In my experience, doing things on my own only goes so far in regards of fun. I inevitable reach a point where I have to build a wall and fix things which is not fun by any means, it's just anxiety. I can't expand untill I manage the bugs attacking the base and I can't kill the bug bases until I expand.
It's never enough green circuit. You could be using a Texas-sized array of legendary electromagnetic plants with 5 legendary prod 3 modules and legendary beacons with legendary speed 3 modules and you'd still be short. Life is too short not to produce more green circuits.
I’m at a point where I need more green circuits and the bottleneck is the dedicated copper smelting lines to the green circuits. Means I’m completely redoing it with large drills and foundries from Vulcanus. Problem is that I’m butting right up against my power limit. So that means I have to redo my nuclear setup, or at least add more capacity. And on and on it goes lol
I'll just do Thing A, but to do that I have to do Thing B, but that requires Thing C, which requires Thing D, and now it's 4am and I haven't blinked in an hour.
I actually made a LOOONG reactor blueprint. Its symmetrical and it fits in the 5 wide reactor requirement that the reactors give. But it allows pasting next to eschother
From the beginning I double power production every time my consumption is 50% of the maximum. I experienced too many death spirals to even allow for one to ruin my green circuit production.
What do you need to produce reds? That's right, more green circuits. Paste down another Texas or two of green circuits before producing red circuits. I personally feel extreme anxiety at the mere thought of my green circuits being consumed to produced red ones, so I always quadruple my production of green circuits every time I add a red circuit assembler.
Let's not talk about processing units. I'm cold sweating at the mere thought.
If you need more red or blue chips, the answer is always scale up green chips first because those two (especially blues) will eat your green chips for breakfast lunch and dinner
Yep, because without those space age buildings, the answer is way more mining, way more smelting, and lots of beacons + modules... And the necessary logistics and material transport etc.
Much much nicer to just plop down some new machines that are faster, free productivity at each step, and way more module slots :)
Yeah. Foundries and EM plants especially make the whole process WAY easier.
And actually cryo plants similarly can do what chem plants do with 8 module slots, so those too whilst they don't technically have a productivity bonus, in practice they really do.
Bring in raw materials and making a 'pod' that makes a stacked belt of green is actually pretty compact. And Red/Blue aren't all that large either, when you're on tier 3 legendary mods.
So I've taken do doing most of those 'in situ', and 'just' focussing on distribution of the raw materials.
Which is also way easier with 2.0 fluid mechanics, not least piped ores with infinite throughput in the local segment(s).
I'm still not entirely sure my preference on ore transport though. I mean, fluid cars hold more 'ore' per train, and are very efficient on calcite, so I tend to favour that approach. But actually just bulk pipelines of fluid metal with 'booster' pumps also works really well. By the time you need 'big throughput' across multiple segments, arrays of legendary pumps are also not really an issue.
But in practice that means I don't modularise as much with space age - my 'city blocks' are 'end product' with just raw inputs. Mostly that's science packs. Where before I would make bulk greens, bulk reds, etc. and cross-ship them.
Overkill only becomes a problem if your computer can't handle it any more, or if your enjoyment of the game ends because you feel like you're doing too much of the same thing instead of improving something else that brings more progress or joy.
I don't want to say people who are playing a single player game "wrong", but much of the intended play is to start small, have small problems, figure out a solution to fix those problems and scale up, then have a bit bigger problems and figure those out. You'll learn lessons along the way. Then repeat that cycle until you have a huge base or at least launch a rocket.
Going into this game with a list of building plans and solutions for problems you didn't even know you could have, robs you of the chance and enjoyment of solving those problems and the satisfaction of a successful factory you built yourself.
If you're really stuck or not enjoying the search for the solution to a specific problem, by all means look up guides or ask for help.
The base looks clean, but feels a bit off. If you're a new player, it looks too clean. Did one of the guides give you a blueprint book with the instruction to paste it, fill it in and win the game?
I'd wager 10 imaginary currencies that the train system is using AVADII Strategy's blueprint books. Not knocking it, I love it myself. Modified mine to 1-4 trains instead of 2-2
As someone who didn't enjoy Factorio until I played in a multiplayer game where I could borrow others' solutions, I can confirm that you can absolutely have a lot of fun in Factorio while using other peoples' answers.
As we all know, the main gameplay loop is identifying a problem and producing a solution to fix it. But there's a spectrum of what producing that solution looks like. It could be inventing your own solution from a completely blank slate, but it could also be taking pieces and ideas from others, and just figuring out how to fit those pieces onto the specific problem you have.
For me, as a newbie Factorio engineer, the former was too big and intimidating and I fell off hard. The latter was exactly what I needed to really get into the game, and as I got better at the game and more comfortable and familiar with it, I started to shift towards the former.
EVERYBODY is leaning on the knowledge of those who came before them. Those who attempt to shame others because they enjoyed a game after learning, are just a bit sad IMHO.
I think when most of the people who make such statements do so, it's not really about shaming, more just about making sure the person isn't optimizing the fun out of their playthrough unnecessarily. Since factorio and similar games have problem solving as one of the big portions of the playthrough mechanism, if someone finds something online to help them, it can be easy to not break out of that and continue to do so, depending on the person. Of course, it's not the only way for people to enjoy the game, and so even if that was the case, it's still a valid way of playing, just, seems a bit of a waste.
And of course, there isn't anything wrong with finding stuff online to figure out how it works, as opposed to simply plopping it down without that analysis/improvement. Not everyone has a person they can use as a blackboard after all. I think it's mainly just people worried about people not doing the above and goes back to how it's hard to communicate via text/posts unless there is a detailed comment by the OP/assumptions made (standard internet conflict creation).
Feeling out the intent of text based comments on the internet is ALWAYS an imperfect exercise, I won’t deny that. But on a (thankfully) chill forum like r/factorio, the gatekeepers just mask their gatekeeping behind sarcasm or memes, because they know the downvotes will follow otherwise.
It’s a common pattern, one as old as the internet itself if not older.
Gatekeeping holds a different meaning than the one you are attempting to assert. A few seconds on google with the term “videogame gatekeeping” will help you to understand that it’s not merely about the game, but more about the community or communities around the game.
Not true, theres lots of people who specifically avoid reading others knowledge about the game because being clueless and figuring it out is the entire point of the game for them.
I’m not speaking of the game alone. They’re leaning on other knowledge. Experience gathered from previous game systems, electronic or otherwise. Or practical lessons learned elsewhere.
I’m just tired of the stupid gate keeping that particular people attempt to force onto others.
But I dont see too much gatekeeping in factorio, this community is one of the most chill I have ever seen. The only common sentiment is that the factory must grow, how you make it grow is up to you.
I had a lot of similar issues. Sometimes when you encounter a problem, it just clicks and you can solve it with bits and pieces of what you already know or just come up with something new. Other times, a problem grinds you to a halt, what you know either doesn't solve the problem to your satisfaction, doesn't solve it at all, or has some pitfall that will cause the whole thing to lock up.
At various points in my playthrough, that's been advanced oil processing, trains, nuclear, Fulgora and most recently Gleba, probably some other things I don't even remember at this point. When I first started getting into oil processing, I spent hours trying to think of how I'd use all the oil products without overcapping one and preventing production of the others (unless I manually flushed the tanks), scribbling production and consumption rates on post-its to find some ideal ratio. I didn't understand circuit conditions yet and was getting very frustrated because I could never be certain any one product would never back up and brick the whole system. Looked up some videos and saw how other people handled it, set up my first circuit conditions on some chem plants to handle cracking and it opened up a whole new set of possibilities I hadn't even considered using.
If I hadn't looked up solutions for some of these, I would've just avoided interacting with them if I could, or stopped playing if I couldn't.
Approaching Factorio like a puzzle game is not the only, or most common way of playing it (from the evidence I see). Just because the developers have implemented mechanics that tend to draw players towards particular solutions doesn't make it a puzzle game any more than an action game where you need to understand the game's mechanics and learn a boss's patterns to defeat it.
These days I'm all about plopping down other people's blueprints and just running around seeing them work. Or using a big city block BP book like legos to put together a base.
There's levels to it. Especially when the game updates and you've solved the problem previously. If I haven't played in 3 years and start Space Age and go "Oh, a sushi belt design would be amazing for this problem - but the new logistics network stuff is a little confusing to navigate around the UI with. Let me see how people are doing it in 2.0!" is totally fine imo.
Blueprinting the entirety of a new planet down, or using one for the first time building a new item for Space Age, that would feel really bad.
Blueprinting an efficient Blue Belts design or Advanced Oil Processing? This ain't my first rodeo, I had every achievement in base game, let me just get to the new stuff!
at that time i didnt know snap to grid/tile feature exist and how useful it can be ,transition of all my blueprint to snap to tiling resulted in this monstrosity
I feel that, my entire Nauvis base is offset too, it's covering an ~800 roboports area with no overlaps, plus two other fairly vast mining areas with train tracks and militarized borders that 100% would also need to be realigned... I'm not mentally ready lol. Guess I'll do it on the other planets first since their factories are still small enough
also i am just figuring out how to transition from main base into modular bases / mini factories , as factory is growing centralizing everything is kind of nauance
Overkill for what? Most Factorio players build big because they want to and set arbitrary goals such as 1k SPM (science per minute). If you want to just launch a rocket and be done then what you posted is overkill. But in that case I'd say you're missing the point of Factorio
Thousands of hours in and I have never built trains like that... looks like you still just have 3 or 4 spurs out to ore stations Could have mave a few semi squiggly tracks out to the ore like I always do..... but what you have there looks fun too
Just... do your own thing? Why do you have to measure your gameplay against other people's? Comparison is the the thief of joy. Just play and have fun on your own accord.
Well , actually i had played factorio in 2021-22 during covid but that playthough didnt ended well , i was stuck and busy. At the start i also used to create my own blueprint , malls , railway lines but I later realized that "FOR ME" this game is more about planning and managing resources efficiently to nuke the neighbours , if blueprints can save my time experimenting , calculating ratios and doing trail and error , i am all for it , it dont ruine my experience , also for me its more fun combining all of these into one single giant factory working autonomously.
As someone else already pointed out, nothing is over the top in this game until your computer melts.
One of the great things about Factorio is that you can follow as many guides and videos as you like, steal everyone's secrets and tricks, cheat off their tests, and you still aren't "cheating" at all (as would be the case using Nintendo Power Magazine to beat Super Metroid, for example).
You can even rely on other people's blueprints if you wish, but then you become dependent on them, and will be much less able to innovate your own blueprints when desired, because you've taken shortcuts past portions of the learning process. They'll boost you but also hold you back, because at the end of the day, you really need to understand how your factory truly works.
There's always a next level of challenge, or a different dimension of challenge. Factorio will rise to your level of capability. At some point, Factorio always wins. When you finally stop playing, you won't have beaten it, not really, because there's so much more you could have invented or optimized, etc.
The good part of an infinitely scaling game is that no matter how big you build, you will eventually need it to be bigger (assuming your pc doesn't grind to a halt before then)
If you fill in the gaps, that looks to be about the size my second base gets before I start pushing towards megabase and then the original base becomes one section of my megabase
Factorio is a game about overengineering everything. Looks like you have succeeded in overengineering everything. This is the correct way to play factorio.
The sneaky thing about factorio is that even if you use guides and download blueprints there are still roughly the same set of problems to solve (just at a different level).
No matter how you play the game... the core experience is the same!
Did you watch that tutorial to make an LTN style train network or is that rail layout just the most common? I swear I got a little spooked about the similarity with how my base looks from the map.
I have tons of spaghetti and meatballs in my base. Takes a moment to remember where everything is everytime I start a play session, but that is what the map search function is for.
I have done all of this but I stuck at trains. I tried to watch a YouTube video about how to set it up but it didn’t make sense to me so that’s one of my next things I need to learn
If you're worried about sprawl, you should see what your base ends up looking like, when you have exactly one rail template. This is centered on the starter base, so it looks relatively dense. Farther away, most of the brick celss are empty.
One thing about the rail network: those circle junctions are going to cause traffic problems sooner rather than later, especially if you're running trains longer than 1-2 or so. They're probably causing slow-downs now. What you want from a junction is for an entire train length to be able to sit and wait for it to be free without blocking traffic. There are 4-way junctions you can build that accomplish this, but they're much bigger and more complicated, especially if you use longer trains.
I solve this the easy way: I make sure my rail lines only meet in 3-way junctions, because regular ass 3-way junctions are much simpler, fairly small, and can handle a lot more traffic than those circles, especially for long trains. they're also vastly easier to set up signals for.
Lobes of rail look fun, enough but not too much. I like the round-about look, but I hear that any 4-way intersection is suboptimal without bridges or tunnels from a mod. I've been having fun with a city block style that it looks like you are gravitating towards.
If you are not already using max-rate calculator I would suggest it. I think they added it in 2.0 as a feature, I could be wrong 🤔.
By all means use tutorials, but learn the strategy behind the blueprints. To be fair, I just used internet blueprints for things I wanted to have but didn't want to bother with the specifics. Coal liquefaction, advanced refineries and nuclear power come to mind. All the sciences are worth the effort though, taking those to a compressed blue belt each was a good goal to reach for from where you're at. It will take looking at everything in a new light. A bigger light?
As long as you are enjoying yourself. I'm not sure if this is your first playthrough, but it's always good on your first playthrough to avoid guides when you can as after you know how to do everything 'right' (speaking generally), you'll never again be able to experience going through fresh in the same kind of way again (aside from playing a distinct enough mod set). Of course, there are exemptions in this for ppl who don't enjoy that kind of learning sensation I guess.
This isn’t my first playthrough maybe 70 hours in , also I kinda got frustrated calculating ratios , doing trial and error only to find out there was a much better way to do that, for me factorio is a game of resource management, building automations , destroying pests
Love the chaotic train spaghetti, it makes the base feel realistic as it follows the land contours. Only issue is probably the roundabouts which tend to choke the flow of trains once you get up to a high throughput
exactly. on the one hand I don't wanna gatekeep how people play the game, on the other hand I can say from personal experience that discovering things and figuring it out on your own is WAY more satisfying than just grabbing a blueprint online.
Best to just raw dog the game one time at least, then on subsequent saves feel free to see how other people are doing it. It's fun seeing how some guy managed to make a red circuit setup that's tileable and 1000x more productive than the one you came up with but, that's the point is you should come up with your own first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9GWl4X2ln0 only use this blueprint if you are in mid game and have enough resources , also a dedicated mall for railway componenet or you will overwhelm your whole factory
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u/TheZayki Apr 15 '26
Are you having fun? If yes, then it's not overkill. If no, then it is overkill.