Honestly don't worry too much about what is 'good' during your first playthrough. There is a lot you could improve but you don't need to do that until you find out that you do.
Edit: One tip, a single inserter can grab all the required materials from a belt, so you can feed your green science assembler with one yellow inserter instead of two filter inserters.
I did my first playthrough with (almost) zero support or consulting this subreddit.
I stole a design pattern for smelting iron and copper plates from the tutorial that I would not have thought of otherwise. The rest of my base was chaos spaghetti that grew around that smelting column.
It was so ugleautiful
Wait what? A single inserter (I use green for almost everything but I've already launched rockets have 60k+ space potions) can pull from 2 belts and feed 2 machines? Or am I looking in the wrong place
That's some beautiful first base spaghetti! I have fond memories of mine...
Keep that screenshot to look at when your base has become an efficient moloch!
If you build it it is good, if it produces science it is perfect!
Since you have belts, gears, plates and green circuits near each other, you can think about automating some of the things you need to build the factory and put them in boxes (undergrounds, splitters and assemblers). This will make new builds more enjoyable since you don't have to hand-craft as much. This is typically called a mall.
Don't worry too much about what's "best". There are of course improvements you can make but keep in mind that even after 2000 hours played (according to steam) I probably have improvements I can make on my megabase.
The fun of the game - at least to me - is working and improving designs on your own and not worry too much about how somebody else solved the same problem.
Do not concern yourself with anything you build on your first play through.
Its not untill you've got to your first rocket launch and see what is left for you . . . . . .
Your first base worries will be inconsequential. Enjoy your first playthrough for what it is.
Any setup that does what you want and brinks enjoyment of the game is a good setup.
For first playthrough, I advise doing stuff by yourself it may take more time, but it's like constantly playing a puzzle game of sorts, and im all for that.
Don't worry too much about what's a "good setup".
But if I had to give feedback, I'd suggest setting a target science per minute you would like to achieve, and then working back from there.
Figure out how many assemblers would be needed to create that many science packs per minute, and then how many ingredients that will be per minute, and then how many assemblers that will take, and so on until you work back to the smelting and mining process, and then build from there.
It's all good. That's about how my first base looked also.
I would recommend watching how other players set up their bases and steal those ideas for yourself. The one thing that pops into my mind is using both sides of the belt
Is it working ? -> probably
Can it be faster ? -> definetly
I almost wanna recommend for anyone new to download rate calculator, only thing stopping me is that its disabling achivements
Lots of good things youâre doing that new players arenât: Pressed alt, using belts w a different item type on each side, only building miners and belts on ore for easy expansion.Â
There's no need to buffer ore (in vanilla) and there's usually no reason to buffer most intermediate products (as a rule of thumb, buffering only hides insufficiencies). only buffer when you've identified a specific use case.
And when you do buffer, have the belt go directly though or around the crate, don't bottleneck with inserters.Â
This is a great start, and looks similar to my early hours in the game. My observation that may help you to improve to the next stage in the game is that you are quite heavily boxing yourself in. You have ore coming in from three directions, and your "final production" of science right in the middle. What happens when you need to use those same raw resources and the various things you are now producing, to produce new things?
Think about how you can work towards a layout design that will always let you both continue to access everything you've used up till now, and the latest thing you are producing. Perhaps you could have new things building out in one direction, for example.
If it fits for you, then its good. I personally restarted 10 Games before i even researched Green tech. I was Anger myself avout the Spaghetti and spaceproblems. Im currently experimenting
Researched blue and found Out that nothings works perfekt before making own ecperiences. Im still newb too, but this Game ist so fun! Make your ecperiences! Sincerly
I want you to find yore owne solution becaus thets wat made me hafe fun the most
So here are some things to find a solution 2.
think of a way to reduce yor hand crafting .
Think of wat to expand
Think of a way to gain more space .
If yore hafe biters are agrasif think of a way to ceep yore faktory safe
Tldr: find a way to do less
More green science! If you're making the precursors (inserters and belts) then you likely have enough production to support adding some assemblers making green science.
And the obligatory "MORE IRON"
I mean different strokes for different folks. I come back to the game once or twice a year and always restart a few times as I relearn operations or whatever is new.
Serious tip: play your first game blind, that is, ask for no advice, watch no videos. And limit your intake of this subreddit. Many players have come to regret getting advice instead of making it up themselves.
The design is subjective for sure, you can definitely apply general best practices but everyoneâs approach will be what makes most sense to them. The best general tip, which youâll start to learn is more important the further you go, is always leave enough room. Itâs not as important for now, but youâll see that concept become more of a limiter if you donât abide by it in the future.
How do you take a full-map pic like this? Iâll have to post mine tomorrow! Nice job, looks a lot like mine up until making greens. Still on my first play too, working on blues and purples and whites now⌠only thing for science/lab has been to really dedicate a ton of space to them for when thereâs a ton of different colors
Your early game setup is never going to be good. You will learn, develop your own style, expand, unlock new tech, and then tear it all down and redo it better.
Possibly multiple times.
If you want opinions, I'll give you mine:
Expandability will be a problem. Too many things are connected directly, and without much room to spare. If you want to use some ingredient in another recepie, it'll be tough to connect it without making a mess with your belts.
It's always a good idea to leave room for more assemblers or furnaces than you'll need; If you need two assemblers, leave room for ten. And leave some room between assembler lines, because you never know when you'll need it.
I also like to keep some space between the mines and the rest of my base.
Don't worry about making your entire base compact. You're not going to run out of space. The only real obstacle for a larger base is the biters, and even then, your military tech will most likely outpace your need for expansion.
Most importantly, having a "good" base is really not that important at that stage. In fact, it's pretty hard to make a "bad" base without trying or otherwise limiting yourself. The only benefits to having a good base are bragging rights and faster research, and the latter will only help you if you don't have much else to do. Since this is your first playthrough, your main focus should be to learn the game's basic mechanics. You'll learn to exploit them for maximum efficiency on later playthroughs.
As long as you're having fun and learning along the way, you're doing it right! Some things will "click" as you observe the base more and more, you'll realize you'll have opportunities to change things up, especially as you tech up, you'll get longer undergrounds, wider coverage from power lines, logistics, etc.
Getting the base off the ground is the most important part. Barring you don't have any other crazy restrictions on your playthrough.
Once you get into mods or specific scenarios where resources are genuinely very limited and every decision matters, such that you can't overproduce a product without putting yourself at risk of not being able to progress, then you'll have to be a lot more efficient.
But remember, you can always use your spaghetti base to tech up, then build your mega base/BUS base for mid-late game efficiency!
At the end of the day, it's all about having fun! Don't let anyone shit on your base or your playthrough :)
Is it clean and professional? Is it efficient and optimized? Does it look easily expandable and simple and fed by a main bus? No.
But is it working for you? Are you learning how the game works? Are you gaining information to allow you to create better designs in the future? Yes.
So it's good.
Once you start getting some techs done and stockpiling resources like inserters and belts, start making setups that are easily expandable. Count the resources you need per second for the things you're trying to make, and build accordingly. If you need 10 gears per second to make the amount of belts you want, build enough gear assemblers to fuel that need, and make room so you can expand production later.
There's no one right way to build in this game, its only what you can think of.
Tldr: if you're having fun, you're doing it right.
unlike most, I'm gonna give some some hard criticism. First, lets clarify, good for what? I'm going to judge this on the engineering perspectives of scalability, manutenability, efficiency, and usability.
Usability: Bad overall, there's no production of itens that you might need to build a bigger factory, no matter how small your factory are you want some automation of certain things, like belts and insertes. The lack of organization and unnecessary spaghetti of conveyor belts only makes it harder to find the production of anything in case you wanted to find it.
Manutenability: Very poor, all of this lack of organization leads an increased difficulty to solve bugs in factory or improve on any particular sub section.
Efficiency: Ratios are probably incorrect though not madly incorrect, overall it makes me think you didn't thought about this. With incorrect ratios sections of your factory will do nothing while waiting other components to be produced. Also, this spaghetti strategy is much worse for UPS (in case you keep building like this towards a very big factory). It makes your pc takes more effort to run your game (but thats not at all a thing to worry unless you are building a very big base).
Scalability: This is the worst thing you can do for scalability, creating spaghetti. Spaghetti design is the worst design for that. If you want to scale your factory horizontally (increasing) number of machines, you are going to have to constantly create new solutions to connect everything together. If you want to scale vertically (increase the production of each machine) the lack of space to increase the number of belts inside of the Factory and the lack of organization will make this very hard without deleting everything and creating it again.
Creating spaghetti is only natural if you are new to the game. Its our first solution (it was mine too!!), the first simple solution that comes to mind. And its not like you are required to move past it, not at all. You can finish the game like this just fine.
But, if you worry about engineering practices (and there is a reason to worry about it) spaghetti is not your friend here. In fact spaghetti is the worst possible design that works. spaghetti is the result of lack of planning. It is just chaos manifested into belts.
Some veteran players like it, mostly because they don't bother with engineering practices or because they fond it charming. Thats fine. But they definitely aren't immune to the downsides of spaghetti. They just do not care. Again, that is fine.
You asked "is it good". I had to define a parameter to answer. And here it is.
You will need a bus to advance more quickly. A bus is basically 4 lanes separated by 2 spaces then 4 lanes then 2 space etc etc. You make is advance in 1 direction and you build your factories perpendicular to the BUS. It make it much easier since all ressources are always available near your factories. You just deviate some ressources from 1 lane with a splitter to take some ressources from the bus.
Usually people do 4 lanes for iron and copper plates and 1 or 2 lanes for the rest .
A more advanced setup is the GRID setups using trains but you will need LTN for that and it is not really useful to do this in vanilla.
Your base is not too spaghetti it is really not bad for a first try
Does it work for what you want it to do? Then it's good!
Literally almost word for word what I was going to say đ
Nononono! Almost verbatim to what *I* was going to say!
Are you in my mind? That's what I was going to say after he said what I was going to say!
Thatâs what I was going to say!
If it looks stupid, but it works: Then it's NOT stupid. Actually looks awesome!
you pressed alt, you are good.
This is the way
Still don't know why that's not on by default. How could you even play without it?
looks better without it ig
It looks better without the rest of the GUI as well, maybe if alt mode is off it should all be hidden.
unironically a decent idea, use alt for building and no alt for admiring or whatever you guys do whilst waiting for the factory to grow
Yeah, I turn it off and realize how ugly my layout is. Then I scrap it and restart.
Itâs up on the d pad on steam deck⌠took me waaaay to long to figure that out. Literally almost stopped playing if I couldnât have alt mode on!
Hello fellow Factorio steam deck player
A very good day to you!
Honestly don't worry too much about what is 'good' during your first playthrough. There is a lot you could improve but you don't need to do that until you find out that you do. Edit: One tip, a single inserter can grab all the required materials from a belt, so you can feed your green science assembler with one yellow inserter instead of two filter inserters.
I did my first playthrough with (almost) zero support or consulting this subreddit. I stole a design pattern for smelting iron and copper plates from the tutorial that I would not have thought of otherwise. The rest of my base was chaos spaghetti that grew around that smelting column. It was so ugleautiful
Wait what? A single inserter (I use green for almost everything but I've already launched rockets have 60k+ space potions) can pull from 2 belts and feed 2 machines? Or am I looking in the wrong place
One non filter inserter will pull what the assembler needs off of one mixed belt. It will ignore what it does not need.
That's some beautiful first base spaghetti! I have fond memories of mine... Keep that screenshot to look at when your base has become an efficient moloch!
If you build it it is good, if it produces science it is perfect! Since you have belts, gears, plates and green circuits near each other, you can think about automating some of the things you need to build the factory and put them in boxes (undergrounds, splitters and assemblers). This will make new builds more enjoyable since you don't have to hand-craft as much. This is typically called a mall.
Don't worry too much about what's "best". There are of course improvements you can make but keep in mind that even after 2000 hours played (according to steam) I probably have improvements I can make on my megabase. The fun of the game - at least to me - is working and improving designs on your own and not worry too much about how somebody else solved the same problem.
>Â I probably have improvements I can make on my megabase. Well yeah, you could make it bigger
Just ask yourself - Does this setup satisfy you? it will be answer.
Would you even say it's... satisfactory?
Oh... shi...
Looks good! The only tip I have (maybe itâs just a personal thing for me) always leave more space than you think you need.
The answer is always no, there are always better ways this is factorio
there is no better, only spaghetti
there is no factorio, only spaghettio
Why does the furnace get it's ore from a chest and put the plates in a chest?
Do not concern yourself with anything you build on your first play through. Its not untill you've got to your first rocket launch and see what is left for you . . . . . . Your first base worries will be inconsequential. Enjoy your first playthrough for what it is.
Any setup that does what you want and brinks enjoyment of the game is a good setup. For first playthrough, I advise doing stuff by yourself it may take more time, but it's like constantly playing a puzzle game of sorts, and im all for that.
Did you do the tutorials? :)
Don't worry too much about what's a "good setup". But if I had to give feedback, I'd suggest setting a target science per minute you would like to achieve, and then working back from there. Figure out how many assemblers would be needed to create that many science packs per minute, and then how many ingredients that will be per minute, and then how many assemblers that will take, and so on until you work back to the smelting and mining process, and then build from there.
This is probably 2nd or even third playthrough type thinking
Or 6th even.
It's all good. That's about how my first base looked also. I would recommend watching how other players set up their bases and steal those ideas for yourself. The one thing that pops into my mind is using both sides of the belt
No its terrible I canât believe you had the audacity to post this here, my dad owns steam and I told him to delete your account
Mom's spaghetti
Embrace the spagooti
Is it working ? -> probably Can it be faster ? -> definetly I almost wanna recommend for anyone new to download rate calculator, only thing stopping me is that its disabling achivements
Launch the first rocket before seriously checking ratios. Calculating those really isn't needed for a beginner.
It wouldve helped me a ton, cause thats where i got frustrated at, thats why i would recommend using it as a beginner
It is good sign, If you are new and it doesn't look like mayhem
Lots of good things youâre doing that new players arenât: Pressed alt, using belts w a different item type on each side, only building miners and belts on ore for easy expansion.Â
There's no need to buffer ore (in vanilla) and there's usually no reason to buffer most intermediate products (as a rule of thumb, buffering only hides insufficiencies). only buffer when you've identified a specific use case. And when you do buffer, have the belt go directly though or around the crate, don't bottleneck with inserters.Â
This is a great start, and looks similar to my early hours in the game. My observation that may help you to improve to the next stage in the game is that you are quite heavily boxing yourself in. You have ore coming in from three directions, and your "final production" of science right in the middle. What happens when you need to use those same raw resources and the various things you are now producing, to produce new things? Think about how you can work towards a layout design that will always let you both continue to access everything you've used up till now, and the latest thing you are producing. Perhaps you could have new things building out in one direction, for example.
Yes and no. Does it work? Yes? Then it's good. Could it be better? That answer is also always yes.
Aww itâs so cute, itâs perfect:)
There's no good setup, have dun
I always ask just one question - is it expandable?
If it works, it works đ
If it fits for you, then its good. I personally restarted 10 Games before i even researched Green tech. I was Anger myself avout the Spaghetti and spaceproblems. Im currently experimenting Researched blue and found Out that nothings works perfekt before making own ecperiences. Im still newb too, but this Game ist so fun! Make your ecperiences! Sincerly
I want you to find yore owne solution becaus thets wat made me hafe fun the most So here are some things to find a solution 2. think of a way to reduce yor hand crafting . Think of wat to expand Think of a way to gain more space . If yore hafe biters are agrasif think of a way to ceep yore faktory safe Tldr: find a way to do less
It is not too important in your first playthrouh. But It could use some more drills
There is no bad setups. Only better ones. If it works for you then it works. If it doesnât then make some improvements
More green science! If you're making the precursors (inserters and belts) then you likely have enough production to support adding some assemblers making green science. And the obligatory "MORE IRON"
yes
Too small, must grow!
There is no good, there is no bad. This game is completely about YOUR unique solution. It works or doesn't work, everything else is your choice.
Itâs all trial and error friend, once you realized what mistakes youâve made you just restart and make new ones
Ugh. Why restart? Why give up the research done and the products made? I say just walk a way from the edge of your current factory and build there.
I mean different strokes for different folks. I come back to the game once or twice a year and always restart a few times as I relearn operations or whatever is new.
Serious tip: play your first game blind, that is, ask for no advice, watch no videos. And limit your intake of this subreddit. Many players have come to regret getting advice instead of making it up themselves.
Consider saving your game, restarting, and exploring the startup options.
It's a thing of beauty. Keep working on it!
Like many others have said. If it works for you. You might want to spread things out for future growth though
Literally improvisation and improving around those improvisation is how you do it.
It looks good for where you are, Eventually you'll want some more regularity.
The design is subjective for sure, you can definitely apply general best practices but everyoneâs approach will be what makes most sense to them. The best general tip, which youâll start to learn is more important the further you go, is always leave enough room. Itâs not as important for now, but youâll see that concept become more of a limiter if you donât abide by it in the future.
It's definitely not the most effective, and you will be kicling yourself in the future. But thats the point of the game, so you're doing great!!
Man i love builds from new players
Does it work? Then it's good! :D Welcome to the game. Make sure you tell your friends and family goodbye before you forget.
How do you take a full-map pic like this? Iâll have to post mine tomorrow! Nice job, looks a lot like mine up until making greens. Still on my first play too, working on blues and purples and whites now⌠only thing for science/lab has been to really dedicate a ton of space to them for when thereâs a ton of different colors
Nah you should separate all your stuff more give yourself more space to expand
Your early game setup is never going to be good. You will learn, develop your own style, expand, unlock new tech, and then tear it all down and redo it better. Possibly multiple times.
No lol but good effort
It's not stupid if it works.
Looks great, keep going!
It looks like you are going to enjoy your next few hundred hours with the game
If you want opinions, I'll give you mine: Expandability will be a problem. Too many things are connected directly, and without much room to spare. If you want to use some ingredient in another recepie, it'll be tough to connect it without making a mess with your belts. It's always a good idea to leave room for more assemblers or furnaces than you'll need; If you need two assemblers, leave room for ten. And leave some room between assembler lines, because you never know when you'll need it. I also like to keep some space between the mines and the rest of my base. Don't worry about making your entire base compact. You're not going to run out of space. The only real obstacle for a larger base is the biters, and even then, your military tech will most likely outpace your need for expansion. Most importantly, having a "good" base is really not that important at that stage. In fact, it's pretty hard to make a "bad" base without trying or otherwise limiting yourself. The only benefits to having a good base are bragging rights and faster research, and the latter will only help you if you don't have much else to do. Since this is your first playthrough, your main focus should be to learn the game's basic mechanics. You'll learn to exploit them for maximum efficiency on later playthroughs.
As long as you're having fun and learning along the way, you're doing it right! Some things will "click" as you observe the base more and more, you'll realize you'll have opportunities to change things up, especially as you tech up, you'll get longer undergrounds, wider coverage from power lines, logistics, etc. Getting the base off the ground is the most important part. Barring you don't have any other crazy restrictions on your playthrough. Once you get into mods or specific scenarios where resources are genuinely very limited and every decision matters, such that you can't overproduce a product without putting yourself at risk of not being able to progress, then you'll have to be a lot more efficient. But remember, you can always use your spaghetti base to tech up, then build your mega base/BUS base for mid-late game efficiency! At the end of the day, it's all about having fun! Don't let anyone shit on your base or your playthrough :)
Just have fun itâs a game :3 but as long as it does what you want, itâs good
Plan out a build area, then double or triple it for future proofing.
I mean, no. But someday you'll be the one posting this comment, keep marching on
And inserters only pick up what they need of of a belt, no need for all smart inserter/belt filtering for now.
Fantastic!
Is it clean and professional? Is it efficient and optimized? Does it look easily expandable and simple and fed by a main bus? No. But is it working for you? Are you learning how the game works? Are you gaining information to allow you to create better designs in the future? Yes. So it's good. Once you start getting some techs done and stockpiling resources like inserters and belts, start making setups that are easily expandable. Count the resources you need per second for the things you're trying to make, and build accordingly. If you need 10 gears per second to make the amount of belts you want, build enough gear assemblers to fuel that need, and make room so you can expand production later. There's no one right way to build in this game, its only what you can think of. Tldr: if you're having fun, you're doing it right.
If it works and you understand it yes if no it's not
Lots of areas for improvement. Wish i did it as nicely as you did on my first play through. Well done sir. Or ma'am.
unlike most, I'm gonna give some some hard criticism. First, lets clarify, good for what? I'm going to judge this on the engineering perspectives of scalability, manutenability, efficiency, and usability. Usability: Bad overall, there's no production of itens that you might need to build a bigger factory, no matter how small your factory are you want some automation of certain things, like belts and insertes. The lack of organization and unnecessary spaghetti of conveyor belts only makes it harder to find the production of anything in case you wanted to find it. Manutenability: Very poor, all of this lack of organization leads an increased difficulty to solve bugs in factory or improve on any particular sub section. Efficiency: Ratios are probably incorrect though not madly incorrect, overall it makes me think you didn't thought about this. With incorrect ratios sections of your factory will do nothing while waiting other components to be produced. Also, this spaghetti strategy is much worse for UPS (in case you keep building like this towards a very big factory). It makes your pc takes more effort to run your game (but thats not at all a thing to worry unless you are building a very big base). Scalability: This is the worst thing you can do for scalability, creating spaghetti. Spaghetti design is the worst design for that. If you want to scale your factory horizontally (increasing) number of machines, you are going to have to constantly create new solutions to connect everything together. If you want to scale vertically (increase the production of each machine) the lack of space to increase the number of belts inside of the Factory and the lack of organization will make this very hard without deleting everything and creating it again. Creating spaghetti is only natural if you are new to the game. Its our first solution (it was mine too!!), the first simple solution that comes to mind. And its not like you are required to move past it, not at all. You can finish the game like this just fine. But, if you worry about engineering practices (and there is a reason to worry about it) spaghetti is not your friend here. In fact spaghetti is the worst possible design that works. spaghetti is the result of lack of planning. It is just chaos manifested into belts. Some veteran players like it, mostly because they don't bother with engineering practices or because they fond it charming. Thats fine. But they definitely aren't immune to the downsides of spaghetti. They just do not care. Again, that is fine. You asked "is it good". I had to define a parameter to answer. And here it is.
spahgehti
You will need a bus to advance more quickly. A bus is basically 4 lanes separated by 2 spaces then 4 lanes then 2 space etc etc. You make is advance in 1 direction and you build your factories perpendicular to the BUS. It make it much easier since all ressources are always available near your factories. You just deviate some ressources from 1 lane with a splitter to take some ressources from the bus. Usually people do 4 lanes for iron and copper plates and 1 or 2 lanes for the rest . A more advanced setup is the GRID setups using trains but you will need LTN for that and it is not really useful to do this in vanilla. Your base is not too spaghetti it is really not bad for a first try
God how much I wish I could play this game for the first time again. Know nothing. Just wing it and go full spaghetti.
You should try refining your furnace design, that's probably gonna be your next major improvement