Dale

Awesome news! Glad to hear mate.

Anyone else getting a SSL certificate error?

Just a brief update to show the progress. To the left of the iron and copper smelting I built the steel smelting. I had to landfill in a massive chunk of sea. For that I created a specific stone -> landfill outpost. I've also bordered my whole base now with laser turrets, radar and walls with dragon teeth. That'll keep the biters at bay. My pollution cloud is getting a lot bigger and dense. Now it's time for science and rockets!

Here's my current base. I've completed all the research I can up to the space science techs. I haven't launched a rocket yet. I'm currently transitioning my base from the initial base to a mega-base. I've stripped out all the science stuff and went back to just what I needed to run my mall. Then from there I build my mega-factory smelting facilities, circuit making, some refining and modules. All of this is accessible off the main rail line that goes left to right in image 1 the whole way. Image 1: the current map. I only explored out far enough to ensure no biters under the pollution cloud. I've had no issues with attacks, don't even have any defenses out there anywhere (even though I have laser production well under way). Image 2: these are my iron and copper smelting facilities. 8 blue belt lines of electric smelters for iron and 8 for copper. Something like 16000 plates per minute when fully operational. At the moment the draw on these facilities is pretty small. Image 3: circuit and module production. I have my green, red and blue circuit production going. It's got hardly any of its beacons and modules yet so no where near full capacity yet, but this is easy to ramp up (and will automatically as the modules are produced). Image 4: this is what's left of the initial base. From the ores on the right they go through smelting lines (now electric). They are made into base and mid level products which then feeds my mall which is on the left. The train station on the left at the edge of the mall is for my building train. The entire base is robot covered. Robots move stuff from the mall to my building train which I then take out to build whatever it is I'm working on. Junk and scrap I bring back is taken by the robots from the building train over to the recycling facilities which break things back down into their raw products. Yes, I play with a couple "quality of life" mods. As I said above, no science production at the moment as I removed it all, as I'll be building my new mega-factory science facility soon. Image 5: My initial base was running on a 4-reactor nuclear power station. I've got the robots finishing up my shiny new mega-nuclear power station. So my bases electricity production has gone from ~400MW to 3100MW. This will be enough to get the start of the mega-factory going. Will have to start a solar factory soon and start laying out solar fields. But I'll get science going again first. Image 6: one half of the mega-factory iron plate smelting lines. Iron ore is trained in from the left, and iron plates are trained out on the right.

1 science per second is the natural rate of the game (this was confirmed by devs ages ago). That's why I said above, focus on 1 science per second and go from there. That'll get you through the tech tree at a rate that naturally works with your expansion in the game. EG: by the time you need blue science, you're ready to start oil. Not like with 2 science per second where you'll stall for a while as you won't have your refineries up. After you get through the tech tree to the infinite research items, which means after launching a rocket, then you can ramp up to mega-factory and 1000 science per minute.

Yes, I highly recommend figure out your own designs. And keep your designs simple. Straight lines of assemblers. Don't worry about space. Always use LOTS of space! If you work on 1 end product per second it makes it easier to work out ratios. Eg: 1 green science per second = 6 green science assemblers, 1 each of yellow inserters and yellow belt assemblers, and one each of gears, copper wire and green circuit assemblers. Another tip is to line up science so you get 2 colours per belt. Makes it easier to line up for your science labs.

@Skírnir Factorio thread I mentioned. I play a bit differently now but this should be a great help.

I had a Factorio thread going in Other Games I think. I'll see if I can find it. Might help you with the steep learning curve.

A bit obvious eh? Got over 1050 hours now.

My current build order is pick, burners and miner drills till I have 10 burner/miner combos on iron, 2 combos on copper and 8 miner drills on coal. Then pump, 2 boilers, 4 steam engines, some pipes and power poles. Then onto a lab. At that point you have to build 30 red science to get automation and logistics 1. From there doesn't matter the order of stuff, just automate, expand, research and shoot biters.

True.

Good news all round. That's awesome!

Damn....

Glad to hear progress mate. Even a little is great news.

Kim Jong Un considers himself to be a God and King to his people....... Hmmm........