This modpack is nuts. Any tips for mid-game?

[Crixomix]

Hello all.

I have helmod, FNEI, LTN, and lots of other QOL mods so no need to suggest those

I am currently in what I would consider the early-mid-game (Though I'm like 30+ hours in). I have logistics bots, and all of the red/green science completed. I am currently trying to wrap my mind around how to produce niobium plates, and then I'll have to tackle molybdenum at some point.

And I took one look at circuits 2 and about had a stroke just thinking about them...

What tips do you all have? Should I rush a certain thing? I've got a lot of power production off of raw coal being converted into maximum syngas and then combustion mixture.

Also, I'm having glass issues. The "better" recipes aren't very much better than the hot air one. And I'm not really sure if it's worth it to use a ton of other resources to make a couple extra glass, but there doesn't seem to be anything else I can do. I guess just find another quartz mine and train in more quartz?

[the_ave]

Hello brother!

"Nuts" is what some would call an euphemism. I am at the very same stage as you..

I have disbanded the whole starter base, and today I took out the whole coal processing, since my power - combustion mixture based - was ...unstable, to put it mildly. So it went away to its own outpost, and now I have to rebuild the coal gas and syngas production almost from scratch. In the mean time I am running on boilers alone, for the time being. (The second setup was insanely crammed, not expandable so off it went.) I have to rethink the whole combustion mixture generation process, even the steam was a bottleneck there (pipes could not cope with the water flow).

Now to your questions.

Right now I am trying to set up HCl production, in preparation for the Nb process. HCl is needed to process the Nb complex, together with organic solvent (another big issue). For HCl you need lamps, which require glass. As you said, until quartz processing 3, there's not much yield difference between baking raw quartz and processing it - the worst part is that the more advanced recipes require coal gas, which is quite a pain to get at this stage. I am preparing a site that will do just coal gas (and tar, probably) since it is so needed for Al extraction as well. But for now I am falling back to raw quartz.

Circuits 2 require a lot of patience. I tried to take a break from this "save" but I came back to it, vanilla is too boring now. ) DO NOT RUSH.

You get Ni and Nb ore from tar. Nb ore can't be converted to plates directly, so it will require us to set up the processing line for it. Along this, we'll need HCl (mentioned earlier) and organic solvent. Also ammonia (NH3) but that's easy to get from urea in a chem plant. So the challenge here is to get a steady supply of lamps to the HCl production, which means a steady supply of glass. (and I just noticed my stone is jamming all the metal production, so more tar which means more Nb ore without refined syngas). Oh yes, we must set up the Activated Carbon in order to get the Refined Syngas for Nb - HCl is needed there too for the Zinc chloride... )

Syngas is important, so I guess you'll have to either expand production OR use alternate sources of fuel. H2 is a good option, perhaps coal briquettes might help too. I will see how things flow from now on; for the time being, the top concern for me is to get solid fuel for the trains and then to break everything into outposts. Planning the train system is crucial here, since, for example, stone must be first retrieved from the ore processing lines and only in the end from the mining sites. Stack inserters are the first things I will produce, albeit until then I guess that the miniloaders can help as well.

Please feel free to PM me here or look me up on the Factorio Discord.

[Crixomix]

Thanks for the tips. Seems like we're in a somewhat similar stage of the game. I'm looking forward towards getting turbines mk 2 because that will more than double my power production!

HCL is rough. Mainly because of the saline water! That's an insane amount of stone and I'm going to need to start training it in from a larger patch than my starter one

Also I might upgrade my glass to use coal gas because I have quite a few tar pits, and tar isn't too hard to transfer into coal gas via gasifiers. But that's a whole overhaul project in iteself....

It feels like to progress 1 step in this game, you have to take 10 other steps first. It's tiring haha. But SO fun.

[Blokus]

HCl was made far cheaper just recently which makes a big difference. You probably still want to do stone to tar to quenching to make it. Ore processing should make an outrageous amount of stone.

With glass, just use quartz ore and hot air until quartz 3. Then you get the way to make crushed quartz out of sand instead of quartz, which makes it reasonable to actually do the fancy stuff.

Consider massively scaling up power such that you can use tholins and later particle accelerators to simplify your problems. Honestly I find dealing with combustion mixture annoying and have just used the somewhat overpowered thermal solar power mod. But vanilla solar would work acceptably too, and you'll need it for UPS reasons eventually anyway.

As for circuit 2, it becomes checklist simulator eventually. Putting the pieces together is simple enough, you just need all of them. My circuit 2 LTN station has more than 20 requests.

[YunoAloe]

I am currently in what I would consider the early-mid-game (Though I'm like 30+ hours in).

I'm 400 hours in. I just finished blue science. Blue science is mid-game.

[mxpal]

train all your tailings to a central processing plant. turn it into coal water slurry then combustion mixture, or into benzene for combustion mixture and aromatics for other chemicals. i have used this for main power generation with hydrogen power as backup. never needed any other power this way and u save the trouble of building a huge syngas plant.

i have just completed yellow sci btw

[the_ave]

Thanks for the tip! I will try it as soon as I'm out of this conf call...

[the_ave]

Sorry I forgot I owe you a response.

IT IS F***ING AWESOME!!! Thanking you a bunch isn't anywhere close to enough!

[pyanodon]

you guys are missing the power pyPH can do in the power generation...convert oil or fuel oil into combustion mixture is a huge improve in the energy generation..as well as the coalbed gas and natural gas.

[the_ave]

*Ahem* that's exactly what we were talking about... Tailings -> coal-water slurry -> combustion mixture.