Tips, Designs, & Tricks

[ssilk]

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... AListFiles

[n9103]

Ah, Those are actually gifs someone else made, suggested to me by Kazuar, the thread where I got them from is located here https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=3920

Well then... Good on him for the work, and bad on you for not citing properly

[Skellitor301]

Updated:

• Added a list at the bottom of the contributing users who helped fill out the tips for this thread

[sbroadbent]

Updated:

• Added a list at the bottom of the contributing users who helped fill out the tips for this thread

I was just about to ask about Contributor Credits

Here's a few more early game items that came up in a new factory.

Early Game Smelting
Prior to getting up a proper belt line running that feeds a line of furnaces, this setup worked quite nicely. As I was too lazy to have to bother reloading the coal, I decided to run a coal line to keep the furnaces running.

The first box provides a buffer of iron ore to feed the furnaces to keep the mining drills always running, while the second box provides a convenient way to pick up all that iron. It was so convenient, I actually kept it setup much longer than I probably would have.



Mining Output Buffer
I don't know who I first saw this from, but the boxes keep the Mining Drill running even when the line backs up. It requires a bit more 'technology' than a direct dumping onto a belt, but an easy way to setup a buffer to keep the mining drills working.



Poor Man's Splitter
Using a box to collect Mining Drill Output, I needed a way to supply my boilers and furnaces. Fortunately neither were a significant drain on the system, so it kept it supplied.



Gun Turret Auto-Reload
For those who don't want to be bothered with loading each and every gun turret with ammo or setup a long transport belt line to deliver ammo, just dump a large quantity in a chest and let the inserters do the work. System works best with pods of 4 Turrets. System can later on take advantage of Logistic Robots by replacing the boxes with Requester chests if the gun turrets stick around that long.

Although you have to run power to keep the Inserters working, having power makes it easy to later throw down a few Laser Turrets. Alternatively if you're using burner inserters, you could also drop some fuel in the chest to allow the inserters to stay operational.

[pyrolytic_tungsten]

When copying a smart inserter's settings it will automatically wire up the inserter you paste to as long as the pole the first inserter was wired up to is in reach. This makes backup generators much easier to setup.


Copy/link this image as needed. I put it up on gfycat since it was too big for imgur(4MB optimized). I didn't put in any text since I know some people think it is a bad idea for differing language reasons.

[Skellitor301]

Update:

• Added more tips by SBroadBent, Thanks man!
• Added Pyrolytic_Tungsten's tip
• removed the note
• updated the contributors list

Edit!!!

Added and updated MPStarks gif tutorials thanks to the help of Ssilk

[ssilk]

I like those tutorials.
But when I step back one or two steps, I see clearly, that a forum is not the right place to do stuff like this. The forum is useful do make opinions, to discuss, to point to things.

Documentation soon gets borrowed under a lot of other threads and in half a year nobody knows this anymore. (Well, maybe it's then out to date )

I cannot force anything, and I really don't want to. But if you want to continue such work and like it, I would like to think you about putting some views to the wiki, because that would be the really, really the much more right place for such information.

[n9103]

You could always sticky it. You being, a mod and all.

[Skellitor301]

I used to be a mod for a gaming forum and we did that alot, anything we wanted to keep for all to read and keep up to date like modding tutorials and info on the games we played we would sticky or pin to the thread. It is possible to use forums for things like this, just need to be sure it stays up to date and active, which as you can see I'm more than happy to do

[ssilk]

With a forum there is a bottleneck: the only, who can change it, is you (or a moderator).

[And as side effect the changes are intransparent like so. That was for example the reason, why the roadmap is now also in the wiki.]

All I want is to give "new" things a try.

[Skellitor301]

Oh I know the uses of putting things on a wiki, I used to help keep a wiki up to date with other contributors for a game I used to play. Thing is I dont really have the time for the upkeep on both here and the wiki. Plus I've had more experience on a forum based system than on a wiki. If anyone is willing to post these on a wiki tips and tricks page feel free, I'm certainly not going to put the idea down

Plus the only bottle neck is the first post really, anyone can post their ideas, just depends on if the others are not lazy enough to read through them. I know I've done my fair share

[Skellitor301]

Updated:

• Reorganized the list
• Reformatted several formatting errors
• Put images in the Spoiler tags to save on a bit of space and make the list a bit more tidy

[sbroadbent]

Because I've more than once seen a badly planned setup for Batteries, here's a compact production setup that's effective and expandable for both Batteries (and also Plastics). If you want to control production, smart inserters can be used for input. Replace output belt with Provider chests if Logistic System Storage is desired. Setup can be replicated on the other side of the pipe for additional production.

[Apotheosis]

I don't even understand how anyone could need that many batteries. Never once has my battery chemical plant been a bottleneck for my production of other things.

[Skellitor301]

I don't even understand how anyone could need that many batteries. Never once has my battery chemical plant been a bottleneck for my production of other things.

Many builds use batteries, especially solar plants if you set up a massive bank of accumulators. It's good to do this so you can switch from steam energy to solar and shut down the steam engines, reducing the pollution in your base

[sbroadbent]

I don't even understand how anyone could need that many batteries. Never once has my battery chemical plant been a bottleneck for my production of other things.

That's not even all of my Battery production. I have four more Battery producing Chemical Plants to the left of that

Batteries are used in Accumulators (5 each), Laser Turrets (3 each), Robots (2 each) and Blue Science (1 each). In that particular factory, I have 1.8K in Accumulators, 2.0K in Laser Turrets, a fair number of Robots (though a lot less than I could have because in a base redesign I removed the Robot Production and never put it back), and a lot of research done.

That's at least 9K in Batteries required for the Accumulators, and another 6K for the Laser Turrets. They take 5 seconds to produce, so it's good to have a number of factories to keep up production, during those times of peak demand. As you can see, the output line is backed up, so they aren't always producing. And yes, my Battery Consumption was so significant at one point that I ended up adding those extra four Battery plants in to boost production, but such production hasn't strictly been necessary since then.

[gepwin]

I don't even understand how anyone could need that many batteries. Never once has my battery chemical plant been a bottleneck for my production of other things.

You can never have too many of anything in this game. (untell you run out of copper)

[Skellitor301]

Updated:

• Added Factory Modules section, if you have a good setup you would like to show, feel free to submit
• Added a Map Markers tip

[pyrolytic_tungsten]

How to join items onto 2 sides of an express belt faster than a T joining intersection. I haven't measured it but it prevents resource starvation on my advanced circuits line.





Shouldn't this thread be stickied or something?

[Skellitor301]

Shouldn't this thread be stickied or something?

That is up to the mods

Updated:

• Added the Express Belt efficient merge tip