Month: March 2022

I tried one belt each, of what I need to get to purple science. But I goofed, and didn’t extend the Stone belt where the Stone Bricks belt went, so I had to squeeze it in. D’oh!

So, at this stage of the game, I have (from left to right):

• Low Density Structures
• Blue Circuits
• Batteries
• Sulfur
• Iron Plates (this belt should probably be four belts wide)
• Copper Plates (this belt should probably be four belts wide, or perhaps two)
• Green Circuits
• Steel Plates (this belt should probably be two belts wide)
• Stone Bricks
• Stone Ore
• Coal
• Plastic
• Red Circuits

So, in order of appearance, they went like this:

I should note that as I laid down my template of which resources would be in which belt lane, (when the research let let) I created Constant Combinators with the item to go on the belt. Factorio did not display which item, until I went to Settings –> Interface –> Show Combinator Settings in alt-mode

1. Iron Plates
   1. Feeds green circuits
   2. Feeds red and green science
2. Copper Plates
   1. Feeds green circuits
   2. Feeds red and green science
3. Green Circuits
   1. Feeds red and green science
4. Steel Plates
   1. Feeds Big Mall by SwaggoFlamingo – although I think I would like a more complete mall
5. Coal
   1. Turns out Big Mall by SwaggoFlamingo needs stone bricks, so I built a smelter nearby, which needed coal
   2. Next up was black science, which needed coal and stone bricks, too
   3. Later, Plastic will need coal
6. Stone Bricks
   1. Feeds black science
7. Plastic
   1. Feeds red circuits
8. Red Circuits
   1. Feeds blue science
9. Sulfur
   1. Feeds sulfuric acid, which is needed for batteries
10. Batteries
    1. Feeds yellow science
11. Blue Circuits
    1. Feeds yellow science
12. Low Density Structures
    1. Feeds yellow science
13. Stone Ore
    1. Feeds purple science

Build order

1. starter Iron mining and smelting
2. starter Copper mining and smelting
3. starter Stone drilling
4. Starter base with red science, yellow belts and green circuits
5. Electricity generation
   1. Boiler
   2. Offshore pump
   3. Steam engines
   4. Burner inserter
   5. Wooden box to store coal in, until a belt of coal can be delivered
   6. Small electric poles
6. Iron mining (electric miners)
7. Copper mining (electric miners)
8. Coal mining (electric miners)
9. Iron smelting
10. Copper smelting
11. Steel smelting
12. Lay out main bus
13. Green circuits
14. Red and Green science
    1. Research Electric Energy distribution 1 to get steel towers
    2. Science labs
15. Bolster electric mining and attach output to main bus
16. Black Science
17. Do not us Mike’s Mall – Yellow – I started with this, only to find that the factory that builds Medium Electric Pole and Big Electric Pole was missing the iron stick ingredient, and there was not a good space to add a factory which reached the iron plates belt line.
    1. Now I’m going to try Kitch’s Totally Practical Strip Mall – 3.0 (0.17 Update)

The other thing I did was combine the Unload 4 red train station by Nilaus with a medium buffer by Shaderon (which I doubled to do four lanes). The blueprint is here:

Click to copy

On my next game, I think I am going to try these as my next set of blueprints, in order:

1. Factorio Master Class (by Nilaus) (MSTR) – Jump Start 0.18 – Initial Assemblers
   1. This gets me red science, which lets me research:
      1. Automation
      2. Logistics
      3. Steel Processing
      4. Electronics
      5. Fast Inserter
      6. Green Science
      7. Military
      8. Gun Turret
2. Early coal mining rig
3. Early game smelting
   1. Well, this time I used the (MSTR) – Early Game Smelting – Copper and Iron blueprint, one each.
      1. Should have done three (or six)
4. NRC’s Mining
5. (MSTR) – Early Game Smelting – One more small one, but smelting Iron plates to Steel this time
6. (MSTR) – Green/Red/Blue Circuits – Green [1]
   1. This task has a bootstrap problem; the blueprint calls for Medium Electric Poles, but those come from Electric Energy Distribution 1 below. 120 green science needed
      1. Medium Electric Poles require Steel ….
7. (MSTR) – Science 1.5 – Automation
   1. This gets me green science, which lets me research:
      1. Electric Energy Distribution 1
         1. Steel power poles; which are needed for the 0.17 Big Mall below
      1. Automation 2
      2. Engine
      3. Advanced Material Processing
      4. Fluid Handling
      5. Oil Processing
      6. Plastics
      7. Sulfur Processing
      8. Battery
      9. Advanced Electronics
      10. Blue Science
8. 0.17 Big Mall by SwaggoFlamingo
9. (MSTR) – Science 1.5 – Military Science
   1. Not because I want it, but I’m probably going to need it.
10. Now it gets a little difficult. The number one goal is to get to robots. That requires all of (MSTR) – Science 1.5 – Chemical Science – but Chemical Science has prerequisites. Namely:
    1. Oil (pre-req to plastic)
       1. I’m using Oil Processing which says This blueprint is part of the “Base-in-a-Book” Tutorial series by Nilaus
    2. Plastic (pre-req to red circuits)
       1. (MSTR) – Chemicals – Plastic with red belts
    3. Red Circuits
       1. (MSTR) – Green/Red/Blue Circuit Designs – Red Circuits 1
    4. (Although I did Blue Science first, I probably should have done Sulfur production first).
11. The other thing blocking me from my number 1 goal (robots) is that I am running out of resources.
    1. To that end, I had to build rail, a station, a locomotive, ore cars, and I used Autotorio to build a smelting setup for an iron patch.
    2. Now I’m running out of coal.
12. Nilaus suggests that I should have built Utility Science (Yellow) before building Chemical Science (Blue)
13. (MSTR) – Science 1.5 – Chemical Science
    1. This gets me blue science, which lets me research:
       1. Advanced Oil Processing
       2. Advanced Electronics 2
       3. Lubricant
       4. Electric Engine
       5. Low Density Structure
       6. Robotics
       7. Logistic Robotics
       8. Yellow Science
14. (MSTR) – Science 1.5 – Utility Science
    1. A prerequisite is Blue Circuits
    1. This gets me yellow science, which lets me research:
       1. Logistic System
15. I really like Autotorio, but that means researching Brick Walls is high priority.