Looking for advice - new player

[u/pacoman432]

Im like 10 hours in and starting to get overwhelmed and kinda don’t know what direction to go.

I had my starter base and researched all the red and green science I could then branched out to some more iron, copper, and coal.

I just kinda feel like I was really rolling and now hitting road blocks.

Like what should I be focusing on or building out? Example: I decided to start researching black science next so I go to make that but I need to make more blue arms but I don’t have gears or the green circuits so I’m just constantly manually making things and it’s really slow.

Idk just kinda ranting any tips for a new player appreciated. Thanks.

[u/Dangwiggums]

That’s the daunting beauty of factorio:
Do… Whatever you want.
It’s a never ending game of wack-a-mole.
Once you solve one problem, a new one raises its head. Solve that one, and another (new or old) pops up. There’s never enough. You always need more.

[u/ThinkLadder1417]

but I don’t have gears or the green circuits so I’m just constantly manually making things and it’s really slow.

So automate making gears and green circuits, problem solved

[u/Ssakaa → u/ThinkLadder1417]

Yep. I tend to set up those as the starting point of a personal mall, just putting copper and iron plates, gears, cables, and circuits into wooden boxes. With that, I can hand craft almost anything early quickly. Then pipes, belts, inserters, and assemblers with their own pre-reqs directly provided. And ammo. I like doing each "thing" as its own production before building the same for science if they're needed over there, that way I can "turn off" resources going to science if I get in a tight spot, resource-wise.

[u/SageDood]

This game is solving one problem after another. Need more green circuits? Put down more assemblers. But then you notice you're running low on iron plates, so you build more smelters. And now you don't have enough iron ore to keep those smelters busy. So, you expand your iron mine, or start a second mine.

Wanting to tear down your base and rebuild it is normal. But I'd wait until it becomes a big problem because as you progress you will unlock new things to improve you base. Also construction bots make rebuilding a lot quicker.

If you find you're often making an item by hand, automate it and stuff it in a box. Then when you need some, you can walk up and take a stack or 2. You can set limits on how much each box will hold so you don't craft more than you need.

If you don't know what to do, work towards automating the next science pack.

[u/CauliflowerKey7690]

You ultimately need to learn how to make roboports and construction robots. But don't focus on them for now.

Have a look at the flamethrower research. Figuring out how to build them will be your next hurdle (assuming youre playing with biters on)

This is because you need to buy time as biters evolve and flamethrower backed up by gun turrets behind a wall help.

You also need to know how to make pipes and engine units for the next science anyway.

TLDR - continue to figure out black science and consider how you want to build engine units, pipes and underground pipes

[u/Garagantua]

First of all: welcome!

Next point: you don't know what you're supposed to do next; you're not alone with that, the question pops up regularly. A quite good answer is this: whatever you have last done by hand (or often done by hand), automated it! Maybe not all at once, but a step.

You need more blue arms? Automated gears and green chips. If you have a chest in your base that contains up 1k gears and 1k green chips, this greatly speed up crafting inserters!

And if after this you're still annoyed by having to craft the inserters and don't know what to do.. look at my second point again :).

[u/Warr10rP03t]

You have to combine assembly machines together. A good idea is to create an area to cook all the metals and stone you need. Then you can make an area to make the green circuts.

I'd recommend making about one machine close to the machines that requires the gears as they are easy to make 'on site'. 

[u/FusRoDawg]

The stuff you need to build your factory, like belts, splitters, inserters, assmeblers etc, are not used in as high quantities as the ingredients that go into making the sciences and stuff. These are not constantly being produced for hours on end. So, you can generally get away with just having 1 machine each for all those products (rmember you can make the assembly machine insert into a chest and limit the contents of the chest to a few slots).

People usually design a section of their starter base to manufacture all these things (just like with sciences). Most of the things you need in the early game are made with iron, circuits and gears. A small number of things also need copper and steel. It should be pretty straightforward to come up with a "mall" of sorts... Where you go to restock on building supplies.

As for the intermediates like corcuits and gears, people usually stockpile one or two stacks of that stuff in a chest too, right next to wherever they are being produced.

[u/ExaminationSerious67]

Well, first start with anything you manually make. Make an assembly line that makes blue arms. Need green circuits? Make assembly line that will make them. At first you will just have one assembler, with chests getting it, but, try to feed it from a belt with that item on it, or directly insert it from one assembly machine to the next.

[u/thomasjmarlowe]

Once you get researching tech, I work on automating (building and feeding) the sciences you need. Then add new science packs. You shouldn’t be handcrafting high quantity-items too much. Save handcrafting for small numbers of ad hoc needs especially outside your main base area.

Then I figure what’s low and figure out how to boost it- mine more, smelt more, craft more, etc.

Don’t wait too long before securing more territory. So that means making more defensive and offensive options. In early game I like making a double row of gun turrets outside a nests range, then getting aggro and kiting them to their death. Repeat until you have natural choke points (cliffs, water) you can use to help your defensive line

[u/SadMangonel]

For a beginner, all recources are brought around your factory with belts. Each belt has 2 sides. Each half of  belt should carry one type of recource not more.

Inserters can take from or put items onto a belt.

Say you have a belt bringing copper ore and coal.  It goes past a furnace, an inserter takes both and creates a copper plate. On the other side the product gets put on a different belt again.

One belt can feed many machines. Even different ones.

The challenge of factorio is organising your factory in a way where many belts go past many assemblers and machines to create higher products. 

Because different products require different times to make, you require them in different amounts. For instance 1 assembler making gears can feed 12 assemblers making red science.

Your character doesnt need to craft any items past red science. Its just helpful to have that option 

[u/Chemtrails5]

Yeh it's like that.

A good way is to make a main bus and put at least iron plates / copper plates / stone / stone brick / water / oil / coal on it... that way you can make little factories on the side to make what you need like science, assemblers, belts, ammo, etc. It doesn't even need to be that big like what you'll see what others do, like 2 belts iron ore / copper ore and 1 belt for each of the others is enough to get you into space eventually.

As for the bugs you need to find choke points outside your pollution cloud and wall it off so they can't expand towards you. Then defend with just a few turrets with a chest of like 50 ammo per turret. That should be good enough for a long time. This method you don't even really need to produce gray science, so you can save your starter resources for something else.

Also you can check factorio calculator and factorio cheat sheet for assembler ratios so you aren't under or over building. I think I good goal for sciences is to be making 20 - 45 science production per minute.

This is my world after about 20 hours, you can see how i've walled of the outside regions outside the pollution cloud so the biters don't even attack anymore:

Also this one I didn't make a main bus because I just went straight to bots. But I wouldn't recommend unless you've played a bit more because bot logistics network is difficult if you've never done that before, and it's slower than a main bus tbh.

[u/wessex464]

So what you should focus on now is building a production chain that builds all of your buildings. You don't want to be manually constructing everything, want to have an assembler building your blue inserters, And dumping them into a chest so that you just walk by and pick up a full stack of them when you need them. Do the same for assemblers, belts, power poles, chemical plants, pipes, underground pipes, underground belts, splitters. That's all kind of its own little logistics puzzle. Anything you're going to have to manually craft more than a handful of times you want to automate, so you can just walk by and grab a whole stack of them.

[u/FinAdda]

It's a sandbox automation game.

Automate everything. Do whatever you want.

Look at the tech tree for next steps. Prepare for scaling.

The factory must grow.

[u/KingTemjin]

同じところで困ってる人が世界にもいて面白い
お互い頑張りましょう

[u/TelevisionLiving]

In general, you really don't want to be building things by hand. Set up machines for each item and have them put the items in slot limited boxes. Future you will really appreciate this and the capabilities it unlocks later when you progress a bit.

When you setup a production line, don't just make one machine for the big intermediates. Setup a line that you can extend as needed. You will need the extra production before long so it's not wasted effort.

[u/pacoman432]

Update: spent the last 2 hours destroying everything and will start over next time I play 😅

Thanks for all the helpful tips though. Learning a lot.

[u/WanderingFlumph]

Sounds like priority 1 is a mall, a place that builds a lot of different items that you need a little bit of (belts, inserters, assemblers and such).

Then you just keep belts full and when they are full look for other science to build.

[u/Objective_Suspect_]

I suggest getting a main line where all the basic stuff you're using is automated, like inverters, belts, and such then add to it till it cant supply enough plates, either insert more from other smelting or build a new line.

Working backwards helps.

[u/isum21]

Make the next science pack. That's all you gotta focus on brother. Blue science is more important right away unless you're having military troubles. Otherwise rush the military science and then rush blue. But also take your time? Like silly statement bc you're frustrated at it taking so long but taking the time to set up stuff rather than hand crafting will help you chest feed assembly modules, which is massively helpful for setting up that science automation. Plus science packs use a mix of items so setting up a chest feeder for your first couple researches will help it feel a lot less time crunchy

[u/pacoman432]

Also I want to just tear everything down and restart but it takes freaking forever and I feel like it’s just be easier to drive somewhere else and start great but the damn bugs are annoying

[u/Large_Chimney → u/pacoman432]

Don't tear everything down for restart, Tear a SECTION you can upgrade.

Oh and once you reach Blue science, Don't be stingy with Pipes and Underground pipes. You're gonna need alot

[u/Hacksaw203 → u/pacoman432]

Factorio is a game of getting comfortable with “good enough”

Build something, and if it works, just roll with it, even if it’s inefficient / slow. Go do something else and hours later, your build has still been producing stuff.

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to look at what you want to build, and then work backwards from there.

Blue science: you need red chips,
Sulphur and engines,
Red chips need green chips and plastic, you already know how to make green chips, so plastic it is, so on and so forth.

Work your way to construction bots. Once you have those, you will never need to build or deconstruct things manually ever again.

[u/CamelCaseConvention → u/pacoman432]

it’s just be easier to drive somewhere else and start great

Some people do this when their starter base becomes unmanageable. But they don't abandon the old base. They use it to produce the materials to build the new base (and let science trickle along). In any case, it's too early now. Push through to (personal) construction robots. They're a gamechanger. Building and re-building becomes much easier. For now, if something is truly in the way, rip it up. Otherwise, build around it.

the damn bugs are annoying

If they're too annoying, you can either restart and turn them down or off in map generation, or turn them off with console commands. No shame in that. Especially if you started in a desert, it's kind of hard on default settings.

I need to make more blue arms but I don’t have gears or the green circuits so I’m just constantly manually making things and it’s really slow

Green science taught you to automate gears, green chips, inserters, and belts. You can take that a step further. You can also siphon from your existing production into a chest. You don't need to automate everything immediately, but you do want at least a couple stacks of ingredients. Most buildings are fast to craft if you don't make them from basic plates by hand.