What are the most impractical items in Factorio?

[pichutarius]

the most useless is going to be efficient module lv3 (lv2 comes 2nd)

i'll be surprised if this item is not on your anyone's top 10 (or rather, bottom 10).

[wobbycarly]

What's an efficiency module?

[Koub]

What's an efficiency module?

The thing that saves your factory when playing very biter aggressive and pollution sensitive settings (like marathon deathworld-ish).

[wobbycarly]

Touché!

[ShyLion]

tanks are great bulldozers for forest cleaning, when you setup outpost and railroad through the forest, before you have construction bots and appropriate armor with bots station

[Khagan]

the most useless is going to be efficient module lv3 (lv2 comes 2nd)

i'll be surprised if this item is not on your anyone's top 10 (or rather, bottom 10).

Efficiency 2 and 3 are useless as final products, yes. But needed as an ingredient in power armour and spiders respectively.

tanks are great bulldozers for forest cleaning, when you setup outpost and railroad through the forest, before you have construction bots and appropriate armor with bots station

I'd go further: even in combat, the tank is primarily an armoured bulldozer; the cannon is just a cherry on top of the cake.

[UkcsAlias]

Efficiency 2 and 3 are useless as final products, yes. But needed as an ingredient in power armour and spiders respectively.

Note that power increases from other modules can be negated by those again. Which especialy with productivity modules can actualy generate extra parts without using extra energy. So even here they do provide a use.

[Silari]

the most useless is going to be efficient module lv3 (lv2 comes 2nd)

i'll be surprised if this item is not on your anyone's top 10 (or rather, bottom 10).

Efficiency 2 and 3 are useless as final products, yes. But needed as an ingredient in power armour and spiders respectively.

Eff 2 is useful to get electric furnaces to -80% power, since they only have the two slots. For a good portion of the game furnaces are the biggest power user, and a top three source of pollution, since there are usually so many of them. If you're on a map where every bit of pollution counts, they're quite nice.

[Khagan]

Eff 2 is useful to get electric furnaces to -80% power, since they only have the two slots. For a good portion of the game furnaces are the biggest power user, and a top three source of pollution, since there are usually so many of them. If you're on a map where every bit of pollution counts, they're quite nice.

Each efficiency 2 in a furnace reduces pollution by 0.1/m. Unfortunately, even with maximum efficiency 1s everywhere along the production chain, making that efficiency 2 module emits about 60 units of pollution. So it takes ten hours before the savings match the cost.

[mrvn]

Eff 2 is useful to get electric furnaces to -80% power, since they only have the two slots. For a good portion of the game furnaces are the biggest power user, and a top three source of pollution, since there are usually so many of them. If you're on a map where every bit of pollution counts, they're quite nice.

Each efficiency 2 in a furnace reduces pollution by 0.1/m. Unfortunately, even with maximum efficiency 1s everywhere along the production chain, making that efficiency 2 module emits about 60 units of pollution. So it takes ten hours before the savings match the cost.

So after 100 hours I've made up the cost 10 times over. How is that not worth it?

And don't forget the multiplicative effects of pollution causing evolution and attacks, which uses up bullets, oil or energy. Producing that creates more pollution. Or you might simply die because the aliens out-evolve you.

[mmmPI]

definitly not me, but faster people have times to play 10 games in 100 hours .

I think for me the most impractical item in the game is the fluid wagon. All other things that come to my mind are perfectly aligned on the grid or work fine without it like the landmines or the tank. But the fluid wagon look like it's going to be ok after the curve, but it's not : the pump doesn't want to move. It stays stuck and you may not know why.

Also you have 1 water in the fluid wagon and you can't add 24K oil because of that ? what can do 1 water against the power of the pump, when it is finally well aligned and ready for duty ? i should have lots of very mildly wet oil in the wagon at the end, not having to remove the wagon, and replace it, on the grid, oh no, not on the grid, only the train can align RAAAA whyyy ??? where's the research for smart pump ?

yet i use them all the time with great satisfaction contrary to the tank which to me is a car you can only crash once before getting caught due to its slow speed.

also the discharge defense is a weird one. I was convinced it didn't work for long, it never occured to me to test the weapon during the worst moment of the fight , usually i test things beforehand, especially weapons.

[Khagan]

Each efficiency 2 in a furnace reduces pollution by 0.1/m. Unfortunately, even with maximum efficiency 1s everywhere along the production chain, making that efficiency 2 module emits about 60 units of pollution. So it takes ten hours before the savings match the cost.

So after 100 hours I've made up the cost 10 times over. How is that not worth it?

10 hours is a long time in Factorio; 100 hours is an eternity. It's much more dangerous to emit 60 pollution now than to emit 6 per hour for the foreseeable future. Over those 10 hours you can expect to improve your tech and defences significantly, making the bugs that do eventually appear much less of a threat. And after 100 hours? Even if you are playing deathworld marathon, by the time you are 100 hours into the game (let alone 100 hours past the point when you have the tech required for level 2 modules) your defences should be shrugging off the worst the bugs can do. At that point, who cares how much pollution you emit?

Note also that the 10 hour payback time is just considering the pollution. Once you factor in the resource cost of the modules, that time becomes one or two orders of magnitude longer, depending on exactly how you rate the cost of emitting pollution compared to the cost of consuming resources. There are much better things to spend those resources on (and emit that pollution doing).

If you do insist on using a few efficiency 2 modules, they belong in pumpjacks, not electric furnaces. The cost-benefit balance is still against bothering in that case, but not quite so decisively.

And don't forget the multiplicative effects of pollution causing evolution and attacks, which uses up bullets, oil or energy. Producing that creates more pollution. Or you might simply die because the aliens out-evolve you.

None of which makes 60 pollution now less dangerous than 6 per hour in the future. Quite the contrary: it's much better to have to spend 5 bullets an hour than 50 all at once.

[ssilk]

The most impractical thing in Factory is definitely pollution.

[Redpossum]

Wow, this thread has been hugely educational for me!

[Hornwitser]

Each efficiency 2 in a furnace reduces pollution by 0.1/m. Unfortunately, even with maximum efficiency 1s everywhere along the production chain, making that efficiency 2 module emits about 60 units of pollution. So it takes ten hours before the savings match the cost.

Where do you get this number from? Putting an efficiency 2 module into a furnace reduces it power consumption by 40%, which also reduces it pollution by 40% (since pollution is tied to power consumption). This gives a reduction of 0.4/m, or 2.5 hours before break even on pollution. If you use coal to power that furnace you'll see an additional 1.4/m less pollution from less power usage and 0.4/m less pollution from mining less coal. That's a reduction of 2.2/m or 28 minutes before break even.

[asheiduk]

Each efficiency 2 in a furnace reduces pollution by 0.1/m. [...]

Where do you get this number from? Putting an efficiency 2 module into a furnace reduces it power consumption by 40%, which also reduces it pollution by 40% (since pollution is tied to power consumption).

The 0.1 value seems to be the difference between tier 1 and tier 2 modules. Your numbers are from no modules to tier 2 modules.

[Khagan]

Each efficiency 2 in a furnace reduces pollution by 0.1/m. [...]

Where do you get this number from? Putting an efficiency 2 module into a furnace reduces it power consumption by 40%, which also reduces it pollution by 40% (since pollution is tied to power consumption).

The 0.1 value seems to be the difference between tier 1 and tier 2 modules. Your numbers are from no modules to tier 2 modules.

Exactly so. If one is trying to reduce pollution, one should take all the obvious and cost-effective measures, including efficiency 1 everywhere and solar or nuclear power instead of coal, before considering such extreme and expensive things as efficiency 2.

[adam_bise]

Pistols..

In vanilla, pistols have a recipe for both manual and assembler crafting. But I can't think of a single scenario where either would be used.

Every time the player respawns, they get a pistol. How would you ever actually really need to build another? If you drop it on accident?

What about the assembler recipe? Why is it there? What scenario could ever possibly exist that would require choosing the pistol in an assembler?

[Silari]

What about the assembler recipe? Why is it there? What scenario could ever possibly exist that would require choosing the pistol in an assembler?

There's only one recipe for pistols, not a separate one for assemblers. Being able to craft something relies on the category of the recipe, and in vanilla assemblers have every category the player has, so if the player can craft it so can they.

[mrvn]

Pistols..

In vanilla, pistols have a recipe for both manual and assembler crafting. But I can't think of a single scenario where either would be used.

Every time the player respawns, they get a pistol. How would you ever actually really need to build another? If you drop it on accident?

What about the assembler recipe? Why is it there? What scenario could ever possibly exist that would require choosing the pistol in an assembler?

It's faster to switch pistols in a firefight than reloading. Although I can't imagine shooting through a whole stack of ammunition with the pistol during a firefight I have used this with rifles. Keep a backup rifle loaded in case I forgot to load the rifle before an attack and run out. Plus it saves inventory space to store ammunition in the weapon slot at the low price of manufacturing an extra rifle.