Factorio Forums

Greetings to all Factorians!
Just wanted to share my solution of the topic with you, because it may be useful for non-experienced players and I found no guide on this on the forum.

So when starting new game (or playing RailRoad type of the game) you need to expand visible area of the world to see where the resource patches are, where is the water and so on.
Newly added map preview feature is great for start but it soon becomes not enough.

So what I do is following:
- As soon as basic main base is ready and electrified, I assemble and launch full performance steam setup which is overkill at the beginning of the game and can produce around 20 (40 if doubled)mW of electricity. I also do full supply with fuel for its boilers.

- Then I automate radars and produce a couple of stacks (50-100 radars are good)

- Then If I already have steel I do 100 Big poles. Steel is the ASAP research that you have to perform to implement following step.

So, because game is just started and aliens are rare and weak, you can do the following:
- Take big electric poles and radars and run away from the base, putting electric poles on the way to have electricity near you when you will be distant from the base.

- Distance where I stop is usually a couple of screens away from the base.

- Then I place my 50-100 radars on the ground, one near another, in line or in rectangle, connect them to electricity and just go to make myself a cup of tea.

- After 2-3min you have huge part of the territory discovered by your radars. "Profit!" (c)

I can now deconstruct radars and poles and make a sprint in another direction from the base.

So after several sprints, I will have big territory visible to me and will know precisely, how to expand even in late game.

So this is it!
How do think, is it helpful or too obvious/useless hint?

I'm interested in how much gets revealed how fast. The campaign alludes to the idea more radars = faster radar coverage. Can you show us some screenshots?

I'm interested in how much gets revealed how fast. The campaign alludes to the idea more radars = faster radar coverage.

Each radar has it's own timer and reveals one chunk every period (33 seconds at full power according to the wiki)

So you will need 33 radars to reveal a 7x7 chunk every second on average. Keep in mind that a radar has a maximum range, once this is revealed it will scan the chunk that hasn't been scanned for the longest period.

All the info you could want and more is here https://wiki.factorio.com/Radar

I don't have skills to record a video in gif like people do here usually, but I can say that 50-100 radars placed in a rectangle will discover a territory at their maximum range in a couple of minutes. This looks great on a map, you should try!