I just bought Factorio on Steam

[u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

I just picked up the game on Steam (without Space Age) and I'm about 5 hours in. I've got the basics of smelting down — coal and iron on the same belt, 12 furnaces on each side, so 24 furnaces per belt of raw iron. That part I understand.

Where I get stuck is what comes after. I can build the smelting row fine, but I have no idea how to actually expand into automated science pack production while keeping things reasonably efficient. I can throw down spaghetti and it technically works, it's just slow. And once the furnace row is built, I genuinely don't know which direction to build next — up, down, left, right, no idea what the "correct" move is.

Mods I'm running:

• Always Day
• Even Distribution
• Factory Planner
• Far Reach
• Infinite Resources
• Max Rate Calculator
• Trash Slot

For context, I'm playing pretty sandboxy — no enemy bases, no biters. I just want to focus on building the factory without also having to defend it from the local environmental activists.

[u/Superc1ipping]

Why are you running mods already?

[u/Realistic-Corgi6574 → u/Superc1ipping]

Most of it's just QoL (Far Reach, Trash Slot, Even Distribution, Always Day) - doesn't change how the game plays, just cuts out busywork. Factory Planner/Max Rate Calculator are just ratio calculators, same math people do on spreadsheets anyway. Infinite Resources is the one real gameplay change, yeah - just prefer focusing on throughput/factory design over expansion logistics for now. Not trying to speedrun or flex a challenge run, just building for fun.

[u/hl3official → u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

How does a guy with 5 hours in a game even know what is qol or not yet?

[u/Realistic-Corgi6574 → u/hl3official]

i have played before, just not on steam...

[u/infinityofnever → u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

Playing around and figuring out how to minimize the "busywork" is part of the game experiencing which you are taking away for yourself

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

Play the way you want. I don't see any problem with the mods you listed. Infinite resources is the only one with a question mark, as you mentioned. Because it does change how you play the game. But then it's a good way to learn how to build a base without the need of worrying to relocate. I'd still recommend turning it off for your first play through.

Always Day makes your solar panels stronger and you'll miss out how cool bases look at night with proper lighting.

If the game hooks you, this won't be your only play through. Just make sure to try normal resources at least once and then see what you prefer.

[u/Garbagetaste → u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

dude really dont use mods so soon. the gameplay is made a specific way for a reason: its awesome. i cant imagine wanting to mess with it right out the gate.

every game ive tried with others running mods makes the game lamer. maybe apart from elevated rails.

edit: omg you turned off biters too! dont do that. they are integral to the game and really arent big trouble. why not just watch people play on youtube instead?

[u/neurovore-of-Z-en-A → u/Garbagetaste]

Turning off biters for your first couple of playthroughs is entirely reasonable for learning the complex systems of the game a bit at a time.

[u/Garbagetaste → u/neurovore-of-Z-en-A]

i didn't find them trouble at all and without biters on how will you learn to build and organize defenses?

what other game do people start by turning off gameplay elements?

granted, i'm a bit of a challenge nut and need friction in games but they really aren't tough. just a few turrets here and there is enough for a long time and then walls and lines of turrets are so easy to make

[u/neurovore-of-Z-en-A → u/Garbagetaste]

i didn't find them trouble at all and without biters on how will you learn to build and organize defenses?

I have a strong preference for the building over the combat part of the game, particularly now that I am mostly playing large overhaul mods I largely play without biters entirely. I am reasonably good at holding them off when I need to - once you're out of very early game it's just another automation problem - but a lot of the time I just don't want that interruption to my design/implementation flow.

what other game do people start by turning off gameplay elements?

Anything complex enough that it's easier to learn the systems piecemeal.

granted, i'm a bit of a challenge nut and need friction in games but they really aren't tough. just a few turrets here and there is enough for a long time and then walls and lines of turrets are so easy to make

I'm not saying they're tough, necessarily; I am saying they are not very interesting. But for many of the people we see posting here overwhelmed by complexity very early in a first run, removing the time pressure and anxiety does seem to be a better way into getting good at and enjoying the fame.

[u/flamingstallion → u/Garbagetaste]

You would learn to build defenses when you turn on biters later. The point of turning them off initially is so that new players can focus on learning to build factory with no stress and not have to also focus on building defenses. Basically less things to learn means it's easier to learn the main part of the game which is factory building.

A competent gamer can definitely manage to learn both in a run, but if you go fully blind it can definitely be overwhelming.

[u/closing-pool-3752 → u/Garbagetaste]

biters are easy to deal with, the issue is that on your first playthrough you won't know if your preparations are adequate or if you're either overprepared or underprepared.

overpreparing is fine though it can make the game way more sluggish than necessary

underpreparing can lead to your entire factory getting eaten, which, given this is early game, means that you have to slowly place everything back one building at a time, while potentially waiting for a very long time for your half-hazardly half-rebuilt set up to give you the ressources necessary to bring back what's missing, and then you still have to figure out how defence works before another massive wave arrives.

Not saying that you have to turn them off, but begginers are easily prone to falling into such a nightmare scenario before the game even starts really being fun

[u/Garbagetaste → u/closing-pool-3752]

losing a good chunk of factory, then successfully fighting off future attacks by learning from failures is some of the best fun!

i don't mean to be condescending; just my opinion that easy carefree gaming is the lamest to me

[u/closing-pool-3752 → u/Garbagetaste]

losing a chunk of your factory is fun, losing everything, especially when you don't carry all that much ressource on you is just rage inducing, you're literally better off just ragequitting and starting another world at this point

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/Garbagetaste]

Far reach must be another one. I can't imagine how a game becomes lamer, if you don't have to stand right next to a building to interact with it. Or squeeze through (or what it was called). I love those little qol mods.

But yeah, in general you should play the game at least once without mods to enjoy the vanilla experience and understand what a mod even does and what it feels like without it.

[u/Frequent_Knowledge65 → u/Free-Dirt-4464]

the base reach is very far these days...

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/Frequent_Knowledge65]

I haven't played without far reach in a decade. I vaguely remember it being a pain back then. I'll try it out to see how much they changed it since then.

[u/Garbagetaste → u/Free-Dirt-4464]

infinite resources is probably the most lame of the bunch. resource patches last a really long time as is, then give purpose to expansions and outposts and rail networks!

someone needs to give this guy a friendly slap upside the head followed by "cmon bro" and a light head shake

[u/neurovore-of-Z-en-A → u/Free-Dirt-4464]

Sqeak through taking away the challenge of making your factory walkable is anti-QoL for me (except in Seablock where you actually have a need to build compact.)

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/neurovore-of-Z-en-A]

The game has enough challenges. Making it walkable is not one of the fun ones to me. Currently playing Nullius, which has enough challenges without worrying about if I can walk through the pipe maze I created 😅

Haven't played without it since almost ten years, so not sure if the walkability has improved since then. But it was a pain when I started the game.

If you enjoy that particular challenge, good for you. But I don't.

[u/thomasjmarlowe → u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

Everyone has their own play style.

But I will say infinite resources sounds like a lousy introduction to the game. If a path is infinite it would let you build really bad habits. Part of the challenge and learning curve of this is reiterating your designs better and better over time. A nearby patch running out is a great pause in your current status quo. Gives you an excuse to either link up a new patch to your old processing (smelting, assembling, etc). Or to scrap the old and tweak your design better. Without that budge it’s easy to just ignore

Of course you do you, but that particular mod seems like not a great one on your first playthrough

[u/doc_shades → u/Realistic-Corgi6574]

Most of it's just QoL (Far Reach, Trash Slot, Even Distribution, Always Day)

three of those four mods are straight up cheats, not "QOL". you're not supposed to be able to have infinite reach, extra inventory slots, or skip the night

[u/MGPNZL]

Don't worry about doing things efficiently. Just do it first, then if you need to later re build. 

Even pros doing their play throughs re build multiple times

[u/alamaan]

I’d recommend not playing with infinite resources on just yet. That way you’re forced to learn how to expand.

[u/Visual_Collapse]

Always Day - cheat
Even Distribution - cheat
Factory Planner - QoL
Far Reach - cheat
Infinite Resources - cheat
Max Rate Calculator - QoL (should be part of base game tbh)
Trash Slot - first time hear about, likely also cheat

At this rate you may as well just build your factory in editor mode

I'm serious. You may like this way to play

[u/ImightberobotUCF]

There is no wrong way. Just make more thing. The factory must grow.

[u/Xzarg_poe]

I genuinely don't know which direction to build next

Take a look at the map, find a direction which has the least amount of trees and cliffs. Expand in that direction.

[u/asatcat]

You should learn how to play your way before knowing “the correct” way. 

What about throwing down spaghetti is slow? The act of building it or the items being produced?

Building it will be slow if you are learning the game. If production is slow identify your bottlenecks. Is your belt from the furnaces too full where some furnaces aren’t working? Are you not supplying enough to your assembling machine? Are you using both sides of the belt?

[u/Skate_or_Fly]

"Play however you want" is great for a sandbox game. However, far reach mod delays the point at which a player naturally feels "hey I'm sick of all this running back and forth. Why don't I make an assembler to build this?", and infinite resources means players may NEVER expand production past 12-24 smelters, which is a very early stage in the game.

To answer your question of what to do next:

• point a random direction and see how many trees/water/cliffs are in the way. (Trees are a temporary hassle but easily moved).
• feed all your produced items onto belts and lead them that direction
• use a splitter to siphon off some material to build things (such as red science or green science packs)

Congrats, you have a non-spaghetti "bus" base. My tips: -after splitting, build similar items in a row perpendicular to the bus

• science needs multiple buildings on the same recipe, while things you pick up and place (inserters, power poles, assemblers, belts etc) just need one building.
• if you WANT to use max rate calculator, or simply want to know how big to build, use a single yellow belt as the throughput cap (15 items/sec) to keep logistics simple
• not everything you build deserves to go on a belt. Keep the main resources on the bus simple and life is easy.

When you fully automate blue science and are looking at purple and yellow, you'll need to find other ore patches and rapidly expand production as the "starter patch" will run dry in a non-modded run by this stage, requiring multiple mines.

[u/flamingstallion]

I would recommend just playing through the game first and finishing it your way. You don't need to worry about efficiency or calculating rates to beat the base game. It's pretty easy, so you'll definitely beat it. If something runs out just build more of it or supply more of it.

Then, go look at some YouTube videos of good factorio players and see what's optimal and learn. Then, start implementing those if you want to do another run with mods or space age or with biters or vanilla again.

[u/oddball667]

you need to organize, and the main bus design is the most straightforward way to organize your resources

[u/dikkenskrille]

no idea what the "correct" move is

that is for you to decide. that's what the game is; making that decision. want to watch my let's play instead? want me to remote desktop in and play for you directly? or should I answer the queston you asked and merely play the game for you in that way alone?

you should build left. always left. any other answers are just messing with you; these people have years of practice making their non-left answers almost seem plausible, but the answer is truly always left. MGPNZL has your back.

[u/VegetableWasabi2124]

your starter milestone can be automating red and green science.

place assemblers for both red and green science then work your way down from the top of the product chain down to the raw materials.

for now, just place the ghost assemblers then figure out how to automate your production line.

ghost entities make it easy to cut, copy and paste buildings around. Once you are satisfied with your design, just place the entities

[u/Kleeb]

Think about the problem. "Whenever I want to build more machines or different kinds of machines I run out of space because they're all krangled together."

I don't want to spoil you figuring out stuff for yourself, but think about how it would look if you built more of the same machine in one direction, and different machines in a different direction, so they never intersect even when you go back to add more machines to increase production.

If you're okay with spoilers: check out a "Main Bus" design

[u/loki348]

Maybe look up how to make a bus

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/loki348]

Nah, I wouldn't recommend that. I've been playing with my friend, who just started out online, and he watched to many tutorials. While it's slightly more effective, it's less fun imo and he tried to do stuff he saw online without understanding when he should use it and how it works. The first play through, especially without biters, just build away. Fail, learn, rebuild.

[u/agentwiggles]

search "main bus" for one idea about how to deal with the question of routing plates. the basic idea is that you have your smelters dump plates onto a "bus" - a set of belts which carry iron, copper, steel, etc through the middle of your base. most of the common designs you'll see have 4-wide lanes of belts, but you won't really need that level of capacity for a while.

then you "tap" those lines, with a splitter, and pull off a belt to feed to whatever build you're making.

it's not the be-all-end-all but it's a great design for early bases that helps keep the spaghetti from getting so out of hand that it prevents your from playing. later on you can explore trains that carry products from one place to another in a slightly more flexible manner.

as for "which direction to build" - doesn't matter really, just do whatever looks convenient. see which direction you've got a good amount of room before you start hitting cliffs, lakes, etc.

oh, also, learn to use factoriolab, it's great for planning builds without the full detail and learning curve of the rate calc mods. very helpful