should you use calculator mods like helmod when youre still new to the game?

[ryangoslinglover306]

looking for other peoples opinions

[Khaylain]

Personally I think you don't need to.
Production planning tools like Factory Planner or Helmod are mostly for modded playthroughs where there are a lot more products or for people going into megabase trying to optimize the amount of machines and input amounts and such.

For anyone new to the game you should be perfectly fine with just making some production of what you need, then just see if your input belts reach the end or not, see if your output belts are saturated or not, and such. Don't need to calculate anything, just place down things and have a look at if it looks okay

[Fel]

TL;DR: No mods are needed for newer players, especially not those that are about ratios and such like this.

Initially you don't have to worry about efficiency or ratios at all.
Machines just pause themselves when they don't have enough input or can't unload their output.

Your best indicator of how well your factory is doing is the state of your belts.
It is one of the biggest strengths of the game towards newer players (and still useful to older ones as well).

If a belt is empty, it means that you are not producing enough of the product that the belt is transporting, so you will want to investigate why, and that investigation is quick.
If the belts bringing in products to the machines making the items for that belt are also empty, it means that the problem is before that, so you keep going back.

If the belt is full and spends a lot of time not moving forwards, it means that your production for that item is enough, or that the consumption is too small but that will change as you continue to build your factory.
It is a status you usually want to see for most belts since that would mean that you are producing enough of everything for now.

If a belt is full but also always moving and never slowing down or stopping, it means that you reached the maximum throughput for the belt and that you need to add a second (third, fourth...) for that item.
You might have machines that can't unload onto the belt when it reaches that point as well so you will want to make sure none end up as "dead stock".
Alternatively, you can also upgrade the belt, red belts can transport twice as many items per second, blue belts thrice (compared to yellow, 1.5 times compared to red).
This is usually something you reach for very basic items (ores, plates, copper wires) when your factory reaches a certain scale and not something to worry about early on.


If it doesn't seem too clear just yet, don't worry, it is something you will quickly get used to.


Anyway, things like ratios and exact throughput are things you will only start to worry about after several playthroughs, and the base game's recipes are mostly working off fairly basic ratios (obviously more complex for more advanced recipes).

Of course there are a few very simple ratios that you might notice (and possibly use) early on but that's about it.


Helmod and other calculators are useful when you make a massive factory beyond the rocket launch, because there is a point where the game's engine starts to slow down.
That is when you want to have efficiency in mind.

The mod versions like helmod are also helpful when playing with more complex mods, to figure out the various crafting chains, how to handle side products and so on.
But such mods are really not something a new player should worry about.

[OldWhovian]

It's easier than calculating it all by hand so unless you feel like you're missing out on that experience personally: Then no.

[Vyndicu]

İlk olarak ryangoslinglover306 tarafından gönderildi:

looking for other peoples opinions

I recommend using a calculation mod for anyone new to Factorio.


Those new people probably don't know the proper ratio, and the calculator mod will show that.

Then, those new to Factorio can learn what works and what doesn't, and they can figure out why through experience.


Exposure to production ratio through a calculator would have helped me get through some of the early mistakes I made, such as not knowing how much I needed of each product: petroleum gas, light oil, and heavy oil. Mind you, this was when BOTH basic/advanced oil processing had three fluid products.

The point where you need to know and understand the proper production ratio has been delayed due to the change to oil processing, but it is better to learn sooner rather than too late, regardless.

[Ferox_Stormdragon]

it would be better for new players to learn to play factorio without any mods

[knighttemplar1960]

No, Mods are just one more thing to keep track of. For your first play through turn off the bugs and learn how to build, how to operate automated trains, and how to process advanced oil. On your second play through turn the bugs on and learn how to defend your factory. Start fine tuning with mods on your third play through. By that time you'll know what you are trying to figure out with the calculator mods.

If you aren't good with math (or even if you are good at math but messed up all the ratios with beacons) you can down load inifinty chests and lay out blue prints using them. Use one of your game saves where you unlocked every thing and lay out banks of production. Put the infinity chests on but leave the power off. Once its laid out turn the power on and let it run for a couple of minutes and look for machines that can't unload their products onto the output belt(s) because its saturated and remove them or any machines that didn't receive enough products to produce and remove them.

In this way you'll have either saturated the output or used up all of one of the inputs. This way all you need to know is the yellow belts move 15 items/sec, red 30/sec, and blue 45/sec.

If the output isn't saturated, and this is the number you need, disconnect the power and the infinty chest you are outputting to and use regular chests instead. Down load a stop watch app on your smart phone or your computer, turn the power on and time it for 1 minute then turn the power off again and count what is in the regular chests. This is your output per minute and you can enter this information into the description text box of the blue print.

You can then make blue print "parts" and connect them together to make anything you want and all you have to make sure of is that your inputs are always saturated

[Jagdtiger]

Using calculator mods like helmod won't really help or hinder new players learning the game due to how insanely simple vanilla is all the way through. Almost all recipe chains have no byproducts, and only contain a couple of steps, so having complex rate calculators isn't as helpful as it normally is. That said, giving players the tools to easily learn how to optimise rates and ratios should be done sooner rather than later, and new players should 100% be playing with at least helmod. Frankly, it should be built into the game, not a mod

[Fel]

I would definitely not have wanted helmod or other similar tools when learning how to play.
Maybe it's a personal preference thing, but the game shines as not stressing efficiency in your face all over the place.

Sure, with tools like that, and possibly blueprints as well you can launch your first rocket much faster but I'm pretty sure I would have abandonned the game quite quickly if that was the way to play it.
It is the main reason I refuse to play in multiplayer (too many places treating players as construction robots with no possible choices and such).

Helmod is a must-have for more complex overhaul mods of course, I am not arguing against that.

[kremlin]

factoriocheatsheet.com for general ratios is probably far more useful than advanced factory planning mods when you're still learning the game

[Loodwig X]

I used calculators, spreadsheets, and other cheat sheets when I started playing 8 years ago. I honestly wish I hadn't. I think something like Helmod is a fine addition to play, given that you have ratios + modules + craft speed of various machines to contend with. But you also have power fluxuations, players nabbing things off belts, the stuff you didn't account for, etc. As stated above, I think the better way to play is to just play.

Make a spaghetti base. Get frustrated that you never have enough X, and then figure out the glory that is modular design + trains vs the limitations of a main bus. Make a mall, and wonder why you didn't do this earlier. Then figure out the PITA that is train automation without circuits. Break your brain a little on circuitry, and then realize that you can do something dead simple with two wires and a handful of accumulators / decider / constant combinators. Laugh at how powerful your logic skills are, and then cry when your FPS tanks because you now are launching 1 rocket per minute.

Then install Krastorio or AB or Py and ONLY THEN get Helmod or similar, because you want to weigh the advantage of the extra sulfur dioxide you might produce when making carbon vs having yet another ingredient to take care of in your microbase designed to make cobalt steel.

FNEI can also be a boon if you have a mod that gives you multiple ways to make one recipe or if you're first learning about oil cracking. But aside from oil cracking, I don't think there's anything so complex in the base game that requires a mod like FNEI.

But seriously, I'd take the plunge mod-free (or maybe with a small handful of QoL mods like vehicle snap or radar align or TODO list). I think that you'll not only enjoy the game more by discovering the optimizations for yourself, but you will also not have to spend time fighting your tools. Helmod of late (for me, anyway) has either changed settings so that I have to re-learn it, or has introduced a bunch of bugs so that I can't use it on my current Py run. I wouldn't wish that frustration on anyone, especially not someone new to one of my favorite games of all time.

[puschit]

No.

What you should do is start a sandbox game with biters disabled so you have all the time in the world to read, play around, check wiki, then come back and rework.

Adding mods that do all the calculations for you is:
1) Overkill because you need to learn how to use those mods on top of figuring out how the game works
2) Contraproductive because that way you learn less about game mechanics. It's like learning chess openings by heart without understanding them, so as soon as someone does something unexpected you are lost
3) Unnecessary because who cares for efficiency during your first run?
4) Dampening the overall experience since the exploration, tinkering and doing-it-the-first-time is usually the most fun. Unless you are the type of guy that likes to read spoilers, summaries and reviews prior to watching a new movie.

[DaBa]

Using mods that tell you exactly how many of what you need to build is like copying somebody else's code from a website and running it in your own program. Does it work? Sure. Do you know why or how it works? Nope. Do you know how to solve this problem next time? Not a clue.

I think you can learn a lot about the game and develop your skill much better if you make an effort to make the calculations yourself, at least for the first time. It's not like it's difficult, it's pretty basic math. If anything it'd be a good refresher!