Simple Questions and Short Answers

[Tertius]

Instead of a rock, I use a deconstruction planner as blocking filter. I never transport deconstruction planners via belt and they have a nice red "blocked" appearance.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Yeah, I like using the decon planner as a filter for completely blocking the output of a splitter too. For this specific application where I want to jam just one output lane though, rocks are pretty much just always on hand at a build site and if they aren't wood will be.

[Panzerknacker]

Hello, was playing a game today and kinda found a cheese strategy. Had some biter bases nearby my starting area, I laid a pipeline around em. They started creating a attack group due to the pollution cloud, the attack never came tho. Now the base simply stopped absorbing pollution. Guess they can't attack because there is no path available.

I just wonder, is this intended to be like this? It feels kinda lame that the pipeline completely disables the biter camp from doing any harm. I would expect them to try to reach the source of the pollution by breaking through things that are in the way.

One could argue that because the base stopped absorbing pollution, the cloud would simply reach further bases. But you can do the same there, until you cover a large enough area. This way you won't have to kill bases which increases the biter evolution.

[ColonelSandersLite]

I guarantee that the pipe you laid did not block the base from absorbing pollution. If that base stopped absorbing pollution, it was because of other factors.

[Panzerknacker]

Hmmm after loading the save file suddenly the pollution absorb spiked immensely and many attacks went out in a short amount of time. While when I was playing earlier nothing happened for 30 minutes. Maybe something just got bugged that fixed itself by restarting the game. Well I am glad it now works as I would have hoped, I will see if I can reproduce the situation somehow.

[Tertius]

I have a question about the power grid statistics if a power switch is present. If the switch connects two power grids, they become one grid and the history of one of the two grids survives, while the other is destroyed. If the switch disconnects, the grid becomes two separate grids, and one of the two inherits the history and the other starts with a blank history.

I have not yet found out which history is preserved, and which history is destroyed. It seems random. Often Factorio does the right thing and chooses the "bigger" grid to preserve its history and the "smaller" grid to get its history destroyed. But while I develop smaller setups in sandbox mode, the history moves randomly from grid to grid while the switch switches on/off multiple times. I expect the game always choose the same grid to get the history, but that isn't true. It seems the longest history survives, but it's not clear on which grid. I would like it on the grid that has still power after the power switch is set to off.

Is there a rule for this?

[brunzenstein]

Where can I find the location the Console commands are stored?
On a Mac?

[Honktown]

Where can I find the location the Console commands are stored?
On a Mac?

Your previous console commands are in player-data.json , search for "console-history":


https://wiki.factorio.com/Application_directory
MacOSX: ~/Library/Application Support/factorio

There is no list of console commands. The wiki has: https://wiki.factorio.com/Console

[Grambler]

Where do I find my screen shots of the game? It is not in the windows screen shots folder, nor in the factorio appdata folder.
Never mind. I found out if i go into chat with `/screenshot it will show up in that script folder
But if I hit F12 where are the screen shots stored? Can't find them. Why doesn't the wiki tell me?

[Tertius]

Where do I find my screen shots of the game? It is not in the windows screen shots folder, nor in the factorio appdata folder.
Never mind. I found out if i go into chat with `/screenshot it will show up in that script folder
But if I hit F12 where are the screen shots stored? Can't find them. Why doesn't the wiki tell me?

Steam adds to the confusion with the screenshots. F12 is the Steam screenshot hotkey, it creates the screenshot by the Steam integration in a Steam specific way. You can share it ingame by opening the Steam integration with shift-tab, then choose the screenhot widget. However, to actually show this directory with Windows explorer, you need to open the external steam client itself ->view->screenshots. It's the same screenshot manager as ingame, but with an additional button to open the screenshot directory. Don't ask why the ingame screenshot manager doesn't provide the directory.

Screenshots captured ingame with the /screenshot command are created by Factorio itself (and not the Steam integration) in the Factorio-specific directory %appdata%\Factorio\script-output.

[Grambler]

Thanks that explains it. I'll check out the Steam screenshot, but don't really need it now. I think Steam is awfully clunky software anyway

[Grambler]

The game started showing logistics and trash when I open the inventory. I can't find any information about it anywhere. Here is a screenshot.

Inventory Logistics .jpg (659.54 KiB) Viewed 4754 times

How do I use this?
Thanks,
Glenn

[Tertius]

In the "Personal logistics" area, you can click on the empty fields and add filters for items you want in your inventory. If your character is in range of some logistics network, these items are requested from the network and (if available) automagically delivered by logistic robots.

The "Trash Slots" area is actually a trash inventory. You can move items from the regular inventory (on the left) to the trash slots. If your character is in range of some logistics network, these items are taken out of the trash slots by logistic robots and put in some available storage of that logistics network.

They work like a requester chest and active provider chest for your personal inventory.

This is a game changer. It's one of the most important convenience functions in Factorio. You're not any more forced to walk to some storage and manually fetch items or store unused items away. Instead, logistics robots continuously refill your inventory or carry away unwanted items.


The other most important convenience function is the personal roboport (must be crafted) together with construction robots in your inventory, and using blueprints. Instead of manually placing items, you place a blueprint and the construction robots you carry will build this blueprint with the items from your inventory.

[Grambler]

Thanks for the quick and helpful explanation. Sorry I haven't found that info yet. I know I have robots, so now I can use them.

[makrom]

Did anyone else ever notice nests spawning through cliffs?
I must have a few k h on the clock by now, but I just noticed this yesterday for the first time. I usually leave gapless cliff lines in my perimeter defense line largely undefended, but it seems that's no air tight strategy.

[Honktown]

Did anyone else ever notice nests spawning through cliffs?
I must have a few k h on the clock by now, but I just noticed this yesterday for the first time. I usually leave gapless cliff lines in my perimeter defense line largely undefended, but it seems that's no air tight strategy.

It makes sense... if the biters are nesting, they don't check they can reach where they decided to convert into a nest/worm. Maybe you could file a bug report, to see if the devs think it's worth "fixing"? (that a unit doesn't have to be able to reach the location to convert, aka "quantum tunneling")

[makrom]

It makes sense... if the biters are nesting, they don't check they can reach where they decided to convert into a nest/worm. Maybe you could file a bug report, to see if the devs think it's worth "fixing"? (that a unit doesn't have to be able to reach the location to convert, aka "quantum tunneling")

I haven't even thought of it as a bug since what's happening seems pretty straight forward game mechanics wise. Biters gather at a certain spot and start spawning nests around that spot. And if that spot happens to be near a cliff, nests can also spawn on the other side.
Though you could of course argue that since cliffs are supposed to be like an impenetrable barrier, they should interrupt that spawn radius.

[EngineerPerson]

Does every part of a rail track need defending, or just the outpost bit?

[FuryoftheStars]

Does every part of a rail track need defending, or just the outpost bit?

Biters will generally leave simple tracks alone, but not always. I think the cases where they attack are more so during a large group that is pathing over it and some can't find a path (due to other biters), so they seek to take their frustraions out on something (specifically, they temporarily switch over to a path clearing mode and will target the tracks if they happen to be close enough when that happens).

Additionally, once spitters are out (or if a worm spawns close enough), spit acid at passing trains will land on and damage the tracks.

This is part of the reason why I use mods to make rails invulnerable, because otherwise you're having to always repair/replace track segments or constantly (in one way or another) keeping the areas between clear.

[EngineerPerson]

Is it worth the resources involved to get a roboport network up and running as soon as you can?