Wave Defence Speed Run

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Mr X
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Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by Mr X »

Hi.

Here's a video of Wave defence done in 19m24sec. I've put a lot of hours into tuning the design to allow me to launch the rocket within 20 minutes. hope you'll like it :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8IiRcMM3Io

// Mr X
Last edited by Mr X on Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by eradicator »

I've always suspected that premade whole-base blueprints are the optimal solution for most scenarios/achievements. :/
I wonder if you running around and manually placing belts is actually better for the bots, or if you should instead stand still (to save charge) and manually recharge them when they come back.

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

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Never occured to me that I could charge the bots just by pulling them from the air into inventory (Kind of an exploit?), but that certainly made the initial construction materialize faster. Thanks for the tip! I made a quick try and immidiately shaved 15s off. (That should've been ~30s if I would'nt have missed to press start wave by ~15s at one time).

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by eradicator »

It's a well known oddity caused by how bot items are handled, i.e. because the items can't store the charge level. It's been discussed numberous times (mostly by ppl wanting it fixed) and there's several mods that simply make bots unminable to prevent this. So i'm actually somewhat suprised you didn't know about it :p. (And i love seeing that kind of tricks in speedruns ^^.)

Btw, have you tried buying less bounty upgrades? My feeling tells me that you're overpaying on those, but i haven't really calculated the ROI or anything ^^.

Do scenario saves have working replays?

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

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As you might realize from my shy amount of posts, I have not really been browsing these forums for long, hence gotten little knowledge of the different oddities you might exploit in the game. :P

I just set a goal to myself to do the wave defence scenario in less than 20 minutes, since I've found no indication of anyone trying to speedrun this scenario. :twisted:

I have tried less bounty upgrades previously, but with older designs. The result has been that the time after last wave has been much longer.

Yeah, I have saved replays, but I dont know how to share them... :oops:

// Mr X

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by Jap2.0 »

Very nice. My main observation was that the gun turrets did very little after the first few waves. Would it help if you moved them closer to the walls? They have a significantly smaller range than the flamethrower turrets. I also noticed that some of the turrets in the southeast had problems getting suplied with ammo. I haven't done much of the scenerios - I'll look into that sometime. Overall very good job.
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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

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You can read the forums for years without making an account at all :P, so post count is kind of a bad indicator for anything ^^. Sharing replays should be as easy as just uploading the savegame. Just save after buying the sattelite to capture the whole process i guess? Also btw watching night time footage of factorio is sub-optimal (too dark) so it might be worth a thought to enable always_day (i.e. use a slightly modified scenario or the console) if you plan on uploading improved versions ^^.

@Jap2.0:
Dunno. If there's already not enough iron to supply all turrents with ammo it's probably better to have them shoot less.

Hm. I wonder if it's feasible to make the footprint of the whole base significantly smaller to reduce the number of defense outposts required...

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by Jap2.0 »

eradicator wrote: @Jap2.0:
Dunno. If there's already not enough iron to supply all turrents with ammo it's probably better to have them shoot less.

Hm. I wonder if it's feasible to make the footprint of the whole base significantly smaller to reduce the number of defense outposts required...
Yeah, I wan't sure if the bottleneck was iron supply, the assembler, or the inserters - it was in the section with more (5, I believe?) turrets, so there are several possibilities. I'd have to look more closely to be sure.

@Mr X
I also forgot to mention that I'd appreciate it if you'd upload the blueprint string.
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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

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Spend some time trying myself and ended up around 23mins (for some reason the winning dialogue doesn't work so i don't know the exact time -.-). I start Wave 1 at 2mins too but then lost about a min till starting wave 2, and then i continuously forget to press the next wave button all the time :P.

Iron supply doesn't even really matter as 99% of the damage is done by flamethrower turrents. Which aren't produced fast enough. Also my base is oversized so the initial building take longer than it should. Imho the optimal solution would be to ignore normal turrents alltogether and start with producing only flamethrowers at perfect ratio with the minimal factory possible to save bootstrap time. But due to the minimum wave length there isn't really too much time that can be shaved off :(. After wave 5 or so i was basically just waiting to be able to start the next wave.

Things i manually made:
20 Mining Drill
1 Fluid Tank
1 Radar
5 Wooden Chest

Things automated:
Stone Wall, Flamethrower Turrent, Repair Pack
Base_0.1.0

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by Mr X »

@jap 2.0: Thanks! Glad you like it :)
Yeah, the iron supply is the main problem, but the gunturrets are really only there to support while waiting for the flamethrowers to come in place, eg the first 3-4 waves. I dont know if the turrets will have better effect closer to the walls. I have tried that also, but felt they got destroyed by spitters easier. Might be imagination. The strategy was that destroyed walls I can replace, turrets not so much (cheap)..
I have tried a smaller footprint, the problem is that you need access to the oil. The other thing is that you Will have to cover larger fronts. In my experience the behavior of the biters wasnt as static when there was more ways for them to reach the base. I would love to see a smaller design that works though! :) I Will post my blueprints when i get home from work (I’m at CET)

@eradicator: Yes, it’s a challange to remember always act at the ”new wave chime”, i wich the sound was different from the insufficient funds sound. You were right about not getting good ROI for the bounty upgrades. I tried stopping at level 10 and got final time of 18m30s. I Will try to find out where the save game files are stored (i’m playing through steam), did a quick search yesterday but didnt find them.
I wanted to do the scenario on default settings, eg no mods or anything, hence not always day. I have actually thought of placing lights instead.

Your base look so much cleaner than mine! :lol: Really nice!
Are there a special reason you leave a gap between your walls, eg are the biters not able to reach the second line due to this gap? Did you have to manually refill your gun turrents in north west or did the initial supply of 40pcs render sufficient? Since you are automating repair packs, did you run out of the once you are able to craft manually (eg ~130pcs). Did your bots survive the whole game? Looking at your base I see a lot of flaws in my design. For example, I previously had construction sites for flame turrets at the west upward underground belt and also some stuff next to the north belt, hence the medium size electrical poles to electrify the area. Not needed anymore. I will definately change them to big power poles.

// Mr X

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

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The steam saves should be at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\factorio\saves according to the wiki.

Yea, walls are cheap. That was also my tactic, along with "don't bother with gun turrents too much". The two turrents in the upper left i think i put 10+20=30 bullets into which was enough to hold until i could afford the first flamethrower there. I initially tried with a much smaller footprint that left the oil entirely unprotected, hoping the biters would ignore the pumpjacks, and while most of them did, there was always a few that didn't. So i expanded to the same perimeter as you did. I think it might be feasible to build upwards only, but i'd have to try.

There's no special reasons other than aesthetics for the wall gap ^^. And the repair pack automation was more of a "why not" thing, don't know how many were used in the end, but just grabbing them from a chest felt easier, it's probably worse because it eats iron that could be used for something else (I did initially think about building a roboport to automate repairs, but red circuits... :P). And after optimizing the initial layout i probably don't need the transport belt assembler anymore either. I think all my bots survived. The only thing that died were the two upper left turrents, eaten by a behemoth that broke through the walls. Most of my power is via substations because they're faster to build (and why not anyway :D).

Huh, another 30s for less upgrades, nice. Did you buy anything else? I only bought bounty upgrades and one flame damage i think (as the main time constraint isn't really damage).

@always_day. well, sure for personal play i can understand. I was just saying that when watching it as a video the darkness really makes it difficult to tell what's happening sometimes. Some youtubers use enhanced lighting mods for that, but as the scenario doesn't use solars i find it personally acceptable as i'm particularly bad at seeing stuff in the dark :P.

Have you done any other speed runs? I usually play very relaxed.

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by Mr X »

Yeah, I looked in that location that was stated in the wiki, but it was empty. Maybe it is different when it is installed via steam?!
You'll not need the belt assembler. Also you have undergrounds available from start which you can use for the northern transport lane (for instance). Less parts; shorter downtime :)

In the 18.20 run I upgraded, in order (if remembering correctly):
1pcs of Gun turret upgrade (2000)
2pcs Bounty (2500, 5000)
1pcs of flame damage (7500)
8pcs of bounty upgrades (7500+)

I was done upgrading, hence starting saving money somewhere in wave 13-14. I will post the replay later. if I manage to find it.... :P

@speedruns: No, I usually play very relaxed too, this was most likely a one time only. :twisted:

// Mr X

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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

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Huh. I looked specifically for the steam folder on the wiki. So...just press win+r and enter

Code: Select all

cmd /k cd /d C:\ && dir /s/b *yoursavegamename*
With the name of your save game (but leave the asterisks).

I did another attempt with a redesigned base (after wasting hours on being too stupid to calculate the ratios myself i resigned and used an online calculator). Got down to 18:22, with about 20-30ish seconds spent waiting in round 20 for the cash to come in. Also started every round right on time so not really much to optimize there. Only things left to optimize would be base setup time (started at 2min). The spaced-out walls turn out to be worse btw, becaues the biters get between them ^^. I know i have undergrounds, but my very first design actually ran out of belts :P. And i suspect that having a larger perimeter might actually be benefitial in the last round becaues it reduces the way the biters have to walk until they're in shooting range.

Automated:
Flamethrower Turrent (1.5ish assemblers)
(nothing else)

Manual:
5-ish Drills
1 Fluid Tank

Upgrades:
Bounty 10

Base2.0
Attachments
_wave_run03_END_1.zip
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Re: Wave Defence Speed Run

Post by Mr X »

Wow! Really nice and slim design. How fast was your flametrowers up, eg, did the initial load of the gunturrents suffice?
I found the savegame, thanks. I'm on Swedish version of windows and for some reason the Users folder was hidden.

Savegame attached. Blueprint later, I have to run and I cant find how to export an existing blueprint to string

// Mr X
Attachments
18m37s.zip
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