Infinite recources?

[robot9t9]

I really enjoyed my 25+ or so hours in factorio so far, launched the rocket "beat" the game. I am interested in space dlc.

ONE PROBLEM:

I HATE the idea of having to keep finding new ores further and further away..

so my question is, does space age DLC add an infinite ore option? or have any planets you can discover that never rundry? Thanks.

[PunCrathod]

There are several. Asteroids in space are infinite. A couple planets have some of the resources be infinite. But there are also resources that are not infinite.

[Ryuukaze]

No, but there are some sources of infinite resources that help a lot, and some research that makes things last a lot longer. Not everything is infinite, but you can really do a lot if you try.

You can also just make a custom game that has a *lot* more in each patch, make the patches larger, and make them more frequent.

[SciFiGuy]

A few things:

There is a mod called infinite resources which does just that

Otherwise in game you can turn the richness of ores patches up in the map generation options, which, by no means is infinite, but would buff even starter patches to quantities that would last hundreds of hours outside of mega basing.

Then lastly, in game itself there are mechanics which facilitate endless resources. Ex: Asteroids in space are infinite, Gleba resources are infinite if set up correctly, Vulcanus has psuedo infinite resources requiring just a very small amount of calcite, which can be mined infinitely from space.

Lastly lastly, even if playing on default vanilla settings, any serious progress into end game basically yields infinite resources. Mining productivity up to even double digit numbers, coupled with productivity research and productivity in machines, turn a very small amount of resources into quite a lot. Basically, you wouldn't have to endlessly set up new ore patches, you'd probably have to do like 5 or 6

[Navin]

the further away from the starting point, the richer the resources get, effectively infinite at some point.

you could also just max out richness when starting a new map.

The factory must grow.

[mrxak]

With space age, you can get legendary quality big mining drills, which drain the resource only 8% for every ore they mine. Add in some healthy levels of mining productivity (I'm currently up to +700% with modules), and your ore patches basically never run out. They eventually will, but it's going to take probably years of gameplay to clear out the patches within a reasonable distance of my main Nauvis base. Also keep in mind that in Space Age, productivity on everything can be sent to crazy high levels, so you don't really need that many resources mined to produce absurd amounts of science and other products. Maybe by the time I get to a 1 million science per minute base, which is supposedly possible, I'll be using up resources at a much quicker rate and start to feel it, but if I can produce that much science per minute I can research huge numbers of mining productivity levels for my 8% resource drain big mining drills. I suspect UPS limits will become an issue before resource scarcity does.

[Nonotorious]

I was at 1100%+ mining productivity on my old map, that's 11 extra ore per mining tick, my uranium patch was practically infinite because i would gain productivity lvls faster than i would use fuel.

[Khaylain]

You might enjoy the Seablock modpack, then. You'd have to set your game version to 1.1.110 to play it currently, but it's being worked on to be updated to 2.0.
If you want to go to 1.1.110 then right click on Factorio in your library -> properties -> betas -> select your version.

[Hurkyl]

It's maybe worth commenting that in the expansion, AFAIK, every basic resource has a renewable way to produce it except for the planet uniques: uranium/tungsten/holmium ore.

But seriously, it would mainly be a thing to do because you want to do it, rather than something you do because your goal is to have resources to use.

[PunCrathod]

Originally posted by Nonotorious:

I was at 1100%+ mining productivity on my old map, that's 11 extra ore per mining tick, my uranium patch was practically infinite because i would gain productivity lvls faster than i would use fuel.

Fun fact. While your uranium was practically infinite because the ore veins are just so massive you almost never manage to use them all even at 0% mining productivity let alone 1100%. In order for an ore to become truly infinite you would need to double your productivity in half the time it takes to mine one ore. And then double it again in half of the remaining time to mine that one ore. And keep doubling it in half of the remaining time that one ore again and again. Such that we never actually mine a single ore and all of the miners output is just the productivity meter going faster and faster. If your productivity is increasing slower than that and we assume we have infinite time available then at some point the vein would run dry. Even if it takes longer and longer between each ore being taken from the vein eventually it will always run dry. Of course in the real world we actually have limited amount available of time and anything that takes longer than that available time can be considered practically infinite.

So if someone wants factorio with practically infinite resources just crank the richness to max and you will end up emptying very very few veins.

[MangoMan]

interestingly enough, the whole DLC is actually using the philosophy of "make it hard to build but have infinite resources". I do not know WHY they use this philosophy when that is not at all how Factorio 1.0 works. and I especially do not know why they use it EVERYWHERE.

it kind of works out ok in space and on Gleba, but on Vulcanus and Fulgora it just makes things so utterly boring. infinite resources is not interesting, it's basically just removing game mechanics. same with having no enemies. strip away enough of the game mechanics and what are you even left with?

[POWER WITHIN USER]

I do not know WHY they use this philosophy when that is not at all how Factorio 1.0 works

Weird that the base game (which ends when you launch a rocket) works very differently than the DLC does.

Originally posted by MangoMan:

strip away enough of the game mechanics and what are you even left with?

Pure automation.
Increasing production per second for the sake of increasing production per second.

[Lunacy]

Have you set your map resources to 600% size and abundance? That's pretty close to infinite.
Default is interesting, has you set up train networks, outposts, sets up new problems to solve after awhile.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by MangoMan:

interestingly enough, the whole DLC is actually using the philosophy of "make it hard to build but have infinite resources". I do not know WHY they use this philosophy when that is not at all how Factorio 1.0 works. and I especially do not know why they use it EVERYWHERE.

You already played the Nauvis game on Nauvis. Would it really make sense to have to play it on every other planet too?

Vulcanus game is about the new Foundry system, and that's how you get your iron and copper. It does have the traditional "go out and get ore patches" gameplay for Tungsten, but that's more about claiming it from the Demolishers.

Gleba game is about the Agriculture game, and that's how you get your iron and copper. It does have the traditional "go out and get ore patches" gameplay for stone, though, which you need to make soil (and rails).

Fulgora game is about the backwards production chains and having to deal with large resource imbalances, and that's how you get your iron and copper products. But even be able to do that you have to do the traditional "go out and get ore patches" to get scrap. Which you need anyways as your source of Holmium.

Aquilo game is about making land and managing heat. It requires you to set up the interplanetary logistics to import building materials. I guess you do have to go out and claim new fluid deposits if you want to scale up your outpost, though.

[MangoMan]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

You already played the Nauvis game on Nauvis. Would it really make sense to have to play it on every other planet too?

this is not like that though. this is "infinite resources" which is effectively a removal of game mechanics. it's not about "being like Nauvis" it's about having reasons to explore and interesting challenges. on Gleba and in space it balances out, and you aren't actually overflowing with resources in a bad way. you have challenges to deal with that are different but interesting.

on Vulcanus, there are very few challenges, but a couple. it is moderately but not very interesting.

on Fulgora... there is almost literally nothing going on at all. everything about that planet is dead in terms of gameplay. maybe that is the theme since it is supposed to be a dead planet, who knows.

Fulgora game is about the backwards production chains

nothing about Fulgora is interesting. there is huge amounts of infinite resources everywhere, no enemies, unbelievably boring map generation. you have like one new resource that gets processed in the most basic way possible. there is no challenge at all to anything there. all of the game has been sucked out. no enemies. no resource constraints. the same space constraints as everywhere else so nothing special there. the lightning mechanic is not actually interesting, challenging, or dangerous; you just build lightning rods and forget about it. the "backwards production chain" is not actually interesting and is incredibly straightforward to deal with. you have the resources to leave within minutes of arriving. there is almost no reason to even go there except the science and even the science path is boring. you research weapons that you don't even need. I cannot believe how bad and boring Fulgora is it just boggles my mind. it shouldn't even be in the game in its current state, it's a waste of time. it's an embarrassment to the whole game.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by MangoMan:

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Fulgora game is about the backwards production chains

nothing about Fulgora is interesting. there is huge amounts of infinite resources everywhere, no enemies, unbelievably boring map generation. you have like one resource that gets processed in the most basic way. there is no challenge at all to anything there. all of the game has been sucked out. no enemies. no resource constraints. the same space constraints as everywhere else so nothing special there. the "backwards production chain" is not actually interesting and is incredibly straightforward to deal with. you have the resources to leave within minutes of arriving. there is almost no reason to even go there except the science and even the science path is boring. I cannot believe how bad and boring Fulgora is it just boggles my mind. it shouldn't even be in the game in its current state, it's a waste of time.

If you want to void everything rather than doing something productive with the scrap byproducts, then sure, that's your option.

But can you really blame the game for giving you the option to opt out? If it didn't, I'm sure we'd have different people complaining that the game forces them to deal with the backwards production.