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The belts in this game are absolutely amazing in many aspects, one of them being that they are one of the best metric to show you the state of your factory.
If a product is not produced in high enough quantities, the belt(s) transporting it will show if by not being pretty empty.
If you are making too much of something compared to the current consumption the belts will remain full (and it's actually a good thing so don't change anything, machine just pause themselves when they don't need to work and you will most likely need more later anyway).
If you reached the limits of how much a belt can transport, the items on it will be constantly moving and full of items so you probably need to think about either upgrading the belt or adding a new one for that item.
This means that a quick look at your belts will always tell you if your factory has a problem (and where if it's the case), letting you focus on building the factory without having to worry about things like perfect ratios, efficiency and so on.
On the "why am I automating", it's mostly centered around research and items you need to build the factory (belts, inserters, assembling machines, pipes...).
The "goal" is to unlock and launch the rocket that sits at the end of the tech tree.
You can absolutely reach it with a highly inefficient factory (in fact that's most likely to be the case the first few times) but it's experiencing this that will drive you to build differently as you will learn first hand the importance of using a lot of space for example.
So maybe just try to build a factory that "works" rather than one that is efficient, you will be able to progress much faster and you will learn a lot from it.
I had begun checking the forums here for little bits of advice and heard everyone talking about a main bus and that was a
After that I finally figured out an efficient way to use trains and realized that I could use them to solve some of the space problems by setting up other production areas and using the trains to bring stuff to the main assembly area.
After that I built a huge assembly area with robots moving stuff around and ran into all of the robot inefficiency problems and figured out how to solve those.
For me part of the fun was unlocking new stuff and trying to figure out how to fit it in without jamming stuff up and the answer was almost always, "Leave enough space to change things until you figure it out."
For me the most fun was figuring out HOW to set things up so that they worked and weren't clunky and after all most 3,000 hours I'm still adding refinements.
I think I started over about 20 times before I ever launched my first rocket. After that I went through and worked on accumulating all the badges. The Lazy Bastard badge is where I learned the most about early automation of production lines.
tl:dr leave a lot of space to make changes.
2nd mod is actually two mod suggestions.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/WhereIsItMade Helps find items in your whole factory and storage system.
and the other half of this suggestion is...
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FNEI It is easier way to look up items recipies and their options. Very helpful if use mods that add stuff to.
Ok so was 3 mods lol But first one is main im suggesting. Other two are helpful as well.
When building a factory... Leave space to expand each step or to pipe out the surplus to another factory that might be low on that item. I doubt your playing bob/angels or other mods yet... But it is still helpful to do in base game as well.
Example I build my factory horizontaly, "XXXXXX is where I add extra space"
"actually mine bit different but I use LOT of mod packs, so mine has more buildings but works same"
Miner XXXXXX Forge XXXXXX Assembler XXXXXX Storage/Transfer area.
Now if need more mining done. I place one next to it in a row.
so it would now look like...
Miner XXXXXX Forge XXXXXX Assembler XXXXXX Storage/Transfer area.
Miner
And now if i need more assemblers I would do...
Miner XXXXXX Forge XXXXXX Assembler XXXXXX Storage/Transfer area.
Miner Assembler
So this way why not space efficient gives space to expand. Once reach max for that output. You can then look at whole thing and at a glance know how many of each building you will need. and how its belted. And can then go back and rebuilding more compact... and done. To me it is one of easiest ways to do it. "Dont forget once done to make it a blueprint and save it under blueprint tab at top right of screen. 2Nd button i think.
I can make a simple SS of what im saying if helps. Doing it this way lets your expand as you grow with out needing to rebuild every time. And when reach max output and make Blueprint after rearranging to be compact. Then every time do same item, just place BP :-)
I used to have hundreds of BP in bunch of books organized per item it made. "I made icon for BP the finial item. And named it amount per minute
or i named it item/"color of belt it can keep full at max consumtion".
So if i was in first belt level only... I would use the grey belt version. Once I hit yellow / 2nd belt I would swap to yellow belt BP version. Some times it was simply upgrad planner. Other times due to through put... a completely different setup blueprinted.
So i start with grey belt.. Then remove old factory and replace it with yellow belt version. Or just use a upgrade planner to upgrade parts if thats only difference.
Over all its pretty easy. And dont worry about space. Their is more then you will ever need.
And as I said can always go back and compact areas built if need more space locally.
If research vials are building up... then your problem is that you're not consuming them! So you need to make more research labs so you can feed them the vials!
I don't know how much of a problem it is these days, but I understand a number of people have a mental block when they first start the game where they build just one research lab.
When they get the epiphany that they can research faster by building more research labs (and thus are able to consume vials faster), it triggers the gameplay loop of repeatedly expanding the research capacity then improving and expanding the factory to be able to produce more science to meet that capacity.
And then other aspects of the game naturally get incorporated into the loop as you need them to operate on ever increasing scales.
You don't necessarily need to be efficient... it's enough to avoid being inefficient.
Optimizing for efficiency is fun for many people, and maybe it will be fun for you too as you learn about the game... but the main thing is to avoid being so inefficient you are wasting the majority of your time on efforts on things that won't do anything.
One thing I find interesting about the game is the experience of realizing at some point you're spending too much time putting out logistics fires, and realize it's time to redesign parts of your factory, or build whole new factory sections, to work better and require less attention.
Unless you did something with the settings... this is probably because you're still small time. The natives tend not to become really restless until your factory is really chugging along. And then it can be pretty exciting to realize you need to upgrade from makeshift defenses to something more substantial... and later to realize that your substantial improvements have become woefully inadequate and you need to make real qualitative upgrades!
shorten that items belt length it travels. Shorter it is the less items on belt. another thing can do is place a wire "red or green" from inserter for producer building to user of that item building. Set it to turn off when items < max amount you want. Now one issue will find that it makes a few extra depending on how long transfer belt is. As will only count amount IN the user building not including belt. But if set max to little less then what building can hold. Should help lower amount made at time.
This also will work in reverse! For example you have one factory that has a surplus of one item. And another factory that has more then needs at times. Set it to read a chest or building. And set a insert to turn on when max of that item exceeds a set number.
This is redirect surplus with out risking starving other factory.
With logistics and some working with it... there is a lot can do. Can even set a whole factory to turn off if final product over a set number. Or even turn off if power batteries is below a set level. And more... But thats bit beyond what I know how to do. Other would know more then I. I still ask lot of questions too :-)
I like to have a small setup some where to build turrets and belts and ammo. I just limite how many I make at time. You can send it all to local chest. And then scroll down and click on red X and drag it up.. All slots it covers in red will NOT accept items. So even if had 2,000 slots if set it to all but one red slot... it would only hold max 1 stack on a item max.
Side note: You can add wires to belts and read the belt contents as well. You can also set the belt not to move until a certain condition is met.
My question... Will it read whole belt line. Or just that specific single belt? I tend to try fill my belts when can. So if by single belt.. think each can hold 4 items? I set it to 4 it would just stay off as both sides full when factories unload.
I think this is where your problem lies. "Making things efficient" is a bad goal to have, in my opinion. Perfectionism is an illness that strikes a lot of young and inspiring engineers but with experience you will grow out of it eventually.
First of all, it's poorly defined. "Efficiency" when applied to the whole factory is already a concept that is hard to grasp, and it is not useful thinking in such terms anyway. You want to have something more concrete that is easier to translate into actions, like: I want to build an outpost on that coal patch, or I want to produce 100 science/min etc
Second, there isn't a single "most efficient" solution to any particular problem anyway. Sure there are some meta patterns that you might want to follow like building a main bus and creating dedicated space for smelting stuff, but all of them have their own downsides as well. Also building what might look like an antipattern is not always a bad thing either. There are tasks that you might want to do in a quick and dirty way, so just do so. Remember that the main point of most "meta" builds is to have better organisation, so there is no need to overdo them. At some point it is "good enough" so you just stop there and go do something else. There is always something else to do in a factory.
I've seen comparisons of playing Factorio with other activities like programming, but in my opinion this is not entirely accurate. Sure there are a lot of overlaps in general philosophies and approach to solving problems, but Factorio is much more forgiving to "mistakes" and "conventionally bad" design practices. So don't let yourself bother with it too much. It's very hard to do something in a completely wrong way here and most things you can come up with will be good enough, so don't overthink. Decision paralysis is not something you want to have. In the end, your main goal is to have fun.
You get refunded pretty much all materials if you tear down something and rebuild it.
You will never be a loser or a winner at a sandbox game.
If you get bummed out cause you feel like an idiot or something (in not a good way, but an actual bad way): You're very likely not too dumb or anything for factorio, probably just too impatient.
So the actual issue might just be impatience, since you basically lose nothing except time.
And if it IS impatience, then you gotta ask yourself if it's impatience because you think the game is pointless, or because progres isn't coming to you quickly enough and you feel the time draining away painfully.
And if it's the latter, the quick enough progress, then yeah, try and relax, you get everything back, you can turn off biters too, and just think and tinker as much as you like/want.
Also, and this is a symptom of 'current gaming consciouness' in general.
You can also cheat.
Few people cheat at games these days. It was all the rage back in the day, you'd get magazines with cheat codes, action replays to cheat, etc.
Something or someone out there sure trained the population in a way to see not cheating in games as some sort of sacrosanct thing.
So, instead of giving up and bumming out, mess with the game.
Mod it! Change it! Play with it.
As for what you are automating? A large part of that is up to you. Research vials and it's sub components are required to progress, so you should try and get them going steadily as is possible. But for example, there's no reason to rush green science just as you unlock it. For green science: are you iron and copper supplies adequate before you start? If no, then maybe spend some time to get that upgraded first. As for other things to automate: it's up to you. When first started I didn't automate much, but now in a new game #1 is red science #2 is belts, then splitters & undergrounds, then inserters, power poles etc... etc...
Automating the supplies you need to expand your factory takes a good amount of time vs straight progression, but dealing with issues that pop up become a lot easier when you have a stash of hundreds of miners, belts, and inserters. It sucks to see the problem, know what you need to do, then sit there hand crafting stuff for 20 minutes instead of playing the game. We play this to build factories, not squeeze iron plates into gear wheels with our bare hands.
All that said, it's fine to restart and try to do better. This is really common with new players as you learn how the game works. But here's an alternative idea. If your base gets too messy or you can't nail down this problem in your base and you are thinking of starting over....just move! You can leave the base running and just move a distance away and start a whole new factory, or just building a section (say green science) in its own bubble. You have virtually unlimited space to work with (so long as you can keep the biters at bay)
Lastly, I might suggest Helmod or something similar. This is a base planners that can do some really complicated stuff, but at its core you can just select a recipe (say ,green science), tell it how many of that item you want per unit of time or you can tell it you want 2 green science assemblers, then it will tell you how many assemblers of each required material you'll need (down to how many miners to mine the raw resources if you want, but this isnt terribly useful in most cases). I don't play without it anymore, it's just a wonderful quality of life tools that makes it really easy to make more efficient production chains without having to work out the ratios and times. Buuut, unless it's too frustrating I'd suggest trying to launch your first rocket without it. No shame if you don't, but I personally found it more rewarding to finagle stuff until it got finagled into orbit.
You could end up using 2 miners "with surplus" 1 Forge "just enough with out surplus" a sub assmbly plant making a sub item "making 3 times what your need", and then 3 final assemblers making finial item.
whole point is at each stage the amount produced per minute will vary a lot. I had one recently where I had extra iron cogs I sent to another factory. but every other item was not enough.. So since each building produces different amounts at different speeds. Setting up a perfect factory is just more work then needed.
Which is why I suggested way to build above... If find one step is overloaded you can redirect to boost a different factory. If production too low... then can add another building to boost that step or belt in extras from another factory. This is exactly why many peoples game look like spagetti on crak :-) "mine included lol".
So heres is my suggestion... Look only for optimazation on FINAL product of a factory only. Then to adjust it make more buildings per step or belt/pipe in more resources from another factory. Or simply make a duplicate factory to double production.
If you try to make every step optimized you will waste time, stress out, not enjoy playing. Now I do have a trick you might want to try...
Start new game in creative. "or get infinity chest mod... it produces for free any item ingame you want", and then decide on one final product you want to make and amount per minute. And then just build THAT factory. Play around with placement and setup till its as compact/efficent as you want. Then make a blueprint and save it.
Now you can replace that BP and know its going to be as efficient every time. Takes some work but saves time later. But otherwise just plop stuff down left and right and worry about efficency or compactness after you played few 100 hours and just enjoy game for now :-)''.
EDIT - I also mentioned a few helpful mods earlier to try out. They should help a lot.
I'm like wow slow down a bit game. Thanks you gave me Trains, New Inserters, Flame Throwers, Grenades , Wires, Upgraded Assembers, Oil stuff, New Belts and Splitters, Fluid containers. The list goes on