Some Dry Stuff

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Factories3StoneWorks.jpg (500.77 KiB) Viewed 10297 times

That's the stone issues solved for now. Concrete, hazard, walls, gates, and lots of bricks. I've brought some ore, steel and circuits in from home to make gates/concrete, but will reroute that train to the proper respective factories as they are made. I want a steel factory, and a green circuit factory, and a gear factory already... as usual more copper in sight than iron... I'll get there.

I like the text plates mod (lettering in image). This is the iron text plates, there's the option of copper as well.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Some adjustments. Fixed the outflow of stone ore with more belts and a balancer so it looks and performs better.

Found the tiniest bit of coal outside the Stone Works. As this tiny bit is also infinite, mined it for a handy train refuel source.

I ran green wires from the rail station chests collecting concrete, hazard, walls and gates, to the inserters that put them on the belts taking them to the station. Operate when x < n. This type of fine control is not necessary, but it is fun to micro-manage things at times.

That's what strikes me about making this, it's fun. Normally this would just be another outpost. Making outposts was fun about 1000 dismantled outposts ago...

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

This gear factory needs finishing touches but it's fully functional. Side loaded smelting I've not done before. Not having to force more production from patches/machines has freed up design considerably. If I need more gears, I can make another gear factory, or enlarge this one.

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Am going to need laser turrets soon. I've been pre-emptively clearing critters but the further afield the factories get the more surrounded I'm feeling.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

This red circuit factory is getting large fast. The 12 refineries only make 1/2 the plastic I want; so 12 more to go in.

Am matching smelting/production line lengths to the limiting resources ore patch size. In this instance iron gets 80 smelters and so 200 copper smelters are added to match the 1:2.5 iron:copper ratio for red circuit production. The output is then applied to the assembly lines. 3/5 copper and the iron to green circuits. 2/5 to copper cable. This will theoretically make 24 red circuits per second when complete. Seems so few compared to what I'm building.

Probably my awful math is showing again. I'm so jealous of people to whom math is the logical sensible thing it should be to me. I seem to approach it in game differently every time, like A->B->C is too hard for my creative type brain to stick with. Cause myself all manner of unnecessary confusion.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Haha this thing!

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I messed up my measurement it's only 62 assemblers per side (instead of planned 72 a side to total a gross) as I put the darn copper wire assemblers in as well. I got room to pull them out to the sides so might do that if I need the extra reds. For now it's jammed up hard against a copper patch.

Much of the red circuit factory is in the mini map, still got some oil to import, rail, stations, walls etc.

Am rather engrossed when I have time to play now. Have to be mindful of the time too I lose track.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

On defense:

I have decided to try a fairly minimalist approach to defenses. As pollution is turned off I am not dealing with enraged aliens that have come looking for me. Rather, I'm clearing bases in the way of my expansions. The Alien expansions, however, are becoming more frequent. They've popped up in front of me and beside my factories a bit too often. I figure keeping them in check might be as simple as having a minimal perimeter defense to shoot expansion parties, namely, one laser turret per large power pole on the rail system (coverage seen on right where I've started).

I'm hoping once this is done it will defend my central factories adequately. As I expand where the map dictates (kinda) I will never have full coverage but expansion should be a bit dicey. I'll probably get wrecked.

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Haven't had much time to play but nearly finished the red factory. Then I'll figure what I'd like next. The minimal labs are chewing through the red/green/grey/blue research no problem at all.

Nuclear is open now but with infinite coal and maybe oil to make power with it seems excessive. Maybe I'll make a weapons factory eventually, run it on nukes and make nukes.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

I'm really happy with this red factory. All components are sourced locally. 20:24 refineries are running which is spot on as only 120/144 planned assemblers were placed. Slipped a landfill train in here.

A landfill train is an idea I got from Nilaus. Very useful to have on standby.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Thought I'd mention my take on rail for the Factories.

I don't imagine throughput will be an issue. Except the ore for concrete, 0 ore is shipped in trains. No ore or (oar? ) plates will be shipped for steel as that will be made directly off patches as well. Even the red circuits got away without any transport requirements bar eventual exporting... So traffic requirements for the same eventual outputs (you know, rockets n stuff) will be considerably less.

No intersections. I don't like em.

The map shot above reveals an unusual T-Junction design in the rail system. Maybe others have used this design too I've not seen it.

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Going into the T-junction allows for a U-turn.

There are various situations where this comes in handy e.g.

- Coming off the main line into a specific factory, trains within that factory can turn around and or switch stations using the u turn.

- Main lines do not need to be crossed to access a rail station from both sides, if both ends of that part of the line are T-junctions. - see below.

Factories11T-JunctionUTurn.jpg (47 KiB) Viewed 10141 times

The downside is the mainline is being crossed when a T-junction is used as a u-turn. With considerably less traffic as I'll have, it just adds flexibility to the design. In high traffic it could become a problem. Trains will only u-turn if that is their best option however, so you can deck everything out with these T-junctions and have 0 u-turning trains, or all of them, according to how it is built.

I'm getting lazy on the walls. Putting in my minimal lasers instead. No way I'd get away with this with pollution on.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Factories12SteelSnake.jpg (311.74 KiB) Viewed 10127 times

Up and down and up and down...

At this site, one small and two larger patches of iron provide almost eight red belts of iron ore yielding just over 1.5 red belts of steel out of this coal driven dual snake set-up.

I've nearly died a couple of times now. When I forget to pay attention a new alien crew will surprise me. It's all a bit cat and mouse. There's only been one expansion party walked into my lasers (and damaged the radar) so far.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

There's a lot of coal by the steel so I've converted some of it into power. Added some rail stations. Steel's done.

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I've identified a good spot northwest for green circuits with loads of copper and iron. Building to the north will be good, it will break up this 'line' of factories. Some blue biters have turned up. I'm so gonna get spanked

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

The green factory, likewise, was a lot of fun to make. I got jumped putting in the coal (top left of green factory) my machine gun wasn't enough. I had to run, run, run to the nearest power for lasers only just making it in time. So far the biters seem hesitant to send expansion parties towards my lines, the one party I caught was almost instantly after putting in lasers - it might have already been in the fog of war.

Green circuits has 6 red belts of copper and 4 of iron. To make up the copper I scavenged the 3 patches around the steel factory and belted them all up to join the copper up north. The ratio and inputs are there for 4 red belts of green circuits.

The map has revealed water/desert scribble to the northeast (not pictured). This is the type of map I try avoid it's random crap in a uniform manner no decent landmasses, no large lakes, it's swampland, except the computer made it desert. Guess I could give the team some ecological rules to make nature look more natural and hope they hear me... I pushed my line of radar north hoping to reveal map sites that aren't so rubbish.

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Work to go yet, but this is the bones of the thing. Full output will only be achieved with an assembler upgrade - if I need it.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Factory making was a lot of fun but there were several issues that made me decide to try again. The way I opened the game up, without production and high tech science, denied me a lot of things e.g. blue belts, tier 3 assemblers, beacons, kovarex, etc.

What I've been after is a simple way to 'open the game up' (6 types of science production) that isn't a total grind. Also, something relatively simple so newbies can move deep into the game on their own rather than stamp out someones blueprints...

The 'grind' is really evident to me with red and then blue circuits. Especially feeding high tech. These are, imo, disproportionately painful in relation to everything else in the game. My solution is to cheat. To use mods 2x red and 2 x blue circuits. Now the game feels balanced, not a grind.

Factorio is so addictive which is 'OK' but it also takes so much time. These mods makes it possible to reach objectives in a more timely manner. Yay for mods. Also using infinite ores cos, time aint for replacing outposts either. Devs might want to think about the costs of blue and red in relation to everything else, including the time they cost a player who may prefer to be fighting aliens or designing the next assembly line.

So here's the first iteration of the MiniBus

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An initial bus of gears, circuits, iron and copper will take you far. Add coal and steel for military and then blue requires the oil products and the rest is opened for you. Add better smelters, then more as you need bringing the lines up to red belts. Add another smelting line only when you need them and splice them into the existing lines. no need for a huge bus, this is it. 3 belts of iron, 2 of copper. All spliced in so there's only one of each on the bus.

Of course, red and blue production is only half what it 'should be'.

It begins, very simply, like this:

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A smelting line of copper and iron get converted to a bunch of circuits and gears to go up and form the bus. a second line of iron is spliced in and you have 4 components to begin the bus.

This wee factory has opened everything up. I spent nine hours to get here which is pretty good I navel gaze a lot.

The spacing/layout has much room for improvement. But the result is great. All the ease of building off a bus without the huge and costly setup.

Limitations are of course throughput. This is to make a meal of all the pre-rocket science so you can then build with the full range of options opened.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

A look at the base overview is revealing. Plenty of ways to improve this. Where the green circuits and gears are being made, between the bus and the smelting lines, is also enough room to build red and blue circuits. This would allow the design to be tidied up considerably. Also, the labs could go east-west instead of heading north.

The high tech is still a bit short. The 1:1 speed modules take 15 rather than 14 seconds for high tech, the blues produce 20 rather than 21 every 14 seconds... It'll do for version 1.

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I'm just mucking about waiting for 0.17. Then I'd like to give Factories another try, with aliens that are an actual threat and, using this kind of start, with all the toys unlocked.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Here's a tidier version to kick off the minibus. Smelting lines to gear and circuit production to minibus.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Making life easy for myself. Space for coal steel stone and oil products. Boxes in one convenient spot for gears circuits and plates. Building is now a piece of cake as I can craft all manner of things quickly with these basics. And, no more trying to locate my box of (insert missing item here)...

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Changed already. There is a convenient gap for my boxes between drawing off resources for red and green science - so I put the boxes there.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

I automated assemblers and mining drills over by the green science. Then, I had enough assemblers, and switched over to more mining drills and some pipes in preparation for blue science and oil building. Military science isn't scrimped on this round. Ratios are pretty good, not perfect.

Put belts in a box too, crafting undergrounds was slow otherwise... Everything's ready for blue science. I just need to add plastic already.

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On the other side of the bus, same deal, waiting on plastic. This side of the bus is for intermediate products -or that's the way it's shaped up so far.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

OK, this is shaping up really well, but, I've hit a wall...

In the first iteration I had a belt array set up and switched to red belts as soon as I required them. In this set-up I did not make the belt array. Now the factory is demanding more than yellow belts can deliver. The plan was to hit logistics 3 so I can make a belt array including blue belts. It's a catch 22 situation here, need the array to feed requirements, don't have the requirements to feed the array...

Blue and production science were very simple once oil was done. Factory is only handling 50% of what it should be however, as I need more iron. I could double my smelting area but that'd defeat the purpose trying to make it reasonably compact/tidy.

Why I gotta research automation 3 before logistics 3 I'll never know. The fast belts feed the machines, the fast machines need the fast belts. As this is my only real glitch so far, I've little to complain about really.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Problem solved. Ideally I'd place this belt array early, as I have mentioned is important myself....

I'm not making blue belts yet as it will demand too much from a factory not designed for blue belts. My initial thinking, prior to supply issues, was to add resource inputs and make an extensive building store last, including a belt array. Then I'll have all the science opened up, and be making the toys this allows.

Here's the red belt maker - innit cute! Though it relies on one assembler sneaking circuits from next doors belt, there's room to bring independent supplies without compromising anything.

Now I can get the iron issues sorted, and do high tech. Then ALL THE TOYS.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

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Other than belt array issues, this went very smoothly. I'm researching Kovarex now (not in picture) as large multi-pack researches like that point out flaws in the system. My red belt assemblers were rubbish the copper coil not hitting the belt fast enough. Fixed. The blue circuit assembly only works properly with the top tier inserter upgrades, also done. They run 6.66% slow with only one copper wire assembler (with 2 x speed module 1) feeding each green circuit maker. To compensate I made more assemblers, 6.66% more, exactly