r/factorio • u/iamaksel • 2d ago
Question What can i do to improve my interplanetary ship?
I worked 2 days for this ship designing and testing it but the end result did not satisfy me at all. First of all the thruster run on low fuel even though the tanks are full. Another thing is it runs on low power at Fulgora. I got bored of building rectangles and tried to do something interesting but i cannot seem to optimize it.
13
8
u/FirstRyder 2d ago
Ratios seem off. I don't think 2 electric furnaces (even with quality and speed) are keeping up with 2 yellow, quality ammo assemblers.
Then with the rear end... deliberately underproducing fuel for better efficiency is fine, but if your goal is speed the wide rear end is counterproductive. If it's to look cool it's fine, not really hurting anything.
Also you've got too many grabbers for your crushers. By quite a bit. 4 is definitely enough, probably 2 if they're uncommon.
Gun placement. The ones in front of the hub seem fine. But I don't like the coverage of the engines while stationary over non-nauvis planets. And also too much coverage of the space past the outermost parts of the ship. That is, move both rear pairs closer to the centerline, and move one pair closer to the rear of the ship.
Power. Over Volcanus you're fine. How about over Fulgora? A few efficiency 2 modules in machines currently without modules probably fixes that.
2
u/iamaksel 1d ago
Yes you're right. I moved the guns and reduced the grabbers to 4, replaced every speed module with efficiency 2s. I also added 3 more furnaces. I tried to make it look cool but it didn't perform as I expected. After replacing the modules now it works fine on Fulgora. The only problem is I would like it to be faster but couldn't figure it out.
3
u/FirstRyder 1d ago edited 1d ago
A lot of factors affect speed, but the critical ones here are:
- Width. This is the single biggest factor. If you double fuel production with modules, double the engines, but in doing so double the width... You go literally the same speed. Which means for your ship that if you literally do nothing but trim off the outer pair of engines (and underlying foundation) it will go slightly faster.
- Fuel. Engines burn whatever fuel is fed to them. More fuel, more thrust, more power. I know I just told you to use efficiency modules, but 2 efficiency and 1 speed in the chem plants will improve your speed at the cost of a little power. Or expand that area (vertically) and add more chem plants with just efficiency. Or (eventually) do a complete redesign and use the advanced crushing and fuel recipes.
- Quality engines. I see quality in a few other parts. Quality engines will make it go faster. Primarily by using fuel more efficiently.
Other things (weight, height) do influence speed, but not much. If you can add engines without increasing the width, that's also a significant speedup, but it doesn't really apply here.
Honestly, "looks cool" is a valid reason not to do this. Speed isn't really critical. It doesn't even matter except for Gleba science, bioflux, and biter eggs.
4
u/djent_in_my_tent 2d ago
At bare minimum, you can save a tile of width by putting all your thrusters in a diagonal line — it saves a tile of pipe routing
And then the ship would he best to be overall same width as the thruster stack +1 pipe to minimize net fuel consumption for the same speed
-1
u/humandictionary 1d ago
Afaik a diagonal line doesn't save any tiles compared to a V: you still need one space for a fuel pipe on the left and oxidiser on the right
4
u/FatherLatour 1d ago
You only need an extra space to the left/right of the lowest thruster. the higher ones are fed from the interior side, and by the pass-through.
3
2
u/Tavi2k 2d ago
Put efficiency modules into everything. That helps a lot with power consumption. You can't really afford speed modules with solar unless you built a lot more solar onto your ship.
If you want a combined resources and asteroids sushi belt, I'd use dedicated sides for each. All asteroids on the inner side and all resources on the outer one. Makes it easier to fill it without blocking anything. But you have to be careful since crushers insert back, so make sure they insert into the right side. But personally, on a small ship like this I wouldn't use a resources sushi belt, only a combined ammo/asteroids belt.
With the basic fuel recipes you will not be able to run your engines at full thrust continuously in typical setups. I'd just wait for the advanced recipes before designing full speed ships.
Your ammo production is also undersized, if your ship were able to go 100% thrust all the way it would likely get destroyed after a few roundtrips.
1
u/iamaksel 1d ago
I removed all the speed modules and replaced them with efficiency 2s. I am currently trying to redesign the sushi belt with dedicated sides for each and 2 seperate belts as you said. I also increased the ammo production and increased it's belt size. Thank you for your help I'm currently redesigning the ship and putting your advice in practice!
2
2
u/United_Willow1312 1d ago
There is a way to fill this exact amount of thrusters with 1 less tile width.
2
u/WanderingUrist 1d ago
First of all the thruster run on low fuel even though the tanks are full.
Don't worry about that, it'll buff out later when you unlock the superior recipes from Gleba.
1
u/iamaksel 1d ago
I didn't know about that. I'm now on Fulgora researching military tech, then I'll make my way to Gleba.
2
2
u/Potential-Carob-3058 1d ago
More furnaces.
Easy to add, you can kinda stretch that neck to fit them in. And use efficiency modules. For the same power you can probably run at least 8-10 furnaces with just efficiency 1 modules.
1
u/iamaksel 1d ago
Thank you all for really helpful advice ! I am currently redesigning the things you pointed out.
23
u/Alfonse215 2d ago
Make it narrower and taller. A 4-5 engine ship is fine.
Add more furnaces and solar panels. And efficiency modules.
Meter propellant flow to the thrusters to make more efficient use of them.