Octopus Overlords

Five hours until the weekend and I can start playing again!! It's Father's Day - that means I can hide in a room by myself for 40 of the next 48 hours, right?!

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Jun 15, 2018 11:23 am Five hours until the weekend and I can start playing again!! It's Father's Day - that means I can hide in a room by myself for 40 of the next 48 hours, right?!

I hear it's what all the best fathers do!

stessier wrote: ↑Sun Jun 03, 2018 12:02 am And I finished the game! It took a mere 84:12:11. That is all playtime - no letting it run while I did other things. I think there might be room for me to improve. Just knowing what builds what will almost certainly make me faster in the next game.

Overall, I have 104 hours in the game so even if I never touch it again, I've certainly gotten my money's worth.

Second game complete - 43:29:53.

I took too long to realize I needed to bootstrap my way to Yellow science to get Logistics. Once I got that, things went quickly. Probably wasted about 10 hours.

Total time played - 157 hours. Not bad for $20.

I've been trying to play a game where I only hand craft the minimum number of items required. I think it's like 144 or something like that. I think I messed up early on and crafted 2 or 3 of something instead of just 1. I've soldiered on, though, as it's kind of a fun thing to do. I've got 4 science, although it is very, very manual. I'm trying to redesign things so it all flows, rather than relying on me running around doing things. I'm making progress. It's still quite fun and addicting. 5 hours goes by in the blink of an eye...

stessier wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 1:08 pm I've been trying to play a game where I only hand craft the minimum number of items required. I think it's like 144 or something like that. I think I messed up early on and crafted 2 or 3 of something instead of just 1. I've soldiered on, though, as it's kind of a fun thing to do. I've got 4 science, although it is very, very manual. I'm trying to redesign things so it all flows, rather than relying on me running around doing things. I'm making progress. It's still quite fun and addicting. 5 hours goes by in the blink of an eye...

I'm doing this achievement right now as well. 104 is the minimum number of hand-crafted items, and the achievement is fewer than 111. The achievement is named ironically: Lazy Bastard. It's anything but.

It's also a pretty fun way to play.

I'm trying to do it without using trains. It's making for some really, really long pipelines and conveyor belts, but it's kind of interesting. I'm also making blue belts for the first time (well, the first time in any numbers - more than 10).

My current bottleneck/pressing issue is how few blue circuits I'm making. I thought I had expanded my refining correctly, but it turned out I had forgotten to put in a last piece of piping that connected all the new units to the main pipeline. Oops. Now I realize I'm going to need more oil to be pumped. I have a 1300% site located and subdued, but it's the last one in my visible area, which means I need to do some more exploring. I seem to use up those resources surprisingly quick.

The Meal wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 5:41 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 1:08 pm I've been trying to play a game where I only hand craft the minimum number of items required. I think it's like 144 or something like that. I think I messed up early on and crafted 2 or 3 of something instead of just 1. I've soldiered on, though, as it's kind of a fun thing to do. I've got 4 science, although it is very, very manual. I'm trying to redesign things so it all flows, rather than relying on me running around doing things. I'm making progress. It's still quite fun and addicting. 5 hours goes by in the blink of an eye...

I'm doing this achievement right now as well. 104 is the minimum number of hand-crafted items, and the achievement is fewer than 111. The achievement is named ironically: Lazy Bastard. It's anything but.

It's also a pretty fun way to play.

I enjoyed my Lazy Bastard run, but it's not one I'd repeat.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 11:56 amI'm trying to do it without using trains. It's making for some really, really long pipelines and conveyor belts, but it's kind of interesting. I'm also making blue belts for the first time (well, the first time in any numbers - more than 10).

Trains are something I never quite got into. I actually forced myself to use a "Train" style map just to break the barrier. Until then, I'd barrel all my liquids and ship them via conveyor, and then send back the empty barrels on a return belt. Never bothered me to use conveyors over trains, but it felt a touch like I was using a crutch.

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:04 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 11:56 amI'm trying to do it without using trains. It's making for some really, really long pipelines and conveyor belts, but it's kind of interesting. I'm also making blue belts for the first time (well, the first time in any numbers - more than 10).

Trains are something I never quite got into. I actually forced myself to use a "Train" style map just to break the barrier. Until then, I'd barrel all my liquids and ship them via conveyor, and then send back the empty barrels on a return belt. Never bothered me to use conveyors over trains, but it felt a touch like I was using a crutch.

Why did you bother to put the liquids in barrels? Seems way easier just to pipe it everywhere - less resources compared to building conveyors, barrels, and/or trains.

I feel just putting conveyors everywhere is like cheating. Planning an efficient train layout is a challenge.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:12 pm

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:04 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 11:56 amI'm trying to do it without using trains. It's making for some really, really long pipelines and conveyor belts, but it's kind of interesting. I'm also making blue belts for the first time (well, the first time in any numbers - more than 10).

Trains are something I never quite got into. I actually forced myself to use a "Train" style map just to break the barrier. Until then, I'd barrel all my liquids and ship them via conveyor, and then send back the empty barrels on a return belt. Never bothered me to use conveyors over trains, but it felt a touch like I was using a crutch.

Why did you bother to put the liquids in barrels? Seems way easier just to pipe it everywhere - less resources compared to building conveyors, barrels, and/or trains?

I thought I had read something about pump power dropping off at some point, with liquids only going so far without a pump to push them along. Simply using barrels at each end felt like a fair solution. I never had a clog in production because of it. I just had a lot of barrels moving around.

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:34 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:12 pm

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:04 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 11:56 amI'm trying to do it without using trains. It's making for some really, really long pipelines and conveyor belts, but it's kind of interesting. I'm also making blue belts for the first time (well, the first time in any numbers - more than 10).

Trains are something I never quite got into. I actually forced myself to use a "Train" style map just to break the barrier. Until then, I'd barrel all my liquids and ship them via conveyor, and then send back the empty barrels on a return belt. Never bothered me to use conveyors over trains, but it felt a touch like I was using a crutch.

Why did you bother to put the liquids in barrels? Seems way easier just to pipe it everywhere - less resources compared to building conveyors, barrels, and/or trains?

I thought I had read something about pump power dropping off at some point, with liquids only going so far without a pump to push them along. Simply using barrels at each end felt like a fair solution. I never had a clog in production because of it. I just had a lot of barrels moving around.

I'll have to look into that. I have pipes a couple hundred units long and haven't seen any issues, but maybe it could be flowing faster/more efficiently and I don't realize it.

Research shows why we are both right!

My pumping is done using underground pipes. Underground pipes are counted as 2 (one at each end). Significant degradation in fluid flow is noticed after about 150 segments. That would be something like 1500 considering underground pipes cover 10 squares. So that's why I haven't noticed anything significant yet. If it goes long enough, though, I definitely will (and can be easily remedied with a few small pumps).

My antiquated Factorio knowledge feels vindicated!

I'm not yet at the train stage of my Lazy Bastard run (I amplified the resources but not their frequency for my starting map conditions). I am going nuts with use of logistics bots, however.

Trains are a fun thing that the game does right. If you enjoy Factorio but haven't dabbled with them yet, this is something fun that the game holds for your future.

I just got Logistics Bots (have had construction bots for quite a while). I only have 65 flying around right now and it's already made a world of difference. Get a few hundred more up and running and I'll really be able to start cranking out some science.

I'm up to 80+ hours in the current game. I made the mistake of watching some youtube vids on base building. They did things using a main bus for raw materials, so I scrapped my logistics heavy plan and decided to build a bus instead. It's going ok. This weekend I got Yellow science up and automated and finished researching for my rocket. I then spent the rest of the time acquiring new mineral deposits. My Evolution factor is up around 0.85, so it is taking a LOT to secure new deposits. Also, they are really spread out, so I'm having to range quite a ways from my starting location to find anything.

Most concerning is I haven't found any new oil sources in about 40 hours. I have one that is still at 2000% production, but when that runs out, I'm going to be stuck. So before working on Rocket components, I'm going to do some more exploring to locate and secure another site. I also need to upgrade my Green Circuit production. I have two cells running, but I frequently is unable to keep up with my demand...and frequently it's because I can't keep enough copper wire flowing. At least I'm no longer having blackouts - 2000 solar panels and 2700 accumulators seem to have fixed that for the moment.

It's always something in this game...

I launched at 40 hours, but have kept playing. I'm up to 7700 logistics bots and about 1000 construction bots. I am circling back to some of my bot-only outposts and actually belting that product into my base. Still having a great time.

The Meal wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 7:18 pm I launched at 40 hours, but have kept playing. I'm up to 7700 logistics bots and about 1000 construction bots. I am circling back to some of my bot-only outposts and actually belting that product into my base. Still having a great time.

Wow, impressive. How many of those are busy at any one time? In a previous game, I had around 2,000 logistics bots, but only 400 or so were busy at any one time. It seemed like there was more they could be doing, but I never looked into it that much. I also almost never use construction bots for anything other than repairs. I'm not very efficient.

I've got a logistics wire that only puts new bots into the system when the available number drops below 25. So rougly 7375 active logistics bots at one point. Generally I run with about 1500 free unless I've just kickstarted some newfangled initiative (and then the number collapses back towards zero).

This weekend I only got to play for about 6 hours, but I made a few improvements:

• Secured two new sites of copper ore - one is 10m and one is 2m. That should safeguard my future for quite a while.
• Relocated my copper smelting operation. It was on the opposite side of the base from...well, everything, as that was where all the copper ore was once upon a time. Now, though, it's all on the other side and it was separated from everything by my solar array. With the new smelting, there will be fewer conveyors and the plates are being generated much closer to their point of use.
• Finished a number of new techs including the personal roboport MK2. I've never used the personal roboports before, so I made myself some MK2 armor and then added 3 fusion reactors, 2 MK2 roboports, 5 lasers, and night vision goggles. I jumped in my tank to go fix a conveyor the biters were gnawing on and as I passed a biter nest, all these lasers started going off and my construction bots started fixing the conveyor and my tank all at the same time. My introduction to personal bots was a revelation!
• With my new bot allies, I did a big sweeping exploration around my known space and found three new oil sites for a total of 10,500%. That was very good as my current supply was down to 1500% and I haven't started making rocket components yet. Now I can really ramp that up.

It fills me with joy hearing about your newfound discovery of the game. So awesome!

So I finally launched my rocket, but it doesn't look like I got the achievement. Is there a way to see how many things I handcrafted?

P key, then set your timescale.

The Meal wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 1:10 pm P key, then set your timescale.

I'm on version 0.16 and that seems to only show everything I've built, not what I've handcrafted. Am I missing something?

Nope, I misread what you were after.

I'm not sure how you see it after the fact. You can enable/disable achievement tracking (I don't remember the details as of how at the moment), and if you do so for Lazy Bastard it'll tell you how many handcrafts you have left. Not sure if/how it works after the fact.

Ah well. I launched the spaceship and didn't get the award, so I guess it can't hurt to try what you suggest.

I've never really played past launch before. My plan was to go without nuclear power or trains. I've done that through three launches but really can't see the challenge anymore. So I think I'll be adding trains and see just how much land I can take from the biters. My map has a bunch of iron and copper deposits, but they are all relatively small (<= 2M) and I burn through them pretty quickly. Also I think I'm at about 20 minutes between launches at this point - I think I want to get it under 5 minutes before moving on to the next game.

I'm up to 26k logi bots and 181 launches (two rocket silos) in my game. I'm holding on to make the 20M green circuits achievement (I'm at 18M at the moment) before setting this game aside. This one is still my Lazy Bastard starting game and I still have hand crafts turned off. I haven't done any trains this game (hence the logi-bot-mageddon).

It's possible that you can see the number of hand crafts in the Lazy Bastard achievement (one of the upper-row buttons — the right-most one? then scroll down about 2/3rds the way), but I'm not 100%.

It looks like 0.17 might be declared stable next week (if no major bugs crop up over the weekend). Really looking forward to some of the changes I've seen in youtube videos. (I know I could switch at any time, but the changes were coming so fast that I decided to wait until they settled on a final build.)

Did you put a satellite in the rocket?

Okay, so maybe a bit more than a week. 0.17 was declared stable on 9/24. It has some really cool stuff.

Most of the 0.17 changes are great (not enamored with the unable-to-mix fluid system, however).

I've been playing the Dytech mod lately and it's way beyond even Bob's for adding content.

Dytech will be my next run, loosely following KatherineOfSky on Youtube. Does it feel like the amount of recipes make sense, or is it just to have lots of them?

Zitterbacke wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:19 pm Dytech will be my next run, loosely following KatherineOfSky on Youtube. Does it feel like the amount of recipes make sense, or is it just to have lots of them?

I started to watch her first episode with the mod and then decided to hold off and just play myself. It certainly looks interesting.

I’m a bit ahead of where KoS is in her let’s play, and the levels of additional recipes is... gratuitous. The firs upgrade to the forestry domes requires bronze planks which are forged from tin and copper which require three types of production machines (and some stone for good measure). Everything you know about making a bus is turned on Its head. Recall KoS’s process of getting green science going and how much more there was to every step (and now I have to upgrade labs and those require this new ore—ugh!). Everything feels like that. If you’ve played lots of Factorio, it’s a pretty amazing feeling. DEFINITELY not a mod for newbies.

But is it fun?

I remember our first B&A + even more tech (for additional pain) and the resulting Fluids-Spaghetti. One thing you don't want is Fluids-Spaghetti. We build much more spacious ever since. So DyTech it'll be for the dark month to come.

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:20 pm But is it fun?

Honestly, I'm still deciding. It's fun to re-figure stuff out again, but is there more going on in the mod that is inherently fun? TBD.

Wow, I just got Red Science. That is quite a slog. This will be interesting.

For anyone starting a new game, when you start you have 10 minutes before the dead crew bodies disappear. Farm as many as possible in that time.

The tech tree is really convoluted, isn't it. I'm almost at green science.

I searched for the DyTech mod but the only version I found was deprecated and it appears that the creator stopped updating last year some time. For those using it, did you mod outside of the Factorio built-in mod menu?

I'm using DyWorld. It's the successor to Dytech.