best method to scout the map with biters set to default

[narf03]

I need a better way to explore the map without getting killed or taking too much risk, what is the best way to do that ?

[Lady Naween]

console command? ^^ or just run like mad with several legs in your power armour

[Nailfoot]

Radars are the best, no risk, way to do it. Plop four down together as far out as you can safely reach, protect them with a half dozen of your best turrets, and wall it off with double thick walls.

Four radars will still take awhile to reveal territory, but you can go build your factory while they work. If you have gun turrets, look in on them with the map every so often for ammo refueling concerns.

[narf03]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Radars are the best, no risk, way to do it. Plop four down together as far out as you can safely reach, protect them with a half dozen of your best turrets, and wall it off with double thick walls.

Four radars will still take awhile to reveal territory, but you can go build your factory while they work. If you have gun turrets, look in on them with the map every so often for ammo refueling concerns.

they have very limited range, i have a blue print that place like 7x7 radars around a substation, they will show me new sector, but will stop after reaching certain distance.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by jkwong01:

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Radars are the best, no risk, way to do it. Plop four down together as far out as you can safely reach, protect them with a half dozen of your best turrets, and wall it off with double thick walls.

Four radars will still take awhile to reveal territory, but you can go build your factory while they work. If you have gun turrets, look in on them with the map every so often for ammo refueling concerns.

they have very limited range, i have a blue print that place like 7x7 radars around a substation, they will show me new sector, but will stop after reaching certain distance.

Their range is small for the live view, but their scanning range is quite far. Its just slow. If you need faster exploration, then grunt work is the only way.

[Kitchen Gun (TM)]

NUKES!!!

[Testerlordschaft]

I'd like to revive this thread due to i have the same Problem. Radars are far to slow and i want to scout very far for the biggest ressource fields. Is there a mod who is up to this? Because half an hour scouting by driving didnt helped.

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by Testerlordschaft:

Radars are far to slow and i want to scout very far for the biggest ressource fields. Is there a mod who is up to this?

Big Brother[mods.factorio.com] - "Research radar upgrades in amplification, efficiency, and surveillance capabilities."

[Testerlordschaft]

Thanks!! Looks perfect!

[Xilo The Odd]

i just roll around in a tank and bring robots with lots of repair tools. plow through trees, slam rocks into oblivion, really the only weakness is cliffs. guess one could bring cliff explosives too.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Xilo The Odd:

.... really the only weakness is cliffs. guess one could bring cliff explosives too.

I have started turning them off at map gen. I don't find that they add anything to gameplay. They just get in the way...

[corisai]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

I have started turning them off at map gen. I don't find that they add anything to gameplay. They just get in the way...

They add terrain obstacles that require some efforts to remove? :)

P.S. I can use your sentence to describe bitters :) And while I not remove them, I always disable their base migration* - bless devs for this option ^_^

*except one game when I played 'last human on tyranids/zergs world'

[Hedning]

Just load up your power armor with exoskeletons and some shields.

If you intend to claim the area you don't really need to explore. Just bring your artillery train. It will target everything in range without needing to explore it first.

[Vekhio]

I haven't looked but isn't there a reveal map command? If there is has anyone used it and what are the results like?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Krull:

I haven't looked but isn't there a reveal map command? If there is has anyone used it and what are the results like?

It's rapidly chart as much of map as you want. It's console command so say "bye" to achievements.

Worked fine to unlock nearby ores at starting position until devs made pre-view option.

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by Krull:

I haven't looked but isn't there a reveal map command? If there is has anyone used it and what are the results like?

Yes, you can find it on the wiki and by forum search for "reveal map". Anyway, here's how to do it.

Save first.

Originally posted by piccolo255:

Open the console, tilde (~) by default. Copy this:

/c
local radius = 1000;
game.player.force.chart( game.player.surface,
   {{ game.player.position.x - radius
    , game.player.position.y - radius }
   ,{ game.player.position.x + radius
    , game.player.position.y + radius }} )

and paste it into the console. You'll get a warning about achievements being disabled, paste the same thing once again to acknowledge and continue (you need to do this double-run only once per save).

It may take a little bit to reveal the area, so open your map ("M") and observe. If you didn't find what you were looking for, increase the radius (e.g., "local radius = 1500") in the above code and try again. Don't increase the radius too much, as it can cause you to run out of memory. Increase in steps.

When you find what you needed, remember or screenshot the location and reload. It will be in the same place, so you can go straight there, and since you reloaded the pre-cheat save the game doesn't know you cheated :)

(If you want to reveal in one direction only, replace 3 of the "radius"es by a fixed number, e.g. "100". IIRC, this works in tiles, not chunks, and one chunk is 32x32, so revealing a 1000x200 area would reveal a strip about 30 chunks long, 6 chunks wide.)