources) increases proportional to the square of the perimeter length (defense costs). I had more than 10 square kilometers in 0.12 game and rich ores and low frequency. I launched 1400 rockets during about 300 hours (If I remember correctly) and ore patches and oil wells in my area was more abundant annoyance which I had to clear with commands than scarce valuable resources. I could have launched probably 10000 rockets with those resources. And then it would have been an easy (but tedious) task to conquer another 10 square kilometers for next 10000 rockets.

If you choose very poor resources or try to play with crappy laptop problems may arise sooner, but it is hard to believe that it is very common problem. And in any case they are intentional choices.

[Syrchalis]

Every vanilla factory will eventually reach a point where it's impossible to continue growing income because all time is spent replacing existing sources of income. We can delay reaching this point by sourcing from way more patches than necessary in the earlier part of the game. For example: instead of saturating 16 blue belts of iron from 20 ore patches, you can do so from 40 or ore patches and you'll now have more time to do other stuff before these sources need to be replaced. The downside to this approach is that it takes a bit longer to build up to that point as it requires clearing more nests and laying down more outposts. Aside from mods and game settings, this is another way to avoid having all time consumed by the outpost replacement cycle (aside from just building a smaller factory).

That's why there are mods and you don't make a vanilla factory that large. Infinite ores eliminate the "relocating instead of expanding" problem without making logistics or throughput less of an issue.

[Sicnarf]

Every vanilla factory will eventually reach a point where it's impossible to continue growing income because all time is spent replacing existing sources of income. We can delay reaching this point by sourcing from way more patches than necessary in the earlier part of the game. For example: instead of saturating 16 blue belts of iron from 20 ore patches, you can do so from 40 or ore patches and you'll now have more time to do other stuff before these sources need to be replaced. The downside to this approach is that it takes a bit longer to build up to that point as it requires clearing more nests and laying down more outposts. Aside from mods and game settings, this is another way to avoid having all time consumed by the outpost replacement cycle (aside from just building a smaller factory).

True but if you only expand in only one direction you will keep finding higher and higher yield resource patches, on Rich, Large, Low frequency patches I think you have to get about 300000 tiles away from center to start hitting Billion sized patches. Combine that with the new increased resource yield infinite research it would take a fair while to hit the point you speak off.

[iceman_1212]

Every vanilla factory will eventually reach a point where it's impossible to continue growing income because all time is spent replacing existing sources of income.

Theoretically you are right, but practically it takes probably years of play time with normal settings and normal desktop computer. Actually the resource defending becomes easier when your base grows because the area (amount of resources) increases proportional to the square of the perimeter length (defense costs). I had more than 10 square kilometers in 0.12 game and rich ores and low frequency. I launched 1400 rockets during about 300 hours (If I remember correctly) and ore patches and oil wells in my area was more abundant annoyance which I had to clear with commands than scarce valuable resources. I could have launched probably 10000 rockets with those resources. And then it would have been an easy (but tedious) task to conquer another 10 square kilometers for next 10000 rockets.

If you choose very poor resources or try to play with crappy laptop problems may arise sooner, but it is hard to believe that it is very common problem. And in any case they are intentional choices.

It sounds like you did in fact hit the right balance of ore patch diversification that I refer to you since you were able to achieve a sustainable 1RPM. I agree that it is achievable in vanilla - my comment was geared more toward less experienced players (and I know I was guilty of this when I started playing) who may be relying on too few ore patches to hit a comfortable steady-state. I'm not sure of the relevance of playing with a "crappy laptop" since we're not discussing UPS in this thread.

Every vanilla factory...

That's why there are mods and you don't make a vanilla factory that large. Infinite ores eliminate the "relocating instead of expanding" problem without making logistics or throughput less of an issue.

I think it's possible to achieve a comfortable steady-state with regard to outpost replenishment in vanilla for larger factories. As Hannu describes, he/she has done it for a 1RPM base with biters active. Without biters, it's possible to get to this point for much larger factories. In my experience, the limiting resource for well-designed vanilla megabases (regardless of your computer specs) will be UPS.

Every vanilla factory...

True but if you only expand in only one direction you will keep finding higher and higher yield resource patches, on Rich, Large, Low frequency patches I think you have to get about 300000 tiles away from center to start hitting Billion sized patches. Combine that with the new increased resource yield infinite research it would take a fair while to hit the point you speak off.

I think vanilla scaling makes it possible to do this without needing to go nearly that far. In my current save, I've exhausted my starting patches and I've had to tear down only two other iron outposts. Otherwise, thanks to sufficient "diversification" early on, I've been able to spend 95% of my time growing the factory. Below are the all-time production stats despite only just starting to build outposts at patches that have >60m ore (~100k per tile).

[Nich]

So I discovered a flaw in my train design this weekend. I opened up 4 new Iron ore mining outposts. The furthest 2 are far enough (about 3 km) that trains end up waiting at the closest rather then pathing to the open stations. The solution was to take the offending station and put it in a new network "Iron Ore Output 1" with only 1 train

[bobucles]

If you're having trouble with train traffic, try creating a train substation. Run all your small trains to an outpost, unload them, and reload a big beefy train to supply your main base. That way you are only running a handful of trains directly to base while the plague of outpost locusts stay on the outside.