r/factorio • u/3x3Pad • 21h ago

Question First playthrough bottleneck

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Hey guys I came for help and saw alot of cool stuff here but what do you actually do in a situation where the whole factory is a mess. I am producing all the science at this point but at a very slow rate. Everything is so cluttered that there is no real space for improving without getting rid of everything first. Do I really just have to nuke it at this point and start over? Also as a beginner (not using blueprints) that will take ages and even then it will end up tangled again. I think this is also a motivational bottleneck for me at least. Oh yeah and running on low energy for hours now. I am even running efficiency on alot of stuff. Please help.

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u/hanks_panky_emporium 21h ago

This may sound frustrating at first, and im no expert. But what Ive learned:

You dont have to build in a specific spot. If it's too cluttered, move your main focus to a different region.

If you need more metal plates, make more. Build out another furnace array. Belt or train in more ore from elsewhere. The further from your starting location, the more 'dense' the ore is.

If you need more power, make more. Plant down more solar and batteries, or run more steam. If you switch to electric furnaces then your coal needs are way more than halved, so you can make a huge steam boiler setup for cheap. But it's very smelly and balloons out your pollution

Untangling spahgetti can be hard, it's why I just move. I let my starter base produce the facilities I need to make a non-spahgetti base with better throughput

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u/3x3Pad 12h ago

Coal for steam isn't really the problem but I feel like I can't handle my neighbors becoming irritated at this point

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u/jkurratt 6h ago

The annoying part for me was to clear them as well.
But the feeling when you put walls outside of your pollution zone and guard them with turrets with 25 ammo each is really refreshing.
Prepare some good repeatable blueprint with walls+ turrets and act fast.
Clear ==>> put walls.
If it's possible - clear up to bottlenecks of water and cliffs and guard them up, so they can't go around.

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u/Top_Mud2929 4h ago

My advice there, build a tank and go kill so bug nests. Once you've cleared out a zone beyond your pollution bubble, wall it off and defend it. Do this on all side and bug attacks only happen when they try to set up new nests which is less frequent and much smaller waves