Factorio

Factorio Dev Tracker




01 Jan

Comment

Originally posted by Victuz

I'm basically at the point you were before you made the first cargo rocket. I've gone wildly off the deep end in making a production back-end, and I've been making beaconed facilities for green circuits, iron, etc. I also decided to make my trains for wagons long, so everything needs to be much more robust than I'm used to (normally I go with 2 wagons).

The setup you have for automating rockets actually frightens me a bit, because to be perfectly honest, the most complex stuff I can make using circuitry is oil balancing, and making train stops turn off when their supply requirements are met.

Do you mind putting up a blueprint (sorry if you've already done that) of the rocket supply thing? I'm very curious what it looks like.

PS. I'm also kinda regretting putting K2 in along with this mod, more and more it feels like they don't really match their goals, and I've passed the mid game of K2 despite not even entering it with Space Exploration.

Feel free to download the savegame, it has some blueprints in the Game library.

However, here goes ...

! NOTE: There are constant combinators on both ends. At the "Loading" end, that's for your first trip there, or later if for some reason the signal transmission from the other planet has been broken (runs out of power/meteor hits something), and you want to send something there, this works as an override. However, keep in mind that if you leave these constant combinators at the Loading silo on, every rocket will include these items. (the constant combinators with a space capsule and 100 rocket sections are not to be touched) At the "Request" end, these are the constant combinators that set up the request, and those are the ones that you use for standard long-term supplies.

I'd recommend taking it just as inspiration and making your own version out of it.

!blueprint 0eNrlXWuSo7oV3sqUfyYmQRJ60HWTFeRXqvIrNeWibdxNjQ0O4K47dcsLuPtINnZXEvALDDqgI8Btz/yZ6bbb...

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31 Dec

Comment

Originally posted by XANi_

Doesn't really matter that it's faster to get there if I can't do what I want when I do.

Doing the blueprint/copy dance just to put some wires or change an inserters ettings takes far longer than scrolling.

Well and fact SE planets are pretty compact compared to playing say railworld definitely helps

Sure, but you don't always want to do something that you can't do in map mode, most of the time I just want to look there without doing anything.

Comment

Originally posted by piderman

Adding for example Krastorio 2 can spoil it quite a bit, as for example some of the power generation options trivialize some parts.

Is this not fixed in the compatibility between the mods where some of the more advanced K2 tech requires SE research?

It's not just about "how much research do I need", more that for example the K2 antimatter reactor is especially space efficient compared to SE antimatter reactor + high temp exchanger + high temp turbine + condenser turbines. Which in terms of building spaceships is really important.

Comment

Originally posted by SoggsTheMage

After reading through the summary of your exploits and especially the part about getting cheaper LDS with Beryllium. I think you missed another earlier recipe that could have made your life a lot easier too. Astronomic Science Pack 1 unlocks a special recipe that that doubles the output of Cargo Rocket Sections by adding 10 Beryllium Plates. It is very easy to miss.

The other two metals also add recipes for cheaper versions of Heat Shielding which unlocks with Iridium Plates and Processing Units which unlock with Holmium Cables. For the Heat Shielding its 4 Stone Tablets, 1 Iridium Plate and 1 Sulfur vs 20 Stone Tablets, 2 Steel Plates and 8 Sulfur. Saving a lot of Oil and a decent amount of stone as well as easing some logistical challenges. For Processing units 4 Holmium Cables replace half of the other ingredients, which is still good, just not as amazing compared to what you get from Beryllium and Iridium, in my opinion.

For shipping water I think the intended w...

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Oh, yes indeed. I forgot about these completely! :D But I did use them actually.

I didn't realize you could create water ice yourself, I just mined it on an asteroid field. I thought the cryonite slush is only for the hypercooling with slush, which seemed less resource efficient so I didn't bother.

I even shipped Methane ice to Nauvis Orbit but never bothered to actually do the oil processing from it, I just kept using barrels for petroleum gas.

Comment

Originally posted by craidie

Was UPS an issue to you?

At the end yes, but my computer is really bad at running Factorio.

Comment

If you can still log in to your Steam account, then it is possible to restore access to your Factorio account.

If you can't login to Steam, you have bigger problems, as eventually Steam will log you out.

Comment

Originally posted by 19wolf

If you could take one thing from this mod to add to the base game, what would it be and why?

I really miss the jetpack now. Without making it super fast, being able to jump over things is just so convenient. But since we have spidertron this isn't nearly as much of a problem.

The beacon mechanics are something I'd consider too, but not sure. I really enjoyed playing with them here as designing things was different, but whether one or the other is better as a whole for vanilla, is much more difficult to evaluate.

Comment

Originally posted by XANi_

For example, the Navigation uplink could just be merged into map viewing, the special entities wouldn't be as hacky and so on.

I use navigational uplink as better map view, even on Nauvis.

Currently the map view doesn't allow editing any settings of entities so in vanilla just changing recipe of something required copying it, putting it down locally, changing what I needed and then copy/pasting it back into original place.

Nav uplink allows to do pretty much same thing as "in person", aside from wire connections.

Yeah, free radar is bit cheaty (altho makes sense in SE context of course) but aside from that it is like strictly better map view

The downside if the navigation uplink is that you can't zoom out nearly as much, and to move anywhere you still have to WASD around, while on map view you can zoom out, move your mouse, and zoom in. Which is a significant benefit in covering large areas.


30 Dec

Comment

Originally posted by mecejide

Once you know how to do it, is it easier or harder than the spaceship victory?

I'd say in a different dimension of harder, but I'm mostly guessing. The amount of effort I put in it is already much more than building the victory spaceship. If I add the science that I needed for the spaceship, I guess it's about equal.

Comment

Originally posted by MagoNorte

I have a spacex game going with a bunch of friends, so far so good but I’m nervous that we won’t know what to do once we launch our first rocket. Is it fairly self-explanatory? And if not, what resources did you look at to figure out what to do?

Don't worry too much, once you arrive to a problem it will be quite clear how to solve it. Just remember to be in a thruster suit and have lifesupport equipment when you go to space ;)

Comment

Originally posted by anti-DHMO-activist

Before getting energy beaming, either

  1. mass-produce solar panels (the highest tier you can) and put a couple thousand down whenever you establish a new outpost. It really pays off to make modular blueprints with both accumulators and panels in seperate ones, then use something like this mod to figure out the proper ratio for the surface. It always uses the values of the surface you're currently on. Or "just" calculate it yourself of course.

  2. put a small nuclear setup onto each of the surfaces, cannoning the ingredients for nuclear fuel cells.

SE is already relatively hard on UPS, so I prefer the first approach. Putting down 9 meteor cannons is usually enough. Automating their ammo never seemed worth it to me, after ~600h I only had to refill a chest twice or something like that. A speaker to get an alert when empty helps.

Once you start beaconing your stuff you'll need ...

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Oh yeah, that's one thing cannons are incredibly useful for. One of my problems was that I didn't want to create special logic override for the cargo rockets, but it sometimes happened that they weren't full yet to send, but the target planet ran out of fuel cells to power itself.

Comment

Originally posted by Player_One_1

One question: how do you deal with meteorites in colonies? Cannons require completely unreasonable amounts of electricity.

I just didn't deal with them. I just set up cargo rocket delivery for all the important items, and set up construction robot networks that would repair all the damage.

Comment

Originally posted by sayoung42

I just finished Space Exploration too. What is this alternate ending you mention? Is it something to do with repairing the artifacts? I couldn't figure out what to do with them.

There's the spaceship victory that's clearly visible in the tech tree, and then there is a "secret" ending that has to do with the alien stuff.

I say "secret" not because it's clear, I say "secret" because from what I've heard, the solution is almost borderline impossible to find. There are people who completed it, but it's not many, and they are REALLY hardcore into SE.

The community around SE holds it as a serious secret so don't expect to get much stray information, though if you ask nicely they will spoil it for you in personal messages. :)

In my opinion the secrecy is actually way too much, to the degree it's really unclear how to even start with the ending.

One thing I believe is that it should be made clear that you can mine the artifacts, in fact you have to. I was afraid I would not be able to put them back if I deconstructed them, but it's quite the opposite.

And no, I didn't just spoil it for you. There is a LONG journey ahead of ...

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Comment

Originally posted by Raywell

What were 3 things you loved the most, and 3 things you disliked (as in you'd have them reworked)

Best 3:

  1. Controlling cargo rockets
  2. Arcospheres
  3. Spaceships

Worst 3:

  1. Ending grind of insane amount of Naquium and Deep science packs necessary to allow building large enough ship. Once you research the victory condition, it should already be possible to reasonably build the winning ship. Maybe I'm missing something significant and it's possible?
  2. Tiers 3 and 4 of the four space science packs felt mostly like "just another level", while I feel like the interesting complexity could be fit just all into tier 2. With the momentum from some significant unlocks that I was looking to, this was not too terrible, but it still felt like especially tier 4 is there just because 4 is a nice number. However, SE isn't declared complete so maybe there will be some more unlocks that make this part feel better.
  3. Setting up the first tier of each colour of space science packs was quite a bit of work, but mainly once it was all ...
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Comment

Originally posted by Xuerian

This seems like something that can't be stated publicly, but anyway: Has there been consideration in making this a sort of .. supported/approved/funded community expansion? Possibly with a paid supporter version or something?

Obviously Earendel has their own plans, and I haven't looked into it, but this was a question I asked myself every time I saw the mod and its scale, after playing with many of their other mods.

Not in terms of seriously considering it, by quite far, no.

Comment

Originally posted by StormCrow_Merfolk

How did the complexity of SE compare to Bob's mods, and/or Bobs+Angel's?

Honestly I haven't played Bob's mods for years, last time I did it was just "and now go get the next tiers of machines" which wasn't really interesting for me.

I haven't played Angel's either, but I guess the processing chains are even more complicated/unreadable in Angel's.

The real meat of Space eploration for me was the completely different things, not just "the new recipes", though those were really nice as well. Not too over the top retard complex, but there are some loops that are pretty cool.

Comment

Originally posted by ZenEngineer

There are a lot of good things about this mod but I'm not as enthusiastic as you are. Maybe it's a taste thing but there are a few design choices I dislike in the mod. (I'm playing with large ore patches since I wanted to finish the early game quickly, so I might not have the desired SE experience).

  • AII industries. The new recipes are interesting for about 5 minutes, then just annoying. And it forced me to play from the beginning rather than reusing some existing base. Apparently it's only suggested now though, not required. If I wanted a slower early game I wouldn't be playing space exploration.

  • Beacon overload. Maybe it's because I was playing with K2 which actually gives you larger assemblers and small beacons that fit inside the larger beacon's range, so it lends itself to heavily beaconed builds. SE departs the factorio beacon approach for no good reason. It's halfway interesting to design with that in mind at first, but after you have the wid...

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Thank you for the long yet valid and constructive reply!

Some of your points I agree with, although the pluses still massively outweight them for me.

In general I'say K2 and SE are the polar opposites in many things. I did enjoy K2, but I find SE a lot better in design.

- AAI industries I'm not terribly attached to, and I agree that it's just extending the early game, moving you further away from the real stuff. I enjoyed having at least a couple things different from the start so I didn't mind much.

- Beacon overload I adore. Being able to retrofit beacons into existing spaghet is something I always wanted, and the wide area beacons allow for basically any build, which is fun as you design each thing differently, not the same 10 or 12 beacons around every machine.

- On some recipes the pipe connection is quite interesting, like the hypercoolers. That Factorio pipes treat the output-output connections of neighbouring buildings as same fluid s...

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Comment

Originally posted by WhatheWorld

How did you get around your base? Did you just ride trains?

On Nauvis I generally just ride trains for long distances because that's fastest.

Whenever there's no rails and I just want to get somewhere without mashing WASD, I ride a spidertron.

However, SE adds Jetpack equipment that lets you fly. The more of those you have in your armor, the faster you can fly.

In the late game the jetpacks become seriously quick.

Comment

Originally posted by CometStrike09

Thanks for sharing your journey, it's a nice overview! Makes me a little scared of trying myself though, with all of the apparently required circuitry.

Which mods other than Space Exploration did you use and which would you absolutely recommend to add in retrospect?

I'm no circuitry wizard myself, but just with simple logic you can do pretty much everything. It's IMO more about telling what the conditions for some action should be rather than understanding combinators in and out, though of course that helps.

I wanted to have a clean experience so I added an absolute minimum. I only added the Mandatory dependencies, not the optional ones (except high resolution SE graphics).

I added things to allow the Navigation uplink insert modules https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ModuleInserter

and to mess with circuit wires ...

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Comment

Originally posted by Pazcoo

I would be interested to hear your opinion on how SE makes as a "Factorio Expansion". Didn't it feel a bit like it? ;)

Or are you guys thinking in other directions (than upwards)?

This is quite obviously something that crossed my mind many times.

Going to space is probably the most obvious idea that we're indeed considering.

Overall it definitely feels like it's trying to be an expansion, and in concept it succeeds quite well. Though of course if we were to get inspired by this, the results would still be quite different. Overall I'd say much, much, muuuch less technologies and recipes for sure, a part of having Factorio well moddable is by not adding excessive amount of things, so mods have the opportunity to add things on top. If mods have to replace or remove things, conflicts between mods are more likely.

In general the pacing is really hardcore, often times in SE there are segments that simply take completely mental amount of brute force production throughput, which is a good thing as it makes steps meaningful, and expanding production is IMO the most enjoyable thing to do in Factorio (part of why we don't need 666 recipes). But ...

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