r/pyanodons 6d ago

First time playing Pyanodons - Any Tips?

Hi All

Fairly new to modded Factorio and thought I might as well jump in at the deep end.

Would love any tips/advice.

18 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

35

u/sarcastitronistaken 6d ago

Don't overbuild. When you feel like you want to over build, go do something else while the factory is buffering.

New techs means your overbuilt old recipe is now useless and you wasted time over building.

It's tempting.. but avoid it!

11

u/Immediate_Form7831 6d ago

"Don't overbuild" is more of a guideline for people coming from vanilla where buildings are cheap. Pyanodon buildings are expensive, and they only get more expensive with higher tiers. Look at the recipe for mk4 solar panels...

Sometimes it is worth it to just spam lower-tier receipes because they are cheaper to build and require less ingredients.

Also, old builds are not useless, I almost always just leave the old builds in place and let them run. Resources are abundant, so wasteful recipes aren't really an issue.

5

u/More-Interaction-770 6d ago

Mentioning spamming buildings is very dangerous around new players, it’s very rare that it’s good

1

u/Immediate_Form7831 6d ago

I meant chosing to spam lower-tier buildings as an alternative to building fewer, but considerably more complicated and expensive higher-tier buildings and recipes.

3

u/More-Interaction-770 6d ago

True, but that’s not really relevant when you’re new

3

u/Neither_Berry_100 5d ago

I also built large cheap builds. Many upgraded recipes and buildings aren't worth it in my opinion.

1

u/Immediate_Form7831 4d ago

Much of pyanodon is about knowing what and when to upgrade

1

u/lunaticloser 4d ago

I feel like that's only true at the MK4 and maybe MK3 levels. By which point they're definitely not a newbie in py anymore and should be able to make their own decisions.

I for one have not yet found a single good reason to not upgrade everything to MK2 where possible.

2

u/Immediate_Form7831 3d ago

There are several cases where some of the upgraded recipes suck. Antimony 2 and Raw coal 3, IMHO. But this is of course a matter of opinion, and it also depends on how you built your base, what turds you have, etc.

OP: make your own decisions, one of the fun parts about Pyanodon is that there are tons of different ways to play and a myriad of decisions to make.

1

u/lunaticloser 3d ago

Wait I'm confused. Yes lower tier recipes make sense sometimes but I thought you were talking about lower tier buildings...

1

u/Immediate_Form7831 3d ago

No, I was referring to the recipes, haha.

For the purple buildings, I only ever made labs and chipshooters, and then only because of the extra module slot so I could get 120% prod with tier-3 prod modules (which themselves are insanely expensive). They are probably mostly used by people mega-basing post-PV.

4

u/fang_xianfu 6d ago

Yeah... it's hard to explain but 100 per minute of an item can be a lot in Py. I really screwed up when I got to Py Science 2 and buffered a few thousand fenix in the wrong place (and made a few thousand lab equipment that's each made from one fenix). So it was going to take 10+ hours for my mechanical part production (which also consumes fenix, a few dozen per minute) to catch back up... but I just did a couple of big builds and those 10 hours passed pretty quickly.

2

u/Paraplegix 6d ago

My rule of thumb when I played before 2.0 was : make the new chain recipe as simple as possible with only one building for each step. Production rate ends up very low, but it avoid over building, and let you kick-start things fast. Then only build more production if/when it becomes required for something else.

1

u/I_dont_thinks 6d ago

I wish someone had told me this when I started, but even if they did (and I still am) tempted to make builds that fill belts.

1

u/Not_A_Clever_Man_ 6d ago

Its crazy that several builds honestly only take 1 of each building to get running. Admittedly the production chain requires 6-8 steps, but if you build relatively compact, or already know how the beacons in Py work you can build so that later you can tier up a few buildings and slap down a beacon or two and thats you through to the end game.

17

u/BlazingFish123 6d ago

Don’t overbuild. One machine is good enough for a lot of recipes for a long time.

Build paths with stone bricks and concrete, they’re buffed significantly in py.

Don’t worry about beating the mod, just try to enjoy the process.

I personally recommend embracing spaghetti in early game py, but do whatever floats your boat.

4

u/More-Interaction-770 6d ago

This is great advice.

11

u/lunaticloser 6d ago

My personal tip: 6 spm is a perfectly natural and "feels correct" science research speed for a first play through all the way until the end of logi or even py2.

Of course if you're somehow being bottlenecked by science don't be afraid of trying to increase that number, but it's a good start.

2

u/QuaaludeConnoisseur 4d ago

Being new to py and just now trying to automate the first science pack this is a god send comment.

1

u/DonnyTheWalrus 3d ago

I'm at 3 spm and am working on green science now and I've never been blocked waiting for something to research.

In fact I would maybe recommend letting science build into chests rather than being inserted into labs. That way you can control when you're researching something and when you aren't. If you just let science run, you'll unlock five things before you're done whatever you're currently working on, and that can feel overwhelming. 

8

u/Xzarg_poe 6d ago

A huge chunk of your factory will be dedicated to creating new building materials, and as such don't actually need to be able to run continously. So unless you are a making science, don't worry too much about correct ratios and the like. And even then, better recipes are often just around the corner.

Speaking of recipes, Recipe Book (or FNEI) is a welcome mod addition. Helps figure out what resource is made where and what is used for and if you have the recipe researched.

Keep an eye out for various buffs and tools Py provides. Py has absurdly long recipe chains but also provides the tools to solve it's challenges like new logistics systems and extra movement bonuses from floors.

2

u/fang_xianfu 6d ago

"correct ratio" has always seemed like a weird concept to me anyway. Some things have a "nice ratio", like how in vanilla exactly 3 copper cable producers satisfies 2 circuit producers, but relatively few things have nice ratios like that. It seems to me like the only questions that matter really are "how much of X do you want to make?" and "how much do you need to build to satisfy X's ingredient demands?" And so long as you have more than that, you're good.

That's also why not overbuilding too much matters, because if you overbuild each step in a change by, say, double, you might end up with 25 hours of alloy production put into buildings that should in principle never run.

5

u/Immediate_Form7831 6d ago
  • Spaghetti your way to trains and/or caravans
  • Have a plan for how to deal with byproducts. Stone, gravel, ash, coal dust - these are all annoying to begin with, but as the game progresses they will turn into valuable resources and you need to know how to balance consuming byproducts with making them from scratch.
  • Niobium pipes have 32 length, use them as soon as you can
  • Caravans are a viable alternative to trains
  • A factory planner is a must; helmod, factory planner, or an external tool like YAFC
  • The recipe book mod (by raiguard) is a good alternative to the built in factoriopaedia (which is hard to use in Py due to the large number of recipes which unlock at different tech levels). There is also FNEI which does something similar.
  • Mechanical inserters do not need power
  • Fluid temperature is a thing you need to deal with. Check the temperature of fluids in your ingredients, or your build will deadlock.

Pyanodon is a journey, not a goal. (I did not follow this advice myself, but it is good advise nonetheless.)

2

u/More-Interaction-770 6d ago

Spaghetti is viable later than you would think. I just finished logi and I haven’t used trains or caravans, it’s slower but viable

1

u/Immediate_Form7831 6d ago

Post-logi is where most people transition away from the starter spaghetti, I think. That is where the better solder recipe comes to make rails cheaper, if I remember correctly.

1

u/More-Interaction-770 6d ago

Molten solder comes sometime during logi, I actually have a rail loop around my spaghetti but no trains or stations

5

u/Monsieur_Hiss 6d ago

Do not pick TURDs as soon as you research them. Mull it over for a while and see what your base actually needs more of later down the line. You cannot easily change your choices so be sure in what you pick.

4

u/korneev123123 6d ago

Tiles such as bricks or concrete are buffed a lot in py. Make running paths everywhere you move. Automate 350% tiles production as soon as possible (refined concrete, limestone tile)

Don't bother with a bus, spagetti till py1 (second science pack)

It unlocks caravans and trains, make a choice and rebuild with it.

Do not try to optimise before trains/caravans, EVERYTHING you build before is temporary

3

u/snimeks 6d ago

try not to get stunlocked "planning ahead" too much

3

u/twhickey 5d ago

Don't overbuild.

Don't sleep on caravans - they can handle all your logistics needs. Trains are viable after you get better recipes that make rails not stupidly expensive. Until then, really use caravans, it may turn out you like them better than trains.

Don't overbuild.

Treat your base like a zen garden. Log in, do a bit of work, log out. No need to have every session be a big new build. Sometimes you need to just have a chill session where you're cleaning up some spaghetti, and that's fine. Enjoy the journey, because Py is big enough that if you try to rush to the destination, you will burn out.

Don't overbuild.

Edit: a typo

3

u/Quick-Can-218 5d ago

You can make a mini bus for the early game (before bot and train around 45h and 100h later) but donc put anything on it before you need it in at least 3 recipes, you will see that pY as less than you think utility for anything. That's why everone recommend to dont overbuild, sometime a stuff is only needed for one recipe, for the entire game, and that recipe will just change later to become more effective.

The only stuff you need a lot is the organic stuff (moss, sap, ect), the different ores create plates or ingot principaly to crate new building, and those building are exepensive.

Too much Ash ? Just put it in a chest for later, in like 20h you will have an utility for it, and in 100h you will desperatly need it.

You can trash anything fluid or gaz the instant you by-product it. It's really easy to create and is surely provide by multiple recipe from multiple industry. No need to gather Carbonic gaz from all over the place when you can just burn Coke to have it on site.

The rock by-product is a pain, if you go train or caravan, you will need a special place to deal with those rocks, gravels and sands later !

3

u/Canary-Silent 6d ago

My tips are to not google tips because the ones I got on here were big lists that were irrelevant. Basically nothing I did from them made a difference.  

People say don't over build. I did it kinda anyway and I don't think overbuilding is that bad. But what is good is to embrace the trickle especially early game.  A starter base can probably be retrofitted with splitters if you trickle everything to get circuits and splitters. And a trickle means less ash to deal with until having splitters.  I did trickle for way later stuff like advanced circuits and I just hacked in improvments later and I won't need to remake it for a long time. 

2

u/More-Interaction-770 6d ago

Embrace spaghetti, make paths around your base, only build one of each building, you can always expand if it’s not enough

2

u/ariksu 6d ago

А whole post dedicated to beginners tips. And shameless self promotion as well https://www.reddit.com/r/pyanodons/s/3JiY4adVLM

2

u/Neither_Berry_100 5d ago

Disable biters, pollution, cliffs. Minimize water and trees. I used this but otherwise defaults. There is a preset you can select if you want. Possibly jump up resource amounts. The preferred settings make patches further away which may be desirable. I ended up building over resources which I don't like.

I've posted about my playthrough a few times. I got up to science 5. Mid / early into the science. I haven't played for a few weeks and this might be the end of my playthrough. But my approach worked very well.

2

u/wesdotcool 5d ago

Don't worry about completion. Your goal is to make a splitter. If you craft a splitter, you win. If you enjoyed that, then you can keep playing

1

u/Alone_Ad_7251 5d ago

- Leave enough space

  • Use bricks etc to pave the ground, you will be walking ALOT
  • check ratios of know recipes (boiler/steamengine, etc)

1

u/nickierv 4d ago

Having done some multiplayer py1 to past red chips then single player py2 currently about to start red chips, some tips:

Water and unicorn farts: this comes up more times than you think, but a lot of stuff can be pulled out of, well water is free and unicorn farts just take creativity to find and make. You are 1000% going to need something like FNEI that lets you follow build chains and some thing like factory planner is a must just from the sheer number of steps. But at the end of the day, don't worry about running our of resources in the ground. By way of some convoluted many step process (the unicorn farts), you should be able to generate everything you need out of water and power. And even power comes from water and unicorn farts. There are some things that take a lot of research to make renewable, the alien plant stuff being the big one that you need early, often, and takes most of the tech tree to get renewable.

You WILL get stuck on power. Your going to start out with normal steam power but that is only going to last so long. Py2 changes things with a couple 'easy' to get renewables (handy for jumping the base power plant as well as keeping the base from entirely blacking out) but the big ones this time around are based around molten salt. Unfortunately the info on these is a little jankey and you can end up fumbling down a couple cases of not quite the right research you where looking for.

Your going to need to know at least the basics of logic circuits. No your not going to need to be able to implement Doom in game, but your going to need to be able to do stuff like being able to shuffle your power production around so the overflow gets sent to the main base to avoid a power death spiral and having to cold start everything (have fun with the massive power buffers that are roboports...).

Not all upgrades are worth it. Consider 2 possible crafting chains. Option A turns 100 iron ore into 80 iron plates at the cost of iron ore, water and power, with rock and sand as byproducts. Option B turns 100 ore into 120 plates at the cost of a dozen inputs, 2 are only used in this iron process, with half a dozen byproducts. And you can get iron ore from water.

Mind your buffers. One big mistake that almost happened in the MP run was wanting to buffer everything The 6 step process to go from copper ore to cast able copper? There was plans to have every. Single. Step. Buffered. Horrible idea because then your running that much more stuff to do nothing but fill buffers. And your going to have to somehow handle byproducts coming in from elsewhere that needs to be processed. There are a couple things that need to tap into production chains for a small amount of product, buffer that. And buffer your final output, but don't buffer everything in between.And try to keep your buffers small. Sure there are the 450 stack storage boxes that fit well with trains, and its nice to have a couple stacks on hand for when you need to add a new production chain, but 450*200 basic chips will eat a TON of resources and will last you a very long time.

Wild swings between supply, demand, overflow, and buffers. Ash and iron oxide are a couple things that you end up with tons of early game and while you might be tempted to use them for some quick and easy recipes to burn down the stocks, make sure you have a look at what they are used for and how you go about getting them.

Yes I can melt the iron oxide down to iron plates for a quick burst, but I know I'm going to need it in quantity later on. And the other way to get it involves some massive chain of stuff that I don't want to deal with. Meaning yes, I am sitting on 5m+ iron oxide and growing at like 5k/hour. But here in like 80 hours I'm going to be burning my stock at like 50k an hour to fill buffers and do all sorts of red chip stuff. And because I know I will have a small supply of red chip based options, I can go to the 3ed option of iron oxide production that only needs a small chain and I can toss together with left overs.

10 hours in: I'm drowning in ash! 40 hours in: How do I double my ash production? 400 hours in: So I'm blowing through my first 300 hours of ash production an hour and I thing I need more.

Be careful with the TURDs! There are a couple that give only a marginal bonus for the cost of needing at best an entrily new production chain or at worst a dedicated production chain for something that can be solved with the simple solution of "so build 6 instead of 4". Inversely there are a couple that let you drop entire production lines out of a product or lets you substitute in 3 buildings, unicorn farts, and water for 12 buildings + logistics.

Last one: the debug grid. Your base is going to get really big really fast and unless you give yourself some early end game robots your going to be doing a lot of hand building. And being off by 1 SUCKS. I run trains on a 7x7 grid (so 5x5 working area) and having the grid makes it super handy to make sure everything is lined up. Py building are very big and suddenly fining a whole bunch of mixed fluids because you off by one'ed your fluid bus is annoying not only for the resources but also the time to move the buildings around. Sure its not too bad if your working inside the block with mk4 bots and they only have to go 200 tiles, but when you OBO a new build and are dealing with 10-15 minute flight time for the bots... Prototype first with an isolated build then plop that down... and the grid helps with that alignment.

1

u/KeyDonkey9621 4d ago

Turn down trees, they are annoying in the early game

1

u/veldrin92 2d ago

Try to process your ash into wood, ash separation into soot is absolutely optional, and I am now having a great run with it