Isnt Factorio for Casual Players? Help with some tips

[baiselmareo6]

I've been playing for the last three days and I'm feeling overwhelmed, I could barely build my first automated lab after hours of discovering and planning.

I wish I could play the game for an hour or two and still have some progress, but after watching a two hour long speedrun, I'm feeeling that it inst possible in this game.

What do you think? Do you have some tips to enjoy more the game without having to build a massive factory with hours and hours of playing or having to disable the biters?

[Koub]

Mi first advice would be not to take speedruns as an example from day 1. If I wanted to get myself into sports to stay in shape, I'd not start right off with someone whose aim is to break records. Same thing for Factorio.

The average beginner casual Factorio game is usually in the few tens hours. You're not obliged to finish your game in one sitting, actually most players, be beginners or veterans, don't.

[5thHorseman]

A beginner-friendly (and generally friendly) YouTuber I like to watch is Kitch. He has a recent series called "Uncut" where he literally plays an entire game from chopping trees to launching a rocket without ever cutting the video (except to put in his intro and to split videos). He plans ahead and uses blueprints that he doesn't always explain (because he explained them in previous series) but he does a good job of saying why he's doing what he's doing.

KitchsVideos "Uncut" series.

Then he started a new series called "Big" where he takes that same base and turns it into a Megabase. He's still doing that one, with about a video a day or so.

KitchsVideos "Big" series.

[JimBarracus]

-make a list of things you need to get done
-stick to that order

its very easy to get lost in things you need to do
so you start running in circles without getting one thing done propperly.

The notes also help to get started on your next session.

automate as much as you can
a mall helps to get started faster

[Serenity]

Forget speedruns. That's never normal gameplay. No matter the game.

Factorio is often about big factories. Because there is no real end goal, the whole point is ultimately expanding the factory and consuming resources for its own sake. But the intermediate goal is just to launch a single rocket. And you don't need a large factory for that at all. Building bigger just makes things go faster.

You can set yourself smaller goals like automating a certain product or expanding something like smelting, mining, circuit production, etc.

[mmmPI]

I've been playing for the last three days and I'm feeling overwhelmed, I could barely build my first automated lab after hours of discovering and planning.

I wish I could play the game for an hour or two and still have some progress, but after watching a two hour long speedrun, I'm feeeling that it inst possible in this game.

What do you think? Do you have some tips to enjoy more the game without having to build a massive factory with hours and hours of playing or having to disable the biters?

tips: when you start playing the game, you need to experiment a lot, test things, this takes time, and hopefully is enjoyable, this allow you to build smaller design, they will function for all the time it takes you to experiment. Once you have more experience, some things you will do faster, and this will leave less time for the machine to produce things, so you will be tempted to build bigger.

This is particularly visible on speedruns, where players already know exactly what they are going to do, there is as little downtime as possible. So the factory is way bigger that what average player will do because there is no time where players take times to test stuff and then benefit from the material being stockpiled.

Also worth mentionning that everyone prefer a failed small design rather than a failed gigantic design, when it comes to fixing it.

And also that when i started i didn't know what i was doing i realised that even my small contraption where having troubles, which prevented me from building too big before having a better understanding since i was waiting products from the previous step , or lacking power, or having supply that deplete, or just something that stops for some reason that needed investigation.

When you say "play an hour or two" and still have some progress i think some speedruns splits or videos series are a good way to get on checklist of objective to keep track of progress in a logical order from experienced player.

What people do in 4 minutes in speedruns, i would give myself 2 hours to do it and i wouldn't be confident for all the different "split" because there are things i would see but not understand. This game does take a lot of time to "feel good at" and some videos from very skilled player on the internet set the level of expectation very high .

Disabling the biters or making them peaceful is one advice i would give, to reduce the time you dedicate to react versus time you have to plan, until you are confident enough in your ability to manage the threat in real time.

There is (for me) a lot to enjoy into learning how to build the factory, and seeing it function after all the debugging, even if it's a small thing on the map i spend 2 hours into, when it functions it sticks to the brain:). If you enjoy doing the thing, does it matter if you take more time to do it ?

Later on, i guess , people challenge themselves, or their ability to build as big as possible, this is a different approach, not everyone find those fun, or has time, patience, dedication and skill to make those megabases, those are the kind of slowly built majestuous creation that you can see being built hour after hour sometime on videos, definitely not your casual base more like 2 hours a day for a year. Or less day and more time per day that's up to players. Factorio doesn't rely on disloyal retention mechanism instead it's addicting because it's fun.

[Kladdey]

Each time you design something you're going to understand more and more. Try to avoid too complicated blueprints until you're capable of telling what's doing what and why. My first game took around 100 hours and my second game was a lot easier.

[MEOWMI]

I started out quite slow, both because I wanted to experience the game entirely on my own, but also because:

• I played the 0.16 campaign which starts on small scale.
• I played my first playthroughs (campaign plus 2-3 freeplay worlds) without referencing any wikis, guides, or builds by others.

This allowed me to learn very well while progress at a comfortable pace and the changing levels allowed me to rebuild when it really mattered - when I'd amassed enough new knowledge to naturally be able to build a better base.

In contrasting with other players, it probably led me to pick up certain aspects a bit slower than other people, but it was immensely fun. Furthermore, I was constantly making progress: always building more, always experiencing new fun things.

The noteworthy part about all of this, is that it's only if I take my experience out of this context that it starts seeming "slow" or "not meant for casuals". It would just simply be very wrong for me to start comparing it that way. People who picked up the game by following speedrun strategies or who already know what it is like to build large scale will naturally go a very different way than I did, and all of those ways are just as valid.

With that in mind, I would say, focus on this: having fun.

It can certainly seem intimidating if what you want to do is specifically build an impressive build someone else created. Feel free to do so, but bear in mind that's likely to be quite an advanced build, certainly for a new player. It takes a long time to get comfortable with everything.

Looking back at my first freeplay bases, they were very cramped, not very scalable and had low throughput. It's only hundreds of hours later that I really see these issues properly and how beginner-like they really were. I didn't use all features immediately. Blueprints and robots took me a long while before I started using them regularly, let alone to their full potential. Despite this, I did well. I successfully beat the game objective as I had set out to, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

I should also note, that I always play with biters on, I didn't "gimp" my experience like that in any way. (I even played my second world on deathworld as I felt up for the challenge, but this is beside the point.)

I totally believe Factorio is meant just as much for casuals as anyone else.

[CaptainSlide]

I don't post around here much so take everything I say as if I was a noob. That said I have nearly 1400 hours in game since I started in October last year (yes I should get out more). I am still learning new things.

Factorio is a journey of discovery, of learning how systems work, supply chains and logistics. With a side order of combat just to change the mood occasionally.

Accept this as a given, you cannot understand everything at once. Like all games and even life it takes time and experience to do things better and well.

So my top tips (or more likely the things I keep doing wrong lol)

1. The map. Make your life easier without turning off half the game.
-If you don't wan't to turn of biters completely set the player starting area to Max setting, this will usually get you well into the game before they become a huge problem
-And/or change the map settings until you get an isolated section with good narrow choke points, you will often have to reroll the map generator and observe the preview until you get something you like. I like to turn the water up so you get a much more patchy land masses with good choke points, occasionally you can even get a fairly decent island with no or very few biter bases which once dealt with keeps you safe.

2. Resources. Make life easier by increasing the size and density of ore patches from the start. I like 200% on everything. This reduces the need to keep expanding your borders all the time. Go higher if you need to.

3. Space. Always leave more. If you think you need this much between here and the next line of assemblers "Double It" because you will always need to come back and make more. Not enough space equals spaghetti which isn't necessarily a bad thing but does make it complicated. Belts, trains and bots are your friends. Plan to make x here, y over there and bring them together to make z at a 3 third location. This is kind of where the all famous "bus of things" you see in many play through starts.

4. Automate stuff you use a lot of and craft stuff you don't need much of. Automate belts, inserters, assembly machines, ammo, science, miners, turrets and walls if you have large borders to protect. You don't need to automate labs all that much, a dozen will get you through the whole game. If you only need half a dozen turrets to protect that single choke point just craft them. Note the needs will vary from game to game. Always carry a stack of raw stuff like Iron, Copper and Green and Red Circuits, it's annoying when you need just 1 more miner or turret when your off in the country side setting something up and you need just one or 2 more things. Easier to craft on the spot than trudge all the way back to base for one blasted red belt

5. If you are using a bus, don't necessarily try to put every thing on it (at least at first). Some stuff is just better to produce locally. Gears and Copper coils (wire) are prime examples, you will uses a metric butt tonne of these in electronics and belts, it is far easier at first (IMO) to just make these where you need them. I good example is the 3 coil assemblers to 2 green circuit assemblers. It is just much easier to bring in 3 copper for the 6 coils than it is 6 coils.

6. Ratios. There are kinda of 2 ways to go about the game produce as much of everything as you can or what you need. I do both mostly depending on the operation. Resources like Iron and copper, you will never have enough so go bonkers when setting up smelters. Look more closely at other things. A good starting point for setting up science for example is to go for 1 science per second. Look at the crafting times this will guide you on how big a line of assemblers you will need. Red science is 1/5s, green is 1/6 seconds. So set up lines with 5 and 6 assemblers respectively. Note 1 science per second will generally get you the tech (if not the infrastructure) to launch a rocket in around 30-50 hours depending on how much you have to fight the biters (never played with them off so cant say how short a time this could be)

7. Stuff you will never have enough of unless you go big. Iron, copper, Light Weight Structures, [Green, Red (in particular) and Blue Circuits], Rocket Fuel.

8. Modules. Make liberal use of these as they greatly increase the productivity of everything. Generally you will use speed modules in everything (some things will only take speed modules) but also use productivity modules as well, you can mix and match in some cases to actually slow production down if your over producing something and match it more to your needs, whilst also saving raw material. Experiment here.

ALWAYS PUT 4, PRODUCTIVITY 3 MODULES IN YOUR ROCKET SILO. Hand craft them if you have to. This will reduce the number of parts for the rocket by 40% which is huge when you consider that you would other wise need 1000 each of Light Weight Structures, Rocket Fuel and Rocket Control units. Which are all very expensive parts. Speed it up with beacons and speed modules. Note: if you can produce enough parts with 16 speed 3 beacons you can launch a rocket about every minute.

9. Get Robots and the tech (power armor) to mount personal robo ports as soon as possible, back this up with robo ports and robot logistics ASAP. Put everything you make in passive provider chests and use requester chests and assemblers to make your mall of all things much easier to make. Automate construction of logibots and construction bots too as you will need many, at least 500 logibots. Learn how blueprints and cut, copy and paste work too.

10. If possible get away from your starting ore patches as these always end up getting in the way of everything else you want to do.

Mostly though just break the jobs up into smaller tasks and tackle them one by one, go back often and make sure your supply lines of basic materials can cope and augment and adjust as necessary. Factorio is possibly the most addictive game I've ever played and there is no right or wrong way to do it. Do it something once, then figure out how to do it better. Don't be afraid to delete everything a rebuild it if you discover a better way of doing something. New furnaces can force you to do this.

If your stuck in isolation for 14 days due to the Corona Virus, Factorio is absolutely the game you want to kills those idle hours, 14 days is going to seem like a doddle compared to anyone with out it. Best value game out there and with all the various mods that change things up, then the voyage of discovery will almost never end.

[Kinson25]

Keeping a running "to do" list makes a big difference. I use the todo list mod for in game notes, but you can just use google keep, or notepad, or just add map notes out in unexplored areas.
Every time you start working or you notice something you need done, put it on the list.

[astroshak]

ALWAYS PUT 4, PRODUCTIVITY 3 MODULES IN YOUR ROCKET SILO. Hand craft them if you have to. This will reduce the number of parts for the rocket by 40% which is huge when you consider that you would other wise need 1000 each of Light Weight Structures, Rocket Fuel and Rocket Control units. Which are all very expensive parts. Speed it up with beacons and speed modules. Note: if you can produce enough parts with 16 speed 3 beacons you can launch a rocket about every minute.

I just wanted to point out that this is not how the math works.

A 40% bonus (four 10% bonuses) to production means that every 5 items you produce, you get two extras, for a total of 7. Round figures, this means that you produce 72% of the items needed to obtain all 100% of the items needed, a savings of 28%.

Otherwise, the tips are not all that bad. I’d avoid going overly large at the start, simply to avoid getting bogged down in the production of the fiftieth smelting column when you’re only currently needing, and using, ten. Experience, from playing the game, will be your guide here.

[CaptainSlide]

ALWAYS PUT 4, PRODUCTIVITY 3 MODULES IN YOUR ROCKET SILO. Hand craft them if you have to. This will reduce the number of parts for the rocket by 40% which is huge when you consider that you would other wise need 1000 each of Light Weight Structures, Rocket Fuel and Rocket Control units. Which are all very expensive parts. Speed it up with beacons and speed modules. Note: if you can produce enough parts with 16 speed 3 beacons you can launch a rocket about every minute.

I just wanted to point out that this is not how the math works.

A 40% bonus (four 10% bonuses) to production means that every 5 items you produce, you get two extras, for a total of 7. Round figures, this means that you produce 72% of the items needed to obtain all 100% of the items needed, a savings of 28%.

Otherwise, the tips are not all that bad. I’d avoid going overly large at the start, simply to avoid getting bogged down in the production of the fiftieth smelting column when you’re only currently needing, and using, ten. Experience, from playing the game, will be your guide here.

Fair point, I usually don't bother too much with the specifics of the maths.
I agree it isn't always necessary to go to big to soon, but at least leave the space for expansion, that always seems to be my biggest gaf, I squeeze to much in. O f coarse short borders can be good if the biters are running around a lot. Like most things balance to requirements. I tend to over produce basics and stock pile so I don't have to worry about supply drying up quickly when you build the next thing. I over do it though, probably should never have installed the warehousing mod. LOL on my current Krastorio 2 game I probably have at least 500k each (I blame the stack size increase) of iron ore, copper ore, green circuits and a bunch of other stuff in storage. The bean counters among us will be horrified! It does have the advantage though that I can build big new lines without immediately drying up supply and gives me time to adjust the supply before things do run out.

[Hannu]

I've been playing for the last three days and I'm feeling overwhelmed, I could barely build my first automated lab after hours of discovering and planning.

I wish I could play the game for an hour or two and still have some progress, but after watching a two hour long speedrun, I'm feeeling that it inst possible in this game.

What do you think? Do you have some tips to enjoy more the game without having to build a massive factory with hours and hours of playing or having to disable the biters?

I suggest that to not watch videos before you launch the first rocket and forget what you have seen. Speedrunning is very special and extreme playstyle. It is like you would ask advise for safe city driving from top fuel drag racing team. They are sure that nitromethanol fuel, 7000 horsepower and braking parachute are absolutely necessary to drive half kilometers.

Also so called let's plays begin with very large production. You can do it if you know what to do, but if you are beginner, start with small scale. Build few furnaces, one or few assemblers etc. Of course you have to expand all the time but you can experiment and learn much more effectively. Your first base will not be nice structured factory with easy expanding possibilities and optimal ratios between all units what you see in experienced players' let's plays. But you have better feeling of learning and proceeding.
Practically you counter bottlenecks and solve them. When you improve one thing some other begins to limit. You can for example double or increase 50 % every time you find bottleneck. Then you get reasonable sized base and own experience of ratios and needed numbers of production plants and logistics. My first base had 2 red belts of iron plate input (including steel manufacturing) when I launched the first rocket. I had to wait some times at end game, but 4 red belts of iron plates is very reasonable size for first base.

[Serenity]

Also so called let's plays begin with very large production. You can do it if you know what to do, but if you are beginner, start with small scale.

Even some good YouTubers are like that. For example KatherineOfSky. She explains a lot and does good tutorials, but she also very quickly ramps up things far bigger than they really need to be. And for YT or streaming that can be fine. It means they don't have to spend episodes iterating over existing designs which may be boring for viewers. But it's important to understand that it's not necessary at all.

Another example is blue belts in general. A lot of YTers will soon move everything to blue belts. It's not at all needed unless you get into beacons and modules (which by themselves are not necessary everywhere). You can do a surprising amount of stuff with just red belts and only upgrade to blue when needed.

[Mauslag PIngman]

It was a big day for me when I realized how important it was to keep my belts pure. If you have stuff showing up on your belts on the left side and then the right side sometimes that always ends in trouble. You're going to need a lot of gray belts, yellow inserters and green circuits. If you hit your e key you can see what the ingredients are for each of these. Pay attention to how many of each item. For green belts I think you need 3 copper wire for each green circuit. You might as well devote both side of the belt to copper wire.

Learn how to use the red inserters. These are good if you have 3 or 4 ingredients for an item. Make a line of assemblers. For green circuits you want to have two belts side by side going past the assemblers. Each assembler will have one yellow inserter and one red inserter to reach the stuff on that second belt. On the other side of the assembler you have another belt for the finished product. It doesn't hurt to put a big chest at the end of these belts so you can fill them with inserters and belts and whatever. You'll need to run back here often when you need stuff.

Saving conventions - I save by alphabet or number count but I often leave myself notes. If you think of things that need to be done create a save. For instance if it's your fourth save you can call it "d build a red circuit factory". When you go to load you see your to do list. You can also leave a reminder for yourself on the map by right clicking the map and writing a short sentence. You can also mark paths this way and you can leave an icon like a picture of something you want to build by clicking on the blank box. This is nice for planning.

If you get tired of playing a map you can load your latest save and save again but change the name of the save to Z and write a brief note explaining what is happening at this save and then delete the original save. This will put your save near the end of the saves so you don't have to scroll past it every time you load. I'll often name all my saves A and then a make them numerical so that the saves of the game I'm currently playing show up right away at the beginning of the list.

[Spuriousmonkey]

I've been playing for the last three days and I'm feeling overwhelmed, I could barely build my first automated lab after hours of discovering and planning.

I wish I could play the game for an hour or two and still have some progress, but after watching a two hour long speedrun, I'm feeeling that it inst possible in this game.

What do you think? Do you have some tips to enjoy more the game without having to build a massive factory with hours and hours of playing or having to disable the biters?

Everybody plays the game differently, although it sometimes seems there is a specific way you have to play this game when browsing forums and youtube channels. It's often about planning, efficiencies and perfect ratios.

You don't need to play like that. I, for instance, like building a system or base that works. It can be inefficient, wasteful and ugly. My only criteria is that it works. And the base is constantly evolving because the goals change all the time.

A lot of the time my bases look like a mess. Especially the defences. They are simply good enough. Not more than that. I know they will be upgraded or abandoned later on anyway.

There is a lot of spaghetti in my bases. On all levels.

I always play with biters because i like the early challenge of building up the first lines of shabby defences that will allow my spaghetti to flourish.

Set small goals.

I set up my first smelting line. I have iron now. I automate my yellow transport belts. I automate crudely some red science. I set up my first yellow inserter line. Wait i can set up green science now. No, wait, i am first setting up gun turret production. The last time i barely could defeat the biter wave. But i need to set up a simple copper smelting line first. Need more coal miners.

All these things can be individually set up in 15 minutes or less.

I don't really save blueprints from game to game. I tend to make new blueprints for each game. Often they are very similar or identical to the ones in previous games. Sometimes they are not.

Point is though, that you should play this game however you want, and you win only if you do that.