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Factorio - Optimising Factories & Slaying Monsters [SpaceChem fans get in here]
- Thread starter Toma
- Start date
You should give it a try too! I was intrigued by the concept, but the execution is really amazingly fun as well. It has a bit of a Minecraft vibe going for it in terms of how easy one can get into the game. (Mine resource, build a pick, mine more resources to build mine on resource, etc)
Phonomezer
Banned
omg. I must check this out.
A Human Becoming
More than a Member
When I saw the title I knew who posted this without having to look.
When I saw the title I knew who posted this without having to look.
Surprise , surprise
Conciliator
Banned
Looks super interesting. The graphics sure are weird.
Yeah, they look rather simple. Although you really gotta admit that it looks quite nice in motion when everything is moving and turning the way you want it to.
Ventilaator
Banned
You had me at Spacechem. Will check this out.
I was just thinking whether it was detrimental to put SpaceChem into the title, since that might scare people off. I am glad it seems to work out nicely
Ventilaator
Banned
Played the first couple of levels. Random zombies is a really bad obstacle to put in this game. This should be about figuring out the most efficient design, so just give me a time limit or something. Staring at a menu when the game screen starts flashing red due to zombies attacking me is just annoying.
You can get around that pretty easily with a few turrets and production lines supporting the turrets around your base, but you are still somewhat right. Thats the reason I like freeplay actually. It has way less pressure and allows for switching off Zombies. I still need to find out how though.
And you complaint will probably be taken care off by user scenarios. Maybe someone can create maps that "only" have a time limit? But really, as soon as you have the turrets set up, the enemies dont matter anymore.
Oh and you were probably referring to the 3rd level, right? If you just build 2 turrets and supply them with a bit of ammunition, they basically cant touch you anymore.
One Foul Note
Member
Just went through the demo and it was very impressive. It reminded me of my days of playing with the Tekkit mod in Minecraft, although potential able to go hundreds of times deeper with the level of automation. Very likely gonna join up as a belt repair man, although boring money issues prevents me from picking this up till Saturday.
You'll be very surprised by the amount of stuff you can do in the alpha. Lots of tools that the demo doesnt give the player, like a conveyor belt splitter, cars, rocket turrets, flamethrowers...
One Foul Note
Member
Conveyor belt spliter? That sounds like they might be the answer to one of my problems I had in the demo. In the 3rd level I was trying to conveyor my coal to my row of boilers and the grabby arms were generally feeding only the first few boilers. Some kind of system that naturally splits the resources and feed them into the boilers evenly would be good.
Also, can you get electric furnaces in the full game? Having to maintain my coal furnaces when everything else was electric became problematic near the end.
They plan on adding electric furnaces in the patch in 8 days I believe. Although you could easily just open another coal mine that solely powers the furnaces for now.
Regarding your splitting problem, you can easily have 2 parallel conveyor belts with an inserter in the middle. If you have 2 mines on the first conveyor belt, the inserter will take around half of the resources to the second conveyor belt, effectively splitting it in two. But yeah, thats what that splitter is for.
Be sure to post some impressions!
Only three levels into the demo's campaign so far, but one thing that's REALLY annoying me is the complete lack of feedback when your structures are being attacked. I'm off setting up an iron mine and when I head back to where my generators are, they're all gone/destroyed because the enemies were able to silently attack them at will while I was two screens away.
Also enjoying the crafting system, mostly. I've been putting quite a bit of time into the Feed The Beast mod pack for Minecraft, and not having to make intermediate recipes to craft the final one is great. That said, some of these intermediate recipes don't even need to be on the crafting menu in the first place. Copper wires, iron gears, and anything else that has no use by itself just takes up unnecessary space. I'm never just going to craft a bunch of iron gears, so why bother having them on the crafting menu?
Enjoying the game so far, though, and looking forward to seeing what other toys it has available.
Also enjoying the crafting system, mostly. I've been putting quite a bit of time into the Feed The Beast mod pack for Minecraft, and not having to make intermediate recipes to craft the final one is great. That said, some of these intermediate recipes don't even need to be on the crafting menu in the first place. Copper wires, iron gears, and anything else that has no use by itself just takes up unnecessary space. I'm never just going to craft a bunch of iron gears, so why bother having them on the crafting menu?
Enjoying the game so far, though, and looking forward to seeing what other toys it has available.
Weltall Zero
Member
At least in the demo, the best way to do this is to place one inserter to each side of a conveyor belt (feeding from the same square); that way none of them gets priority. Any other way to do that, even having one to the side and one at the end, ends up with a hugely unbalanced split. I learned that the hard way when trying to feed three turrets with the same ammo belt; the one straight in front of the belt didn't get any.
This makes it really cumbersome when you want to split into more than two, of course. A three-way single-pane conveyor splitter would be ace.
Yeah, thats definitely an issue I can get behind. Though they did state that their current version is far from being finalized UI wise, so I hope that also counts for player feedback. Maybe just a small textbox "Your XYZ is being attacked" would suffice.
The problem with the crafting stuff is that you will need to use them individually when you start working with assemblers. One assembler will create copper wires, another iron gears and then you can make them to something else entirely in a third assembler.
At least in the demo, the best way to do this is to place one inserter to each side of a conveyor belt (feeding from the same square); that way none of them gets priority. Any other way to do that, even having one to the side and one at the end, ends up with a hugely unbalanced split. I learned that the hard way when trying to feed three turrets with the same ammo belt; the one straight in front of the belt didn't get any.
This makes it really cumbersome when you want to split into more than two, of course. A three-way single-pane conveyor splitter would be ace.
That is smart, havent thought of that. I just researched the split thing, its not three-way, but I'll still have to try how it actually works. I am interested in figuring out some more of these tools later
Maybe I'll post a bit about the individual ones.
Weltall Zero
Member
That's the entire point behind turrets; not only to provide automated defense, but the gunfire alerts you that something is going on. If you feed them with ammo via factories/belts/inserters, you have an entirely automated defense system.
Adding "under attack" warnings would make turrets significantly less essential, IMHO.
Smart, hadn't thought of that! I'm assuming the conveyor belts are for show, though?
That's the entire point behind turrets; not only to provide automated defense, but the gunfire alerts you that something is going on. If you feed them with ammo via factories/belts/inserters, you have an entirely automated defense system.
Adding "under attack" warnings would make turrets significantly less essential, IMHO.
Smart, hadn't thought of that! I'm assuming the conveyor belts are for show, though?
Havent tested it yet, but they should slow down enemies
Weltall Zero
Member
Havent tested it yet, but they should slow down enemies
Ah, I see!
Do report on whether this works as intended. I wonder if the game will allow to go all Deception/Kagero/Orcs Must Die on the enemies' asses and herd them towards some kind of deathtrap...
Ah, I see!
I wonder if the game will allow to go all Deception/Kagero/Orcs Must Die on the enemies' asses and herd them towards some kind of deathtrap...
Just tried it, it seems to slow them down. Usually the Zombies are the same speed as I am, but when me and the Zombies are still the same speed on the conveyor belt and you should be easily able to test that you are slower on a conveyor belt yourself.
Its not all that big of a difference, but considering the conveyor belt parts are pretty cheap... why not.
Just a simple setup for my freeplay map:
I finally got around to set up the automatic fill for my turrents. Coal and Iron are being smelt to iron plates in a furnace, which then are used to make ammunition. Then I just used a conveyor belt around my factory to supply the turrets.
I finally got around to set up the automatic fill for my turrents. Coal and Iron are being smelt to iron plates in a furnace, which then are used to make ammunition. Then I just used a conveyor belt around my factory to supply the turrets.
Weltall Zero
Member
Just a simple setup for my freeplay map:
I finally got around to set up the automatic fill for my turrents. Coal and Iron are being smelt to iron plates in a furnace, which then are used to make ammunition. Then I just used a conveyor belt around my factory to supply the turrets.
Ummm... I don't understand how the iron plates are being taken out of the furnaces other than the rightmost one. Unless they are meant to be kept there in the furnaces? But they have a quite limited capacity, so...
Also, have you tried using the same conveyor belt for both ore and coal? It can be done with a bit of care to prevent that one jams the other; if done properly, each material will stay on one "lane" of the conveyor belt, check the "multipurpose conveyor belt" from my old pic from the "March Indie games" thread:
That way you leave the opposite side free to pull out the plates into a conveyor belt and then store them or feed factories.
Optionally, you can add an inserter right at the end of the conveyor belt, into a box. This keeps the materials flowing, which means more efficient mining (mining drills will never stop because of jammed lines), at the cost of easier starvation of the furnaces (because they won't have a line full of materials to grab from). You can then use those materials to emergency feed any starved system.
Ummm... I don't understand how the iron plates are being taken out of the furnaces other than the rightmost one. Unless they are meant to be kept there in the furnaces? But they have a quite limited capacity, so...
Also, have you tried using the same conveyor belt for both ore and coal? It can be done with a bit of care to prevent that one jams the other; if done properly, each material will stay on one "lane" of the conveyor belt, check the "multipurpose conveyor belt" from my old pic from the "March Indie games" thread:
That way you leve the opposite side free to pull out the plates into a conveyor belt and then store them or feed factories.
Optionally, you can add an inserter right at the end of the conveyor belt, into a box. This keeps the materials flowing, which means more efficient mining (mining drills will never stop because of jammed lines), at the cost of easier starvation of the furnaces (because they won't have a line full of materials to grab from). You can then use those materials to emergency feed any starved system.
No clue why I didnt notice it before, but that multipurpose conveyor belt is pretty genius. I'll need to try around a bit how you managed to do that. But man, this game keeps amazing me to no end with what solutions and setups you can come up with even with the most simple of tools.
The MP conveyor belt doesnt work with my setup unfortunately though since the resources come from different sides, but I'll keep that in mind.
Weltall Zero
Member
Ironically, from studying my own screenshot right now I've realized why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. If you realize, the coal drill is set with its output perpedicular to the conveyor belt; what this means is that coal is deposited on the top part of it (or the "right lane", going in the direction of the belt). Observe that this placement is preserved even after the belt bends left and right.
In contrast, the iron drill is set parallel to the conveyor belt, and conversely, iron ore is placed right at the middle of the belt. It's only because it is pushed onto an already existing queue of coal, that it then takes the left lane. If the belt was free of coal, it would stay in the middle of it, and more importantly, any coal coming after it would be blocked by it, potentially starving the furnaces (this problem is much easier visualized when it has already happened to you.
). In other words, my setup could be jam-proofed by having the drill deposit iron on the left lane, which itself could be accomplished by placing it perpendicular to (and on the left of) the conveyor belt.Played the demo tonight and really digging the gameplay. It feels a bit it came out of the 90s, where you don't know what the game is because genres weren't so entrenched. And I enjoy that.
I'm looking forward to digging in more. Sorry I forgot to take pics but the demo levels aren't really that picture-worthy.
I'm looking forward to digging in more. Sorry I forgot to take pics but the demo levels aren't really that picture-worthy.
Just check out the free demo! The game does a good job of slowly introducing the players to the concepts of the game.
Thankfully the developers had a pretty consistent User Interface/Key Bindings. E to close windows, Right click to plop things, etc. And you can just undo mistakes.
Based on the demo, I would also be inclined to call it a "Tower" game more than a RTS, at this point. I didn't see any enemy bases, it was more like the enemies came in swarms. Fortunately the shooting + action components feel satisfying.
letterboxart
Neo Member
Yeah, the constant aliens swarms give it a tower defense feeling. There are alien bases that are the only source of advanced research materials.
Edit: On second thought, don't use "glob.attackfrequency = 10" to reset. Bad idea, haha.
Hit "~" to open the console and type:
- In Freeplay mode: glob.untilnextattacknormal = math.huge
- In Story/Demo mode: glob.attackfrequency = math.huge
Edit: On second thought, don't use "glob.attackfrequency = 10" to reset. Bad idea, haha.
letterboxart
Neo Member
A splitter would do this (the picture has 2 inputs, but it works with 1):
You can also use inline chests in your conveyor belts to buffer the coal:
A nice side benefit of buffer chests is that it's easy to manually add coal if needed.
Somebody has added electric furnaces via a mod, but you probably want to wait until the next patch (~1 week) before adding mods because they'll be making it a lot easier to do.
I don't really like to play in pre-release stages, but it's Toma recomending it AND it's a bit similar to spacechem. Mega thumbs up. Added to awaited 2013 releases and voted on greenlight
nm. free demo it is !
I actually had a discussion with a friend recently about that issue. First of all, the conception of what a pre-release/Alpha/Beta changed over the past few years. People usually avoid these games because they dont want to be a "Beta-tester" and pay for half-baked games. An alpha game does not necessarily mean the game has tons of bugs. In case of most Indies that use that mode (Gnomoria, Factorio, Project Zomboid) they usually already got the core mechanics down and the game works pretty fine. They just keep adding content and squash minor bugs that usually dont affect the experience too much.
A few years ago, the current version of Factorio could have been considered a v1.0 version, where they just start to add more content via updates "post-launch". The only part where you see that its not the v1.0 yet, is the small amount of story missions, but the game itself is very well functioning. Not to mention that I prefer dabbling in Freeplay right now anyway.
And yeah, definitely a highly recommended game
Everyone should check out the free demo. I really want to help giving these guys a bit of exposure. They are currently even thinking about adding another programmer to help making faster progress, which of course depends on how much support they get atm.
I guess once I sent that to you I should of known it would inevitably end up here huh? I need to set up a belt of coal up to the engines in the top left, but without underground belts researched yet it will look silly so I haven't yet. :/ After I finish level 4 I think I will move on to freeplay with all the techs available, that seems more Minecraft/Terraria-like in the availability of stuff for you to do. The story/campaign levels don't seem too interesting so far, I just want to spent 40 hours and build a massive factory that is completely self-automated. Then realize I set something up at not peak effiency and redo it all...
Its your own fault really
Just post in here and I dont need to do it for you. I agree though, I am enjoying the freeplay mode way more atm as well. Although I am definitely curious what kind of ideas these guys can come up with for the story levels.Oh and since you just mentioned that:
Didnt even notice that before.
I'm just guessing on the temperatures in pipes by looking at my level 4 set up. Makes sense looking at my boiler placement, and blue being cold, red being hot, purple being a mix makes sense too. You can always just hover over pipes and boilers to look at the actual temp anyways.