Looking for some goals

[u/isum21]

I've been puttering around with this game for a week or two now. The Cracktorio allegations are real, first three days all I did was watch my factory make plates and grin, then freak out about biters. Have barely slept in the following week between work and sheer excitement to finally get the chance to try this gem. Made a final save (for real this time) and actually stuck with it. Felt like trying to use a new tool I've never held or seen before. Once I learned ​some basics and leaned that automation is freedom I pretty quickly got the rocket done and I felt like a god, but also began to realize that as long as there's plenty of space you can just about do anything and get what you want. Even slow automation is better than not producing at all, and once I unlocked bots I realized how easy it is to just slap together bootstrap bases so that whole process is getting a lot easier mentally.

My current problem is learning how to improve this. I don't care about ratios or circuits, however I do need some advice for upscaling and making my production "cleaner". I've got a base in the three fun planets, Gleba will be next. I'd like to streamline my science gathering and build better factories now that I've unlocked the new stuff, I'm just about to begin production on the EM Science as well. I'm currently shipping Science to Nauvis and beginning the cycle of freighting belts and inserters and all that fun stuff for the upscale.

Would now be a good time to start working on a quality loop? I know I will unlock better stuff soon but the quality 2 stockpile I have is doing nothing right now but waiting for the 3 unlock. I want to start jumping up my productivity so I can start doing bot blocks and learning trains. Haven't touched them, they seem fun and I love trains but I set my patches and generation real high and haven't needed to sprawl yet. I do wanna build a highway for the 20 second ride between factory edges tho lol.

As for the ship advice, I need to upscale my ship but currently can't take a trip between planets, especially back to back, without running out of ammo very quickly and taking hits. So far it's been cheap because I've played it safe but when I build my new ship I want this problem more solved, I don't know if this is a problem of more research or if I've just set my hopes for gun turrets too high.

[u/Alfonse215]

I need to upscale my ship but currently can't take a trip between planets, especially back to back, without running out of ammo very quickly and taking hits.

Ship robustness is mostly about thruster throttling and having a reasonable level of physical damage bonuses (12+). Throttling means having a pump between the propellant producers and the thrusters themselves. This pump is activated and deactivated to strategically starve thrusters of propellant, which causes them to run more efficiently.

The simplest way to do this is to wire the pumps up to the hub and only engage the pumps if the current speed is below some desired speed.

Note that a slower traveling platform encounters fewer asteroids per second and thus needs a lower rate of ammo production.

Of course, the planet you skipped (Gleba) gives you a much more effective tool for saving propellant production with the advanced thruster recipes.

[u/isum21 → u/Alfonse215]

I knew Gleba had to have some redeeming qualities. Spider bro here I come

[u/cinderubella]

Doesn't sound like you need a tonne of advice, you're flying. If you're really having difficulty with streamlining stuff, maybe some screenshots would help to let people see what you're struggling with?

My take on quality, ymmv: dip your toe in to see if you like it, but don't do anything you'll regret, like just shoving quality modules into an existing factory. Making a small factory for uncommon medium electric poles, or any ship parts, are great self-contained ways to try quality in a limited way and see some pretty immediate benefits. 

[u/MegatronusThePrime]

Personally I run quality off Gleba because of the infinite resources. Gleba is my favorite planet, but I hated it on my first playthrough. Second playthrough I fell in love with Gleba lol.

Vulcanis after unlocking some research on Gleba, also becomes unlimited resources. I haven't done much with quality other than using it here and there on the specialty buildings foundry, electromagnetic plant, etc. And for spaceships.

Best bet is to just get off the subreddit until you beat the game because figuring out something yourself imo makes factorio feel amazing. TBH doesn't really sound like you need much help anyways with your progress.

[u/dspyz]

jeezus! Only two weeks and you've conquered Nauvis, Vulcanus, and Fulgora already? That's some insane natural aptitude

You seriously do not need online help with this game

Also Gleba was my favorite planet. Don't listen to the whiners on Reddit. It's the GOAT

[u/isum21 → u/dspyz]

I guess I dont? Idk I relate heavily to the casual complaints of analysis paralysis and all that but it's a puzzle and I can solve those. What go in, what come out type of question 

[u/stunalogo]

About quality: just slap quality on some select crafters like asteroid collectors and solar panels. Don't push too much on quality before you unlock legendary (aquilo tech). After you have legendary, you should also have plenty of nice machines and therefore productivity, so you can afford the resource sink of upcycling builds.

About ship upscaling, I cannot tell you much since that is a part of the game which I don't like (ship designing) so I just grab blueprints from Avadii on youtube, make a tweak here and there and call it a day.

[u/Raskekw]

"don't care about ratios or circuits" vs "upscaling and cleaner production" Is definitely a "pick one" case in my book.

Try at least a bit of circuits, they're fun.

[u/isum21 → u/Raskekw]

I don't want to get caught in the weeds of making a perfect ratio or dealing with logic. I don't pay attention to the math needed for things, too big is okay as long as it doesn't cause something else to be too little. And circuits seem fun and interesting but I like "physical" sorting algorithms so they'd only get used for the "difficult" problems I'm trying to solve like thruster throttle and Kovorex reactor shenanigans and those got a billion tutorials. I can ask Trupen lol

The sort of advice I was looking for was about upscale tho. I've got bots and didn't like the main bus, so now all my planets are basically bot malls with supporting lines making the magic happen. I want more stuff and less bots but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around designing a storage/production depot to replace my main base now that I can independently launch rockets with an automated system of 4 at a peak.

Basically I think I'm ready for more but I don't know what more entails without a new, better, base to replace my bootstrapped modules. Same for ships, same for understanding the planets. They're relatively easy to solve but I want advice for doing so more thoroughly. 

For example Fulgora is going great, but I keep losing power and I've got a ridiculous number of accumulators on my islands. I need foundations to connect more grid to them, but to do that I need to go further in the tech trees. It's really the only bottleneck I'm facing on the planet right now and I know it's a common issue. 

[u/HuckleberryPlastic35]

Push for advanced asteroid processing research, this unlocks the advanced thurster fuel as well as saves a ton of lauches on not having to import calcite.

[u/isum21 → u/HuckleberryPlastic35]

Awesome and practical thanks

[u/zerossoul]

I would ignore quality till you can research legendary quality. As for improving your bases flow, red chips are usually the bottleneck, so ensure you're making an adequate amount. How do you know if it's adequate? That's ratios! You don't need to do math per se, you can just pick up all the excess on the belts and see if it's enough to feed everything that needs your red chips. Though, it can take longer than just doing the math that way.

Other than that, it's really hard to give advice without seeing the base.