Vic plays Factorio

[Vic]

Don't start at the smelters, that's one of the worst ratios of production module to value of item produced. The best place to put modules on are:

I've seen that page but I don't think it takes the whole production chain into account? The bonuses do multiply. I'm going to put prod modules in everything anyway, might as well start at the bottom to make it simpler for me!

 

[Average Manatee]

I've seen that page but I don't think it takes the whole production chain into account?

It's only looking at one machine. The whole chain doesn't really matter.

Obviously it adds up eventually placing them everywhere, but think of it like this: it requires hundreds of modules to do all of your furnaces that way and get +40% resources, but just mining 40% more isn't that hard and its easy to just throw down another furnace line and merge it in. On the other hand with a fraction of that many modules you could get 40% more of all your sciences, all your green/red/blue circuits, and your gears, and get 40% more out of your labs. That's not only more things being added but they do compound multiplicatively so that, assuming most of your materials are going into science, you're saving far more on iron and copper than you would investing in smelters.

 

[Vic]

I've seen that page but I don't think it takes the whole production chain into account?

It's only looking at one machine. The whole chain doesn't really matter.

Obviously it adds up eventually placing them everywhere, but think of it like this: it requires hundreds of modules to do all of your furnaces that way and get +40% resources, but just mining 40% more isn't that hard and its easy to just throw down another furnace line and merge it in. On the other hand with a fraction of that many modules you could get 40% more of all your sciences, all your green/red/blue circuits, and your gears, and get 40% more out of your labs. That's not only more things being added but they do compound multiplicatively so that, assuming most of your materials are going into science, you're saving far more on iron and copper than you would investing in smelters.

In theory, yes. In reality, I'm putting production modules in everything literally right now. I just have to translate the ratios to match my current production and I should see a sizeable decrease in assemblers required. That is with beacons.

I've also researched all pre-rocket tech already. I'm just rebuilding my factory to accommodate for beacons before I go for space science.

 

[Jaedar]

8 crafting speed * 1.4 productivity = 11.2 production. Energy usage is 4.73 MW for assembler and 0.48 MW *12 Beacons = 10.49 MW total. So 1.06 production per MW. But if assume this is tiled, we should discount the beacon energy usage by how many other assemblers they affect, so instead we use 1/4th of 4 beacons and 1/2 of 8 of them, which gives us 2.4 MW for the beacons + 4.73 for assembler = 7.13 MW total. This gives us 1.57 production per MW

Base assembler is 1.25 crafting speed / .388 MW = 3.22 production per MW. 3.22/1.57 = 2.05, or a 105% power cost increase per item.

When you consider that you also need less inputs thanks to +40% production (*drastically* less for later items), modules just get even closer. Probably even pulls ahead on a number of advanced items.

Nice. And yet the main thing I think is "wow, I can barely even remember how the base game lets you stack beacons like that".

I've seen that page but I don't think it takes the whole production chain into account?

It's only looking at one machine. The whole chain doesn't really matter.

Obviously it adds up eventually placing them everywhere, but think of it like this: it requires hundreds of modules to do all of your furnaces that way and get +40% resources, but just mining 40% more isn't that hard and its easy to just throw down another furnace line and merge it in. On the other hand with a fraction of that many modules you could get 40% more of all your sciences, all your green/red/blue circuits, and your gears, and get 40% more out of your labs. That's not only more things being added but they do compound multiplicatively so that, assuming most of your materials are going into science, you're saving far more on iron and copper than you would investing in smelters.

I think Vic has a point, the chain is multiplicative, not additive. But I also entirely agree with your point that you shouldn't start with furnaces. Something like 60% of your copper tends to go to green circuit production, so putting prod modules there is more efficient than the smelters since you need a lot less modules to start with.

The only thing I didn't prod module in SE were miners, they get pretty good productivity bonus from research anyway, so it didn't feel worthwhile.

 

[Vic]

Nice. And yet the main thing I think is "wow, I can barely even remember how the base game lets you stack beacons like that".

I've read that they will change the beacons so that it will be closer like it is in SE with the expansion. I don't think the beacon spam is pretty either but it's pretty cool to get all that extra oomph out of approx. the same space used! Space is kind of a concern with a bot only base.

 

[Jaedar]

Nice. And yet the main thing I think is "wow, I can barely even remember how the base game lets you stack beacons like that".

I've read that they will change the beacons so that it will be closer like it is in SE with the expansion. I don't think the beacon spam is pretty either but it's pretty cool to get all that extra oomph out of approx. the same space used! Space is kind of a concern with a bot only base.

The changes in SA will be pretty minor though, but it should be a good medium. SE beacons are better looking than vanilla, but it's still not very interesting to just make sure everything is hit by a single beacon as you tile. SA will hopefully make optimal builds more varied since at some point you might be better off putting in more assemblers instead of more beacons, but I guess we will see.

 

[Vic]

My eyes hurt.

Spoiler

 

[Vic]

Ay, ay, ay. I underestimated just how much production and power is required to produce modules. 750MW is not enough to keep just two measly speed3 assemblers going. Then again, those assemblers require a ton of circuits. They eat up pretty much all of the assemblers on the screen. That's crazy! There is no way I can maintain a base that could be called compact in any way, shape or form trying to go for 1k SPM. It's going to be yuge!

Spoiler

 

[Vic]

I'm starting to wrap my head around modules and beacons. Basically, I'm using beacons with speed modules to offset the speed reduction from the productivity modules. The prod. modules are very nice to have because they give you free resources. Now, I could just build more assemblers to offset their speed debuff, but that would increase the size of my factory by a lot compared to using beacons. Also, it's actually more efficient in terms of crafting cost to use beacons, because it takes less modules to achieve the same effect.

I'm up to 1.4GW solar power now and I think I want to make a nuclear plant. I've also built my first train a while ago and I want to play around with it a bit. I'm currently 82 hours into my game and I haven't launched a rocket yet. I keep getting sidetracked by cool stuff I could do to optimize my factory. Though I could've launched a rocket 30 hours ago, I'm still in the process of rebuilding my base with prod. modules and I'm not yet ready to continue with research.

I've found a use for the Spidertron as well. I haven't really used him much and just parked him at an iron ore patch and kind of forgot about it. But with the remote I can keep him near my solar panels and conveniently build more sets of solar by dragging a snap-to-grid blueprint along the edges of my existing block.

Spoiler

 

[Andnjord]

I've found a use for the Spidertron as well.

That's basically the way to use them once you get real big. In my "megabase" (I think it was set to 2.5K SPM Just checked and it's 1.5K only) I had a couple of landfiller-trons, three builder-trons and one fighter-tron, all with completely different load-outs.

 

[Andnjord]

You made me redownload the game to check my old save, damn you Vic! Turns out I also have a couple of garbage-tron, why did I make those rather than just nuke stuff I do not know.

EDIT: Jesus christ I understand how the Mechanicus of W40k feel. It works, why I don't know but the factory does work. I can copy and paste some stuff and hope it doesn't break but I barely understand how anything works.

 

[Vic]

Working on my first train connection between my base and a Uranium mine.

Spoiler

 

[Hellraiser]

When the train departs the station, it only needs the signal on its right. Likewise I think the tanker wagon is obscuring another signal you could delete that happens to be to the train's left.

I think the pathing did not mess-up and the train correctly uses the tracks as one directional ones because the station allows only one direction travel.

 

[Vic]

When the train departs the station, it only needs the signal on it's right.

Yup, it's working now. Trains are fun!

Spoiler

 

[Andnjord]

Given this is a single tracked line and you won’t ever need more than one train running for uranium production I think you don’t even need any signals, at least for now.

 

[Vic]

Given this is a single tracked line and you won’t ever need more than one train running for uranium production I think you don’t even need any signals, at least for now.

That's true but I want to go for a more modular design and create specialized factories around the map and connect them by train. The bot swarm is making my eyes bleed. Right now I'm working on a nuclear power plant which I'm building a bit to the side and going to hook up to my train network. Next up would be to create an iron smelting station, etc.

 

[Vic]

Trains are... hard? My first intersection. Work in progress.

Spoiler

Update:
Yeah, no. I'm not going to figure this out on my own. Time to watch YouTube tutorials!

Spoiler

Update 2:
And improved signaling.

Spoiler

 

[Vic]

My first small train network. Do trains they said. They're not that hard they said. Feels like I've been cramming for an exam At least I can now ride around in my train and admire my work, even if it's a short ride around the block.

Spoiler

 

[Andnjord]

Attaboy, this will be the start of something beautiful. Few things in gaming beat the sight of your first ore train unloading its cargo onto your belts precisely filling them, then seeing this stream of ore get processed into plates also precisely filling up their belts like a cascading river all the way to your rocket.

 

[Vic]

Citizens celebrate! First train arrives at Iron Mine I. Or, well kind of. Haven't finished the rails yet. But the railway empire is growing!

Spoiler

 

[Raghar]

Congratulation for whipping yourself by playing this.

 

[Vic]

Working on my iron smelting station.

Spoiler

 

[Vic]

Got bored. The end.

 

[None]

At least we got trains.

 

[Average Manatee]

Got bored. The end.

You could probably finish launching the rocket with like 20 mins of work. 10 minutes of work if using bots.