Factorio Forums

Howdy.

I've been dabbling with 0.15 (a great update--new science opened the game anew for me) and have been wondering what is most viable approach to tackle science.

In my current game I already set blue and purple science up but the influx of red circuits is not enough to support both let alone HT which I yet need to design. Time for a redesign, I guess. Easier to say than done, that's where I am at the moment.

I did some calculations [1] only to learn that to support 1 science (of each type except space one) per second one needs: ~160 steel furnaces smelting copper, ~260 steel furnaces smelting iron and steel, 172 electric mining drills to fill in the former and 228 to fill in the latter and 54 AM2 producing red circuits! My current smelters are not be able to provide even a half of the copper plates!

Now, how on Earth I approach that? In previous versions I would build a bootstrap base which than I would scrap once I settled in other location where I would build a proper base to launch a rocket. In 0.15 bootstrap base itself, if it is to produce yellow science, could be bigger than most of my final bases!

Is it like that now one needs a minor bootstrap base (a shopping mall, so to say), a mid-bootstrap base sole purpose of which would be to proceed through finite research and only then build up a final base you would use to launch a rocket?

That is fine--just asking to save me from spending tens of hours only to learn that I missed something on the very start.

[1]. Using https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html

grouchysmurf wrote:1 science per second

You don't need that much science. 0.5 science per second is still so fast that you struggle to build stuff as fast as you research it.

Another option is to build really small, say 0.1 science per second. Then blueprint your entire base, find new mining sites, and build another copy.

If you scale things down, and build 1 science every 10 seconds, you'll need only one 10th of all that, which is definitely doable.
I think one should start small, but with scaling in mind, instead of starting at megabase scale from scratch.

*chuckles*

I tried 10 blue fabs once. That would almost be 1 blue/s.

Suffice it to say, that I was NOT able to pump enough metal/steel into it in order for it to work at capacity.
I believe, if you want that in one fab, you need the blue belts in order to reach the throughput needed.

Still, research is quick and quite cheap. Even with only 6 blues operating in that base, research went smoothly.

I am designing a speed run for 0.15 (prob not the world record). I am targeting 3:00 for the launch.
I am aware that not all research is required for a speed run, i.e. you will need more science packs in a regular game.
However, giving you my figures should provide you with an upper limit of science pack production rates that you need.
As I said, you will be slower, but need more -- this estimation will definately be good enough for red, green, blue and black.

Red and green:
I need 6630 red and 6410 green in 2:05 (green) --> 0.85 packs/s is enough.
(hint: in a regular game I build 5, resp. 6, blue assembly machines, --> 0.75 packs/s)

Blue:
I need 3175 science packs in 1:00 --> 0.88 packs/s

Black:
I need 2320 science packs in 0:40 --> 0.97 packs/s
(hint: If you have enemies in a regular game, build black science first, also here 0.75/s is more than enough)

Yellow / purple:
I need 1300 science packs only (of each). However, they need to be build in no time. Well, I decided to go for a rate of about 1/s. For a regular game I would reduce this to 0.75 since almost everything needs the same rate later in the game.

BTW:
I need about 25 k steel in 1:45, 18125 red circuits in 1:15, and 3090 procs in 1:05

Conclusion:
I recommend the strategy to race through the science tree with your first base. Then, with all important technologies in the pocket you build a second base. This second base is only limited by your fantasy (and the heart beat of your computer). I built a factory that does 40 science packs/s for every colour a while ago and really badly hit the FPS wall (that was before all the performance optimizations).
If you target a rate of 0.75 packs/s for all colours for your first base you will need to build everything really swiftly to keep up with your research progression (50 labs are really enough, start with 14 after the red-green setup). To keep up, you need to finish everything in about 3 hours. If you don't have really large resource fields nearby (and in exchange only very few trees) this will be really tough. If you want a relaxed game, target 6 hrs and devide all rates by 2. That gives you 3 hours to chop all those f*cking trees.