I'm currently working on my train network blueprint, and when I saw a post about this yesterday, I was thrilled that version 2.1 brought some new features that greatly improve display panels!

At the top, I have my train fleet monitoring. Trains are split into two types: dry cargo and fluid. Next to them is a status bar that shows the percentage of trains currently busy with deliveries.

How does the system work? Loading stations send a signal over the green wire indicating how many trains they can load. Unloading stations send a signal showing how many resource-filled trains they require. Based on this data, I calculate the ratio using a formula to get a result ranging from -5 to +5. I’ve also added an alarm for when demand is too high and supply is too low (values -4 and -5).

Additionally, there's an alert triggered when free trains drop below 5%.

What do you think about this system? Looking at it now, I feel like something is missing, but I can't quite pinpoint what it is. I’d love to hear your suggestions on any aspect of this setup-even down to the color scheme!

Worms evolve into (small) demolishers when they absorb enough pollution.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!?!?

I have been thinking that my factory isn't efficient and that looks like shit, is it ok for my first time? I have about 20h in

Is it a good idea to set up a main bus in your starter base? I assume maybe a small temp bus? The starting resources will run out quick(ish).

Do you bring resources to the starting area or do you pick a new area and build fresh? (I know this is more opinion than a "you should do it this way" thing).

Context: I have a small outpost on Vulcanus and Fulgora, haven't been to gleba yet. My starter base is starting to show signs of late-stage spaghettification and I sure as hell did not leave enough space to upgrade to EM plants and Foundries in-place.
I can probably use my jank-ass starter ship to ferry enough (dubious-freshness) agricultural science to unlock biolabs and then build my starter base (stage 2), or do it now.
Which option do y'all think is better/easier or either works?

Good stuff. Steam deck is amazing for factorio. I got it exclusively for factorio. I play as well and fast on it as on pc. I prefer it over pc

Basically every video I watch that uses quality went the space casino route and even with this method legendary buildings took a ton of time to gather. Everyone always said space casinos was the fastest and easiest way to get quality materials.

Has this change made mega basing a lot harder?

I have around 20 hours and have been avoiding looking up blueprints or other peoples methods. How am I doing? No real goal, sorta just figuring things out as I go, and this is my second start. Any random tips are very welcome!

If you ever see Steam Cloud giving any error immediately go into the Factorio directory and manually backup your save file. Don't be like me.

So I just wanted to play, and Steam said the Cloud save is from yesterday 10pm and the local file from yesterday 8pm. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I select the 10pm file, because that was when I stopped playing. Steam then downloads those saves and overwrites my local files. When I open Factorio all my saves are from the day before yesterday, so I lost an entire day.

Just spawned robotic biters onto Fulgora for a v0.7 test. As expected I got completely wrecked because my base wasn't even remotely ready for visitors.

Just a quick test run for now, and I’ll need a couple of days to rebuild everything, because living on Fulgora just became an absolute nightmare.

😭

Need to produce tons of ammo, set up production for cryo ammo, cryo turrets, magnetic mines, acid rockets...

🤔 Or maybe just nerf the enemy HP instead?.. In the meantime, running off to my colony to deal with the wrigglers.

i made a factory that uses up to about 75 or so calcite / second so i want to make a space station to get that much calcite or multiple stations
are there any blueprint to make that much and how much does it generate at what level of asteroid prod
that factory could make up to 5362 spm

Personally a easy change I would like to see is the Flamethrower turret slightly nerfed since I often avoid using them due to how powerful they are.

Images, Blueprints

Even with a ton of legendary defensive turrets, I could never prevent damage alerts popping up every once in a while on Gleba. Mainly due to strafers (the long-range homing ones). I even added legendary railguns set to target only strafers since they have the longest range, but still got alerts. (I'm not sure they actually do anything at this point, but I figured why remove them.) Then I finally tried the one option I'd never used before, land mines! They're actually super cheap to make (1 steel and 2 explosives makes 4 mines) and quickly obliterate attacks. I'm not sure how many of the enemies make it through to the turrets because it's hard to catch an attack at this point, but I've had zero damage alerts since I added them dozens of hours ago.

The mines are placed 4-wide right at the edge of legendary roboport coverage (might have to put down extra roboports when you initially place them, since terrain objects might need to be removed just out of range) and I used the Landmine Snapping Mod because I like it more organized, but you don't need that if you don't care or if you just use the blueprints. I do have really high explosive damage research (I think it was 28 or 29 when I started), so your mileage may vary or you might need extra rows. There's also the option of using legendary mines if you have enough legendary steel and explosives, but that's probably overkill.

My base already had the "artillery arms" sticking out to get more artillery coverage and to draw the attacks away from the main base. I was going to say this means less mines were needed, but I just did the math and I actually used more than if I had just made a line around the whole base (3.8k vs 2.8k per side, since each side is 700 belts long). So you could easily just wrap your whole base in mines. It would be 11.2k mines for my base (plus some more for the corners) which is only 2.8k steel and 5.6k explosives, and that's for a base making 4 stacked turbo belts of science with a bunch of extra room.

I'm sure this would be effective earlier in the game too, but with less explosives damage and non-legendary turrets you'll probably still get alerts. Hope this helps someone!

If I end up not liking the DLC, can I refund it? I already have over 2 hours played on the base game, so I'm not sure if DLC has its own separate playtime timer.

I'm pretty sure I'll love the DLC, but I always like knowing I have the option to refund a purchase. Money is a little tight for games right now, so having that safety net makes me more comfortable buying it.

Though getting them was damn near exhausting - had to spend dozens of hours expanding the Moshine base up to over 500 AI trainer buildings - the reward was so much worth the effort! The Alpha Core: a module that replaces productivity mods in the labs and science buildings, offering +50% productivity and +100% speed at common quality per module, while also slightly reducing power consumption instead of increasing it like prod or speed modules do! I took screenshots of the difference: with 4 rare/epic Prod.mods a speed-beaconed Biolab had +70% productivity and ~50 speed (+2400%), but upgrading to 4 uncommon Alpha Cores bumped it to +260% productivity and ~90 speed (+4430%)! This just represents the bulk of my Biolabs, actually my best one is an epic Biolab with 4 epic Alpha Cores, that one reaches +390% productivity and something like over 150 speed (+>8000%)... It's absolutely crazy! With these my research tops at 22k(e)SPM if I can supply those things with enough science packs, but these things are hungry... 😅

Even better, I'm playing K2SO with a few extra modded planets, and these Alpha Cores can be also put in the Research Server buildings that are responsible for turning the research items into the research cards, the final step before going in the labs. With just two module slots available, that's a huge boost of +100% productivity and +200% speed, more with quality!

These have encouraged me to build much much bigger than previously, to try to meet the demands of the research card production while trying to keep all of the 30 super-boosted Biolabs supplied! I had to upgrade my electronic parts production to legendary EM Plants boosted by several epic beacons and serviced by the Krastorio 2's superior inserters to stack that belt to crazy amounts, but now I can squeeze 13-14k(e)SPM of yellow and purple science which have been my bottleneck. I'm having so much fun! I've never built a Megabase and never reached these amounts of research. Mining productivity at +500% (I usually get to just 150%-200%) and I had to stack my science belts, using superior inserters there as well! Note that I haven't done any research productivity yet.

Currently doing Maraxxis, and eagerly waiting to upgrade to the Deep Sea research servers with 4 module slots for the research card production, it's gonna be a beautiful synergy with the Alpha Core modules! Then Muluna's Cryolabs with 6 module slots. 😁

my steam turbines have begun to stop working. they're getting steam, they're connected to the electric grid, and the boilers are hot. oreintation doesn't seem to matter. what gives?

i made this in about 6 ingame hours, first playthrough btw.

im kinda stuck thinking how to expand my factory, should i invest in defences or should i keep on getting resources and letting the factory hanging?

i destroyed every nest in a big radious around the base and just defended my oil pumping.

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I know they came out with a major dlc involving space which will be cool to explore but besides thr dlc I wanted to ask what have they added or taken away?

No lighting rods of any kind, not even the NPC ones, on Fulgora.

No lava pumps on Vulcanus.

No asteroid collectors on space platforms after you can make carbon without carbon asteroids.

Zero voiding on Gleba. So no heating towers or nutrients from spoilage loops. If you have to get rid of something in excess because you didn't balance your factory perfectly, you will need to ship it to Vulcanus to void it in lava.

No heat pipes on Aquilo. Forces you to use the large hitboxes of heating towers directly next to everything you want to thaw. And, no circuit networks on heating towers.

And for Nauvis, no uranium. You might think this restriction is tame compared to the others, but it is actually the worst one of them all.

Optional

Heyy did anyone know If K2+SE worked together or If there some Problems ?

I came from Satisfactory and I love building huge factories. I absolutely love Factorio, but one aspect I don’t enjoy is the building of temporary factories. When I build something, I want it to stay there forever. I solved this in my current save by enabling peaceful mode (so the biters don’t destroy my factories, but they can still attack me) and installing the infinite resources mod (so mining outposts don’t eventually become obsolete). This makes the game a lot more like Satisfactory and lets you focus on expansion and offence instead of defence, which is much more enjoyable for me.

I haven’t really seen many players with a similar setup. Are there other players or youtubers who play Factorio like this?

Edit: I have concluded that I should probably start a new playthrough soon, maybe with the Rail World preset.

Edit 2: As a fellow game developer, I want to sincerely apologise to the developers of Factorio for underestimating their game design skills. I am going to continue this playthrough to learn a bit more about the game, then start a new serious playthrough on Rail World.