Simple Questions and Short Answers

[Latakia]

Spidertron: Do the exoskeleton speed bonus stack? Are there any diminishing returns?

The bonuses add. The fact that they add instead of multiplying is an implicit diminishing return.

Maybe I don't know the technical, official, mathy meaning of "diminishing return," but when I use it in the context of games, it means that if the first one adds 10 of something, but the next one only adds 5, and the next after that only 3, that's diminishing returns if each gain costs the same.

[Khagan]

Spidertron: Do the exoskeleton speed bonus stack? Are there any diminishing returns?

The bonuses add. The fact that they add instead of multiplying is an implicit diminishing return.

Maybe I don't know the technical, official, mathy meaning of "diminishing return," but when I use it in the context of games, it means that if the first one adds 10 of something, but the next one only adds 5, and the next after that only 3, that's diminishing returns if each gain costs the same.

The first exo increases your speed by 20%. The second increases it by 20% of the original speed, which is only 16% of your current speed. Etc. It's even more apparent if you look at the figure that really matters, which is not "How fast am I moving?", but "How much time does it take to get where I am going?": a trip that takes a minute with none takes 50s with one (10s saved) and 43s with two (only another 7s saved).

[Latakia]

I have never tried using mods with this game. Two quick questions:

1. Should I get them from Steam or somewhere elese? (I bought the game on Steam.)

2. How do I use them for some saved games and keep all mods disabled for other saved games?

[astroshak]

There is no Steam Workshop for this game. As you implied, there is a source other than Steam for this game. Devs built in a nice mod manager to the game.

The downside to the mod manager is that the game has to restart whenever you make a change to the mod load out, or to any mod settings.

Get your mods in game through the mod manager though. They ones you see are the ones updated to work with your current version of the game.

As for the second question, if you are resuming a game with the same mods (including just the Base mod, aka vanilla no-mod game) you can just load the game up from the Load Save menu, or Continue from the very start of the main menu. If, however, you want to load a game that has a different mod configuration than what was loaded during the startup, you can go to the Load Game menu and find the Sync Mods button in the top right. This will bring up a window allowing you to decide which mods in the save to load up, which mods not in the save to keep, and even whether you want to actually load the save after the game reboots with that new mod set loaded up.

All in all despite the downside of automatically quit-and-restart that the game does when changing mod load outs, the mod manager within the game is a good device that allows both Steam users and non-Steam users equal access to the mods published by members of the community.

[eradicator]

2. How do I use them for some saved games and keep all mods disabled for other saved games?

If you plan to frequently change mod layout and don't want to fiddle with the sync-mods button and have free disk space to spare... then another option is: Link your steam account on factorio.com, get the stand-alone zip version, and just use a seperate stand-alone folder for each mod configuration. (Or if you're technically inclined: "factorio.exe --help")

[kitters]

Simple question.
My main map appeared to be too old. Cann't be loaded because it's lower then minimum input version.
What should i do to load my map? What did i have to do to avoid it? Don't forget to load it every update? Maybe I can do it now with lower versions of factorio?

[DaveMcW]

Maybe I can do it now with lower versions of factorio?

That is the correct answer. You have to downgrade Factorio using the Steam betas tab, re-save the map, then reinstall the latest version.

[kitters]

Maybe I can do it now with lower versions of factorio?

That is the correct answer. You have to downgrade Factorio using the Steam betas tab, re-save the map, then reinstall the latest version.

Thank you, i've just succeed.

[Porter65]

Is there a mean to get the list of all deposits discovered on the map, or do we hunt for them with the radar map?

[astroshak]

They should be fairly obvious on the map.

[Silari]

Is there a mean to get the list of all deposits discovered on the map, or do we hunt for them with the radar map?

Nothing in vanilla. There are mods to make map markers for resources: https://mods.factorio.com/query/resourc ... ersion=1.1

[Porter65]

They should be fairly obvious on the map.

Because you play with a setting with lot of minerals. I play in a mineral-starved world, where the deposits are far and few.

@Silari: Thanks. Not sure there is a toggle on this though, I don't want to have permanent labels.

[Silari]

They should be fairly obvious on the map.

Because you play with a setting with lot of minerals. I play in a mineral-starved world, where the deposits are far and few.

@Silari: Thanks. Not sure there is a toggle on this though, I don't want to have permanent labels.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/sonaxaton ... ap-markers shows on it's mod page there are /commands to remove/re-add/hide/reshow the markers when you want.

[astroshak]

They should be fairly obvious on the map.

Because you play with a setting with lot of minerals. I play in a mineral-starved world, where the deposits are far and few.

@Silari: Thanks. Not sure there is a toggle on this though, I don't want to have permanent labels.

Actually, I tend to play on maps where the water settings are maxed out (so very large lakes and oceans), with the frequency of resources put to the very minimum (Rail World frequency is 33%, I set for 17%).

Their infrequency does nothing to reduce how visible they are on the map, it only reduces the frequency at which they do so.

[Porter65]

Ok thanks guys for the explanations!

Another one, cosmetic. Even when you remove rocks, remains some rock outcrops, that don't block movement and still show when you place paved road. How can you remove them entirely?

[astroshak]

I use a mod that puts down “clean concrete” ... without such a mod, putting down concrete, refined concrete, or stone brick will not remove all the doodads. Repeated placement should, however, though it may take a few tries.

Completely vanilla :
1 : Pick up 200 Stone Bricks.
2 : Use the + key to expand your placement size to 10x10 (can use smaller if desired).
3 : Put Stone Bricks over the doodad you want to remove.
4 : Hold the Right Mouse Button down to remove all the Stone Bricks.
5 : Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the doodad has been removed.

[Porter65]

I'm adverse to using mods, thanks!

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/CleanedConcrete

[feedtaleeight]

I use 40 stone furnaces per yellow belt. According to my math, 40 stone furnaces should produce approx. 12 plates / second. A yellow belt have 13,33 items / sec. This should work, but I have problems with belt compression. Whats the easiest/most efficient way to compress a belt?

[astroshak]

Whatever you are looking at, it’s old information.

Yellow belts are 15 items/sec. Red belts are 30 items/sec. Blue belts are 45 items/sec.

To turn a full yellow belt of ore into a full yellow belt of copper or iron plate takes 48 stone furnaces, that is 24 on either side of the belt.

[Porter65]

Is the expected Biter behavior to not attack your base/outposts, if no pollution reaches any Biter Base?

Because even with Rampant, my pollution being rather limited (not because I play green, but because I obviously suck at Factorio and seldom go beyond 1k iron plate per mn), the Biters base never get pollution. I usually clear them before pollution can reach them, preemptively.

I'm playing with a slightly toned down Death World setting, with Rampant. Evolution factor is 0.73. If I clear some bases now, then yes, Biters launch 'counter-attacks', with groups that will try to hit my mining outposts or weak spots, so Rampant is clearly at work here.

But pre-emptively? No, they never generate attack groups. I'm the only one doing something here, and Biters wait for me to attack their bases.

So is it expected behavior? I thought that with Rampant, there would be periodical raids or offensives from them, even if none of their base is within Pollution, but I'm mistaken it seems.

How can I change that?