Overview: A factory simulation game. More specifically, the player will build and place machines that in turn will convert raw resources into other resources (via a crafting recipe system).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorio
20211119:
Played the first three tutorials (third tutorial: "Power plant").
Steam Game Time: 87 minutes
20211121 AM Hours:
Played the fourth tutorial ("Science and automation")
Steam game Time: 4.4 hours (total game time)
20211122 AM Hours:
I played the next and last tutorial. Automating the train took a while for me to understand. I thought the train could go backwards. Unintuitively, it can go backwards when driven manually, but when automated will only pull. Thus having it go back and forth between two stations requires either a loop or two locomotives facing opposite directions.*
I spent some time trying to figure out a setup to build red and green potions. I learned some things while iterating, but I felt my final setup was still bugged.
Steam Game Time: 12.9 hours (total game time) / 8.5 hours (day game time)
*[20211208] Apparently the Factorio wiki makes this clarification:
20211122 Comment:
I was watching some videos about a concept called a main bus (becaues I somehow learned about them and I like being informed).
One cool thing I learned about is that splitters can be used to rebalance a bus after diverting a lane. Mathematically, with four lanes, the quantities can be completely different, for example, A, B, C, and D. Splitters can be placed on adjacent lanes to result in the averages, two lanes with (A+B)/2 and two lanes with (C+D)/2. Then pair up the lanes with splitters to further take the average resulting in (A+B+C+D)/4 in each lane!
20211123:
Today I watched a tutorial video on YouTube. Then I started playing the main campaign. I had trouble deciding how to position my belts and what to build to be efficient.
Setup: Rich resources, enemy bases off, pollution off
20211124 Comment:
I watched a tutorial where I learned that one can theory craft efficiency by determining the number of resources needed, how many resources fit on a belt, the speed of the belt, the speed of crafting, etc. As an example, copper wire requires 2 iron plates and 1 copper plate. So in the early game one can place resources into a container at that 2-to-1 ratio. As another example, a transport belt can handle a maximum throughput of 15 items/second (7.5 per side) while a stone furnace makes 0.3125 iron plates per second. Thus to saturate the belt, one should have 15/0.3125 = 48 stone furnaces (24 per side).
20211124:
By the end of today, I was mostly producing just red and green science and doing research. I suppose turning off the biters makes it worry-free but the downside is a lack of urgency. Also, many of the upgrades are related to weaponry, and without biters, there's less priority to research those upgrades.
Steam Game Time: 21.3 hours (total game time) / 5.0 hours (day game time)
20211125:
Steam Game Time: 21.6 hours (total game time) / 0.3 hours (day game time)
20211126:
I played some during the day. However, I really got progress and managed to get some time into the game during the night. I played during the evening into the morning (of 20211127).
Gameplay Log:
At the start of the day I had red science, green science, and engines.
I fixed my smelting setup.
I established military science.
Explored the map in search of oil
Started harvesting oil.
Created sulfur and plastic bars and sulfuric acid.
Created chemical science pack
Steam Game Time: 35.1 hours (total game time) / 14.5 hours (day game time)
20211127:
Gameplay Log:
Felt like I should get a train setup because oil is so far away from base.
Transferring over plastic and sulfur from oil area to base. (to do: transfer materials in from elsewhere to oil area)
Messing around with the smelting setup again.
I realized that the lanes weren't balanced. At first I tried a fix and it was kind of good. But then I tried again and it was better.
Looked up a balancing setup that balances both input and output for a lane. Super cool.
I figured I could try and use robots, but I thought the armour mechanics seemed more interesting and decided to focus on crafting the parts necessary to take advantage of it (the crafting recipe for power armor consists of processing units and electric engine units; that of an electric engine unit consists of lubricant; an example of an accessory: personal battery MK2)
Ended the day familiarizing self with the robots ("logistic network")
I am sleepy, otherwise I would play more
Steam Game Time: 44.3 hours (total game time) / 9.2 hours (day game time)
20211128:
Gameplay Log:
Started fixing my oil setup: I was using my oil to make products remotely, but that required shipping materials to the area, and bringing materials back. Instead, I'll be transitioning to moving the crude oil to the base via fluid wagons.
Started using the logistic network. Wow. This is amazing!
Steam Game Time: 50.4 hours (total game time) / 6.1 hours (day game time)
20211129:
Steam Game Time: 57.3 hours (total game time) / 6.9 hours (day game time)
20211201:
Today I started making much more use of the logistics network, including heavy use of the request container which I unlocked after crafting the science for it. It's such a quality of life improvement to have bots shifting around the materials instead of having to use transports.
I was so hooked onto the idea of using logistic bots for everything that I had to branch out to mine stone, and instead of simply taking the time to run an electric line up to feed the electric wires, I first decided to make a local water-coal-steam energy source but that required coal. And so I thought I would use the bots to deliver the coal. But that required running the logistic network up, which happens to need power lines anyways. So while extending the logistic network, I had a power line running up which as I mentioned would have supplied the electric miners without the need of the water-coal-steam or bots.
On that note, I know it's probably more efficient to use a train, but I have mental barrier in developing a train system. What I might do is use an online blueprint maker to help facilitate. Right now, I have my base, I have a train that runs from the base to the north east to get oil. Then I'm running out of ores near the base, so I've run to the west and just have a long transport line bringing in goods. Thinking about the fact that I've now made about two-three lanes each of coal, copper, and iron (I process the copper and iron locally into plates), I probably should use trains. However, I probably should rethink my smelting setup. I think my smelting near base is just producing somewhere between one and two lanes of copper and iron. The off-base smelting does produce about two lanes each.
Gameplay Log:
Built yellow science.
Then built purple science. So that's six of the seven sciences.
Steam Game Time: 64.8 hours (total game time) / 7.5 hours (day game time)
20211202:
Steam Game Time: 66.8 hours (total game time) / 2.0 hours (day game time)
20211203:
I'm just about bored of playing Factorio now. I have too many dependencies that I just don't want to bother sorting out. I suppose one action is to turn everything off and activate it based on counts. That way the resources aren't used up everywhere. I'm so close to finishing the main goal of the primary campaign: build a rocket. Well close in the sense that I built the recipe for the silo. And yet... I think I will just take a break from the game.
Gameplay Log: Rocket silo recipe unlocked
Steam Game Time: 72.8 hours (total game time) / 6.0 hours (day game time)
20211208 Comment:
Today I read about the concept of a mall. A mall is a place specifically for the player to get items. I like this idea because I was recently thinking about how I would run around the bus stealing items from the lines. Which is inefficient.
On a related note, I also read about smaller logistic networks. I supposed it makes sense. I probably got carried away with adding bots to my base...
In any case, I haven't launched the game in a few days and probably won't return anytime soon. It's overwhelming.
 |
| Early Game - Red and Green Science |
20211119:
Played the first three tutorials (third tutorial: "Power plant").
Steam Game Time: 87 minutes
20211121 AM Hours:
Played the fourth tutorial ("Science and automation")
 |
| Cyan science |
Steam game Time: 4.4 hours (total game time)
20211122 AM Hours:
I played the next and last tutorial. Automating the train took a while for me to understand. I thought the train could go backwards. Unintuitively, it can go backwards when driven manually, but when automated will only pull. Thus having it go back and forth between two stations requires either a loop or two locomotives facing opposite directions.*
I spent some time trying to figure out a setup to build red and green potions. I learned some things while iterating, but I felt my final setup was still bugged.
Steam Game Time: 12.9 hours (total game time) / 8.5 hours (day game time)
 |
| Remote oil processing |
*[20211208] Apparently the Factorio wiki makes this clarification:
- Locomotives can be manually driven forwards or backwards, however, they are generally slower going backwards. The left and right movement keys are used to change direction at switches.
- Trains can only drive forwards automatically. An automatic train can drive forwards and backwards when two locomotives facing different directions are connected to the train.
20211122 Comment:
I was watching some videos about a concept called a main bus (becaues I somehow learned about them and I like being informed).
One cool thing I learned about is that splitters can be used to rebalance a bus after diverting a lane. Mathematically, with four lanes, the quantities can be completely different, for example, A, B, C, and D. Splitters can be placed on adjacent lanes to result in the averages, two lanes with (A+B)/2 and two lanes with (C+D)/2. Then pair up the lanes with splitters to further take the average resulting in (A+B+C+D)/4 in each lane!
20211123:
Today I watched a tutorial video on YouTube. Then I started playing the main campaign. I had trouble deciding how to position my belts and what to build to be efficient.
Setup: Rich resources, enemy bases off, pollution off
>>>eNpjZGBk0GMAgwZ7EOZgSc5PzIHxgMIOXMn5BQWpRbr5RanIw pzJRaUpqbr5maiKU/NScyt1kxKLoYohJnNkFuXnoZvAWlySn4cqU lKUmlqMEGmw5y4tSszLLM1F18vAeDXLaUlDixwDCP+vZ1D4/x+Eg awHQHkQZmBsAKtmBIrBAGtyTmZaGgODgiMQO4GkGRkYq0XWuT+sm gJkgoGeA5TxASpyIAkm4glj+DnglFKBMUyQzDEGg89IDIilJSD7I ao4HBAMiGQLSJKRsfft1gXfj12wY/yz8uMl36QEe0ZDV5F3H4zW2 QEl2UH+ZIITs2aCwE6YVxhgZj6wh0rdtGc8ewYE3tgzsoJ0iIAIB wsgccCbmYFRgA/IWtADJBRkGGBOs4MZI+LAmAYG32A+eQxjXLZH9 wcwIGxAhsuBiBMgAmwh3GWMEKZDvwOjgzxMVhKhBKjfiAHZDSkIH 56EWXsYyX40h2BGBLI/0ERUHLBEAxfIwhQ48YIZ7hpgeF5gh/Ec5 jswMoMYIFVfgGIQHjiZQo2C0AIO4OBmZkAAYNrYpJB+DACvQp3T< <<Steam Game Time: 16.3 hours (total game time) / 3.4 hours (day game time)
 |
| Comparing belt/splitter layouts (to feed into smelting) |
20211124 Comment:
I watched a tutorial where I learned that one can theory craft efficiency by determining the number of resources needed, how many resources fit on a belt, the speed of the belt, the speed of crafting, etc. As an example, copper wire requires 2 iron plates and 1 copper plate. So in the early game one can place resources into a container at that 2-to-1 ratio. As another example, a transport belt can handle a maximum throughput of 15 items/second (7.5 per side) while a stone furnace makes 0.3125 iron plates per second. Thus to saturate the belt, one should have 15/0.3125 = 48 stone furnaces (24 per side).
20211124:
By the end of today, I was mostly producing just red and green science and doing research. I suppose turning off the biters makes it worry-free but the downside is a lack of urgency. Also, many of the upgrades are related to weaponry, and without biters, there's less priority to research those upgrades.
Steam Game Time: 21.3 hours (total game time) / 5.0 hours (day game time)
20211125:
Steam Game Time: 21.6 hours (total game time) / 0.3 hours (day game time)
 |
| Using Autotorio to generate a blueprint to be layed down at a resource |
20211126:
I played some during the day. However, I really got progress and managed to get some time into the game during the night. I played during the evening into the morning (of 20211127).
Gameplay Log:
At the start of the day I had red science, green science, and engines.
I fixed my smelting setup.
I established military science.
Explored the map in search of oil
Started harvesting oil.
Created sulfur and plastic bars and sulfuric acid.
Created chemical science pack
Steam Game Time: 35.1 hours (total game time) / 14.5 hours (day game time)
20211127:
Gameplay Log:
Felt like I should get a train setup because oil is so far away from base.
Transferring over plastic and sulfur from oil area to base. (to do: transfer materials in from elsewhere to oil area)
Messing around with the smelting setup again.
I realized that the lanes weren't balanced. At first I tried a fix and it was kind of good. But then I tried again and it was better.
Looked up a balancing setup that balances both input and output for a lane. Super cool.
I figured I could try and use robots, but I thought the armour mechanics seemed more interesting and decided to focus on crafting the parts necessary to take advantage of it (the crafting recipe for power armor consists of processing units and electric engine units; that of an electric engine unit consists of lubricant; an example of an accessory: personal battery MK2)
Ended the day familiarizing self with the robots ("logistic network")
I am sleepy, otherwise I would play more
Steam Game Time: 44.3 hours (total game time) / 9.2 hours (day game time)
20211128:
Gameplay Log:
Started fixing my oil setup: I was using my oil to make products remotely, but that required shipping materials to the area, and bringing materials back. Instead, I'll be transitioning to moving the crude oil to the base via fluid wagons.
Started using the logistic network. Wow. This is amazing!
Steam Game Time: 50.4 hours (total game time) / 6.1 hours (day game time)
20211129:
Steam Game Time: 57.3 hours (total game time) / 6.9 hours (day game time)
20211201:
Today I started making much more use of the logistics network, including heavy use of the request container which I unlocked after crafting the science for it. It's such a quality of life improvement to have bots shifting around the materials instead of having to use transports.
I was so hooked onto the idea of using logistic bots for everything that I had to branch out to mine stone, and instead of simply taking the time to run an electric line up to feed the electric wires, I first decided to make a local water-coal-steam energy source but that required coal. And so I thought I would use the bots to deliver the coal. But that required running the logistic network up, which happens to need power lines anyways. So while extending the logistic network, I had a power line running up which as I mentioned would have supplied the electric miners without the need of the water-coal-steam or bots.
On that note, I know it's probably more efficient to use a train, but I have mental barrier in developing a train system. What I might do is use an online blueprint maker to help facilitate. Right now, I have my base, I have a train that runs from the base to the north east to get oil. Then I'm running out of ores near the base, so I've run to the west and just have a long transport line bringing in goods. Thinking about the fact that I've now made about two-three lanes each of coal, copper, and iron (I process the copper and iron locally into plates), I probably should use trains. However, I probably should rethink my smelting setup. I think my smelting near base is just producing somewhere between one and two lanes of copper and iron. The off-base smelting does produce about two lanes each.
Gameplay Log:
Built yellow science.
Then built purple science. So that's six of the seven sciences.
Steam Game Time: 64.8 hours (total game time) / 7.5 hours (day game time)
20211202:
Steam Game Time: 66.8 hours (total game time) / 2.0 hours (day game time)
20211203:
I'm just about bored of playing Factorio now. I have too many dependencies that I just don't want to bother sorting out. I suppose one action is to turn everything off and activate it based on counts. That way the resources aren't used up everywhere. I'm so close to finishing the main goal of the primary campaign: build a rocket. Well close in the sense that I built the recipe for the silo. And yet... I think I will just take a break from the game.
Gameplay Log: Rocket silo recipe unlocked
Steam Game Time: 72.8 hours (total game time) / 6.0 hours (day game time)
20211208 Comment:
Today I read about the concept of a mall. A mall is a place specifically for the player to get items. I like this idea because I was recently thinking about how I would run around the bus stealing items from the lines. Which is inefficient.
On a related note, I also read about smaller logistic networks. I supposed it makes sense. I probably got carried away with adding bots to my base...
In any case, I haven't launched the game in a few days and probably won't return anytime soon. It's overwhelming.
Date/Time
Friday, November 19, 2021
@
20:00
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