Tips and Advice?

[ChrisPharmD]

I know there are a million Google and YouTube hits for tips on Factorio as this is a very popular game, but I'm just wondering if you have any tips. And I have some questions, too.

I play Kenshi, and the ore veins never deplete. I see here that these resources do deplete. Logically, it would make sense not to use trees as my first source of fuel as it would deplete them much faster than coal, though I suppose they could grow back.

Also, for people who have a mouse with 12 buttons, any suggestions on hotkeys for the side of the mouse? 12 buttons?

I usually dedicate one mouse hotkey for highlighting items in RPGs like Kenshi, Baldur's Gate, Divinity: OS and OS2, etc. Is there a highlight button? Also, I don't see a quick save and quick load option in key bindings. So just manually save?

OH! And I'm in the tutorial now. I see there are many different options for starting games. I'm going to just do the default one, but is it static or does it change every time you start a new game? I Googled this and people were asking if they start over and what were the reasons people start over.

Also, based on the home screen, I'm assuming you can die by wildlife invasion? I didn't even know there was wildlife in this game. Is there a pattern or is it just random? Like Don't Starve gives you 7ish days until Hounds show up.

Maybe some of this is spoilers and I should just figure it out on my own and it's preference, but just curious. I know the tutorial is necessary, but I'm pretty sure the tutorial is why I quit the first time because my brain is too smooth to understand the complexities of the game.

[DCYW]

Do not expand too far from base when death-matching, enemy bases are there to defend off you getting rare resources especially oil patches because they cause most pollution even though trees absorb pollution. Get your pollution sorted before they after your base/s.

We all as players fight for rare resources whereas our enemy on Factorio eat our pollution for their evolution to grow stronger making the game difficult for you to defend.

That is all I give advice for as an casual gamer myself.

[Fel]

Originally posted by ChrisPharmD:

I know there are a million Google and YouTube hits for tips on Factorio as this is a very popular game, but I'm just wondering if you have any tips. And I have some questions, too.

I play Kenshi, and the ore veins never deplete. I see here that these resources do deplete. Logically, it would make sense not to use trees as my first source of fuel as it would deplete them much faster than coal, though I suppose they could grow back.

Trees can be used as fuel but they really are not great for that purpose, coal is just so much better.
Trees don't grow back, but there isn't much that needs wood after the early game.
You use it for the most basic power pole, for the shotgun and for wooden chests.
You get better power poles (a bit later in the tech tree) and chests (right away) that don't require any wood but wood is great for those early on when iron plates are valuable.

Also, for people who have a mouse with 12 buttons, any suggestions on hotkeys for the side of the mouse? 12 buttons?

I usually dedicate one mouse hotkey for highlighting items in RPGs like Kenshi, Baldur's Gate, Divinity: OS and OS2, etc. Is there a highlight button? Also, I don't see a quick save and quick load option in key bindings. So just manually save?

Most of the important hotkeys are near WASD.
There is no quicksave.
Highlight is a mode called alt mode, toggled by the alt key (pretty much the mode you want to use most of the time).

OH! And I'm in the tutorial now. I see there are many different options for starting games. I'm going to just do the default one, but is it static or does it change every time you start a new game? I Googled this and people were asking if they start over and what were the reasons people start over.

If you played minecraft (among many other games), maybe you are familiar with the concept of "seed".
If you don't specify a seed, the game just generates a random one and the world will be different every time.
If you specify the same seed every time, it will create the same map.

Also, based on the home screen, I'm assuming you can die by wildlife invasion? I didn't even know there was wildlife in this game. Is there a pattern or is it just random? Like Don't Starve gives you 7ish days until Hounds show up.

It's neither a pattern or random, but closer to a pattern.
Your machines produce pollution that spreads over time.
Different terrains absorb different amounts of pollution each second (well, each tick but the concept is the same), with deserts and water absorbing very little but dense forests absorbing large amounts.

Once the pollution reaches nests (groups of spawners), the spawners absorb pollution and generate an attack force that will then go towards the biggest source of pollution nearby and try to destroy it.

Depending on the world generation and on how much pollution you are producing, attacks can be early or late, frequent or rare.

And you can always go destroy the nests that are sending those attacks to get rid of the source (until it reaches a further nest of course).

If you don't like the idea of having to defend while learning the game, you can always set enemies to peaceful or completely disable them when creating the map.
You are not locking anything other than combat by removing enemies.

Maybe some of this is spoilers and I should just figure it out on my own and it's preference, but just curious. I know the tutorial is necessary, but I'm pretty sure the tutorial is why I quit the first time because my brain is too smooth to understand the complexities of the game.

The game is as complex as you want it to be.

To avoid some newbie traps, try to leave a lot of space for future belts as well as for when you will want to expand the production of existing items (and you will need to expand them quite a bit).

Try to play around with belts, they have a few nice tricks when you want to force items on one specific side of a belt for example.

Don't be scared by recipe chains that might look overwhelming, because they really are not.
If you start from the item you want to produce and work your way back, one step/item at a time you will quickly see that it's very simple even if something asks for 3 or 4 high end items as ingredients.

Don't bother with efficiency, ratios and the likes, they are for much later.
For now, just over-produce everything, your machines will pause themselves when they can't output what they produced and start working again on their own right when they are needed again.

Your first factory will be pretty bad, most things will barely work, but that's entirely fine.
Your goal for the first few playthroughs is to get used to the tools you have access to and try to launch the rocket.

Once you are more familiar with how everything works, you will be able to figure out layouts that take future expansion of production into account.
Things like throughput and ratios will start to come into play.
You will probably also want to start using trains to bring the ores and oil from remote places and maybe use circuit network for things like regulating oil cracking...
You might even start to want mods to change things based on what you would like to change.
But those are all things that only matter after you understand the basics well.


There are many ways to approach designing a factory in this game, and for the most part none of them are the ultimate, superior, "right" way to do things, especially since the game is open-ended.
A factory meant to rush the rocket launch will probably not be all that good to support a mega-base, surviving a deathworld is very different from playing without enemies, even trains and logistics bots can have very different uses depending on your plans.

[AlexMBrennan]

Logically, it would make sense not to use trees as my first source of fuel as it would deplete them much faster than coal, though I suppose they could grow back.

Trees don't grow back.

The main reason not to use wood as fuel is that you cannot automate the production of wood - you have to manually chop down trees, or manually order robots to chop down trees. Most players just use grenades to destroy trees.

Also, for people who have a mouse with 12 buttons, any suggestions on hotkeys for the side of the mouse? 12 buttons?

Just play the game and see which buttons you end up using a lot? Most of the important buttons (e.g. Q) are near WASD so I don't see much of a point in binding them to the mouse but maybe the higher numbers, the production menu (P) or copy/cut/paste (ctrl+C/X/V) might be worth considering.

Is there a highlight button?

No. You can however configure in options how much additional information is displayed in Alt mode which is activated by pressing Alt.

Also, I don't see a quick save and quick load option in key bindings. So just manually save?

Yes, there are manual saves and auto saves.

OH! And I'm in the tutorial now. I see there are many different options for starting games. I'm going to just do the default one, but is it static or does it change every time you start a new game?

The freeplay map is randomly generated based on a seed; if you want to then you can write it down somewhere to generate the same map the next time you play or you could look online for maps you like and generate them in your game by using the seed provided.

I Googled this and people were asking if they start over and what were the reasons people start over.

People start over for many reasons - maybe they don't like the map, maybe they changed their mind about how they were going to build their base and decided that it's too much work to fix everything, maybe they want to try a new mod, etc.

Please be more specific with your questions.

Also, based on the home screen, I'm assuming you can die by wildlife invasion? I didn't even know there was wildlife in this game.

Have you considered playing the tutorial? The tutorial would have explained that there is hostile wildlife which is why you can build all those fancy walls, gun turrets, tanks and artillery.

Is there a pattern or is it just random?

There are three reasons you might be attacked by wildlife:
1) You get too close to them or start shooting them, in which case they will fight back
2) Pollution from your factory reaches their nests, in which case they will dispatch a raiding party which will try to destroy the source of the pollution
3) Nests randomly try to expand by dispatching scouting parties; if these scouting parties run into your base then there may be a fight

You can set biters to peaceful or turn them off entirely if you don't want to deal with this.

[Orys]

I play Kenshi, and the ore veins never deplete. I see here that these resources do deplete.

You can make trains go to resources, load ores, get back to base to feed furnaces.
Be sure to build defences so they don't get destroyed.

You don't need to make complicated train tracks to be able to do this.

A thing I didn't know when I started playing : building radars give you the ability to zoom into your map and see in real time. When placing a radar, you can see on your map the part of the map you'll be able to zoom in. I thought they were only used to scan the map

You can check your pollution level on the map, you should do that sometimes and destroy nests that are too close to your pollution. You can use ammos and shoot while inside a car, I usually destroy nests this way. With the red magazines and upgraded damages it's quick. I orbit around nests and shoot them. (When you unlock the tank it's easier, but tank is slower)

[DCYW]

Originally posted by DCYW:

They decay off because of pollution absorption, we as players grow them back by mod play not the map regen of course.

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Trees don't grow back.

The main reason not to use wood as fuel is that you cannot automate the production of wood - you have to manually chop down trees, or manually order robots to chop down trees. Most players just use grenades to destroy trees.

[ChrisPharmD]

Originally posted by DCYW:

Do not expand too far from base when death-matching, enemy bases are there to defend off you getting rare resources especially oil patches because they cause most pollution even though trees absorb pollution. Get your pollution sorted before they after your base/s.

We all as players fight for rare resources whereas our enemy on Factorio eat our pollution for their evolution to grow stronger making the game difficult for you to defend.

That is all I give advice for as an casual gamer myself.

Death matching? I was just planning on playing default mode. It would be a miracle if I could actually build a factory that could build a rocket.

Wait. "We as players"? Is that a multiplayer mode? I don't typically play multiplayer in these types of games because other people are just too good. Reminds me that one time I tried Civilization 5 multiplayer and got obliterated by my friends.

[ChrisPharmD]

Originally posted by Fel:

Trees can be used as fuel but they really are not great for that purpose, coal is just so much better.
Trees don't grow back, but there isn't much that needs wood after the early game.
You use it for the most basic power pole, for the shotgun and for wooden chests.
You get better power poles (a bit later in the tech tree) and chests (right away) that don't require any wood but wood is great for those early on when iron plates are valuable.

Ah okay so don't use trees. Coal apparently runs out, too? So, is it possible to run out of coal and just be completely screwed? A tip for new players is to increase the resource yield but I don't want to play like that. I just want to play very normal and very default. I don't like increasing resources because I feel like that's kind of the point of the game.

The game showed me wooden boxes and metal boxes. I suppose I could skip wooden boxes and just use metal boxes. That will help with trees and pollution, too, yeah?

Originally posted by Fel:

Most of the important hotkeys are near WASD.
There is no quicksave.
Highlight is a mode called alt mode, toggled by the alt key (pretty much the mode you want to use most of the time).

Yeah, I was doing the tutorial and had iron and bronze ore on one conveyor belt and it was a disaster trying to get the stone forges to pick the correct ore. I had like 5 stone forges getting bronze ore and one getting iron ore and I couldn't figure out how to stop it. I suppose this is the challenge of the game. In theory, I suppose I need to isolate the two and put them on different conveyor belts to feed into different forges. I wish I could program an arm to only pick up the ore I want but I think that would be unrealistic to expect an arm to know what material is what... though it does know to refill it's own coal so I don't know.
[/quote]

Originally posted by Fel:

If you played minecraft (among many other games), maybe you are familiar with the concept of "seed".
If you don't specify a seed, the game just generates a random one and the world will be different every time.
If you specify the same seed every time, it will create the same map.

Yeah, people suggest to restart until you get all three main materials near each other and also not to start in a desert. I'm still doing the tutorial so I'll mess around with it.

People also say set research queue to on because apparently it's off by default. I feel like the developer has a good reason for that, yeah?

Originally posted by Fel:

It's neither a pattern or random, but closer to a pattern.
Your machines produce pollution that spreads over time.
Different terrains absorb different amounts of pollution each second (well, each tick but the concept is the same), with deserts and water absorbing very little but dense forests absorbing large amounts.

Once the pollution reaches nests (groups of spawners), the spawners absorb pollution and generate an attack force that will then go towards the biggest source of pollution nearby and try to destroy it.

Depending on the world generation and on how much pollution you are producing, attacks can be early or late, frequent or rare.

And you can always go destroy the nests that are sending those attacks to get rid of the source (until it reaches a further nest of course).

That's why people say not to play in deserts. That makes sense. Is that mech spider in the intro a boss or a side effect of pollution? Or is that just the player building a badass spider to go kill stuff?

Originally posted by Fel:

If you don't like the idea of having to defend while learning the game, you can always set enemies to peaceful or completely disable them when creating the map.
You are not locking anything other than combat by removing enemies.

Yeah, I hate to do that. I really want the game to run as default as possible. I just don't like changing default settings even if it is my own game and my own playthrough. I'm not saying other people shouldn't do it, but I just want to play it default.

Originally posted by Fel:

The game is as complex as you want it to be.

To avoid some newbie traps, try to leave a lot of space for future belts as well as for when you will want to expand the production of existing items (and you will need to expand them quite a bit).

Try to play around with belts, they have a few nice tricks when you want to force items on one specific side of a belt for example.

I saw that! Arms only put items on the far side of the belt. So I'm guessing you setup arms where one side puts items on their respective "far sides" and optimize based on that setup? Sounds easy in concept but I bet I'll spend hours thinking about how it will actually work.

Originally posted by Fel:

Don't be scared by recipe chains that might look overwhelming, because they really are not.
If you start from the item you want to produce and work your way back, one step/item at a time you will quickly see that it's very simple even if something asks for 3 or 4 high end items as ingredients.

Don't bother with efficiency, ratios and the likes, they are for much later.
For now, just over-produce everything, your machines will pause themselves when they can't output what they produced and start working again on their own right when they are needed again.

Your first factory will be pretty bad, most things will barely work, but that's entirely fine.
Your goal for the first few playthroughs is to get used to the tools you have access to and try to launch the rocket.

Once you are more familiar with how everything works, you will be able to figure out layouts that take future expansion of production into account.
Things like throughput and ratios will start to come into play.
You will probably also want to start using trains to bring the ores and oil from remote places and maybe use circuit network for things like regulating oil cracking...
You might even start to want mods to change things based on what you would like to change.
But those are all things that only matter after you understand the basics well.


There are many ways to approach designing a factory in this game, and for the most part none of them are the ultimate, superior, "right" way to do things, especially since the game is open-ended.
A factory meant to rush the rocket launch will probably not be all that good to support a mega-base, surviving a deathworld is very different from playing without enemies, even trains and logistics bots can have very different uses depending on your plans.

Yeah, my biggest worry is using up all ore or all coal. In the tutorial, when you create mining drills, sometimes you set it on places with max 1.5K resources available. Since I'm going to be really slow, I'm just a little worried I'm going to run out of resources especially coal.

[ChrisPharmD]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Trees don't grow back.

The main reason not to use wood as fuel is that you cannot automate the production of wood - you have to manually chop down trees, or manually order robots to chop down trees. Most players just use grenades to destroy trees.

People grenade tress? lol Maybe there are more trees in the game than I'm expecting. I'm starting to think the map is bigger than I'm expecting, too. I suppose that would make sense if there are trains.

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Just play the game and see which buttons you end up using a lot? Most of the important buttons (e.g. Q) are near WASD so I don't see much of a point in binding them to the mouse but maybe the higher numbers, the production menu (P) or copy/cut/paste (ctrl+C/X/V) might be worth considering.

Yeah, when I first asked that question, it was because the options menu was so confusing that I was overwhelmed. I ended up figuring out that it's easier to just use my keyboard for a lot of stuff.

I play Kenshi and you move by right clicking. I don't know why I was thinking that's how this game was played. I think when I posted this thread, I was still trying to look through the options and keybinds. The options menus in this game are very extensive.

OH! And I'm in the tutorial now. I see there are many different options for starting games. I'm going to just do the default one, but is it static or does it change every time you start a new game?

The freeplay map is randomly generated based on a seed; if you want to then you can write it down somewhere to generate the same map the next time you play or you could look online for maps you like and generate them in your game by using the seed provided.

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Please be more specific with your questions.

I legit was looking through the menus of the game. I don't think I even knew what to ask. It was a lot to take in at once.

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Have you considered playing the tutorial? The tutorial would have explained that there is hostile wildlife which is why you can build all those fancy walls, gun turrets, tanks and artillery.

Yeah, the tutorial throws like 2 enemies at you and says "Hey bad guys exist. More might come later!"

I remembered two games - Civilization: Beyond Earth and Don't Starve. Each have wildlife that attacks very differently. I think when I posted this thread, I didn't know pollution was what caused the attacks. Actually, I'm not sure what I knew to be honest. I can't remember.

Thanks for the help!

[ChrisPharmD]

Originally posted by Orys:

I play Kenshi, and the ore veins never deplete. I see here that these resources do deplete.

You can make trains go to resources, load ores, get back to base to feed furnaces.
Be sure to build defences so they don't get destroyed.

You don't need to make complicated train tracks to be able to do this.

A thing I didn't know when I started playing : building radars give you the ability to zoom into your map and see in real time. When placing a radar, you can see on your map the part of the map you'll be able to zoom in. I thought they were only used to scan the map

You can check your pollution level on the map, you should do that sometimes and destroy nests that are too close to your pollution. You can use ammos and shoot while inside a car, I usually destroy nests this way. With the red magazines and upgraded damages it's quick. I orbit around nests and shoot them. (When you unlock the tank it's easier, but tank is slower)

There are radars!? Holy crap. I didn't know that! That's really cool.

Does this game get updates with new stuff or is it pretty much done? I don't *expect* there to be any updates, but I was just curious.

I'm still on Tutorial 3 of 5. Electricity, steam power, etc. Hopefully, the last two aren't too crazy because I want to get into a game.

[AlexMBrennan]

People grenade tress? lol Maybe there are more trees in the game than I'm expecting. I'm starting to think the map is bigger than I'm expecting, too

The first tutorial levels are small, finite maps but the standard freeplay map is infinite in size.

Since I'm going to be really slow, I'm just a little worried I'm going to run out of resources especially coal.

Since the map is virtually infinite you can just find a new coal deposit when you run out. Later on you can also unlock solar power (infinite) and nuclear power.

Does this game get updates with new stuff or is it pretty much done?

1.0 came out in 2020; since then they have mostly just released a couple of smaller updates that improve the game (e.g. train limits were added in 1.1 in 2021). They have been working on DLC for some time but no details have been released.

[DCYW]

Originally posted by ChrisPharmD:

Originally posted by DCYW:

Do not expand too far from base when death-matching, enemy bases are there to defend off you getting rare resources especially oil patches because they cause most pollution even though trees absorb pollution. Get your pollution sorted before they after your base/s.

We all as players fight for rare resources whereas our enemy on Factorio eat our pollution for their evolution to grow stronger making the game difficult for you to defend.

That is all I give advice for as an casual gamer myself.

Death matching? I was just planning on playing default mode. It would be a miracle if I could actually build a factory that could build a rocket.

Wait. "We as players"? Is that a multiplayer mode? I don't typically play multiplayer in these types of games because other people are just too good. Reminds me that one time I tried Civilization 5 multiplayer and got obliterated by my friends.

Give you one more tip, There two types of rockets one you get space science packs from and the other one you shoot with a rocket launcher at the enemies.

Nah, single-player not peaceful mode I meant. Yeah I don't play multiplayer either because of weak server connection sometimes failures.

Depends on your map settings for starting area, which means the higher percentage the less you encounter them for this setting gives you more time to expand your base.

When in not peaceful mode means that they scatter around the map more often until they will approach you and then your base (their second target), even your pollution spreads more faster too.

Well, whereas games like Civ5 not that case if your starting cities are there first with huge armies where rare resources are guarded by your armies. Yeah your armies must be stronger than theirs or better tactical units.

[Fel]

Originally posted by ChrisPharmD:

Ah okay so don't use trees. Coal apparently runs out, too? So, is it possible to run out of coal and just be completely screwed? A tip for new players is to increase the resource yield but I don't want to play like that. I just want to play very normal and very default. I don't like increasing resources because I feel like that's kind of the point of the game.

The game showed me wooden boxes and metal boxes. I suppose I could skip wooden boxes and just use metal boxes. That will help with trees and pollution, too, yeah?

Resource deposits do run out but in a normal game (as in not the tutorial) the map is not limited so you can just go in any direction for a bit and find new deposits.
All you need is to bring back resources towards your factory.

In most cases you need those other deposits long before your initial ones start to run out, simply because you need more plates to sustain your growing factory.

Yeah, I was doing the tutorial and had iron and bronze ore on one conveyor belt and it was a disaster trying to get the stone forges to pick the correct ore. I had like 5 stone forges getting bronze ore and one getting iron ore and I couldn't figure out how to stop it. I suppose this is the challenge of the game. In theory, I suppose I need to isolate the two and put them on different conveyor belts to feed into different forges. I wish I could program an arm to only pick up the ore I want but I think that would be unrealistic to expect an arm to know what material is what... though it does know to refill it's own coal so I don't know.

Those inserters exist, they are called filter inserters.
But what you really want is to have separate belts and furnaces for iron and copper.

In fact, you never want more than one item (type, not quantity of course) per belt side unless you really know what you are doing.
For example, it's fine to have one side of a belt with iron ore and the other with coal.

Yeah, people suggest to restart until you get all three main materials near each other and also not to start in a desert. I'm still doing the tutorial so I'll mess around with it.

People also say set research queue to on because apparently it's off by default. I feel like the developer has a good reason for that, yeah?

When you are on the map creation screen, there is a preview button that lets you see what the map will be like, you just have to click the button near the seed to change it to a new random one until you have something you like.
The desert is only a problem if you have enemies enabled, because pollution spreads further than when there are forests, triggering attacks faster and eventually from more nests.
Funny enough, the desert can be the best place to build when enemies are either not enabled or if you are confident with your ability to defend your factory, simply because there are very few obstacles.

It's not even a requirement and more of a convenience thing.

That's why people say not to play in deserts. That makes sense. Is that mech spider in the intro a boss or a side effect of pollution? Or is that just the player building a badass spider to go kill stuff?

It's a late game vehicle for the player, one you can even remote-control and that has the ability to equip gadgets that usually only go into power armours.

[Rezznor7]

Regarding wood - if you are in a desert area then wood is a scarce item and you may find yourself scrambling for the occasional fallen tree that you come across for the small power poles you make. On the other hand, if you are in a more wooded, forest area, you will find yourself with more wood than you can handle after a while. THE FACTORY MUST GROW!! You will need the space. Huge swaths of forest will be cut down and you will find yourself with thousands upon thousands of wood. Storage bins just fill up! So once I got close to 10K wood, I built 10 steam engines and 20 boilers with a Requester Chest (at this point I have automated bots going) requesting wood, and just let the burners burn it all away. I couldn't see any other use for the stuff. With the substation and medium electric poles, I found nearly no reason to have the smaller poles. Off with the wood!

Regarding resources (coal, iron, oil, uranium, etc) - Those will run out eventually, though depending on the size of the patch and how dense it is, it may take a very long time to run out. Still, THE FACTORY MUST GROW! Even the highest speed belt will not be able to support all the factories you have demanding iron, copper, whatever. Two belts, that is, two lanes will be required. Three! Four lanes will be required to feed the ever hungry factories that demand more, MORE! Eventually, your patch will not be big enough. You will need to expand out, find more resources. Fight off the bugs guarding it. Build defense turrets like the Gun, Laser, and Flamethrower turrets to guard these precious resources that you will gouge out of the land like the polluting, planet destroying, stranded space traveler that you are.

Regarding pollution - It is bad for the environment. Your patches of water will start to turn green, the surrounding trees will start to die off (though they won't go away, they will just be bare, no longer supporting leaves), and the ground will look sickly green. The pollution calls to the animals of the world you are on. They will expand from where they are and seek you out, building small outposts of their own, and in some cases more densely packed fortresses that you will have to overcome. But be not dismayed, for the pollution will take some time to effect these creatures. The forests that surround you absorb the expanding gasses and sludge, leading to their death but possibly postponing the time when these creatures seek you out to put an end to your rape and destruction of their once beautiful planet. HOW DARE YOU! Accept your fate like the man/woman/other that you are! Or be the bastard you know yourself to be, the one that cries that your life is more valuable than the existing life around you, as you fight for your very survival.
Also though, if your machines pause in their creation, if your mining equipment stalls because the output bin is full, your machines will stop producing product as well as pollution. The smog and sludge will, over time, fade away. The water will be blue once again, the trees will regrow their splendid folliage, the ground will be pristine once more, and the bugs will leave you alone.

Regarding map creation - You can start the game straight away. The game will generate the seed that will randomize everything about the world you play on, and away you go! But there are editing tools as well. You can select to edit the starting conditions: how large and dense the resource plots are as well as how often you come across them. You can select to play where Uranium is highly abundant everywhere, while iron is scarce. If you so choose to play so. You can also help in map creation by manually adding plots of resources, or removing the ones the game automatically makes for you. You can create plots that have just a few hundred resources per square, or have ore by the millions! You can create water, cliffs, foliage, lay down entire forests! You can even change how the local bugs work by extending or shortening the time it takes for them to spread, and how fast they evolve into bigger, stronger bugs. They can show up so soon after you start that it will surprise you and give you a much tougher challenge to balance production and pollution, or you can play for hours upon hours before seeings your first bug, giving you time to secure a vast expanse of land devoted to your production needs, surrounded by walls and turrets.

Regarding fighting - I don't like it. But I never select the map for non-hostile creatures, though I do slightly delay how soon I will run across them. Eventually you will be able to craft for yourself armor that can hold items such as Portable Solar Panels (for gaining energy from the sun), Personal Batteries (for storage of said energy), Personal RoboPorts for carrying the Logistics and Construction drones to help you in your creation as well as removal of trees and cliffs. Ahhh, but for combat, you can equip in the armor Energy Shields, Laser Defense, Defender Capsules, and more! And with the Power Armor Mk 2, you have so much space you can equip in there, I have 8 Personal Laser Defense systems, the Portable Fusion Reactor, 3 Energy Shields, and an Exoskeleton to increase my movement. With this I never touch my gun, no never have even from the start! I will run around to the various nests encroaching my land, MY LAND, and let the automatic laser turrets in my armor blast through every bug, every alien defense thingy and bug spawner. Nests and fortresses get mowed down in seconds as I run through.
And if running around is too slow for you, you can build a tank that can carry machine guns, flamethrowers, and a cannon for that long range destruction you have been begging your mom for every Christmas since you were 5 years old.
And then, there is the glorious Spidertron! This 8 legged mechanical beast can crawl across any terrain! No cliff will impede your progress as you make your way toward the filthy nest of pit vipers called bugs, spitters and behemoths. You can ride this incredible machine, quickly taking out nest by nest by nest, or drive it by remote, safe in the knowledge that should it get overwhelmed by superior forces, you, at least, will remain safe. For a time.

Regarding the end game, that is, the point of all your work - The Rocket Silo! As you send the products it requires, it will build rocket components that will result in your freedom, your escape from this world. Back home to your wife and kids. Back to the world you knew, without fear of monstrous creatures able to take down massive stone walls, though the occasional inch worm will cause you to flinch. Freedom from the machines of the factory that know no peace. THE FACTORY MUST BE FED!!
Alas, that was what I though was to happen. Technically when you fire off your first rocket you win the game, but you can go on. Oh yes. And you will go on! Because THE FACTORY MUST GROW! You will send these satellites into space, you will expand your empire, your pollution spitting, noisy, slimy machines that do your will, littered with pieces of your hopes and dreams, and the occasional sprocket. And the time it takes to build each rocket? Not fast enough! You will demand more! THE FACTORY MUST GROW!!!!

And so you go on. You crush your bug enemies under your power, though be not complacent. The bugs will evolve: bigger, tougher, faster, further range for their acidic spittle. And your army of drones will set down new networks for you, more copies of machines, modules, inserters and belts to create that which you need in abundance. You will see what is coming with your radar dishes (much more than one to see all that is out there), transport resources and product from distances using trains, spend long amounts of time researching how to properly set up more nuclear reactors to take advantage of their adjacency bonus. You will figure out how to get a self-producing Kovarex system going to get more of the highly elusive Uranium-235 element, while trying to decide what to do with the sheer amount of Uraniuim-238 that is sitting in many storage cases. There isn't enough Uranium Rounds Magazine for your machine gun to deal with all those 238s!

But you will enjoy yourself, and that is the point. Carry on.

[waynel140]

Epic!

[shadain597]

Originally posted by ChrisPharmD:

People also say set research queue to on because apparently it's off by default. I feel like the developer has a good reason for that, yeah?

I didn't see someone else address this, so I will. Personally, I don't recommend enabling the research queue from the start in your first game. It's not a big deal either way, but leaving it off (or I think there's an option to enable it after the first rocket?) will remind you of what research you just finished and all of the individual stuff it unlocked.

With the queue, it immediately moves onto the next thing and it's not uncommon to realize your labs just started researching something new, but you can't quite remember what you just finished. You can still find everything that you previously researched in the tech menu, but it won't be listed in chronological order, so some digging/head scratching may be required, especially if you aren't too familiar with the whole tree.

Originally posted by ChrisPharmD:

Yeah, my biggest worry is using up all ore or all coal. In the tutorial, when you create mining drills, sometimes you set it on places with max 1.5K resources available. Since I'm going to be really slow, I'm just a little worried I'm going to run out of resources especially coal.

While the tutorial does have finite resources, it should have plenty to complete each objective. As far as worrying about running out of fuel, it's used on demand,* so going slow isn't going to be the cause of an energy crisis. Now, if you go really, really slow the amount of resources you have to divert to fending off biter attacks could become an issue, but that's unlikely to happen unless you choose particularly difficult start settings.

*Most machines that run off of electricity will draw a tiny trickle of power even when idling, but it's usually too small to worry about. Also, nuclear power plants are the exception and consume a constant amount of fuel regardless of how much power is being used/wasted. But that's a problem for future you.