Simple Questions and Short Answers

[golfmiketango]

Anybody know what is the significance of "enemy bases" "richness" frob in the 0.15 map gen settings? My understanding -- although I'm not sure it was correct to begin with -- was that in 0.14 this determined how generous the probability distribution of cotton candy yields would be from liberated biter bases; since cotton candy is gone, I was surprised to see the frob was still in the game.

[Deadly-Bagel]

I always assumed it was to do with number of spawners per nest. Small rich nests are compact but dense clusters, while large poor nests are a few spawners spread out over a chunk.

[daniel34]

I think the alien richness setting just does nothing, and also did nothing in 0.14.

I've written a lengthy post a few months ago which tested a few theories about what alien richness is supposed to influence, but none of the theories actually worked out:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/427520/di ... 6678103012

Long post

I always thought it was the number of artifacts the spawners dropped, but a few weeks ago I experimentally tested some theories.

Theory: Higher richness yields more artifacts from spawners
Biter spawners will always randomly drop between 2 and 10 alien artifacts, spitter spawners will drop between 5 and 15. These values are defined in demo-enemies.lua and enemies.lua and are independent of richness. In my tests very poor bases actually had slightly more (2-3%) artifacts then very good bases, but that's just down to randomness. When killing the same 40 bases on the same map seed, all settings the same except richness, the result was 366 artifacts for very good richness and 375 artifacts for very poor richness.

In the game files enemy bases have a richness_multiplier of 1 and a richness_base of 0 (multiplying by 1 does nothing, a base of 0 always gives 0 when multiplied with any number), whereas ores have 1500 and 500 and oil even higher numbers.

Theory: Higher richness means more dense bases
How close the spawners are (or how many there are) doesn't depend on the richness, you can easily test this by creating two new games with the same seed but different richness, you'll find no difference in spawner placement or amount.

Theory: It's the amount of aliens spawned
I have never heard the claim that it's the number of aliens that spawn from hives. The number of biters/spitters a spawner spawns depends on the pollution the spawner has absorbed, a list can be found here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution#Native_life
The amount of pollution a spawner absorbs is also independent of other factors, it's 20 + 0.01 * [chunks pollution] every game second (60 ticks). The kind of biter/spitter the spawner sends out depends on the evolution factor.
I didn't test this experimentally as I just heard about this, but this seems very unlikely given the info above and people probably would have noticed if that was the case.

I have no idea if richness actually affects anything, every theory I tested so far seems to be false and the code I looked through also doesn't mention any changes depending on richness. I could think of two reasons why there is a richness dropdown for enemies:

• Mods can access these settings and make changes that depend on richness (although they would also be able to just enable the dropdown if required and keep it disabled for vanilla)
• In Factorio versions up to 0.6.4 (sometime 2013) the richness setting actually did something so they just left it in, or maybe forgot about it. It did what theory 2 above claims and created more dense bases: http://i.imgur.com/0eOKVfu.png

[orzelek]

I think the alien richness setting just does nothing, and also did nothing in 0.14.

I've written a lengthy post a few months ago which tested a few theories about what alien richness is supposed to influence, but none of the theories actually worked out:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/427520/di ... 6678103012

When applying map settings to RSO I simply needed to ignore it since there was nothing to apply it to. You have size and frequency and richness doesn't apply anywhere. OR at least I couldn't find good way to make it useful.

[Nemac]

how to 'free' stuck construction robots?

Got some bot just fly above the roboport and wait there. Delete the ports seems not to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCeyTgx9qM

thank you

[torne]

how to 'free' stuck construction robots?

Got some bot just fly above the roboport and wait there. Delete the ports seems not to help.

They might be holding items from deconstruction and waiting for somewhere to put them; do you have enough storage chests?

[Nemac]

i got some storage chest with free space near by...
A new empty Storage neart the post dont work too :/

Edit:
they all carry a repair tool.
a new example: https://youtu.be/-QOgAs33hTE (sorry for the Audio, please mute)

[nevniv]

That is weird. And they seem damaged, I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

[torne]

If they're carrying partially used repair tools they need available slots in an actual roboport to store them.

Are you loading brand new repair packs into roboports by any chance? If so, then don't do this - robots will get them from provider chests when needed and you should only let them store the partially used ones in the roboports.

Otherwise, if you really have that many partially used repair packs, you could just empty some of them out and put them in provider chests, or you could build more roboports to increase the available storage.

[zakman]

Is there a console command or other quick way to make it always dark? In other words, the exact opposite of /c game.surfaces[1].always_day=true ?

[Nexela]

/c game.player.surface.daytime = .5
/c game.player.surface.freeze_daytime(true)

[Claudius1729]

How can I remove a ghost?

I am trying to complete the railroads tutorial, and 2nd tutorial use ghosts.

[zakman]

Trying to build an SR switch so that I can switch over to steam generators in case my accumulator power drops too far. I have been hunting for a guide on how to set them up with 0.15, but either my Google-fu skills are lacking tonight, or I'm just too tired to make it work. Is there a "SR-switches-for-dummies" guide out there that has been updated to work with 0.15? Or failing that, a mod that has the same thing? Thanks.

[Serenity]

Trying to build an SR switch so that I can switch over to steam generators in case my accumulator power drops too far. I have been hunting for a guide on how to set them up with 0.15, but either my Google-fu skills are lacking tonight, or I'm just too tired to make it work. Is there a "SR-switches-for-dummies" guide out there that has been updated to work with 0.15? Or failing that, a mod that has the same thing? Thanks.

This still works for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEOXGBYR6oM

Though it has been a long time since I had an emergency

[daniel34]

how to 'free' stuck construction robots?

Got some bot just fly above the roboport and wait there. Delete the ports seems not to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCeyTgx9qM

thank you

i got some storage chest with free space near by...
A new empty Storage neart the post dont work too :/

Edit:
they all carry a repair tool.
a new example: https://youtu.be/-QOgAs33hTE (sorry for the Audio, please mute)

I think it is this bug, fixed for the next release: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=46628

[t-lor]

Jup its a new bug
in the meantime. u can "mine" em out of the air with rmb.

[Nemac]

how to 'free' stuck construction robots?

Got some bot just fly above the roboport and wait there. Delete the ports seems not to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCeyTgx9qM

thank you

i got some storage chest with free space near by...
A new empty Storage neart the post dont work too :/

Edit:
they all carry a repair tool.
a new example: https://youtu.be/-QOgAs33hTE (sorry for the Audio, please mute)

I think it is this bug, fixed for the next release: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=46628

Jup its a new bug
in the meantime. u can "mine" em out of the air with rmb.

Thanks
Catch about 50 now, and set them back into Port, RMB works

[searker]

How can I remove a ghost?

I am trying to complete the railroads tutorial, and 2nd tutorial use ghosts.

Just right-click it like you´d mine something.

[dasiro]

I couldn't find it anywhere, but is it by design that you can't load stuff on trains when the wagons are on a curved rail?

[torne]

I couldn't find it anywhere, but is it by design that you can't load stuff on trains when the wagons are on a curved rail?

Yes.