Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

DelphiAegis posted:

Narrator voice: It won't.

From prior experience building a circuit driven logistics network out of trains... it will, actually. Really made my life easier.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

SkyeAuroline posted:

"Building to account for future expansion" may be one of the few things I don't think I've ever done in Factorio
I do it all the time, to the detriment of building what I need now.

VictualSquid
Feb 29, 2012

Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.
Planning ahead in factorio is nice, but you really don't have to.
The cool thing about factorio is the good blueprinting system, you can pick up your whole base and put it down a few meters over with a few clicks once you got bots.

gaj70
Jan 26, 2013

VictualSquid posted:

Planning ahead in factorio is nice, but you really don't have to.
The cool thing about factorio is the good blueprinting system, you can pick up your whole base and put it down a few meters over with a few clicks once you got bots.

YMMV. My factories tend to be the kind of organic creations were everything would still be measured in feet, not meters, and it would be ambiguous whether the inputs were specified as #mass/s or #force/s.

gaj70 fucked around with this message at 16:14 on May 26, 2021

MadJackal
Apr 30, 2004

It's funny, I've got an itch to play Factorio for the first time in about half a year and I know in my soul this will devour another hundred hours of my life.

Ass_Burgerer
Dec 3, 2010

The most beautiful (and fun) factories are the most disorganized messes where the create never plans ahead for anything, building one thing at a time, wherever there's room.

Then I look at Reddit posts of neatly organized, single-bus factories on all-grassland, no water, no cliffs, no biters world, and think 'man they must be a hoot at parties.'

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
I know setting thousands and thousands of build orders(in this case, paving my entire base) for robots can make them be weird, but is there a specific reason that they all suddenly went on strike until I built a new chest for them to pull from next to the old one, and moved the concrete from the old one to the new one, and then every single drone in the base came out at once to resume paving?

it all just stalled until I arbitrarily placed a new crate one tile over, and now everything's back to normal.

LtSmash
Dec 18, 2005

Will we next create false gods to rule over us? How proud we have become, and how blind.

-Sister Miriam Godwinson,
"We Must Dissent"

Captain Invictus posted:

I know setting thousands and thousands of build orders(in this case, paving my entire base) for robots can make them be weird, but is there a specific reason that they all suddenly went on strike until I built a new chest for them to pull from next to the old one, and moved the concrete from the old one to the new one, and then every single drone in the base came out at once to resume paving?

it all just stalled until I arbitrarily placed a new crate one tile over, and now everything's back to normal.

That sounds weird but without more info its hard to say for sure. One idea that comes to mind is if you have a single massive roboport network you could have had thousands of bots off in the middle of nowhere that had reserved all that concrete for their build job. When you moved it to a new chest it forced them to give up their claim and the idle bots were free to grab it. If you have any large uncovered areas in your network such as a big lake its entirely possible that bots tried to cross it and ran out of power so they were moving at snail speed to get to the chest. Bots will always try and take the shortest path even if they don't have the power to get all the way across a gap before needing to recharge. Either segment your network or add charging points in the gaps.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
I think it's the former, if I leave things for a long enough time it all starts up again, so I think it's slowly cycling through queued build orders until it gets to more valid ones maybe, and everything kicks off again.

or maybe they're all just taking the weekend off and resuming on monday.

Fuzzy Mammal
Aug 15, 2001

Lipstick Apathy
The bot allocation algorithm will assign to 10 jobs per tick I think. But, it will only check one unassignable job per tick (i.e. no material, outside network, no available bot, etc). So if you have a large swath of concrete somewhere not getting built it can take many seconds to get through that before it notices another swath that can be built.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
I started another large construction job and I just find this weird wiggly drone caterpillar funny, just woobly-woobly-wooing through the air to its destination.


I know I could artillery the poo poo out of hive clusters, but I enjoy loading up my power armor with 2x fusion reactors, 4x exoskeletons and 7x personal defense lasers and just kiting the hordes of behemoths around while they melt to lasers and I fire off huge volleys of rockets to wipe out a quarter of a base at a time. then when it's all weakened enough, waltzing through the whole thing and zip-zappin' all the stupid worms with a circular blast of rapid-fire lasers

boo_radley
Dec 30, 2005

Politeness costs nothing
I had an incredibly dumb thought, "what if train stations, but not enough?" and came up with this. I call it the OmniStation.

XkyRauh
Feb 15, 2005

Commander Keen is my hero.

boo_radley posted:

I had an incredibly dumb thought, "what if train stations, but not enough?" and came up with this. I call it the OmniStation.



My only thought is "I sure hope the lowest chests (with the shortest belts) are low-frequency items, otherwise that whole thing's gonna jam unceremoniously."

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

XkyRauh posted:

My only thought is "I sure hope the lowest chests (with the shortest belts) are low-frequency items, otherwise that whole thing's gonna jam unceremoniously."

Unjam instructions: make the sign of the cross, and call a priest.

Fuzzy Mammal
Aug 15, 2001

Lipstick Apathy

Captain Invictus posted:

I started another large construction job and I just find this weird wiggly drone caterpillar funny, just woobly-woobly-wooing through the air to its destination.


I know I could artillery the poo poo out of hive clusters, but I enjoy loading up my power armor with 2x fusion reactors, 4x exoskeletons and 7x personal defense lasers and just kiting the hordes of behemoths around while they melt to lasers and I fire off huge volleys of rockets to wipe out a quarter of a base at a time. then when it's all weakened enough, waltzing through the whole thing and zip-zappin' all the stupid worms with a circular blast of rapid-fire lasers

I really like doing that too, but mostly cleaning up the leftovers after a nuclear strike :clint: . Also from within a spidertron.

boo_radley
Dec 30, 2005

Politeness costs nothing
I don't know how this happens. The train has zero fuel, the inserters have power, there's tons of fuel in the chest. I've even dug up the inserter and replaced it and it still won't feed the train fuel. What am I missing here?

Galvanik
Feb 28, 2013

Did you place the train after the stop was built, or before? It might not count as being stopped if the train was put down before the building.

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
Also if you've got a train that's just temporary orders, once the stop "expires" after 5 seconds it won't be at the stop anymore and inserters won't feed it.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

The cargo cart is closed, which means it's definitely a matter of the train not being properly stopped at the signal.

uPen
Jan 25, 2010

Zu Rodina!

boo_radley posted:

I don't know how this happens. The train has zero fuel, the inserters have power, there's tons of fuel in the chest. I've even dug up the inserter and replaced it and it still won't feed the train fuel. What am I missing here?


Feed it 1 piece of fuel and set it to head to that stop.

boo_radley
Dec 30, 2005

Politeness costs nothing

uPen posted:

Feed it 1 piece of fuel and set it to head to that stop.

this worked to resolve the problem. It was making regular pick-ups from this station and resumed them normally once it was fed, and the inserters started feeding it again normally too. I have no idea how it got this way, but it seems to be fixed now.

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





I've been sucked back in for another round with Factorio, and this time I'm trying to be a lot more 'free form' in my base. The starter base is still basically a bus base, but I'm purposely leaving a bunch more space than I usually do around stuff, and my 'hub' or 'mall' or whatever you want to call it is a hilarious mess as I am not using any pre-existing blueprints (other than balancers) and I'm just organically growing the hub/mall as I need more stuff, which has lead to some real interesting weaving of belts into areas because I didn't pre-design it with proper access for things like oh.. red circuits or lubricant.

This is also the first time I've ever played with the biters completely turned off, as my goal is to get to the point where I can launch a rocket (slowly) and then start working on a real megabase and try to finish it for the first time (I usually just sort of peter out after I get about 2/3 of the big modular science builds done). I did do a 1k spm base in the past, but it wasn't really a megabase, rather it was just an incredibly optimized bus with trains bringing in the raw materials and I used pre-made 1kspm science blueprints to get it done.

Setting wise, other than biters off (and cliffs off) I used the default 'rail world' settings, so I'm running out of ores in the area around my base a lot faster than I'm used to. Also only QOL mods, no drones or any other game-changing mods other than Train Supply Manager, which I use primarily because of the auto-refueling, but it's acting wonky and once a station requests a train, for some reason all the trains that are loaded and waiting go and unload. It's not a disaster since they stay parked until the station is empty for them, but it's strange and I'm not sure why it's happening.

Anyway, it's funny how this game always keeps drawing me back, it's the top time played game in my Steam library by a huge margin, with over 1100 hours played now.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
man, the second time around really goes a shitload faster than the first, you really only get one "first try", huh. I probably would've hit it in 40 if I hadn't forgotten to, like, actually launch the rocket and instead go around making a dozen satellite bases instead lol

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





Captain Invictus posted:

man, the second time around really goes a shitload faster than the first, you really only get one "first try", huh. I probably would've hit it in 40 if I hadn't forgotten to, like, actually launch the rocket and instead go around making a dozen satellite bases instead lol



Nice. I'm always super slow to launch my first rocket because I mess around with stuff constantly and just don't really care about achievements so I never rush to an objective. My very first game where I was 'trying to finish' I hit 47.xx hours, and I'm fairly certain that every game since then has taken longer than that.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
Yeah I could have focused on it earlier but I'm busy spreading out to the far reaches to the areas where the biter colonies are starting to merge into just one giant wall of red on the map

Mario
Oct 29, 2006
It's-a-me!

The Locator posted:

...Train Supply Manager, which I use primarily because of the auto-refueling, but it's acting wonky and once a station requests a train, for some reason all the trains that are loaded and waiting go and unload. It's not a disaster since they stay parked until the station is empty for them, but it's strange and I'm not sure why it's happening.
I haven't used TSM, but does it expect that you've set a trains limit on the stop?

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





Mario posted:

I haven't used TSM, but does it expect that you've set a trains limit on the stop?

It never used to need that, and in observing things in my last play session, it seems like there are only a couple of trains that just go ahead and do their own thing instead of waiting for the signal, so I think it's a remnant of when I redid some of the priority schema stuff after realizing that I had set it up a little bit wrong, and those trains are just confused. All new trains work fine.

I'm sure the way to fix it is to clear the trains orders to reset them in order for TSM to send them a new set of commands, but since it really doesn't hurt anything, I haven't bothered to hunt down the trains affected. They way my trains are set up for this run each stop has material limits set that are far less than the buffer available in the chests they unload into, so all this really does is make the 'restock' cycle happen in pairs of trains instead of 1 train at a time (or at my oil unloading a train just sits there unloading for a while), so it's a little more of a surge on the supply side, but I have a 3 train buffer set up on the supply side, so that doesn't really matter either over the long run.

Finally got around to getting nuclear up and running after I realized I was having some brownouts, but still haven't launched a rocket or even started to make the stuff that goes into the rocket, so that's up next.

Oxyclean
Sep 23, 2007


Is there any mod(s) that do like, alternate power/fuel sources like wind, hydro-electric, geothermal, alternates to coal, etc?

I have a friend who likes the game, but, for some reason, does not enjoy destroying the planet, but also just generally likes the idea of like, alternate paths.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
I like trying to work my factories around the natural geometry instead of clearcutting the forests and filling in the oceans, gives my factories character

boo_radley
Dec 30, 2005

Politeness costs nothing
ban this sick filth
ban this sick ecology

boo_radley fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jun 16, 2021

LonsomeSon
Nov 22, 2009

A fishperson in an intimidating hat!

boo_radley posted:

ban this sick filth

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





Oxyclean posted:

Is there any mod(s) that do like, alternate power/fuel sources like wind, hydro-electric, geothermal, alternates to coal, etc?

I have a friend who likes the game, but, for some reason, does not enjoy destroying the planet, but also just generally likes the idea of like, alternate paths.

I've played games where I've used nothing but solar power once I got out of the early game, it's doable but it's very resource intensive.

As far as mods, I've seen wind turbines in some overhaul mods, and I know Krastorio 2 has multiple tiers of upgraded solar power, but I've never seen anyone mention stand alone mods for that sort of thing. Have you tried searching on keywords like wind or solar in the mod portal?

darthbob88
Oct 13, 2011

YOSPOS

The Locator posted:

I've played games where I've used nothing but solar power once I got out of the early game, it's doable but it's very resource intensive.

As far as mods, I've seen wind turbines in some overhaul mods, and I know Krastorio 2 has multiple tiers of upgraded solar power, but I've never seen anyone mention stand alone mods for that sort of thing. Have you tried searching on keywords like wind or solar in the mod portal?
Or you can just cruise through the power-production tag, which does include geothermal and wind power solutions.

XkyRauh
Feb 15, 2005

Commander Keen is my hero.

Captain Invictus posted:

I like trying to work my factories around the natural geometry instead of clearcutting the forests and filling in the oceans, gives my factories character

With many mods, the changing science requirements mean you don't get Cliff Explosives for a long, long time, and so this is done by necessity rather than by choice!

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





So on this playthrough I am trying to do things differently than usual. I'm not using any blueprints that I don't create inside this game, and I'm trying to avoid just repeating builds how I've always done it, but I'm finding it really hard to break out of the old habits and about half my builds end up being the 'same as they always are' sort of things, while some actually have turned out different just because I've purposely made them not be compact. I'm also trying to do a lot of 'on site' stuff that I normally don't do, like my blue-circuit build has it's own little sulfuric acid build, and I didn't bus gears so those are all completely local builds.

Does anyone else have any ideas/tools that they use to force or at least encourage unique new designs? I'm a pretty uncreative 'logical' type person so it can be pretty hard for me to think of fresh new ways to design when the way I've always done it works.

Like this pre-beacon green circuit build I did a few days ago. I started with a blank slate, and tried to make something different and yet... It pretty much looks like every other pre-beacon green circuit build I've ever done, except maybe for it's size and orientation. It's intentionally input constrained, not output constrained which is why it's not got compressed belt outputs as I chose to build it for compressed red-belt inputs on the copper as the limiting factor for each little segment. I'm using the merged-chests mod and mini-loaders which is why my loading/unloading looks like that.



My biggest hanging point in getting new builds up and running now is speed and production modules, so I've decided to build a bigger module build, and am immediately reminded that in order for a module build to work, I need large red/green/blue circuit builds, which ultimately need... modules. The never ending circle of factorio.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

The Locator posted:

My biggest hanging point in getting new builds up and running now is speed and production modules, so I've decided to build a bigger module build, and am immediately reminded that in order for a module build to work, I need large red/green/blue circuit builds, which ultimately need... modules. The never ending circle of factorio.

Remember all modules can be substituted for just having more factory!

Solumin
Jan 11, 2013
I've got two thoughts on that:

1. Restrictions breed creativity. "Don't use blueprints" is not a restriction. "Every factory has to fit into a 30x30 tile" is a restriction. Your designs look like they usually do because you're solving the exact same problem in the exact same way.

2. Instead of making individual factories different, make the factory as a whole different. Do you usually do a main bus? Try a city block or ant farm megabase. Maybe try building on a hex grid! Or go really out there and make your factory look like a human body or the Mona Lisa when viewed from the map. Do things differently on a macro scale.

LonsomeSon
Nov 22, 2009

A fishperson in an intimidating hat!

The structure of a plates-in-chips-out sub-assembly has a limited number of solutions, assuming you’re approaching it with a “run belt adjacent to assemblers, pass directly from wire assemblers to chip assemblers” framing.

Add to that “line up several sub-assemblies to use unified input and output belts” and all your chip installations are going to have visible similarities. It’s an emergent property of the intersecting foals and constraints.

Yaoi Gagarin
Feb 20, 2014

XkyRauh posted:

With many mods, the changing science requirements mean you don't get Cliff Explosives for a long, long time, and so this is done by necessity rather than by choice!

I really don't like cliffs. I always play with them disabled

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





Solumin posted:

I've got two thoughts on that:

1. Restrictions breed creativity. "Don't use blueprints" is not a restriction. "Every factory has to fit into a 30x30 tile" is a restriction. Your designs look like they usually do because you're solving the exact same problem in the exact same way.

2. Instead of making individual factories different, make the factory as a whole different. Do you usually do a main bus? Try a city block or ant farm megabase. Maybe try building on a hex grid! Or go really out there and make your factory look like a human body or the Mona Lisa when viewed from the map. Do things differently on a macro scale.

Some interesting ideas, thanks. The antfarm base is pretty interesting, but IMO it's just a compact city grid with a unique rail system. It is kind of cool though!

VostokProgram posted:

I really don't like cliffs. I always play with them disabled

:same:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply