Factorio: Beginner Guide from a Beginner guy

Basic setup from a barely 100 hours in new player. Though i'm no stranger to these type of micromanagement and tower defense hybrid styled games.

Just a ton of basic info about what to do how to do it and other smaller tips.
I'm not gonna go TOOO in depth like those 1 hour videos.

At most you can probably breeze through this in about 15 mins.

First off to blast off. WTF is factorio?

Factorio is an automated conveyor belt feeding styled game where your end goal is to launch a rocket or die trying. The story is you land on an alien planet as a highly advanced space engineer/astronaut.

Your ship in shambles you got nothing but a pickaxe, your hands, a literal robot uberschman of a character that can widthstand days or weeks without food water or sleep, and said character comes equipped with a super computer styled knowledge of all mankind has ever made or created (least that's what i got from the tutorials b/c you don't have any ship in normal gameplay).

You have to utilize resources around you, research new technologies, and defend your factory against bug like alien enemies that evolve (or not depending on settings).

Wikis are a reliable source. ♥♥♥♥ you HS teachers

https://wiki.factorio.com/Main_Page

There is a factorio main page website and wiki. It should give some more insight into what items there are in-game but better used as a reference when playing in-game.

SHORTCUT shortcuts

Before you start i highly recommend looking at the controls menu and either rebinding keys or learning what keys do what.

ctrl, alt, and shift are used ALOT as defaults for things like taking all items in X factory or structure, placing stuff, etc.


Better done during and learning but knowing early on can help alot.

Also either enabling or disabling certain settings like when using alt mode to see what items are in chests or being made and just custom features before you play the game.

Basic automated setup

Factorio end-game is all about automation. Whether it takes you 1 hour, 1 day, or 1 week the final end-game is to automate everything in some way so you don't have to click or move everything one by one. Automation moves items from point A to point B and then from point B to point C and sometimes more depending on what you're making.

For most if not all products; it is usually as follows:


for production (factories and assemblers)
-factory, assembly, plant, or item like train or chest + inserter to take in materials and output products + belt to route them elsewhere or into another chest to store items
Since most inserters will be electrical you'll also need to add power poles to use them. This goes for all structures though unless it's mechanical like an offshore pump or conveyor belts.

For ores and smelting
-drill + belt into a long line with furnaces and inserters in between to put in the ores and fuel + another row in the back to take out the items like copper plates, iron plates, steal, stone bricks, etc. You can sometimes cut out the middle man and put directly into furnaces. But unless you got electrical smelters or hand put combustables/fuel you'll need a line for fuel to smelt with.

For liquids
-same as the 2 above but instead it varies. If you need liquids you attach them to wherever the factory or assembler tells you to place them and it either outputs a solid product or liquid product (like sulfuric acid) and you gotta re-route using more pipes.
Instead of chests you can instead store the finished products in liquid tanks

with barrels it's the same as factories or assembler setups. The barrels go into an assembler that fills them up with or extracts the liquids into/out of the barrels using conveyors to move the barrels in and out and pipes to move the liquids to wherever they are needed.


For trains
-for solid ores and products inserters with a box and another row of inserters to load and unload (boxes are done to pre-load and make the trains go faster instead of waiting for the train to come back from unloading/refilling). You can route them using belts to their destination.

-for liquids pumps to pump into the tanks or pump out of the tanks into pipes or other liquid tanks for storage

Don't forget the electrical poles.


Once drones/bots are unlocked:
-red provider or purple buffer logic chests that provide items for players
-blue requester or brown "trash" unloading chest where bots can dump the items into.
-1 nearby roboport to store the robots when not in use, to recharge the bots, and also to connect so the robots can travel farther. All of which require power to run.



This is the basic setup for everything period. You basically need inserters or pumps/pipes in some way or form to move items. For liquids you can't move by hand you gotta use pumps/pipes. Pure liquids as some oils can be put into barrels and transported.

Blueprints and ghost structures

Factorio has a pre-planned setup called blueprints which put a pre-placed structure(s) on the map. They make ghost structures which are not useable/solid until you fill them in or use robots to fill them in.

They can help pre-plan assembly lines for products so you won't have to think it. It can also help other people so you won't have miscommunication between the both or more of you.

Blueprints can be made but also shared between players.

Mess around with the bottom middle hud (has hotkeys and things like copy paste or delete). Just press the buttons or hover over them and they'll tell you what's the hotkeys/shortcuts to select them

or

press alt key + b to bring up the blueprints menu.



yes i know it's the same screenshot later down the line. It's the best example of a ghost structure i had.

Introduction: Play the tutorials first of all

Seriously play it. It's not 100% accurate to gameplay but it does sorta give you an idea on how to start off and the robot paper clip styled A.I. (you know the microsoft paperclip buddy).

You basically start mining by hand and work up to automated drills that require either fuel (burnables) or electricity later down the line.

You craft stuff by moving things into other factories or machines with robotic ford assembly line styled "inserters".

You move from chest to chest and can take out from chests or factories with the same robot arms.

You also get an idea on research and hand crafting.


You get your ass handed to you by alien bugs called biters as you build more and pollution spreads (as well as them they spread their colonies after some time).



You pack up and restart all over with self made steam from burning stuff in boilers that mix with water and use it to move and power steam engines.

You continue to research and setup your base. You also take out enemy colonies.

After you finish the objectives you essentially beat the tutorial and can continue into other goal oriented campaign/story mode or jump right into a new world/multiplayer.

Setting up before SETTING UP

If you choose to create or start a new game in a new world you have options. You can choose things like resource richness into how much, how big, and how many resources per tile you'll get.

Then you can configure the terrian to have certain features like cliffs, water, trees, being mostly deserts or forest/grass.

Then there's the enemy configuration to how many colonies, if they evolve and get stronger, aggro, and how time and pollution or wiping of other colonies plays a part into their evolution or becoming stronger.

There's a preview option that shows you how the map outline will generally look like to give you a pretty good idea of the map.



Once you ♥♥♥♥ around with it you can start a map. Or just start with the defaults (not recommended for newbies unless you wanna risk it).

On your mark, get set, dig

When you start you have some items at your disposal:
-1 burner drill (requires fuel from coal or trees this early on) that drills resources over a patch of ores or coal/stone
-1 oven/smelter (requires fuel) that can smelt ores or turn stone into stone bricks
-1 pistol and 10 ammo units

I do believe that's about it.

Anyhow

You got that but nothing to power them in terms of fuel. You got 2 choices off the bat:
-cut down a tree for wood
-dig a coal patch for coal
or
break a huge rock that has both stone and coal.


with it you can power the drill and the smelter.



After you can power the drill or smelter (if you split the resource stack).

Most people usually put them over an iron deposit to easily make more coal drills. They feed the drill ores directly into the oven/smelter. Just make sure part of the smelter is touching the arrow from the burner.

Side note all structures usually have arrows to point you to where the output or input is. Some are /have symbols that show you what you need (if you don't know you can hover over the item in the crafting screen or click on it and see what you require).


You can put 2 coal burners next to each other/facing each other to feed coal into one another (just need 1 fuel unit of coal or wood to start the process and you can get 50 from each stack). Each will stop when the other is full (and no more fuel will be wasted).

Move up to a copper deposit or mine some copper and smelt it to get copper plates.
If you're missing ovens/smelters mine some stone or big rocks to get more (imo big rocks are > stone if you're low on drills and burnable fuel this early in the game).



Once you got enough iron and copper plates, craft a steam engine, boiler, offshore pump, and power lines. All require a fair amount of copper, iron, stone, and wood. (this is covered in the tutorial roughly but i'll re-itterate it anyways). Technically they require other materials like pipes and gears but they can be handcrafted and your character will automatically craft them on the bottom left of the screen.

Place the offshore pump near a body of water in the green arrows and connect it to the boiler (directly for now). Fill the boiler with steam and connect the steam engine to the boiler output arrow. Connect an electric pole and you got power.


Craft a lab and 10 potions asap once you got more copper and iron to spare.
Research the only item available the automation 1.

After you do craft 1 assembly and you can start automatically crafting stuff. Best to put some iron plates and craft gears. Then switch to copper wire. Finally craft some green tech chips. Use them all to craft more assemblers and hand put/collect the materials/products.

After awhile you got a substantial amount of assemblers and extra products make more steam engines, boilers, pipes, electric poles, etc.
Highly advised in the time they take to auto craft to collect wood (alot of it since you'll need them for electric poles and this early on you can't automate wood collection).

Connect more boilers and steam engines. General style is 2 engines for each 1 boiler and about 40 boilers for 1 pump (so about 80 steam engines per offshore pump.

Start gaining items and keep chopping down wood. Auto craft in assemblers conveyor belts and electric inserters.

Once you got a good amount start first off with automating steal plates into a line.
Routing coal towards the boilers is a 2nd as it'll be a a less pain in the ass and hassle to check on them if you leave it on autopilot.


Automate copper and don't forget stone.


Then you can start on the bus.


Tbh you can handcraft everything until you make an automated assembly line but this is the typical setup for most players and it's actually the setup if you're doing the lazy bastard achievement where you can only craft 114 things max by hand (most are the starters but you get some lineage for things like another smelter/oven or burner drills).

Bus stop...erm rather bus GO!

Bus has several meanings/implications but in factorio it's a name for the main stream of products and items. While you DON'T NEED ONE, it's more about convinience or just the standard of the game but for newbies it's probably the best before you learn how to route properly. A bus typically runs in one direction but if obstructions occur, they can be moved around. So long as the materials are in a centralized long line it doesn't matter.



Typically in a bus there are items that are used for several things. The most important items are put into this bus from which are used the most to make a bulk of the important game items:

-iron plates are first and foremost the most important thing to have in a line. Anywhere from 4 to 8 or more since they're used for EVERYTHING in one way or another (from the actual ingredients to products made from them or the assemblers/drills/conveyor belts used to collect or move them around).

-copper plates are a 2nd anywhere from 2-4 or almost as much as iron (later on but early game not so much 2-4 will suffice for the time being).

-stone and stone bricks are 3rd. Anywhere from 2-4 lines or more as the factory grows

-coal should have at least 1 line and more as the factory grows. While not used as much it is important for things like grenades which are used to make military black research potions later one (or just use the grenades). There's a 50/50 chance there's a lane just for coal but i've seen it enough times i may as well include it as an average lane for the average bus setup.

-steel which is can be made after you research it. Simply smelt iron plates a 2nd round for steel. 2 lanes should be enough early game

-green chips or circuit boards which are used for electronics. Red and blue variants. Green chips typically 2 rows. Red 2 as well but early game 1. Blue chips 1 (since it's hard to make them early game).

-In a bus there is always some empty spaces. Anywhere from 2-4 spaces in between. A good idea is 4 to route liquids and materials easier later on. Maybe 5-6 for more lineage. At least in the middle of the bus. These spaces are useful for when routing materials to the sides into an assembly line or sector using spliters and underground belts to go under the above ground conveyor belts and pipes (same for pipes underground pipes to go under the above ground belts and pipes).




This is the main busses most people use but i've seen and used other types of lanes or products/materials that go through the bus or are part of the bus. Tbh a bus can be as robust as you want and add as many lanes as you want of items you deem important. An expanded bus line includes:



-gears (But not really recommended since they can be made on the spot and iron plates are used for most other 2nd step products anyhow). Still if you must make 1 lane as they're made fast enough and easy enough that 1 lane will suffice.

-sulfur (usually in the mid to end game they're made at least 1 line on the edges) since it is an important item for later items

-fluids like oil, sulfuric acid, light and heavy oils, lubricant, etc. inbetween the lanes.

-some people like to add a stone path (or concrete, hazard lanes, etc. stone based pathing) to more easily go up and down the lane.

-and other products but for the main bus it's usually subjective. Personally i make a lane for ammo mags incase of emergencies i just grab some off the rack and head towards the attack area.

-you can also put a train inbetween a bus to offload items into the lanes or boxes of important products.



A bus keeps things more oragnized/centralized and can give an indicator as to how well your factory runs. If you're missing items grab em from the bus and handcraft them on the way to wherever you're going. If you're having a tedious time gaining materials it's probably you have an overusage or you need to make some more (especially iron plates i cannot stress this enough you need iron to make everything metallic in-game from the products to the assemblies or factories).

Research...or rather re-discover???

Research is important. As you progress and make products they're useless if you don't use them properly or at all.







Research relies on potions or flasks. Each color represents a different type of flask or usage/what it's geared towards. They're referred to as science packs. Each Research tells you what you need, how many potions you need, and what you unlock. Green tiles mean they're already researched and you can craft/make. Yellow tiles aren't researched but can be researched. Red tiles are neither researched nor you can research them. If they're red they need prerequisets before you can start to research them (aka you need to research some other stuff before you can research that item).


Potions are made from other materials that fit the theme. For example the starter automation (red) relies on gears and copper plates while the next green lvl (logistics) relies on basic electrical inserters and yellow conveyor belts. MIlitary (black) relies on armor piercing magazines, stone walls, and grenades. In a way each potion is made by the items that best represent the theme or peak of the flasks.


There are 7 types of science packs:


red (automation)=basic lvl potions/flasks. They research your basic items and are your starter kits. You get your first weapons, automation, and other items from them. Basically the most basic of setups.

Green (logistics)=more circuit based starter or upgrades as well as new items like landfills or trains and cars.

Black (military)=focuses more on power either from upgrades to burnables or powering up your already existing items. The main focus though is weaponary and ammunition since they're made using grenades walls and armor piercing ammo magazines. You become more industrialized and can start using oils (bring on the america and war for oil jokes)

Blue (chemical)=becomes more innovative and you start learning more advanced robotics and circuitry (as they're made from red circuits. You start learning advanced oil treatments and other types of innovations for existing structures. They require things made from chemical plants like red chips/circuit boards (use plastics) and sulfur (from chemical plants)

Purple (Productions)= You start to be able to use highly advanced materials and gear. This is when you start unlocking nuclear power and products

Yellow (utility)= Upscale previous research and this is the main components to research rocket technology (modules and also the launch pads for the rockets). Yellow is considered the true end-game potions/science pack.

White (space)=ultimate end-game potions used to inc. everything from production speed to weaponary damage. They can only be obtained 1k at a time everytime you launch a rocket with a satellite in it. The output is always 1k white potions from the rocket launch pad. Technically end-game but since you don't get them until after you beat the game by launching 1 rocket i'd say they're a side grade. Also you don't really research anything new just old technologies get a buff. In a way white is just continuing your game but upscaling production and defenses to build your next rocket or expand the factory at an ungodly rate.






research is important but also very hard to route or place. The reason being that labs are only 3X3. You need 6 packs to do initial research (7 if you continue and use the white space packs).
You can either:

-Do hand loading all the potions. Ease the stress of lane hell. Make your life easier with this technique but adding inserters that carry potions from 1 lab with like 100 and spreads them out evenly 2 at a time for each lab.

-make 1 main lab or several front labs and redistribute the potions by unloading them using inserters to grab and move them from the labs that has the potions to others.

-make a lane for each lab and spread them out using underground belts or logic crates and have robots take them from point A to point B




these are only the really 3 options. Trains can work too i guess but it's still the same ♥♥♥♥. you gotta route them anyhow.

Stupid automation took er jerbs

As you can tell there are alien bugs in factorio. These aliens either do not like that you are invading their planet, polluting it, and/or are territorial. While their attacks are primative (biting and acid spitting). they have strength in numbers instead of numbers in strength or strength in technology.

They have nests where they breed more biters to defend or spread out and attack and worms that act like organic turrets and defend the nests while not moving.

They get bigger and badder (depending on settings) the more time passes, the more you pollute, and the more nests you destroy. They evolve and learn.

You can see the enemy biter colonies on the map. they're the bright red squares. You can also check the pollution cloud in the menu and it'll show you what colonies the cloud is getting closer to and which ones will start attacking you. The pollution cloud is the bigger darker red squares. You can enable or disable it in the menu. Although they share red colors biter colonies are either small or aggregated with small spaces in between while the pollution clouds are a different shade and bigger






With this know that they will attack you and your buildings/structures. You need to defend yourself. Luckily father science and mother innovation have given you the tools and knowledge (and by that i mean guns explosives and anything deadly to organic flesh) to defend yourself against them.

We need to build a wall and make the aliens pay for biting at it.

There are 2 ways to deal with the aliens. The easiest and safest is to place turrets and structures like walls or landmines (which you will research later on down the line) and focus on the factory. There are good and bad things to this:

good:
-can focus on factory
-focus on automation
-can be automated defenses
-walling off can help stop enemies from flooding in and also alert you when enemies start swarming
-Auto attack enemies

bad:
-walling off can close off factory to easy to reach deposits of ores and materials like oil and uranium from far away
-turrets and structures can get damaged and you gotta repair them or risk getting them destroyed and wasting resources
-takes additional resources to make them
-extra time routing them
-harder to expand as you'll need to move the walls or spread them out/remove them to add more items

Best defense is a good offense. Or vice versa maybe

Another way to tackle the alien problem is to destroy nearby nests. Destroying them will temporarily stall them (again depends on game settings before you start) and attacks. They attack based on pollution cloud you generate and when it touches/reaches a nest they start sending scouts or drones to attack you and evolving or expanding. They become more aggressive. Just like defense there are pros and cons to this:

Pros:
-Won't have to worry about them for the time being
-No need to build massive structures
-Can expand and build easier with less walls and structures stalling your time
-Quick and easy
-less repairs to do

Cons:
-if not prepared an attack can be devastating. Thus you gotta take them out fast and easy before the pollution reaches them and they get aggro'd
-can die and if on single player it can end your game sometimes (on multiplayer you gotta respawn)
-requires substantial weaponary and tactics to clear a nest based on how big and evolved or defended they are

Power....all that power for the taking

It's in the tutorials and one of the first things you do but power. There's 2 types you get either from burning things or electrical and routing it using poles

Combustables=for things like smelters and cars / trains and some structures like burner inserters use combustables to generate power to use them. The more you research and innovate the better combustables you can make (even for personal power armor usage). Start with wood and coal and work your way up to oil based products, rocket fuel, and the highest version uranium/nuclear fuel/rods. The better quality the higher power, longer they last, and faster they make things like cars and trains.

Steam engines=made from burning combustables and mixing it with water to create steam in a boiler that is connected through directly or pipes to a steam engine to generate electricity. 1st type of power ever used in-game

Solar panels=researched from green and red potions. The 2nd type of electrical power you can use in-game. Uses the Sun to generate electricity. Free low amounts of power when used en-mass is extremely valuable. No need for pollution and combustables just set it (add power lines) and forget it. Unlike steam engines they don't shut down if you run out of coal and don't require them anyhow
Only downside apart from low power generation is they are only usable during the day. At night they start slowly producing less and less power until they shut off completely. They usually last anywhere from 30 seconds to about 2 mins in-game before they start generating power again.

Accumulators=basically batteries. Later on when researched, they solve the problem to the no power at night solar only energy. They store about 5 Mega watts of power each and can be used/turned on manually or automatically when power falls below a certain amount. They're useful to avoid power outages incase power gets obstructed or thinned out as you expand too much/fast. Still the basic usage is for storing solar power during the day and using it for the brief amount of time at night when they shutdown to not lose production time.

Steam generators=an improved version of the steam engine. They generate more power but require more steam. Still they take up less space than steam engines as well. Best usage is paired with:

Nuclear power plants=end-game energy production plant. Uses uranium and water to generate huge amounts of power. Also generates heat which can be re-routed into heat generators which when mixed with water, will produce tons of free steam that can be attacked to steam engines or steam turbines better yet for additional power output

Transportation and Trains

There's 3 types of getting from point A to point B methods:

-walking which character speed is affected by things like personal upgrades (exoskeletons and such), pathing type (stone paths or concrete hazard paths and so on) or if you're on a conveyor belt). You can walk anywhere there's land or at least not water and not obstructed by land features or your own buildings/structures.

-cars
which is the earliest item you can make that moves fast. Requires a burnable (any burnable not just gasoline). Has a good amount of storage and decent gun defense
or
tanks which are armored and better equipped to defend but slower. Requires fuel as well. They can go anywhere there's land and no obstructions like trees or your own buildings/structures

-train is the fastest mid->end-game transport. Not only fastest but transport alot of items via liquid or cargo trains. Require fuel and tracks to move on. Trains also have to be routed if you plan on having more than one or several nearby but that's another guide or learning by yourself how to route trains (UI sucks though regardless so don't really get too hyped).

Just know the easiest and fastest resource efficient way to route a train is 1 lane and 1 locomotive on each side (one going one direction of the rail and the other the opposite direction to pull them from one side to another). Place a train stop and just set them towards the train stop when cargo is empty of full.
Having more than 2 stops can get pretty messy but it's a little more tolerable than having several trains or lanes.

Once you get the hang of routing you can probably make better routes but early game and early train experience it's 1 main train per 1 main rail line with 2 locomotive front parts on each side to go back and forth without needing to loop / create a 2nd rail system.

Amazon....erm Forest drones

Unless you live under a rock under the sea under a glacier under a volcano under the earth's core you know about amazon and their deliver drones or just drones in general (hell even the amish know this ♥♥♥♥).

there's 2 types:
-construction drones=or rather deconstruction drones since they mostly break down buildings and structures but they can also build and fill in ghosts/blue prints which are preplaced buildings without the building itself. Basically they're automated/autopilot building just place the blueprints or ghost of structures you want so long as they have the necessary items or materials

-logic drones=can carry stuff to and from areas. They can work on special colored chests or if you have personal upgrades and armors your own inventory. They brings things to and from chests or to your or other players if you request them. Basically the real amazon drones.



These drones need a port to be charged up and recharged in robotports (which you unlock later down the line along with the robots). Each port holds about 600 drones and repair kits. When in use each port can only recharge 4 drones at a time. The roboports also double as a logic system where each port connects to each other and allows your dornes to spread out more. There are 2 color regions:

-orange=smaller of the 2 squares. You can have the robots take stuff from within this range. The logic drone range

-green=area where construction bots can reach

These robots make your life a hell of alot easier but the way they build or transport items in terms of priority are random or whatever came first/built first.

Logic network and wiring.

Tbh i haven't exactly found out how this works or how to use it fully yet. It can be used for things like trains, the logic system the drones run on, or things like sirens and lights but for now it's a mystery and you should restrain from it or find out how to use it on your own time.

Just know they affect everything electronic and can be used on light fixtures or electrical type chests like the logic chests that your robots use.

Again though learning this is tricky so best to do it yourself and learn instead of getting someone to explain it.

That's about it

As much as i can fit into a small guide to help newbies starting out. Wish someone told me all this ♥♥♥♥ from the start.


Still you'll never finish the game 100% since there's always ways to do stuff better, faster, or more efficient early on, mid-game, or end-game and above afterwards.

Factory rearranging

Wanna touch up on this subject

Re-arranging or remodeling your factory is nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes you can't do a bus early on because of nearby enemy biter nests so you gotta improvise or you mess up in one area and low on products in another.

Best to do it early on or later on when you have drones that can help you out a ton.

Hell i do a small mini assembly or sector then move onto building the main bus and all the products that go with it.

Side tips/extra tips

1. Research /make concrete early on. If possible learn/research it early and use it to line your factory. Makes it more eye appealing, makes you faster to travel on foot, and overall a good way to keep things like trees and rocks from reforming in the area. Since they take a little long best to start as early as possible and start placing it just as early as well before your factory becomes too big and a pain in the ass to cover everything.

2. Enemies keep attacking your factory? Kill them at the source. Helps to keep an eye on the pollution cloud by pressing M and selecting the red square to show pollution lvls/area coverage

3. Radars are a good way to map an area since they explore a bit out of their range but it's random. Putting a bunch early on help map out the area fast without having to step outside of your factory site. Do note that they take up some significant power supply so think 2X about it before doing so or take them out once they're done looking at everything nearby

4. Research repair kits and have 1 stack on you at all time or in your vehicle/bot ports/nearby chests in vulnerable or important areas (like walls to keep biters from breaching, turrets, nuclear areas, etc.).

5. If you're waiting for research to finish and your factory is automated go exploring a bit. Help clear out nests before they spread or get bigger (depends on the settings) and discover new ore patches to go to later/start building while your research finishes.

6. extra stone can be useful for crafting landfills to get across water/cover water. They take like 10 stone to make 1 landfill so it's a good idea to make it early on. Landfills can help you create a passage through water instead of having to go around them. They also can be made very thin and spaced so enemies won't go on them and directly attack your factory as well as be easy to defend.

7. Iron plates, copper plates, stone, green/red/blue chips, and belts affect your production 10X more than anything else (cept power and space to build on). Best to make a ton of them to use and replace yellow belts with red and then blue once researched/can start making them.

8. More labs=stuff gets researched faster but if you only make enough science packs for 2-4 then it won't really matter much. Make sure your research production can keep up with your labs.

9. Stuff being made too much and wasting time and resources (such as science packs some like red and green can be made alot late game but other packs may take longer to make). Items just sitting on a belt? Why not add a small chest on the edge of the belt to store them. If you add a logic chest it can help tremendously once you acquire drones.
9.5 on that note make sure you leave at least 2 squares inbetween the final product especially in assemblies. This is incase you need some materials or products brought in you can place a blue requester chest to bring in via drones.

10. underground belts/pipes can sometimes attach to others or not attach (like pipe for oil and pipe for sulfur if you cross accidentally then you gotta take it out and reposition it or else one or the other won't connect to the other pipes). Make sure you don't place them in the path of the other.

11. Upgrade whenever possible belts, spliters, underground belts, assemblers, fuel types, oil refinery methods, etc. They may cost a little at first but what little they cost they make up for tremendously later on in terms of production and efficiency.
11.5 some big major ones are modules. Production, speed, and efficiency.

Production makes more items every so often without using materials (But goes slower and uses more power). Useful on labs and if you have a bottleneck ore deposit or oversaturation of products reduce speed but keep the efficiency up.

Speed modules make items faster but require more power to run the machines. Useful for mining or processing ores faster in electrical drills/ovens, filling the gap in the lowest produced material or products (such as a 4 W,X,Y,Z product and say material X is low you can inc. the production of them artificially to catch up to the others without having to build new assemblers to make them in).

Efficiency modules reduce power and pollution (i believe up to a max of 80%). Though not as useful once you discover nuclear power and steam turbines, they still help to reduce pollution a bit so it doesn't spread as fast to neighboring alien nests and won't trigger an attack.
If they have slots you can just input them and watch them work their magic.

Welp that's about it

Not gonna add or update much on this since this is a beginner guide from when i barely have/had 100 hours in-game. Basically anything you don't know or understand i wouldn't either at beginning lvl. Thus this is a guide for newbies by a newbie at the time.

I may add or link another follow up advanced guide once i cap at 1k hours. Atm trying to do a logistics factory using only drones and ports but that's proving troublesome due to the nature of the drone pathing (btw drones always take the shortest straight bee line path never the shortest logistical path setup by your roboports, circuitry, or trains if you got mods for doing so.

[lefantom]

Hey ! I'm a newbie to Factorio and thanks a lot for this guide ! Very helpfull

[The Crazed Dingus]

Awesome outline, being someone with under 100 hours at this point I really appreciate your advice!

[1Way2Live]

oh god, this a big guide, and its funny