power generator power at the start?

[john.577]

Hello!

Big fan of factorio (and recently of dyson sphere program by the way)

A few months ago I had started a game of a few hours
I started to put in making energy with the 1st generator which is attached to the base.

I quickly stopped the game because it had to be fed manually with leaves to collect ... I had read that it had to be done so from the start of the game I collected a lot of leaves during the game. 'exploration but I found it so boring and given the speed at which they are used I will not have spent all my time doing back and forth.
Facotrio also has this phase but I found it much less boring.

I don't know that it's just a phase and that shortly after all it will be automated, but is it possible to do otherwise?
Could I have missed something?
I don't know if I tried, but we can already use coal which is automatically recovered to put in the generator ??
With the new update I would like to retry a game but avoiding this boring phase ...

Thanks

[Mister Fabulous]

You can convert leaves and wood into biomass after some of the tutorial milestones. It lasts longer than its component parts. Then in Tier 2 milestones, you can convert biomass into solid biofuel that again lasts longer. Conversion of both of these can be automated and solid biofuel is the only thing, I think, that machines make faster than we can. Finally in tier 3, you can unlock coal generators. That is the first fully automated power source.

You dont have to go foraging that long to get enough fuel to make it to tier 3 and the chainsaw makes collection a lot faster mainly because you can cut trees and wood gives a lot of biomass. Biomass burners have to be manually fed and take a limited number or items as fuel. You can't automate them and you can't feed them coal. There are mods for this, but you're on your own there. If this is too boring to get past, then you should find a way to get a refund because this phase of the game isn't changing.

[5n4k3d0cToR]

Going through the manual process initially, allowed me to appreciate coal power when i unlocked and set it up eventually. It adds to the immersion progression-wise i'd day.

[sansee]

It's just something you have to go through and it gets easier the more you get used to the game. Automated coal power is just around the corner in Tier 3.

https://satisfactory.gamepedia.com/Biomass_Burner
https://satisfactory.gamepedia.com/Coal_Generator

There is however, a mod, Refined Power, that will give you windpower (10-30MW) early on and other throughout the milestones.

[AquaX]

Yes use that site to get a general idea of how to maintain your power. It also helps that you create a secondary line dedicated to feeding the main line.

I am using 300 mw from 4 plants to maintain my 16-20 coal plants ensuring that those plants can never fail.

[john.577]

thank you for your answers
I think I will give the game a chance, it looks good even if the size of the buildings is detrimental to the management, right? Being used to Factorio we could see at a glance what is by-product or what is kidding ...

[sansee]

Originally posted by john.577:

it looks good even if the size of the buildings is detrimental to the management, right?

If you mean it takes a while to getting used to building in first-person, then absolutely, but it's also worth it and eventually more satisfactory :)

[Markimus Prime]

Originally posted by john.577:

thank you for your answers
I think I will give the game a chance, it looks good even if the size of the buildings is detrimental to the management, right? Being used to Factorio we could see at a glance what is by-product or what is kidding ...

It's different. Because it's a 3d space, your brain builds it a bit differently, and you'd be surprised just how much you'll remember where everything is.
If you make biomass/biofuel from your leaves, you'll be able to get through to coal power without much hassle. I ended up with more than I can use by the time I get power taken care of.

[sansee]

Something I completely forgot;

One trick is to convert any biomatter you collect into biomass (and later solid biofuel (almost like pellets)). Burn rate is slower for each conversion, but you'll see that in the link above.

Set up different lines and into storage containers near the biomass burners. That way you can just feed them with the biomass when you need to. And every power generators in the game will only consume as much or as fast as it needs to, in other words, each bio-item will last longer if you build more biomass burners and keep power capacity way higher than being used.

[Cat Burger]

Coal comes a ways in, till then you'll want to build a small automator to get biomass->biofuel. Biofuel takes a LONG time to run out, so it's not that bad. Once you get coal, power is plentiful (and fully automated!).

[Jeslis]

Not sure if you are already past this but....

If you go straight to the Tier 2 milestone for the chainsaw, you can get Solid Biofuel extremely quickly..

Then you make the following:

Storage->Constructor(Biomass-Leaves)->Constructor(Solid Biofuel)->Storage
Storage->Constructor(Biomass-Wood)->Constructor(Solid Biofuel)->Storage

((You can merge the 2 solid biofuel lines into 1 storage.))

Then you just put leaves on the leaf one.. wood in the wood one, and come back with tons of spare fuel.

The REASON this is important:

1 leaf = 15 'power' (not powerline power, but fuel power)
4 leaves = 1 solid biofuel

1 solid biofuel = 450 'power'

So instead of putting 4 leaves into a bioburner for '60' worth of power.. you convert it and get 450... makes bioburner fuel a joke.

[lPaladinl]

You're stuck with biofuel generators and their upgrades for about half of the game, going by tech tiers. They suck at first but get better as you can pack down leaves and wood into more efficient fuel options. They have to be fed manually, you can never automate them.

Once you hit coal it's 100% automated, and your power needs essentially are just based on what your maximum output is based on how much coal you can shovel into generators, as coal is infinite in supply like all mined ores.

[PersonIDK]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

You're stuck with biofuel generators and their upgrades for about half of the game, going by tech tiers. They suck at first but get better as you can pack down leaves and wood into more efficient fuel options. They have to be fed manually, you can never automate them.

Once you hit coal it's 100% automated, and your power needs essentially are just based on what your maximum output is based on how much coal you can shovel into generators, as coal is infinite in supply like all mined ores.

You only have to use biomass burners until tier 3 out of the 7 in the game, each tier is more complex than the last. You spend like 45mins to 6 hours at most using them (depending on how quick to upgrade you are). Way less than half the game, even less than a tenth of the game really.

[Cryten]

Kill aliens and stick all their bits into the blender. They provide tons of biofuel cheaply and open up the map.

[the7thguest]

It also gets better once you can build more bio generators additional to the two fixed on the hub.
The more generators, the less energy each of them has to produce the longer the fuel lasts.
Before doing anything I built a small "bio electricity facility" which converted my leaves and wood in biofuel and had 10 generators running.
That gave me enough energy until I completed my first coal setup.
Once you got the chainsaw, you will start to like the breaks that you can take from building and optimising and just strolling out in nature - destroying it :D