No coal patches challenge

[SiEgE]

Have anyone tried that? Should not be attempted together with "no trees" challenge.

[Hurkyl]

Coal is a necessary resource to launch a rocket, via the plastic recipe, so it can't be done.

[puschit]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Coal is a necessary resource to launch a rocket, via the plastic recipe, so it can't be done.

You can still get coal from rocks, so it's not impossible, just VERY tedious.

[Hurkyl]

Aah, fair enough. Outside the first five minutes of a run, I tend to forget rocks give resources.

I think I'd forget they even exist if it weren't for the fact they attract cars. I mean I sometimes drive my car into them.

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Aah, fair enough. Outside the first five minutes of a run, I tend to forget rocks give resources.

Originally posted by puschit:

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Coal is a necessary resource to launch a rocket, via the plastic recipe, so it can't be done.

You can still get coal from rocks, so it's not impossible, just VERY tedious.

True. Coal can still be found for recipes, but the powering of things would rely mostly on trees.. Some mods for automatic "tree mining" should be used, I guess

[knighttemplar1960]

I'm not sure you would be able to do it even with the large rocks unless you turned enemies off. You need grenades for military science packs and grenades take a lot of coal.

[puschit]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I'm not sure you would be able to do it even with the large rocks unless you turned enemies off. You need grenades for military science packs and grenades take a lot of coal.

That's why it is a "challenge" I guess :)
There are videos on Youtube of players that already done it.
I mean, isn't it all about game settings and map? If a map has enough rocks, why not?

[knighttemplar1960]

Still not sure with out a mod or turning enemies off. You can't change generation of rocks in the terrain settings, only the largest rocks contain coal as well as stone and the coal you get is 24-50 per rock. Maybe if you turn trees all the way up so you can smelt and produce power with wood until you get basic oil to turn into solid fuel or enough solar panels and accumulators.

Every military science pack is going to take 5 coal to make. Every blue science pack is going to take 1 1/2 coal's worth of plastic. Every purple science pack is going to take 3.33 coal worth of plastic. Every yellow science pack is going to take 3.83 coal worth of plastic. And if my math is accurate another 9950 coal worth of plastic in circuits and low density structures to launch the rocket.

You could save some plastic by using a little plastic to make tier I productivity modules...

But you are talking 270 of the largest rocks just for the rocket. I can picture how I would go about it but I can't visualize succeeding with enemies on.

[puschit]

Enemies aren't a problem once you have oil-products based power and lasers going. Conserving power early on basically means you'll handcraft every single item which reduces your pollution footprint tremendously.

[Massive Dynamic]

So it sounds like it could be a custom map settings challenge. Eliminate coal patches and add lots of coal rocks.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by puschit:

Enemies aren't a problem once you have oil-products based power and lasers going. Conserving power early on basically means you'll handcraft every single item which reduces your pollution footprint tremendously.

On the flip side, handcrafting everything takes time, and time is also your enemy where biters are concerned. Laser research requires blue science, and frankly lasers are pretty weak without at least a few upgrades. . . which require blue and grey science. On top of that, they cost a fair amount of energy to use. I suppose it might not matter if you have a ton of oil on the map, but flamethrowers are probably the better option. For 50 grey science you get a turret that has enough damage to take out even big biters at a reasonable rate without upgrades.

Though, if the pollution cloud is small enough to limit attacks, simply keeping gun turrets might be an option. It'd be a race though, because without grey or blue science they'd cap at +44% damage and +30% firing speed, which is kinda weak against big biters.

Honestly, the whole thing just doesn't strike me as being a very fun way to play, but to each their own. Stone, despite being in higher demand later on, might be less painful to play without, since you at least get a minimum of 20 per rock. But, personally, I'd rather play a modded game where there are no ore patches but biters drop resources instead of either of those options. (yes, one would also need mods to help collect the drops)

[OldWhovian]

No coal patches? It's technically possible I guess with coal rocks and tree burners...but that'd be a lot of manual effort for the entire game. You'd need a massive amount of coal even if you were doing just the bare necessary science to launch a rocket and nothing more just to power the plastic; not to mention to get enough solar power so that you don't need to chop down trees forever. You'd probably have to scour a substantial portion of the map to make it happen. You're more likely to run out of time IRL than to actually do the challenge in vanilla Factorio.

So technically do-able if it's just not mining coal from coal patches but doesn't sound fun or even remotely rewarding.

[OldWhovian]

Originally posted by puschit:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I'm not sure you would be able to do it even with the large rocks unless you turned enemies off. You need grenades for military science packs and grenades take a lot of coal.

That's why it is a "challenge" I guess :)
There are videos on Youtube of players that already done it.
I mean, isn't it all about game settings and map? If a map has enough rocks, why not?

Are there? I couldn't actually find a video of someone winning (launching a rocket) without mining coal. I found a video of someone getting to a meager amount of solar panels and another where they seemingly gave up six episodes in when they got to oil refining. Do you have a link to a full video of someone doing this challenge all the way?

[shadain597]

Originally posted by OldWhovian:

You'd need a massive amount of coal even if you were doing just the bare necessary science to launch a rocket and nothing more just to power the plastic; not to mention to get enough solar power so that you don't need to chop down trees forever.

As others mentioned, solar isn't the only option, provided there's enough oil on the map. Still would take a long time to get there, and a lot of fuel. Even without using a single piece of coal for fuel or something not strictly necessary for launching a rocket, you're looking at hundreds of coal-filled rocks to get there, and if biters are on they won't make things easy on you. Just having them enabled will destroy a number of your precious rocks.

Edit: come to think of it, this feels more like a multiplayer challenge. It'd still kinda suck, but at least with several people you get more hand-crafting/mining, more explorers, more bodies to protect/violently expand the factory, etc.

[OldWhovian]

Originally posted by shadain597:

Originally posted by OldWhovian:

You'd need a massive amount of coal even if you were doing just the bare necessary science to launch a rocket and nothing more just to power the plastic; not to mention to get enough solar power so that you don't need to chop down trees forever.

As others mentioned, solar isn't the only option, provided there's enough oil on the map. Still would take a long time to get there, and a lot of fuel. Even without using a single piece of coal for fuel or something not strictly necessary for launching a rocket, you're looking at hundreds of coal-filled rocks to get there, and if biters are on they won't make things easy on you. Just having them enabled will destroy a number of your precious rocks.

Edit: come to think of it, this feels more like a multiplayer challenge. It'd still kinda suck, but at least with several people you get more hand-crafting/mining, more explorers, more bodies to protect/violently expand the factory, etc.

Yeah one of the two attempts I could find of this..challenge..being done was a group trying it. They're the ones that got to solar power; but they never made a followup video so I don't know if they got past that at any point. The second set of videos I found got up to like episode 6 of their attempt and never posted an episode 7.

Idk; I'd rather take on the sushi belt challenge or Marathon Rampant Deathworld

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Massive Dynamic:

So it sounds like it could be a custom map settings challenge. Eliminate coal patches and add lots of coal rocks.

That doesn't make it a challenge. If you are just going to spam coal rocks all over the map there's no challenge its just a time waster. There's not even an achievement for it like there is for lazy B.