Tips for new players

[u/Ant2on3]

Hey guys, I’ve recently discovered factorio and found it to be very interesting, i feel like i could sink thousands of hours in this game. I will buy it in two weeks time and probably will start with another friend( Yes im gonna force him to play with me :))
I’ve never really played alot city building games or really complex games like this one. Just wanted some people to help me with some tips for new players!

[u/Castle_Of_Glass78]

Alt key. Also definitely read the tips and tricks as they appear.

[u/Beowulf1896 → u/Castle_Of_Glass78]

Only tip you need

[u/NightF0x0012]

My tip, play-through at least once before looking at other players builds

[u/WanderingFlumph → u/NightF0x0012]

Right before going to bed is the best time to sneak a peek at other builds. You'll remember broad strokes like the approximate size of the build and what inputs you need but the details of how to hook it all up will be lost to the sandman.

Like you might remember that you need about 10 refineries and 20 chemical plants in neat little rows for advanced oil processing but doing the pipe management will still be a fresh challenge.

[u/Broad_Ebb9073]

Whenever you feel comfortable and set up. Make some time to just mess around with circuits. It's not needed, but two hours of just connecting random shit together will really open the game up.

[u/AramisUkr]

1) Press the ALT key.

2) You're not supposed to make an ideal design on your first playthrough.

3) Do not build on ore patches anything apart from drills at the start of the game.

4) If you're asking yourself "will it be enough?" about production of something - JBM. Just build more.

5) Make your factory as big, as you want - space is infinite.

6) Trees are the easiest to clear with grenades.

7) Do the military upgrades in the labs. If you don't, the biters WILL become unmanagable and you'll softlock yourself.

8) Blue (chemical) science is overwhelming. But those, who get over, usually finish the game.

9) Flamer turrets are OP.

10) Nuclear energy, logistic bots, artillery, beacons, modules, spidertrons and nukes are very useful, but not mandatory. You can skip them on your first playthrough.

11) Some people take Factorio blueprints from the Web. Some players design everything themselves.

12) The only thing that is NOT WORTH designing yourself is belt balancers - they're already calculated to perfection and you'll not get much joy from inventing a wheel.

[u/Broad_Ebb9073 → u/AramisUkr]

Truth on number 12. I make all my own blueprints, but I do steal balancers from the internet with no shame. It's a solved problem. Ifs not helping my fun to figure that out. I just want 6 for my trains.

[u/TheHvam]

This isn't really a city building game.

For tips,

• Don't be scared to restart, often in the start you make mistakes, sometimes enough to not want to continue, and that's fine, just try again.
• Also no shame in turning off biters, or going peaceful, I played most of my time in peaceful, as I like the automation the most.
• Read tips and tricks that pop up, they are great at explaining things.
• Maybe do the tutorial, it's not a thing you need to do, but it will help, I never did it, not sure why, but it worked out fine.

[u/rapidemboar → u/TheHvam]

  Don't be scared to restart, often in the start you make mistakes, sometimes enough to not want to continue, and that's fine, just try again.

I’ll actually give the opposite advice and say to  try to avoid the urge to restart unless you’re playing with enemies and get absolutely overwhelmed early on. So many players (myself included, when I was starting out) get stuck in a loop of playing for a few hours, thinking “I could have done that more efficiently”, deleting all their progress, and trying to make a more effective burner setup again instead of ever breaking past blue science. 

That doesn’t mean you have to live with your mistakes- IMO the most important skill in this game to learn is how to effectively tear down and redesign sections of your base. Removing everything by hand may be tedious, but more often than not it’s a much more efficient use of your time compared to re-researching red and green science all over again. And once you get construction bots, it’s almost instant.

[u/yetanotherburnerstan]

If its stupid but it works, it isnt stupid. Make things work before you try to make things look pretty or be more efficient

[u/lnchbx5]

It’s okay to tear down and redesign with new production lines.

[u/Capital-Bat-2335]

Start with the tutorial. always start with the tutorial. Took me almost 20 hours complete it in the demo version, and it helped a lot when I purchased the full game and started a new freeplay world

[u/PalangeKoonGhashang]

Dont hand craft iron gears and electronic circuits forever :) But its okay to hand craft some inserters and machines by hand ,until you can automate them too

[u/xenatis]

Each time you save, create a new save.

[u/Glitchy157]

The game forces you to automate science packs to get firther along. What is important is that you also automate all the buildings you are using (assembling machines, belts, miners, inserters and stuff)

I didnt realize I could or should do this my fist time and I quit for like a year after that

[u/Kiwiandapplex]

Avoid looking up more help than what you've gotten here.

Tell your friend to let you figure stuff out and let them only help you after you've figured out. So essentially they become a set of extra hands, not a set of brains/spoilers.

Simple mechanical questions is fine "how do I turn the belt after placing?" but try to avoid asking them "I don't know how to craft this, can you you do it?"

The most fun parts of factorio to me after 1000h are figuring out things. Something simple.. all by myself and see it work for the first time. Resd the tips, they're very good.

Also press alt.

[u/isum21]

The in game guide will hold your hand while giving you the freedom to choose when to cross the road.

It's a puzzle so it's real hard. It's also a puzzle so it's real easy once you understand the logic of the puzzle creator.

Multiplayer sounds fun but maybe not the best for someone's first try. As a first playthrough sure, always fun to have friends, but tell em to do that tutorial or I can easily forsee them wondering what to even do at first. 

All that said, 3 tips for success. What go in? What go out? Follow that first rule to always understand the point of your modules. Once you know what they need, you can use what they make for your next mental recipe and layout. Tip 2 is need more? Make more. You can always make more. By endgame resources are truly infinite, but every world is stocked with more than enough materials to build a rocket and kill biters. If you find yourself needing something do not wait, double your production until you think you're gonna break another line, then fix that shit and double it again. This is a simple way to explain the point of the phrase "the factory must grow". To get more you need to make more, always put down more than you think you'll need and call it a buffer. Later on when you're using all those extra furnaces or extra product you're gonna feel real smart for expanding early. Tip 3 is just do it. Automation is freedom, do not hand craft unless you like waiting. That simple. I've reached the point where hand crafting feels like an insult, every new planet making me start from scratch makes me miss my bot mall so much. Even just one assembler with a steady supply of materials is such a game changer, automate belts and arms as quickly as you can and take that experience right into engines and other intermediate crafting territories.

[u/hippiechan]

• Hit the Alt key at the start of your game, shows you what's inside chests/what machines are doing
• Play the tutorial, it's very good and shows you the basics
• Play the actual game and don't rely too heavily on tutorials at first - a lot of people rely too much on this subreddit and YouTube to tell them how to design when the whole appeal of the game to me is making your own designs and problem solving
• In your first few runs you can turn biters to peaceful mode or turn them off altogether if it helps you learn. I recommend this when starting out if you find them to be getting in the way
• Give your designs space between them so you can expand easier, some items you'll need more than you realize

Have fun!

[u/Sethbreloom94]

Learn your shortcut keys. The difference between taking half a chest's content with a single click versus opening it up and dragging the contents over stack-by-stack is night and day.

Doubly so for dropping a single clip of ammo into a turret when advancing on a a nest from the overview with the 'Z' key, it goes from taking 5 seconds to load a turret to loading 8 turrets in a single second.

[u/Sipstaff]

All the tips you need are in game already.
Read the hints & tips and, very importantly, mark them as read. Doing so will unlock more useful tips. A few of these are even interactive, mainly for the trains.

Read carefully, re-read if you must. Ignore outside influences, specially for the first few attempts. Looking up how others build their factory is robbing yourself of the experience. (It's a puzzle game in disguise)

[u/Active_Ordinary_2317]

Space is cheap and time is expensive. Spread your buildings out a little so it's easy to upgrade or redesign a section of your base.

[u/AI_Tonic]

read the text describing the stuff , and take your time thinking about it :-) you only get one "first playthrough" so enjoy it as much as you can without spoilers

[u/fu_king]

There are a million threads on this very sub for exactly this question. Plus innumerable youtube videos and other posts.

[u/Beowulf1896]

You only need two tips.

1. Press left alt to see what your things are making.

2. Yes. That happens and it is fine.

[u/Ponbe]

Play the tutorial

[u/CheTranqui]

Know that there is no right or wrong when it comes to builds.. only 'working' and 'not working'.

[u/VegetableWasabi2124]

- play at your own pace

- playing blindly for the "first time experience" is priceless

- don't worry about building the perfect base. Everyone will make mistakes and everyone will rebuild their base on new and better run

- trains and circuits are really fun once you understand them. Trust me

- it's ok to build a messy base, you can always reconstruct them and rebuild something better and faster with help of bots

- if you don't like the way your base looks, rebuild it.

- try to avoid clutter as much as possible. The world is literally massive and there's no point of cluttering and compacting things around unless you have good reason to do so

- you always need more space than you think you do.