Factorio Weekly Question Thread

I may have already missed this, or am not hearing correctly, but re-watching Star Trek: First Contact at 1hr23min45secs, they begin entering in authorisation codes, ewach time the code is confirmed, i swear it's the same sound effect as Biter Attack notification in Factorio. I paniced!

submitted by /u/Belighria
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That moment when I realized I fucked up

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 07:30 PM PDT

submitted by /u/LeptonsAndQuarks
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Use division and modulo to get multiple values on 1 channel

Posted: 26 Jul 2021 05:16 AM PDT

Do note that factorio has a 32 bit core so the greatest number is 2 billion.

What i mean is: if you have a signal that will always have a value under 100 for example, you can multiply the next value by 100 and the to get that next value divide by 100, and for the first take the modulo with 100.

For example i want 3 signals related to copper ore to be read somewhere else, but it's on anetwork where any item could be so using letters for every item wouldn't have enough letters and using another item signal will prevent that item from using the network, so:

1=45

2=73

3=12

45+100 * 73+100² * 12=127345=C

Then to receive

3: C/100²

2: C/100%100 or C%100²/100

1: C%100

Order of operations (which arithmetic combinators first) is the same as in algebra. You just can't have a C bigger than 2 billion because of the 32 bit integers, in this case that means you can have 4 signals from 0-99 and 1 from 0-20 (the 100⁴ signal).

submitted by /u/Jucox
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Well its not perfect, but I started today and it works enough

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 09:24 AM PDT

submitted by /u/SoulDealer08
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Here's a way to get approximately the right ratios without calculating anything in Factorio. This "subfactory" makes blue chips. Each component is independently infinitely expandable in one direction. I make a small amount of each, find where the bottleneck is, and then expand it accordingly.

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 08:55 AM PDT

submitted by /u/TheSwitchBlade
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Hi! i need some help with my train tracks and base, sorry for my bad english, i hoppe you could undersand me in the video

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 09:40 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Last_Ward
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Power generation

Posted: 26 Jul 2021 06:19 AM PDT

How do people generate power? I have a 50MJ, 4GJ solar panel and accumulator setup with a backup 100MJ and 400k steam storage nuclear system. Am I overdoing on the solar and should I just focus on nuclear?

submitted by /u/Apex_Brothers
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Radiometric dating of the Factorio world by uranium isotope ratios?

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 02:21 PM PDT

I noticed while watching a friend stream Factorio (I don't play it myself) that the isotope ratios of uranium are 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235, roughly the same as on Earth.

Since uranium isotope ratios are one of the data points scientists use(d) to date the age of the Earth, that suggests that the Factorio world is roughly the same age as the Earth- about 4.5 billion years.

Sure, lead-lead dating is more accurate for the age of the Earth, but that's still an interesting implication there.

submitted by /u/whythecynic
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Here is my spaghetti so far.

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 10:09 PM PDT

Well this is my factory so far. I have had to re make this a couple of times already.

https://preview.redd.it/17mp5270qhd71.png?width=2559&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9d02a00cf239996f9aca853a13c90a7650dfa21

submitted by /u/Echogm
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First factory since starting Factorio. 20hrs or so in game, and loving every single bit of it.

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 09:24 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Shadierparsley4
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Looking for people to play with, 18+ with or without mods. I had a little break but now i want to start a new game :D. [!GER!]

Posted: 26 Jul 2021 07:40 AM PDT

Add me on Discord: OdinAllfather#3542

submitted by /u/lSpartan_
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New player, 21 hours on this save. Look at this pasta plate!

Posted: 26 Jul 2021 07:25 AM PDT

submitted by /u/OmegaZip2TheEgg
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I achieved "There is no Spoon" finally! Also created a spoon-blueprint for anyone who would like one :)

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 02:13 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Augustus--
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Any newbie twitch players?

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 10:40 PM PDT

Does anybody have any info on twitch players who are learning factorio? Would love to see it and just being there live, giving small nuggets of tips here and there.

Maybe there could be some stickied thread where people could post when they are live and want some factorio veterans watching so we can go and check it out :)

Also, maybe you could give me some tips how to find these kind of players in twitch because im not a big twitch user and maybe dont know some useful tricks.

submitted by /u/Dreamer_tm
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Sushi Mega Base Pt 2: Math

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 12:07 PM PDT

Ewwww, mixed belts

Hello again fellow engineers! Especially those of you that fancy some sushi for dinner! In part 1 of this post series, we shared some of the basics to getting started with sushi circuits and logic. If you're new to sushi I suggest you read the intro and TL;DR of that post for some context, or maybe just look at the pretty pictures. But now it's time for something even more fun than logic and circuits, MATH!

Series:

PT1: Logic/Circuits

PT2: Math

TL;DR: This is a large dense block of relatively useless (but maybe interesting) info, we don't blame you for not reading it in depth. We assume the sushi talked about is ye old classic sushi loops. All belts are in loops with splitters to let items randomly travel anywhere in the system. For the math to work we assume that all items on the belts are perfectly evenly distributed at all times, i.e., if the belt capacity is 12.5% full of fish, any and all belts in the system will have exactly 1 fish at all times. Maximum belt throughput can be modeled by: throughput = density ⦁ belt speed ⦁ number of belts accessible ⦁ assemblers. Note, belt throughput is not necessarily the bottleneck, it could be inserter speed or assembler speed. Using this allows us to set desired densities that are at least somewhat optimized, reducing the excess entities on belts (the enemy of UPS in a sushi base).

Assumptions

Base Style: Ye old tried and true sushi belt loops with all items counted. (If someone could coin a term to refer to the sushi style, that would be awesome. Memory-sushi-loops? Counted-Sushi-loops? Low-sugar-sushi-O's? The most fragile sushi system to exist AKA TMFSSTE? What do you mean that's not catchy enough?)

Evenly Distributed: All items are perfectly evenly distributed at all times, i.e., if the belt capacity is 12.5% full of fish, any and all belts in the system will have exactly 1 fish at all times. In a later post we will address how to handle the fact that this is not the case.

Math

One of the major questions to answer when designing a base of this style is, "what density is required for each item?" It is obvious that increasing the density will increase the potential throughput. Imagine a single belt in a straight line with unlimited consumers at the end, the throughput will be twice as much on a belt with both sides filled than with only half filled. Many of us do "number of belt" estimations when playing Factorio. When you do the calcs you find you need 40 iron-plates/second. You know that you will need a full blue belt input to satisfy the demand. In reality you don't need a full blue belt, you need (40i/s) / (45i/s) = 88.89% of a blue belt. In a sushi loop base, there are a few more variables to take into account.

The core equation we developed is as follows:

throughput = density ⦁ belt speed ⦁ number of belts accessible ⦁ assemblers

Which, to put in variable form, we could express like this.

th = d * s * b * a

Let's define these variables more specifically

th - this is the theoretical maximum throughput of the specified item

d - number of specified items on the belt system / item capacity of the belt systems

s - belt speed in items/s, i.e. blue belts are 45i/s

b - This is a tricky one. This represents the number mutually exclusive belts available to each assembler. This also assumes that you can consume every item from that belt. If you have a single inserter per belt and a high density of the item, you might not get every item. Items can pass by while the inserter swings. Experimentally, we've found that you should decrease the theoretical by about 5% to get this number under most circumstances.

a - the number of assemblers that are picking up the item

Note: Throughput is not necessarily the bottleneck! If you have belts 100% full of iron but only one inserter is picking up iron plates, you obviously will not be able to match the belt throughput. The th term is simply the theoretical maximum allowed by the belt system at specified parameters.

Since we already know the desired throughput, the number we really want to know is the density. This will tell us what percent of the belt needs to be filled with a specific item to allow our desired throughput. Algebra!

d = th / (s * b * a)

This means increasing the belt speed, number of accessible belts, or number of assemblers will reduce the density we need to achieve a specific throughput. This matters for two reasons:

Factorio has a lot of items. If you only take in raw ore (iron, copper, stone, and coal) and sushi yourself all the way to a rocket, 80 different items will need to be on the belt simultaneously, each with their own density. If your base reaches 100% density, it stalls.
In a high throughput sushi-loop base, UPS is your enemy. Using belts as a storage system is really really bad. We want this density to be as lean as possible.

Examples

Each component is easier to see with an example. Let's make red science at 15 spm four different ways. This website, doomeer.com/factorio, gives an easy breakdown of the items and assemblers needed. For simplicity we considered copper plates and gears as raw inputs, so we only need one assembler recipe for red science (here).

But what happens if we use two assemblers? Faster belts? Pick up from multiple belts? Each one reduces the density we need to achieve the same science per minute. The following examples will prove how each term affects the throughput.

the most inefficient red science assembler you've ever seen

Blueprint: here

Creative Mod Required: here

Equation Format: d = th / (s * b * a)

Basic Setup

density = 0.25 / (15 * 1 * 1) = 0.01667 = 1.667%

Two Belts

density = 0.25 / (15 * 2 * 1) = 0.00833 = 0.833%

Two Assemblers

density = 0.25 / (15 * 1 * 2) = 0.00833

Red Belts

density = 0.25 / (30 * 1 * 1) = 0.00833

Each section should produce 15 red science per minute (0.25i/s) so a total of 15*4=60 red SPM. You can verify this by letting all of them run for a while then checking the production stats. It turns out to only make about 55 red SPM due to being non-ideal. We usually use a safety factor of 1.2 on the densities to account for this.

Now imagine combining all of these and going even farther. Blue belts. A dozen assemblers for each item. Starting with raw ore. Incorporating all the sciences. There's so much to play with and optimize.

Conclusion

This deep dive into sushi loops has been wild, and we are excited to share our findings. We hope to continue this series to the final goal of making a vanilla default (peaceful) base that can attain 1000SPM at a reasonable UPS. We currently have a design that can get 300SPM at 60UPS, or 1000SPM at 25UPS. We are looking forward to seeing you all in the next post!

experimenting with circular bases

submitted by /u/UrbanBanana4
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My first factory!

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 10:12 PM PDT

Hey guys, i saw a post saying that factorio players like to see how newbies do their first factory, so im gonna show u my first factory!
(its almost fully automated, just the coal doesnt go auto)
Obs: yeah, its an intro scenario, i dont have money to buy the full version, so im playing tutorial for almost 10 hours :p

https://preview.redd.it/7ka231udqhd71.jpg?width=1366&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d29213c3ce38c891412c794b543b566763e87da

submitted by /u/MidnightWalker13
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Made a reactor after taking some advice from some people here. I'm fairly new, so tips are appreciated. Thinking about adding some boilers as preheaters.

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 03:33 PM PDT

submitted by /u/KoolKiddo33
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Is there a tool that can turn a savegame with replay into a timelapse of the entire map?

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 01:11 PM PDT

I know if you enable savegame replays, you can watch the whole game from your engineer's POV. Is it possible to use the savegame to generate a timelapse of the entire map from an overhead view?

If nothing like that exists, how hard do you think that mod would be to write? Effectively what it would do is play through the replay, and every few seconds/minutes, render an entire map and save as an image.

submitted by /u/crvc
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My god, what a mess, first day of factorio and I'm already overthinking things... This is my green pack automation.

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 08:42 AM PDT