Welcome To Islands

[Dry Hairy Tree]

"There was a rolling blackout just before dawn
The hordes at the walls
I would die with my boots on" - DHT.


Welcome to Islands, or, excessive use of the new landfill tech.

Islands is a work in progress, and there is no rocket in sight (yet) as all my stone be land-filled.

The island lifestyle is a bit different to typical Factorio. Walls don't exist except on the mainland, but defense, where attention is paid to detail, can be superior. Personal transport is by rail or foot. My island entries don't allow room for my crappy driving. Stone is the premium resource driving expansion. Aliens are sport, where early proactive engagement is followed by strategic clearing as numbers increase. Alien settings are low frequency, a wall of red is not strategic, it's boring. (make robots make turrets and walls and advance - blah). In Islands we use the mini map, gogo-gadget legs (exoskeleton) and our wits and weaponry to get away from hordes, but we move about at will - there is no WALL of red. But some groups are the size of small factories... you'll get killed easy enough without your wits - or just running into a random tree snarl at the wrong time.

Caveat: I am only a red belt. I got my butt whupped several times to move up from yellow belt and earn the right to use red belts. I am still too much of a noob for blue belts. There are blue belts frequenting these forums in numbers (and with numbers, spreadsheets even).

So take it easy. This is Islands, it's a laid-back island lifestyle. Enjoy the sun.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Being creative with landfill and defense was part of the inspiration for islands. The other was username Qon mentioning a large landfill project.

My first flamethrower turret getting tested.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

The aliens close to the lasers on the left never get the chance to mass as they're always enraged by my presence so they run at the island entry through the trees and get picked off by the lasers here and then at the copper. Trees are great defense they slow down aliens giving lasers more time to pick them off.

Controlling lakeside herds in this manner is fun and reduces the risk of their massing and attack coinciding with another incoming herd - thus producing a threat-sized combo.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

The island life began with a building store. You can learn more about a building store here viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26760

There are two trains that transport me round, or using the train button, I summons on request. One is filled with building supplies. This is the extension into late game of the building store concept. The train has equipment for oil expansion, rail expansion, factory expansion, mining expansion, some walls and laser turrets, and landfill. Whatever job I want to do this train has it covered - but there is NEVER enough landfill...

If I want to raise hell with some Aliens I summons my other train, filled with military supplies. I can build while sending the train back for more supplies etc. It's very handy unlike a car I cannot remotely manage.

Here is my building store as it stands. The stack inserters are being buggy hence the fast inserters to my train for now. Still keeps up with my build efforts, except landfill, did I mention that?

Now, the trick to a building store in early game is to make it make the stuff you carry on your toolbelt - the stuff you want. As the game progresses there are too many things - the trains make it possible to have whatever you want in reasonable quantities without cluttering your inventory needlessly. Adding more train wagons is always an option too.

[MindChanger]

Spitters will not attack these turrets?

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Only spitters can attack these turrets - and they rarely do. Why? The biters are running round confused getting in the way and the spitters are trying to get clear of them and the trees to get to the turrets. The promontories just confuse them. I must be about 50 hours in I've never lost a turret in the water. There is also the option of backing the towers with a roboport on the islands. Add repair packs... sorted! The diversion of aliens into all sorts of directions has made them a bit stupid. Let them run rather than bite whenever you can. I want them to try attack the islands, hence no walls and open (thin) pathing

~||~

The concept of larger inventories has been in the hearts of many Factorio players (as seen in the works of several modders) for some time. As a newcomer to the game (and code illiterate) I have avoided mods and tried to manage with what I've got.

I've learned it is easier to carry some basic components, rather than some of everything. Certain items craft in good time and are not required in ridiculous quantities (until you graduate to blue belt).

e.g. I carry a stack of steel chests, replenished via the building store. With circuits in my inventory I craft what chests I want, when I want, saving me from needing several more inventory slots. The basics I like to carry as well as equipment for the task at hand are: Gears, Iron, Copper, Steel, Green/Red/Blue circuits - and modules. With my trains and some thought as to what's next, I am rarely short (don't mention landfill).

For defense some defenders and cluster grenades with a flamethrower is a simply lethal combo and a half stack of each without the flamethrower can easily destroy a large base of spawners and worms - if you're bold. POWER armor

Anyways. I've got a box of each type of module 1, but am not happy with my module set-up should I choose to go into rocket production. The oil trickles in at home base now, and frankly, other than the building store, I don't need it there - so am thinking of dedicating an island to modules, and am slowly filling a fourth largest island for a rocket facility. I am undecided if I will build a rocket from scratch way out there or if I'll just ship things in via train. We'll see. I'm meant to take some photos and show some islands in progress but every time I open the game I do something and wind up on the other side of the map landfilling haha. It's addictive.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

This setup has nothing to do with reducing pollution (though it will help if that's your aim) and everything to do with defense.

Things to see:

Built in redundancy in the power supply.

Trees that snarl up aliens almost surrounding the mining patch.

Double walled, but with a gap, so if an alien gets past 1, they might run a bit and die, instead of continue biting.

Overlapping fields of fire everywhere except corners so double turrets there (3 corners are nicely covered by trees).

Potential to drop roboport and spare parts to service entire area including incoming power.

Things you can't see:

Island promontory to east thinning any aliens from that approach.

Cleared alien nests from only potential real danger (North, and potential to cut my power...).

I'll only put robots in if I need to. So far only home base and exposed outposts need them.

Things I can see - Stone! Landfills!

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Compare that amount of defense needed for that small stone patch (and it still might need robots) - compared to one or two promontories servicing large reclaimed islands that can fit entire factories. The math is clear on this one, the defense is way cheaper. But you still have to protect outposts to get raw goods in, and did I mention landfill.

If defense is your bag (I love messing with AI) then being selective of which ore patches become outposts can really help. Forests and water are about all we have to work with, but they are very useful.

I'm going to do a whole factory on an island from scratch as in bring the raw resources in - I'll bring in the building supplies by the trainload. It will be interesting as, other than concrete construction on site to prep an area, the first thing placed will be the silo, instead of the last thing. I'll work my way backwards and see how it goes.

I will make it filthy with oil and coal power and modules It will be protected by 12 towers per entry max.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Toying with the new neighbors. So close, and yet so far.

Silo site under development thanks to my new stone patch.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

So much oil in this patch/patches. I took just over 100 and left the rest for when it slows down.

Oil for the main island.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

So here's the base of the large island. I've now called it Cape Fear - after the movie, and Cape Canaveral was a bit naff.

I didn't have boilers/steam engines automated so set it up local soon as the stone and iron started arriving. Every island is autonomous with it's own power needs, as well as being connected to the overall grid. Losing power could be lethal. A smarter player than myself would have interspersed regular turrets in the entries.

This is what I'll be doing with all that oil. Many plastic! And solid fuels for rocket fuels, umpteen dozens at least!

I've actually done some (very rough) math - and wanted 36 refineries, but space was getting too tight I can't sacrifice the entry defense. I'll add some modules to compensate for only having 33 there - the aim is a rocket every ten minutes launched from this island.

I've secured enough oil (I think), real estate (bloomin landfill), coal, stone, iron, and soon to be copper. I have to do some sums on my smelting volume. Building store was a champion in setting this island up I have nearly everything I need in a couple of trips - still some considerable building/figuring to be done.

This island is gonna make some sweet pollution when I plug it all together.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

As predicted Cape Fear is producing untold pollution. Part of the original idea I had was to have islands supply so much pollution the main base is left alone. Of course, this relies on getting a ring of islands around your base. Lakes with resources on their edges are especially good, as was the case with this one. The entries are now mining operations or oil drilling - and in future the mining operation sites can become railway stations/drop off points for ore to continue high production with little extra set-up. The real estate I need to defend is far less than I typically would for a factory of these dimensions:

470 smelters, 470 mining drills, untold assemblers etc, 200 steam engines, 1000 speed modules...

It took some getting there but I'm basically finished. I have some more modules to drop around the place but the huge-as factory (you landfill it - it's massive) is done. I immediately began to run out of coal, sorted some out quickly and the rocket was ready.

Plastic - can't figure the stuff out it pours out or trickles no rhyme or reason to it. Plenty of oil, coal is secure now... Excess heavy or light monitored and burned off in boiler if getting too high.

The game got really laggy the moment I switched this big factory on. I'll take some screenshots later to show some of it and the other islands off but probably won't continue too far unfortunately - hate lag.

[Qon]

Looks pretty good. I like the islands and the trains
That rocket factory is clean and fairly organised. How fast is it now?

[Dry Hairy Tree]

I still haven't finished the robot 10 count - but three rockets launched (edit - no, the research was stalled no coal feeding old science furnaces...)

But launching them with no satellite - the rocket count isn't showing?... Might have to automate satellites i got spare stuff to do it. I guess they'll insert into the rocket?

Did the whole thing with belts, construction robots only.

I thought I was out of space but there's room to spare - only the oil was squeezed in - which probably explains the plastic not quite keeping up. A rocket per 10 minutes roughly. Haven't timed it perfectly. The silo has a full complement of fuel, low density structures and 7-8 RCU's loaded as each last rocket part is completed so it is working 70 - 80% of the time but with 4 production modules so relatively slow each cycle.

But my computer doesn't like all the action. Going to have to go play in a smaller factory, can't afford to lose the computer it's my gene-crunching tool.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

OK. This watery theme isn't dead, I'm just over the big factory - the way it makes the game slow and the computer crank right up... I also began the map with no plan for islands and the water settings were on small.

A new map, then, with water settings on large, and stone frequent, very large, and very rich.

We begin our journey on the mainland. Basic science is called for, and, as is my style, a building store. I have attempted to remain reasonably compact, and within the confines of 10 steam engines worth of power. I'm not planning to stay here for long. I'm leaving home, to make myself a new base out in the sea.


"We evolved legs to walk on land
And eyes to search the skies
But always in our memories
The calling of the tides

To live beside this watery realm
Where waves crash on the beach
A factory of things to use
And Biters out of reach." - DHT

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Running away from home is not easy when you have to build a whole new home.

I got my first stone and turned it into things I needed other than landfill. Walls, bricks and stone itself. Then I went hunting for more. The patches are pathetically small considering the settings, but I take what I can get. There is another similar patch just below these. Landfill, get lots of it.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

The transition from land to sea is taking some consideration and new adaptations in game play.

First I transfer power, as the largest polluter, out to the ocean. I need oil so I can have solar/accumulators in outposts, and electric smelting on the island.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

To transition to a clean(er) economy requires oil production. Solar panels only require basic resources but are of course limited to daylight. But as the saying goes - make hay while the sun still shines.

Daylight filling of barrels is sufficient to begin a tank farm on the island, and then make a bit of space to start oil based production. I don't know how much I need exactly, it won't be too much. I'll skip lasers and stick to bullets so I only need batteries for solar, and then science. I'll only have solar powered outposts and one entry to defend - and hopefully pollution will hardly touch the mainland???

The stack inserter research is useless for stack inserters at this stage - they need red circuits - but has the very handy bonus of doubling other inserters capacity for picking things up in one go. This makes the filter and fast inserters I have at train stations, by my rough calculations, twice as good.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

The fastest way to get red circuits in this circumstance is to get some plastic and craft them by hand. 10 plastic - > 5 red circuits - > 1 Electric Smelter. In this way I'm not wasting oil while I'm putting the infrastructure together out here. I'll set up a box with restricted collection of plastic and let the oil tanks very slowly fill instead of the typical overkill of heavy/light oil halting petroleum while trying to put things together for advanced oil processing. There's no way to skip the preliminary oil stage and jump straight to advanced, as you gotta have batteries and plastic to get there.

But with a handful of batteries and plastic I could craft some blue science packs, get the research, and jump into advanced before putting too much early oil infrastructure in place.

I need the electric smelting out here ASAP. Then I can get things moved off the mainland.

[ChurchOrganist]

So are you going to give us a map string to play with???