Why do I suck so bad at this game... ugh.

[JoeDiertay]

I've played this game for 40 hours now. But every time i play it i can never get passed mid game. Every time i hit oil processing i just start looking at my base and thinking, "well $h1t... what else is there to do to this factory that i haven't done yet?"

Do you guys have any suggestions on what i can be doing differently? ** mind you i have the game mode on as easy as possible with biters set to not automatically attack.

***I always get stuck after i start automating red and green science potions.

[sparr]

I'm not really sure what you're getting stuck on. There's plenty left to do. Oil automation, ammo automation, turret refill automation, bot networks, combinator craziness, train networks, all the way up to rocket parts and rocket launching.

[Mehve]

Your question is a little open-ended, so I guess it depends on exactly what your issue is. A few thoughts:

1) You could probably benefit from a little more separation between your stuff. Belts and power poles are generally fairly cheap, don't be afraid to put your iron and copper smelters a distance away from all the stuff that uses the plates. This gives you room to organize and modify as you go.

2) Expand your mining and smeltering operations. With no enemies, you can be patient, but you'll find that everything takes more time if you can't supply enough resources.

3) Things like electric furnaces and accumulators can be skipped for now. Electric furnaces aren't actually any faster then steel ones, and they won't give you benefits until you start loading them up with modules, which is far in the future for you. Accumulators aren't much use either unless your running laser towers and need to handle power spikes, but since you don't have biters attacking, that's not going to be an issue. Both of these items also require oil byproducts, which are in short supply until you get a good oil processing chain going (which you'll need for blue science packs).

4) Most research requires the same number of red and green science packs, and they take close to the same time to build, so there isn't much point in having a lot more assemblers making one then the other.

5) I don't see any steel production - between rails and blue science packs, and lots of other fun stuff, there's NEVER enough steel. Build up your iron plate production, and start diverting some of it to steel production.

6) I see a few non-vanilla ores and buildings there - make sure the mods don't distract you from practicing with with the vanilla stuff.

[kingarthur]

best suggestion i can give is space stuff out more and make it bigger. if you haven't already launched a rocket thats a good place to start. works towards the rocket and after the first one try to do it faster.

another things is get construction bots. and dont be afraid to rip up parts of the factory and redo things if you dont like how it is

[Bushdoctor]

It's a bit strange to cut many elements out of your game, like enemies, weapons, defensive structures etc,
not work towards the end goal of launching an equipped rocket and then asking if the game has anything more to offer...

It's a lot of fun doing all those things, so my suggestion would be to start a regular game, stick with it and actually finish it by launching the rocket.
That should keep you busy for quite a while...

[Frightning]

So are you finding yourself feeling like you're making everything you could want? Or is it that you've made such a 'mess' of belt spaghetti that you don't even wanna think about trying to refactor the whole thing to accommodate oil and oil derivative items?

If it's the latter, than the solution to is be greedier with space initially and plan on expanding things like Green circuit and Iron gear wheel production later on (i.e. layout those things so that you can expand them later up to whatever scale you need). This was something that took me quite a few tries to really learn how to do, check out the bussed building store concept (search these boards for it) and you'll see just how neat and tidy early automation can be when laid out well.

If it's the former, then I highly recommend trying a game with default settings and aggressive biters. The pressure of having to deal with the biters and actually think about pollution in addition to resource demand (you can't just keep expanding your production lines free from consequence w/ the biters around, have to deal with them one way or another, and that takes time and resources) adds a lot to the game. I pretty much always play with aggressive biters now because without them I definitely find myself hitting the "I got nothing else I wanna make" problem by midgame.

You could also try a different type of base, for example, a 'towns' game where each process has its own 'town' and they are supplied via trains from the other 'towns' or try making an all logibot base (like my WIP kilobase that I posted on these boards), etc.

[The Eriksonn]

What i tend to do at this stage is to build a new factory a few tiles away, or maby rebuild the old one from the ground up.
Because then you can plan better so you dont end up locking yourself in a corner with all of the assemblingmachines and belts.
You also might have a look at the "Main bus" design, it is very easy to expand from and makes your life a lot easier.

[Koub]

Yeah oil wall and blue science automation always felt like a pain to me after red and green science.
First of all, you know that your next big step will be automating blue science. You know that for that, you'll need :
1) A steady input of copper and iron. Steady like in "a shitload" of copper and iron (1 red science pack needs 2 iron and 1 copper plate, green science pack need 5.5 iron and 1.5 copper plate, blue will need 21 iron, 17 copper, and one coal on top of a lot of crude oil and water).
2) Space. a lot of room is needed to produce blue science, because you need 17 steps of transformation to produce a blue science pack where you needed 8 for green science and 4 for red science (this includes ore smelting)
3) Do things one after the other :
- You'll need a BIG smeltery for iron and copper, with something like a bus getting things out in a usable manner
- then you need a smaller smeltery to turn part of your iron into steel
- then you should automate filter inserters, it's the last oilless step
- then set up your starting oil industry, keeping in mind you'll switch from basic to advanced oil processing asap : dont clog everything together, let room for temporary storage and future cracking chem plants
- once you get a regular output of petroleum gas, I advise you to automate red circuits, because the only thing they need from oil industry is platic bars, which is the easiest part
- Then, you have to automate battery producing. The part I like least. You'll need petroleum gas +water => sulfur +iron + water => sulfuric acid + iron + copper => battery
- now, get all that on two belts, build a row of assembling machine 2s, and you'll get your infamous blue science. If you do it right, you can get it go into your current science facility with very little rework (just move your labs on the right side 1 tile to the right, and let the belt with blue science get along the existing red+green science)

Naturally, there is a 0) before all that : automate the production of whatever you'll need to do all this beforehand (inserters, fast inserters, long hand inserters, slow/fast belts, assembling machines 1 and 2, chemical plants, pipes, power poles, furnaces. That way you'll have very little to produce by hand.

But know that with next major update 0.15, all science should get an overhaul.

[mexmer]

But know that with next major update 0.15, all science should get an overhaul.

TL;DR there will be another UGH

[kinnom]

Yeah oil wall and blue science automation always felt like a pain to me after red and green science.

You've never played with angel's petrochem have you?

[Koub]

But know that with next major update 0.15, all science should get an overhaul.

TL;DR there will be another UGH

It really depends how hard you have to dive into next "tier"'s automation to get science running. Balancing is crucial.

You've never played with angel's petrochem have you?

Hell no, I already have trouble with vanilla oil, I won't inflict such a punishment to myself