Factorio Forums

I'm a /really/ new player, so please forgive what may be an obvious question to some. I am playing my first Factorio map, and am now into the late game (ready to build my rocket, have bots, blue-chips, etc). I have revealed somewhere between a 1024x1024 to 2048x2048 section of may map, and the biggest ore patch I have found (of any time) is about 17M. Is this normal for a rail world? I thought that this map was supposed to have rare (but huge) patches, and I find myself spending a lot of time hooking up different copper patches (8M, 4M, 6M, 5M), and worrying about when they run out. Same goes for Iron, coal, etc, though I've had a couple >10M patches of those. More Uranium than I could possibly need, and lots of oil.

Am I just unlucky, or is this what a rail world is supposed to be like? After watching a number of streamers with >100M patches, I'm wondering why my map is so different. If it matters, I originally rolled the map in 0.16, and upgraded to 0.17.

Here's my map exchange string if you want to tell me what I did wrong...
>>>eNpjYBBkkGcAggMMDPYOrFvtOViS8xNzGBgawDwQzZWcX1CQWqSb
X5SKLMyZXFSakqqbn4mqODUvNbdSNymxGKwYhjkyi/Lz0E1gLS7Jz0M
VKSlKTS1G1shdWpSYl1mai66XgTFIZYdAQ4scAwj/r2cw+P8fhIGsC0
DfgDAYNNgzMgLFoICRMzUntSyxJDM/j88g3tBMF85lTc7JTEtjYFBwh
GCQ7VgAY+/brQu+HztgB2QyMDIhSTDCiTQPZgZGh8ecDEQDZiT2B3vG
iHVl6wG4jVZA<<<

0.16 had a very different (and not great) terrain/resource generator and everything you explored while playing under 0.16 will have stayed as-is when you moved to 0.17. Newly explored areas will be revealed using the 0.17 terrain/resource generator.

I suspect you'll just have to venture out a ways, and probably not too far, to get some quality 0.17 railworld generated resources, though you'll still find smaller patches mixed in. I just checked my 0.17 railworld game and it looks like my 35-40mil patches start about 40-50 chunks out from the starting location. (A chunk is the dark bordered square seen when you press shift-space on the keyboard.) I think I kept their sizes and richness default, but I'm not sure at this point. I haven't seen anything much over 40mil yet and I've explored something perhaps close to a 150-200 chunk diameter.

It's quite possible these streamers are using settings that increase patch size and/or richness beyond the default railworld settings or just found very favourable random seeds. But you are supposed to venture out quite far in the railworld mode for large patches.

In any case, just keep venturing outwards and you'll find them eventually.

Patch size/richness increases with distance.

So... Punch a straight line of rail that goes far far away. Eventually you will find huge patches. In my last 0.16 map I used this approach to find 300M size deposits and much more is possible.

If you want to launch a lot of rockets you'll want to increase the richness a bit. But don't set it too high or you'll get insane patches close by. Many streamers do that so they don't have to build a lot of outposts and can focus on more interesting things.

Generally it helps to use the console to reveal some maps to get a feeling for how resources are a greater distance away with certain settings