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LordSaturn
Aug 12, 2007

sadly unfunny

Sarrisan posted:



Babies first science factory. This game is fascinating, even though I am quite sure I'm terrible at it (Doesn't help that I skipped the tutorial and only just bothered to check the controls an hour ago).

On the other hand, experimentation and careful optimizing is really fun. I think I demolished and rebuilt my iron process about a dozen times so far as I keep figuring out better ways to do it.

Oh god, backwash loops. That was like five factories ago for me :shepface:

I'm finding my motivation to finish my current factory waning. Oh well, My money's in, I'm sure this'll be just as phenomenal when I come back to it.

My favorite thing not explained in the tutorials is that the ALT key toggles icons of what is in containers and what assemblers are programmed to produce. Handy in game and makes a much better screenshot.

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Pornographic Memory
Dec 17, 2008

LordSaturn posted:

Oh god, backwash loops. That was like five factories ago for me :shepface:

I'm finding my motivation to finish my current factory waning. Oh well, My money's in, I'm sure this'll be just as phenomenal when I come back to it.

My favorite thing not explained in the tutorials is that the ALT key toggles icons of what is in containers and what assemblers are programmed to produce. Handy in game and makes a much better screenshot.

You can also go into the options to enable the ALT view to show which direction your inserters are facing. Makes for less pretty screenshots, but it's pretty helpful for diagnosing why some parts of your supply chains are mysteriously unproductive.

Sarrisan
Oct 9, 2012

LordSaturn posted:

Oh god, backwash loops. That was like five factories ago for me :shepface:

I'm finding my motivation to finish my current factory waning. Oh well, My money's in, I'm sure this'll be just as phenomenal when I come back to it.

My favorite thing not explained in the tutorials is that the ALT key toggles icons of what is in containers and what assemblers are programmed to produce. Handy in game and makes a much better screenshot.

Huh. That is useful. Here's that same factory, not much has changed since.



Basically I did it one step at a time, going "okay, I need this and this... and then a few of those, and drat, I didn't leave enough room, maybe I'll just snake a belt over here... yeah, okay, that works..."

Alkydere
Jun 7, 2010
Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.



Sarrisan posted:

Huh. That is useful. Here's that same factory, not much has changed since.



Basically I did it one step at a time, going "okay, I need this and this... and then a few of those, and drat, I didn't leave enough room, maybe I'll just snake a belt over here... yeah, okay, that works..."

Just you wait until you figure out that you can have 2 items on the same belt. Then your mind (and your layout) will explode. For example, you could easily have a single belt feeding both red and green beakers to those labs.

Also Backwash loops are nice and pretty but really not needed.

Sarrisan
Oct 9, 2012
I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around all the possibilities, honestly. I don't see myself getting tired of this anytime soon.

EDIT: And I just built my first car, promptly ramming it right into the engine assembler. This game :allears:

Sarrisan fucked around with this message at 23:36 on May 16, 2014

Renaissance Robot
Oct 10, 2010

Bite my furry metal ass
Just started messing around with red/green wires and smart inserters, this poo poo be fun yo. Having my science assemblers automatically shut down when I've worked up a buffer of ~1000 so that I don't have a bus belt full of worthless beakers behind a clogged up chest is most excellent.

It should even work with multiple chest setups to maintain high throughput, since the item count is based on how many are in the network, not how many are in one particular chest (I am explaining this badly, screenshots tomorrow)

Pornographic Memory
Dec 17, 2008

Alkydere posted:

Just you wait until you figure out that you can have 2 items on the same belt. Then your mind (and your layout) will explode. For example, you could easily have a single belt feeding both red and green beakers to those labs.

Also Backwash loops are nice and pretty but really not needed.

I tried messing around with two items/one belt layouts but if you use splitters (and how can you not?) they'll start loving it up when your production chains get backed up, since if one side of the splitter is completely full, it'll dump everything onto the other belt (which is good) except it'll put products on a random side (the bad part), instead of just one side. In my current game I've switched largely to doing one item per belt line, because this way I can let particular items build up as much as I want without holding up production.

Rapacity
Sep 12, 2007
Grand
I've got this creepy feeling splitters eat stuff but I can't be bothered to test it.

TheFluff
Dec 13, 2006

FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Pornographic Memory posted:

I tried messing around with two items/one belt layouts but if you use splitters (and how can you not?) they'll start loving it up when your production chains get backed up, since if one side of the splitter is completely full, it'll dump everything onto the other belt (which is good) except it'll put products on a random side (the bad part), instead of just one side. In my current game I've switched largely to doing one item per belt line, because this way I can let particular items build up as much as I want without holding up production.

This little construct moves belt contents to one side only:



My first red/green science factory layout had zero splitters in it, but then again it only fed three labs or so. Still, with sufficiently crazy belt designs, splitters aren't strictly necessary. Just run your one belt with <resource> past every single factory that needs it. :v:

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 01:13 on May 17, 2014

Breetai
Nov 6, 2005

🥄Mah spoon is too big!🍌
Well, I'm pretty sure this game just gave me legit autism. Thanks, thread.



It's all so pretty and orderly.


Centralised 'Christmas Tree' branching seems the way to go. If I need to up production on my factories I have the option of extending the input and the output lines away from the centre, and both the Iron and Copper mines feed outwards to furnaces that feed inwards so I can just extend that line if I need more production of raw materials.

This loving game.

Gotdammy
Feb 17, 2014
Just wait until you're halfway through the game and decide to scrap everything you have and try to fit it all into the tiniest space possible "because flying robots".

Filthy Monkey
Jun 25, 2007

Having a good time here with a harder than normal start. Compared to my last couple bases, which generally never got attacked, I am pretty close to multiple nests here, and have been attacked constantly since the start. Even with efficiency modules in everything, I am still getting attacked.


Had to get walls and gun turrets up early, and needed to do a lot of ammo restocking. Getting laser turrets up was a big relief. My actual base is kind of a mess, and I am not sure where I can find the room to place a good solar farm. Dumping coal boilers would definitely help.


I should probably switch to electric furnaces now that I am flush with efficiency modules, but I have a coal line snaking across my base feeding the smelters. In reality I am sure my entire base should be stripped down and rebuilt. I was kind of lazy with the layout to get green science, as I just wanted to get it fast. My previous bases had better thought out layouts.


Can't decide whether or not to staple blue beaker production on to my current factory, or to just tear the whole thing down and start again.

Still love the game, and can't stop playing.

Renaissance Robot
Oct 10, 2010

Bite my furry metal ass
Everybody seems to be using waaay too many science assemblers for the number of labs they have, two each of red and green will happily feed anything up to 10 labs. Assuming you're using basic assemblers, your production rate should be around 12 and 10/minute respectively, and after the first few easy researches everything takes either 30 or 60 seconds to complete, so if you're using buffer chests as well to compensate for the faster/hungrier ones your line should have no trouble keeping up)

e/ vv I keep forgetting lab efficiency upgrades are a thing :shobon:

Renaissance Robot fucked around with this message at 10:01 on May 17, 2014

Filthy Monkey
Jun 25, 2007

Depends entirely what you are researching, as they have different cycle times, and what sort of science lab efficiency bonus you have. My three assemblers of each type can't keep up with six labs while I researching character logistics slots right now. I have the second lab efficiency too.

You can see the input lines aren't starved.

Bhodi
Dec 9, 2007

Oh, it's just a cat.
Pillbug

Filthy Monkey posted:

I should probably switch to electric furnaces now that I am flush with efficiency modules, but I have a coal line snaking across my base feeding the smelters. In reality I am sure my entire base should be stripped down and rebuilt. I was kind of lazy with the layout to get green science, as I just wanted to get it fast. My previous bases had better thought out layouts.

I'm not sure why anyone would ever use electric furnaces. They're bigger, suck power, and you've got more solid fuel than you know what to do with during plastic/lubricant refinement to shove into steel furnaces. The electricity savings alone are worth avoiding them.

It'd be nice if they smelted at 3.0 to make them at least somewhat desirable if you've got massive amounts of power.


Also, just made the airplane. I want more missions! :argh:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Bhodi posted:

I'm not sure why anyone would ever use electric furnaces. They're bigger, suck power, and you've got more solid fuel than you know what to do with during plastic/lubricant refinement to shove into steel furnaces. The electricity savings alone are worth avoiding them.

It'd be nice if they smelted at 3.0 to make them at least somewhat desirable if you've got massive amounts of power.


Also, just made the airplane. I want more missions! :argh:

Because it saves on pollution. A Steel Furnace pollutes more than the electricity generation for an Electric Furnace, even if you're only using steam power.

VictualSquid
Feb 29, 2012

Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.
I do like electric furnaces because with them I don't have to carry coal everywhere.

With my latest factory I even went with just iron, copper and plastic on my main lines. When I need steel, I just put in an electric furnace.

Luminaflare
Sep 23, 2010

No one man
should have all that
POWER BEYOND MEASURE


Are there any mods for nuclear tech? Seems like it would lend itself pretty well to this game with having to manage cooling, gathering radioactive material and having to dispose the radioactive waste somewhere.

It would be especially amusing if radiation had a chance of super sizing a biter Godzilla style.

Sumac
Sep 5, 2006

It doesn't matter now, come on get happy

Bhodi posted:

I'm not sure why anyone would ever use electric furnaces. They're bigger, suck power, and you've got more solid fuel than you know what to do with during plastic/lubricant refinement to shove into steel furnaces. The electricity savings alone are worth avoiding them.

It'd be nice if they smelted at 3.0 to make them at least somewhat desirable if you've got massive amounts of power.


Also, just made the airplane. I want more missions! :argh:

You don't need an extra belt and loaders for coal/fuel, and best of all you can install modules in them. With the right modules they are much faster than steel furnaces.

mirarant
Dec 18, 2012

Post or die

Filthy Monkey posted:

Depends entirely what you are researching, as they have different cycle times, and what sort of science lab efficiency bonus you have. My three assemblers of each type can't keep up with six labs while I researching character logistics slots right now. I have the second lab efficiency too.

You can see the input lines aren't starved.


If you remove that last belt piece at the bottom you won't have a problem with the last inserters missing those beakers at the bottom :eng101:

e: applies to every belt in the picture!

Pornographic Memory
Dec 17, 2008
I just got my first rail line going. I think the best part is simply that I can hitch a ride on the train whenever it pulls into the station so I can get to my mining outpost.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
Is it normal for biter nest clusters to be enormous with like 50-100 spawners?

How do you kill that? Flamethrowers and power armor?

VictualSquid
Feb 29, 2012

Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

Is it normal for biter nest clusters to be enormous with like 50-100 spawners?

How do you kill that? Flamethrowers and power armor?
No, that is not normal. Did that nest sit for hours in your pollution area?

The best way to kill large nests seems to be power armor and armor piercing auto shotgun.

Sumac
Sep 5, 2006

It doesn't matter now, come on get happy

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

Is it normal for biter nest clusters to be enormous with like 50-100 spawners?

How do you kill that? Flamethrowers and power armor?

It can happen sometimes, but I don't think it's too common on default worlds. If it's not too far away, I'd recommend setting up a thick wall and a bunch of laser turrets nearby, then doing drive-bys with a combat shotgun and piercing ammo. With that, you can drive up to a spawner, kill it in 2-4 shots, then drive back to the fort you built to deal with the biters that come after you. When they're gone and you repair everything, you can go back in for a second pass. Running up in power armor might work, but it's a little risky since with ~100 spawners you could get overwhelmed quickly.

When I do that I usually load up my power armor with a ton of laser defense modules and no shields at all to help out a bit.

Pornographic Memory
Dec 17, 2008
Oh god. I've finally got a logistic network with logistic robots going and I just want to replace all my belts with a gigantic cloud of logistic robots and chests. My layout is a loving mess that I don't even know how to untangle though, and I'm on a peninsula that makes defense easily but heavily limits my space. On the other hand the logistic network means I can start dispersing my factories a bit and generally not giving a gently caress about location since I don't need to worry about laying belts out to the new ones.

LordSaturn
Aug 12, 2007

sadly unfunny

Pornographic Memory posted:

Oh god. I've finally got a logistic network with logistic robots going and I just want to replace all my belts with a gigantic cloud of logistic robots and chests. My layout is a loving mess that I don't even know how to untangle though, and I'm on a peninsula that makes defense easily but heavily limits my space. On the other hand the logistic network means I can start dispersing my factories a bit and generally not giving a gently caress about location since I don't need to worry about laying belts out to the new ones.

Logistic robots have lovely bandwidth. Only use them for stuff that doesn't get used up very quickly.

I Greyhound
Apr 22, 2008

MusicKrew Dawn Patrol
This is a magical game where you can start a level at 7 pm, and then by magic it's after midnight and oh god I should get some sleep, but I really want to place a few more accumulators and really need to plan out the rail route.

Evilreaver
Feb 26, 2007

GEORGE IS GETTIN' AUGMENTED!
Dinosaur Gum
Construction robots and accumulators go together like iron gears and copper plates. The best part is you can place blueprints from maximum zoom out, you don't have to run all over the gently caress to place things.

I don't like how ghost buildings go bad, though. I'd prefer if I could just ghost out an expansion and have the bots just get around to it when the buildings come in.

They could also use portable bot antenna. Go bot-walkin.

Stevefin
Sep 30, 2013



My first fully (nearly) automated set up. not very pretty to look at compared to others. But this is the first working one where I did not gently caress up something and only find out after it was too late to fix it

BromanderData
Mar 20, 2013

Stroke it with me

The Chosen One

Bhodi posted:

I'm not sure why anyone would ever use electric furnaces. They're bigger, suck power, and you've got more solid fuel than you know what to do with during plastic/lubricant refinement to shove into steel furnaces. The electricity savings alone are worth avoiding them.

I started using them so I'd only have to not mess up coal getting to my boilers.

And well I still use them now because I like not having to transport fuel or coal to them.

Filthy Monkey
Jun 25, 2007

It is messy, but cleaning it up can come later. As you get more experience you'll get better at laying things out too.

I actually just started a fresh game. I restarted until I got a desert start, as I like the increased contrast against the ground.
Kind of a neat little area I decided to haul up in. I am taking it slow and playing defensively, since I don't have any trees to buffer the pollution to the nearby bases.


I walled up and turretted up early. The exposed entrance to my base has the three groups of pillboxed turrets. Should be good enough to catch people trying to come in. The other areas are walled. My (pretty small) pollution has already reached a nest to the south, resulting in attacks.


I built more power infrastructure than I will need for a while. I find it less of a hassle to just start with something like this though. The boilers are only fired up as needed anyway, so it isn't like you are constantly wasting fuel to power all of the generators.


This is the only copper inside my secured-off base. Definitely going to need to procure more. I still haven't really mastered trains, and figure I will give that a try. Find some copper somewhere else and haul it in.


I have a couple of sources of iron. More than I have of copper. Still, neither one is exactly the motherload. I am sure I will have to go out into the wastes.


My plan is to run the main production line straight up the middle, towards that group of oil. You can see on the map in the first picture. Provided I can secure some more resources, I think this should be a fun base.


BromanderData posted:

I started using them so I'd only have to not mess up coal getting to my boilers.

And well I still use them now because I like not having to transport fuel or coal to them.
They are an upgrade for sure. The biggest thing is that they have two module slots. It is pretty fun going green, with just solar polar, accumulators, electric furnaces, and efficiency modules in everything with a slot.

Edit: Just finished getting my red-green line up. Need to get trains and laser turrets. I won't be able to progress much if I can't get some more resources.

Filthy Monkey fucked around with this message at 08:22 on May 18, 2014

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin

Stevefin posted:



My first fully (nearly) automated set up. not very pretty to look at compared to others. But this is the first working one where I did not gently caress up something and only find out after it was too late to fix it

There's a few things you can do that'll really simplify things for you.
First, stick a furnace right on the output of your iron or copper mines. You don't need an inserter, it'll pop straight in.
Second, have two conveyor belts going by the furnace. The close one will be for the plates coming out of the furnace. The far one comes from the coal mine and you use a long handled furnace to pump it in.



This isn't the end, there's even better ways to do it, but this should be really useful to you right now.

Stevefin
Sep 30, 2013

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

There's a few things you can do that'll really simplify things for you.
First, stick a furnace right on the output of your iron or copper mines. You don't need an inserter, it'll pop straight in.
Second, have two conveyor belts going by the furnace. The close one will be for the plates coming out of the furnace. The far one comes from the coal mine and you use a long handled furnace to pump it in.



This isn't the end, there's even better ways to do it, but this should be really useful to you right now.

Yeah the system you and Filthy have in their screen shots with coal furnaces is pretty handy. I may end up restarting as all this running around to keep them stocked and I have stuck all the mins I can on that small iron depot and still not be enough to keep it going during extended operations

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
I just found out that if you have an improved version of something, like a fast inserter or a lvl 2 assembler, you can plop it right on top of the old one and it'll swap them. It'll keep the old settings.

Pound_Coin
Feb 5, 2004
£


Dr. Arbitrary posted:

There's a few things you can do that'll really simplify things for you.
First, stick a furnace right on the output of your iron or copper mines.

But be aware that ovens smelt at half the speed that burner drill mine.

ickna
May 19, 2004

I got fed up with overproducing science potions and dealing with buffer chests/backwash belts, as well as having so many intermediate parts belting around everywhere in my first few runs of the game. So I started a new map to focus on a "just in time" ethos, and this is what I've come up with so far:



Each potion assembler is holding four potions on standby, and the manufacturing chain is only active as needed. I reserved the space to the right of the labs for assembling blue potions. There is still room for improvement, and I think on my next map I'm going to look into integrating the wire/circuit/gear/inserter and gear/belt assemblers into the potion assemblies and only belting around the refined copper and iron.

LordSaturn
Aug 12, 2007

sadly unfunny

ickna posted:

I got fed up with overproducing science potions and dealing with buffer chests/backwash belts, as well as having so many intermediate parts belting around everywhere in my first few runs of the game. So I started a new map to focus on a "just in time" ethos, and this is what I've come up with so far:



Each potion assembler is holding four potions on standby, and the manufacturing chain is only active as needed. I reserved the space to the right of the labs for assembling blue potions. There is still room for improvement, and I think on my next map I'm going to look into integrating the wire/circuit/gear/inserter and gear/belt assemblers into the potion assemblies and only belting around the refined copper and iron.

Yeah, the just-in-time approach is what I prefer. It goes really well with drones, since you can just get as close as possible without drones and then automate a couple of the really complicated things like blue science.

My current least-favorite thing about the game is that you can't automate blue science production without spending 100 blue science.

Ixjuvin
Aug 8, 2009

if smug was a motorcycle, it just jumped over a fucking canyon
Nap Ghost
Miners can actually mine up to one block away from the actual structure, so you can space them one or two blocks apart and cover a whole patch with fewer miners. You also have to move them less, which is nice. Babysitting machinery sucks.

Breetai
Nov 6, 2005

🥄Mah spoon is too big!🍌
SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND



This suit plus the combat shotgun with piercing rounds lets me cut through clusters of biter spawners like butter. I went out on what was supposed to be a fuckaround suicide mission and came back with 100 artifacts.


As for my base...





Automate. Everything.

Apart from recipes that require me to occasionally manually insert artifacts, everything runs perpetually without any additional tinkering on my part. I'm about 10 modules into the 100(!) level 3 modules I'll need to build the missile defence building.

I haven't played a different game since I bought the full version about a week ago. As soon as I place the missile defence and win this game I'm going to stop COMPLETELY until it goes gold, because I can see myself burning out real hard on it otherwise, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what its final incarnation looks like.



LordSaturn posted:

you can't automate blue science production without spending 100 blue science.

How so?

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Retro42
Jun 27, 2011


The other approach is to cram as many miners as possible on that ore patch and strip mine it dry. I've been working on a new design focused on stockpiling raw materials and using smart chests/inserters to process them as needed. Oddly satisfying to know I'm typically sitting on around 15k iron/copper. Let's me focus on more huge long term projects knowing I have a stockpile like that.

I'll try to put some pics up after work tonight.

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