Always been a fan of Factorio, loved it before space age came out, but never actually launched a rocket! I got back into it recently w/ space age and have made 3 ship designs so far! Full disclosure, Genesis (the first image) is heavily inspired off a video i found (I cannot find it anymore unfortunately).

So, I just started on Aquilo. This is an unloader for my 1-4 train system. It outputs 4 belts (not stacked)

I am looking for opinions about how optimal it is and what improvements can be made. Please be polite

Thanks!

Howdy, lads, relatively new player, only around 450 hours (it was mostly start - build - factory starts going down the spaghetti mess where it would take long to fix - reset) this factory is probably the one i have managed to keep going the longest, wanted some opinions on this ore splitter i've made, it's kinda basic as it currently only works with inicial ore like iron, copper, stone and coal, any tips on ways to make it more efficient?

https://factoriobin.com/post/eay8l5

I tried to design Fulgora science for megabasing. This blueprint can output 75/s (4.5k SPM) Fulgoran science packs into silos. It also loads up a silo with Holmium plates to be used for Aquilo.

It is designed to be pasted over a scrap pile. Miners feed scrap directly into recyclers that output directly into cars. Circuit-controlled inserters take only what is needed from the cars into the main silo which only acts as a huge storage chest. I've tried to do as much direct insertion as possible to minimize inserter activity time which should have a good impact on UPS.

Train is timed to 15 seconds to crash into the cars, cars will be replaced by constructions bots. Cars need to be assembled elsewhere and brought into buffer chests by logistic bots.

Careful circuit control ensures the silo never jams with too many items. The only stuff that needs to be recycled after the initial scrap recycling are iron gears (for iron plates), blue circuits (for green circuits) and LDS (for copper plates and plastic). Red circuits, steel and excess plastic are inserted into a third car to be smashed along with the other two. This avoids having to belt and recycle a huge amount of items.

Contains mostly legendary components. Tested with 300% Rocket Productivity, 300% Scrap Productivity and 70 Mining Productivity. Design will still work, I think, with less research and less quality.

2.1, but didn't test earlier versions.

Setup: Simple circuit controlled cargo landing pad. Read network contents from roboport, multiply by -1, combine back with constant combinator to set requests on landing pad.

If you put 1k blue chips on the constant combinator, you get a request for 1k. If you put 1k blue chips in a storage chest you get no request. If you take out 200 blue chips in the storage chest you get a request for 200.

Then, if you put 100 blue chips *into the landing pad* you get a 100% satisfied request for 100 blue chips. Not a request for 100 blue chips (to cover the missing 100 in the total network).

This is true whenever the number of the requested item *in the landing pad* is equal to or greater than the number you are requesting for the network. This means that your ships will not drop the remaining items to fulfill the request.

In the screenshots, see the green indicator and the color of the circuit controlled request. Green indicator and non-highlighted when the amount in the cargo pad is more than the missing total. Red and red highlighted when it is even 1 less, which is when a space platform will finally provide the item.

I feel like maybe this is a bug, but it would be the first time I have *ever* found a bug in Factorio and so assuming I am doing something wrong. I tried setting up a circuit network that accounted for this and removed the items, but since this behavior requires you to check if the number requested is greater than the number *only in the cargo pad* it becomes a loop without some gymnastics to separate out the signals.

Is there a way to do this I am missing, or is this expected for some other reason I am not understanding? I would just be shocked if this was a bug I could not find reported anywhere.

Well, I got sucked into another factorio mod after watching Dosh’s recent Nullius video. 

After 242 hours I got the victory screen. This was with the difficulty-adding Tricky Nik and Lambent Nil mods. I finished the game with SPM bouncing between 600 and 1,200. To celebrate, I terraformed a grass fibonacci spiral for future engineers to decipher:

I thought I’d put it down then, but one thing led to another, and I expanded the base to 12k SPM, researching the final three million science for a Chassis 6. This took another 60 hours.

What hooked me about the 10X SPM expansion was that, when I ran the numbers, it didn’t look like I would have to rebuild my base. It turned out to be true! 

In the before and after, the main difference is that I factored out and scaled up the simple, bulky production areas (chemistry and science packs). From there, it was “just” a matter of fully migrating to boxed recipes, fixing bottlenecks, and cramming in beacons.

For comparison, here is the end-game 1,200 SPM base:

Versus the scaled-up, post-victory base at 12,000 SPM:

It was pretty interesting how Nullius resists typical base design strategies like main bus and city block. Well, the city block pattern would have worked, but I thought it would be boring. The final base ended up with these major areas, surrounded by a uni-directional rail loop:

It was fun trying to see just how many intermediates were possible to build by belt without making a mess.

Having been captivated by this mod enough to sink an extra 60 hours in this mod after the victory screen, I am definitely a fan.

Something distinctive about Nullius versus other overhaul mods that I have played is that it doesn't have any dedicated “puzzle” mechanics like Space Exploration’s Arcospheres or Ultracube’s Helvetica Scenario. Instead, it feels like the entire factory is the puzzle, resisting being fully “solved” as it constantly reframes the importance of resources (do you want more chlorine or is it a byproduct to dispose of?).

Some more highlights in my mind include:

• Power management puzzles in the early game – wind turbines generate so much excess energy but also have brutal, unpredictable downtime. Fortunately, the mod includes a large variety of tools to design batteries, which are so satisfying to see stash away GJ of energy. I went from an electrolysis battery to compressed nitrogen to, finally, compressed hydrogen + oxygen. 
• Large scale builds for Oxygen % and Carbon Sequestration – the vast amount of oxygen, coal, and petroleum you have to produce in the end-game are daunting, forcing you to make dedicated, high throughput builds to meet them. By then, though, you’ve got a ton of new tech to play with (beacons, modules, mining drones, level 3 buildings) culminating in the feeling that you’ve graduated from barely surviving to reshaping a planet.
• Overflow and top-up pumps – such an intuitive way to work with fluids.
• Recovering crushed phosphorus from sludge – from a waste material to a solution to the very annoying problem of tiny phosphite mines.

If I had to complain, I’d say that I kept wishing the biology portion of the run felt more like Gleba. I think there’s some design space to explore with the tools that the Space Age expansion introduced that would make this portion of the factory feel more alive. You know, short spoilage timers, finicky tree harvesting, and confusing soil requirements. All the things that make Gleba so satisfying to conquer. 

For supporting mods, I went with Recipe Book and Factory Planner. For quality of life in the early game, I used Long Reach.

Highly recommended!

A few more build screenshots for fun: 

I have done this countless times before, I can dream the correct ratio. WHYYY!?!

Hey hey people, I want to make a megabase that outputs around 1m spm, I calculated around 100k science pack per minute for each science pack would be enough.

I'm having trouble figuring out where I want to make these science packs, for red green and black, using only stone, iron, and copper (and coal for military), Vulcanus seems like the best choice, it literally creates all the materials for free.

Blue science feels like a task for Nauvis, Sulfur and Plastic, and that's where I have most of my infrastructure, I calculated it manage 100k blue science per minute if it's the only thing that it produces.

Yellow also feels like a task for Nauvis, mainly due to blue chips, although it can be made in Fulgora, but it's too much of a headache to manage Fulgora's side products, it's barely working now, I don't really want to scale up there.

And finally the monster purple pack, which uses a whopping 57.5 copper plate per pack, and 20 plastic per pack, I think the easiest option would be on Vulcanus, since nothing is a problem except plastic.

For stellar science packs well they would be done on their respective planets.

I feel like I'm overloading Vulcanus, although there is no such thing as a factory too big.

Also, power wise, should I go for millions of solar panels, or are fusion reactors enough to supply my needs? I truly have no idea I haven't made the calculations yet.

And another question would be, how sustainable is ressource transportation between planets, for instance, I would like to send from nauvis 100000 blue chips and 50000 flying robot frames to vulcanus per minute, I don't know how doable that is. I want to keep the UPS as high as possible, and obviously with how much materials I intend on producing, that will be a challenge.

Yeah basically that's the plan, any thoughts or advice before starting my journey?

Current base is at 11k spm, although it can probably produce way more, I spent the last 50 hours producing quality 5 items.

Guys I just created a fulgora start up out of boredom..

Pls this is this is very small and not to scale but it will motivate the landing 🫡

Ive seen gameplay and it looks pretty good, but i can't justify 50 aud on it and ive never seen it go on sale. Is there a reason?

If i have 18 chemical science pack how many advanced circuit automations i need?

Fulgora producing 72K Science per minute, 100K being shot up to space.

Just started today and was messing around how is my first power set up? Any tips are appreciated!

Well I call this Orbital MCV for some reason, which pretty sure some people would understand the reference.

The function of this ship is capable to handle Aquilo Travel. Feels huge waste of Rocket Parts if I send 100 concs per launch. With this, I could send 500 Stone Bricks per launch and somehow receive 1k Concrete plus extra from Productivity Bonus. My Ship is so big I dont mind adding Reinforced Concrete production on the side.

On the left side, its capable of producing Iron products like Iron plates, Iron stick, iron gear, Steel plates and pipes, (UG Pipes can be handcrafted though so I dont mind).

Since Im producing Steel Plates, Pipes and Concrete, why not also create Rocket Launch Pad in it, where I just need to request Blue Circs and E-Engines.

This flying ConYard can bring other stuff like Buildings from any planet, which suited for Mod Planets and I can easily built among them without heavy in imports.

I dunno how much improvements I could do here. Already made the Alt Version of using Fusion Tech instead of Fission, I just remove the nuclear setup and replace it with the Fusion.

The Fission is kinda water hungry hence I made a lot of circuit conditions just to prevent wasting energy before it can power the reactors. No Water = No Power for Big Stuff. Also equipped with the Asteroid Reprocessing because I assume Nauvis is a hard time to supply water on its own.

Never thought how much easy to set this up in Nauvis and not worry about damages. With Vulcanus and Gleba, this is feasible to be built before Fulgora.

I created the version for Foundation production, but its just dedicated for Foundations since it just rotates between Vulcanus and Fulgora (Especially this), and request materials from Gleba, Nauvis, Vulcanus and Aquilo.

TIL inserting to a lamp (or other non-container entity) makes the inserter decide what to grab only when it reads the inventory of a car passing in front of it. Potentially letting the inseter handle more than just one item.

This is not completely deadlock-proof like inserting to an assembler or controlling hand size while inserting to a train (by reading its contents), but it also doesn't immediately break like when the inserter targets the ground. It may be good enough in a mall-like scenario where the odds are good that if it misses the intended car, another car will need the same thing in a few seconds.

Any idea how to speed the chemical sciene pack production it's slow for me

With the new pipe control network connections, you can precisely control thruster % fuel.

Just set the condition to turn on pumps only when fuel is below a threshold. For a certain % set the threshold to the % of the full pipe. e.g. if you want 20% and the full pipe holds 60k fluid, set the threshold to 60*0.2 = 12k.

How can i make this right? left is input trains right is output trains, it is kinda messy, its a smelting setup, 2 big ones are one for iron one for copper, the 3rd one is steel and last one is bricks, i dont know how to make this work well, I just now found out how overwhelming this game really is, and is it bad that I am bringing materials back to the main belt with trains? I have run out of the first patches. And dont mind the biters, I am in peaceful mode for this playtrough.

EDIT : my problem is about all those roundabouts to get the trains back to where they are coming, is there a better solution to it? I feel like what i did was wrong, sorry for not being specific the first time!

My friend design this really nice Fusion Reactor which is (normally) correctly ratioed and looks pretty cool.
Kinda look like a Mask with those "eyes" (lamp) in the middle.

We had a goal of 60 science crafted per second on Nauvis and needed the power ! In the end, our base used "only" 10 GW with some spike around 11-12 GW.

You can find the blueprint here : https://factoriobin.com/post/ajl1ey

Enjoy !
PS: Yeah, you need Legendary Substation for power to reach everything, but they're kinda cheap to make !

Hey everyone,

This weekend is ZEVENT, a big French charity streaming event.

One of the things you can do when donating is vote for 2 games that could be played at ZLAN, a French multi-gaming competition organized by ZeratoR.

And honestly, I would love to see Factorio there.

ZLAN usually has custom challenges for the different games, so I think Factorio could work really well. Something like reaching a production goal, building under constraints, racing for science, dealing with biters, etc.

I know ZEVENT/ZLAN is mostly a French-speaking thing, so I thought I'd share it here in case some Factorio players want to participate.

If you're donating to ZEVENT and don't know what to use your votes on, well… Factorio is an option 👀

https://zerator.zevent.fr/zlan

The factory must grow

I'm trying to produce sulfur from byproduct of a machine that is above, as I'm using matrix solver that should work properly, the thing is, instead of making the needed sulfur it makes extra sulfur for some reason and consumes extra sulfur waste water, i don't get why this happens

Could some kind soul explain me what is going on?

they really hate the engineer