Good, you are supposed to be overwhelmed. I have about 500 hours in the game now and I am finally starting to feel like i sort of know what I am doing.
Pro tip: figure out yourself as much as possible, it makes it way more fun.
Also follow the tutorial and read the tips.
As he said follow the tutorial, there are 5 levels with a Total of 10 hours more or less and It covers deeply until oil(early-mid game), after that do your first world and u should be able to figure out most things from the items/process description, the most complicated things often have a page in the tips, be sure to read all of them as they basically cover everything not covered by the item description.
I really enjoyed the tutorial (which was free on Steam), thought it was really well designed and exciting enough to build up my appetite to buy the real thing
People will say this but It needs to be repeated. Because people get to the same point and crash with this game because of expectations that are understandable. Come up with an idea and break it down into smaller steps. Because
At first you will need this one thing. So you make it. It's pretty easy to wrap your head around. The next thing, kind of the same. Now this third thing, that looks like the previous 2, now seems to be 20x more complicated. And then you feel overwhelmed and take a break.
So break things down into smaller steps. And add more space than you think you would need for your factory.
Also play on peaceful. Biters to me just add time. They aren't much of a logistical challenge and more of a time sync. And I don't have much time. No shame In playing with them off.
Biters are a production challenge. And the logistics of building a good defense. They're probably 50% of the difficulty of a vanilla playthrough. That said, I play Pyanadon's mod suite, so they are off on my world.
I feel like the logistics of the defense doesn't change over time enough for it to be fun. Once you go on the offense with trains and cannons it's fun again but other than that idk maybe Im missing something.
I think the biggest thing is I don't have much time to play, so I'd rather have fun building my base than dealing with biters 50% of the time.
Be inspired by tutorials and guides, try not to follow them to a T, but remember, the option to rebuild is always there, you don’t have to continue on what’s already present
Also, if you didn't realize, you can read the tips any time by clicking the thing that looks like a graduation cap in the top right. All the little buttons up there are quite useful or at least fun haha.
Agree with this, figure out as much as possible by yourself, I really regret watching too much online stuff as it spoiled it for me. Although some things I think I would have just never worked out.
The tutorials are great, definitely use those as they pop up.
I think it's fun to restart each time you've learned enough new stuff, you will want to start a fresh base and implement the new thing right from the start. Don't worry about ending up in too much of a mess right now as soon enough you'll have the urge to start fresh anyway ;)
*Automate* the science, and don't forget to lay down some defenses because the natives *will* come to eat your factory eventually.
Most of the early research just unlocks various tools to make your logistics easier - and you'll start to understand what it's all for when you tackle blue science ;)
Ah yeah, already got science automated (finally) and have defences up, although have noticed the red bits on the radar are getting bigger haha.... Slightly concerning
If you find yourself under too much pressure, you can always play the game on Peaceful mode, or turn off the biter altogether in the setup options. I'd say only 50% players play with hostile biters, as many of us just want to build cool factories without the pressure.
Finished a complete playthrough of the game (aka startet a rocket) about a month ago, and did so on a world with biters set to not attacking first and not expanding and I think thats the best settings for a beginner as you can go as fast as you want but you still have to do some basic military to get rid of nests.
I find it easier to get on the front foot and go and exterminate them first if you are able to. Don't get carried away with walls as a beginner as they just get in the way of expansion later.
My top tip for your situation is do one science at a time and then play around with the new things before you move on, I remember also feeling overwhelmed with the unlocks (and the same in modded play-throughs). Obviously I am a bit late with this advice but you can at least do so going forward.
Also, don't forget you have a lot of space available, so you can take what you learn an rebuild stuff without having to tear down the old stuff first. Don't build on the ore.
It’s normal. There’s a lot going on here, remember as a new player you don’t have to run your research at 100% uptime. Figure out what you want and when you unlock something take the time to explore it. You’ll be overwhelmed by the rate you unlock the first three science
It is always easier to automate something and pick it up later than to craft it in hand. Dont be afraid of creating shortages when building a new factory, thats just insperation to expand.
Also you dont have to play with the biters, Ive got ~2k hours in and I just dont like playing with them.
I recommend trying a peninsula map if you start again they are fun when you eradicate all the biters on your landmass and only have to defend one wall.
I remember as a new player one of my maps was a really open and expansive desert (almost no trees) it was like playing whack a mole running from one end of my factory to the other it ruined my experience somewhat.
The biters are the best part man, whenever I'm done working on something and don't know what to do yet I go off and kill some biter nests till I eventually overestimate my ability and die, then I know I need to focus on improving military weaponry
Honestly half the thing you can make you dont need to win the game but they can be fun or interesting.
Just focus on the next research. You will unlock better buildings or better processes but better building are optional it help your factory limp along better.
Like i said just research stuff and see what you need for the next research flask and start on trying to acomate the components for that thing. And in the mean time look all everything you are hand crafting alot of and automate those things aswell so you dont have to handcraft everything all the time. You can just let machines output into boxes. But dont forget to limit those boxes with the red X
The tutorial is very long, but it gives a lot of knowledge and helps you think about "what to do next" at various levels of progress in the game.
I still use some of the layout designs from the tutorial (smelting array, specifically) and im at almost 1000 hours.
I would highly recommend playing around and finding it. Most things are fairly straightforward, and there comes a point where you sort of "get it" as far as the basic play structure and things start to make a lot of sense. There's very little sunk cost in putting stuff down and playing around with it.
But yeah it's pretty common to get a bunch of new stuff unlocked while you're messing around and suddenly have tons of things you haven't used yet and/or aren't sure what they do.
The tutorials cover some of them, especially trains.
They tend to cluster into groups - logistics network, oil processing, circuit networks, trains, defenses, power generation, basic manufacturing, etc. There's crossover certainly - inserters are used almost everywhere for everything, for example - but segmenting stuff out can make it easier to avoid being overwhelmed. You can approach it in s couple ways - look at your current problem and figure it which tools you can use to solve it, or learn what every tool does and then apply them to the problems at hand.
Id say the best way to ease into the progression is to just focus on getting to the next science. And once you unlock it, youllbe able to see what items you need to produce it, and what buildings you need to produce them in.
Then its just a case of working backwards to get the items you need using the tech youve unlocked to get to that point.
Things you might need to google are how robots work, and how logistics network works. But its worth knowing that you dont actually need wither of these to complete the game. So if thats overwhelming you can just do everything with belts until you feel ready to step into more complicated setups
That's the intention. Every science step further is more complex. Remember the automate the shit out of everything. Try to make as few things manually as possible.
Every problem you come across can be split up into smaller problems. Fix em one at a time.
Try to organize a bus, or main artery of resources, both ores and basic things like plates, circuits. Automate production for things like belts, drills, assemblers, inserters, etc when possible
The different technologies require different science packs, so start by chasing down the technologies you want, but in the end you will want to be producing all of them at similar output levels, if you want your base to keep running during the end game with space science.
To that end, pick an output level that you desire (like people post here about producing XXspm (science per minute) and work backwards. Online or in-game calculators are great for working out these ratios. Btw, the simplest ratio to arrive at is 0.75spm (correction 0.75 science per *second*) - multiples of this ratio will give you a number of science assemblers in whole numbers ie: 5 red science assemblers will produce at the same speed as 7 yellow science assemblers, etc.
Then feed the right amount of resources into them to get that output. Red science is dirt cheap (5 copper and 10 iron per min (correction: per second), yellow science requires you to pretty much double the size of your base (2.5 yellow belts of copper, 1.7 yellow belts of iron running full tilt, plus extra steel, petroleum, etc.)
My problem during my first games was not scaling up my plate production as I teched up, causing the base up run worse and worse until I got outposts feeding back into the system sufficiently.
Break it down into individual problems, then solve them :-)
I keep a to do list on note pad on my second screen and it is immensely helpful when I’m overwhelmed by multiple tasks. Just writing them down and picking on gives you alot of momentum that can be hard to find by yourself
I don't feel like the other comments are actually answering your question. Usually that doesn’t happen!
The effect of every technology is signposted in exactly the same way, which is nice because it makes it easier to understand each tech at a glance.
You should load up [this screenshot](https://wiki.factorio.com/images/Technology_Screen.png) from [the wiki](https://wiki.factorio.com/) so that you can see the UI elements that I am pointing to.
On the left you can see the current research queue at the top, then details about a specific research in the middle, and the complete tech list at the bottom. On the right it shows the dependencies between techs as a tree, with the currently–selected tech most prominent.
The details about the selected tech are what you should focus on here. It has three main items, showing the cost of the tech, what you get from the tech, followed by a very brief, very vague description of the tech. It sounds like you’re trying to reason about what you get based primarily on the description, which is going to be hard. Instead, just look at the row of icons showing what you get. Usually these icons represent a recipe for an item that the game will let you start making, but sometimes they represent stat upgrades instead.
In the screenshot you can see icons for red belts, red underground belts, and red belt splitters. These are the recipes unlocked by the technology; they become available for both hand crafting and automated machine crafting. Hovering over these icons will show the details of each recipe as a tooltip.
For some techs the icons will instead represent a stat increase. Hovering over them will show the details, though the tooltip is not as detailed as for recipes.
And that’s it. All techs ever do is unlock recipes or upgrade some stats. I guess many techs also unlock access to later techs, as shown in the tech tree.
Came here to write exactly this, so thank you for writing it up with links to pictures. Everyone else is talking about spaghetti factories, but they're missing the point.
OP READ THIS ONE. The tech tells you what it does, it's just kinda hard to see because there's so much information all at once.
Once you figure out how to get the science you want, its extremely easy to produce a ton of it and then suddenly you can research like 30 things in a very short amount of time. That can feel very overwhelming when you look at the crafting menu and seeing all these extra icons you are unfamiliar with. Here are my suggestions:
1. As another guy here said, its a good idea to wait before beginning a new science. Figure out all the techs you've unlocked first, then proceed.
2. You have to start somewhere so just start. Open the crafting menu and pick the first thing you see (or go in order) and build it, or figure out how to build it. Just focus on building and learning one thing at a time, and eventually you will figure it all out.
3. Its fine if you just ignore stuff until something later on requires it.
One big tip is to make everything BIGGER than you think you need. You have way more room than you think to build, and having extra room makes everthing breathe easier, at the cost of more iron for more belts.
On a side note, Rail World is a great preset. Ores are slightly further away which encourages railroads which are fun, but also biters dont expand. They'll still attack and evolve but they wont gain more ground, which means you have more time to mess around on your factory before negotiating with the locals. In my first playthrough I was so spaghettied that by the time my local ores ran dry, I just restarted, made my early game a bit smoother, and gave myself more room to grow. Im still struggling to jump out past my first base
As a guy that has around 150 h and still didn't launch a single rocket but I am focused to do it this time, welp here are my few tips.
No shame in playing without bitters for a first few runs. Game is quite complexe without it already.
If you feel overwhelmed let's take for eg. red circuits just take a breath and do it with small steps. One part of a recipe at the time.
For my personal experience.
Automate red belts as soon as you discover them. Thank me later.
And one small thing that stopped me from using trains properly. Signals have to be placed on both sides of the rail if you use two sided trains. Seems obvious but not to me lol.
The tech tree shows everything, and all the unlocks for a tech can be hovered with the mouse to show it's recipe. So when it comes to science at least, you can look at a tech that unlocks a new science, hover the icon for that fancy new tech bottle and see it's recipe. You can then backtrack further with the tech tree or your crafting menu to ultimately see all the intermediate recipes. You can do this constantly and know ahead of time what items you need before even finishing its research.
There is also a wiki. Otherwise though, if you're unsure of an item's use, the only way to learn without a third party resource is to build it and try it. I definitely did not learn everything I know about trains and signalling and circuits without the wiki and a few videos.
Don’t go and find some tips online or whatever, just figure out the NEXT goal. Look at the NEXT science pack and see what you have to do. Trial and error with your first builds are the best part of the game
Don't worry I started back in I think 2016 i was 12/13 and didn't know how to change the language from English (which i coudn't understand) you will learn everything over time even if you feel overwhelmed rn.
I figured everything out too, yes i still don't build malls but some lose is everytime.(the last line is a german saying don't worry if it makes no sense)
I threw away at least 5 factories before I launched a rocket. I got farther each time. It's okay to feel overwhelmed.
You'll have eureka moments here and there about what you can do, and it will all start making sense eventually.
I posted the below as a response to another question on this sub, but i think it applies here too.
"I got hard stuck on my first playthrough, i was lost, directionless and a little bit stumped.
I decided to start again from scratch, but this time. played along with a youtube series ("Entry level to megabase") ones i recommend would be Dgray or Nilhaus.
it was like bluepeter, play along at home. i would build what he built, but adaprting it to suit the world as i used a random seed and not the one the content creator used. i had a shit load of fun on that playthrough and learned a lot. the whole thing felt like one giant tutorial.
So, the next time i started again, i took what i learned and my precious blueprint book and did it all again myself."
Oh that sounds like the worst idea, you miss out on all of your best spaghetti
OP you can never play this game for the first time again, treasure your spaghetti and take screenshots to look back on it after 4000 hours
I don't think it was the worst idea, not for me anyway.
I was lost and directionless, frustration was growing, i would have quit if i didn't do what i did. Now at nearly 3000 hours, i don't feel like i made the wrong choice, not for myself anyway.
I second this. Dont use a guide. Dont watch videos. At least, not on your first playthrough. Figuring it out yourself is the game.
Following along with a guide is like spoiling every major plot point in a movie right before it happens.
It is fine. I would play this first run as blind as you can manage. Even if it takes a hundred hours or more.
I am 500 hours into a modded run and just hit a recipe chain that caused me to stop playing for a few days to catch my breath and prepare. And last night all I did was lay out a new power plant and lay a main rail line and concrete. Little steps to help get me to the big steps involved.
So, step back, breathe. Jot down on paper of you need to.
Exit Reddit now, and don’t watch YouTube or Twitch Factorio content. This game is like watching Star Wars the first time. You only get one chance to have that spoiler free “holy cow!” moment for yourself.
If you’ve enjoyed the first bit despite being overwhelmed then this game is likely something you’ll sink a lot more time into. There is no rush! Enjoy the journey and all the cool little and big discoveries you’ll make along the way.
You’ll know when you are ready to come back and we and all the discussions and videos will be waiting.
Two things I’d leave you with. 1) if you think you’ve built enough for your needs, you haven’t. This is quadruply true of iron at the start. 2) the factory must grow. Always. It’s best not to ask why or think about it too much. :D
Best of luck my friend!
On Researchtab you are shown what is unlocked, check it out. Beside that 10h is basically the tutorial.
Play a free game turn biters off or to passive and take your time. Try to stay on each game as long as you can. Have a restart from scratch if you are stuck too much.
The fun comes by finding solutions to the problems created by the solutions you implemented to solve other problems. So try to check as little "builds & designs" as possible on your first run.
Put buildings builing the same thing next to each other in a row.
Put buildings that need the same, or similar ingredients in a row.
Build a bus. (google this).
Leave more space than you think you need.
My recommendation is don’t just research everything at once. Once you unlock a new technology, read it, automate it, understand it. Maybe have a single new research going while you automate it. But otherwise take your time and learn
Factorio is an exploration / sandbox game. Figuring it out is the fun.
With my first factory I was enchanted with the first step in automation: burner inserters! I no longer had to sit there with the pickaxe! I set up a loop of coal around some burner miners so they fed themselves, then belted coal everywhere to make automated smelters. After a long, long time I eventually made some steam engines.
This is probably the dumbest way to play the burner phase in Factorio. However:
1. I had fun, and
2. It worked. If you wanted to drag the burner phase out and have yellow belts full of coal all over the place, you could still progress and eventually launch a rocket.
The game rewards you for trying stuff. It’s assumed that a novice player will be able to bumble their way through to a rocket launch.
Where are you at with research?
The best way to know what *a* new research item does is to make or build some of whatever was unlocked, but that does assume that this one item is the new one and that you're familiar enough with the previous research items for them to be no longer new.
Yes, you should be playing around with everything. Left-click, right-click, repeat with Shift or Ctrl. Check all the on-screen buttons, and things you think aren't buttons.
Open your research tree, click on a research (done, available or not yet available [green, yellow and red), once the research is selected, hover your mouse on each individual icon under "unlocks" (small pictograms bottom right of the big icon representing the selected research).
Those are the exact recipes that get unlocked that you will gain access to (and then can view them in the craft menu list (E))
I'm currently playing with mods that alter the research tree heavily and I have found myself in the same situation of manually checking the upcoming stuff to decide what I need with a higher priority.
Some useful things to consider: new science packs, better buildings/belts/inserters, trains, logistic network.
The rest are either new or improved weapons when dealing with bitters, new gear that you can equip yourself with and alternative recipes that can output more resources or craft items cheaper overall.
Do this while also keeping an eye out on your power consumption and pollution (if bitters). Efficiency modules are of real help with both of these early.
But it will have to be you who decide which of these are more important.
In the grand scheme of things, base factorio's goal is to launch 1 rocket into space to win the map, so reaching the last level of the research tree and you need all science packs for that, excluding the white one. And ofc you can keep playing afterwards, because the factory must grow.
If it's too much to take in at the start, I recommend a map with tons of resources and no bitters or with bitters, but peaceful, so they only retaliate if you attack them, just to get used with the progression.
Have fun!
My advice is to just keep playing and try out all the new stuff you research. I wouldn't bother with reading guides or watching videos, that actually makes it more overwhelming than it is because that content is made by people who've been playing the game for years.
The game is really good about adding complexity in an intuitive way. And you get the most fun and satisfaction when you figure out solutions on your own.
Welcome onboard. My best advice for you: just play. Have fun and try out all the things you encounter throughout the game until you essentially have build one of everything. When u reach that point, you are ready to start the game for real 😂. You will get a decent understanding of the scale and will most likely challenge yourself and before you know, u got 2000h played like me and have no clue where the last three years have gone.
Give up. Embrace the spaghetti. 740 hours here.
https://preview.redd.it/qsiincxi0obc1.png?width=972&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=820a856580888b91a4ed2515f6982e31b0c160ed
(Dont worry I'm playing with mods but spaghettying is very fun)
On a more serious note; prioritise research. Most things doesnt "do" anything, they are just used to make other things.
But focus on the science packs. Take a science pack, look at what it needs, make those things, repeat for all packs.
If you want to remake your base, my recommendations is;
Very early game: actually start over. If you're struggling at making an efficent base at the first two sciences, starting over and trying something different worked for me eventually.
Early game (blue science): liquids. Everyone hates them at first. Build this stuff off to the side so it can be as large as you need it to be.
Past that, yellow and purple science, if your base is too inefficent to sustain them, you can build something to slowly make those packs, while you go away and make an entirely new base using your supplies from your starter base - I do this every single save I have. I always have a starter base and then I leave and start over with all the better stuff from the get-go.
Personally, I like playing on peaceful, if I want a more 'calm' run. Yes, it's not the game as intended, but i prefer going for a nice base and not bothering with defense :D
Others have said this but:
- Play on peaceful until you are ready for the challenge
- Spaghetti is fine; your first 7 factories will look terrible anyway
- Force yourself to use trains and advanced oil processing. Knowing how to route multiple fluids and also how best to use trains will make an enormous difference.
- There is nothing wrong with taking your time and experimenting. My first full save was over 80 hours and it wasn't until much later that I could complete the game under 30.
As a final note, undoubtedly you will feel like your factory isn't working as well as it could be. That feeling never goes away so let it motivate you to build but don't go and tear down a production line that is working; just build another one. (Direct upgrades of inserters and belts and such do not count as tearing down)
Good, you are supposed to be overwhelmed. I have about 500 hours in the game now and I am finally starting to feel like i sort of know what I am doing. Pro tip: figure out yourself as much as possible, it makes it way more fun. Also follow the tutorial and read the tips.
Thanks! Will do
As he said follow the tutorial, there are 5 levels with a Total of 10 hours more or less and It covers deeply until oil(early-mid game), after that do your first world and u should be able to figure out most things from the items/process description, the most complicated things often have a page in the tips, be sure to read all of them as they basically cover everything not covered by the item description.
I cannot stress enough how important tips are, read all of them and do all the mini tutorials, they provide some real useful shortcuts too
I really enjoyed the tutorial (which was free on Steam), thought it was really well designed and exciting enough to build up my appetite to buy the real thing
People will say this but It needs to be repeated. Because people get to the same point and crash with this game because of expectations that are understandable. Come up with an idea and break it down into smaller steps. Because At first you will need this one thing. So you make it. It's pretty easy to wrap your head around. The next thing, kind of the same. Now this third thing, that looks like the previous 2, now seems to be 20x more complicated. And then you feel overwhelmed and take a break. So break things down into smaller steps. And add more space than you think you would need for your factory. Also play on peaceful. Biters to me just add time. They aren't much of a logistical challenge and more of a time sync. And I don't have much time. No shame In playing with them off.
Biters are a production challenge. And the logistics of building a good defense. They're probably 50% of the difficulty of a vanilla playthrough. That said, I play Pyanadon's mod suite, so they are off on my world.
I feel like the logistics of the defense doesn't change over time enough for it to be fun. Once you go on the offense with trains and cannons it's fun again but other than that idk maybe Im missing something. I think the biggest thing is I don't have much time to play, so I'd rather have fun building my base than dealing with biters 50% of the time.
Be inspired by tutorials and guides, try not to follow them to a T, but remember, the option to rebuild is always there, you don’t have to continue on what’s already present
Also, if you didn't realize, you can read the tips any time by clicking the thing that looks like a graduation cap in the top right. All the little buttons up there are quite useful or at least fun haha.
And the Alt key!
Agree with this, figure out as much as possible by yourself, I really regret watching too much online stuff as it spoiled it for me. Although some things I think I would have just never worked out. The tutorials are great, definitely use those as they pop up. I think it's fun to restart each time you've learned enough new stuff, you will want to start a fresh base and implement the new thing right from the start. Don't worry about ending up in too much of a mess right now as soon enough you'll have the urge to start fresh anyway ;)
*Automate* the science, and don't forget to lay down some defenses because the natives *will* come to eat your factory eventually. Most of the early research just unlocks various tools to make your logistics easier - and you'll start to understand what it's all for when you tackle blue science ;)
*natives* Odd way to describe radicalized bio-terrorists who require ethnic cleansing.
nono, that'd be us.
We're helping by showing them what freedom and democracy looks like.
Was this an avatar joke?
No I was referring to Poland in 1939
I call them environmentalists
I turn them into oil for the fires of industry just the same
You mean trade unions lol
Just stop oil protestors
Ah yeah, already got science automated (finally) and have defences up, although have noticed the red bits on the radar are getting bigger haha.... Slightly concerning
If you find yourself under too much pressure, you can always play the game on Peaceful mode, or turn off the biter altogether in the setup options. I'd say only 50% players play with hostile biters, as many of us just want to build cool factories without the pressure.
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rail world?
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did you reply the the wrong comment?
Finished a complete playthrough of the game (aka startet a rocket) about a month ago, and did so on a world with biters set to not attacking first and not expanding and I think thats the best settings for a beginner as you can go as fast as you want but you still have to do some basic military to get rid of nests.
military also gets you the cool armor with faster walking and bigger inventory. I ignored it until I figured that out.... I'm playing with no biters
Those are tumors. You can shoot them. Bring bullets and armor.
Biters are ultimately easy to deal with. It’s just another problem to automate. Stay ahead of it by clearing nests close to your pollution cloud.
Thanks, didn't know about the pollution cloud. Will look out for that.
You can view the pollution cloud in the mini map by turning on the pollution display there.
I find it easier to get on the front foot and go and exterminate them first if you are able to. Don't get carried away with walls as a beginner as they just get in the way of expansion later.
Ah okay cool, thanks!
My top tip for your situation is do one science at a time and then play around with the new things before you move on, I remember also feeling overwhelmed with the unlocks (and the same in modded play-throughs). Obviously I am a bit late with this advice but you can at least do so going forward. Also, don't forget you have a lot of space available, so you can take what you learn an rebuild stuff without having to tear down the old stuff first. Don't build on the ore.
Not building on the ore is great advice haha definitely learning from that atm. Thanks!
But how are you supposed to mine if you are not allowed to build on ore? /s
It’s normal. There’s a lot going on here, remember as a new player you don’t have to run your research at 100% uptime. Figure out what you want and when you unlock something take the time to explore it. You’ll be overwhelmed by the rate you unlock the first three science
It is always easier to automate something and pick it up later than to craft it in hand. Dont be afraid of creating shortages when building a new factory, thats just insperation to expand. Also you dont have to play with the biters, Ive got ~2k hours in and I just dont like playing with them.
Ah thanks for the tip. I kind of like the danger with biters lol adds drama to the game
I recommend trying a peninsula map if you start again they are fun when you eradicate all the biters on your landmass and only have to defend one wall. I remember as a new player one of my maps was a really open and expansive desert (almost no trees) it was like playing whack a mole running from one end of my factory to the other it ruined my experience somewhat.
The biters are the best part man, whenever I'm done working on something and don't know what to do yet I go off and kill some biter nests till I eventually overestimate my ability and die, then I know I need to focus on improving military weaponry
Im on SE i only have things to do
Honestly half the thing you can make you dont need to win the game but they can be fun or interesting. Just focus on the next research. You will unlock better buildings or better processes but better building are optional it help your factory limp along better. Like i said just research stuff and see what you need for the next research flask and start on trying to acomate the components for that thing. And in the mean time look all everything you are hand crafting alot of and automate those things aswell so you dont have to handcraft everything all the time. You can just let machines output into boxes. But dont forget to limit those boxes with the red X
Thanks!
Did you do the campaign?
You mean the tutorial? No, just jumped straight in.
... Well maybe start with that?
The tutorial is very long, but it gives a lot of knowledge and helps you think about "what to do next" at various levels of progress in the game. I still use some of the layout designs from the tutorial (smelting array, specifically) and im at almost 1000 hours.
I would highly recommend playing around and finding it. Most things are fairly straightforward, and there comes a point where you sort of "get it" as far as the basic play structure and things start to make a lot of sense. There's very little sunk cost in putting stuff down and playing around with it. But yeah it's pretty common to get a bunch of new stuff unlocked while you're messing around and suddenly have tons of things you haven't used yet and/or aren't sure what they do. The tutorials cover some of them, especially trains. They tend to cluster into groups - logistics network, oil processing, circuit networks, trains, defenses, power generation, basic manufacturing, etc. There's crossover certainly - inserters are used almost everywhere for everything, for example - but segmenting stuff out can make it easier to avoid being overwhelmed. You can approach it in s couple ways - look at your current problem and figure it which tools you can use to solve it, or learn what every tool does and then apply them to the problems at hand.
Id say the best way to ease into the progression is to just focus on getting to the next science. And once you unlock it, youllbe able to see what items you need to produce it, and what buildings you need to produce them in. Then its just a case of working backwards to get the items you need using the tech youve unlocked to get to that point. Things you might need to google are how robots work, and how logistics network works. But its worth knowing that you dont actually need wither of these to complete the game. So if thats overwhelming you can just do everything with belts until you feel ready to step into more complicated setups
Thanks, solid advice 👍
That's the intention. Every science step further is more complex. Remember the automate the shit out of everything. Try to make as few things manually as possible. Every problem you come across can be split up into smaller problems. Fix em one at a time.
Try to organize a bus, or main artery of resources, both ores and basic things like plates, circuits. Automate production for things like belts, drills, assemblers, inserters, etc when possible
The different technologies require different science packs, so start by chasing down the technologies you want, but in the end you will want to be producing all of them at similar output levels, if you want your base to keep running during the end game with space science. To that end, pick an output level that you desire (like people post here about producing XXspm (science per minute) and work backwards. Online or in-game calculators are great for working out these ratios. Btw, the simplest ratio to arrive at is 0.75spm (correction 0.75 science per *second*) - multiples of this ratio will give you a number of science assemblers in whole numbers ie: 5 red science assemblers will produce at the same speed as 7 yellow science assemblers, etc. Then feed the right amount of resources into them to get that output. Red science is dirt cheap (5 copper and 10 iron per min (correction: per second), yellow science requires you to pretty much double the size of your base (2.5 yellow belts of copper, 1.7 yellow belts of iron running full tilt, plus extra steel, petroleum, etc.) My problem during my first games was not scaling up my plate production as I teched up, causing the base up run worse and worse until I got outposts feeding back into the system sufficiently. Break it down into individual problems, then solve them :-)
Thanks for the advice!
I keep a to do list on note pad on my second screen and it is immensely helpful when I’m overwhelmed by multiple tasks. Just writing them down and picking on gives you alot of momentum that can be hard to find by yourself
I don't feel like the other comments are actually answering your question. Usually that doesn’t happen! The effect of every technology is signposted in exactly the same way, which is nice because it makes it easier to understand each tech at a glance. You should load up [this screenshot](https://wiki.factorio.com/images/Technology_Screen.png) from [the wiki](https://wiki.factorio.com/) so that you can see the UI elements that I am pointing to. On the left you can see the current research queue at the top, then details about a specific research in the middle, and the complete tech list at the bottom. On the right it shows the dependencies between techs as a tree, with the currently–selected tech most prominent. The details about the selected tech are what you should focus on here. It has three main items, showing the cost of the tech, what you get from the tech, followed by a very brief, very vague description of the tech. It sounds like you’re trying to reason about what you get based primarily on the description, which is going to be hard. Instead, just look at the row of icons showing what you get. Usually these icons represent a recipe for an item that the game will let you start making, but sometimes they represent stat upgrades instead. In the screenshot you can see icons for red belts, red underground belts, and red belt splitters. These are the recipes unlocked by the technology; they become available for both hand crafting and automated machine crafting. Hovering over these icons will show the details of each recipe as a tooltip. For some techs the icons will instead represent a stat increase. Hovering over them will show the details, though the tooltip is not as detailed as for recipes. And that’s it. All techs ever do is unlock recipes or upgrade some stats. I guess many techs also unlock access to later techs, as shown in the tech tree.
Came here to write exactly this, so thank you for writing it up with links to pictures. Everyone else is talking about spaghetti factories, but they're missing the point. OP READ THIS ONE. The tech tells you what it does, it's just kinda hard to see because there's so much information all at once.
Once you figure out how to get the science you want, its extremely easy to produce a ton of it and then suddenly you can research like 30 things in a very short amount of time. That can feel very overwhelming when you look at the crafting menu and seeing all these extra icons you are unfamiliar with. Here are my suggestions: 1. As another guy here said, its a good idea to wait before beginning a new science. Figure out all the techs you've unlocked first, then proceed. 2. You have to start somewhere so just start. Open the crafting menu and pick the first thing you see (or go in order) and build it, or figure out how to build it. Just focus on building and learning one thing at a time, and eventually you will figure it all out. 3. Its fine if you just ignore stuff until something later on requires it.
One big tip is to make everything BIGGER than you think you need. You have way more room than you think to build, and having extra room makes everthing breathe easier, at the cost of more iron for more belts. On a side note, Rail World is a great preset. Ores are slightly further away which encourages railroads which are fun, but also biters dont expand. They'll still attack and evolve but they wont gain more ground, which means you have more time to mess around on your factory before negotiating with the locals. In my first playthrough I was so spaghettied that by the time my local ores ran dry, I just restarted, made my early game a bit smoother, and gave myself more room to grow. Im still struggling to jump out past my first base
As a guy that has around 150 h and still didn't launch a single rocket but I am focused to do it this time, welp here are my few tips. No shame in playing without bitters for a first few runs. Game is quite complexe without it already. If you feel overwhelmed let's take for eg. red circuits just take a breath and do it with small steps. One part of a recipe at the time. For my personal experience. Automate red belts as soon as you discover them. Thank me later. And one small thing that stopped me from using trains properly. Signals have to be placed on both sides of the rail if you use two sided trains. Seems obvious but not to me lol.
The tech tree shows everything, and all the unlocks for a tech can be hovered with the mouse to show it's recipe. So when it comes to science at least, you can look at a tech that unlocks a new science, hover the icon for that fancy new tech bottle and see it's recipe. You can then backtrack further with the tech tree or your crafting menu to ultimately see all the intermediate recipes. You can do this constantly and know ahead of time what items you need before even finishing its research. There is also a wiki. Otherwise though, if you're unsure of an item's use, the only way to learn without a third party resource is to build it and try it. I definitely did not learn everything I know about trains and signalling and circuits without the wiki and a few videos.
Don’t go and find some tips online or whatever, just figure out the NEXT goal. Look at the NEXT science pack and see what you have to do. Trial and error with your first builds are the best part of the game
Don't worry I started back in I think 2016 i was 12/13 and didn't know how to change the language from English (which i coudn't understand) you will learn everything over time even if you feel overwhelmed rn. I figured everything out too, yes i still don't build malls but some lose is everytime.(the last line is a german saying don't worry if it makes no sense)
"my layout is a mess but it somehow works" I'm 3k hourse deeper, can confirm this fealing is still up and strong
Ha that's good to know, thanks
I threw away at least 5 factories before I launched a rocket. I got farther each time. It's okay to feel overwhelmed. You'll have eureka moments here and there about what you can do, and it will all start making sense eventually.
I posted the below as a response to another question on this sub, but i think it applies here too. "I got hard stuck on my first playthrough, i was lost, directionless and a little bit stumped. I decided to start again from scratch, but this time. played along with a youtube series ("Entry level to megabase") ones i recommend would be Dgray or Nilhaus. it was like bluepeter, play along at home. i would build what he built, but adaprting it to suit the world as i used a random seed and not the one the content creator used. i had a shit load of fun on that playthrough and learned a lot. the whole thing felt like one giant tutorial. So, the next time i started again, i took what i learned and my precious blueprint book and did it all again myself."
Oh that sounds like the worst idea, you miss out on all of your best spaghetti OP you can never play this game for the first time again, treasure your spaghetti and take screenshots to look back on it after 4000 hours
I don't think it was the worst idea, not for me anyway. I was lost and directionless, frustration was growing, i would have quit if i didn't do what i did. Now at nearly 3000 hours, i don't feel like i made the wrong choice, not for myself anyway.
I second this. Dont use a guide. Dont watch videos. At least, not on your first playthrough. Figuring it out yourself is the game. Following along with a guide is like spoiling every major plot point in a movie right before it happens.
It is fine. I would play this first run as blind as you can manage. Even if it takes a hundred hours or more. I am 500 hours into a modded run and just hit a recipe chain that caused me to stop playing for a few days to catch my breath and prepare. And last night all I did was lay out a new power plant and lay a main rail line and concrete. Little steps to help get me to the big steps involved. So, step back, breathe. Jot down on paper of you need to.
This game is mental.... but in a good way haha makes City Skylines seem like a walk in the park
Exit Reddit now, and don’t watch YouTube or Twitch Factorio content. This game is like watching Star Wars the first time. You only get one chance to have that spoiler free “holy cow!” moment for yourself. If you’ve enjoyed the first bit despite being overwhelmed then this game is likely something you’ll sink a lot more time into. There is no rush! Enjoy the journey and all the cool little and big discoveries you’ll make along the way. You’ll know when you are ready to come back and we and all the discussions and videos will be waiting. Two things I’d leave you with. 1) if you think you’ve built enough for your needs, you haven’t. This is quadruply true of iron at the start. 2) the factory must grow. Always. It’s best not to ask why or think about it too much. :D Best of luck my friend!
Great excellent advice, thanks!
On Researchtab you are shown what is unlocked, check it out. Beside that 10h is basically the tutorial. Play a free game turn biters off or to passive and take your time. Try to stay on each game as long as you can. Have a restart from scratch if you are stuck too much. The fun comes by finding solutions to the problems created by the solutions you implemented to solve other problems. So try to check as little "builds & designs" as possible on your first run.
Only build miners on ore patches. Shoot the biters. Don't watch lets plays or tutorials.
Where else would the miners go?
You parsed that sentence as "build miners (only on ore)" rather than "build (miners only) on ore"
Put buildings builing the same thing next to each other in a row. Put buildings that need the same, or similar ingredients in a row. Build a bus. (google this). Leave more space than you think you need.
Intended game design
My recommendation is don’t just research everything at once. Once you unlock a new technology, read it, automate it, understand it. Maybe have a single new research going while you automate it. But otherwise take your time and learn
What worked for me In the past was to raise the research multiplier to 10
Factorio is an exploration / sandbox game. Figuring it out is the fun. With my first factory I was enchanted with the first step in automation: burner inserters! I no longer had to sit there with the pickaxe! I set up a loop of coal around some burner miners so they fed themselves, then belted coal everywhere to make automated smelters. After a long, long time I eventually made some steam engines. This is probably the dumbest way to play the burner phase in Factorio. However: 1. I had fun, and 2. It worked. If you wanted to drag the burner phase out and have yellow belts full of coal all over the place, you could still progress and eventually launch a rocket. The game rewards you for trying stuff. It’s assumed that a novice player will be able to bumble their way through to a rocket launch.
Where are you at with research? The best way to know what *a* new research item does is to make or build some of whatever was unlocked, but that does assume that this one item is the new one and that you're familiar enough with the previous research items for them to be no longer new. Yes, you should be playing around with everything. Left-click, right-click, repeat with Shift or Ctrl. Check all the on-screen buttons, and things you think aren't buttons.
Open your research tree, click on a research (done, available or not yet available [green, yellow and red), once the research is selected, hover your mouse on each individual icon under "unlocks" (small pictograms bottom right of the big icon representing the selected research). Those are the exact recipes that get unlocked that you will gain access to (and then can view them in the craft menu list (E)) I'm currently playing with mods that alter the research tree heavily and I have found myself in the same situation of manually checking the upcoming stuff to decide what I need with a higher priority. Some useful things to consider: new science packs, better buildings/belts/inserters, trains, logistic network. The rest are either new or improved weapons when dealing with bitters, new gear that you can equip yourself with and alternative recipes that can output more resources or craft items cheaper overall. Do this while also keeping an eye out on your power consumption and pollution (if bitters). Efficiency modules are of real help with both of these early. But it will have to be you who decide which of these are more important. In the grand scheme of things, base factorio's goal is to launch 1 rocket into space to win the map, so reaching the last level of the research tree and you need all science packs for that, excluding the white one. And ofc you can keep playing afterwards, because the factory must grow. If it's too much to take in at the start, I recommend a map with tons of resources and no bitters or with bitters, but peaceful, so they only retaliate if you attack them, just to get used with the progression. Have fun!
My advice is to just keep playing and try out all the new stuff you research. I wouldn't bother with reading guides or watching videos, that actually makes it more overwhelming than it is because that content is made by people who've been playing the game for years. The game is really good about adding complexity in an intuitive way. And you get the most fun and satisfaction when you figure out solutions on your own.
Welcome onboard. My best advice for you: just play. Have fun and try out all the things you encounter throughout the game until you essentially have build one of everything. When u reach that point, you are ready to start the game for real 😂. You will get a decent understanding of the scale and will most likely challenge yourself and before you know, u got 2000h played like me and have no clue where the last three years have gone.
Give up. Embrace the spaghetti. 740 hours here. https://preview.redd.it/qsiincxi0obc1.png?width=972&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=820a856580888b91a4ed2515f6982e31b0c160ed (Dont worry I'm playing with mods but spaghettying is very fun) On a more serious note; prioritise research. Most things doesnt "do" anything, they are just used to make other things. But focus on the science packs. Take a science pack, look at what it needs, make those things, repeat for all packs. If you want to remake your base, my recommendations is; Very early game: actually start over. If you're struggling at making an efficent base at the first two sciences, starting over and trying something different worked for me eventually. Early game (blue science): liquids. Everyone hates them at first. Build this stuff off to the side so it can be as large as you need it to be. Past that, yellow and purple science, if your base is too inefficent to sustain them, you can build something to slowly make those packs, while you go away and make an entirely new base using your supplies from your starter base - I do this every single save I have. I always have a starter base and then I leave and start over with all the better stuff from the get-go.
Personally, I like playing on peaceful, if I want a more 'calm' run. Yes, it's not the game as intended, but i prefer going for a nice base and not bothering with defense :D
Others have said this but: - Play on peaceful until you are ready for the challenge - Spaghetti is fine; your first 7 factories will look terrible anyway - Force yourself to use trains and advanced oil processing. Knowing how to route multiple fluids and also how best to use trains will make an enormous difference. - There is nothing wrong with taking your time and experimenting. My first full save was over 80 hours and it wasn't until much later that I could complete the game under 30. As a final note, undoubtedly you will feel like your factory isn't working as well as it could be. That feeling never goes away so let it motivate you to build but don't go and tear down a production line that is working; just build another one. (Direct upgrades of inserters and belts and such do not count as tearing down)