Factorio - a factory building game - now with Space Age expansion

[Andnjord]

Sent a few rockets in space and now that I've accumulated a decent amount of construction bots I've finally started working on the Real Base (tm) at the center of the screen, just some furnace stacks with their train stops for now. Space Exploration revamped crafting recipes definitely threw me for a loop and the mall occupies a full quarter of the Starter Base (tm) base, and like a tumor it keeps on growing everytime I research something new so it really is time that I start working on something a little more solid before I start galivanting in space and sending cargo rockets all around.

I think I'll design a few more Real Base (tm) areas (like circuits and oil) before knuckling down and making a nuclear reactor (I shamelessly stole blueprints before, so I have no idea how to make one), because the moment I'll turn on the Real Base (tm) those 120 MW of solar power sure as hell won't cut it.

Also, given that SE will throw me new furnaces and better recipes later on I’m not really trying to design for full modularity like for the megabase since I’ll have some new and better designs to make from scratch eventually.

See you next time gentlemen.

 

[Jaedar]

I think I'll design a few more Real Base (tm) areas (like circuits and oil) before knuckling down and making a nuclear reactor (I shamelessly stole blueprints before, so I have no idea how to make one), because the moment I'll turn on the Real Base (tm) those 120 MW of solar power sure as hell won't cut it.

Do as you please, but I'd recommend you finish logistics and production science before designing Real Base. Getting a feel for how multiplanet logistics will actually be is helpful. But I also don't know how crap your current base is

 

[Andnjord]

But I also don't know how crap your current base is

It’s pretty crap, very much built in the spirit of an ad-hoc starter base . It got me to all the prespace science no problem (although I got lazy and hand-fed the furnaces and speed modules of orange science) but I’m sick of it now.

The idea is to have a 100SPM (pre beacons) “normal” train base plus a large area dedicated as its own large mall+rocket logistics, which I’ll be designing with as much free space as possible and spare train terminals for all the extra crap I’m sure I’ll need eventually.

I fully expect to have to rip up and rebuild large sections sooner rather than later.

 

[Jaedar]

The idea is to have a 100SPM (pre beacons) “normal” train base plus a large area dedicated as its own large mall+rocket logistics, which I’ll be designing with as much free space as possible and spare train terminals for all the extra crap I’m sure I’ll need eventually.

As always, you should do what seems fun to you. But note that one of the official tips for SE is "worry about throughput later" and this is good advice. When it takes you 10 hours to colonize a new planet, that's an aaaaawfuuul lot of time for your production back on nauvis to make stockpiles. And unlike vanilla factorio, the research counts don't just increase, so you'll frequently only need a few hundred science packs to unlock the next tier.

 

[Andnjord]

And made it into space! Well, just before reloading because I just wanted to have a look to understand what I should send into the rocket.

I ended up going a little back and forth between work on the "Real Base"(tm) and working my way to cargo rockets back at the old base. Also set up core mining with train stations and warehouse buffers so that it fills up while I'm doing other stuff, I'll stamp down a couple more before I go to the satellite. Also made a big'ol 3x2 nuclear reactor, it's really excessive and half turned off to save on Uranium 235 until I get Kovarek process but it's cute.

As for loading the rocket I think the best way is to use the precious warehouse requester together with a constant combinator where I'll input my needs plugged into a memory cell that keeps track of how much the insterters have put into the rocket so that the requester knows how much it still needs. I'll still belt in some of the more mundane stuff like plates to spare the robots a little.

 

[Andnjord]

I’ve set up the Nauvis satellite to research the first space science and I have a question for the audience regarding the Cargo rocket lift off logic.

So, I have a constant combinator with the materials required to produce and use the space science (so I’m also sending the other sciences at an appropriate ratio) (also the constant combinator has the inputs required for 5 space science then fed into a multiplier for how much I want to send in total, this way if I need to send more I only have to change one variable). To that I subtract what’s already on the station and the difference is signalled back to Nauvis to a requester chest that feeds into the cargo rocket that will resupply the station. So far so good the rocket filled up with what was needed and nothing more.

My question is, what would be a good way to decide when the rocket launches? Check if any of my inputs on the station have reached zero (with the risk of sending an empty rocket) so anything=0=launches rocket? Or check if any of the supply rockets contents match the desired supply? But then that solution would require me to manually set a combinator for each of the desired inputs or is there a more elegant solution?

Also, any idea on what to do with the cargo rocket components once they’ve landed on the space station?

 

[Jaedar]

My question is, what would be a good way to decide when the rocket launches?

When it's full obviously. If you are running out of resources without the rocket launching you're not stockpiling enough stuff in space (I had more than a dozen of the biggest warehouses to store shit). Or the ratios of what you are stockpiling are wrong.

Also, any idea on what to do with the cargo rocket components once they’ve landed on the space station?

Pack them, and then send them back down to be reused. Same with the capsules. I'd often go up to space in person to build, and go back down in a capsule together with whatever packed sections and capsules that are ready for reuse.

 

[Andnjord]

Pack them, and then send them back down to be reused. Same with the capsules. I'd often go up to space in person to build, and go back down in a capsule together with whatever packed sections and capsules that are ready for reuse.

Somehow I was hoping for something more elegant than “grab them on your way to work” like a nagging wife reminding me to take out the trash. Oh well…

When it's full obviously. If you are running out of resources without the rocket launching you're not stockpiling enough stuff in space

Back to the excel spreadsheet I go to make sure I fill the 500 cargo space accurately then.

 

[Jaedar]

Somehow I was hoping for something more elegant than “grab them on your way to work” like a nagging wife reminding me to take out the trash. Oh well…

Well, in the future there's always space elevators and trains and you could always send rockets back down to automate it.

Back to the excel spreadsheet I go to make sure I fill the 500 cargo space accurately then.

Did you not research signal transmission yet? Pretty sure you get that around the same time as cargo rockets.

If you do it right, you can fully automate your cargo rockets to automatically deliver the exact things that are needed.

 

[Andnjord]

Ended up biting the bullet and just having a combinator for each of the inputs check for the contents of the rocket and send the green signal if input>80 of what's needed on the station. Had it running for a couple of hours and it went flawlessly. Also added wharehouses to store all the inputs since I discovered that to automatically launch a rocket its receiving pad needs to be empty, so it was just easier to add the intervening storage and read what's there for the circuit request. The bottom landing pad is for I'll need to come back to build other stuff so I don't clog up the research storages.

And this screenshot of the spaghetti monster that the mall made the old base metastasise into should convince you as to why I was seriously considering building a full new base before even getting to the space station. Luckily it managed decently at keeping science up and ressuplying the station while I was busy adding more iron mining and oil pumping around the map.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Also added whorehouses to store all the inputs

FTFY

And this screenshot of the spaghetti monster

You know nothing of monsters. This's organized.

 

[Andnjord]

You know nothing of monsters.

Show me.

Spoiler

You’re not wrong in that it works, it’s been able to sustain quite a lot space research with its cargo and satellite rocket launches even though oil is a bit of an issue (need more oil outposts). But it does hurt my sense of aesthetics and it will probably be unable to sustain any expansion into the later types of research.

 

[Jaedar]

You know nothing of monsters.

Show me.

Spoiler

You’re not wrong in that it works, it’s been able to sustain quite a lot space research with its cargo and satellite rocket launches even though oil is a bit of an issue (need more oil outposts). But it does hurt my sense of aesthetics and it will probably be unable to sustain any expansion into the later types of research.

Lategame research is like 90% in space. "Only" the resource mining and processing is done on the ground.

I never actually replaced my original main bus. I expanded it, upgraded it, and moved some resource intensive stuff (like green and red circuits) out of the base and brought them in by rail, but a lot of the basic manufacturing like red science just sat there the entire game after being built.

 

[Demo.Graph]

You know nothing of monsters.

Show me.

These aren't mine. I shudder to think about them.

Spoiler

 

[Andnjord]

Oh the infinite ways in which a factory can break. I was letting the base run while looking at the vulcanite and cryonite chain to understand how they work when I noticed that the green circuit belt was empty. Looking at the green circuits production I see that there are no stone bricks (SE changes the green circuits recipe to replace iron plates with stone tablets). Going up the chain I see that there is no stone. Looking at the stone train station I see that the stone train is stuck at one of the core mining stations. Back at the core mining station the train is sitting there, almost full except for one wagon. SOMEHOW eight units of coal had snuck their way into the stone train output and the train was there stupidly waiting for extra coal to fill that one slot in its load that would never arrive.

Also, I didn’t mention it before but just before going to orbit for the first time I had apparently pasted a stone train station at a newly built iron mine, so while I was away the stone train had merily gone back and forth filling my stone belts with iron ore for a couple of hours. THAT was a fun one to clean up.

 

[Andnjord]

Progress is continuing, took a break from making the Real Base (tm) on Nauvis and I've set up the Blue Space Science on the space base, all it's waiting for is the cryonite that I'll be sending via capsules. I'll do a similar, minimal setup for the vulcanite Red Space Science next before moving on to setting up some kind of better space base. I'm regretting not setting up some kind of main bus fed by a single rocket, but it'll have to do for now and rockets aren't that expensive anyways nor do I need to send a lot of them just yet.

The top landing pad handles the basic space science, the bottom one the Blue Space Science and the middle one is to send myself supplies to build stuff there. It's a functional little setup, and the constant combinator into requester chest is really a convenient way to handle the supplies.

Now I just need to actually get to that cryonite planet...

 

[Jaedar]

I'm regretting not setting up some kind of main bus fed by a single rocket, but it'll have to do for now and rockets aren't that expensive anyways nor do I need to send a lot of them just yet.

Space design is very interesting. I brute forced it with logistics bots for a looong time, but that gets a bit silly after a while. But I also think having a main bus is probably not the correct architecture once you get past the 3 initial space sciences.

 

[Andnjord]

But I also think having a main bus is probably not the correct architecture once you get past the 3 initial space sciences.

Yeah, I should have specified that I meant a bus for the initial sciences. I’ve had a glimpse at the later stuff and there’s so much one offs and weird and wonderful loops that it will probably be a kind of equally weird and wonderful base.

But first I need requester chests. Gawd do I miss having requester chests.

 

[Andnjord]

OH SWEET LORD IN HEAVENS, AT LAST! I'M FREE, I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

First extra-Nauvis base. It was very fun to plan and execute this little base, and I like this kind of multi-stage production chain. Although I guess Cryonite is one of the easier ones since all you need to worry about is to stop the water byproduct from backing up (simple circuit condition on the water pump so it prioritises the excess water produced by the cryonite chain).
Fairly minimal setup for now, just so I can research the basic Blue Space Science techs of which obviously the most critical one was Logistic Systems. Finally I can automate some of the most esoteric buildings and personal equipments and set up a proper builder train. Of course Power Armour MkII and Personal Roboports MkII are also a godsend in terms of quality of life.

Next on the list, Vulcanite!

 

[Jaedar]

Although I guess Cryonite is one of the easier ones since all you need to worry about is to stop the water byproduct from backing up (simple circuit condition on the water pump so it prioritises the excess water produced by the cryonite chain).

Don't you also need to do some kind of priority splitting to balance the crystals and powder? It's been a long time since I set it up.

And yeah, logistics system is a really nice after so long. Pyroflux smelting is also great to reduce the amount of mines needed.

 

[Andnjord]

Don't you also need to do some kind of priority splitting to balance the crystals and powder? It's been a long time since I set it up.

Nah, that will be for vulcanite I think. For cryonite you crush the ore into powder (and split off the sand byproduct), turn half of it into crystals and combine the other half with said crystals to make the rods. The only way it can deadlock is if you don’t reuse the water properly.

As for the sand it takes 200 of it to make one landfill, so with enough storage it would take hundreds of hours before backing up. Unless there’s a good way to use it situ that I missed? And no, I refuse to turn it into glass and rocket that back to Nauvis.

 

[Jaedar]

As for the sand it takes 200 of it to make one landfill, so with enough storage it would take hundreds of hours before backing up. Unless there’s a good way to use it situ that I missed?

This is one of the few recurring misses of space exploration design. There are lots of recipes which make sand or stone as by-product, and 90% of the time there really is no point to doing anything with it except landfill that gets put in a box.

 

[Andnjord]

Pyroflux smelting is also great to reduce the amount of mines needed.

Just had a loooong train journey so I got to make the first Vulcanite outpost (that was indeed the trickier one to balance the crush and enriched output) and set up the research on the station.

You were right about the pyroflux indeed, I’ve remade the glass production (it was the bottleneck for Low Density Structures) and went from needing one red belt of stone for one yellow belt of glass to needing one yellow belt of stone for one red belt of glass! Quadruple the output! I’m beating myself that I didn’t realise that I could have used the Crushers to make 33% cheaper sand hours ago, saving thousands on stone but oh well. I also replaced two furnace stacks of iron with pyroflux and indeed between that and the extra productivity modules it’s almost halved the required ore!

NOW that I have full bots and beacons available and a better sense of what’s needed I’m going to make the Real Base (tm), this should be fun.

 

[Andnjord]

So far at least I must say I am extremely impressed with the mod besides a few minor quibbles.

The gradual introduction of the more efficient recipes is quite fun in giving MOAR NUMBERS in exchange for the recipes being more complex to set up, I found it extremely satisfying to set up Pyroflux smelting for example. There’s just something quintessentially Factorio about the whole journey of first travelling to a space station in orbit of Nauvis, setting up research there that has to be supplied by expensive rockets, finding a space ship stranded deep in space, using it to travel to a new and exotic planet, setting a mining outpost to mine and process vulcanite, automating it to send said vulcanite across space, aaaaall of this to smelt iron more efficiently. And this is just the beginning of the whole journey from what I can gather.

I also appreciate very much how it forces you to really make use of the tools Factorio gives you but that you usually do without. I had never used so many priority splitters, filters inserters and circuit logic, to the point it’s becoming second nature. It almost feels like a full realisation of what Factorio has to offer or a fully fledged sequel rather than « just » a mod and I’m still relatively early.

In terms of minor quibbles there is the byproducts many recipes have that have to be managed to prevent locking up. Some of it I like, like space sciences returning junk data card that have to be recycled, more complex set up resulting in more efficiency, good stuff. Some are just annoying like the debris created by making the data card that you just shove in a box. This is just a minor thing though.

On the other hand I am really not a fan of the extended burner phase at the start since it’s just delaying the normal beginning, nor delaying Logistic Networks as much as the game does. It was a real pain to manufacture that ever expanding list of items for so bloody long and the mod has become significantly more fun now that that’s out of the way.

All in all, I’m enjoying this mod so much so that I’ll actually wait on getting the Space Age expansion until I’ll have finished the playthrough and will be very curious how the mod author will use the new features of the expansion.

 

[Jaedar]

On the other hand I am really not a fan of the extended burner phase at the start since it’s just delaying the normal beginning, nor delaying Logistic Networks as much as the game does. It was a real pain to manufacture that ever expanding list of items for so bloody long and the mod has become significantly more fun now that that’s out of the way.

The burner phase I find so hard to remember, because, yeah ok it's an hour long instead of 10 minutes, but what is an hour to a campaign that's 100s of hours long?

Delaying requester chests is a bit cruel, but I also think that logistics can be kind of a "cheat", so it's not terrible that you have to colonize a planet before you get it.

Will be interesting to see which science you go for next. You're firmly in the midgame of SE now.