Discord and efficiency

[ChrisR]

Very much enjoying this game, just about to start tutorial level 5.
A couple of things. I play satisfactory a lot, and with satisfactory you can see if your machines are running efficiently because it will state it on the machine. You know then if your factory is running efficient. How do you know if your factory is running efficiently in factario?
Also I’m having trouble posting on the factario discord. It’s saying that my message can’t be delivered because i don’t share a server with the recipient. I had the same problem with the riftbreaker discord but I managed to get on that in the end. I changed a setting and it worked, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I did lol
Many thanks

[Fel]

Efficiency doesn't work the same way as in satisfactory.

Basically, as long as you supply enough ingredients (if they accumulate on the belt it means that the machine has enough in most cases) and can empty its output to a belt or a chest (it pauses the inserters feeding it if it has more than 2 rounds of items in the output) then it should be at 100% efficiency.


More importantly, efficiency isn't all that important for newer players, what matters is that your factory keeps producing what you need.
It is not unusual to launch your first (or even first few) rocket with a factory that is a big mess (lovingly called spaghetti because you usually end up trying to route belts wherever there is a bit of space) that is utterly terrible in terms of efficiency but still gets the job done.

After you are more used to how the game plays and start planning a bit better, what matters isn't so much the efficiency of a machine in particular but the ratios between recipes and the throughput.



It's better to just eyeball it for now.
The belts are the best way you have to tell how well your factory is doing.
For example, if a belt is empty, it means that you should produce more of the item supposed to be on it (it's always better to over-produce in this game).
If items on the belt are not moving, it means that nothing is currently consuming them.
And if the belt looks completely full but constantly moving (items never pausing) it usually means that you need to either upgrade the belt or add a second line for the item because the limits for it have been reached (usually starving some of the machines needing the item).

[bigdale]

If you match your production rates to your max consumption rate then you have a powerful if somewhat inefficient factory. The average player isn't going to run the factory at 100% all the time.

[kremlin]

If you mouseover the running machines the sidebar will show you the efficiency information, it will tell you whether there is an ingredient shortage or the outputs are full. There are a few mods like Bottleneck that put status lights on the machines to know at a glance. Without the mods you can also watch the animation of the machines, they will visibly stutter and halt in response to shortages and blockages so you can gauge where things need to be adjusted.

[THE kilroy]

Maybe you are looking for the bottleneck mods(or similar). It will put an indicator light on your machines to show which ones are fully supplied and thise which are slowed