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

[Infinitron]

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-433


https://af.gog.com/en/game/factorio_space_age?as=1649904300

 

[Average Manatee]

Man I thought I was gonna have till 2025 to finish up Space Exploration.

Now I dunno what to do. Think I'll try a full vanilla DW/Marathon game while I wait for all the QoL mods to update. I'm assuming Space Exploration is going to be updated at some point since there's a lot of unique features between it and Space Age, anyone know if that's the case?

Also looks like they greatly improved the mod page with tags and stuff to help sort through it all.

 

[Andnjord]

I'm assuming Space Exploration is going to be updated at some point since there's a lot of unique features between it and Space Age, anyone know if that's the case?

Space Exploration is currently on version 0.6 (crazy to think it’s technically still in early alpha), version 0.7, the compatibility patch for Factorio 2.0 is due to be out in a couple of weeks (Earendel, the mod’s creator was hired to work on Space Age, he’s been busy). After that it will 0.8 soon (tm) with the big new features, this one might or might not use features from Space Age, apparently the mod’s creator is still unsure.

 

[Average Manatee]

Huh, they removed the expensive mode thing as an option. It's what made stuff like gear and steel take 2x as much inputs to craft. So marathon is now just 4x tech cost.

What's interesting is that death world marathon still has a bit weaker biter settings than death world alone. So the harsher biters of death world might theoretically make it as hard as death world marathon now. Hard to say, obviously research is a lot of your pollution but so is all the basic infrastructure.

 

[Average Manatee]

Looks like they tweaked map gen a bit. Never seen huge lakes like this before. I expect that if you zoom out far enough its still the same random noise generator that will look like a random mess, but at least at non-megabase scale this feels a lot better. There's also a lot of chokepoints now.

Huge lakes are really nice for deathworld because you can use the whole lake for pollution clearing and spread pollution lightly around a bunch of nests, who all then take the shortest path around the lake. Which means only needing to defend two sections against light waves for comparatively huge pollution dissipation.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Yep, it's

Spoiler

Ceres!

Crossing my fingers for RTS AI.

Yes, I bit the bullet and enlisted in beta testers.
Join! Die! (due to a lack of sleep)

Looks like they tweaked map gen a bit.

Earendel had tweaked it a lot. It's also much faster now.

 

[Average Manatee]

So, when it comes to planetary travel, are we fine to just touch down on a planet with next to nothing aside from a power armor suit and build from scratch? Or are there major resources that can only be found on Nauvis that will need to be ferried in like clockwork to keep things running?

Gonna try and go for the achievement involving researching a tech with another planet's packs before unlocking yellow or purple science. I'm a little wary that I'll need to have everything at the Nauvis base air-tight when it comes to self-sufficiency and defense, and I won't be able to easily utilize a bot network (no requester chests) to manage things from afar, nor artillery to just curbstomp every biter in a 10 mile radius.

EDIT: Ohh fucking kill me, you need another planet's research for cliff explosives now.

 

[Hellraiser]

Speaking of air-tight, I don't need artillery but I sure as hell could use logistics network to make my base b*ter proof before I fuck off to space. You need orbital science for that now.

Also Depleted Uranium Rounds can still be researched without going off to space, if you're really paranoid about a b*hemoth or what it was called spawning while you're figuring out how to avoid spaghetti or local FUN on one of the new planets. Unless they nerfed it hard that and a few lasers per fort should be enough to have a factory b*ter proof.

EDIT: Ohh fucking kill me, you need another planet's research for cliff explosives now.

Seems like a fairly easy chain as the pre-requirements are just "build building" and then 500 Vulcanus science. The again depends how much resources those Vulcanus buildings take, or rather how hard it is to ship them in (costs seem ok-ish, not nuclear reactor/centrifuge high, more like 10 steel and something else, so probably not that hard to get it up and running once you land), I had a bit of a shock yesterday when I looked at the resource costs for just getting a basic platform up and running in orbit (60 foundations with each being 20 steel, so 1200 fucking steel!).

 

[Average Manatee]

Speaking of air-tight, I don't need artillery but I sure as hell could use logistics network to make my base b*ter proof before I fuck off to space. You need orbital science for that now.

Ohh, I hadn't checked. That's actually kind of good for me then

Also Depleted Uranium Rounds can still be researched without going off to space, if you're really paranoid about a b*hemoth or what it was called spawning while you're figuring out how to avoid spaghetti or local FUN on one of the new planets. Unless they nerfed it hard that and a few lasers per fort should be enough to have a factory b*ter proof.

Depleted Uranium is yellow science, achievement is avoiding purple and yellow science until I'm researching on another planet.

Lasers + Efficiency modules on everything + some repair bots should be good enough though I suspect. The achievement for not using lasers and solar panels finishes just with a rocket launch, with that done and a very low-pollution base there should be basically no attacks or at worst very very weak ones. I don't feel like setting up a full perimeter defense with resupply stations and all that crap.

Seems like a fairly easy chain as the pre-requirements are just "build building" and then 500 Vulcanus science. The again depends how much resources those Vulcanus buildings take, or rather how hard it is to ship them in (costs seem ok-ish, not nuclear reactor/centrifuge high, more like 10 steel and something else, so probably not that hard to get it up and running once you land), I had a bit of a shock yesterday when I looked at the resource costs for just getting a basic platform up and running in orbit (60 foundations with each being 20 steel, so 1200 fucking steel!).

Still WAY later than blue science. Cliff Explosives used to be one of the first things I made upon getting blue science automated.

 

[Andnjord]

Setting up the proper space sciences is proceeding apace, one mistaken spaghetti belt at a time!

First, Energy science. I thought I had designed it to handle all four tiers at once despite not having researched lvl4 yet, but it turns out one of the final data cards takes a previous one as an ingredient and it's the most annoying one to produce. So I'll have to redesign the final tier.

Next, Astronomical science. It quickly devolved into a mess partway through tier 2 because of recursive recipes, so I decided to leave it at that for now before remaking it later on.

And the last one I've put together, Material science. A lot easier once I decided that in Space, space is infinite. Also no recursive elements made it very straightforward. Lots of scraps to recycle though.

THE SPACE FACTORY MUST GROW!

 

[Hellraiser]

Hot damn it took a long while to build up the platform to produce space science, it's a pain in the ass before the logistics network is researched.

Now I'm busy building all the drone node thingies (forgot how those are called) on Nauvis to make the base babysit itself, start mining a new copper deposit (and build a train network, since I didn't build even a single rail line before getting the platform up) since I'll need even more of the damn thing to expand the platform and after that I guess I'm off to Fulgora to get the tesla turret to be able to electrocute sp*tter swarms.

 

[Hydro]

Damn this game looks great, wish there were more games with this kind of aesthetics.

Can anybody explain in few words how’s it played, what’s the main appeal? Can’t be arsed into watching youtubes these days.

 

[Kruyurk]

Damn this game looks great, wish there were more games with this kind of aesthetics.

Can anybody explain in few words how’s it played, what’s the main appeal? Can’t be arsed into watching youtubes these days.

There is a demo on steam. If you enjoy your time with the demo, you will enjoy the rest.

 

[Hellraiser]

Damn this game looks great, wish there were more games with this kind of aesthetics.

Can anybody explain in few words how’s it played, what’s the main appeal? Can’t be arsed into watching youtubes these days.

Main appeal? Optimization autism, iterative improvement wankery, seeing the factory grow exponentially to ridiculous size (it must GROW) and just watching things move along conveyor belts in a neat and orderly way. Also it has trains and you can screw around with logic circuits for autist street cred, yo.

How it's played? Apart from the first 5 to 15 minutes where you need to mine shit by hand a bit, move ore by hand to furnaces etc. you mostly lay down conveyor belts, robotic arms and assemblers fed by all those (and feeding all those for other assemblers) and try not make a mess that you have to tear down and redesign again and again as the factory continues to grow. From time time you alt-tab and read codex threads, facepalming at the retarded takes of newfags while hoping Jesus returns soon and purges the whole planet, all while waiting for mid-late game research to finish, then you build some more conveyor belt spaghetti to produce the new stuff you just unlocked.

Also at some point the pollution from your factory starts attracting alien bugs from nearby nests that want to kill your shit, so your expansion is limited by your ability to plop down defenses and feeding them with ammo with more conveyor belts. Later on you get trains and drones to make things easier (read: avoid conveyor belt spaghetti). Eventually you can nuke the alien bugs or shell them with artillery for their sins against progress. Or you can just drive a tank and blast them with a cannon (just don't get stuck on a rock when chased by a swarm, reverse gear is slow).

 

[Average Manatee]

Spoiler

About ready to launch my rocket. Decided I'll go with Nuclear to wrap up my power needs. It's basically zero pollution like solar, and shouldn't hurt UPS much at all with the new fluid system, so I think its your ideal option?

Also experimenting with the quality system. Got a big stack of higher quality plates and iron. I'm guessing the meta will be to use it on your armor first (according to wiki a quality level 2 armor gains +2 in both dimensions to their inventory size which is almost upgrading power armor 1 to 2). Then just stuff a bunch of upgraded productivity modules into your labs?

Did manage to crash my power network when I changed out efficiency to quality on my furnaces. Thankfully I wasn't in a ton of danger since all my defenses are turrets hand-loaded with 50 piercing mags each, but I needed my 2k mag stockpile to fight my way down to the south west and get the next coal source. One more thing I like about the new map gen is that it seems to place some dense small resource plots so that you're guaranteed some resources for a long time, just not anything you can fill a full belt with.

 

[Average Manatee]

Finally, UNLIMITED POWER

Spoiler

Definitely way more convenient than needing to build approximately 2,000 solar panels per nuclear reactor, ontop of battery storage.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'm now convinced that Warptorio wasn't actually scaling with the zone number all along, making it a race against the clock. It was scaling with the tech I've unlocked. The very next warp after researching the thing that builds an actual, destroyable warp engine on the surface, I get zapped to this clusterfuck:

Cool. Thanks game. I didn't want to make any progress anyways. This is also one warp after I finished researching nuclear power. I was going to make the centrifuge and plant (I've got a few thousand uranium ore stockpiled already) but the game warped me out early. Also, I'm out of steam and water. So yeah. Guess I'll find out what happens when you let the warp reactor get eaten, because I doubt I have the ammo to survive that shit for 9 minutes and I don't think hand crafting it is going to keep pace.

 

[Average Manatee]

Prep advice if you go to Vulcanus

Spoiler

Go with a builder armor setup. I went with 8 laser defenses expecting some serious combat from the start. There isn't any, and the enemy you eventually have to defeat has 100% immunity to lasers. You *can* take more than just your armor with you if you put it on the ship and jettison it onto the planet, but I find that kind of cheesy, it would be trivial to bring over a nuclear reactor and a full bot network and they clearly limited what you could carry yourself with the intention of making you start from scratch

EDIT:

Spoiler

OK I may be stuck. Their HP regen is 2,400 HP/sec, along with 50% physical resistance so 4,800 DPS just to overcome their regen. A dozen turrets with tier 5 upgraded piercing ammo does nothing to their HP bar it regens so fast, and even a densely packed minefield does nothing either. I'm at a loss for what to do. Uranium ammo could do it but I don't have it researched (yellow) and there's no uranium around anyway.

 

[Hellraiser]

I'm slowly building my second platform meant to take me to Fulgora (the first one is meant to be just a orbital factory), of course I got sidetracked by improving the factory on Nauvis and plugging all the new holes in the perimeter the b*ters started discovering (the cunts even wrecked my rocket silo ). At the very least I got so much stuff to do that for a change I don't need to be AFK, while waiting for the enriched uranium to pile up to the bare minimum needed for the Kovarex Process Enrichment and building a new enrichment loop automation setup using the new "read/count from whole belt" signal feature.

The expansion pack really needs an advanced start scenario, it takes a looong time to be ready. Also honestly I hope there's some toggle that b*ters don't setup new colonies while you're offworld or tone down the attacks (well I guess lower polution because you're not researching/building shit and thus replenishing stockpiles with production helps).

Prep advice if you go to Vulcanus

Spoiler

Go with a builder armor setup. I went with 8 laser defenses expecting some serious combat from the start. There isn't any, and the enemy you eventually have to defeat has 100% immunity to lasers. You *can* take more than just your armor with you if you put it on the ship and jettison it onto the planet, but I find that kind of cheesy, it would be trivial to bring over a nuclear reactor and a full bot network and they clearly limited what you could carry yourself with the intention of making you start from scratch

EDIT:

Spoiler

OK I may be stuck. Their HP regen is 2,400 HP/sec, along with 50% physical resistance so 4,800 DPS just to overcome their regen. A dozen turrets with tier 5 upgraded piercing ammo does nothing to their HP bar it regens so fast, and even a densely packed minefield does nothing either. I'm at a loss for what to do. Uranium ammo could do it but I don't have it researched (yellow) and there's no uranium around anyway.

I checked this and apparently the following are suggested poison capsules (apparently it stacks, but shouldn't be used alone), destroyer drones (curious, never used them), tank armed with uranium shells (apparently it can solo even a big demolisher if you kite it, small ones are piss easy supposedly) or luring it into a very dense block of turrets with AP (red) rounds.

It also seems to have low electrical resistance so possibly the tesla turret from Fulgora might work decently.

Per the FFF blogpost the player is meant to mine-and-run the tungsten before you can kill them (go figure, they're an obvious Dune homage, harvesters in Dune also mined and ran). But where's the fun in running with the loot?

Someone speculated ramming a high speed train into it might also work, finally a use for nuclear rocket fuel trains.

 

[Andnjord]

It's basically zero pollution like solar, and shouldn't hurt UPS much at all with the new fluid system, so I think its your ideal option?

Nuclear vs solar is more of a mega base concern where you need 10+ GW of power. For a normal base you shouldn’t need so much power that it would be a problem. That much so for the base game at least, no idea how it is for SA though.

 

[Average Manatee]

I checked this and apparently the following are suggested poison capsules (apparently it stacks, but shouldn't be used alone), destroyer drones (curious, never used them), tank armed with uranium shells (apparently it can solo even a big demolisher if you kite it, small ones are piss easy supposedly) or luring it into a very dense block of turrets with AP (red) rounds.

Spoiler

Poison is a fucking joke at 8 DPS, I'd need to stack hundreds. Uranium anything is off limits. Destroyer Drones are also yellow science and only have 20 DPS which means 200 to break their regen. Right now Red Turrets are the only thing that could possibly overcome their regen since they have about 500 base DPS each. Problem is that as soon as a turret starts shooting at the worm it runs there and kills it, I can't find a way to lure them through a line of turrets. Maybe if I built the turrets on the very edge of their patrol limit.

Also per the FFF you're meant to mine-and-run the tungsten before you can kill them.

Been doing that but its a real headache to set up and tear down a mining setup after like 100 ore mined.

It's basically zero pollution like solar, and shouldn't hurt UPS much at all with the new fluid system, so I think its your ideal option?

Nuclear vs solar is more of a mega base concern where you need 10+ GW of power. For a normal base you shouldn’t need so much power that it would be a problem. That much so for the base game at least, no idea how it is for SA though.

But that was with the awful previous fluid calculations that really hurt UPS. The new ones are simplified and shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Jaedar]

Not reading thread. Just built space platform, a few seconds after 6 hours of playtime. The real space age begins here.

 

[Average Manatee]

Its funny, space science is actually really easy now, basically free in fact, it just has a really high startup cost.

 

[Average Manatee]

Spoiler

christ, that was a lot of work. Definitely do not come here without uranium ammo.

Fun fact: with level 5 shooting speed tech these turrets consume 168 magazines a second.

 

[Average Manatee]

The expansion pack really needs an advanced start scenario, it takes a looong time to be ready. Also honestly I hope there's some toggle that b*ters don't setup new colonies while you're offworld or tone down the attacks (well I guess lower polution because you're not researching/building shit and thus replenishing stockpiles with production helps).

Unfortunately no, enemy expansion still occurs along with evolution. What I did was add some laser turrets to my rails (no walls, I'm lazy) and just ran them out a bit. Without pollution all you get are enemy expansion groups, which are annoying, if 3-4 go for the same spot the laser turrets will eventually die. So far I've lost 2 or 3. I should be able to get back in time I think despite the lack of a network to repair things. Hopefully with some automation to bring back research packs too.

Spoiler