GIF Mini Tutorials!

[mpstark]

Hello!

I've made two sets of GIF mini tutorials for Factorio and I wanted to share them outside of my original posting on Reddit. The albums are here and here but I've gone ahead and added the images below. They do have comments in the album however, so please, look at the albums for more information. Some of these may seem obvious to experienced players, but I assure you that there is someone that just went oooohhh on one that you thought was obvious. Enjoy!

If there are any GIFs that you'd like to see, please mention them! If you see any mistakes, please tell me so that I can fix them!

Feel free to use/remix/link/post-to-the-wiki these however you want underneath the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


First Album
Make sure to read comments on the album!

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Second Album
Make sure to read comments on the album!

Click To View

Higher Quality Album Suitable for Wiki!

Click To View

[GewaltSam]

Nice one! A friend of mine just started playing, I think that'll help him a lot.
Also, there are some nice things I didn't realize too Keep it up!
By the way, i really like how nice most of the gifs loop. Good work!

[ray4ever]

Nice work! Someone capable should put those in the wiki

[Lee_newsum]

I wood like you to all 2 more

[mpstark]

I didn't use blue belts but the concepts are the same.

[Garm]

I didn't use blue belts but the concepts are the same.

I would actually recommend using higher tier splitters:

1) to show that they tend to split 1 high speed belt into 2 lowers tier belts (i.e 1 red belt in = 2 yellow belts out)

2) This technique is used only for blue belts: you can turn red and yellow ones at much cheaper cost by using higher level belt mentioned already.

[Lee_newsum]

I didn't use blue belts but the concepts are the same.

with the Basic transport belt you can add a Fast transport belt to the corners and a Express transport belt to a Fast transport belt but the Express transport belt has none to add to it so express splitters is the best way to go next upgrade is 2 lines of belts.

[mpstark]

The main reason I didn't use blue belts for the splitter one is because I haven't got a current save that has them unlocked! Once I do, I'll be sure to make a GIF with them. I actually had listed under the album listing

Lee_newsum actually came up with this one. Another way to deal with the curve slowdown.

This works particularly well when you have a packed blue belt, since you cannot actually use a faster belt when there are not any more levels up.

[Garm]

Another very useful aspect of splitters:



allowing shifting belt 1 tile to the side without loosing speed. Again only useful for blue belts.

[ssilk]

This is great!! Now remove this text descriptions in the pic and it is useable for the wiki.

Two things to mention:
#2: the objects are items and they tend to slide to that side in which the inserter has rotated. This is by default the described side. If the inserter can choose between different items on a belt, he will sometimes turn into the other direction and then keeps there, until he can choose again. He will of course not change the direction when taking from a chest.

The same default directions are as far as I remember are also for the miners.

#9 and #10: I would like to see also this type of balancer: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 808#p12916 because I find it sometimes very useful, when you really want to squeeze out some more items per minute out of one belt...


Btw: which program do you use to make these gifs?

[mpstark]

Now remove this text descriptions in the pic and it is useable for the wiki.

Unfortunately, I don't have the masters so I will have to rerecord the GIFs; though I was thinking about doing that anyways once I figure out a tool that will allow me to edit GIFs effectively that doesn't cost an arm and a leg! The frame-rate and timing on these guys is not actually in line with the game, which was a side effect of editing them with a terrible online suite that forced me to use a 10ms frame delay on a less than 8MB file, which limited me to about 14fps capture. The loops are done by eye with the same terrible online suite and I wasn't able to edit out the lighting changes that come from the cloud cover ala a cinemagraph.

The tool that I used to record them was LICEcap which is free and quite easy to use. I might acquire the Adobe suite to see if I can't edit future ones down better.

I will make sure to keep good masters (@30fps instead of 14fps) around of any more that I create. I'm planning on doing a series of them about belt throughput and moving into smelting/manufacturing. I'm using the creation of them to fuel my playtime and to learn a little bit about the game at the same time.

[ssilk]

I just remembered this: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... animations

But I've not been testing it since yet, I use normally ipad to look into the forums.

Edit: Oh yes, the devs wanted to add the screenshot feature into the game, which is the same function, they have been creating the famous video trailer.

So more important then the gifs are eventually the map, you have used to build that.

[slpwnd]

Awesome idea. This should totally go to the wiki to something like a beginners section ...

@ssilk What is wrong with the captions?

[ssilk]

Perhaps it's was little bit exaggerative... The text in the gifs are a small problem only.

But, well, there is one good reason: It is, because the wiki should be translatable.

The way I know to do this is to have that as translatable text in the containing wiki-page. It's also possible - with some afford - to put the texts over the pic as layer (some HTML/CSS quirks), but this is also done inside the page. So in every case if you put text directly in the pic as part of the graphics, that is not the best idea, when you want to include pics in a containing page and/or want to translate it.

Well, as already said, it's not so, that it isn't usable like so.

[kovarex]

I love this.

[JoeSchmoe]

Great.

On the tend up and tend left, it might be helpful to show how the occasional one goes to the "wrong" side.

Also could really use some info on underground belts.

how to split the two sides of a belt
which can be used by inserters taking off a belt
which can be used by inserters putting on a belt

[mpstark]

Here's some underground belt gifs. I had a terrible time looping one of them. Framerate should be higher from now on and the cloudcover should be a little bit less obvious at the loop-point.

New GIFs using a framerate of 33 and without text will be put into this album.

[BenWo]

Here's some underground belt gifs. I had a terrible time looping one of them. Framerate should be higher from now on and the cloudcover should be a little bit less obvious at the loop-point.

New GIFs using a framerate of 33 and without text will be put into this album.

Those are beautiful!
As others have mentioned these should absolutely be included on the wiki in some kind of transport belt guide.

[CreeperDaReeper]

Here's some underground belt gifs. I had a terrible time looping one of them. Framerate should be higher from now on and the cloudcover should be a little bit less obvious at the loop-point.
New GIFs using a framerate of 33 and without text will be put into this album.

And just yesterday I was wondering how I could split a single line with two resources into two lines with a single resource each. This is awesome! Thanks!

[ssilk]

Here is more: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... anes_trick