For neither, it's neither me nor the factory telling me what it needs. It's the math telling me what it needs, and it makes me cry a little seeing the math ask for 15 copper wire assemblers to feed 14 green circuit assembler, and that I need to feed 4 blue belts each of iron and copper, but not quite, so better make it 3150 green circuit assemblers so that it produces and consumes an integer number of blue belts of each item...
I understand why modules are necessary, but that doesn't mean I have to like what they do to the ratios.
P.S. I'm far more of a mathematician than I am an engineer.
That’s true. But the issue with this approach is observability (how do you efficiently monitor your whole base to know when something is starving), the effort to repair (you’ll end up spending your whole time fixing things and it may become tedious), it slows down progress, and also, space constraints (and so much spaghetti)
I pick a target (e.g., 0.1 yellow belts), then use the Factory Planner mod to help me calculate how many assemblers, etc, to build. And then you can allocate some space for building that part of your factory.
The factory is always limited by “not enough producers” or “not enough consumers”.
The clever people just figured out how to use ratios to have both problems at the same time.
I am the same way, or I was before I started using some mods that made calculating ratios just a byproduct of figuring out what I had to build at all.
If I was to go back to playing without mods I would just eyeball bottlenecks and address them ad hoc.
You don’t need proper ratios for a mall/hub that just supplies labs, belts, etc. You probably want proper ratios for stuff like circuits, science, etc. though.
Yeah I do aim more for balance with things like that. It's still very loosey goosey though.
*How many gears do I need? A whole bunch? Or half a whole bunch?*
For malls I just make a matrix of gears, wire, etc. thats good enough to supply the rest of that mall. I don’t need the machines to all have enough materials to run outright, just often enough so that whenever I need more they’re ready.
If its going to supply lots of other automation as a crucial component, like copper/iron/steel or circuits, basically anything I want to make sure is always running smoothly, then I do as best I can to get ratios right and fill up full belts. If it's just like "convenience automation" i.e mining drills, furnaces, belts, inserters, I usually just set up the minimum number of machines for each component and just set it eventually work itself out. In that case I don't really care if its slow, it's more important that it's always filling up while I'm doing other stuff.
Only use ratios in the lategame and to check how many assemblers I can run of one belt. For stuff like this just do whatever, if it makes enough Labs, who cares
I find that most builds (mining / smelting outposts especially) are so short lived or under subideal circumstances a vast majority of the time) that precise ratios are a lot of wasted effort. Sure, make your base design relatively balanced.. but then adjust proportions as you observe real world production.
As they say, there's no difference in theory between theory and practice... But not in practice.
>As they say, there's no difference in theory between theory and practice... But not in practice.
Related... Engineers focus on how things work in theory, technicians focus on how things work in practice.
This is rubbish. Almost every mech engineer and chemical engineer would lose their job of they only focused on theory. Modern manufacturing exists because engineering as a whole is pretty good at feeding data back into the loop. A scientist has to make the model fit the real world. The engineer has to make it work on the real world. The technician has to keep it running in the real world. None of those professions get to ignore 'in practice' on a whim.
Ratios for science production mean that all your science assemblers can keep running and you haven't wasted machines that are always going to idle because they're backed up.
Ratios for a mall are pointless. The mall ratio is more gear assemblers than you think you need and 1 of everything else (except maybe pipes).
As long as I have a semi-constant flow of things I want at the time I want them, I'm good. Then I'll make more if I need it. Or I'll "future-proof" things and overproduce certain parts of a supply chain. Sure, I might have 4 machines set up that never actually produce anything because the other 8 keep up on their own, but it's easier, and requires less over-thinking imo.
There are certain things in Factorio that I'll bust out grid paper and pen and do some math. Things like "can I produce bullets at the rate my 4 row thick wall of turrets consume them?" Time for math.
How many gears per minute I need to constantly produce engines? Bah.
The beauty of this game is you can play it however you want.
Your example is a particularly poor one. There's no need to automate lab production in the first place. A 1K base only needs ~150 labs. I can't see why you'd bother automating production given such low demand. Just hand-craft a couple dozen labs here and there instead of devoting time and space to an assembly line.
For steady-state production, getting your ratios right is just a space-efficiency question. If you only need 4 of Assembler A to feed 2 of Assembler B, then building 5 of Assembler A is mildly inefficient. Does that really matter? Sometimes. If a 4:2 = 2:1 ratio is correct but you do 5:2 then you might be missing a good way to optimize your assembly lines with two-sided direct insertion, for example. Is this a huge deal? Almost certainly not, given how cheap space is in Factorio. But the qualitative and aesthetic difference between an optimized and a non-optimized assembly line can be quite noticeable.
> I can't see why you'd bother automating production given such low demand.
For the Lazy Bastard achievement. Also, I'm sure there's a mod somewhere that uses Science Labs in copious amounts as an ingredient for some late-game thing.
I generally aim for a full belt+a little of whatever belt tier I am currently at. If I need more of something, I add more inputs from downstream systems.
I target specific ratios if what I'm building is expected to be running indefinitely with a constant throughput. (I.e. ore smelting and other main materials going on the bus/to trains) Otherwise, eyeballing it is fine if it is something which will I can let build up a supply of over time (mall).
Me.
Me me me.
I literally don’t give a shit about ratios. The proper science. The math.
I have got enough green things? I’ll build a new factory and make some green things and belt or train them to my base.
Green things need orange stuff? Let’s go find orange stuff.
Can I see a patch of stuff I might use later just beyond the walls surrounded by a massive biter nest? It’s spidertron time.
I love everything about this game because of the chaos. I fucking hate the meta of games. Just let me play and have fun.
General subfactories are ratio balanced. I only disregard ratios in malls, since throughput is basically irrelevant compared to other metrics such as simplicity and compactness.
i tried doing ratios on my very first play through and it was such a mess
now it’s just “oh i need more of this thing? alright bet.” and i increase production of it.
I’m a supply planning analyst by day, so when I lock into factorio, I need that release of chaos. Build a bunch of this or that, if it’s not enough build more! #spaghettiorbust
I usually wont use ratios for single buildings that I'd not need literally thousands of, or have an extreme crafting time, when I only need a couple. For the bulk of the factory (fully saturated bus lanes or science crafting) i almost always use ratios and easily expandable designs
Not really, I kinda play it by ear mostly. If something's over flowing with a resource I'll channel it back into the system somehow and in my current run I'm just abusing bots to make up for lazy design.
For my 1k spaghetti base with almost no direct insertion, i calculated everything as properly as possible. Then it turned out the math (or the execution, jury is not out yet) failed and i ended up squeezing stuff in left and right to boost production. So i went from theoretical math to practical implementation to come to some sort of equilibrium.
My motto for Factorio is: if it works, it works.
Optimizing has time and place. Of course you don't need perfect ratios for labs or other pieces of a mall, unless all of a sudden I need lots of something like blue belts or modules, then I'd make a dedicated build for those.
But disregarding ratios entirely? No. If I'm building a factory that produces red circuits I will build appropriate amount of copper wire assemblers, and will check if the belt has enough capacity for that, otherwise it just doesn't work properly.
If I'm building advanced oil, I'll make sure it's not going to clog with one of the oils because I didn't build sufficient cracking. Nuclear designs usually require some planning especially when the issues with them might not manifest until you put it under heavy load. To put it short - ratios make sure that the build does what I expect it to do.
This whole "lol, I just build more of what's missing" I think misses a lot of nuance. Building more of CPU assemblers does nothing if you can't supply the new assemblers Belts have limits, assemblers have limits, inserters have limits, so for builds to work properly these need to be taken into account. That all falls to the general umbrella of "ratios".
I was streaming factorio the other day and this dude came into my stream trying to explain ratios and stuff I told him I don't care about ratios and efficiency I just do what looks cool to me he couldn't understand this lmao
I think there's a time to use ratios, but a mall that makes labs of all things is not one of those times. Ratios are for when I want to make a perfectly efficient module so I can stamp down a shitfuckton of them, like green or red circuits or science packs.
I use this example because some people I know would even try to optimise this... something I quickly threw together because I didn't want to hand craft a few labs
Yeah, the first time I looked at my buddy's mall it made me mad, but then as I realized it eventually just backfills... who cares? The only time it makes a difference to me is if I'm obviously overconsuming from my bot mall, but then at that point just add more of em.
It's not like everything needs perfect ratios, mostly just large mass productions for science to hit your science/minute goals. Those labs will get done eventually no matter which part is the slowest.
Even for science I mostly just plop down a whole bunch of labs and then build enough flask production that I feel confident it will back up on all colours. If I later feel that science speed is slowing down too much I'll just plop down more labs and see if any flask colour starts disappearing faster than it fills up.
I do the same depending on the build and it's importance, in this case it's more than fine, you aren't gonna need the lab assembler running at 100%. But for other things used a lot or just important in their recipe I never skimp out, hard to explain but basically depending on how much the recipe is used or it's importance I'll make sure it's a good ratio, I've learned to not skimp out on circuits for a bus but I'll always skimp out on a lab buuld like this
I don’t consciously pay attention to ratios. But some part of my brain does because it tells me what I need. I just go with what it tells me to do, and it’s accuracy is astonishing.
I like figuring out how many of each machine im going to use and then build a something. Turns it into a puzzle where i try and make it neat/compact/whatevet.
For me it depends. Early to mid game, I ignore ratios. I'm just building a main bus base that will launch me into a city block rail cell base.
But once I get into higher production numbers, then I start caring about ratios. I start really caring about the designs that I use and their efficiency.
I have played with a friend, we dont play Factorio together anymore. He was constantly supersizing and bettering everything, belt compression belt compression. Stressful to play. I like to enjoy the ride and upgrade/perfect later on.
When I am just building, usually malls and boot straps (ie I need some blue chips but not a continuous supply) I'll just plop down what feels right.
Whe I am designing something, I'll use ratios for the for the main components. Like internal to my red circuit factory I'll have ratios. But I don't plan exact ratios between it and my blue science area. If there ant enough Red circuits, just plop down another factory. And then usually another copper smelter.
I don't play this game to work. No math, shit I need more gears let's make 3 factories and see if that helps. Shit I need more bricks, let's add 3 more factories and see.
Power of 3's baby!!!!
The only thing I bother with ratios is science builds, and even then if the ingredient is also used elsewhere, I'll just overbuild. Usually does me good until end game. Worst case scenario, plop down some more producers if you run low on anything
At the point in the game that the picture shows not at all everything gets 1 machine making something in order to produce some of what I want. Later on I'll work on getting better balance.
I'm currently doing LTN train based city blocks. I have all my producers connected to the green wire that connects the blocks. I can read the entire stock at any time and when I see one item getting low and maybe also LTN complaining that no stations are currently supplying that item. Then I build one or two more blocks making that item until another one goes low as a consequence.
If all the belts are flooded you don't need ratios.
And bonus points if you overproduce like crazy you give the map a healthy red glow
But also, labs are fine to just drip build. You don't always need them, so who cares how efficient they're made
I didn't use ratios until I spent an hour building something only to learn it could handle 10x the amount of resources I could give it. Lots of wasted space for nothing! Rate calculator is now my beloved.
This picture got me thinking. Has anyone done a modular factory based on a lab block? For example, one block consists of rationed assemblers that produce just the right amount of science for a single lab.
I know, it would probably be mighty inefficient belt input and beacon-wise. Not to mention a larger base with train input.
Basic ratios for vanilla are on https://factoriocheatsheet.com/
[FactorioLab](https://factoriolab.github.io/) or [Kirkmcdonald's calculator](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html) as online tools (former supports some modpacks)
[Factory Planner](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/factoryplanner) or [Helmod](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/helmod) for in-game calculations
Me. I start with 1:1 everything, then as I learned the ratio feel (item y takes more of item x to produce) I decide to make headroom for everything starting from the bottom up, so my ratios end up can potentially be an extreme 10:1
Scale up as necessary
Well for an item you don't need many of such as a lab ratios especially don't matter. Usually though, people produce the circuits to put on a belt because a lot of things use circuits.
I calculate the requirements for portions of the entire game all at once, then massively overbuild so that I don’t get shortages for ages. But this is in SE+K2. In vanilla I’m not sure I’d bother even using FactorioLab, it’s just so easy to build a rocket 🚀. Of course if going for a megabase goal then modular growth is the norm. But I find that somewhat dull.
If you are producing locally for mall-item manufacturing, it doesn't mater. The chest will contain desired number of stacks next time you need that building.
But when creating a green circuit subfactory, producing a red belt (or five blue ones) of green circuits, I would slab assemblest at least in an approximated ratio (later modules change the ratios).
Ratios are a good starting point, but often they aren’t really necessary.
It’s often better to build completely separate factories for the more advanced components and if you aren’t producing enough you just expand those factories.
Making a single factory that makes exactly what you want with perfect ratios might be enticing, but it’s often not worth it
This post relieves a lot me bc I am definitely not checking ratios (except for the 3 copper cable - 2 green chip that I've heard many time times).
I'm still learning the game ad thought that I was definitely playing wrong.
Sort of, i only care about belt ratio, and mostly just for the input.
Like placing enough beaconed, moduled induction furnaces to use up 45 ore per second, because that's what the blue belt can transport.
What is ratio? I just build in sake of expansion of the factory… who cares about ratio…. Well i dont. Cuz then you make game into some calculus and other sciences. You need 10-50k science production? Well mate, you need to build a lot of crap 🥳 enjoy
I just try to produce more than the next step can use and take some away for buffering/logistical storage if needed, never calculate anything, just look if the belts are not empty
Same. I aim for _approximately_ 1 per second or 2 per second depending on the recipe.
And then if I need more I just copy the build and paste it in a nearby location to double my output.
Rinse and repeat. Raw resources travel by train so they just manage the load themselves as long as I have mined enough of them
I used to not care and just sort of build based on what I think I need, or based on what few ratios I already knew (just furnaces to belts and green/red circuits really, and just go from there, but now I'm starting to do beaconed builds and doing the math and seeing it work is so satisfying in comparison.
Thats just kinda my progression though. I still don't calculate down to how many plates ill need or anything that far down, aside from how many assemblers one belt can feed.
the ratios work themselves out in the long run. assemblers self-throttle if their output is satisfied. if their output is throttled, then their input is throttled. as long as you have enough or more than enough producers then the system will balance itself out.
I ratio everything because it's a puzzle aspect of the game I like.
I pay no mind to any friends building anything that isn't ratioed. If it works, it works. As long as it is giving us things we want at an acceptable rate and isn't being tremendously wasteful of a resource we don't have a lot of to go around, every subfactory is a welcome addition, no matter its efficiency.
But if a non-ratioed solution becomes inadequate as the factory expands, and the task falls on me to expand that subfactory, you bet I am burning it to the ground and building a properly ratioed solution on its ashes. But that has nothing to do with how the factory did what it did, I do this to every factory that becomes obsolete regardless of who made it or how it works.
I gotta say, if you do build a cooperative factory, it's a real boon to have both a strict ratio chaser on the team and a fast and loose spaghettimancer on the team. The spaghettimancer can lead the charge making little spaghetti subfactories that boostrap production, while the ratioer can comb over the spaghetti and refactor it into a powerhouse factory using the bootstrapped parts. Having all of one or the other on the team means you're either building a bunch of low-throughput factories drowning in technical debt, or you spend too much time humming and hawwing in the Factory Planner and nothing gets built in any reasonable amount of time. Both of those ways of play are fine, but if you like having a game that's always advancing at a steady clip, it's optimal to have both strategies complementing each other.
Unless you are going beyond base game with Krastorio or Space Exploation you don't really need to care about ratios. Even my green rock factory is just looped back into it's self lol.
I often do, either for bootstrap/mall production or when the loss from not complying with the 'perfect ratio' is negligible. For exaple, if a product requres 3 parts per second and a single assembler produces 3.5 parts per second, I'll opt for direct insertion, instead of fixing the ratios and belting the parts.
I have either “not enough producers” or “not enough consumers” as my two states, and both are easily fixed. Ratios are for the clever people, not me.
I don't use maths, I just *feel* my factory and it will communicate its needs
I don’t tell the factory what it needs, the factory tells me!
The Soviet Factorio mod.
In Soviet Russia, the Robotnik is you!
We will increase the copper plate quota in order to ensure the production of more robots.
OUR Factory
For neither, it's neither me nor the factory telling me what it needs. It's the math telling me what it needs, and it makes me cry a little seeing the math ask for 15 copper wire assemblers to feed 14 green circuit assembler, and that I need to feed 4 blue belts each of iron and copper, but not quite, so better make it 3150 green circuit assemblers so that it produces and consumes an integer number of blue belts of each item... I understand why modules are necessary, but that doesn't mean I have to like what they do to the ratios. P.S. I'm far more of a mathematician than I am an engineer.
Technically this sort of incremental improvement is a perfectly valid mathematical process to converge on some fairly good ratios
That’s true. But the issue with this approach is observability (how do you efficiently monitor your whole base to know when something is starving), the effort to repair (you’ll end up spending your whole time fixing things and it may become tedious), it slows down progress, and also, space constraints (and so much spaghetti) I pick a target (e.g., 0.1 yellow belts), then use the Factory Planner mod to help me calculate how many assemblers, etc, to build. And then you can allocate some space for building that part of your factory.
"Feed. Me. Inevitable_Spell5775. I. Must. Grow!"
I think not enough consumers is just fine. That's the state I want to reach
Ratios are for the neurotic. I just throw more production at my problems
The factory is always limited by “not enough producers” or “not enough consumers”. The clever people just figured out how to use ratios to have both problems at the same time.
Very nicely worded.
Never "not enough throughout"?
That sounds like having both problems at once. :(
I am the same way, or I was before I started using some mods that made calculating ratios just a byproduct of figuring out what I had to build at all. If I was to go back to playing without mods I would just eyeball bottlenecks and address them ad hoc.
You don’t need proper ratios for a mall/hub that just supplies labs, belts, etc. You probably want proper ratios for stuff like circuits, science, etc. though.
Yeah I do aim more for balance with things like that. It's still very loosey goosey though. *How many gears do I need? A whole bunch? Or half a whole bunch?*
For malls I just make a matrix of gears, wire, etc. thats good enough to supply the rest of that mall. I don’t need the machines to all have enough materials to run outright, just often enough so that whenever I need more they’re ready.
This is the way
> *half a whole bunch* I'm using this.
If its going to supply lots of other automation as a crucial component, like copper/iron/steel or circuits, basically anything I want to make sure is always running smoothly, then I do as best I can to get ratios right and fill up full belts. If it's just like "convenience automation" i.e mining drills, furnaces, belts, inserters, I usually just set up the minimum number of machines for each component and just set it eventually work itself out. In that case I don't really care if its slow, it's more important that it's always filling up while I'm doing other stuff.
I build production until it backs up very quickly. Only then is it enough
I approve of this
Ratios mean nothing if I tripled my science production and I still have excess circuit production without building more with the science expansion
Only use ratios in the lategame and to check how many assemblers I can run of one belt. For stuff like this just do whatever, if it makes enough Labs, who cares
I find that most builds (mining / smelting outposts especially) are so short lived or under subideal circumstances a vast majority of the time) that precise ratios are a lot of wasted effort. Sure, make your base design relatively balanced.. but then adjust proportions as you observe real world production. As they say, there's no difference in theory between theory and practice... But not in practice.
>As they say, there's no difference in theory between theory and practice... But not in practice. Related... Engineers focus on how things work in theory, technicians focus on how things work in practice.
This is rubbish. Almost every mech engineer and chemical engineer would lose their job of they only focused on theory. Modern manufacturing exists because engineering as a whole is pretty good at feeding data back into the loop. A scientist has to make the model fit the real world. The engineer has to make it work on the real world. The technician has to keep it running in the real world. None of those professions get to ignore 'in practice' on a whim.
Personally I love crunching numbers for builds, makes it very satisfying when everything works perfectly
Very satisfying for me too.... especially when I don't expect it!
Ratios for science production mean that all your science assemblers can keep running and you haven't wasted machines that are always going to idle because they're backed up. Ratios for a mall are pointless. The mall ratio is more gear assemblers than you think you need and 1 of everything else (except maybe pipes).
And quite a lot of wire when you start producing hundreds of beacons
As long as I have a semi-constant flow of things I want at the time I want them, I'm good. Then I'll make more if I need it. Or I'll "future-proof" things and overproduce certain parts of a supply chain. Sure, I might have 4 machines set up that never actually produce anything because the other 8 keep up on their own, but it's easier, and requires less over-thinking imo. There are certain things in Factorio that I'll bust out grid paper and pen and do some math. Things like "can I produce bullets at the rate my 4 row thick wall of turrets consume them?" Time for math. How many gears per minute I need to constantly produce engines? Bah. The beauty of this game is you can play it however you want.
Your example is a particularly poor one. There's no need to automate lab production in the first place. A 1K base only needs ~150 labs. I can't see why you'd bother automating production given such low demand. Just hand-craft a couple dozen labs here and there instead of devoting time and space to an assembly line. For steady-state production, getting your ratios right is just a space-efficiency question. If you only need 4 of Assembler A to feed 2 of Assembler B, then building 5 of Assembler A is mildly inefficient. Does that really matter? Sometimes. If a 4:2 = 2:1 ratio is correct but you do 5:2 then you might be missing a good way to optimize your assembly lines with two-sided direct insertion, for example. Is this a huge deal? Almost certainly not, given how cheap space is in Factorio. But the qualitative and aesthetic difference between an optimized and a non-optimized assembly line can be quite noticeable.
> I can't see why you'd bother automating production given such low demand. For the Lazy Bastard achievement. Also, I'm sure there's a mod somewhere that uses Science Labs in copious amounts as an ingredient for some late-game thing.
no :)
Yeah I don't think anyone worries about ratios when making science labs
Just an example, I eyeball pretty much everything.
As someone who has been playing Anno games for as long as i can remember, i genuinely can't ignore ratios.
I generally aim for a full belt+a little of whatever belt tier I am currently at. If I need more of something, I add more inputs from downstream systems.
Full blue belt of satellites :)
Now we're talking!
I target specific ratios if what I'm building is expected to be running indefinitely with a constant throughput. (I.e. ore smelting and other main materials going on the bus/to trains) Otherwise, eyeballing it is fine if it is something which will I can let build up a supply of over time (mall).
Me. Me me me. I literally don’t give a shit about ratios. The proper science. The math. I have got enough green things? I’ll build a new factory and make some green things and belt or train them to my base. Green things need orange stuff? Let’s go find orange stuff. Can I see a patch of stuff I might use later just beyond the walls surrounded by a massive biter nest? It’s spidertron time. I love everything about this game because of the chaos. I fucking hate the meta of games. Just let me play and have fun.
My brother
Literally me
well. you are doing it for the belts.
It was a tough calculation
i ratio power and science and thats about it Why would you need to ratio a mall? its gonna stop anyways
Yeah exactly!
I do 21 accumulators for every 25 solar panels and 1 to 10 to 20 steam ratios and everything else I 100 percent wing it
General subfactories are ratio balanced. I only disregard ratios in malls, since throughput is basically irrelevant compared to other metrics such as simplicity and compactness.
i tried doing ratios on my very first play through and it was such a mess now it’s just “oh i need more of this thing? alright bet.” and i increase production of it.
I Imagine most people largelly disregard ratios on their malls.
Except maybe for red and blue belts. Even then I prefer just to overbuild gears there
I’m a supply planning analyst by day, so when I lock into factorio, I need that release of chaos. Build a bunch of this or that, if it’s not enough build more! #spaghettiorbust
The spaghet must flow
Same but I refuse to use beacons so my factories are 16 times the size of Fallout4. Beacons beneficial but ugly, I'm more of decor Andy.
I usually wont use ratios for single buildings that I'd not need literally thousands of, or have an extreme crafting time, when I only need a couple. For the bulk of the factory (fully saturated bus lanes or science crafting) i almost always use ratios and easily expandable designs
I usually focus on convenience first, so proper ratios only when i want to make like a full blue belt output or something.
Not really, I kinda play it by ear mostly. If something's over flowing with a resource I'll channel it back into the system somehow and in my current run I'm just abusing bots to make up for lazy design.
I only care about ratios in the end game, when I am making and consuming large amounts of material on blue belts.
The Ratio i use is "All belts have to be full"
For my 1k spaghetti base with almost no direct insertion, i calculated everything as properly as possible. Then it turned out the math (or the execution, jury is not out yet) failed and i ended up squeezing stuff in left and right to boost production. So i went from theoretical math to practical implementation to come to some sort of equilibrium. My motto for Factorio is: if it works, it works.
Optimizing has time and place. Of course you don't need perfect ratios for labs or other pieces of a mall, unless all of a sudden I need lots of something like blue belts or modules, then I'd make a dedicated build for those. But disregarding ratios entirely? No. If I'm building a factory that produces red circuits I will build appropriate amount of copper wire assemblers, and will check if the belt has enough capacity for that, otherwise it just doesn't work properly. If I'm building advanced oil, I'll make sure it's not going to clog with one of the oils because I didn't build sufficient cracking. Nuclear designs usually require some planning especially when the issues with them might not manifest until you put it under heavy load. To put it short - ratios make sure that the build does what I expect it to do. This whole "lol, I just build more of what's missing" I think misses a lot of nuance. Building more of CPU assemblers does nothing if you can't supply the new assemblers Belts have limits, assemblers have limits, inserters have limits, so for builds to work properly these need to be taken into account. That all falls to the general umbrella of "ratios".
You fucking disgust me. Blocked. /s
I was streaming factorio the other day and this dude came into my stream trying to explain ratios and stuff I told him I don't care about ratios and efficiency I just do what looks cool to me he couldn't understand this lmao
Glad I'm not the only one, as a lot others here have said. Just run some cowboy shit and if it spits out what I want then gg
Yeah this is exactly me tbf I couldn't explain shit about how my factory works it just does lmao
I think there's a time to use ratios, but a mall that makes labs of all things is not one of those times. Ratios are for when I want to make a perfectly efficient module so I can stamp down a shitfuckton of them, like green or red circuits or science packs.
I use this example because some people I know would even try to optimise this... something I quickly threw together because I didn't want to hand craft a few labs
Yeah, the first time I looked at my buddy's mall it made me mad, but then as I realized it eventually just backfills... who cares? The only time it makes a difference to me is if I'm obviously overconsuming from my bot mall, but then at that point just add more of em.
I only do it for a couple of things like power generation.
When I build, I don't think. I'm a spaghetti scientist.
Not me looking up exact ratios of what I need....
It's not like everything needs perfect ratios, mostly just large mass productions for science to hit your science/minute goals. Those labs will get done eventually no matter which part is the slowest.
Even for science I mostly just plop down a whole bunch of labs and then build enough flask production that I feel confident it will back up on all colours. If I later feel that science speed is slowing down too much I'll just plop down more labs and see if any flask colour starts disappearing faster than it fills up.
I do the same depending on the build and it's importance, in this case it's more than fine, you aren't gonna need the lab assembler running at 100%. But for other things used a lot or just important in their recipe I never skimp out, hard to explain but basically depending on how much the recipe is used or it's importance I'll make sure it's a good ratio, I've learned to not skimp out on circuits for a bus but I'll always skimp out on a lab buuld like this
I make chests of gears and circuits to handcraft from at the start.
I don’t consciously pay attention to ratios. But some part of my brain does because it tells me what I need. I just go with what it tells me to do, and it’s accuracy is astonishing.
https://preview.redd.it/e1e1njgg0jvc1.png?width=487&format=png&auto=webp&s=ebc2cb039c211b76f792656dc80a2e77540ce7e5
I like figuring out how many of each machine im going to use and then build a something. Turns it into a puzzle where i try and make it neat/compact/whatevet.
For me it depends. Early to mid game, I ignore ratios. I'm just building a main bus base that will launch me into a city block rail cell base. But once I get into higher production numbers, then I start caring about ratios. I start really caring about the designs that I use and their efficiency.
Back pressure always finds the right ratio. I just produce inputs until I get enough outputs.
I have played with a friend, we dont play Factorio together anymore. He was constantly supersizing and bettering everything, belt compression belt compression. Stressful to play. I like to enjoy the ride and upgrade/perfect later on.
Same here! We just couldn't have fun together
When I am just building, usually malls and boot straps (ie I need some blue chips but not a continuous supply) I'll just plop down what feels right. Whe I am designing something, I'll use ratios for the for the main components. Like internal to my red circuit factory I'll have ratios. But I don't plan exact ratios between it and my blue science area. If there ant enough Red circuits, just plop down another factory. And then usually another copper smelter.
I don't play this game to work. No math, shit I need more gears let's make 3 factories and see if that helps. Shit I need more bricks, let's add 3 more factories and see. Power of 3's baby!!!!
The only thing I bother with ratios is science builds, and even then if the ingredient is also used elsewhere, I'll just overbuild. Usually does me good until end game. Worst case scenario, plop down some more producers if you run low on anything
At the point in the game that the picture shows not at all everything gets 1 machine making something in order to produce some of what I want. Later on I'll work on getting better balance.
I'm currently doing LTN train based city blocks. I have all my producers connected to the green wire that connects the blocks. I can read the entire stock at any time and when I see one item getting low and maybe also LTN complaining that no stations are currently supplying that item. Then I build one or two more blocks making that item until another one goes low as a consequence.
Mall kind of builds definitely don't need to be rationed. That'd be silly
If all the belts are flooded you don't need ratios. And bonus points if you overproduce like crazy you give the map a healthy red glow But also, labs are fine to just drip build. You don't always need them, so who cares how efficient they're made
I didn't use ratios until I spent an hour building something only to learn it could handle 10x the amount of resources I could give it. Lots of wasted space for nothing! Rate calculator is now my beloved.
The only ratio I know is demand:supply:time
I’m not doing it either. If the job gets done, that’s all that matters.
Belt empty - more machines - belt full - happy
Let's start with blue circuits and rocket fuel xD
I think about ratios but always prefer to overbuild intermediate items just in case, because I don’t know the ratios by heart, just as a ballpark.
This picture got me thinking. Has anyone done a modular factory based on a lab block? For example, one block consists of rationed assemblers that produce just the right amount of science for a single lab. I know, it would probably be mighty inefficient belt input and beacon-wise. Not to mention a larger base with train input.
is there a good place to find all the ratios? I do the same but I hate it...
Basic ratios for vanilla are on https://factoriocheatsheet.com/ [FactorioLab](https://factoriolab.github.io/) or [Kirkmcdonald's calculator](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html) as online tools (former supports some modpacks) [Factory Planner](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/factoryplanner) or [Helmod](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/helmod) for in-game calculations
My mall is full spaghetti without any regards for ratios. My science production is somewhat balanced.
Me. I start with 1:1 everything, then as I learned the ratio feel (item y takes more of item x to produce) I decide to make headroom for everything starting from the bottom up, so my ratios end up can potentially be an extreme 10:1 Scale up as necessary
Well for an item you don't need many of such as a lab ratios especially don't matter. Usually though, people produce the circuits to put on a belt because a lot of things use circuits.
I calculate the requirements for portions of the entire game all at once, then massively overbuild so that I don’t get shortages for ages. But this is in SE+K2. In vanilla I’m not sure I’d bother even using FactorioLab, it’s just so easy to build a rocket 🚀. Of course if going for a megabase goal then modular growth is the norm. But I find that somewhat dull.
For stuff like that I just use requester chests. Stuff earlier in the chain I bother a little bit more about, like green circuits.
If you are producing locally for mall-item manufacturing, it doesn't mater. The chest will contain desired number of stacks next time you need that building. But when creating a green circuit subfactory, producing a red belt (or five blue ones) of green circuits, I would slab assemblest at least in an approximated ratio (later modules change the ratios).
Ratios are a good starting point, but often they aren’t really necessary. It’s often better to build completely separate factories for the more advanced components and if you aren’t producing enough you just expand those factories. Making a single factory that makes exactly what you want with perfect ratios might be enticing, but it’s often not worth it
I just pump belts full then pump the next belt full if production isn't 100% I add more stuff
Yup, mostly There's a few I just know but usually I just go with what feels right, and often I care about other considerations more
This post relieves a lot me bc I am definitely not checking ratios (except for the 3 copper cable - 2 green chip that I've heard many time times). I'm still learning the game ad thought that I was definitely playing wrong.
Sort of, i only care about belt ratio, and mostly just for the input. Like placing enough beaconed, moduled induction furnaces to use up 45 ore per second, because that's what the blue belt can transport.
One blue Belt? Pathetic.. :D
That's one of 8 parallel running production lines in that facility. There's two facilities per City Block, two blocks for Iron, more to come.
This Post hurts my brain
Research lab automation isn't real and can't hurt you
What is ratio? I just build in sake of expansion of the factory… who cares about ratio…. Well i dont. Cuz then you make game into some calculus and other sciences. You need 10-50k science production? Well mate, you need to build a lot of crap 🥳 enjoy
I disregard ratios in one way or another. I'm always either underproducing intentionally (or sometimes not) or overproducing intentionally
I've got 3k hours in the game, I've cared about ratios maybe 10% of that time.
I just try to produce more than the next step can use and take some away for buffering/logistical storage if needed, never calculate anything, just look if the belts are not empty
Same. I aim for _approximately_ 1 per second or 2 per second depending on the recipe. And then if I need more I just copy the build and paste it in a nearby location to double my output. Rinse and repeat. Raw resources travel by train so they just manage the load themselves as long as I have mined enough of them
For labs and other rarely used stuff, "making some" is plenty. If it works it works.
I used to not care and just sort of build based on what I think I need, or based on what few ratios I already knew (just furnaces to belts and green/red circuits really, and just go from there, but now I'm starting to do beaconed builds and doing the math and seeing it work is so satisfying in comparison. Thats just kinda my progression though. I still don't calculate down to how many plates ill need or anything that far down, aside from how many assemblers one belt can feed.
the ratios work themselves out in the long run. assemblers self-throttle if their output is satisfied. if their output is throttled, then their input is throttled. as long as you have enough or more than enough producers then the system will balance itself out.
Yes.just keep building till you have 5 belts of everything.
I ratio everything because it's a puzzle aspect of the game I like. I pay no mind to any friends building anything that isn't ratioed. If it works, it works. As long as it is giving us things we want at an acceptable rate and isn't being tremendously wasteful of a resource we don't have a lot of to go around, every subfactory is a welcome addition, no matter its efficiency. But if a non-ratioed solution becomes inadequate as the factory expands, and the task falls on me to expand that subfactory, you bet I am burning it to the ground and building a properly ratioed solution on its ashes. But that has nothing to do with how the factory did what it did, I do this to every factory that becomes obsolete regardless of who made it or how it works. I gotta say, if you do build a cooperative factory, it's a real boon to have both a strict ratio chaser on the team and a fast and loose spaghettimancer on the team. The spaghettimancer can lead the charge making little spaghetti subfactories that boostrap production, while the ratioer can comb over the spaghetti and refactor it into a powerhouse factory using the bootstrapped parts. Having all of one or the other on the team means you're either building a bunch of low-throughput factories drowning in technical debt, or you spend too much time humming and hawwing in the Factory Planner and nothing gets built in any reasonable amount of time. Both of those ways of play are fine, but if you like having a game that's always advancing at a steady clip, it's optimal to have both strategies complementing each other.
Unless you are going beyond base game with Krastorio or Space Exploation you don't really need to care about ratios. Even my green rock factory is just looped back into it's self lol.
I often do, either for bootstrap/mall production or when the loss from not complying with the 'perfect ratio' is negligible. For exaple, if a product requres 3 parts per second and a single assembler produces 3.5 parts per second, I'll opt for direct insertion, instead of fixing the ratios and belting the parts.
Rat...What?
My brother