Satellite requires too many radars?

[PockSuppet]

Hi Nauvisians!

First time posting here, I mostly just lurk and play. But this is too important to me and I have to speak up.

The satellite is way too expensive. It requires 5 radars and I just can't build a factory that can handle that at the speed I want to launch my rockets in the base I'm planning. 1 might be reasonable. Also it doesn't make sense that you would put so many in a satellite. We all know that 1 radar is a 2x2 building. 5 of them is 20 tiles. How is that going to fit inside the rocket? Seems very unrealistic when you compare it to the silo, 9x9 = 45. So is the rocket filled completely with just radars? Also 1 radar uses an immense amount of power that sometimes browns out my factory. I find it a bit too expensive to power the radar in my base all the time, otherwise I just have to run my coal deposits dry and expand my powerplant with an extra steam engine. So in the cost of having a radar needs to factor in the cost to build the extra steam engine and boiler and pipe and inserters. And then you have to feed it with coal constantly for no real gain. And I'm supposed to believe that the satellite can just run 5 of them (300kW * 5 = 1.5 MW!!) all the time?

So what do you guys think? Also please share your radar factories. If they don't remove some from the satellite recipe then maybe I can at least get a good blueprint on how to make a high speed radar factory! I hope they are not too big though because I haven't figured out construction bots yet. Would be easier if they allowed you to hand craft plates and oil items so I don't have to waste time making a confusing pipe maze and smelting base.

// Pock

[Koub]

I might be mistaken, but seeing the content of your post, I sense a lack of experience. Did you really play the game at least once until the point you deem unbalanced ?
Just for records, the satellite needs 100 accumulators, 100 Low density structures, 100 processing units (blue chip), 50 rocket fuel, and 100 solar panels on top of the 5 radars.
The breakdown in raw resources is 8.4k iron, 9.3k copper, 450 coal, around 30k crude oil, and 37k water.
The 5 radars will cost you a grand 125 iron, and 37.5 copper total, which is a drop in the radar's cost ocean.

The second point (the size part), considering you can carry locomotives by stacks of 5, or refineries by stacks of 10 in your backpack, I'm surprised the 5 radars in a satellite bother you.

[Zavian]

And I'm supposed to believe that the satellite can just run 5 of them (300kW * 5 = 1.5 MW!!) all the time?

The satellite also needs 100 solar panels (which produce a total of 6MW when in sunlight) and 100 accumulators (which store a total of 500MJ to power the satellite when it is in shadow).

You really don't need a "high speed radar factory". (Indeed you can easily hand craft the all the radars you need for your first satellite from iron and copper plates in less than 1 minute). Even launching 10 rockets per minute you need less than 1 radar every second. 1 assembler is enough. (And a base for 10 rockets per minute is pretty big, and needs a massive amount of power).

I too sense a lack of experience. You have probably built and placed a radar, but I suspect you are yet to automate blue science. By the time you have researched a satellite 5 radars won't seem expensive. (There are lots of mid game items that are more expensive than a radar. Some need even more power eg refineries).

[SyncViews]

Also it doesn't make sense that you would put so many in a satellite. We all know that 1 radar is a 2x2 building. 5 of them is 20 tiles. How is that going to fit inside the rocket? Seems very unrealistic

Radar is 3x3. Examples of 2x2 buildings would be the burner miner and furnace.

Factorio, along with many games, largely ignores the physics of production. A basic electronic circuit somehow needs 1 unit of iron and 1.5 copper (a 2.5 -> 1 compression), a processing unit needs a massive 24 iron, 40 copper (already a 64 -> 1 compression) plus more the plastic and acid. Realistically a lot of the costs are due to the complexity of production and the research required. A lot of this ultimately comes down to labour costs, something that Factorio does not model, or real estate and transportation costs, something else largely not modeled.

[Serenity]

A radar takes a second or less to craft depending on the type of assembler. Do you launch rockets every few seconds?

I find it a bit too expensive to power the radar in my base all the time, otherwise I just have to run my coal deposits dry and expand my powerplant with an extra steam engine.

This also suggests that you don't have a large base

I currently have 1.2GW nuclear power and around 150MW solar. I stopped building steam engines after 72MW, then kept it only as a backup and will probably tear it down soon. I have 10 regular radars and 10 modded long rage radars (4 times the range for 4 times the power).

Even early game, powering a radar or two isn't a big deal. You can also power a radar with just 7 solar panels

[PockSuppet]

I too sense a lack of experience. You have probably built and placed a radar, but I suspect you are yet to automate blue science.

Do people usually automate science? Handcrafting requires no energy (so less coal wasted for assembler energy and 0 pollution) and automatically crafts the entire production chain which reduces the complexity of the chain down to a single click. I have an assembler for important things like Firearm magazine and Shotgun shell so I can gun down the natives and defend my base when I need to. But science doesn't have any time pressure and it takes a lab so much time to consume the science packs anyways I don't see the point of automating the production of those.

I've seen mods on the portal that make handcrafting faster and that gives a better steel axe. But I haven't installed it yet because I have to return to my base for my refinery and chem plant anyways. If there was a mod that made it possible to craft plates and oil products then I would be able to do a quick resupply on my hunting trips from any ore patches I see when I'm out there killing natives. But with construction bots I guess I can just carry my base with me anyways.

Also it doesn't make sense that you would put so many in a satellite. We all know that 1 radar is a 2x2 building. 5 of them is 20 tiles. How is that going to fit inside the rocket? Seems very unrealistic

Radar is 3x3. Examples of 2x2 buildings would be the burner miner and furnace.

Factorio, along with many games, largely ignores the physics of production. A basic electronic circuit somehow needs 1 unit of iron and 1.5 copper (a 2.5 -> 1 compression), a processing unit needs a massive 24 iron, 40 copper (already a 64 -> 1 compression) plus more the plastic and acid. Realistically a lot of the costs are due to the complexity of production and the research required. A lot of this ultimately comes down to labour costs, something that Factorio does not model, or real estate and transportation costs, something else largely not modeled.

Well then 5 * 3x3 = 45 = 9x9. So 5 radars then take as much space as the silo! That's even crazier

[Serenity]

Do people usually automate science?

Are you serious or just trolling? In a way that's the whole point of the game

But science doesn't have any time pressure and it takes a lab so much time to consume the science packs anyways I don't see the point of automating the production of those.

It's true that at the beginning you have plenty of time to research things, but end game research takes a long time and tons of materials. Did you ever consider having many labs?

The highest I'd consider handcrafting is advanced oil processing maybe, but anything more is tedious

Yes, you can launch a rocket by handcrafting stuff and never having more than one assembler per item type, but the game is about automating everything and building huge

[SyncViews]

I too sense a lack of experience. You have probably built and placed a radar, but I suspect you are yet to automate blue science.

Do people usually automate science? Handcrafting requires no energy (so less coal wasted for assembler energy and 0 pollution) and automatically crafts the entire production chain which reduces the complexity of the chain down to a single click. I have an assembler for important things like Firearm magazine and Shotgun shell so I can gun down the natives and defend my base when I need to. But science doesn't have any time pressure and it takes a lab so much time to consume the science packs anyways I don't see the point of automating the production of those.

You need literally 1,000's of each pack to launch a rocket, plus all the "non essential" techs you might actually want. Sure there is no time pressure, if you want to spend many hours just doing that. Get onto infinite tech and you need many thousands per level.

Play on marathon/expensive settings, and multiple the number of packs by 4 (plus a lot more resource to make each pack, so something more like 8 times the resources).

Going for achievements like completing in less than 8 hours or common self set ones like a rocket per minute, will require a certain amount of automation.

Also it doesn't make sense that you would put so many in a satellite. We all know that 1 radar is a 2x2 building. 5 of them is 20 tiles. How is that going to fit inside the rocket? Seems very unrealistic

Radar is 3x3. Examples of 2x2 buildings would be the burner miner and furnace.

Factorio, along with many games, largely ignores the physics of production. A basic electronic circuit somehow needs 1 unit of iron and 1.5 copper (a 2.5 -> 1 compression), a processing unit needs a massive 24 iron, 40 copper (already a 64 -> 1 compression) plus more the plastic and acid. Realistically a lot of the costs are due to the complexity of production and the research required. A lot of this ultimately comes down to labour costs, something that Factorio does not model, or real estate and transportation costs, something else largely not modeled.

Well then 5 * 3x3 = 45 = 9x9. So 5 radars then take as much space as the silo! That's even crazier

Well as I said, basically everything in Factorio "compresses". There is only a couple of things like copper wire that do not.

Also consider that to build a rocket is in the region of nearly 100,000 iron and copper, and 300,000 oil (6,000 barrels). So clearly the rocket physically is massive, maybe they just drew the sprite smaller so you can actually see it easily?

[Hannu]

Do people usually automate science? Handcrafting requires no energy (so less coal wasted for assembler energy and 0 pollution) and automatically crafts the entire production chain which reduces the complexity of the chain down to a single click. I have an assembler for important things like Firearm magazine and Shotgun shell so I can gun down the natives and defend my base when I need to. But science doesn't have any time pressure and it takes a lab so much time to consume the science packs anyways I don't see the point of automating the production of those.

You are right. It is stupid and strictly against Factorio's philosophy to make science packs automatically. And what's worse, usually same players use all kind of mining drills to get raw materials. Hand mining is only right way. Unfortunately, there is not proper way to build buckets and extract oil from oil wells by hand.

Also it doesn't make sense that you would put so many in a satellite. We all know that 1 radar is a 2x2 building. 5 of them is 20 tiles. How is that going to fit inside the rocket? Seems very unrealistic

Yes, such extremely unrealistic detail destroy the whole realistic game. Everyone knows that every satellite have 100 large accumulators intended to handle power network's load variations, but only one small radar. And who of us does not have couple of oil refineries, bunch of nuclear reactors and dozen of diesel locomotives in pocket at typical day.

[PockSuppet]

Do people usually automate science?

Are you serious or just trolling? In a way that's the whole point of the game

Yes, you can launch a rocket by handcrafting stuff and never having more than one assembler per item type, but the game is about automating everything and building huge

People have different playstyles. Your objective might be that. I think the goal is to kill all the natives. Also handcrafting IS automation. It is even more automatic than assembler crafting. Just because you don't play like me doesn't mean you have to say that my enjoyment of the game is wrong
Maybe we should agree to disagree, my friend.

It's true that at the beginning you have plenty of time to research things, but end game research takes a long time and tons of materials. Did you ever consider having many labs?

I can't craft quickly enough to feed several labs anyways. And having several labs probably waste extra power. Did you know that idle buildings drain energy even when not doing anything? It's more efficient to have fewer buildings.

[xfir01]

I think the goal is to kill all the natives.

Once you get a few more hours under your belt you'll understand the real goal is to kill trees, and the best weapon we have to do that? Pollution!

Rocket launches are really just a side product of my pollution factory, so I don't worry about things like power efficiency. More coal is more mining drills polluting, and more boils burning that precious black rock.

[Trebor]

Did you know that idle buildings drain energy even when not doing anything?

But not labs, they have zero drain.

[PockSuppet]

I think the goal is to kill all the natives.

Once you get a few more hours under your belt you'll understand the real goal is to kill trees, and the best weapon we have to do that? Pollution!

Rocket launches are really just a side product of my pollution factory, so I don't worry about things like power efficiency. More coal is more mining drills polluting, and more boils burning that precious black rock.

Ah yes, the trees! My friend, I agree that all trees need to be killed also to win and I will add that to my goal. Thanks for enlightening me! But pollution destroys the tree so you can't get the wood. You need to chop the trees down so you don't waste the precious resource. Trees give like 1 wood per tile even in a forest compared to thousands of ores per tile in an iron ore patch. So wood is thousands of times rarer and can't be allowed to go to waste.

// Pock

[PockSuppet]

Did you know that idle buildings drain energy even when not doing anything?

But not labs, they have zero drain.

Ok! I have a pro tip that might be a bit OP and considered glitch abuse so I don't know if I should tell you in case the devs read this and patch it. When a building is not in use I mine the building and drop the item (key Z) on the ground if I have low inventory space. The natives can't destroy items on the ground and I can't lose them by dying that way either. If a building is destroyed you permanently lose it and if it happens enough times you might run out of resources and have to restart the world from scratch. By abusing this trick you can avoid power drain of ALL buildings and have 0 risk of running out of resources. Neat huh, my friend?

// Pock

[Koub]

[Koub] OK so the fun trolling has lasted enough. Topic locked.