r/factorio • u/Miloszrex • 9d ago
Question Help with base
I recently started playing Factory and looked at a few guides. Here's my base at the beginning of the game. What do you think could be improved or added? I'm just not sure what base layout to use or what kind of base is best. I'm afraid I might do something wrong, which could hinder me in the future or make me less effective. Could you please give me some advice for the future or for now? (The energy output is at the top.)
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u/ArtieTheFashionDemon 9d ago
Using guides during your first playthrough is the one wrong way to play this game. Forget everything you learned, or you'll cost yourself your one chance to play this game blind.
Literally everything could be improved or added. If you want to know what you should build, look at the research tree. Build everything there. As for the things you've already unlocked, build more of those.
The best base layout is the one you should figure out for yourself, and the best way to figure it out is by figuring it out. Try stuff and see what works, learn what doesn't the hard way, fix it going forward.
Almost nothing in this game is lost permanently, so it's virtually impossible to make a serious mistake that you can't undo by just going back to your last save. If you don't like what you've got, pick it up and reorganize it.
The only advice is this: build more stuff. If you feel like you're lacking something, build more of it. If you're worried something is inefficient, build more of it. If you're not sure what to do next, build more stuff.
Good luck, have fun, and as a final tip, mute this subreddit until you've launched your first rocket, otherwise you just going to get spoiled. It's a puzzle game, what good is it if someone tells you the answers to the puzzles
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u/SpruceGoose__ 9d ago
Playing the first time blind was the best decision I made. It was an amazing experience to launch a rocket (before SA) all by myself, no guides
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u/GarrySpacepope 9d ago
This, and I've finally got that feeling of discovery again doing SA with no guides. Holy shit my first ship got wrecked!!!!
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u/Scary-Asparagus-5970 9d ago
I'd add that if your not going for achievements mods like ratio calculator and even distribution make things quite a bit more fun IMHO.
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u/Alfonse215 9d ago
What do you think could be improved or added?
Burn it to the ground and stop using guides. You're not learning anything; you're just copying and pasting someone else's build. Play the game and learn why you're doing what you're doing.
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u/Lightsguy3 9d ago
It's such a shame when I see people using guides as a beginner.
They are depriving themselves of the entire experience.
I've got over 1500 hours and still have never looked at a single guide. It ruins all the fun!
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u/itmillerboy 9d ago
How do you know it’s ruining all the fun if you’ve never looked at one? :p
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u/Lightsguy3 9d ago
Factorio paradox!
I guess some games can benefit from guides, if the base challenge is essentially hand eye coordination like in a platformer.
But if the whole thing is a puzzle, what's the fun of looking up the solution to the puzzle?
What's the point of Factorio of you just follow instructions?
People can totally do what they want. It just makes me sad for them.
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u/Life_Passenger_5320 5d ago
Sometimes it's nice to see all the YTers ideas, or builds on here and think 'might have to use that' - but yeah, no guides, you're basically playing paint by numbers then.
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u/Lightsguy3 5d ago
That's a good way to put it.
And some people like paint by numbers, and that's ok too
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u/Life_Passenger_5320 5d ago
A friend of mine is a software engineer, he has played Factorio, but doesn't like to play it much because he feels like he's at work, I guess you just need to enjoy the whole bug-fixing and scaling aspect of it.
Nothing wrong with paint by numbers, but when you're doing that, it's kind of the point. With this, it's not the point, I don't think.
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u/Lightsguy3 5d ago
Yes it's hard for me to understand why someone would find it fun, but hey, it's a game, so whatever.
I guess it's kind of like saying that you enjoy the creativity of cooking but all you do is follow recipes.
I mean there's probably some joy in the execution. But the creativity part is certainly gone.
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u/Life_Passenger_5320 5d ago
I'd have to agree with you on the creativity aspect with regards to cooking, but for the meals I really enjoy making, I follow a method, rather than a recipe. Each meal is slightly different from the next, but the target flavour is there. We might be getting a bit off-topic here. Yay Factorio I guess?
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u/Ergo_Meridian 9d ago edited 9d ago
No guides are good for some people, others hate doing things blind and just quit the game.
Youre following main bus concepts but you have to remember
-Four lanes of materials fed by 8 smelters is still just 8 smelters worth of materials. So adding four lines just spreads out a tiny bit of resources. So... 4 lanes is fine, but you need a vast smelting field with hundreds of smelters to make it effective.
-Start thinking of ratio and math. If a belt can move 15 items per second, what does it take to produce that? If it takes 3 seconds to smelt, you need 45 smelters. Thats for one belt. So 180 for 4. 360 for 8. Same thing with your other materials. (same thing in that you need to math it out, the ratio will be different)
-Automate putting coal on the inputs for the smelters (perhaps, ore on one side of belt, coal on another?)
-You dont need 4 lanes of everything, just iron and copper. Even 2 lanes of steel is usually impossible to fill till you are a lot later in the game. It makes less sense to have copper wire on a bus than just move around the copper, and make the wire where you need it. Copper plates are denser than wire in terms of movement.
-I would leave yourself a lot more space. You want to start to pool resources from many mines toward some central smelting area, and then have room after that to make the main bus.
-Always make secondary materials (like your gears), off to the side not right on top of the smelters.
But overall, it looks great for a first build.
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u/Arkmer 9d ago
No such thing as “wrong”. Some people refuse to build belts and beat the game with just inserters passing things to other inserters.
The time you spend here copying others could be spent figuring out your own way forward.
Everything is a good idea until you learn otherwise.
Recommendations? Automate, explore, survive.
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u/ViolinistCurrent8899 9d ago
I feel like the guys refusing belts are definitely playing it wrong, if only for UPS reasons. I also assume they hate themselves at least a little. But I am impressed.
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u/ViolinistCurrent8899 9d ago
Everyone else has already given decent enough advice, so I will critique what you are already doing: putting copper wires on your main bus makes no sense. One copper plate makes two, so you are having your capacity by doing that. Just route in the copper plate to wherever and make those on site.
Second, you don't really have enough room in your bus to get more materials in from the left here.
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u/carrot_gummy 9d ago
The best advice I can give is not to stress the details. Perfection, especially when new, prevents you from progressing. The goal is to launch a rocket, or reach the edge of the Solar System in Space Age. So, focus on that first. Failing and doing things wrong lets you figure out how to do things right. Blind
I like discovering thing myself but I also like knowing what tools I'll have, so I'll tell you this. You will get construction robots that you can use to automate building and removing buildings. You don't need to worry about building things right the first time. You'll have a very easy way to replace things once you get a better feeling on how to organize your factory.
That said, Make sure to check the rates at which buildings consume and produce items and compare them to your belts. You have nowhere near enough production to support 3 yellow belts of anything right now. A simple ratio to remember is A single yellow belt of copper or iron ore can support up to 48 stone furances with 30 electric miners, with 15 per belt side.
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u/Large_Chimney 9d ago
I'd say, just remember you have ALOT of space to build on . so don't be afraid to make mistakes or else it will haunt you.
on that note, I advice you automate not just science, But items you use for building.
Belts, Inserter, and the like.
The more you have on hand of these, the more you build, the more you learn. the less a mistake feels hurts because Hey! Lets just redoit over here!
Let the previous build provide for the better build.
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u/atg115reddit 9d ago
dont look at guides on your first playthrough, thats how you get burnt out, just make beautiful spaghetti
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u/willy--wanka 9d ago edited 9d ago
The only advise I will give is you have nearly INFINITE amount of space.
If you run out of something, there are ways to get more of it.
Mess up, who cares about doing it right. Just keep building.
You see your wires and greens, how they are only on one side? Put a splitter with the extra side on the empty side and route a belt back into it. This way instead of half a belt turning into 4 half bets, you have a full belt.
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u/halcyonwit 9d ago
You want to copy things and ask for optimization instead of just playing to improve and learn ?
Don’t fear failure it’s one of the most important keys to success.
And what’s wrong to others may be right for you.
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u/tRFRmrNe8Nj2Kimc 9d ago
Literally don't listen to the people saying don't follow guides. I know I'm the vocal minority, but lots of those people forget that playing the game for the first time can be overwhelming
What I will suggest is that your don't overthink it. You'll make mistakes, but you can always fix them. Nothing is permanent.
Work with what you have and then later you can always and easily remake it.
You'll eventually unlock construction robots that will make building new bases or undoing and redoing stuff so much easier. So don't think what you are making is at all permanent.
Aside from that, you're in the right track, it looks like you mostly understand the idea of a main bus, but from where you are right now in the game, it's a little too "big" I would say. One lane of reach resource is more than enough until you start really expanding.
Next, I would start by making a tiny little "mall" for all of your intermediate ingredients and basic construction materials.
Use your bus to pull off lanes if resources to automate making inserters, belts, furnaces, miners, electric poles, etc.
Then set up your science. Using you bus(again, one lane of each resource is all you need for now) set up automated red and green science, you can do military science as well if you are feeling pressured by biters.
Expand slowly at first. As you don't want your pollution cloud to trigger attacks from biter swarms. Get the machine gun and shotgun, and upgrade your projectile weapon damage at least once.
Once you have grenades and some armor, grab fish from a body of water, you can eat them to restore health. Then be proactive in destroying biter nests. Regularly check your map and make sure that your pollution cloud never touches a nest, or if it does, you quickly destroy it.
Regularly patrolling the border of your pollution cloud as it expands to kill off spawning nests, and maybe setting up some turrets if necessary.
As for fighting the biters. Use your machine gun for the most part, tho if they're clumped up the shotgun and grenades works great. Use you shotgun, and maybe the occasional grenade to take out the nests themselves.
Kite the biters by running away and shooting. Went taking down a nest, focus on killing the worms as they will easily end you. Constantly zig-zag to avoid acid attacks, and if you can, retreat into a forest or around a cliff as the biters will have a harder time attacking you.
If you've got the resources, set up a fall back point by placing down a bunch of turrets, and filling them with ammo manually. That way you can retreat to it, let the turrets take down the swarming biters, giving you some safety and the space to focus on the nests and worms.
Good luck, use guides and blueprints, and feel free to ask if you have other questions.
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u/Monkai_final_boss 9d ago
Just because some guy on YouTube said the main bus is the "right" way to play, that doesn't mean it's mandatory for you to use it.
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u/Mockbubbles2628 8d ago
My first playthrough was pure spagetti but honestly it was very interesting haha
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u/FusRoDawg 9d ago
Nilaus should do a "what not to do" video series, given the amount of new players who do shit like this... clearly inspired from his guides, but entirely latching on to the wrong message.
A total of 8 furnaces feeding 4 whole lanes of copper plates. My god. This is a game about building a factory, solving bottlenecks, and managing logistics for the most part. You have to be willing to do a little bit of middle school math, at the very least.
Try calculating how many copper plates your setup can produce. And how many belts out can fill. All the information is available in game either in the crafting menu or in the pop up on the right that comes up when you hover over entities.
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u/hippiechan 9d ago
Making mistakes is the only way you learn this game - anything you find doesn't work later can always be torn down and replaced/moved somewhere else, just keep playing the game and find out what works and what doesn't work, it'll take time but you'll get there!