1 week playing need advice - screen shot included

[Fangskin]

My first few bases I died from the creepers...


My current base seems ok i guess, need advice on the following:

-Steam power starting to run out. Should I continue with steam?
-Iron plates running out. Should I mine at another location, use trains?
-What to do next? trying to get up to making the rocket.
-what should i automate produce, everything? what to keep on the main production line?

Thanks, here is a screenshot of everything except the mining:

[Bauer]

That is a very nice start. You don't have a lot of spaghetti, which is good.

I noticed a few points.
- You are not using the quickbar. Once you get used to it, you probably won't wanna do without again.
- Have a look at the belt capacities. Yellow belts do 15 items/s. You need much more than 1 belt of iron and copper plates. In the beginning you need much more iron than copper.
- Have a look at the production ratios, too. Even idle machines use engery and thus also produce polution.
[Example: 6 assmebly machines 1 need 12 iron plates/s to saturate. That is 80% of your Fe production.]
- Direct insertion of Cu coil for green chips is highly recommended.
- You can double your steam setup before the boilers need more than a yellow belt can bring.
- What to do next: Research along the tech tree and figure that out yourself.
- It's a game about automation. So yes, automate everything. Most people build what they call a "mall". A place where stuff is built that you would hand-craft otherwise.

[Hannu]

-Steam power starting to run out. Should I continue with steam?

If you have default biter and coal settings you should be easily able to use steam power through the game. Follow your own opinion.

-Iron plates running out. Should I mine at another location, use trains?

Sure. When you begin higher sciences you need much more stuff. 4 red or blue belts of iron and copper is good starting point for first base. It gives resources to launch your first rocket at reasonable time.

-What to do next? trying to get up to making the rocket.

Next big thing is oil processing, red circuits and blue science. I would probably increase smelting of iron and copper before that to handle at least 1 red belt (even 2 for iron). You should also consider military science, which gives more bullet damage and other nice things to develop your defense and ability to conquer resource deposits.

-what should i automate produce, everything? what to keep on the main production line?

Everything is good starting point. In any case everything you need for science, ammunition, belts, inserters, rails etc. mass products. You may handcraft production entities you need for building, but it is relatively straightforward to automatize also assemblers, miners, chemical plants, rail signals, power poles etc. common production entities and I am sure you do not regret if you use couple of hours for it. I typically automatize everything except rocket silos, power armors, tanks and some military equipment I never use. But I automatize low quantity stuff usually after logistic network and bots.

There are different philosophies of base structures. In my opinion (there are many others and they are not worse in any absolute scale) it is very convenient to make first everything in one base. At some point I need more throughput (for example more than 2 red belts of iron and copper). Then I build separate smelteries nearby and begin to bring iron and copper plates instead of ore. At next step I make separate oil refinery and bring solid fuel, plastic, lubricant and sulfuric acid instead of crude oil. Next step is separate factory for green circuits. After that (typically after first few rockets) I conquer huge area (with atomic bombs) and build a railworld with larger production plants for intermediates.

[leadraven]

• Steam is great to launch first rocket. After that uranium is preferable. You are always free to place some solar panels if you like, but it is not mandatory.
• Make sure that entire iron patch is covered with miners, and all ore is smelted without bottleneck. If yes, found mining outpost - it is always a good idea. You can use very long belt, but trains are better and much funnier.
• Steel and oil. After that you will figure it out yourself.
• Automate science, anything else is optional. Nothing bad in handcrafting. You will automate it when the time comes.
• My main bus usually consists of iron/copper plates (multiple belts), 2 belts of green circuits, 1 belt of iron gear and steel. Later some more stuff for science. You definitely don't need wires on main bus. Also it's better to produce belts/inserters right near green science.

Nice start. Good luck.

[Serenity]

The steam ratio is 1 offshore pump, 20 boilers, 40 steam engines. That gives you 40 * 900kW = 36MW. You can generally build two of those setups - fueled by most of a red belt of coal - before transitioning to solar power.
If you want you can also go bigger with steam though

Busing copper cable is not that great because one copper plate turns into two cables. So you can transport less materials. For green circuits you can use direct insertion. Red circuits though are so slow that belting the cables locally works. Just not on the main bus

[Mr. Tact]

-Steam power starting to run out. Should I continue with steam?

As someone else said, it is possible to continue with steam. Even fun to manage the belting of the coal as your power needs ramp up. Personally, I generally rely on solar and accumulators. They are so much easier than nuclear. Once you have power armor and personal roboports, slapping down another thousand (or even five thousand) solar panels really isn't much of an issue.

-Iron plates running out. Should I mine at another location, use trains?

Yes and yes? Long belts full of items is a drain on your UPS. But short of a mega base, you can do a lot of it without a problem. When I get about where you are now is when I start laying out "permanent" smelting areas. Often initially feed by the nearest ore patch with long term plans of having ore brought in by trains. The unofficial motto of Factorio is "More, Faster". If you are running out of plates, build more smelters.

-What to do next? trying to get up to making the rocket.

Whatever you want. The logic is pretty straight forward. Just work backwards from what ever you are wanting to build. Circuits are generally a critical factor. You'll outbuild your green circuit supply, then after fixing that, you'll outbuild your red circuit supply, which will probably lead you to need more green circuits again and so on.

-what should i automate produce, everything? what to keep on the main production line?

You can make everything if you want. It isn't really necessary. It is common to setup the "main bus" or production line in sets of four belts. Which can be crossed with yellow undergrounds. So, you'll often see setups like this:

belts.jpg (71.2 KiB) Viewed 2044 times

You then use splitters to peel off the resources as you need them. Do yourself a favor, try to figure out most of it on your own. In the long run you'll get the most satisfaction out of resolving issues for yourself.