4 ms·

I need to give Factorio another go. I loved the alpha, as others do. Than the release arrived and I gave up playing having to scout the map just to find an ore

I need to give Factorio another go. I loved the alpha, as others do. Than the release arrived and I gave up playing having to scout the map just to find an ore field. That is the premise to playing, but it's why I found minecraft a bore. Same with any survival game.

falcolas 3y ago
Radars are your friend for exploring the map. Cheap, and they even have late game value when you’re placing things for base bots.
- danielheath 3y ago
  The energy cost to run more than a few is prohibitive though. I prefer to research cars and then go driving, but that’s a very different sort of gameplay (eg twitchy rapid steering to avoid collisions at speed)
  - mdavidn 3y ago
    Radars do consume a lot of energy at the beginning of a game, but even just one placed early and running continuously will find the ore needed to produce exponentially more power. After that, I no longer think about radar power consumption. I just place them willy-nilly wherever they'll be useful. They're even spaced throughout my factory's interior just so I can see it working on the map from anywhere.
  - infogulch 3y ago
    Are they too energy prohibitive, or do you have too few steam turbines? I think we all know what the right answer is here. ;)
    - m463 3y ago
      Couldn't you just run them off a closed solar setup?
solardev 3y ago
You can make a game with custom settings and increase both the frequency and size/depth of ore fields, which makes that a lot less frustrating. There's still plenty to build even if you deemphasize the exploration portion (which wasn't my favorite either).
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  There's also a number of infinite resource mods. I know Dyson Space Sphere and some other similar games offer those options built in .
  - vermilingua 3y ago
    Maxing richness in world gen is all-but-infinite; but regardless infinite ore just moves the throughput bottleneck much earlier as you no longer have the incentive to distribute your ore supply.
burnished 3y ago
Its been a while since I last played but there was very little minecraft style ore searching and that was on a railworld setup, which has fewer but richer ore patches. Part of that may have been the radars I put down whenever I placed defensive turrets, not only do they scan the map for you but they give you mapsight (when you zoom in enough it stops being a symbolic representation and starts being game graphics). Its very helpful for telling if a biter attack is serious or referencing a layout on the other side of your factory that you want to repeat, and I think its nicer that the map scanning occurs almost as a side effect of that immediate tangible benefit. You can also muck with the world generation and make patches much richer and much more frequent. And I don't mean that like 'you can turn the difficulty down', its really more like increasing or decreasing emphasis on an aspect of the game to suit your preferences. I have felt what you express about minecraft so I wanted to chip in my 2c, because it would be a shame if you missed out on factorio due to weird mapgen or the like.
wildrhythms 3y ago
Same, but for a different reason: I tend to get a bit frustrated knowing there is an 'optimal' way to build certain layouts, and the min-max part of my brain takes over and I spend more time looking up those layouts than actually enjoying figuring it out for myself.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I made it all myself only to find out that a 64 by 64 layout (exactly 2 chunks) is just barely not possible. Or at least, constant deadlock heaven.
majewsky 3y ago
Consider giving Satisfactory a try, if you have a PC good enough to support its 3D graphics. In Satisfactory, all ore deposits are infinite. It generally has much less survival elements, using mobs only as a way to gate higher-tier ore deposits and rare items from the early game. Once you have built a factory somewhere, you will not get attacked by hostiles there.

falcolas 3y ago

Radars are your friend for exploring the map. Cheap, and they even have late game value when you’re placing things for base bots.

danielheath 3y ago
The energy cost to run more than a few is prohibitive though. I prefer to research cars and then go driving, but that’s a very different sort of gameplay (eg twitchy rapid steering to avoid collisions at speed)
- mdavidn 3y ago
  Radars do consume a lot of energy at the beginning of a game, but even just one placed early and running continuously will find the ore needed to produce exponentially more power. After that, I no longer think about radar power consumption. I just place them willy-nilly wherever they'll be useful. They're even spaced throughout my factory's interior just so I can see it working on the map from anywhere.
- infogulch 3y ago
  Are they too energy prohibitive, or do you have too few steam turbines? I think we all know what the right answer is here. ;)
  - m463 3y ago
    Couldn't you just run them off a closed solar setup?

solardev 3y ago

You can make a game with custom settings and increase both the frequency and size/depth of ore fields, which makes that a lot less frustrating. There's still plenty to build even if you deemphasize the exploration portion (which wasn't my favorite either).

wildrhythms 3y ago
There's also a number of infinite resource mods. I know Dyson Space Sphere and some other similar games offer those options built in .
- vermilingua 3y ago
  Maxing richness in world gen is all-but-infinite; but regardless infinite ore just moves the throughput bottleneck much earlier as you no longer have the incentive to distribute your ore supply.

burnished 3y ago

Its been a while since I last played but there was very little minecraft style ore searching and that was on a railworld setup, which has fewer but richer ore patches. Part of that may have been the radars I put down whenever I placed defensive turrets, not only do they scan the map for you but they give you mapsight (when you zoom in enough it stops being a symbolic representation and starts being game graphics). Its very helpful for telling if a biter attack is serious or referencing a layout on the other side of your factory that you want to repeat, and I think its nicer that the map scanning occurs almost as a side effect of that immediate tangible benefit. You can also muck with the world generation and make patches much richer and much more frequent. And I don't mean that like 'you can turn the difficulty down', its really more like increasing or decreasing emphasis on an aspect of the game to suit your preferences. I have felt what you express about minecraft so I wanted to chip in my 2c, because it would be a shame if you missed out on factorio due to weird mapgen or the like.

wildrhythms 3y ago

Same, but for a different reason: I tend to get a bit frustrated knowing there is an 'optimal' way to build certain layouts, and the min-max part of my brain takes over and I spend more time looking up those layouts than actually enjoying figuring it out for myself.

Aeolun 3y ago
I made it all myself only to find out that a 64 by 64 layout (exactly 2 chunks) is just barely not possible. Or at least, constant deadlock heaven.

majewsky 3y ago

Consider giving Satisfactory a try, if you have a PC good enough to support its 3D graphics. In Satisfactory, all ore deposits are infinite. It generally has much less survival elements, using mobs only as a way to gate higher-tier ore deposits and rare items from the early game. Once you have built a factory somewhere, you will not get attacked by hostiles there.