Early Game Struggles

[oddron]

I have just started playing, and I am struggling with the early game, particularly the transition to electricity. After several restarts and some tutorials I think I understand the very first steps I need to take, and I can build up until I have several burner miners and furnaces working for me. In order for this to function, I need to run around myself to pick up coal and fuel the equipment. When I try to make the transition to a system of electric miners feeding belts that feed stone furnaces, I find that I seem to keep running out of resources.

In the very first (pre-electric) stage, I built up until I had 3 pairs of coal miners feeding each other, 6 iron miners each feeding a stone furnace, 1 copper miner feeding a stone furnace, and 1 stone miner feeding a wooden chest. Once I have reached this level, I crafted 1 offshore pump, 14 boilers, and 10 steam engines. Already, I had to play a waiting game until enough iron is smelted. I crafted a whole bunch of power poles, and then I ran power to my coal patch. At this point I have even more waiting because I need large amounts of iron and time to craft electric miners and transport belt. When I try to set up iron smelting, the delays and resource shortages get even worse.

Before I start crafting boilers and stem engines, how much production should I build up? Is there a preferred build order?

Would it be better to craft 1:2:1 instead of 1:14:10 to get some minimal amount of electricity for cheap?

Should I try to set up electric miners early, or should I set up the smelting operation first and feed it from the burner miners? Is there a preferred build order?

At some point, I need to craft a science center and 10 red science packs so that I can research automation. Should I do that as soon as I get electricity, or wait?

[Koub]

You're not obliged to build at once the full 1:14:10 setup.
I usually build just one pump, one boiler, one steam engine, and upgrade only when needed.

[Edit] : as for the first science, I do it as soon as I have a pump+boiler+steam engine running, even before I have electric miners.

[mooklepticon]

I do 1:3:2 for electricity. Then I up it to 1:6:4, then 1:9:6. I keep adding 3 engines and 2 boilers. 1:14:10 is REALLY close to 1:15:10, so it works well for me.

[Frightning]

I have just started playing, and I am struggling with the early game, particularly the transition to electricity. After several restarts and some tutorials I think I understand the very first steps I need to take, and I can build up until I have several burner miners and furnaces working for me. In order for this to function, I need to run around myself to pick up coal and fuel the equipment. When I try to make the transition to a system of electric miners feeding belts that feed stone furnaces, I find that I seem to keep running out of resources.

In the very first (pre-electric) stage, I built up until I had 3 pairs of coal miners feeding each other, 6 iron miners each feeding a stone furnace, 1 copper miner feeding a stone furnace, and 1 stone miner feeding a wooden chest. Once I have reached this level, I crafted 1 offshore pump, 14 boilers, and 10 steam engines. Already, I had to play a waiting game until enough iron is smelted. I crafted a whole bunch of power poles, and then I ran power to my coal patch. At this point I have even more waiting because I need large amounts of iron and time to craft electric miners and transport belt. When I try to set up iron smelting, the delays and resource shortages get even worse.

Before I start crafting boilers and stem engines, how much production should I build up? Is there a preferred build order?

Would it be better to craft 1:2:1 instead of 1:14:10 to get some minimal amount of electricity for cheap?

Should I try to set up electric miners early, or should I set up the smelting operation first and feed it from the burner miners? Is there a preferred build order?

At some point, I need to craft a science center and 10 red science packs so that I can research automation. Should I do that as soon as I get electricity, or wait?

1:14:10 is definitely overkill at the start, I usually just get one of each, and then add to it as needed (the part I'm still working on with early game is how to lay things out so that I end up with an organized base that I can expand modularly, which is hard to do). I usually only build 2-3 Burner Mining Drills (you start w/ 1 as well), just enough to get Iron and Copper Plate production (I move the drills around a bit at the start, from Coal to Stone, to Iron, back to Coal; 2nd goes Stone to iron, 3rd stone to copper or similar). Once I have electricity up, I usually start building some electric drills to replace the burners (except for coal since I can automate that with a burner inserter and some belts a little later). Once I have an electric drill on iron and copper (and 2nd furnace for each resource to keep up in refining) it's time to get some belts up to feed my furnaces and boiler automatically (wait to replace the wooden chests at exit ports until the belt is otherwise built). Then I get a lab and 30 science packs (10 first, then another 20), research automation for Long Handed inserters so you can completely automate plate production, and then logistics for underground belts and splitters. This is when you're finally ready to start scaling production up (Iron first because there is much more demand for it early game than anything else).

[albatrosv13]

deleted

[BlakeMW]

What I usually do is start by building up assets of about:
4-6 burner drills on coal, 7-9 on iron, 2 on copper, 1-2 on stone - all are in direct feed arrangement, coal burners feed directly into each other, iron/copper burners feed directly into a furnace, stone burners into a box or furnace. No belts or inserters are used at all.
1-1-1 steam power plant for research (mainly automation and turrets) and a few assemblers (i.e. regular magazine, perhaps gears/copper wire)

The burner drills provide ample resources to then go directly to a 1/14/10

Because burners are way cheaper than electric drills and well-suited for direct feed arrangements using a lot of burners to start off with allows one to cheaply build up a large stash of iron and copper plates, which then allows going directly to large scale electricity-based production. Also in the short run (less than about half an hour) burners tend to be less polluting than electric setups because of the much lower upfront costs both of the drills themselves and supporting infrastructure, since every iron/copper plate smelted creates pollution this lets you get turrets up faster while drawing less attention to yourself and is particularly relevant to desert starts.

[Koub]

In addition to my first post, I usually go for 6 or 8 burner mining drills in circle for coal, and 4-5 burner+mining drill outputting into a stone furnace each for iron and 2 for copper. Plus one that outputs into a wooden chest for stone. At that time, switching to full electric is not a problem.

First electric mining drill goes to coal (to feed the boiler(s) easily, then I remove the iron burner drills & furnaces, and build myself my iron smelting facility, and when it's ready, I plop down my electric mining drills (I usually start with 4 + 8 stone furnaces to smelt). Then same with copper (except I halve the electric drills and furnaces. Then I'm done, I can start automating up to green science.

But that's my playstyle. There are as many playstyles as there are players.

[oddron]

There are as many playstyles as there are players.

Indeed. I did some "advanced" searching and found a version of this question from 2014, with even more options. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6627

Anyway, I found an approach that seems to work for me.