[0.11.x] Marathon Mod

[KeepOnBuilding]

Total play time is 150 hours.

But this was the first time I had ever placed track or a train. So there was a big learning curve in there as I worked out how to best use rail. I think I probably wasted 2 full days learning how rail worked and testing solutions which did not work.

The main reason I started this Marathon world was the promise in the release notes to "Be forced to use trains".

But I actually found trains really tedious to work with, and if belts weren't so laggy I would simply have run 2 x fast belts of copper from the mines out past block 15,000 back to base. Iron and coal would have only been transported 6000 blocks, I am still mining iron/coal at blocks 5000-6500. And I would have just piped oil all the way back from block 19,000 to my processing plants at block 120.

Another option would be to set up the green circuit factories out at block 15,000 and transport the circuits back to base on a belt.

I think either of those options would have saved 30 hours of play time, because I spent literally days setting up and re-programming the rail network. But I was down to 10 frames per second once my belts reached out to 10,000 blocks and I had to switch to rail. FPS is down to 22 FPS now with trains!

I could have installed the Fat Controller mod, but was looking for a "marathon vanilla" experience.

If I played through this again, I would install the pocketbots mod (the feature is in 0.12 so I can call it "vanilla") so I could easily place blueprints. That would probably save another 20 hours!

Thank you bgirard for this great concept

KeepOnBuilding!

[bgirard]

Cool!

You're right. For mine I would setup green factory with blueprints and rail in the finish products. I had small use of train because, like you said, they are fairly tedious to setup properly.

I think the belts could use some factors to debuff them when using them for long distance, other than a lag effect. Increasing the cost more could help make them too costly for long belts perhaps. I fell like they could use another debuff however.

[KeepOnBuilding]

Even if you made belts 10x more expensive, there's no problem… just set up a dedicated belt factory on a large iron deposit… This is what Factorio is all about… automating item production.

Although if a yellow belt required a green circuit… and a red belt required a red circuit… and a blue belt required a blue circuit...

But that would just about make it impossible to get started in the game. The hurdle to get the first automation up and running would be massive.

I think belts need to draw power, and quite a lot of it. I know this has been discussed to death regarding Vanilla. But Marathon is a different scenario, where people WANT a massive challenge.

If my 155 MW of power generation needed another 155 MW to power the belts… that would be quite an incentive to use fewer belts and more rail.

I must have 15,000 belts placed… so that would equate to a 10kW drain per yellow belt, 20 kW for red and 40 kW for blue. Splitters and undergrounds could be 10 times that.

At that sort of power usage it's just about cheaper to use long handled inserters to move items, especially with some inserter upgrades

But power is essentially free once you have the resources to build Solar Panels and Accumulators.

Interesting problem, and tricky to balance.

One other comment about my Marathon build… I was surprised how little iron I needed compared to Copper. I finished up consuming 3 fast belts of copper, but only one of iron. Iron consumption could be doubled, I think.

And one more comment… solar panels and accumulators are still OP. I only had one factory producing each of them and it only ran maybe 25% of the time. The whole "utility item" part of my factory was tiny. It's the completely chaotic mess right over the left of the screen shot I posted. I was expecting to have to make this much larger, with multiple furnaces producing stone brick and so on.

KeepOnBuilding!

[Afforess]

FYI, I have continued supporting the Marathon mod, and released 0.5.3 for Factorio 0.12. You can find the new mod thread here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 91&t=13567

[Septimus ii]

Does this mod still exist? It sounds really interesting

[Koub]

Just read the last post before yours