Solo Speed Play - Times and Tips?

[jaredbeck]

What is a good time for a solo speed run on the default settings? My last two games have been a little over 15 hours, and I'm sure that's not *fast*. Is it slow, medium? I looked for a forum thread about this but didn't find anything searching for "speed play".

I'm still figuring out my build order, so I don't know what a good "milestone" is to track. For example, I always rush Advanced Oil Processing, and I'm getting it at a little over 4 hours. By the time I finish the game I'm usually producing about 800 circuits / min. and 100 adv. circuits / min. Any tips on what else to track?

Any tips on fast play in general? Obviously, I'm only getting the minimum required science, and I don't advance militarily beyond distractors and tank. Also, I've been avoiding logistics robots because they need a lot of upgrade-tech to be useful. I'm also not using trains because they take too long to build. I get all my iron and copper by transporter belt, and my oil from filling barrels at remote pump stations (https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... mp_station) and transporting them by car. I've been using more steam engines lately, and avoiding accumulators, though I still build lots of solor panels. I might try skipping the panels next time if I find a big coal field.

[Darthlawsuit]

I am 60 hours in on one of my games. My base keeps expanding endlessly as I add more production lines to build war materials. Feels like I am half done right now, still have an infinite number of enemies to kill and land to conquer.

[BeltRunner]

It's usually called "speedrun":
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 900#p34900
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 288#p47288

Tips:
- steam engines instead of solar panels
- steel furnaces instead of electric ones
- no logistic robots
... and a lot of planning ahead )

[ssilk]

I think 15 is medium, 10 is fast and below is really speed run.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/sea ... eed+run%22

I have currently a world with 6 days 5 hours playtime.

[-root]

What is a good time for a solo speed run on the default settings? My last two games have been a little over 15 hours, and I'm sure that's not *fast*. Is it slow, medium? I looked for a forum thread about this but didn't find anything searching for "speed play".

FOr a "speedrun" thats slow. Sub 10hrs is about par. Best time is 6 hours or something.

[quote="jaredbeck']
I'm still figuring out my build order, so I don't know what a good "milestone" is to track. For example, I always rush Advanced Oil Processing, and I'm getting it at a little over 4 hours. By the time I finish the game I'm usually producing about 800 circuits / min. and 100 adv. circuits / min. Any tips on what else to track? [/quote]

There is a certain order, you'll have to do some searching... It might be on the reddit (/r/factorio). We asked a bunch of questions of the guy with the best time. He was a beast at the game, however doing it his way would probably see you get an ok time.

Also, those production numbers are probably a bit low. You need some serious resources to smash through to Lvl 3 modules and you need them fast.

I'm not really an officiado on speedruns. Do some research on here and on the reddit and see how you go. You can always watch my lame 9hr run if you would like to see how I did it

[ssilk]

6 hours, I remember some rumors.. forgot about it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/commen ... ustom_map/
And a bit older
http://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/commen ... breakdown/

[n9103]

I personally only really pushed for a speed run once, and I was satisfied that I got Blue automation up and running in under 2 hours.
Good enough for me, called it quits

Really though, speed runs in this game are pointless to compare between each other unless they use identical starts, since the location and distribution of resources has a huge effect on progress.

[jaredbeck]

Thanks for the tips! I just finished one in 11:17, almost 4 hrs faster than my last two runs. Relying on steam engines and steel furnaces was a big help, but circuit production is still way too low. I'm still below 1000 green and 150 red per minute.

Really though, speed runs in this game are pointless to compare between each other unless they use identical starts, since the location and distribution of resources has a huge effect on progress.

That makes sense. I've been generating worlds using default settings, but maybe editing a map for a perfect layout could be fun. That way, the act of editing the map becomes part of your strategy.

I'm content to keep beating my own times. The 6 hour record seems impossible!

[Peppe]

An edited map with everything placed perfect for you might be interesting to see what the theoretical fastest time would be, but it wouldn't really be playing the game. This could be a good place to test research/build paths and factory designs.

Serious speed runs for games usually end up having a few categories. You would probably have random seed and set seed categories and maybe a 100%. For factorio probably just use all default game conditions.

An actual speed run would probably have you generate a bunch of worlds until you got a nice seed with everything you wanted. You would then save that seed and run that map over and over again optimizing the path to victory. Just thinking how minecraft speed runs are done -- i don't really follow the scene, but most maybe all the runners use the same world seed. Someone spent the time generating seeds for a optimal start and then people started running that seed and comparing to each other.

The best way to improve times is to repeat the process and find places to save time. But repeating a 10 hour run is going to have very slow progress, so maybe you instead break it up into segments. The main goal is to take the shortest survivable path to rocket defense. I think research is the first bottleneck... so maybe:
Goal 1 is X red/green/blue science packs a minute with x labs. You would want to figure out how many labs you need and when. Maybe 20 labs early is good or maybe 10 all game is the right pace for all the other materials that need to be gathered and processed.
Goal 2 is produce X circuits of each type per minute.
Goal 3 is X modules of the two that are needed per minute
Goal 4 is alien research and rocket building
etc

Since we have saves you can save after finishing a goal and then try different paths through the next segment until you find the best/fastest. Then put it all together in one run.