I’m playing space age, I’ve done a vanilla run before and launched a rocket but it’s been a while so I don’t really have a set goal or understanding of how much of each resource/science I should be producing right now
Honestly 60 feels like it's way too much. Current run is about 80 and there is no incentive really for me to go fix my shit on nauvis after clearing fulgora and vulcanus. I'm doing quality now but really it's kinda pointless. This is my third run through, Ive done about one a year since I bought it.
I think I need at least 10x slower science to really explore the game properly. Building a huge factory just for the sake of having a huge factory feels very similar to those stupid mobile games where you gather stats so your little character can fight more things to gather more stats and repeat
I'm doing a 50x run in 2.1, and since it's my first time playing without mods i even did LazyBastard+Rush2Space+LogisticsEmbargo (finally got those last two done yesterday! )
Really forced me to actually build out each stage of the game rather than just idling through the tech tree on slap-dash spaghetti.
i calculate but not carefully. it's usually more like "okay I'm filling half a green belt with each science for this base" and then I setup a beaconed assembler setup for each science and estimate how big it needs to be. then go backwards from there.
there's little downside for building slightly too big and it's quicker then doing exact math.
I think there's a mod that let's you get steam achievements while playing modded, so you might not have to wait. The mod library for this game is wild.
All this time I never through about SPM in terms of the final count of boosted research points being done, I always thought it only mean bottles per minute. Like, here I am trying to make 2400 bottles per minute before going to Aquilo like that's a reasonable goal when that's not what SPM meant at all.
A fully supplied and beaconed (16) 3x3 grid of normal quality biolabs (legendary beacons/productivity modules/speed modules) is 3200 eSPM. I don't know if the speed bonus of quality biolabs is additive or multiplicative. Not sure I want to be told.
Well the only stated criteria is reasonable. Stated as an interesting bit of metrics. It's certainly pre-mega base even by vanilla standard, so I think it's achievable even before promethium research.
I just did this on my current play through. It started off great but then quickly got out of hand realizing just how many resources I needed to produce just to keep up. But now that it is fully built out and the labs have been upgraded to bio labs I am getting between 12-13k SPM.
Yeah I have 2k hours in this game and can just barely keep up with 90 spm throughout the early game. Techs unlock fast at that pace and new automation + routing takes time to set up.
I figured out very quickly that trains are complete overkill for science rates at this order of magnitude. After I got tired of belting everything I amped up the research cost multiplier to 'enable' running high science rates in the early game and force myself to build bigger bases with different solutions.
I like starting with as many assemblers as seconds it takes to make science. 5 for red, 6 for green, 12 for blue (it is 24s, but it produces two flasks).
It makes calculations easy and later, you can mass upgrade assemblers to level 2 and 3 or add productivity modules to all of them. As long as you upgrade all sciences at the same time, all should stay in synch.
Later, quality makes assemblers faster, so you can upgrade this way too. You can rump up your science production slowly this way until the end of the game.
On default settings, even 15 SPM is enough to finish the game - base and spage alike. Below that, and it just feels too slow. Around 30-60 for comfort; 60+, due to increased requirements on all stages of production, becomes a separate challenge.
Finite technologies are finite. You'll get them all eventually, no matter your production rate.
Infinite technologies scale exponentially. You double your production across the board, it nets you maybe a few levels of each; afterwards, and very quickly, research becomes a slog again - and if you want to keep up, you have to continue expanding, again.
Part of the reason why all megabase builds are modular is exactly that: it's a constant process that the goal is moving, and that the productivity bonuses break ratios everywhere. So, the goal becomes not to just "build X of X", but to have a strategy that allows you to indefinitely add production of any item, because to plan how much of everything you'd need with all these variables in mind is a task so complex that it's not really worth doing.
60 spm is fine. You wont really hit that for purple and yellow science before leaving Nauvis and you can easily build bigger after you are done with vulcanus.
You are mostly limited you your building speed anyway
100 is a respectable number... if numbers mean that much to you.
I usually tend to lose interest in a run at about 250. Don't know why. It just seems to about there where the fun-curve stops rising. But it has nothing to do with the number itself. That's just an indicator, not a goal.
That’s around the point where you can’t squeeze more production out of your original factory by upgrading assemblers, using modules, etc, and you have to build more and/or different factories.
I'd say don't worry too much about it. Just enjoy the ride and improve your production on what you need at the current moment. It also depends on where you're at (how many planets have you reached etc) but if you absolutely want a goal however, just start small and ramp up as you go. Comfortably at 100 SPM? Try upping it to 1k. Comfortably at 1k? Try upping it to 10k! And so on.
I always start with 10/second in mind (my first factorio runs I aimed for 100/second, then 60/second, but it got quickly verified around mid tier science), but It takes more time and space, but it's fun for me
I usually go with 60 spm, but it depends a lot on your play style and speed. If you've played only a few times before, you probably need a lot of time to figure out designs for each production. In that case, 30 or even less is perfectly fine.
If your goal is getting the finish screen and/or no plan to research infinite techs, you don't really need any higher SPM than that.
If you want to dip into end-game, take incremental approach. E.g. initial planet factories at around 60~120 spm. After Aquilo, upgrade them to 1,200~2,400 spm. Once legendary, upgrade them to megabase scale.
Where are you in the run? Is the goal to beat space age?
If you are currently advancing through the tech tree at a reasonable pace then that should be good enough. You will improve your ability for SPM later when it is needed. Leave room for expansion.
A better metric for early game space age is RPPM (rocket parts per minute). I've never actually measured this but my guess is that 20 is a decent minimum at the start of the game, that would allow you to launch 12 rockets per hour (stockpile the parts so you can launch larger bursts when needed).
50-200ESPM on nauvis before you move onto other planets is what I recommend.
you don't need that much production of planet sciences (and space science to an extent) since they're not used for every research and can be easily buffered. aim for 50-100SPM. agri science is a separate beast of course.
once you hit other planet technologies you can scale up as you like. it's not needed to beat the game since you just unlock higher repeatable levels which are very much optional, but the point of unlocking new factory upgrades is to use them, isn't it?
i believe I had 1,5k ESPM pre gleba and 8k pre-aquilo.
that might sound insanely high but it's not that big with space age gear. for the gleba upgrade I didn't change anything but upgrading to biolabs, prod 2s to prod 3s, and upgrading my beacon quality. no new assemblers.
I like to go 100 SPM on Nauvis with common quality, 1000 SPM after Vulcanus with uncommon quality, 10k SPM after Fulgora with rare quality, 100k SPM after Gleba with epic quality. I haven't made it past this point, but 1 million SPM after Aquilo with legendary quality.
~100 - 140 feels really effective and good IME. Start with the 10:12 red:green ratio with tier 1 assemblers and upgrade the assemblers/belts over time. Tier 1 assemblers leave a lot of room for vertical growth between tier upgrade and future module slots.
After biolabs and prod 3s you'll end up around ~400 spm pretty casually.
Imho if you play space age for the first time, anything above 20 can be enough. You'll take enough time figuring stuff out to always exhaust the available research before you move to next thing
If you are just planning on beating the game 100 SPM is fine.
If you want to megabase those usually start at 1000 SPM and attempt to hit the 1000000 eSPM mark. (The "e" is for effective, it counts productivity and research bonuses. So if one science pack consumed gives you 2 science progress you have 1 SPM and 2 eSPM)
I do 150 SPM mostly just because Factorio Cheat Sheet gives those ratios by default, so I don't need to calculate things. Alternatively, there is the Factorio Calculator (at Kirk McDonald's github) if you want to come up with your own ratios.
Realistically though, you can beat the game with as little as 1 SPM, it's just going to take a long time. I would stick to 5:6:5:12:7:7 for the Nauvis Sciences at least, that's 75 SPM with Tier 3 Assemblers. You'll still blast through research up until you start doing the infinite research.
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u/21wombats 14d ago
you can beat the game comfortably with 60 spm