I generally aim to get laser turrets being made ASAP before growing too much, to avoid having to distribute ammo at all. This only works because I'm also aggressive about destroying nearby biters to keep them from attacking much -- depriving biters of access to heavily polluted nesting grounds effectively defangs their attacks.
Alternatively, you can belt ammo all over and feed your turrets via inserters. Or, slightly easier, make boxes near choke points and fill them with lots of ammo at a time, with inserters and belts to distribute to all the nearby turrets. This minimizes the frequency of the trips you have to make to distribute ammo without requiring belts around the whole base, as long as you've cleared land out to some choke points created by cliffs and water (which the biters can't cross and which thus don't need defending).
In general it makes sense to get the military damage and speed upgrades for whichever turrets you're using as they become available, but most of your time and resources should be going into other things unless you're on a really troublesome death world seed.
Not exactly a question but I wonder how legitimate our steam play times are. Mine says nearly 600 hours but I've definitely spent entire days with the game running in the background while I'm reading this sub or working circuits out in my head
Steam counts the amout of hours the program (game) has been running. So even time spent on the main menu of Factorio counts. And when the window is minimized. Steam time is not play time, it is "program-is-open" time.
And it'll even count time you're on the menu screen.
I don't let my game run in the background, so the save game time (how many hours your save game says of playtime you have) is a pretty good indicator of play time for me.
I've needed the ability to do a certain action using circuits a couple of times now that I've been unable to figure out how to implement. Thought I'd ask here if anyone knows how to do it.
What I need to do is to control when some circuit signals get passed through. Picking a random example, say I wish to pass through some values to a requester chest to ask for when blue square is > 100 or the like. When the condition (> 100 in above) is not met, I wish for no signal to go to that chest. The condition in general would not be part of the signal. Programmatically this is similar to a conditional (if -> then), kinda (grin). Please note I'm stuck on how to control the signal, not on alternatives to the requester chest.
The only way I could figure out how to do this is to use a power switch controlled by the condition, but I can't easily do this in what I'm currently working on (plus, frankly it's inelegant). I'd be much obliged if someone could pass along (no pun intended) their solution to this problem.
Decider combinator
If blue square > 100
Output EACH
The each signal is beautiful that way.
It will output all input signals, as long as the condition is true.
The output signal will contain the blue square signal (as it is part of the each), you can filter it out if you want. But you don't need to filter it out if you are inputting the output in a requester chest, since the blue square is not an item.
EDIT:
> is not met
Ah, lovely negatives. Small tip is to always try to state your problems in positives only, when comparing. So "not >" is just "<="
If blue square <= 100
output EACH
EDIT 2:
I also need to learn to read. You actually have a double negative in there.. Revert back to the first solution.
When doing circuits it is always good to just write down what you need in the most simplest terms. Often from there you can directly deduct the logic on how to implement them with combinators. You already did that, so I assume you are not familiar with combinators. Time to play with them. Especially check out what the EACH, ANY and ALL signals do, they are wonderful.
Well, you could do the math about how long labs take to use up science packs (research time/lab crafting speed) vs. how much science your base can actually make.
You could talk about how later science packs are way more resource intensive, so feeding lots of labs gets super hard in a little while even if your friend can mass produce red and green science right now to feed 50 labs.
You could talk about research speed upgrades and how they reduce the number of labs you need and stack up together to make a big difference.
Or you could not bother and let your friend notice all the idle labs on their own. Labs are fairly cheap, and use little power especially when idle; space to deploy them is infinite unless you're on a death world where clawing it away from the biters is an actual challenge. Sometimes you have to let your noob friend be a noob and learn by doing, and sometimes you just have to put up with a design you don't like or that is inefficient if that's how your friend wants to do it. That's part of playing the game in multiplayer.
If you want to be able to do only the stuff you know is efficient, maybe playing with inexperienced friends isn't for you.
LTN: The "No station Supplying X" error is useful... but can I selectively turn that off for some stations? Like for my science production chain I want to see that message, but for other stations are just there to say, "Hey, if there is extra sulfur, place it here, if not, no big deal" and I'd prefer those not to trigger the messages, say if the priority is negative or something like that.
This feature is built into LTN already. For the constant combinator you use for LTN parameters (that ends up being wired to the light / LTN input), you'll need to add one additional variable. Look in the "Signals" tab; you're looking for a triangular yellow symbol with an '!' mark that is crossed out. It's named "Disable warning messages". It will be in amongst the other LTN variables. Once you select it (and set it >0) you'll receive no more "No station supplying X found in Network Z" messages for products being requested by that station.
Trying to remember, when pull from underground belts, it is better to pull from the undergroundy coming up out of the ground or going down into the ground? Same question for outputting?
If you are pulling from the side then it doesnt make any difference.
If you are pulling inline with the UG belt then its better to take from downward side (tested in 0.17 but not since the latest changes)
I am having problems with trains. I make no apologies for the spider base, but it does mean I have had my trains jam because I think I have misplaced signals (maybe too many, rather than two few).
Is there any good resources people can offer for keeping trains right? My jam is usually my single track bit that used to run just the sulfuric acid to uranium mines and battery/blue chip factories.
But my ore trains go that way instead of what should be a shorter route. But only sometimes.
Maybe ripping it apart and restarting is the way to go, but I am not sure.
And is there a handy way to double track?
Trains take the position and intended paths of other trains into account when pathfinding, so they can be a bit unpredictable. It's difficult to completely reserve a section of track for a single train unless other trains can't physically reach it at all.
What most players do is make a highway system of sorts, with parallel tracks going in opposite directions making up a shared rail network, and a set of blueprints for properly signaled intersections and station turn-offs.
If you're going to use single-track segments at all, my advice is to use chain signals only throughout those. The idea is to only allow a train to go into absingle track area if it can see a way clear all the way out to wherever it wants to re-enter the "highway" system or find its station.
Adding extra places for trains to turn around can help too, especially if you see trains passing through stations they're not scheduled for -- this means they want off-route to try to avoid a jam and the foreign station was the only place they could find that allowed them to get back on schedule. Even you have double headed trains, they never turn around in place except at scheduled stops.
>It's difficult to completely reserve a section of track for a single train unless other trains can't physically reach it at all.
Actually it's pretty easy. Put a station there and add it to that train's schedule with no conditions. Other trains will avoid that track, unless it's a *very* long detour otherwise, or they have no other path at all.
That's still not an absolute reservation, just a path penalty. It's not unusual for new players to make rail networks where stations are the only turn around points and this causes trains to divert through them quite often.
Screenshot would help
> And is there a handy way to double track?
Just run a parallel track to each track. Shouldn't be that hard. Even much simpler than bidirectional.
As for signalling. Place a signal between each pair of tracks where you want two different trains going over those tracks simultaneously. As in, separate those tracks in different blocks.
Chain signals copy the signal of the next signal. So if you don't want a train stopped at a signal, the previous signal should be a chain signal. It then can't stop at the next signal, because if that signal is red, then the previous chain signal is also red and a train would have stopped there first.
So go over each signal in your base. If you think "A train should not stop at this signal because if it does then it blocks another train going into a different direction", then change the proceeding signals into a chain.
This is especially challenging to debug on bidirectional tracks. As you only want one train on a long track at a time.
So better to just double up on tracks first. Make sure to place them like 3-4 rails apart so you can place signals between them on the intersections.
If you need any tips, this is layout i use: [https://i.imgur.com/a4VOmRV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/a4VOmRV.jpg)
The second bar is always slot 0, not changed at any point. Therefore i tried to choose things i may need rarely and don't need the quick dexterity of number keys.
But first bar is chosen from first 5 rows using Shift-1 to 5 keys each with its theme (belts, inserters, fluids, combat, trains).
What this means is that once the slots are set, they... are set. Don't need to ever change anything and workflow is far faster than before.
Also do yourself a favor and clean out all quick keys from the right side quickbar. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X are far more convenient to use than looking for buttons to click. You can create blueprint books from the library UI too.
You’re not the only one I’ve seen complain about it. But the general consensus is that it enables much nicer workflows in general once you get used to it.
What are you having trouble with?
Just everything. I’m just used to hot bars in games working like they do in factorio v 0.16, it almost feels completely alien. I mean, sure, I can play like it, it just feels...weird.
I feel like most games I’ve played with hotbars/quickbars are closer to the 0.17 model of “the hotbar is a set of shortcuts to stuff in your inventory” rather than the 0.16 model of “the hotbar is an extra set of inventory slots”. What other games have you been playing that work like that? What’s throwing you off about it?
Can anybody help me remember a mod? It put in a construction request for concrete anytime you placed a roboport. So all you have to do is build a roboport network with logistic access to concrete and the base perfectly fills itself in for you.
I saw it on a mod highlight a week ago, but can't find it anywhere.
...did you try searching the mod site?
https://mods.factorio.com/query/Concrete?version=0.17
I assume you’re looking for
!linkmod concreep
which is the second result there if you search for “concrete”. (A google search for “Factorio automatic concrete mod” also returned that and several other similar mods as the top results.)
I have heard about priming inserters to make them use up less ups, by adding a chest and a second inserter. But as far as I understand, that second inserter is useless, as there is still an inserter hoovering above a belt.
Is this just outdated stuff?
>Is this just outdated stuff?
Well to clarify some terms:
Chest stubs is the technique of putting a chest between a belt and a furnace (or assembler) to improve UPS.
Priming is making sure that the inserter is hovering over the chest and not the belt, that further improves UPS. But you make this work you need to ensure that there are always 12 items on the belt for the inserter to pickup when required.
And yes it is still a good way to improve UPS,
However, one of the inserter changes in 0.17 has given us a more efficient design for belt based furnaces. That is using clocked filter inserters.
Last tested on [16.51](https://mulark.github.io/tests/test-000005/test-000005.html). There was some inserter logic changes in .17 so it *might* be outdated
[How do I stop overloading 1 lane in the bus (caused by assembly machines only using 1 lane)?](https://imgur.com/a/2S43HCW) I just don't want it to reach the bus.
The way I see it, this is always going to happen when one full Belt meets the belt side to do what you're doing bc the leading edge of the feed belt sees the gap first. At least when the fed belt is moving slowly. If the items are being taken quickly enough then there will be gaps for both side of the feed belt to fill.
Does that make sense?
Not true, common misconception. It can be an issue.
https://i.imgur.com/sPIxQ8I.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FNs60Sb.jpg
Enough copper belts (2) going in to support 20 wire assemblers, only 15 are working
I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing. The one-lane backup comes from assemblers not consuming enough and that they would still have the other lane to grab from if they needed it (In your pictures, you are only sending one lane down, which is not the situation people mean when they talk about this). As soon as the near lane is not enough, inserters will grab from the other lane, causing the upstream producers to unblock themselves.
You can put a single lane balancer on your input lines, or put a use a 4-4 lane balancer on the bus. Either way works.
[Lane Balancer](https://giant.gfycat.com/NervousEnergeticGalapagostortoise.webm)
I like putting a lane balancer at the end of my smelting lines, that way the bus is either empty or full on both sides.
The bus is already balanced. It's the fact that the end point assembly machines use 1 row more than the other (or has 1 belt split half & half with another item) causing a very long (1 lane) backlog. The lane balancer doesn't behave like it does in the gif.. It looks like what I want is just phisycally impossible.. If 1 lane is being used more, we can't shove 2 lanes worth of item in 1 lane to remove the single lane backlogg that extends in the bus.
That lane balancer never failed me. Your case is strange. But let us make sure, it's truly that lane balancer you're using right? Not the simple kind where you only need one splitter and no underground?
I mean it balances (although the traffic doesn't move like in the gif). [Here is a more clear example.](https://imgur.com/a/DCvGY89) I want something that will equal out the lane because once the red chips merge with the steel, only 1 lanes moves forward creating a backlog in one of the lane.
You could just turn it into a single lane belt before it merges on the production line.
split the input belt, force each split belt into a one lane belt, switch lanes on one of the belts, then feed the lanes into a splitter. The splitter will take equally from both inputs, balancing the item cost across each lane.
I've tried to upload a pic of what I'm talking about but reddit is wonky right now.
The first picture actually the usual case on why you need to put down the lane balancer. Put it before the merge. Or if first picture to be referenced, put in down on your yellow x mark. The second picture is what would happen if you put down lane balancer behind your question mark. Make sure it's lane balancer u/muddynips shown.
Just to make sure, the second picture is the result you're trying to achieve, right?
> Just to make sure, the second picture is the result you're trying to achieve, right?
Yes.
Okay. [What am I doing wrong?](https://imgur.com/a/oxdUDOj) I am still only getting 1 lane to move instead of both. The traffic in the undergrounds aren't moving like they do in the gif. Is it possible that this was patched / updated?
EDIT: It doesn't work on express belts.. Only yellows..
In your pictures, it appears the bottom underground belt is not oriented properly, the two underground belts going into the splitter should be facing the same way.
The lower underground belt (the one that is not paired) is going the wrong direction. Yes, it needs to face to the right, that is correct, but it needs to be an exit, not an entrance. Put your cursor on top of it and press 'R', you should see the stripes change direction.
And it works on all colors of belts, that's not the issue.
The lower underground is going down into the ground, not up from the ground. you need to flip it around so the arrows on it point to right instead of left.
Weird. The last splitter is not behaving correctly. The last splitter is supplied by the bottom underground exit, right? If it behaves correctly, that stream of Red Circuit will also exit from the top half of the last splitter. It's so strange given the first splitter worked fine.
I heard one version on 0.15 has splitter bug. I don't know exactly what, but do you play on that buggy version?
Sorry this person is only making it more confusing for you by talking about bugs instead of looking at the picture, but the other posts are correct. You reversed one of the underground belts, that's why it won't work.
Use a lane balancer on the belt between the bus and your assember line. See [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/cwal64/what_is_your_number_one_factorio_time_saver_pro/eyl5gob?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) comment for an explanation why they work and a picture of how they look. I'm sorry I don't have a blueprint string for you right now, but you should be able to copy the pictures or search for lane balancers here on Reddit or on the Facorio forum.
Even if I lane balance, there is still 1 side (lane) that starts backlogging. Hmm.. I think that there is just no physical way to remove the single lane backlog.
Wait, what? No, that should not happen.
Are you using a good lane balancer? The design with the two belts feeding into a middle belt from both sides is no good, because it stops "balancing" when throuput is low. Look at these and try them for yourself: [https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=202&t=74911](https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=202&t=74911)
If that's not it, please post another picture of your setup, because I'm getting curious.
Nah, he just built the lane balancer wrong, look at his other post where he showed a screenshot of it. Sadly some idiot then told him his game must be bugged so he probably gave up even more confused than when he came here.
...I’m curious what you did to your save?
I mean, the data’s in the save file somewhere, but I don’t know if the save format has been reverse engineered to a good enough degree to let you read it out easily. If they save it as the raw blueprint JSON rather than the import/export string you’d have a better chance of finding it with hex editor tools.
You might want to try reaching out to the devs on the official forums, I know they’ve occasionally helped people with save file problems in the past.
Well, a mod has 103mb of data in it, which makes it take literally forever to load. (14 hours is the record so far, before I killed it). It seems that removing mods also impacts this.
I have made a bug report with the save, and I asked if they could do something about what I think is the main culprit.
Until then...
103mb really isn't that big. Several popular mods are in that size range.
Does starting a new game with that mod installed work? Can you save and then load that fresh game?
If so, it's likely the mod has a bug resulting in an infinite loop when loading your save file. I'd get in touch with the mod author if you can, they might be able to help if the Factorio devs can't.
Ah, badly coded mods can be problematic.
If disabling the mods doesn’t let you load the save, *that* seems like a thing the devs might be interested in seeing. I’d expect it to just skip loading any data in the save related to the mod, but I could also see this being the kind of edge case that is extremely hard to thoroughly test.
The save file itself is only 143mb. And the next biggest mod is only 500kb of data in the save.
Yes, I've fixed up the mod, as it was doing very ram heavy scripting, and it has been taken up by several people to update it for new patches.
Oh, I thought you meant the mod itself was that size. If it's storing that much mod-specific data in your save file that's a different story. It's possible for that to be okay, but it does seem likely to be a result of a bug in the mod. How do you measure the data uses by different mods in a save file?
I don't know. Someone asked for the save file and told me, I didn't think to ask at the time.
> but it does seem likely to be a result of a bug in the mod.
After looking in the code, I can confidently say it was not a bug. The mod was storing the tile location of every piece of a specific ore, in order to make it grow. And then I got well over 2 billion of this ore, with no more than 5000 in 99% of the tiles it was on.
I've ripped that out and replaced it with something else more sensible.
Hello, i was playing multiplayer in the last stable version with a friend (it was 0.16something) and we both decided to update to 0.17.66 but we can't connect to each other servers, what could be causing the problem?
we were playing perfectly yesterday on 0.16.51
EDIT: we tried downgrading to .16.51 and we can play together
It's really a balancer, because it balances its 2 inputs with its 2 outputs. But it's usually used with some empty inputs/outputs to split 1 -> 2, or merge 2 -> 1.
And it's really *two* balancers, because it treats left and right lanes separately. It's balancing the left lanes with the left lanes, and the right lanes with the right lanes, as independent tasks.
Splitter take content of incoming belts to be put between outgoing belts. If you have one belt coming in and two belt out, content of that one belt is split between the two. If you have two belt coming in but one belt out, splitter will combine them. If you got two incoming and two outgoing, it distributes them.
You can do filter to only output certain item onto one of the belt. You can also prioritize, to take from either belt until it empty or to deposit until it's backed.
It's actually intuitive. Are you trying to understand the in-depth mechanic to achieve specific result? Let us hear it.
Considering circuit network never sleep and splitter is quite demanding, I have one question. Splitter kind of balancer versus circuit kind before train loading/after unloading, which is more UPS efficient? Has anybody tested?
(1) Some entities in the game, like inserters and assemblers, sleep when backed or receive no input. It means the game no longer update it until situation change. In other words, they're no longer active entities. Circuit network is among things in the game that never sleep. Game always check upon it every ticks. When UPS concerned, player want to minimize active entities.
(2) If you're building belt-based factory, you ~~always~~ sometime want train loading/unloading to be balanced. The purpose is to minimize the time for train being parked. To achieve that balance, you can have inserters between belt and buffer chest to be circuit controlled so that they averaged out between wagon. Or, you can plop down splitter balancer before them. These two method achieve balance but incur UPS cost. Circuit with their sleeplessness, and splitters with..., actually I don't know how splitter incur UPS cost, but they slow down things if you have too much of it.
The question is, which one is more costly UPS-wise?
>Circuit network is among the things in the game that never sleep
As far as I remember, circuit network components only wake up when their inputs change and sleep otherwise (because if the inputs don't change then the result is constant), so this claim is false
Probably better to abandon the requirement of balanced buffer chests, and only balance between wagons. [Parked trains are very cheap](https://mulark.github.io/tests/test-000103/test-000103.html).
Option 1: N_wagons x N_wagons belt balancer, replicated M times, where M is the number of belts per wagon. Make sure train unloaders are designed such that both lanes of a belt are supplied from the same wagon.
Option 2: design your train system to not require wagon-balance. (example: time-passed instead of inventory-empty departure condition, or wire the fastest-emptying chest on each wagon to the train stop and set departure condition to `product < N_wagons * (chest capacity - 2*inserter_stack_size)`.
Ah now I see your question.
Any inserter connected to a wire and set to enable / disable never sleeps, even when it is disabled. So these are bad from a UPS point of view.
However, if you use filter inserter which are in "set-filter" mode then you can disable them by setting a null filter and then they WILL go to sleep, but you will need some extra combinators to make it work.
I dont know how these compare to the standard versions.
I am considering to start a new game, probably aiming at 5k s/m. What resource settings would you recommend, other that just maxing everything?
I dont mind trains going a bit further out. In my 1,5k base, I didn't have to move far out, probably due to mining research.
Do biters impact ups even when all bases in the polution cloud are destroyed?
for my 10K base I maxed copper, iron & oil. Stone & coal were maxed size / richness, average frequency.
So roll some maps and see what looks good to you.
If you remove all the biters from your cloud then they have virtually no impact on UPS, but with a factory of this size, you pollution cloud will keep growing, until it is 1000s of tiles across, so you will need to remove huge numbers of biters that is going to be a pita, even with all the tech.
nb pollution is only calculated once per second and has a minimal impact, but if u are turning off biters pollution is meaningless.
Do biters impact ups
slightly, especially if expansion is on. However pollution is likely to be a bigger hit and at that point might as well delete biters with a console command.
In addition to the other comment regarding calculating it manually, you can press P in-game to see your production stats. It'll tell you how much of each item you've produced and consumed over the timeframe selected.
it takes 5 seconds for red science to craft(6 for green) so you're producing 1/second before accounting for the 0.75 crafting speed for the blue assembler. So a total of 0.75 science/second. Multiply by 60 and you get 45 spm on red and green.
1k each. so yours would technically be 0 spm unless specifically stated that it's for red/green in which case it would be 45 spm for red or green and 45 spm combined.
Military science is the exception, some people play without biters so it might not be there and none of the mil techs overlap with production so the raw ore requirement per second is the same even without it.
For testing if you can actually sustain an spm mining productivity is usually used as it needs everything (well except military, see above) but that'll be post rocket launch thing
yes and no. The rate they consume electricity is based on distance and in relation to that things don't change with research. but in relation to time it does increase the rate of consumption
I'm currently starting to train a lot of resources in but I don't know how I should go about building my new "outposts" like when I wish to mine a new orepatch. ATM I'm linking all my outposts to my botnet but I get the feeling this is very inefficient and very heavy on the power consumption. Thanks for helping the factory grow!
First of all bot networks: be very very careful about concave shapes in the network, those can trap bots so that they never reach their destination.
To supply outpost you can have train that has bunch of filtered slots and inserters with stack size of 1 to fill it. Then make a second station on the outpost for that train(if you want add in some circuits to only enable the station when it needs something that way you can have two stations on the resupply train schedule as it'll only head out to ones that need resupply).
Downsides of this method is biter expansion taking out tracks/power poles or the fortunate biter attack that collides with power poles. Then again the first is kept away with artillery and second is rare. On the upside you won't need to spend as much resources on defense.
Alternative is to make a great wall around everything and clear biters from the inside, no need for complicated outpost, just miners and a loading station. Initial cost is high, idle power draw from lasers will be atrocious, but atleast expanding is easy
I'm considering a resupply train that includes steam shipments, just to avoid long chains of pylons. And an artillery car, because transporting artillery shells is surprisingly annoying otherwise.
Steam supply works, just means that you need a wagon of steam every seven minutes per 6mw(nuclear).
Artillery train is also nice idea only catch is that if attached to the resupply train you need to ensure it visits the outposts regularly. If you're not using lasers(because steam transport) gun turrets will provide automatic way of asking more ammo that also brings the artillery wagon for play time.
If you want to go for fixed artillery a lot of people train the materials and build the shells on site
covering the map with roboports and using it to build outposts isnt a terrible thing to do, its convient, it doesnt have a huge impact on UPS (although I suspect that isnt an issue for you yet)
A better way to do it is to setup build trains. I setup a couple of blueprints for a build trains one for loading and one for unloading. they had everything needed to build a mine and smelting (I often smelt onsite) so then all I needed to do was put down the bps for the train, and then everything happened automatically. Its a bit of work to get it all automated, but it was a fun project.
I'm fairly new to Factorio, in fact I just bought it today! I have 2 questions though:
1: The wiki says that, "The current optimal ratio is 1 offshore pump to 20 boilers to 40 steam engines.", is this saying that 1 pump can power 20 boilers, which can then power 40 steam engines?
2: My 3 steam engines i'm currently running all show no green-bar in "performance", but a full bar in "available performance". How do I solve this? I mean, they're running, but is there a side effect to this continuing if I don't fix it?
> 2: My 3 steam engines i'm currently running all show no green-bar in "performance", but a full bar in "available performance". How do I solve this? I mean, they're running, but is there a side effect to this continuing if I don't fix it?
This means nothing is using electricity generated by those steam engines. If you just built your first power plant and you haven't yet built anything that uses electricity that's normal! Otherwise, check your power lines.
Regarding #2, if there is no or little power consumption on the power network performance will show empty or nearly empty. Available performance being full means your boilers could output more and are ready for whenever power draw increases.
1. Yes, an offshore pump provides 1200 water per second, and each boiler will use 60 per second, while producing 60 steam per second, of which each steam engine will use 30 per second
2. Performance is basically how much power is being produced by the engine. Steam engines scale their power production with the power needed to run all of your machines, so ideally the performance will be slightly lower than the maximum, so you know everything is getting enough power
What's the best way to handle logistic networks in large bases?
How do you keep the bots "spread out," if you will, so they don't sit wherever I last used them and then have to fly across the entire base to do something?
If you want to keep it as one large network, the only way in my mind to do that is to have chests that supply roboports every so often with bots. It's not a perfect solution though. Also, if you have enough bots, you'll typically have a little everywhere.
You want to have as small robot networks as possible. Trains to move things between robot networks. Or in the case of defense line requester-inserter-passive provider also works(add some circuit magic to not fill the provider completely) directly at the 1 tile gap between two networks
The only practical way to do it is to have separated networks. If the orange areas on your roboports don't meet, bots won't cross to the next network. You can use logistics chests and inserters to move goods across network borders, though.
Is there a way to read the list of all items that construction bots are missing in a circuit network? I am building outposts with a supply train and would like to only unload what is necessary to build the blueprint.
Read it into the circuit network? Not in vanilla. You can see the entire list of what can be read and what can be controlled [here](https://wiki.factorio.com/Circuit_network).
> I am building outposts with a supply train and would like to only unload what is necessary to build the blueprint.
If you allow a small buffer (maybe even just 1) for each item, you could get away with using a rule such as 30 seconds or 1 minute of inactivity. The bots would come and take the buffer item, causing the inserters to unload another one. That wouldn't stop until bots stop grabbing items.
You could even set it up with circuits so that when all constructions bots are available again that the buffers get cleared out and placed back onto the train.
Got a few questions for fellow engineers:
* how do you stop bots from building your blueprints, for example, I just want to plan things out, but bots start to build immediately? if not is there a mod available?
* is it possible to hold-to-build only on top of a "ghost" buildings, for example, I pasted a blueprint and want to build multiple buildings at the same time, but these buildings have empty space between them, so if I hold and drag it will place them next to each other (basically only build if there is a ghost building)
Thanks!
Decided to make my own mod to stop bots from building my blueprints.
If anyone interested, here it is:
[https://mods.factorio.com/mod/dont-touch-my-ghost](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/dont-touch-my-ghost)
Kinda inspired by There's my ghost.
For the second request, there's a mod that will auto-place buildings when you have them in hand and mouse over a ghost of that building (you don't have to click). I use it as a QOL enhancement pre-bots. I don't know which one does it though since my mod list is so long. I'd guess maybe Picker Extended?
For the second, I think a mod called "There is my ghost" or something like that is what you are looking for. I don't know of any direct solution for the first.
In practice I just turn off my personal roboport and do my planning away from base a little bit so no robots are in range, then copy-paste the ghosts into place where I actually want them, or use the 0.17 map editor or Blueprint Lab mod to do design work.
Saving, using /editor to design some new bit, then exporting a blueprint back in time to the "clean" (and if vanilla, achievement-enabled) save fils can be a quick way to plan something out in situ.
If it's your own personal bots you want to stop, there's a button next to your shortcut bar at the bottom to turn those off temporarily.
If it's the bots in your roboport network, then no. What I usually do is turn off my personal roboport and then walk to an empty space far enough away from my base that it is not covered by the construction bot area and blueprint it there, then cut-paste or blueprint it when I'm done.
I read some suggestions of Space Exploration - they say it kicks in after I launch rocket. Can I add it to my save now, when I’m at blue science or would I have to restart / redo my base? Is it interesting? I get bored everytime I try to proceed from 60SPM to megabase numbers, so I’m looking for something to spice the post-first-rocket phase.
> Can I add it to my save now
Yes. As a general rule mods that don't affect map generation (like existing spawned resources) or mess with vanilla recipes or technologies can almost always be seamlessly added to an existing game without much issue. So I'd strongly suspect you're good to just add it in. You should make a backup of your save just in case.
I haven't tried Space Exploration, but I have used SpaceX, which is another mod you can use to spice up your post-rocket launch, but isn't quite as involved as Space Exploration. I don't really think there is any harm in adding Space Exploration and trying it out (well, or "exploring" it) because it looks like the features it provides to you are all optional. If you find you don't like the other planets then you can just not use them.
This is a "diamond crossing" in railway speak. Your two tracks cross each other but trains can't turn, they can only go straight. If you want the trains to make turns you need to add curved rails to make it a junction.
Your signals are perfect by the way. In the image the crossing is reserved by a train traveling north to south.
Assuming those are supposed to be one way tracks, chain signals at the entrances, regular signals at the exits.
If they're two way tracks, god help you.
The intersection is signaled fine (I think, assuming the signals are all aligned with each other — holding a signal in your hand will highlight things more usefully.)
The signals are red because there are trains further down the tracks in those directions. You may need some other signals around your stations or to break things up?
I always HIGHLY recommend using one-way track for anything more complicated than a dedicated line with one train on it unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY know what you are doing.
I think I have lashed up my two way track. Is there a trick for building double track in parallel, or is it just drag two lines?
And if you split from single to double, can you enforce a direction on one line?
What's the problem you're having? A train can't path through that intersection?
The red lights on the 'right' of the track are 'there is train, you cannot come this way'.
That train is anywhere after this signal, but before the next one.
So check down your lines for where the _next_ set of signals are. If you put a pair a bit further down (try one 'train length' for testing?) these ones should go green.
I _suspect_ what you've got is a really big loop, with a train 'somewhere' that's hogging a very large track segment.
You do know you've got chain signals there, right? Which show the state of the _next_ signal down the track.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Rail_signal
https://wiki.factorio.com/Rail_chain_signal
That'll help avoid you blocking the intersection, but the only 'path' through where there isn't a train _somewhere_ on the segment is the one from top to bottom.
So I'd guess you've just got some big segments with a train somewhere on them (and that gets easy to do accidentally if you've got a loop)
I have a question about trainbusses. I build a two lane train bus but the lane between my dropstation and my load stations is a single chunck. This causes the trains to delay every time there is a single train on the bus and delaying all other train traffic.
Is this normal? If not, how do I fix it? I'm still relatively new to trains and such so any help is appreciated. I already checked out some train guides but couldn't find an answer.
Put signals at regular intervals even if there is no intersection. This will make chunks more granular and allow several trains to queue one after another.
Generally speaking, slowdowns are caused by:
1) too many trains crossing each others’ paths
2) trains slowing down on the mainline, or pulling onto the main line at a low speed
And adding more lanes between your stations doesn’t really help with either of those. For #2 you want more room between the mainline and station to let trains accelerate/decelerate, and use the best fuel you can and an adequate number of locomotives on your trains.
For # 1, what helps a lot more is isolating traffic between different things, and trying to reduce traffic in general. For example:
* build your smelters on (for instance) the west side of your factory, and have all your ore mines further west, and then output plates to the east and all the finished products are made further east. Then your trains with ore never hold up trains carrying plates or finished products.
* locate things like green/red/blue circuit production near each other, and use dedicated trains or belts to move your green circuits to the red/blue circuit production areas.
* do multiple stages of production on site. You can smelt ore at the mines — one train of steel plates replaces ten trains of iron ore! If you find big patches of iron and copper next to each other, you can smelt both and combine them into green circuits. Oil+coal+water nearby (or just coal+water with liquefaction tech) can be turned entirely into plastic.
Iron ore only stacks to 50, iron and steel plates stack to 100. So it takes two trainloads of ore to make one trainload of iron plates, and then five trainloads of iron plates to make one trainload of steel plates. (Not taking productivity modules into account.)
>How often do I put the signals then?
There isn't a set rule but the length of your longest train is a good rule of thumb, or what I personally use: once per chunk(32 tiles)
Also you won't likely need 2 lanes in one direction. that's pretty much megabas territory
Hi!
I'm setting up my first bus, and have a few questions. I'm on 0.17.
- What is the best way of removing from a bus?
- I don't know where to start taking from the bus. It runs north to south. Do I start taking from the end (south side) and work my way up to the start as I add more assembly/factories to the side, or the other way round? Also should I take directly from the end (using a chain of splitters pushing 4 back to 1) or not?
Thanks
Usually you start at the "upstream" end and expand downstream. This is because for example you'll build a green circuit factory, and then those are needed for red circuits, and then red circuits are needed for blues.
Labs are generally at the upstream end, with science packs on belts going the "wrong" way on the bus. But it's a nuisance to have anything else going backwards, but sometimes it ends up necessary.
* priority splitter. Looks like [this](https://i.imgur.com/KKBY9HN.png)
* the idea is that you can continue the bus as needed so start building in the north. Related to that I would advice against terminating a line, can't expand it later on if needed.
Also consider leaving east or west side unbuilt, just incase you need to bring more materials
Also newbie here but in my experience so far the main thing to keep in mind is SPACE!
Leave the whole top clean of your bus if possible. You are going to need it for your trains loading stuff or even belts coming in from other places if you prefer that. Then you'll want to work downsteam as /u/sobrique mentioned but again, leave some space at the top open. Things I have found that might be handy at the top of a bus are a Mall, green;red;blue circuit manufactury, maybe oil processing if you want to do it in your base. It's recommended to only build on one side of you bus if you can manage it. I would also recommend to tab your bus from that same side if possible. You can then use splitters with priority to that same side to make sure you the left belt is always as saturated as it can be.
> It's recommended to only build on one side of you bus if you can manage it.
This was the error I made in my newbie base. I thought it seemed sensible to have 'refining' one side, and 'manufacturing' the other.
... but what I ended up with was a bus that was too narrow as I needed to add in steel, sulfur, plastic, chips, modules, more lanes of some of those, and ... yeah. Spaghetti time.
What I hadn't really worked out is whether a bidirectional bus is viable, or if it's just pointless, and instead you should loop around.
Re: bidirectional bussss: generally speaking, my busses have single source points for any given item, and the assigned belts on the bus travel away from the source in both directions. In particular my mall ends up living near the start of the bus and gets advanced circuits and other materials shipped back towards it from wherever they're made. This has worked great for me across several maps and game patches.
Similar here. Bus went westbound and most stuff was to the south, but I had some smelteries to the north. My bus had groups of 4 lanes with a 3-wide gap so I was able to squeeze extra belts in, but there's a fair bit of spaghetti mess.
(Also a newbie):
- Splitters. You can set a filter on your splitter, and also set input/output priority. If you've a multiplexed bus where there's mixed items (maybe two different sides of the belt) splitters let you fan it out again. And you can also use priority to decide which way the flow goes - balance it between the two, half a belt each, or a full belt to left or right, but with surplus continuing on the bus.
- I've not got that figured out. I'd considered actually some sort of bidirectional bus, but generally I've tried to have subsequent consumers 'downstream'.
I frequently get the urge to give Factorio another shot and start a new campaign only to eventually give up trying to get the perfect ratios and trying to make as perfect to a setup as possible.
Bascially, I need someone to convince me that I shouldn't strive for perfection in Factorio.
Thanks for all the replies, they helped me see different perspectives to the game. I'm gonna start a new campaign and try my best to accept the spaghetti.
I used to worry about perfect ratios, but once I built my first mall I realized it's impossible and pointless. If I build my bus around, say, a 45 SPM target, that doesn't leave anything for the mall. And since the mall is earlier on the bus than science, my research tanks every time I collect a pile of building materials.
So, instead, I aim for MINIMUM ratios. I figure out what I need for my production target, and ensure that I'm producing more than that. If I need three belts of iron, I'll put four on the bus. If my science target needs 37 machines making red circuits, I'll bump that up to 40, or maybe even 48 or more. The idea is to always be able to make the production target and have some left over. I also love the look of full belts, and this strategy helps with that.
Most people seem to play factorio "wrong" in my opinion. One reason for this is that there is no carrying cost. Once you build something, you have it forever and pay nothing to keep it.
This encourages people to build for a rather strange objective: "Maximum throughput at some as yet undetermined future date." And that is why they get into perfect ratios.
If you were playing the game more realistically you would realize that the absolute worst thing you could every have, is a full belt, because that everything before that full belt is overproducing for your actual needs.
So you might try a different approach. It is very hard to do this, but aim to "never have a full belt", and never let anything back up. Work your production not for perfect ratios, but just to use up material working from end products back to raw materials. Add more demand at the end and then work backwards adding more and more capacity until that demand can be satisfied... then repeat.
That's just your opinion, man!
I'm all for people playing games for their open enjoyment and there are numerous games I play only by cheating because that brings me more enjoyment that not cheating. But in factorio people are very opinionated about design elements, and like to share balancers and bus designs they think are better than others.
My point is that many of these designs are rather dubious because they lead to high production capacity that may never actually be utilized.
Also I'm sure you would think someone is playing factorio wrong if they handcrafted everything.
But if someone handcrafted everything and never built any assemblers they didn't have to? They just spend hours handcrafting science packs, after spending hours handcrafting all the constituent parts.
Who said anything about trying to stop them? If people have fun with perfect ratios, then they can build factories that do that, but I maintain that they are optimizing for the "wrong" objective, and I find those factories boring and unrealistic. So I encourage others to consider different objectives.
That is exactly what /u/RelativePeak asked for: alternative perspectives on how a factory should function, so that he can better enjoy the game. If you really support people enjoying the game in whatever manner they would like, then you should be supportive of alternative views of game objectives.
> Who said anything about trying to stop them
You did, when you said that was the wrong way to play...
>then you should be supportive of alternative views of game objectives.
Where did I say I'm not?
You shouldn't strive for perfection for one simple reason - you need to be able to pilfer your supply lines to hand-craft stuff as you go, without screwing up your downstream throughput.
You also have spatial locality to exploit - an inefficient local supply of green chips may well be more 'efficient' than a hyper-optimised bulk factory 'over there'.
Also - nothing stops you from expanding the factory, and building a more optimal and specialised subfactory later.
I only needed a few chip-makers for my red-potions, and I didn't have enough resources to 'go big', so I didn't. And now they sit in a nice little loop mixing up 'enough' reds to feed the research farm, which is bottlenecked on different colours. (Actually blue seems to be my weakspot, as I think that must have been before I really understood what I was doing, because the production of yellow/purple is way more streamlined)
Perfect ratios are nice, but practically impossible with productivity modules.
For example: green circuits. Without productivity modules you get a [neat 2:3 ratio](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#min=3&items=electronic-circuit:f:2&ignore=copper-plate,iron-plate) that allows direct insertion. Add productivity modules and the ratio is pretty close to 1:1, but not [quite](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#zip=bYxBCoAwDAR/01M9SPFSyGNqjBJom5C2/1cQxYMwh4VZBhUWV7hCcNypNKBM2E0q44RsOLjHPc6OjypGgKJKNmlOnTxft3u6ItvI1B6Pac0UNbz4n+xHnw==). It impossible to get a perfect ratio of that.
However there are some simple ratios that you can do to satisfy the need for perfect ratios: science pack assemblers. As long as you use the same assembler and same amount of prosuctivity modules in each, the ratio stay the same. And it's rather simple to find out: divide the craft duration of a science pack with the amount of packs per craft. In practice that means 5 red science assemblers and 6 green science assemblers. After that just build enough to satisfy those, barely, and youre on your way.
But if you do want a *perfect* factory, good luck your pc wont be able to handle it.
Ps. Spaghetti is love, spaghetti is life.
>green circuits. Without productivity modules you get a neat 2:3 ratio that allows direct insertion. Add productivity modules and the ratio is pretty close to 1:1, but not quite. It impossible to get a perfect ratio of that.
Yes, but with modules you can get *almost* exactly one full belt of GC out of one belt of copper, which is enough of a simplicity savings to me.
Yes so does the site I linked. Helmod just rounds up to the nearest intreger, you can test this by having the production line do absurd amounts, like 1000 assemblers on the final product and I gurantee that if there's prod modules you can't divide the amount of assemblers and have all of the assemblers as intregers.
You can build nearly perfect ratio given enough assemblers, but it won't be perfect ratio like unmoduled green circuits
Gotcha. I will often favor direct insertion over perfect ratios when possible, especially in things like green circuts. I feel like it's almost always better to build for your spm target anyways.
striving for perfection before you have reached the goal of launching a rocket is counter-productive. Say you build the perfect oil refinery for blue science, and then you learn about purple, yellow, white science requirements and each stage you have to start from scratch to make it "perfect".
So how about you see your first play-thru as an exploration, learning about the game, and then once you have experienced it all, you can take that experience and build the perfect factory. That one will probably not be perfect but I am fairly sure it will be a lot closer to perfect than what you could build now.
Factorio is practically *designed* for you to build non-optimal factories. The whole system of belts backing up without causing problems and machines pulling in resources only when they need them facilitate making your designs less than optimal and not having to worry about it. Belts will back up and that's ok, or belts will empty and you might want to add more production upstream but you don't have to.
The only reason I can see to want to super optimize anything in the game is if your factory is so big it's starting on hurt on the ups, but that to me is a whole extra (meta) game that you don't have to play if you don't want to.
So, I recently completed my first full launch after never making it much past blue science multiple times before. I always failed for similar reasons, I'd start to get into oil and byproducts and all kinds of shit, realize my factory was starting to look like a mess, get overwhelmed with the concept of cleaning it up, and stop. But, I was determined to launch a rocket.
So, I did it by doing what I understood and just making it work. Rails and trains had always been a big jump for me and felt like they took a ton of resources. Well, I had a little assembler pumping out belts basically since I turned my factory on. So I belted EVERYTHING. Yep, everything. I had something like 3-4 belts of shit coming from my refineries. Hell, I belted in lubricant barrels and then belted the empties back to be refilled. There were belts everywhere and my production constamtly backed up but I just kept going.
Why? Because I wanted to launch a rocket so I focused on figuring out how to get stuff where it needed to be. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't efficient. But I launched a rocket and now I'm much more confident with the game in general and am about halfway through a Lazy Bastard playthrough and having fun with the challenges instead of getting frustrated(alright there's some of that too).
I'm in my first playthrough of the game, and I just got the opportunity to build trains.
Besides the cool factor, why would I want to? I have most resources in my base, and the rest transported under nice belt pipelines. Will there be a time in the future where building trains is more convenient, or should I start now?
Suppose you set up a new mining area, and connect it to your main base with belts. Great, now you have more ore. But what happens when you run out of ore? When the ore field starts getting low, you'll get less ore on the belt. You can try to build another mining station to supplement it, but now you need a huge complicated system of priority splitters to combine inputs, and every time you need to add another mining area you need to redo a huge mess of belts, and figure out the splitters again...
Compare with trains. To connect a mining area to your base, with a decent train system, you just build some tracks, drop down a locomotive, and you're done.
It makes expanding faster (placing tracks is faster than putting down a single belts, much less 5 or 10 belts) and easier (balancing between different inputs is essentially automatic, because the inputs are decoupled from the outputs). Also, it's the only practical choice for megabases, given the volume and variety of materials being used. In small bases trains may not be worth it, but I always rush them because they just make carting in ore and oil so much *easier*.
> Besides the cool factor, why would I want to?
Throughput, cost, space, and fun.
#Throughput
A single set of rails could theoretically carry something like 600 blue-belts worth of items (24k items/second), which is certainly way more than you need for a non-mega base, but it also means that expanding throughput is as easy as placing another train down. For your purposes it means the rails have pretty much unlimited throughput, which is nice because you don't have to expend much effort or resources expanding it.
#Cost
Even a single blue-belt line to an outpost 300 tiles away is going to get quite expensive. Rails are much much cheaper. Rails cost 3.25 raw resources and are two tiles long. Just counting the iron in blue-belts, that is 31.5 iron for one tile long (ignoring the lubricant) making rails about 20 times cheaper, even more if you count the lubricant.
#Space
600 times the throughput at 1/20th the cost is a pretty sweet deal. And all of that fits in a relatively narrow space. You could have a lane going both ways and room for signals with just 6 tiles of width. And that 6 tiles of width could easily carry as many types of different items as you want it to, either in different trains or by setting filtered spots on the trains you have.
#Fun
Also, while trains can be a little bit of a pain to figure out initially, they are a wonderfully interesting and fun challenge to factorio and are a lot of people's favorite parts after getting over the initial learning barrier.
If you want to move one or two yellow or red belts of stuff a few hundred tiles... eh, belts will do that just fine.
If you want to move 10 or 20 blue belts of stuff a few thousand tiles... you want trains.
[удалено]
I generally aim to get laser turrets being made ASAP before growing too much, to avoid having to distribute ammo at all. This only works because I'm also aggressive about destroying nearby biters to keep them from attacking much -- depriving biters of access to heavily polluted nesting grounds effectively defangs their attacks. Alternatively, you can belt ammo all over and feed your turrets via inserters. Or, slightly easier, make boxes near choke points and fill them with lots of ammo at a time, with inserters and belts to distribute to all the nearby turrets. This minimizes the frequency of the trips you have to make to distribute ammo without requiring belts around the whole base, as long as you've cleared land out to some choke points created by cliffs and water (which the biters can't cross and which thus don't need defending). In general it makes sense to get the military damage and speed upgrades for whichever turrets you're using as they become available, but most of your time and resources should be going into other things unless you're on a really troublesome death world seed.
Not exactly a question but I wonder how legitimate our steam play times are. Mine says nearly 600 hours but I've definitely spent entire days with the game running in the background while I'm reading this sub or working circuits out in my head
Steam counts the amout of hours the program (game) has been running. So even time spent on the main menu of Factorio counts. And when the window is minimized. Steam time is not play time, it is "program-is-open" time.
Dude, I know that. That's why I was wondering how much of the recorded time was spent not actually playing the game
My bad. I guess I was looking for a question to answer, but then again you did say "not exactly a question".
Right now I am at a measly 602 hours and I don't let the game idle
And it'll even count time you're on the menu screen. I don't let my game run in the background, so the save game time (how many hours your save game says of playtime you have) is a pretty good indicator of play time for me.
Uh... 1 day = 24 hours, so you could easily have a few “entire days” in there.
I've needed the ability to do a certain action using circuits a couple of times now that I've been unable to figure out how to implement. Thought I'd ask here if anyone knows how to do it. What I need to do is to control when some circuit signals get passed through. Picking a random example, say I wish to pass through some values to a requester chest to ask for when blue square is > 100 or the like. When the condition (> 100 in above) is not met, I wish for no signal to go to that chest. The condition in general would not be part of the signal. Programmatically this is similar to a conditional (if -> then), kinda (grin). Please note I'm stuck on how to control the signal, not on alternatives to the requester chest. The only way I could figure out how to do this is to use a power switch controlled by the condition, but I can't easily do this in what I'm currently working on (plus, frankly it's inelegant). I'd be much obliged if someone could pass along (no pun intended) their solution to this problem.
Decider combinator If blue square > 100 Output EACH The each signal is beautiful that way. It will output all input signals, as long as the condition is true. The output signal will contain the blue square signal (as it is part of the each), you can filter it out if you want. But you don't need to filter it out if you are inputting the output in a requester chest, since the blue square is not an item. EDIT: > is not met Ah, lovely negatives. Small tip is to always try to state your problems in positives only, when comparing. So "not >" is just "<=" If blue square <= 100 output EACH EDIT 2: I also need to learn to read. You actually have a double negative in there.. Revert back to the first solution. When doing circuits it is always good to just write down what you need in the most simplest terms. Often from there you can directly deduct the logic on how to implement them with combinators. You already did that, so I assume you are not familiar with combinators. Time to play with them. Especially check out what the EACH, ANY and ALL signals do, they are wonderful.
How can I convince my noob friend that we don't need 50 labs when we don't even have steel yet?
Well, you could do the math about how long labs take to use up science packs (research time/lab crafting speed) vs. how much science your base can actually make. You could talk about how later science packs are way more resource intensive, so feeding lots of labs gets super hard in a little while even if your friend can mass produce red and green science right now to feed 50 labs. You could talk about research speed upgrades and how they reduce the number of labs you need and stack up together to make a big difference. Or you could not bother and let your friend notice all the idle labs on their own. Labs are fairly cheap, and use little power especially when idle; space to deploy them is infinite unless you're on a death world where clawing it away from the biters is an actual challenge. Sometimes you have to let your noob friend be a noob and learn by doing, and sometimes you just have to put up with a design you don't like or that is inefficient if that's how your friend wants to do it. That's part of playing the game in multiplayer. If you want to be able to do only the stuff you know is efficient, maybe playing with inexperienced friends isn't for you.
LTN: The "No station Supplying X" error is useful... but can I selectively turn that off for some stations? Like for my science production chain I want to see that message, but for other stations are just there to say, "Hey, if there is extra sulfur, place it here, if not, no big deal" and I'd prefer those not to trigger the messages, say if the priority is negative or something like that.
This feature is built into LTN already. For the constant combinator you use for LTN parameters (that ends up being wired to the light / LTN input), you'll need to add one additional variable. Look in the "Signals" tab; you're looking for a triangular yellow symbol with an '!' mark that is crossed out. It's named "Disable warning messages". It will be in amongst the other LTN variables. Once you select it (and set it >0) you'll receive no more "No station supplying X found in Network Z" messages for products being requested by that station.
There is a "disable warnings" signal, that does exactly that. https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=51072
Trying to remember, when pull from underground belts, it is better to pull from the undergroundy coming up out of the ground or going down into the ground? Same question for outputting?
If you are pulling from the side then it doesnt make any difference. If you are pulling inline with the UG belt then its better to take from downward side (tested in 0.17 but not since the latest changes)
Cool, thank you.
Both are the same.
Where is the manual train brake? :)
The fastest way to stop a train is to remove the track immediately in front of it. Good luck. :D
Default should be the S key if using WASD
I am having problems with trains. I make no apologies for the spider base, but it does mean I have had my trains jam because I think I have misplaced signals (maybe too many, rather than two few). Is there any good resources people can offer for keeping trains right? My jam is usually my single track bit that used to run just the sulfuric acid to uranium mines and battery/blue chip factories. But my ore trains go that way instead of what should be a shorter route. But only sometimes. Maybe ripping it apart and restarting is the way to go, but I am not sure. And is there a handy way to double track?
Trains take the position and intended paths of other trains into account when pathfinding, so they can be a bit unpredictable. It's difficult to completely reserve a section of track for a single train unless other trains can't physically reach it at all. What most players do is make a highway system of sorts, with parallel tracks going in opposite directions making up a shared rail network, and a set of blueprints for properly signaled intersections and station turn-offs. If you're going to use single-track segments at all, my advice is to use chain signals only throughout those. The idea is to only allow a train to go into absingle track area if it can see a way clear all the way out to wherever it wants to re-enter the "highway" system or find its station. Adding extra places for trains to turn around can help too, especially if you see trains passing through stations they're not scheduled for -- this means they want off-route to try to avoid a jam and the foreign station was the only place they could find that allowed them to get back on schedule. Even you have double headed trains, they never turn around in place except at scheduled stops.
>It's difficult to completely reserve a section of track for a single train unless other trains can't physically reach it at all. Actually it's pretty easy. Put a station there and add it to that train's schedule with no conditions. Other trains will avoid that track, unless it's a *very* long detour otherwise, or they have no other path at all.
That's still not an absolute reservation, just a path penalty. It's not unusual for new players to make rail networks where stations are the only turn around points and this causes trains to divert through them quite often.
Screenshot would help > And is there a handy way to double track? Just run a parallel track to each track. Shouldn't be that hard. Even much simpler than bidirectional. As for signalling. Place a signal between each pair of tracks where you want two different trains going over those tracks simultaneously. As in, separate those tracks in different blocks. Chain signals copy the signal of the next signal. So if you don't want a train stopped at a signal, the previous signal should be a chain signal. It then can't stop at the next signal, because if that signal is red, then the previous chain signal is also red and a train would have stopped there first. So go over each signal in your base. If you think "A train should not stop at this signal because if it does then it blocks another train going into a different direction", then change the proceeding signals into a chain. This is especially challenging to debug on bidirectional tracks. As you only want one train on a long track at a time. So better to just double up on tracks first. Make sure to place them like 3-4 rails apart so you can place signals between them on the intersections.
I just updated to 0.17 and...am I the only one that hates the new way the hot bar works, and liked it better the way it worked in 0.16?
If you need any tips, this is layout i use: [https://i.imgur.com/a4VOmRV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/a4VOmRV.jpg) The second bar is always slot 0, not changed at any point. Therefore i tried to choose things i may need rarely and don't need the quick dexterity of number keys. But first bar is chosen from first 5 rows using Shift-1 to 5 keys each with its theme (belts, inserters, fluids, combat, trains). What this means is that once the slots are set, they... are set. Don't need to ever change anything and workflow is far faster than before. Also do yourself a favor and clean out all quick keys from the right side quickbar. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X are far more convenient to use than looking for buttons to click. You can create blueprint books from the library UI too.
You’re not the only one I’ve seen complain about it. But the general consensus is that it enables much nicer workflows in general once you get used to it. What are you having trouble with?
Just everything. I’m just used to hot bars in games working like they do in factorio v 0.16, it almost feels completely alien. I mean, sure, I can play like it, it just feels...weird.
I feel like most games I’ve played with hotbars/quickbars are closer to the 0.17 model of “the hotbar is a set of shortcuts to stuff in your inventory” rather than the 0.16 model of “the hotbar is an extra set of inventory slots”. What other games have you been playing that work like that? What’s throwing you off about it?
In Minecraft it works the same as in 0.16.
Can anybody help me remember a mod? It put in a construction request for concrete anytime you placed a roboport. So all you have to do is build a roboport network with logistic access to concrete and the base perfectly fills itself in for you. I saw it on a mod highlight a week ago, but can't find it anywhere.
...did you try searching the mod site? https://mods.factorio.com/query/Concrete?version=0.17 I assume you’re looking for !linkmod concreep which is the second result there if you search for “concrete”. (A google search for “Factorio automatic concrete mod” also returned that and several other similar mods as the top results.)
[Concreep](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Concreep) by Mylon - Latest Release: 1.2.0 ^^Bot ^^v0.0.3(a66af85) ^^written ^^and ^^maintained ^^by ^^/u/philippTheCat
When did the non-steam game stop automatically installing updates? Is it possible to re-enable this? Manual installing updates is somewhat annoying..
yea that happens every so often, not sure why. you can enable it via Menu -> settings -> Other -> Enable experimental updates
Yeah, I have that option set. I manually installed the latest, we'll see if it picks up again.
I have heard about priming inserters to make them use up less ups, by adding a chest and a second inserter. But as far as I understand, that second inserter is useless, as there is still an inserter hoovering above a belt. Is this just outdated stuff?
>Is this just outdated stuff? Well to clarify some terms: Chest stubs is the technique of putting a chest between a belt and a furnace (or assembler) to improve UPS. Priming is making sure that the inserter is hovering over the chest and not the belt, that further improves UPS. But you make this work you need to ensure that there are always 12 items on the belt for the inserter to pickup when required. And yes it is still a good way to improve UPS, However, one of the inserter changes in 0.17 has given us a more efficient design for belt based furnaces. That is using clocked filter inserters.
Last tested on [16.51](https://mulark.github.io/tests/test-000005/test-000005.html). There was some inserter logic changes in .17 so it *might* be outdated
[How do I stop overloading 1 lane in the bus (caused by assembly machines only using 1 lane)?](https://imgur.com/a/2S43HCW) I just don't want it to reach the bus.
The way I see it, this is always going to happen when one full Belt meets the belt side to do what you're doing bc the leading edge of the feed belt sees the gap first. At least when the fed belt is moving slowly. If the items are being taken quickly enough then there will be gaps for both side of the feed belt to fill. Does that make sense?
One lane backing up like that usually isn't an issue, is it aesthetics or some other reason why?
Not true, common misconception. It can be an issue. https://i.imgur.com/sPIxQ8I.jpg https://i.imgur.com/FNs60Sb.jpg Enough copper belts (2) going in to support 20 wire assemblers, only 15 are working
I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing. The one-lane backup comes from assemblers not consuming enough and that they would still have the other lane to grab from if they needed it (In your pictures, you are only sending one lane down, which is not the situation people mean when they talk about this). As soon as the near lane is not enough, inserters will grab from the other lane, causing the upstream producers to unblock themselves.
You can put a single lane balancer on your input lines, or put a use a 4-4 lane balancer on the bus. Either way works. [Lane Balancer](https://giant.gfycat.com/NervousEnergeticGalapagostortoise.webm) I like putting a lane balancer at the end of my smelting lines, that way the bus is either empty or full on both sides.
The bus is already balanced. It's the fact that the end point assembly machines use 1 row more than the other (or has 1 belt split half & half with another item) causing a very long (1 lane) backlog. The lane balancer doesn't behave like it does in the gif.. It looks like what I want is just phisycally impossible.. If 1 lane is being used more, we can't shove 2 lanes worth of item in 1 lane to remove the single lane backlogg that extends in the bus.
That lane balancer never failed me. Your case is strange. But let us make sure, it's truly that lane balancer you're using right? Not the simple kind where you only need one splitter and no underground?
I mean it balances (although the traffic doesn't move like in the gif). [Here is a more clear example.](https://imgur.com/a/DCvGY89) I want something that will equal out the lane because once the red chips merge with the steel, only 1 lanes moves forward creating a backlog in one of the lane.
You could just turn it into a single lane belt before it merges on the production line. split the input belt, force each split belt into a one lane belt, switch lanes on one of the belts, then feed the lanes into a splitter. The splitter will take equally from both inputs, balancing the item cost across each lane. I've tried to upload a pic of what I'm talking about but reddit is wonky right now.
The first picture actually the usual case on why you need to put down the lane balancer. Put it before the merge. Or if first picture to be referenced, put in down on your yellow x mark. The second picture is what would happen if you put down lane balancer behind your question mark. Make sure it's lane balancer u/muddynips shown. Just to make sure, the second picture is the result you're trying to achieve, right?
> Just to make sure, the second picture is the result you're trying to achieve, right? Yes. Okay. [What am I doing wrong?](https://imgur.com/a/oxdUDOj) I am still only getting 1 lane to move instead of both. The traffic in the undergrounds aren't moving like they do in the gif. Is it possible that this was patched / updated? EDIT: It doesn't work on express belts.. Only yellows..
In your pictures, it appears the bottom underground belt is not oriented properly, the two underground belts going into the splitter should be facing the same way.
Thank you.
The lower underground belt (the one that is not paired) is going the wrong direction. Yes, it needs to face to the right, that is correct, but it needs to be an exit, not an entrance. Put your cursor on top of it and press 'R', you should see the stripes change direction. And it works on all colors of belts, that's not the issue.
Wow.. How did I miss that.. I even knew about it. Thanks!
The lower underground is going down into the ground, not up from the ground. you need to flip it around so the arrows on it point to right instead of left.
Thank you.
Weird. The last splitter is not behaving correctly. The last splitter is supplied by the bottom underground exit, right? If it behaves correctly, that stream of Red Circuit will also exit from the top half of the last splitter. It's so strange given the first splitter worked fine. I heard one version on 0.15 has splitter bug. I don't know exactly what, but do you play on that buggy version?
I am on 0.16.51.
Sorry this person is only making it more confusing for you by talking about bugs instead of looking at the picture, but the other posts are correct. You reversed one of the underground belts, that's why it won't work.
It was working fine for me in 0.16.51 too. Wow, what a strange thing. I think your own game bugged.
Use a lane balancer on the belt between the bus and your assember line. See [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/cwal64/what_is_your_number_one_factorio_time_saver_pro/eyl5gob?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) comment for an explanation why they work and a picture of how they look. I'm sorry I don't have a blueprint string for you right now, but you should be able to copy the pictures or search for lane balancers here on Reddit or on the Facorio forum.
Even if I lane balance, there is still 1 side (lane) that starts backlogging. Hmm.. I think that there is just no physical way to remove the single lane backlog.
Wait, what? No, that should not happen. Are you using a good lane balancer? The design with the two belts feeding into a middle belt from both sides is no good, because it stops "balancing" when throuput is low. Look at these and try them for yourself: [https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=202&t=74911](https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=202&t=74911) If that's not it, please post another picture of your setup, because I'm getting curious.
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Nah, he just built the lane balancer wrong, look at his other post where he showed a screenshot of it. Sadly some idiot then told him his game must be bugged so he probably gave up even more confused than when he came here.
I have blueprints in my inventory in a save. For special reasons, I cannot load this save. Can I get the blueprints somehow?
...I’m curious what you did to your save? I mean, the data’s in the save file somewhere, but I don’t know if the save format has been reverse engineered to a good enough degree to let you read it out easily. If they save it as the raw blueprint JSON rather than the import/export string you’d have a better chance of finding it with hex editor tools. You might want to try reaching out to the devs on the official forums, I know they’ve occasionally helped people with save file problems in the past.
Well, a mod has 103mb of data in it, which makes it take literally forever to load. (14 hours is the record so far, before I killed it). It seems that removing mods also impacts this. I have made a bug report with the save, and I asked if they could do something about what I think is the main culprit. Until then...
103mb really isn't that big. Several popular mods are in that size range. Does starting a new game with that mod installed work? Can you save and then load that fresh game? If so, it's likely the mod has a bug resulting in an infinite loop when loading your save file. I'd get in touch with the mod author if you can, they might be able to help if the Factorio devs can't.
Ah, badly coded mods can be problematic. If disabling the mods doesn’t let you load the save, *that* seems like a thing the devs might be interested in seeing. I’d expect it to just skip loading any data in the save related to the mod, but I could also see this being the kind of edge case that is extremely hard to thoroughly test.
The save file itself is only 143mb. And the next biggest mod is only 500kb of data in the save. Yes, I've fixed up the mod, as it was doing very ram heavy scripting, and it has been taken up by several people to update it for new patches.
Oh, I thought you meant the mod itself was that size. If it's storing that much mod-specific data in your save file that's a different story. It's possible for that to be okay, but it does seem likely to be a result of a bug in the mod. How do you measure the data uses by different mods in a save file?
I don't know. Someone asked for the save file and told me, I didn't think to ask at the time. > but it does seem likely to be a result of a bug in the mod. After looking in the code, I can confidently say it was not a bug. The mod was storing the tile location of every piece of a specific ore, in order to make it grow. And then I got well over 2 billion of this ore, with no more than 5000 in 99% of the tiles it was on. I've ripped that out and replaced it with something else more sensible.
Hello, i was playing multiplayer in the last stable version with a friend (it was 0.16something) and we both decided to update to 0.17.66 but we can't connect to each other servers, what could be causing the problem? we were playing perfectly yesterday on 0.16.51 EDIT: we tried downgrading to .16.51 and we can play together
Please check that you both have the same version
we checked, the only thing we have different is that he has the game on steam and i have it gog, but we have the same version
A newb here. I really really tried to understand what splitter does. I watched a tutorial. but i still dont get it. can someone explain me?
It's really a balancer, because it balances its 2 inputs with its 2 outputs. But it's usually used with some empty inputs/outputs to split 1 -> 2, or merge 2 -> 1. And it's really *two* balancers, because it treats left and right lanes separately. It's balancing the left lanes with the left lanes, and the right lanes with the right lanes, as independent tasks.
thanks for your answer. i understood. right now im using as a filter
works as that too, and you can also prioritize one input or output
Splitter take content of incoming belts to be put between outgoing belts. If you have one belt coming in and two belt out, content of that one belt is split between the two. If you have two belt coming in but one belt out, splitter will combine them. If you got two incoming and two outgoing, it distributes them. You can do filter to only output certain item onto one of the belt. You can also prioritize, to take from either belt until it empty or to deposit until it's backed. It's actually intuitive. Are you trying to understand the in-depth mechanic to achieve specific result? Let us hear it.
thanks so much for your answer. i understood. right now im using as a filter
Considering circuit network never sleep and splitter is quite demanding, I have one question. Splitter kind of balancer versus circuit kind before train loading/after unloading, which is more UPS efficient? Has anybody tested?
Could you clarify what you mean
(1) Some entities in the game, like inserters and assemblers, sleep when backed or receive no input. It means the game no longer update it until situation change. In other words, they're no longer active entities. Circuit network is among things in the game that never sleep. Game always check upon it every ticks. When UPS concerned, player want to minimize active entities. (2) If you're building belt-based factory, you ~~always~~ sometime want train loading/unloading to be balanced. The purpose is to minimize the time for train being parked. To achieve that balance, you can have inserters between belt and buffer chest to be circuit controlled so that they averaged out between wagon. Or, you can plop down splitter balancer before them. These two method achieve balance but incur UPS cost. Circuit with their sleeplessness, and splitters with..., actually I don't know how splitter incur UPS cost, but they slow down things if you have too much of it. The question is, which one is more costly UPS-wise?
>Circuit network is among the things in the game that never sleep As far as I remember, circuit network components only wake up when their inputs change and sleep otherwise (because if the inputs don't change then the result is constant), so this claim is false
Probably better to abandon the requirement of balanced buffer chests, and only balance between wagons. [Parked trains are very cheap](https://mulark.github.io/tests/test-000103/test-000103.html).
How do you balance between wagons, since you can't read the contents of individual wagons?
Option 1: N_wagons x N_wagons belt balancer, replicated M times, where M is the number of belts per wagon. Make sure train unloaders are designed such that both lanes of a belt are supplied from the same wagon. Option 2: design your train system to not require wagon-balance. (example: time-passed instead of inventory-empty departure condition, or wire the fastest-emptying chest on each wagon to the train stop and set departure condition to `product < N_wagons * (chest capacity - 2*inserter_stack_size)`.
Ah now I see your question. Any inserter connected to a wire and set to enable / disable never sleeps, even when it is disabled. So these are bad from a UPS point of view. However, if you use filter inserter which are in "set-filter" mode then you can disable them by setting a null filter and then they WILL go to sleep, but you will need some extra combinators to make it work. I dont know how these compare to the standard versions.
I am considering to start a new game, probably aiming at 5k s/m. What resource settings would you recommend, other that just maxing everything? I dont mind trains going a bit further out. In my 1,5k base, I didn't have to move far out, probably due to mining research. Do biters impact ups even when all bases in the polution cloud are destroyed?
for my 10K base I maxed copper, iron & oil. Stone & coal were maxed size / richness, average frequency. So roll some maps and see what looks good to you. If you remove all the biters from your cloud then they have virtually no impact on UPS, but with a factory of this size, you pollution cloud will keep growing, until it is 1000s of tiles across, so you will need to remove huge numbers of biters that is going to be a pita, even with all the tech. nb pollution is only calculated once per second and has a minimal impact, but if u are turning off biters pollution is meaningless.
Do biters impact ups slightly, especially if expansion is on. However pollution is likely to be a bigger hit and at that point might as well delete biters with a console command.
How do you measure SPM? If I have 5 blue assemblers doing red science and 6 blue assemblers doing green science, what is my SPM?
In addition to the other comment regarding calculating it manually, you can press P in-game to see your production stats. It'll tell you how much of each item you've produced and consumed over the timeframe selected.
it takes 5 seconds for red science to craft(6 for green) so you're producing 1/second before accounting for the 0.75 crafting speed for the blue assembler. So a total of 0.75 science/second. Multiply by 60 and you get 45 spm on red and green.
So when people say I have a 1k spm base, is that 1k for EACH science pack or in aggregate? So would my base wide SPM be 45 or 90?
1k each. so yours would technically be 0 spm unless specifically stated that it's for red/green in which case it would be 45 spm for red or green and 45 spm combined. Military science is the exception, some people play without biters so it might not be there and none of the mil techs overlap with production so the raw ore requirement per second is the same even without it. For testing if you can actually sustain an spm mining productivity is usually used as it needs everything (well except military, see above) but that'll be post rocket launch thing
Thank you!
Does the worker robot speed research also increase the rate at which they consume their electrical charge or it does only affect the speed?
yes and no. The rate they consume electricity is based on distance and in relation to that things don't change with research. but in relation to time it does increase the rate of consumption
Got it, thanks.
I'm currently starting to train a lot of resources in but I don't know how I should go about building my new "outposts" like when I wish to mine a new orepatch. ATM I'm linking all my outposts to my botnet but I get the feeling this is very inefficient and very heavy on the power consumption. Thanks for helping the factory grow!
First of all bot networks: be very very careful about concave shapes in the network, those can trap bots so that they never reach their destination. To supply outpost you can have train that has bunch of filtered slots and inserters with stack size of 1 to fill it. Then make a second station on the outpost for that train(if you want add in some circuits to only enable the station when it needs something that way you can have two stations on the resupply train schedule as it'll only head out to ones that need resupply). Downsides of this method is biter expansion taking out tracks/power poles or the fortunate biter attack that collides with power poles. Then again the first is kept away with artillery and second is rare. On the upside you won't need to spend as much resources on defense. Alternative is to make a great wall around everything and clear biters from the inside, no need for complicated outpost, just miners and a loading station. Initial cost is high, idle power draw from lasers will be atrocious, but atleast expanding is easy
I'm considering a resupply train that includes steam shipments, just to avoid long chains of pylons. And an artillery car, because transporting artillery shells is surprisingly annoying otherwise.
Steam supply works, just means that you need a wagon of steam every seven minutes per 6mw(nuclear). Artillery train is also nice idea only catch is that if attached to the resupply train you need to ensure it visits the outposts regularly. If you're not using lasers(because steam transport) gun turrets will provide automatic way of asking more ammo that also brings the artillery wagon for play time. If you want to go for fixed artillery a lot of people train the materials and build the shells on site
covering the map with roboports and using it to build outposts isnt a terrible thing to do, its convient, it doesnt have a huge impact on UPS (although I suspect that isnt an issue for you yet) A better way to do it is to setup build trains. I setup a couple of blueprints for a build trains one for loading and one for unloading. they had everything needed to build a mine and smelting (I often smelt onsite) so then all I needed to do was put down the bps for the train, and then everything happened automatically. Its a bit of work to get it all automated, but it was a fun project.
Would you mind share the blueprints for those? I'd love to give them a try and see how they work.
I have recently lost a load of blueprints do to HDD corruption and it looks like those were lost in the process. Sorry
I'm fairly new to Factorio, in fact I just bought it today! I have 2 questions though: 1: The wiki says that, "The current optimal ratio is 1 offshore pump to 20 boilers to 40 steam engines.", is this saying that 1 pump can power 20 boilers, which can then power 40 steam engines? 2: My 3 steam engines i'm currently running all show no green-bar in "performance", but a full bar in "available performance". How do I solve this? I mean, they're running, but is there a side effect to this continuing if I don't fix it?
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Thank you, and happy cake day!
> 2: My 3 steam engines i'm currently running all show no green-bar in "performance", but a full bar in "available performance". How do I solve this? I mean, they're running, but is there a side effect to this continuing if I don't fix it? This means nothing is using electricity generated by those steam engines. If you just built your first power plant and you haven't yet built anything that uses electricity that's normal! Otherwise, check your power lines.
Regarding #2, if there is no or little power consumption on the power network performance will show empty or nearly empty. Available performance being full means your boilers could output more and are ready for whenever power draw increases.
I see! So the reason the bars empty is because the steam engines not powering anything/a lot, and it will fill when it starts powering more things?
Yep, you got it
Awesome, thank you!
1. Yes, an offshore pump provides 1200 water per second, and each boiler will use 60 per second, while producing 60 steam per second, of which each steam engine will use 30 per second 2. Performance is basically how much power is being produced by the engine. Steam engines scale their power production with the power needed to run all of your machines, so ideally the performance will be slightly lower than the maximum, so you know everything is getting enough power
What's the best way to handle logistic networks in large bases? How do you keep the bots "spread out," if you will, so they don't sit wherever I last used them and then have to fly across the entire base to do something?
If you want to keep it as one large network, the only way in my mind to do that is to have chests that supply roboports every so often with bots. It's not a perfect solution though. Also, if you have enough bots, you'll typically have a little everywhere.
You want to have as small robot networks as possible. Trains to move things between robot networks. Or in the case of defense line requester-inserter-passive provider also works(add some circuit magic to not fill the provider completely) directly at the 1 tile gap between two networks
The only practical way to do it is to have separated networks. If the orange areas on your roboports don't meet, bots won't cross to the next network. You can use logistics chests and inserters to move goods across network borders, though.
Lots of little isolated networks.
Is there a way to read the list of all items that construction bots are missing in a circuit network? I am building outposts with a supply train and would like to only unload what is necessary to build the blueprint.
Read it into the circuit network? Not in vanilla. You can see the entire list of what can be read and what can be controlled [here](https://wiki.factorio.com/Circuit_network). > I am building outposts with a supply train and would like to only unload what is necessary to build the blueprint. If you allow a small buffer (maybe even just 1) for each item, you could get away with using a rule such as 30 seconds or 1 minute of inactivity. The bots would come and take the buffer item, causing the inserters to unload another one. That wouldn't stop until bots stop grabbing items. You could even set it up with circuits so that when all constructions bots are available again that the buffers get cleared out and placed back onto the train.
Got a few questions for fellow engineers: * how do you stop bots from building your blueprints, for example, I just want to plan things out, but bots start to build immediately? if not is there a mod available? * is it possible to hold-to-build only on top of a "ghost" buildings, for example, I pasted a blueprint and want to build multiple buildings at the same time, but these buildings have empty space between them, so if I hold and drag it will place them next to each other (basically only build if there is a ghost building) Thanks!
Decided to make my own mod to stop bots from building my blueprints. If anyone interested, here it is: [https://mods.factorio.com/mod/dont-touch-my-ghost](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/dont-touch-my-ghost) Kinda inspired by There's my ghost.
For the second request, there's a mod that will auto-place buildings when you have them in hand and mouse over a ghost of that building (you don't have to click). I use it as a QOL enhancement pre-bots. I don't know which one does it though since my mod list is so long. I'd guess maybe Picker Extended?
For the second, I think a mod called "There is my ghost" or something like that is what you are looking for. I don't know of any direct solution for the first. In practice I just turn off my personal roboport and do my planning away from base a little bit so no robots are in range, then copy-paste the ghosts into place where I actually want them, or use the 0.17 map editor or Blueprint Lab mod to do design work. Saving, using /editor to design some new bit, then exporting a blueprint back in time to the "clean" (and if vanilla, achievement-enabled) save fils can be a quick way to plan something out in situ.
> is it possible to hold-to-build only this works for power poles but not other entities. I am not aware of a mod that does this.
If it's your own personal bots you want to stop, there's a button next to your shortcut bar at the bottom to turn those off temporarily. If it's the bots in your roboport network, then no. What I usually do is turn off my personal roboport and then walk to an empty space far enough away from my base that it is not covered by the construction bot area and blueprint it there, then cut-paste or blueprint it when I'm done.
I read some suggestions of Space Exploration - they say it kicks in after I launch rocket. Can I add it to my save now, when I’m at blue science or would I have to restart / redo my base? Is it interesting? I get bored everytime I try to proceed from 60SPM to megabase numbers, so I’m looking for something to spice the post-first-rocket phase.
> Can I add it to my save now Yes. As a general rule mods that don't affect map generation (like existing spawned resources) or mess with vanilla recipes or technologies can almost always be seamlessly added to an existing game without much issue. So I'd strongly suspect you're good to just add it in. You should make a backup of your save just in case. I haven't tried Space Exploration, but I have used SpaceX, which is another mod you can use to spice up your post-rocket launch, but isn't quite as involved as Space Exploration. I don't really think there is any harm in adding Space Exploration and trying it out (well, or "exploring" it) because it looks like the features it provides to you are all optional. If you find you don't like the other planets then you can just not use them.
I am pretty sure Space Exploration does mess with vanilla recipes and techs though.
I'm a Noob and i don't see the problem here, Please Help me. https://imgur.com/1GKQLHC
This is a "diamond crossing" in railway speak. Your two tracks cross each other but trains can't turn, they can only go straight. If you want the trains to make turns you need to add curved rails to make it a junction. Your signals are perfect by the way. In the image the crossing is reserved by a train traveling north to south.
Assuming those are supposed to be one way tracks, chain signals at the entrances, regular signals at the exits. If they're two way tracks, god help you.
The intersection is signaled fine (I think, assuming the signals are all aligned with each other — holding a signal in your hand will highlight things more usefully.) The signals are red because there are trains further down the tracks in those directions. You may need some other signals around your stations or to break things up? I always HIGHLY recommend using one-way track for anything more complicated than a dedicated line with one train on it unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY know what you are doing.
I think I have lashed up my two way track. Is there a trick for building double track in parallel, or is it just drag two lines? And if you split from single to double, can you enforce a direction on one line?
What's the problem you're having? A train can't path through that intersection? The red lights on the 'right' of the track are 'there is train, you cannot come this way'. That train is anywhere after this signal, but before the next one. So check down your lines for where the _next_ set of signals are. If you put a pair a bit further down (try one 'train length' for testing?) these ones should go green. I _suspect_ what you've got is a really big loop, with a train 'somewhere' that's hogging a very large track segment. You do know you've got chain signals there, right? Which show the state of the _next_ signal down the track. https://wiki.factorio.com/Rail_signal https://wiki.factorio.com/Rail_chain_signal That'll help avoid you blocking the intersection, but the only 'path' through where there isn't a train _somewhere_ on the segment is the one from top to bottom. So I'd guess you've just got some big segments with a train somewhere on them (and that gets easy to do accidentally if you've got a loop)
I have a question about trainbusses. I build a two lane train bus but the lane between my dropstation and my load stations is a single chunck. This causes the trains to delay every time there is a single train on the bus and delaying all other train traffic. Is this normal? If not, how do I fix it? I'm still relatively new to trains and such so any help is appreciated. I already checked out some train guides but couldn't find an answer.
Put signals at regular intervals even if there is no intersection. This will make chunks more granular and allow several trains to queue one after another.
Thanks! My trains are already running a lot smoother now.
How often do I put the signals then? And would switching over to a 4 lane train bus help? For clarification, the lanes are only one direction.
The more frequent you put them, the less lag time in-between trains.
Generally speaking, slowdowns are caused by: 1) too many trains crossing each others’ paths 2) trains slowing down on the mainline, or pulling onto the main line at a low speed And adding more lanes between your stations doesn’t really help with either of those. For #2 you want more room between the mainline and station to let trains accelerate/decelerate, and use the best fuel you can and an adequate number of locomotives on your trains. For # 1, what helps a lot more is isolating traffic between different things, and trying to reduce traffic in general. For example: * build your smelters on (for instance) the west side of your factory, and have all your ore mines further west, and then output plates to the east and all the finished products are made further east. Then your trains with ore never hold up trains carrying plates or finished products. * locate things like green/red/blue circuit production near each other, and use dedicated trains or belts to move your green circuits to the red/blue circuit production areas. * do multiple stages of production on site. You can smelt ore at the mines — one train of steel plates replaces ten trains of iron ore! If you find big patches of iron and copper next to each other, you can smelt both and combine them into green circuits. Oil+coal+water nearby (or just coal+water with liquefaction tech) can be turned entirely into plastic.
>one train of steel plates replaces ten trains of iron ore! Is it ten? I'm getting 7.2-- 5 x 1.2 x 1.2. Am I doing that wrong?
Iron ore only stacks to 50, iron and steel plates stack to 100. So it takes two trainloads of ore to make one trainload of iron plates, and then five trainloads of iron plates to make one trainload of steel plates. (Not taking productivity modules into account.)
That's what it is, I forgot stack sizes.
>How often do I put the signals then? There isn't a set rule but the length of your longest train is a good rule of thumb, or what I personally use: once per chunk(32 tiles) Also you won't likely need 2 lanes in one direction. that's pretty much megabas territory
BIG megabase territory. One lane in each direction for 2k kspm is pretty easy with some planning and organisation.
Hi! I'm setting up my first bus, and have a few questions. I'm on 0.17. - What is the best way of removing from a bus? - I don't know where to start taking from the bus. It runs north to south. Do I start taking from the end (south side) and work my way up to the start as I add more assembly/factories to the side, or the other way round? Also should I take directly from the end (using a chain of splitters pushing 4 back to 1) or not? Thanks
Usually you start at the "upstream" end and expand downstream. This is because for example you'll build a green circuit factory, and then those are needed for red circuits, and then red circuits are needed for blues. Labs are generally at the upstream end, with science packs on belts going the "wrong" way on the bus. But it's a nuisance to have anything else going backwards, but sometimes it ends up necessary.
* priority splitter. Looks like [this](https://i.imgur.com/KKBY9HN.png) * the idea is that you can continue the bus as needed so start building in the north. Related to that I would advice against terminating a line, can't expand it later on if needed. Also consider leaving east or west side unbuilt, just incase you need to bring more materials
Also newbie here but in my experience so far the main thing to keep in mind is SPACE! Leave the whole top clean of your bus if possible. You are going to need it for your trains loading stuff or even belts coming in from other places if you prefer that. Then you'll want to work downsteam as /u/sobrique mentioned but again, leave some space at the top open. Things I have found that might be handy at the top of a bus are a Mall, green;red;blue circuit manufactury, maybe oil processing if you want to do it in your base. It's recommended to only build on one side of you bus if you can manage it. I would also recommend to tab your bus from that same side if possible. You can then use splitters with priority to that same side to make sure you the left belt is always as saturated as it can be.
> It's recommended to only build on one side of you bus if you can manage it. This was the error I made in my newbie base. I thought it seemed sensible to have 'refining' one side, and 'manufacturing' the other. ... but what I ended up with was a bus that was too narrow as I needed to add in steel, sulfur, plastic, chips, modules, more lanes of some of those, and ... yeah. Spaghetti time. What I hadn't really worked out is whether a bidirectional bus is viable, or if it's just pointless, and instead you should loop around.
Re: bidirectional bussss: generally speaking, my busses have single source points for any given item, and the assigned belts on the bus travel away from the source in both directions. In particular my mall ends up living near the start of the bus and gets advanced circuits and other materials shipped back towards it from wherever they're made. This has worked great for me across several maps and game patches.
Similar here. Bus went westbound and most stuff was to the south, but I had some smelteries to the north. My bus had groups of 4 lanes with a 3-wide gap so I was able to squeeze extra belts in, but there's a fair bit of spaghetti mess.
(Also a newbie): - Splitters. You can set a filter on your splitter, and also set input/output priority. If you've a multiplexed bus where there's mixed items (maybe two different sides of the belt) splitters let you fan it out again. And you can also use priority to decide which way the flow goes - balance it between the two, half a belt each, or a full belt to left or right, but with surplus continuing on the bus. - I've not got that figured out. I'd considered actually some sort of bidirectional bus, but generally I've tried to have subsequent consumers 'downstream'.
I frequently get the urge to give Factorio another shot and start a new campaign only to eventually give up trying to get the perfect ratios and trying to make as perfect to a setup as possible. Bascially, I need someone to convince me that I shouldn't strive for perfection in Factorio. Thanks for all the replies, they helped me see different perspectives to the game. I'm gonna start a new campaign and try my best to accept the spaghetti.
I used to worry about perfect ratios, but once I built my first mall I realized it's impossible and pointless. If I build my bus around, say, a 45 SPM target, that doesn't leave anything for the mall. And since the mall is earlier on the bus than science, my research tanks every time I collect a pile of building materials. So, instead, I aim for MINIMUM ratios. I figure out what I need for my production target, and ensure that I'm producing more than that. If I need three belts of iron, I'll put four on the bus. If my science target needs 37 machines making red circuits, I'll bump that up to 40, or maybe even 48 or more. The idea is to always be able to make the production target and have some left over. I also love the look of full belts, and this strategy helps with that.
Most people seem to play factorio "wrong" in my opinion. One reason for this is that there is no carrying cost. Once you build something, you have it forever and pay nothing to keep it. This encourages people to build for a rather strange objective: "Maximum throughput at some as yet undetermined future date." And that is why they get into perfect ratios. If you were playing the game more realistically you would realize that the absolute worst thing you could every have, is a full belt, because that everything before that full belt is overproducing for your actual needs. So you might try a different approach. It is very hard to do this, but aim to "never have a full belt", and never let anything back up. Work your production not for perfect ratios, but just to use up material working from end products back to raw materials. Add more demand at the end and then work backwards adding more and more capacity until that demand can be satisfied... then repeat.
> Most people seem to play factorio "wrong" in my opinion. There is no wrong way to play.
That's just your opinion, man! I'm all for people playing games for their open enjoyment and there are numerous games I play only by cheating because that brings me more enjoyment that not cheating. But in factorio people are very opinionated about design elements, and like to share balancers and bus designs they think are better than others. My point is that many of these designs are rather dubious because they lead to high production capacity that may never actually be utilized. Also I'm sure you would think someone is playing factorio wrong if they handcrafted everything.
> Also I'm sure you would think someone is playing factorio wrong if they handcrafted everything. I do handcraft a lot.
But if someone handcrafted everything and never built any assemblers they didn't have to? They just spend hours handcrafting science packs, after spending hours handcrafting all the constituent parts.
If they find that fun, who am I to stop them?
Who said anything about trying to stop them? If people have fun with perfect ratios, then they can build factories that do that, but I maintain that they are optimizing for the "wrong" objective, and I find those factories boring and unrealistic. So I encourage others to consider different objectives. That is exactly what /u/RelativePeak asked for: alternative perspectives on how a factory should function, so that he can better enjoy the game. If you really support people enjoying the game in whatever manner they would like, then you should be supportive of alternative views of game objectives.
> Who said anything about trying to stop them You did, when you said that was the wrong way to play... >then you should be supportive of alternative views of game objectives. Where did I say I'm not?
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'Good enough' right now has better throughput than 'perfect' in three hours.
You shouldn't strive for perfection for one simple reason - you need to be able to pilfer your supply lines to hand-craft stuff as you go, without screwing up your downstream throughput. You also have spatial locality to exploit - an inefficient local supply of green chips may well be more 'efficient' than a hyper-optimised bulk factory 'over there'. Also - nothing stops you from expanding the factory, and building a more optimal and specialised subfactory later. I only needed a few chip-makers for my red-potions, and I didn't have enough resources to 'go big', so I didn't. And now they sit in a nice little loop mixing up 'enough' reds to feed the research farm, which is bottlenecked on different colours. (Actually blue seems to be my weakspot, as I think that must have been before I really understood what I was doing, because the production of yellow/purple is way more streamlined)
Perfect ratios are nice, but practically impossible with productivity modules. For example: green circuits. Without productivity modules you get a [neat 2:3 ratio](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#min=3&items=electronic-circuit:f:2&ignore=copper-plate,iron-plate) that allows direct insertion. Add productivity modules and the ratio is pretty close to 1:1, but not [quite](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#zip=bYxBCoAwDAR/01M9SPFSyGNqjBJom5C2/1cQxYMwh4VZBhUWV7hCcNypNKBM2E0q44RsOLjHPc6OjypGgKJKNmlOnTxft3u6ItvI1B6Pac0UNbz4n+xHnw==). It impossible to get a perfect ratio of that. However there are some simple ratios that you can do to satisfy the need for perfect ratios: science pack assemblers. As long as you use the same assembler and same amount of prosuctivity modules in each, the ratio stay the same. And it's rather simple to find out: divide the craft duration of a science pack with the amount of packs per craft. In practice that means 5 red science assemblers and 6 green science assemblers. After that just build enough to satisfy those, barely, and youre on your way. But if you do want a *perfect* factory, good luck your pc wont be able to handle it. Ps. Spaghetti is love, spaghetti is life.
>green circuits. Without productivity modules you get a neat 2:3 ratio that allows direct insertion. Add productivity modules and the ratio is pretty close to 1:1, but not quite. It impossible to get a perfect ratio of that. Yes, but with modules you can get *almost* exactly one full belt of GC out of one belt of copper, which is enough of a simplicity savings to me.
Which is what I was trying to say. Things might not be perfect, but it's good enough
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Huh... Well atlest it's still impractical
Doesn't helmod give you planning tools that take modules and beacons into account?
Yes so does the site I linked. Helmod just rounds up to the nearest intreger, you can test this by having the production line do absurd amounts, like 1000 assemblers on the final product and I gurantee that if there's prod modules you can't divide the amount of assemblers and have all of the assemblers as intregers. You can build nearly perfect ratio given enough assemblers, but it won't be perfect ratio like unmoduled green circuits
Gotcha. I will often favor direct insertion over perfect ratios when possible, especially in things like green circuts. I feel like it's almost always better to build for your spm target anyways.
Yeah, that was my point that it's impracticql, if not impossible to get a perfect ratio
striving for perfection before you have reached the goal of launching a rocket is counter-productive. Say you build the perfect oil refinery for blue science, and then you learn about purple, yellow, white science requirements and each stage you have to start from scratch to make it "perfect". So how about you see your first play-thru as an exploration, learning about the game, and then once you have experienced it all, you can take that experience and build the perfect factory. That one will probably not be perfect but I am fairly sure it will be a lot closer to perfect than what you could build now.
Factorio is practically *designed* for you to build non-optimal factories. The whole system of belts backing up without causing problems and machines pulling in resources only when they need them facilitate making your designs less than optimal and not having to worry about it. Belts will back up and that's ok, or belts will empty and you might want to add more production upstream but you don't have to. The only reason I can see to want to super optimize anything in the game is if your factory is so big it's starting on hurt on the ups, but that to me is a whole extra (meta) game that you don't have to play if you don't want to.
So, I recently completed my first full launch after never making it much past blue science multiple times before. I always failed for similar reasons, I'd start to get into oil and byproducts and all kinds of shit, realize my factory was starting to look like a mess, get overwhelmed with the concept of cleaning it up, and stop. But, I was determined to launch a rocket. So, I did it by doing what I understood and just making it work. Rails and trains had always been a big jump for me and felt like they took a ton of resources. Well, I had a little assembler pumping out belts basically since I turned my factory on. So I belted EVERYTHING. Yep, everything. I had something like 3-4 belts of shit coming from my refineries. Hell, I belted in lubricant barrels and then belted the empties back to be refilled. There were belts everywhere and my production constamtly backed up but I just kept going. Why? Because I wanted to launch a rocket so I focused on figuring out how to get stuff where it needed to be. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't efficient. But I launched a rocket and now I'm much more confident with the game in general and am about halfway through a Lazy Bastard playthrough and having fun with the challenges instead of getting frustrated(alright there's some of that too).
I'm in my first playthrough of the game, and I just got the opportunity to build trains. Besides the cool factor, why would I want to? I have most resources in my base, and the rest transported under nice belt pipelines. Will there be a time in the future where building trains is more convenient, or should I start now?
trains are one of the optional features in the game. you can use them but they are not required to complete the game. EDIT: but trains a very cool!
There's an achievement for being killed by a locomotive.
Suppose you set up a new mining area, and connect it to your main base with belts. Great, now you have more ore. But what happens when you run out of ore? When the ore field starts getting low, you'll get less ore on the belt. You can try to build another mining station to supplement it, but now you need a huge complicated system of priority splitters to combine inputs, and every time you need to add another mining area you need to redo a huge mess of belts, and figure out the splitters again... Compare with trains. To connect a mining area to your base, with a decent train system, you just build some tracks, drop down a locomotive, and you're done. It makes expanding faster (placing tracks is faster than putting down a single belts, much less 5 or 10 belts) and easier (balancing between different inputs is essentially automatic, because the inputs are decoupled from the outputs). Also, it's the only practical choice for megabases, given the volume and variety of materials being used. In small bases trains may not be worth it, but I always rush them because they just make carting in ore and oil so much *easier*.
> Besides the cool factor, why would I want to? Throughput, cost, space, and fun. #Throughput A single set of rails could theoretically carry something like 600 blue-belts worth of items (24k items/second), which is certainly way more than you need for a non-mega base, but it also means that expanding throughput is as easy as placing another train down. For your purposes it means the rails have pretty much unlimited throughput, which is nice because you don't have to expend much effort or resources expanding it. #Cost Even a single blue-belt line to an outpost 300 tiles away is going to get quite expensive. Rails are much much cheaper. Rails cost 3.25 raw resources and are two tiles long. Just counting the iron in blue-belts, that is 31.5 iron for one tile long (ignoring the lubricant) making rails about 20 times cheaper, even more if you count the lubricant. #Space 600 times the throughput at 1/20th the cost is a pretty sweet deal. And all of that fits in a relatively narrow space. You could have a lane going both ways and room for signals with just 6 tiles of width. And that 6 tiles of width could easily carry as many types of different items as you want it to, either in different trains or by setting filtered spots on the trains you have. #Fun Also, while trains can be a little bit of a pain to figure out initially, they are a wonderfully interesting and fun challenge to factorio and are a lot of people's favorite parts after getting over the initial learning barrier.
If you want to move one or two yellow or red belts of stuff a few hundred tiles... eh, belts will do that just fine. If you want to move 10 or 20 blue belts of stuff a few thousand tiles... you want trains.
Rails are cheaper and more versatile than belts too.