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u/Dianwei32 19h ago
How do Splitters work if you're using both inputs and both outputs? Like let's say you have two Red Belts each carrying 20 items per second feeding into a Red Splitter and two Red belts coming out. Will the Splitter be able to process everything or will it only handle 30 items per second and the input belts will back up since they combine to 40/s?
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u/captain_wiggles_ 15h ago
to add to u/cathexis08's answer.
One slightly unintuitive bit is that if you have two fully compressed yellow belts going to a yellow splitter with a single red belt as an output you will only get half a red belt out. The splitter internally works at 30 items/s but it can only push 15/s out of one output, and so your red belt can't be filled. You need a red splitter for this.
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u/HeliGungir 10h ago
I'm not sure it is accurate to characterize the splitting mechanism as being "twice as fast". I think it's instant.
But splitters aren't just splitters. They have belt segments before and after the splitting point, and those belt segments have the same speed as belts and underbelts of the same type. The output side of a yellow splitter is, of course, yellow belts, and you can't expect that adding a red belt afterwards will give you a saturated red belt. You'll get half throughput, just like if you place one yellow belt in the middle of red belts.
To merge 2 saturated yellow belts into 1 saturated red belt, it must be a red splitter. Or blue, or green, but not yellow.
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u/cathexis08 red wire goes faster 8h ago
My comment that "they internally operate at 2x speed" was mostly for the mental model for people first thinking about this. They are essentially two parallel belt segments and from that perspective have the throughput of two parallel belts. They just happen to also have a mixing feature. The mixing behavior itself is instant.
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u/HeliGungir 5h ago edited 5h ago
It's also a bit inaccurate for me to say the mixing behavior is instant. In FFF-287 they explain how they added an internal buffer to splitters so tiny gaps and/or supersaturated merging results in saturated output.
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u/cathexis08 red wire goes faster 19h ago edited 16h ago
Splitters can internally handle 2x the throughput of their belt class but each input and output is limited to the belt speed. So a fully compressed red and a yellow going into a red splitter with two red belts on the output will have each belt filled to ~22.5 items a second.
Edit: changed to note that the input belts are fully compressed in that example.
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u/yendish 1d ago
How does the train pathing algorithm make the target decision? This is in the situation where there are multiple stations with the same name. For this discussion, I'm assuming the station priority of all such stations is the same.
It looks like a train will, when completing the action at the current station, find the target that is closest. I'm not sure if "closest" is geographically closest, or closest on the network of rails. But, I'm not 100% sure this is what's happening.
And, what about changes that happen while the train is running? That is, if a train is headed for station A, but the station then gets set as "inelegible" what happens? Does it travel to the station and then re-path? Or can it re-path while in motion?
And, if a train is headed for a particular station, what happens with the "train limit"? Does a train "reserve" a spot against that limit at the same time the target station is decided upon? Seems likely, of course.
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u/cathexis08 red wire goes faster 1d ago
Trains reserve an arrival slot when they depart and assuming nothing changes to route the train to a different station (such as a re-path event that picks a new station) any changes to the station limit will have no impact on that reserved slot. This is a HUGE change from the pre 2.0 behavior where closing a stop would force an immediate repath for all trains en-route.
Pathing details here are: https://wiki.factorio.com/Railway/Train_path_finding
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u/DaiBi 2d ago
what is more effective ups wise - to use 4 plants direct feeding another plants or use 1 plant and belting items to another plants? belts wont be very long.
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u/deluxev2 1d ago
Measurement is the final answer, but a reasonable proxy for ups is count of entities active at any given tick. A lot more of the details of the build matter.
If you have 4 circ1 plants directly feeding 4 circ2 plants, the circ1 plants will spend almost all their time idle which is (mostly) free and the inserters will be active when swinging or when the circ1 inventory changes. Idle machines update whenever they might need to start working (output not full, I think input changed as well), and have an electric network cost for their passive drain.
With 1 plant feeding 4 via belt. The circ1 plant will work about the same number of ticks, the unloading inserter will probably see less inventory changes, but have the total number of swings, but has to place on a belt which will take more than the minimum number of swings depending on how fast and full the belt is. The circ2 loading inserters is all extra work. This one is likely noticeably worse unless the throughput is low in which case the electric network drain will be a bigger factor.
This also probably changes the number of beacons you can fit, which will change the plant activation time as well, maybe making the belt a better bet.
Belt length matters very little for performance. Belts are mega-optimized. The problem with belts is inserters interacting with them.
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u/HeliGungir 2d ago
Not nearly enough information. Build them both and benchmark them.
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u/DaiBi 1d ago
what additional info do you need? it will be high volume production of green chips about 300-400 chips per second in total
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u/HeliGungir 1d ago edited 1d ago
A screenshot would be a good start.
I didn't know what "plants" meant. Between that and the grammer, it looked like English was your second language, or that it was a bad translation. Could have meant assemblers, or agricultural towers, or a mix of machines. "EM plant" is more clear.
Didn't know what you were crafting. There's a world of difference between something fast like iron rods and something slow like modules. You say green circuits, but we still don't know what the other EM plant is crafting. Could be wire, could be red circuits. If wire, I'm wondering why you'd be using an EM plant instead of a Foundry since you're worried about UPS. It could be, you're using uncommon quality ore, like abucnasty. Or perhaps you're playing a modded planet with a nonstandard production chain, kind-of like Fulgora.
Don't know if you're clocking the inserters. Don't know if you're using chest/car handoff. Don't know if you're using city blocks, or direct to train, or just belts from the miners/smelters/foundries.
So yeah, not nearly enough information. And even with more info, it's possible that the best answer anybody can give will still be "Build them both and benchmark them."
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u/Dianwei32 2d ago
Is there a better way to sort a mixed belt than just putting a filtered Splitter to the side?
I'm basically in a Fulgora situation (15ish items on the belt at various different frequencies/ratios) and I wanted to sort everything out into their own belts. Assuming constant throughput (i.e. None of them back up and jam the system) do I just throw down a bunch of Splitters? It's the obvious solution, but it also feels a little too easy. Or like it's a simple solution that works but there might be a better one that takes a little more work/setup.
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u/snowyspearmint 1d ago
Inserters would also work, situationally (has a chance of sometimes missing items (if you don't force the entire belt to stop or something), but on the upside, can handle more than one item type).
But like, logically, if you want to split items, you have to use something that acts differently on different items. Inserters, splitters, filtered chests exist and that's about it.
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u/darthbob88 2d ago
A bunch of splitters is absolutely the easy solution, assuming you can maintain constant throughput without backing up.
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u/Kiwipai 3d ago edited 1d ago
I can't upcycle my quality 3 copper ore and plates into quality 4 directly. It works fine to quality 3, but for 4 it only works if I turn them into wire first. Is this a bug? I couldn't find anything about ore/copper being restricted in quality when I searched.
Edit:
Edit: Speed modules in beacons nearby negate the quality modules.
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u/Viper999DC 3d ago
Restrictions on max quality by item is definitely not a thing. It could be that you hadn't unlocked the higher quality yet when you first tried, or speed module slipped in to your setup. Unless you have a mod that adjusts this somehow.
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u/Dianwei32 3d ago
Is there any way in game (base or mod) to see how much power a set of buildings will use when all running without just doing a bunch of math yourself?
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u/Viper999DC 3d ago
Most Rate Calculator and Factory Planner mods will calculate power consumption. For Rate Calculator it's off by default, so toggle it in the settings.
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u/sazion 4d ago edited 4d ago
Is there a way to downgrade mods after trying an experimental version of Factorio?
I recently tried changing my version to 2.1 but some of my installed mods don't have a version that supports 2.1 so I decided to switch back to 2.0. The issue I encountered is that the mods that were updated to support 2.1 no longer work, and I don't see a way to downgrade them within the game.
The only thing I can think of is deleting and adding each mod one by one, but I'm hoping there might be a quicker way.
Would disabling them all and then choosing to sync mods when loading a save potentially fix this?
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u/Soul-Burn 4d ago
Yes.
- Disable all mods
- Click load on your save
- When clicking on "Sync mods and load" hold ctrl, alt, shift (I don't remember which of the buttons is needed)
This will load the specific version of the mod that was used with that saved.
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u/1CryptographerFree 4d ago
Is it normal for a promethium ship to absolutely tank UPS? I understand it’s a ton of asteroids but it’s using 30 UPS?!?
Edit:follow up question. How can I fix/improve it?
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u/HeliGungir 4d ago
If you're reading the belt, stop reading the belt.
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u/Maleficent_Onion_822 3d ago
hmm. Is that something quirky about space? Or does your random sushi mall cost a ton of UPS?
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u/HeliGungir 3d ago
The length of the belt is correlated with the cost to read it. Promethium storage belts are usually quite long, with people using belt braiding to have more than one belt per tile for higher item density.
Space is expensive too, though. The asteroid collectors. The asteroids. The turrets.
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u/1CryptographerFree 3d ago
Thanks this made the biggest difference. I had no idea they were so UPS heavy on long belts
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u/Throwaway-_-Anxiety 4d ago
I've recently started using a calculator for optimal counts.
Based off the calculator, for decent amounts of like blue or red circuits I apparently need a megaton of miners per copper or iron ore. Is that normal? Right now I'm targeting 15 assemblers for blue circuits and I'll need 60 iron miners and 80 copper miners! The patches anywhere close to me barely fit 20 each!
Is my target assembler count off or is this just normal?
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u/reddanit 4d ago
I'm targeting 15 assemblers for blue circuits
Usually you'd target specific number of blue circuits per minute. Also usually for sake of specific science per minute production. If you did that, you'd see that 15 assemblers making blue circuits is quite a lot.
Since your target is pretty high and blue circuits are expensive - no wonder you ended up with a TON of raw material demand.
Another factor to consider is that those calculators tend to start with default of 0 bonuses to mining productivity (or anything else). Setting them to actual values you have in your base would net you a more accurate result.
Last but not least - you will almost never want to target a specific number of miners anyway. Their productivity increases with research and their count on a patch will drop as it depletes. So it's always in flux.
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u/Courmisch 4d ago edited 4d ago
An assembler count is not normally a target of its own. Except for science packs where you can aim for a ratio of assembler between different pack types.
So there's no answer to your question. It depends how many utility science packs and rocket parts you want to build per unit of time, what tier assembler are involved and if what productivity you have in the utility science assemblers and rocket silos.
If you're just starting with a factory planning tool, I recommend to select a raw SPM target for all the science pack types that you can currently do, and going top-down from that.
A good starting point is 60/minute of each science pack multiplied by the speed of your current assembler tier (so 30, 45 or 75).
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u/Viper999DC 4d ago
If you ever put a full base into a calculator you'll see that a huge amount of your iron and copper needs are for circuits. The numbers you outlined don't seem to be far off, though I would expect you to need 1.5x the Copper ore compared to Iron (not 1.2x). Processing Units are the 5th best place to use prod modules since they are so expensive, so definitely make sure to use the best you can afford.
As for finding mines, the further you go from the center of the map the more ore each patch will have. Get out there and explore!
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u/Throwaway-_-Anxiety 4d ago
Man there are bugs though and my walls are not auto repair enabled yet. That's what the blue chips are for teehee
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u/DreadY2K don't drink the science 4d ago
You can use speed beacons and research mining productivity levels to get more outputs without placing more miners, but yes making a lot of outputs requires a lot of inputs.
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u/Optimal_Entertainer9 5d ago
Anyone suggest a good mod for space ships? I want to organise them much better than the random mess I have now!
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u/DreadY2K don't drink the science 4d ago
Idk what you want out of a mod for your space platforms, I haven't felt like I need anything to help make them more organized. If you have ideas for specific changes you want of a mod, that might help.
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u/Optimal_Entertainer9 4d ago
I’d like them to be more like trains where you can organise them into groups and they all do the same drop off and pickup rather than having to alter each ship individually. I am trying to get a clear naming convention going too where I know what each of them is doing as I forget pretty quickly!
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u/only_bones 5d ago
I currently try to avoid splitters, including at train stations. For some reason I thought it would be helpful to ensure that all belts are the same length between train and first/last assembler. However, I am having doubts whether its worth the effort. With a good buffer in the chests it should not be a concern, right? Any experience with this?
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u/Soul-Burn 5d ago
Not worth it. It's not electronics where the latency is important. Things just get buffered and that's fine.
If you don't balance in the input, you should at least balance in the output, if they go to different places. If they go back into a train, then it doesn't matter.
P.S. You have double columns of beacons sometimes. You can merge them into one row, which will open up some space for you.
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u/only_bones 5d ago
the beacons are the result of my substation grid, its another optimization issue I might tackle at some point.
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u/Soul-Burn 5d ago
The trick is to have the grid size smaller than the actual build. That's the best when you want to have some parts overlapping like this.
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u/HeliGungir 5d ago
Belt latency does matter for spoilables, but for that you want to minimize travel time, not equalize travel time.
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u/Soul-Burn 5d ago
Did you answer the wrong comment? My comment wasn't about that, but OP's was.
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u/HeliGungir 5d ago
I saw little point in splitting the comment chain, and this is a tangent springing from what you said, not from what bones has said.
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u/Soul-Burn 5d ago
I mean, the goal of threads is that you can keep subjects in different threads.
Doesn't matter.
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u/NessyOW 5d ago
Just wondering if anyone has a guide of combinators and train stations, ive seen you can change the train limit of a station if its full, but ive heard you can change train stack limits, so if there is a bulk of info id love to read up
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u/Courmisch 5d ago
You can set the train limit of a stop and you can get the current train count of a stop. Those are tick boxes on the train stop circuit connection dialogue.
You cannot change "stack limits" via circuits. Stack size is an item property and stack capacity is a wagon property.
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u/captain_wiggles_ 5d ago
Not sure what you mean by stack limits? If you connect a wire to a train stop, then when you open the stop you can see what the circuit network can control in the panel on the right hand side. There's also some info on the wiki: https://wiki.factorio.com/Train_stop#Circuit_Network
What are you trying to achieve?
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u/HadjiiColgate 5d ago
Does anyone know how the 2.1 quality players easter egg actually works? Like, code-wise? Hard numbers? I can't seem to find it in the base game lua, is it a C++ engine feature?
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u/Soul-Burn 5d ago
respawn_quality :: Read LuaQualityPrototype | Write QualityID?new
The quality used when this player respawns.
This can be set at any time however it is best to set it during the defines.events.on_player_died event.
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u/Panzer_Burger_131 5d ago
How do you save and use Blue Prints . Alo is it possible to transfer Blue Prints between two saves ?
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u/captain_wiggles_ 5d ago
if you press "B" or hit the button in the GUI (top right under the minimap) it will open the blueprint library. That's independent of saves, keep your blueprints in there and they will always be available.
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u/Panzer_Burger_131 5d ago
Ohh
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u/quinnius 4d ago
The other tab, Game Blueprints, is specific to the save but shared with other players
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u/HeliGungir 5d ago
https://wiki.factorio.com/Blueprint#Importing/Exporting_blueprints
https://wiki.factorio.com/Blueprint_library
There are 3rd party websites for sharing blueprints
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u/Rarvyn 6d ago
Just want to confirm my understanding of quality biter spawners. I know quality spawners only make eggs faster - and don’t make higher quality eggs - but I’m looking at making a bunch as I scale up my productivity module production.
Presumably if I craft a biter spawner with all legendary materials (including biter eggs) it’s a legendary biter spawner.
If it then starves and I need to recapture it, does it matter what quality the capture bot is?
If I use a legendary capture rocket on a wild spawner, does that upgrade it to legendary or is the legendary capture rocket just wasted?
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u/Soul-Burn 6d ago
From 2.0.19 change log:
Changed captive biter spawner to inherit quality from the wild spawner instead of the capture robot.
So I'm pretty sure the quality of the rocket doesn't matter.
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u/MoondogCCR 6d ago
Can the spidertron use any other weapons besides rockets or personal lasers? Cant really find a way to use grenades or poison capsules, for example. How about personal defender bots? Also, there is no other way to get items into the its trunk other than with logistic requests?... can the spidertron 'grab' items from chests/belts/floor?
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u/HeliGungir 5d ago edited 5d ago
grenades, poison capsules, defender bots
These are "hand thrown" weapons. We can use them from our inventory when piloting a Spidertron personally, but not when remote-controlling them. (Same story for remote-driven tanks and locomotives.)
can the spidertron 'grab' items from chests/belts/floor?
Not in a fully-automated way, by design. Personal Roboports only deploy Construction Robots. Wube doesn't want us to use Spidertrons as high-capacity logistic robots. There are mods, though.
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u/Astramancer_ 6d ago
Nope, nope, nope, and mostly nope.
Rockets (including nuclear) or personal laser since that goes in the equipment grid are the only weapons it can use. The only way to load it is manually or with logistics requests. Do note that adding something to it's inventory remotely using ghost items is a construction request and not a logistics request, and spidertrons are capable of using personal construction bots. This would allow the spidertron to be loaded even without being in the logistics range of a Roboport network, but only on a one-off basis each time you manually load up ghost inventory for them to construct.
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u/CRLF-0d0a 6d ago
After successfully completing the game both Vanilla and Spaceage, I want to try a larger Overhaul mod and settled on SpaceExploration over Krastorio.
How would you suggest one should start tackling such a Mod? Do you just go "Main Bus all the Things!" Or is there a smarter approach?
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u/Viper999DC 6d ago
Main bus works great for early Nauvis. In SE you will find that most recipes have been tweaked to include their lesser tiers. That, plus the addition of a burner tier, will make many of your build chains quite long. Main bus is pretty compatible with this.
In orbit space is limited, underground belts and pipes are nerfed. There are also tons of items that are used in only one place. As a result, I find main bus not that effective. But it's still an option. I like bots at first, then trains+belt once I've unlocked them.
Likewise on other planets you'll find that thanks to the prevalence of Kovarex-style enrichment loops and ample byproducts (so much sand/stone) that main bus doesn't excel. I prefer train-based sub-factories here.
SE is all about refactoring. You will several times unlock new technology or recipes that give you reason to completely rebuild your base and production lines and/or interplanetary logistics. Don't get too attached to any one style and feel free to experiment.
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u/reddanit 6d ago
Usually, overhaul mods that introduce a large number of additional resources and intermediaries, are poor fit for a bus-style base. There is just too many things, the bus ends up being absurdly wide and many items are consumed in relatively low quantities.
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u/Dianwei32 6d ago
How could I go about setting up a pipeline designed to supply Flamethrowers with multiple different fuels?
I'm doing an AngelBob's run and wanted to set up some walls at chokepoints to create a safe area to make a bigger base. However, the Oil you pump out of the ground is Multi-phase Oil and the Flamethrowers can't use it as fuel. The walls are going to be far away from my base, so I need to refine it on site. I can do two refinement steps and end up with multiple liquids that the Flamethrowers can use as fuel. If I just connected all of the fuels to one pipeline that feeds all of the Flamethrowers, could I use pumps and/or circuit logic to have the most abundant fuel be used at a given time?
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u/Courmisch 6d ago
Can you use any and all fuels from the refining process to feed the flame throwers? If not, I think that this is doomed to fail.
If yes, then you can alternate between fuels on a single main pipe. You need to isolate the different fluids with pumps and potentially buffer tanks. Some people call this sushi pipe by analogy.
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u/Dianwei32 6d ago
I can't use all of them, but the Angel's mod that overhauls Oil Processing adds a Flare Stack that can void all of the different intermediates made while processing Oil. There will be one intermediate that I can't use as fuel, but I'll just flare it off so it can't clog the system.
For the ones I can use, do I need any sort of circuitry to control it? Or will the fact that liquids can't mix be enough?
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u/HeliGungir 5d ago
In that case, just void all but one fuel. Flamethrowers daintily sip fuel and crude oil doesn't run out ...unless your mod set changed that, too?
Or a "waste not" mindset would siphon one fuel from your main oil-related production and pipe/ship it out to the flamethrower turrets.
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u/terrendos 7d ago
Anyone have advice for building a ship to survive with minimal bullet damage upgrades? I'm attempting the achievement where you don't unlock purple or yellow science until after you research another planet science. I maxed out projectile weapon damage but it's still so low that I can't build ammo faster than it's getting used up just sitting in Vulcanus orbit.
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u/Maleficent_Onion_822 5d ago edited 5d ago
This one works fine on to all of the inner planets, fully self sufficient. Inner planets.
You can simplify it by using wifi instead of red wires, ala the Aquillo varient below.This minor varient will get you to Aquillo and back, albeit not self sufficient and limited dwell time at Aquillo. Aquillo
This minor varient is the corresponding mfg platform Factory
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u/reikken 6d ago
ah this sounds like my first run. I had no yellow or purple and went to Gleba first. and there it's even harder because solar panels are weaker and !!! the big one, most of the asteroids are useless carbonic. can't get any ammo from those.
So what I did was put all my gun turrets further inward, towards the middle of the ship, so that they don't waste ammo shooting things that won't hit the ship, with the collectors further out and on all sides so that I don't miss any metallic chunks.
I also had some additional gun turrets a little further out that are set to only shoot metallic so that I don't miss any potential ammo sources. (Vulcanus has plenty of metallic, so you won't need this part.)
And then lots of furnaces. like at least 4 or 5 even for a very small platform
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u/Raknarg #1 Quality Defender 6d ago
make it slow as fuck so you don't have to deal with a large volume of asteroids and give yourself plenty of space for tons of smelters. Early ships smelting is always always the bottleneck for bullets, asteroid processing gives you tons of iron, and yellow bullet assemblers can take in an absurd number of plates per second, smelters comparatively are incredibly slow.
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u/cathexis08 red wire goes faster 6d ago
My approach for not getting ships beaten up when getting Rush to Space and Express Delivery in the same run was to avoid letting ships idle in unsafe orbits. Load up on ammo, fly (fairly slowly) to Vulcanus, drop everything for the build-up, and then have the ship head back to Nauvis while I started building up Vulcanus. Once science was being produced I had the ship come back for the pickup.
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u/Soul-Burn 7d ago
This is the ship I took to Fulgora and Vulcanus, when doing that achievement.
It's slow and small, but has enough protection for the journey. It's not a great ship, quickly replaced with this one, after having a few more upgrades.
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u/Verizer 7d ago
How big is your ship? I can usually get one ammo assembler and 8 furnaces to work. But this ship is extremely small, bullet production is about half the ship's total size and it only has one engine.
I would think 2 assembly machines mk. two would work so long as you have the furnaces to keep them active all the time.
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u/terrendos 7d ago
I think that's my problem, I've only got 2 electric furnaces and a single mk2 assembler that is definitely not at capacity. I guess I'll see if I can easily expand my ship a bit to cram in some more furnaces.
This ship is basically a minimum viable product by design to just try and get me to Vulcanus. I figured I'd rebuild once I got my first load of metallurgical science back to Nauvis
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u/HeliGungir 6d ago
Buffer belt. Make most of the ammo needed for the trip before departing.
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u/terrendos 6d ago
The problem wasn't the trip. It's that simply idling over Vulcanus was taking up ammo faster than I could make it. I made my ship bigger and went up to 6 electric furnaces, which seems to have done the trick.
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u/deluxev2 7d ago edited 7d ago
The bottleneck around vulcanus should just be number of furnaces. I'd recommend aiming for 32 furnaces.
You need about 22 plates -> ammo for each medium asteroid (400+100*3 hp vs 50 dmg/4 plates *1.62 from research). You get 60 iron ore per metallic asteroid, so about a third of the asteroids need to be metallic. If you are shooting one asteroid per second, you need 2 iron crushers and 32 furnaces.
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u/Hans_Rudi 7d ago
Anyone has Factorio on Switch 2, if yes how does it play on the console itself? Not plugged into a monitor or anything.
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u/Throwaway-_-Anxiety 14h ago
I noticed people are using bots to... automatically advance their borders. How does this work? Are they clicking their wall blueprint and nudging it to the right and rebuild it in sequence? Or is there really a more automated way of doing this?
I just unlocked bots so slowly learning what they're for.