1 Hour Reddit challenge completed.

[HeilTec]

This short speedrun was a good challenge. The time pressure provoked several poor decisions.

IMG

Zoom out (sorry for the lack of [alt]-info)

Reddit-1h-challenge-zoomed out..jpg (557.08 KiB) Viewed 9607 times

13 Technologies researched, and the next well underway.

IMG

Techtree

Reddit-1h-challenge..jpg (344.17 KiB) Viewed 9607 times

More iron could have helped.

Map (dropbox)

[-root]

my effort

Beat me by one

I screwed up the "Mid game" though and made some really bad decisions as well. I reckon I was good for a couple of more had I gone for something closer to your setup.

Video of the run here

[HeilTec]

... Beat me by one ...

I was aiming for that.
Having watched both yours and Alex's run was good inspiration.

[-root]

Fucker.

I should have known you were setting me up!

[Blackence]

Here's my attempt. I can't tell you exactly how many techs I have researched, because the GUI won't show all of them apparently (note that I have researched efficiency module 1, as I can start researching level 2, but it's not displayed as a green button). I'd load my recording and count them, but unfortunately my self-coded Linux OpenGL grabber software failed to resume after I had to pause my attempt+recording after 45 minutes. (I also don't know how to fix that bug yet…)

According to the screenshot, I should have at least 16 techs researched at 1:00 game time (~500ms later), and I'm about 25% into research topic no. 17 (speed modules). Those finish at a game time of 1:01.

As you can tell from the screenshot name, this was my third attempt. The first one was pretty much as good as -root. I tried to do a lot of manual work (put coal into boilers, carry iron/copper plates from furnaces to red/green factory), but I always forgot to refuel things and generally felt quite inefficient. My second attempt was "automate everything but furnace refueling", and my result was pretty much as good as -root again, even though I felt much more productive this time.

In my 3rd attempt, I focused on ramping up iron production before doing research (only hand-crafting some red science packs when there was nothing else to craft, and I forgot about that most of the time…). It seems like that was a nice idea, because I managed to complete a few more techs within 1 hour. I could have used more iron and copper in the end though, so maybe it's even better to add even more iron and some copper capacity before starting green science. I think I had 22 labs in the end, but not all of them had enough green science packs supplied to them. I needed all of them earlier to clear the backlog of green science packs.

[HeilTec]

Here's my attempt. I can't tell you exactly how many techs I have researched, because the GUI won't show all of them apparently (note that I have researched efficiency module 1, as I can start researching level 2, but it's not displayed as a green button).(...) According to the screenshot, I should have at least 16 techs researched at 1:00 game time (~500ms later), and I'm about 25% into research topic no. 17 (speed modules). Those finish at a game time of 1:01. (...)

22 Technologies researched. A Very Fine Result Indeed!
I have yet to see more than one better score.

Good job.

[n9103]

FYI, it's your unusually short window/resolution that is restricting the technology display.

[Blackence]

FYI, it's your unusually short window/resolution that is restricting the technology display.

It's the default window size when I start up factorio. I tried in full-screen mode and it seems like the research window still has the same size.

22 Technologies researched. A Very Fine Result Indeed!

I'm interested, how do you know? I tried something like this:
local n=0; for i,d in game.player.force.technologies do if d.researched then n = n+1 end end; game.player.print(n)

(Not sure about the exact syntax) and it displayed 23 IIRC, and that was including speed modules (took me a few minutes to come up with working lua code). I thought that the number was a little too high, and concluded that some research topics may enable two or more technologies. Now you tell me that I have 22 researched, but are you sure?

Here's my save file, maybe someone with a sufficiently-sized research window feels like taking a look.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxs9D2 ... sp=sharing

[n9103]

Ah, I see the problem. My bad on the resolution. I thought everyone would maximize the window like I do.
Certain techs do not leave a tech tile behind when they have another level of research. (e.g Efficiency module 1 becomes Eff. module 2 or Bullet firing speed 1 becomes Bullet speed 2)
There are 15 unique techs researched, plus 7 levels of multi-leveled techs. Total 22.
Well done.

[HeilTec]

(...)

22 Technologies researched. A Very Fine Result Indeed!

I'm interested, how do you know? I tried something like this:
local n=0; for i,d in game.player.force.technologies do if d.researched then n = n+1 end end; game.player.print(n)

(Not sure about the exact syntax) and it displayed 23 IIRC, and that was including speed modules (took me a few minutes to come up with working lua code). I thought that the number was a little too high, and concluded that some research topics may enable two or more technologies. Now you tell me that I have 22 researched, but are you sure?

Here's my save file, maybe someone with a sufficiently-sized research window feels like taking a look.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxs9D2 ... sp=sharing

tall

Same on a tall screen.

TallScreen.jpg (446.58 KiB) Viewed 9205 times

I get the same result.

• 15 green icons +
• 1 Speed modules +
• 2 Shell speed +
• 1 shell damage +
• 2 Bullet speed +
• 1 Bullet damage
• ==============
• 22 Total

Adapted (working) code:

Code: Select all

local n=0; for i,d in pairs(game.player.force.technologies) do if d.researched then n = n+1 end end; game.player.print(n)

This too shows 22.

[Blackence]

Well, nice! Thanks for helping me figure this out.

[BeltRunner]

Pretty fun challenge, indeed.

[HeilTec]

Pretty fun challenge, indeed.

IMG

Well done! Indeed
25 researched is the best so far!

[Smilge]

What kind of openers are you guys using? How many burner miners do you tend to get before moving up to electricity? Do you use wood or coal for early fuel?

[HeilTec]

What kind of openers are you guys using? How many burner miners do you tend to get before moving up to electricity? Do you use wood or coal for early fuel?

Welcome to the forum :
Your question is a good one, which I too would like to know the answers of, from the best. @BeltRunner

Strategies for initial game in peaceful mode differs radically from what is needed when pollution will call visitors to the base.
Using a large number of burner miners will pollute a lot.

[BeltRunner]

What kind of openers are you guys using? How many burner miners do you tend to get before moving up to electricity? Do you use wood or coal for early fuel?

3x iron, 1x stone, 1x coal and 1x copper is enough to establish electricity.

result

factory

Save: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h6qtdzg7nnhlc ... 2.zip?dl=0

[Smilge]

Do you suppose rushing straight for electricity is optimal for a speedy opening? I usually go up to ~25 burner miners in normal play before teching up to electricity. For this challenge I think skipping electric miners altogether is probably best.

Also, what tech path do you go for? Do you start with all the red science techs you can, or do you rush out green science factories and start hitting those?

How many tech labs is optimal? I know 25 labs is as fast as 49 if you're researching something that costs 50 science packs, plus you don't waste anything. Many techs seem to cost 50, but some cost 40 or 60. I'm leaning towards 20 labs, but it would depend on the tech path I suppose. Maybe start with 20, then bump up to 25 later on?

[The Lone Wolfling]

I usually go up to ~25 burner miners in normal play before teching up to electricity.

Slightly off-topic for this discussion, but then again I suppose it is at least tangential: How on earth do you not get swarmed with the pollution production of 25 burner miners in a normal game?

Do you suppose rushing straight for electricity is optimal for a speedy opening?

I think it depends on how quickly you can set up the electricity production. If you want I can write something to brute-force it - if someone gives me a ballpark estimate of time requirements for placing different things. I can brute-force assuming 0 time for placing / transporting anything easily enough too.

[...] For this challenge I think skipping electric miners altogether is probably best.

As in keeping using burner miners throughout? It would certainly help the iron situation - but at the same time I fear you'd end up spending far too much time ferrying coal around.

How many tech labs is optimal? I know 25 labs is as fast as 49 if you're researching something that costs 50 science packs, plus you don't waste anything. Many techs seem to cost 50, but some cost 40 or 60. I'm leaning towards 20 labs, but it would depend on the tech path I suppose. Maybe start with 20, then bump up to 25 later on?

See the attached chart (Note: based on this spreadsheet, which is slightly out of date.) for # techs with each cost. Long story short? Probably 25. Maybe 30 - but you'll be wasting an awful lot of science.

[Smilge]

Slightly off-topic for this discussion, but then again I suppose it is at least tangential: How on earth do you not get swarmed with the pollution production of 25 burner miners in a normal game?

I tech straight to turrets, and can usually plop them down in time for the first wave. In a normal game I'd phase out of burners after 20 minutes or so. Not sure if it's a good starting strat or not, but burners are pretty cheap.

I think it depends on how quickly you can set up the electricity production. If you want I can write something to brute-force it - if someone gives me a ballpark estimate of time requirements for placing different things. I can brute-force assuming 0 time for placing / transporting anything easily enough too.

Couldn't hurt to get some numbers behind it, but I think the placing/transporting part takes more time than people realize. With burners you can plop them down, make them feed directly into a furnace, and you've got a pretty decent production done. No need to mess around with power poles, inserters, or belts.

As in keeping using burner miners throughout? It would certainly help the iron situation - but at the same time I fear you'd end up spending far too much time ferrying coal around.

I think I only need to fill them up twice in the hour, so it's not too bad. Especially if you control+click with a stack of coal in your hand.

Thanks for the chart, looks like 25 is the way to go then.

Here's my proof of concept, there's definitely room for improvement:

Burner only

[Dutts]

Going to give this a shot sooner or later. Thought I would paste the map / conditions for others reading this thread before the Reddit one:

"Start any regular map in peaceful mode. Don't change the default amount of resources.
How far along the tech tree can you get in 60 minutes? Post a screenshot of your results"

Dutts