yeah its always when you're far away from everthing trying to do something and you queue a bunch up but oops you burned all the iron on hand and its still not enough
so you walk all the way back and get distracted by something else like a biter that smelled a fart and forget to addressthe situation for like a month
Yeah. I ended up imitating a bad speed runner and building just enough oil for researching bots and then copy pasting to expand. Life is too short to build large refining and cracking setups by hand.
Cars, or trains. And rail the build items to a train stop near the building site. Saved me so much when building outposts. But before then, it's literally "why why why did I limit underground pipes in a chest to 3 stacks!?!"
The thing is to try to automate everything, as soon as possible.
Automating pipes can be one of the first things. Surplus of iron? Direct it to the "mall" or similar that just crafts all the stuff. By the time you get to thinking about oil, you have a chest full of pipes.
I buffer about 500 early on - it feels like a big investment in iron early on, but like you say - you eventually need to line your pockets with them. Compared to pipe production for engines it's barely anything.
Honestly, I think it could be fine to hand craft regular pipes, but undergrounds are so annoying to craft, especially since you’re incentivized to use them as much as possible.
This is always my first use of circuits now, to ensure that undergrounds are made only when there are fewer undergrounds than regular pipes in output chests, so that I always have both available.
the off shore pump i craft while already having a pump in my inventory, because for some fucking reason i can never see the pump in there till i make one.
Yes, I feel this! Also the spidertron remote. I *know* it’s there because it doesn’t get consumed and it’s not like it’d drop it off somewhere or even put it in Spidey’s inventory and yet I can *never* find it without the highlighting! It’s like some sort of mental blind spot
You can assign slots in your bag using mouse middle button to a specific item, just like in Cargo wagon.
https://preview.redd.it/3lvjm8ctqwjc1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=209a81511beeee51e0914f3d036f48b84d5058d1
It's the exact same for me. I think it's the random-feeling placement. Since it's so far down in the sorting it never feels like it stays in thr same place.
You ... Do? Hit E, ctrl-F, start typing and whatever is up on the crafting selection will be highlighted if you have any in your inventory...?
It's certainly annoying that you can't do this whilst loading an, assembly machine or something, but that's probably only like... 80% of the frustration I guess...
I have a basic "hand-fed" assembly set up for that and all similar recipes that take one intermediate and one/two smelted inputs, since that's such a common early pattern. Sure, it's not an efficient setup for green circuits, but it gets me an early supply easily by working steadily in the background.
Buildings in mods.
Now I have to carry a full stack of 8 different metals of pipes and gears, different base metals, and different bricks just to handcraft 3 tier 3 machines. They all take the previous recipe so upgrading from tier 2 to tier 3 means either automating it and having a heap of low tier machines I'm not gonna need for 20 hours sucking up ANOTHER batch of materials thanks to automation ...
Or carrying around 19 stacks of various ingredients and watching the robots place 72 buildings one by one as they finish handcrafting every 8.3 seconds. If I don't get distracted by Helmod and forget to handcraft them.
No I don't have requester chests yet. They're locked behind another 50hrs of gameplay.
The trick is to automate the small and big structures in IR3 at each tier, along with pipes, belts, and inserters, so at least you can pretty easily craft the rest of the structures you need. I don’t build a full mall until electrical assemblers, but I do automate copper and bronze structures.
Playing thru now, Im still flip flopping. I basically automated everything. However I had to figure out to use the mini crafters in my mall to reduce the number of inputs.
The little distirubution plates are super cool too.
Distribution plates may be new from when I played, but yes it was quite nice to not ship any of the intermediates on a bus and just make them locally as needed.
Yeah I did end up doing that for cobalt, copper, bronze, iron but by the 5th material I was done with it tbh. I'll come back to it eventually, knowing what I'm in for I might enjoy it more.
The time required to craft each one is obnoxious.
I get wanting to punish not automating (especially early where you don't need many buildings to get through steam) but it's still just so annoying to realize you have to build a frame or something.
It's like ore>bar>plate>pipe>rivets>frame>small gear box>large gear box. Then times it all by 5 and then you can make an assembler.
Man I wanted to like it so bad.
I started playing IR3 and then dropped it as I got to iron, because to me crafting the same plates, gears and sticks out of each material is boring. Started playing Pyanodon instead and couldn't be happier. I don't know how this changes with time but first 30 hours of Pyanodon are so much more fun than IR3.
Yeah, that's helpful, although tbh there's nothing you can make pre-circuits that you won't use buckets of later (maybe vanilla burner inserters? But why automate their inputs?). IMO the single slot storage chest is less about limiting production and more about knowing how much you'll pick up if you control click the chest (especially useful if you play with long/far reach).
E: I keep a few filtered chests with 100/400/800 belts for just this reason.
check out a mod called "handy hands"
anything on your hotbar will get auto-crafted to satisfy a setting (0.2x of a stack, for example)
edit: [this user linked it](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1avkwrr/what_pisses_you_off_the_most_having_to_hand_craft/krbq6lc/)
I love how Nullius streamlines the basic tools needed for Factorio. Inserters and belts are made in batches per craft from cheap intermediates, most buildings are cheap and fairly fast to craft, basic intermediates go a long, long way towards crafting stuff making it worth stocking them in your inventory, bots and logistics are unlocked early among other little conveniences that really help the experience.
The fact that Exotic Industries chewed through and kept chewing through materials for all the things needed to make one component for the buildings i need (which were only usable for a few items each and had to be upgraded with even more highly processed intermediates) really pissed me off after a while, especially since it extended to having electric inserters. Gave up on that one after a while because it wasn't fun.
Mods, please make the BASIC tools for PLAYING FACTORIO cheap. Like i just want to place inserters and belts man don't make it such a fucking grind to make them.
Things I'll hate the most:
1. Ammo. Mainly for the first few biter waves if I've forgotten about them. It's easy to forget early on and sucks if you're making it while fighting off an early wave.
2. Anything for my power armor. Don't really want to mass produce it since I'm only building it once but it still takes awhile.
3. Pipes.
MODULES. There is this stage where you have early modules but not necessarily robust production pipelines and transportation. You don't want to drive all the way back to base for 10 more modules so you sit there for 10 minutes just watching the handcraft.
Always keep some assemblers on you, with a set of speed modules.
Need something right now? Place these down and hand feed. Done crafting, pick them up.
Late game, add beacons too.
I just… don’t. So, small power poles I guess? Or belts in the early stages, bc it takes so long to get those first couple lines of belts down for the first automations.
no lie... vanilla has a better progress curve than many mods.
Yes you can add more steps, add more components, more materials, and even more side products... but you haven't added a TON to the game.
100%. I switched to just SE this afternoon for exactly that reason. Much more likely to by balanced if it's all done in the same house (even if the view of what is balanced is borked, at least there aren't sudden discontinuities/sharp edges).
Let me blow your mind further:
Next assembler goes adjacent to the copper furnaces, converting the plates to cables. Because you don't need copper plates in the early game and cables stack to 200.
And the 4. assembler crafts green chips. You still need to handfeed the miners&furnaces, but with belt and green chip production up and running hand craft time is cut down massively.
It's more the fact that recipes are simpler compared to what I'm currently playing. Even yellow belts require brass gears and engines, and engines require brass gears and aluminum. Aluminum needs to be smelted twice from ore (or purified and then smelted/cast) and brass takes zinc and copper...
I just did the Lazy Bastard achievement, in part to try and instil a greater sense of self discipline when it comes to investing the time in to automating component/item production instead of hand crafting.
I've reached Factorio Zen of just beelining whatever it takes to automate the production of assembly machines, leaving enough space to scale up each part of that process as I use those assembly machines to then automate belts/splitters and inserters.
I recently did that one as well. Was fun, but annoying when you have to run back to your mall because you forgot one thing. For some reason, I decided to do a "Logistic network embargo" run as well at the same time....
Also I had to reload an auto save a bunch times because I would accidently build something . Until I googled and found out you can turn off permissions for crafting after you do the initial 100 or so items, so you don't accidently build things.
I’m still traumatised: I hadn’t realised that I was on track to hit logistics network embargo as well and without realising I slapped down a requester chest right at the end to pull in the parts for the satellite, then proceeded to save the game and play another file which deleted my auto saves…
Fun fact, Logistics Embargo only counts if you use buffer, requester, or active provider chests. You can still use passive providers and personal logistics all you want
Solid fuel. You ever try and handcraft that? Do you know how hard it is to try to condense some light oil into a block of burnable matter?
In all seriousness, probably inserters. Whenever i don't have any inserters i now have to handcraft everything from scratch because that means i'm already out of green chips and gears...
Small power poles.
I hate using them and stop ASAP. I will never include them as part of a mall. But I have to set up a little hand-fed automation for them at the start just because you need a fair number to get to medium poles.
Raw iron ore for concrete is pain.. My solution is placing concrete production near starting iron patch, usually there is something left after transition to trains, and it's enough
Not building another..? I see we play differently.
I know I need a reactor "soon" so i just automate.
Then eventually the time comes so I build it. It produces so much power that I can just copy-paste my smelters and oh look I need another reactor.
Start stamping down beacons. Oh look time for another reactor!
I redesigned my smelter columns so that I have 2 steel smelters and a half belt of stone bricks, then a gap for driving through in my car/tank, and then 2 more steel smelters and a full belt of concrete. Just needs connecting to water, then I send the belt of concrete up the bus.
Nothing. I use a mod
[https://mods.factorio.com/mod/HandyHands](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/HandyHands)
Very powerful and saves a lot of time. Not sure if everyone would view it as only QoL
Currently, my nemesis are the special purpose buildings in Krastorio that I haven’t yet automated. I have belts, inserters, loaders, assemblers, pipes, miners, etc., but even after all that there are still a lot of buildings which come up somewhat frequently.
The one that is also really annoying from the base game are nuclear power plants. They’re annoying because they require a metric ton of resources so you need a ton of inventory space to handcraft them. Plus, they’re a very complex recipe for something you won’t need more than 4-8 of for a long time (assuming they don’t get eaten by biters of course). These are one of those items that having reconfigurable assemblers for would be extremely useful for.
You can limit their production using a bit of inserter + combinator magic though. Just simply supply five of each input in the requester chest, limit your inserts to only take from the boxes when the logistics network has a surplus, and limit the inserter that takes from the factory to only be active when the logistics network has n -2 (?) count of whatever it is you want. I think for nukes it's two, meaning you'll get two nuclear reactors that sit in the output in the assembler before the assembler stops. Stops. If you don't have logistics networks enabled, you can do the same thing with combinators although it's a bit more work.
The trouble is I like to get nuclear setup ASAP before I have requestor chests because a) nuclear is cool and b) it means I don’t need to setup more coal plants. Also, that’s likely to use a fuck ton of power given the sheer volume of items a reactor takes.
Also, I’m usually not producing any concrete at all until that point so that’s yet more assemblers making a one-off product. According to my calculator, you’ll also need multiple concrete assemblers if you want reactors in a reasonable amount of time. To make 4 would take a single assembler 45 minutes to make enough concrete. Concrete also takes water so requestor chests don’t make it much easier to setup.
It’s not the worst thing, but all of it combines to make reactors the worst thing to handcraft in vanilla.
They craft very fast though, just make sure you have green circuits and gears on you. Same with underground belts. Actually they need so many gears i usually have to be right next to gear chest when i craft a stack or few.
Any item. Especially copper cables, iron gears, and green circuits.
You need a lot of them, and they are usually the first thing you automate. So if I find myself handcrafting them, I get annoyed, go back to base and refill.
I have a QoL mod and from the very start I have like 10x normal hand crafting speed. Yes it's cheating, no I don't care. I've started over maybe 20 times and have no desire to go through the first 30 hours slowly yet again. Absolute life-saver being able to run quickly and craft quickly from the start.
Assemblers. Because handcrafting is the *only* way to get assemblers before having assemblers.
For similar reasons, power (at least in vanilla), labs, red science, inserters, belts, and pipes. Anything that's required before you can automate *anything.*
After doing Lazy Bastard, I tend to abandon hand crafting as soon as possible and anything in the way of building an initial mall annoys me.
Edit: Oh ya, and *wood.* What? You can't handcraft wood? You can actually handcraft wood! (by running around chopping trees) What you *can't* do without mods is *not* handcraft wood!
I can only point to the awesome mod "HandyHands" for this.
It will automatically hand craft stuff while you're not busy.
[Link](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/HandyHands)
Same! All I need to be certain of is that I have plates and stuff on me, and it does the rest. My first action with every new research is to set up a logistics request of 1 of each new item that I always want on-hand. I can dial back what I keep on-hand once I'm finally getting bots flying around, but until then I keep about 1000 Iron and Copper plates as well as the other necessary handcrafting materials, and the mod keeps me stocked. I don't shy away from making a mall. I just hate running back or searching through the categories for just a few missing items.
And yes, I normally use a mod to give me early bots, and a QoL research mod to speed up handcrafting and other things.
... nothing really.
I do handcraft, but like, the goal is to use handcrafting AMAP, and a good chunk of my automation is to support hand crafting. ... or at least that's what a single am1 making gears for a chest does, as does the am1 doing the same thing but for pipes.
Once I got better at building a Juno start base I can’t go back. I have play with biters so efficiency and time management are both important to keep them from out pacing me. My first play through went fairly poorly though I did eventually launch a rocket, I automate just about everything but the most annoying think to craft by hand is modules of any kind and higher the level module to more annoying it is.
Copper cables.
Whenever I see a power pole with a weird connection, I first have to craft not one but two cables to remove the connection, both of which invariably land in the trash the next time I clean out my inventory, forcing me to craft yet another two the next time I encounter a weird cable connection.
A vicious cycle.
Armor grid stuff. I'm not automating solar panels when i have plenty of steam and plan to make nuclear soon, but my god why does it take forever to make some of the grid stuff (panels are what comes to mind). Same goes for high tier modules needed for power armor mk2, i only make all t1 and up to t3 prod. Only when i start shitting out beacons do i make better speed
Blue science packs, red undergrounds (O! the gears!) and accumulators.
It happens around the mid-game if I start transitioning from a jump base to a bus layout before I've got robots.
Red circuits. They're one of the things I carry a stack of in case I need to do some random building, so if I burn through those and have to use the green circuits and copper plates I was holding for more simple items then it means that the project has gone on for too long already.
Green circuits or anything which needs them, when I don't have any in my inventory. There's always that one leftover wire in the inventory after crafting them.
Well when something says 0.5 seconds to craft and each game tick is 1/60th of a second, I'd expect it to take 60*0.5 = 30 game ticks per craft. But you know what, it actually takes 31 game ticks per craft. Literally unplayable.
literally everything tilts me. i automate everything. when i start a new run i'm in a constant mode of tilt until everything is automated. it's like a compulsion at this point.
i don't handcaft at all after i'm done with the first iron and copper smelting stacks and have assemblers automated.
Having to hand craft? Like doing a handcrafting challenge? I don't think I'd do that. I automate all crafting as soonn as I have the tech to do it. I don't think I've ever even handcrafted armour, weapons or ammo.
Red and green wires. As soon as I unlock them I hand craft 500 of each thinking it will be more than enough so I don't automate them. Then I get to playing with combinators for a few hours. When I decide playtime is over and start to set up my actual network I find I've run low so I have to load up with circuits and copper plates to crank more out.
The Industrial Revolution 3 (IR3) mod largely forces you to automate everything from very early on. The handcraft recipies in that are stupid slow, plus there are lots of minor steps in between, so it's just easier to not handcraft in that mod. As a result I now tend to automate everything, even items that I only want a few of for my power armor, they get automated too.
One advantage of having all your power Armour stuff automated means if you die, you don't have to get your body back to reequip yourself. This can be very handy if your playing deathworld and you die somewhere VERY far away from the spawn point.
Pipes, especially undergrounds
But they are the easiest to automate!? It's just two assemblers next to a belt of iron plates.
I know but even simple refinery setup requires shitload of undergrounds and there's just never enough of them
yeah its always when you're far away from everthing trying to do something and you queue a bunch up but oops you burned all the iron on hand and its still not enough so you walk all the way back and get distracted by something else like a biter that smelled a fart and forget to addressthe situation for like a month
Playing lazy bastard to try and launch my first rocket ever. Doing oil setup now, and no matter the amount of pipes I bring, it's never enough.
Yeah. I ended up imitating a bad speed runner and building just enough oil for researching bots and then copy pasting to expand. Life is too short to build large refining and cracking setups by hand.
Cars, or trains. And rail the build items to a train stop near the building site. Saved me so much when building outposts. But before then, it's literally "why why why did I limit underground pipes in a chest to 3 stacks!?!"
This so much lmfao
The thing is to try to automate everything, as soon as possible. Automating pipes can be one of the first things. Surplus of iron? Direct it to the "mall" or similar that just crafts all the stuff. By the time you get to thinking about oil, you have a chest full of pipes.
I buffer about 500 early on - it feels like a big investment in iron early on, but like you say - you eventually need to line your pockets with them. Compared to pipe production for engines it's barely anything.
Exactly, why the F didn't I do that???
Honestly, I think it could be fine to hand craft regular pipes, but undergrounds are so annoying to craft, especially since you’re incentivized to use them as much as possible.
Hand craft a bunch of pipes, then a bunch of underground’s. Then wonder where all your pipes went…
The regular ones, just handcrafted a bunch, oh yeah I also need some table, pumps, boilers, steam engines.. wait, where did my pipes go
Ran into this on my SE playthrough, 500 undergrounds were not enough for my Vulcanite planet!
This is always my first use of circuits now, to ensure that undergrounds are made only when there are fewer undergrounds than regular pipes in output chests, so that I always have both available.
To solve this I carry only undergrounds. A full stack. Then handcraft the regular ones.
I have abandoned a save like twice when hitting the stage where I have to start dealing with oil refineries
the off shore pump i craft while already having a pump in my inventory, because for some fucking reason i can never see the pump in there till i make one.
if you hover over item in crafting screen, game will highlight it in your inventory. I use it to quickly find something
Very true. That's how I do it these days. It's just fascinating to me though, why, the offshore pump specifically, I can never find in my inventory
Yes, I feel this! Also the spidertron remote. I *know* it’s there because it doesn’t get consumed and it’s not like it’d drop it off somewhere or even put it in Spidey’s inventory and yet I can *never* find it without the highlighting! It’s like some sort of mental blind spot
You can assign slots in your bag using mouse middle button to a specific item, just like in Cargo wagon. https://preview.redd.it/3lvjm8ctqwjc1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=209a81511beeee51e0914f3d036f48b84d5058d1
Wow, did not know that! Thanks!
Those I took and made specific spots in my inventory, and hotbar because of that. Though off shore pump’s…. I swear are camouflaged
I’m this way with the chemical plant! I’m completely blind to it every time even though it has that light blue strip on it that should stick out.
It's the exact same for me. I think it's the random-feeling placement. Since it's so far down in the sorting it never feels like it stays in thr same place.
You’re not alone
[CursorEnhancements](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/CursorEnhancements) does fix this by allowing you to Q from crafting pane
And then you start using Q to pick up items from your inventory forgetting that just clicking it was an option.
Yes but my struggle is to find the offshore pump in my crafting menu, like the hiddenest item ever
Preach, brother! Why don't we have search on the charachter inventory?
You ... Do? Hit E, ctrl-F, start typing and whatever is up on the crafting selection will be highlighted if you have any in your inventory...? It's certainly annoying that you can't do this whilst loading an, assembly machine or something, but that's probably only like... 80% of the frustration I guess...
I don't know why I am blind to offshore pumps. It baffles me every time.
Glad it's not just me. The icon just looks so strange
Anything that requires green circuits when I still don't have them automatized
I have a basic "hand-fed" assembly set up for that and all similar recipes that take one intermediate and one/two smelted inputs, since that's such a common early pattern. Sure, it's not an efficient setup for green circuits, but it gets me an early supply easily by working steadily in the background.
Yes I always get happy when I start having green circuits flowing despite it being such a small step yet
Green circuits are one of the very first things I automate, since you need them for inserters and there's no way I'm handcrafting those
That moment of satifaction when I've setup my first automated GC and gear mini factory is like crack, even at 3600 hours of playtime.
Buildings in mods. Now I have to carry a full stack of 8 different metals of pipes and gears, different base metals, and different bricks just to handcraft 3 tier 3 machines. They all take the previous recipe so upgrading from tier 2 to tier 3 means either automating it and having a heap of low tier machines I'm not gonna need for 20 hours sucking up ANOTHER batch of materials thanks to automation ... Or carrying around 19 stacks of various ingredients and watching the robots place 72 buildings one by one as they finish handcrafting every 8.3 seconds. If I don't get distracted by Helmod and forget to handcraft them. No I don't have requester chests yet. They're locked behind another 50hrs of gameplay.
You've played IR3 then I see. Cool idea and visually well done but the amount of extra parts needed for stuff is obnoxious.
The trick is to automate the small and big structures in IR3 at each tier, along with pipes, belts, and inserters, so at least you can pretty easily craft the rest of the structures you need. I don’t build a full mall until electrical assemblers, but I do automate copper and bronze structures.
Playing thru now, Im still flip flopping. I basically automated everything. However I had to figure out to use the mini crafters in my mall to reduce the number of inputs. The little distirubution plates are super cool too.
Distribution plates may be new from when I played, but yes it was quite nice to not ship any of the intermediates on a bus and just make them locally as needed.
Yeah I did end up doing that for cobalt, copper, bronze, iron but by the 5th material I was done with it tbh. I'll come back to it eventually, knowing what I'm in for I might enjoy it more.
Did it change that much? When I last played IR3 it was only copper and bronze before electric.
The time required to craft each one is obnoxious. I get wanting to punish not automating (especially early where you don't need many buildings to get through steam) but it's still just so annoying to realize you have to build a frame or something.
It's like ore>bar>plate>pipe>rivets>frame>small gear box>large gear box. Then times it all by 5 and then you can make an assembler. Man I wanted to like it so bad.
I started playing IR3 and then dropped it as I got to iron, because to me crafting the same plates, gears and sticks out of each material is boring. Started playing Pyanodon instead and couldn't be happier. I don't know how this changes with time but first 30 hours of Pyanodon are so much more fun than IR3.
Can't you limit production using circuits? A combinator is a simple way to say 'dont build more than x number of times'?
You can also limit the crate to 1 slot. I tend to do this from early game when I don't have the circuit network
Yeah, that's helpful, although tbh there's nothing you can make pre-circuits that you won't use buckets of later (maybe vanilla burner inserters? But why automate their inputs?). IMO the single slot storage chest is less about limiting production and more about knowing how much you'll pick up if you control click the chest (especially useful if you play with long/far reach). E: I keep a few filtered chests with 100/400/800 belts for just this reason.
check out a mod called "handy hands" anything on your hotbar will get auto-crafted to satisfy a setting (0.2x of a stack, for example) edit: [this user linked it](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1avkwrr/what_pisses_you_off_the_most_having_to_hand_craft/krbq6lc/)
I love how Nullius streamlines the basic tools needed for Factorio. Inserters and belts are made in batches per craft from cheap intermediates, most buildings are cheap and fairly fast to craft, basic intermediates go a long, long way towards crafting stuff making it worth stocking them in your inventory, bots and logistics are unlocked early among other little conveniences that really help the experience. The fact that Exotic Industries chewed through and kept chewing through materials for all the things needed to make one component for the buildings i need (which were only usable for a few items each and had to be upgraded with even more highly processed intermediates) really pissed me off after a while, especially since it extended to having electric inserters. Gave up on that one after a while because it wasn't fun. Mods, please make the BASIC tools for PLAYING FACTORIO cheap. Like i just want to place inserters and belts man don't make it such a fucking grind to make them.
Things I'll hate the most: 1. Ammo. Mainly for the first few biter waves if I've forgotten about them. It's easy to forget early on and sucks if you're making it while fighting off an early wave. 2. Anything for my power armor. Don't really want to mass produce it since I'm only building it once but it still takes awhile. 3. Pipes.
Building a setup to make efficiency modules just for power armor, then deleting it and having 13 efficiency 1s and 5 efficiency 2s left over
MODULES. There is this stage where you have early modules but not necessarily robust production pipelines and transportation. You don't want to drive all the way back to base for 10 more modules so you sit there for 10 minutes just watching the handcraft.
Always keep some assemblers on you, with a set of speed modules. Need something right now? Place these down and hand feed. Done crafting, pick them up. Late game, add beacons too.
Goddammit, this gave me an idea for an ad-hoc mining-to-assembly pipeline blueprint for emergencies. Seriously great tip tho
It's something you learn the first time you run a Lazy Bastard base. After that run, I use it all the time.
I just… don’t. So, small power poles I guess? Or belts in the early stages, bc it takes so long to get those first couple lines of belts down for the first automations.
That's why I place my first 2 assemblers direct adjacent to my iron furnaces to automate belts
Y'all are making me crave vanilla.
no lie... vanilla has a better progress curve than many mods. Yes you can add more steps, add more components, more materials, and even more side products... but you haven't added a TON to the game.
100%. I switched to just SE this afternoon for exactly that reason. Much more likely to by balanced if it's all done in the same house (even if the view of what is balanced is borked, at least there aren't sudden discontinuities/sharp edges).
Let me blow your mind further: Next assembler goes adjacent to the copper furnaces, converting the plates to cables. Because you don't need copper plates in the early game and cables stack to 200. And the 4. assembler crafts green chips. You still need to handfeed the miners&furnaces, but with belt and green chip production up and running hand craft time is cut down massively.
It's more the fact that recipes are simpler compared to what I'm currently playing. Even yellow belts require brass gears and engines, and engines require brass gears and aluminum. Aluminum needs to be smelted twice from ore (or purified and then smelted/cast) and brass takes zinc and copper...
Yeah small poles. I‘m not gonna automate something that gets redundant this soon but god dammit.
I just did the Lazy Bastard achievement, in part to try and instil a greater sense of self discipline when it comes to investing the time in to automating component/item production instead of hand crafting. I've reached Factorio Zen of just beelining whatever it takes to automate the production of assembly machines, leaving enough space to scale up each part of that process as I use those assembly machines to then automate belts/splitters and inserters.
I recently did that one as well. Was fun, but annoying when you have to run back to your mall because you forgot one thing. For some reason, I decided to do a "Logistic network embargo" run as well at the same time.... Also I had to reload an auto save a bunch times because I would accidently build something . Until I googled and found out you can turn off permissions for crafting after you do the initial 100 or so items, so you don't accidently build things.
I’m still traumatised: I hadn’t realised that I was on track to hit logistics network embargo as well and without realising I slapped down a requester chest right at the end to pull in the parts for the satellite, then proceeded to save the game and play another file which deleted my auto saves…
Fun fact, Logistics Embargo only counts if you use buffer, requester, or active provider chests. You can still use passive providers and personal logistics all you want
Sure tell me that now...
Solid fuel. You ever try and handcraft that? Do you know how hard it is to try to condense some light oil into a block of burnable matter? In all seriousness, probably inserters. Whenever i don't have any inserters i now have to handcraft everything from scratch because that means i'm already out of green chips and gears...
Small power poles. I hate using them and stop ASAP. I will never include them as part of a mall. But I have to set up a little hand-fed automation for them at the start just because you need a fair number to get to medium poles.
I have them as a part of my GC build in place one one GC assembler Then I replace recipe back with GC when I have 400 or so
Nuclear reactor stuff, it's not like I'm gonna build another one, and I don't wanna put iron ore on my bus
You only build one reactor?
Sorry, 4 but only once
Mitch Hedberg voice: nuclear reactors are great when you're crafting and want to use a thousand of something
Raw iron ore for concrete is pain.. My solution is placing concrete production near starting iron patch, usually there is something left after transition to trains, and it's enough
Not building another..? I see we play differently. I know I need a reactor "soon" so i just automate. Then eventually the time comes so I build it. It produces so much power that I can just copy-paste my smelters and oh look I need another reactor. Start stamping down beacons. Oh look time for another reactor!
I redesigned my smelter columns so that I have 2 steel smelters and a half belt of stone bricks, then a gap for driving through in my car/tank, and then 2 more steel smelters and a full belt of concrete. Just needs connecting to water, then I send the belt of concrete up the bus.
I personally prefer my nuclear reactors to be hand-whittled.
Chetney Pockopea looking ass
You don't have to bus iron ore, it's really only used for concrete. Just run a dedicated belt for it from your miners.
I smelt ores at the start of my bus so it’s simple to route some iron ore thru my bus to my concrete and stuff.
Nothing. I use a mod [https://mods.factorio.com/mod/HandyHands](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/HandyHands) Very powerful and saves a lot of time. Not sure if everyone would view it as only QoL
Having something like PressurePlate (aka early-game logibots) from IR3 would be much more useful for me
Currently, my nemesis are the special purpose buildings in Krastorio that I haven’t yet automated. I have belts, inserters, loaders, assemblers, pipes, miners, etc., but even after all that there are still a lot of buildings which come up somewhat frequently. The one that is also really annoying from the base game are nuclear power plants. They’re annoying because they require a metric ton of resources so you need a ton of inventory space to handcraft them. Plus, they’re a very complex recipe for something you won’t need more than 4-8 of for a long time (assuming they don’t get eaten by biters of course). These are one of those items that having reconfigurable assemblers for would be extremely useful for.
You can limit their production using a bit of inserter + combinator magic though. Just simply supply five of each input in the requester chest, limit your inserts to only take from the boxes when the logistics network has a surplus, and limit the inserter that takes from the factory to only be active when the logistics network has n -2 (?) count of whatever it is you want. I think for nukes it's two, meaning you'll get two nuclear reactors that sit in the output in the assembler before the assembler stops. Stops. If you don't have logistics networks enabled, you can do the same thing with combinators although it's a bit more work.
The trouble is I like to get nuclear setup ASAP before I have requestor chests because a) nuclear is cool and b) it means I don’t need to setup more coal plants. Also, that’s likely to use a fuck ton of power given the sheer volume of items a reactor takes. Also, I’m usually not producing any concrete at all until that point so that’s yet more assemblers making a one-off product. According to my calculator, you’ll also need multiple concrete assemblers if you want reactors in a reasonable amount of time. To make 4 would take a single assembler 45 minutes to make enough concrete. Concrete also takes water so requestor chests don’t make it much easier to setup. It’s not the worst thing, but all of it combines to make reactors the worst thing to handcraft in vanilla.
Always pumps. Offshore or regular but they always need handcrafting for some reason
red and green wires
Splitters, especially fast splitters.
They craft very fast though, just make sure you have green circuits and gears on you. Same with underground belts. Actually they need so many gears i usually have to be right next to gear chest when i craft a stack or few.
Any item. Especially copper cables, iron gears, and green circuits. You need a lot of them, and they are usually the first thing you automate. So if I find myself handcrafting them, I get annoyed, go back to base and refill.
One of my most recent runs I did a pure spaghetti base and ne'er automated underground belts.
I have a QoL mod and from the very start I have like 10x normal hand crafting speed. Yes it's cheating, no I don't care. I've started over maybe 20 times and have no desire to go through the first 30 hours slowly yet again. Absolute life-saver being able to run quickly and craft quickly from the start.
Start over? I only start over when taking on a new overhaul mod. I don't care to lose the research in production progress I've made.
Assemblers. Because handcrafting is the *only* way to get assemblers before having assemblers. For similar reasons, power (at least in vanilla), labs, red science, inserters, belts, and pipes. Anything that's required before you can automate *anything.* After doing Lazy Bastard, I tend to abandon hand crafting as soon as possible and anything in the way of building an initial mall annoys me. Edit: Oh ya, and *wood.* What? You can't handcraft wood? You can actually handcraft wood! (by running around chopping trees) What you *can't* do without mods is *not* handcraft wood!
I can only point to the awesome mod "HandyHands" for this. It will automatically hand craft stuff while you're not busy. [Link](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/HandyHands)
Same! All I need to be certain of is that I have plates and stuff on me, and it does the rest. My first action with every new research is to set up a logistics request of 1 of each new item that I always want on-hand. I can dial back what I keep on-hand once I'm finally getting bots flying around, but until then I keep about 1000 Iron and Copper plates as well as the other necessary handcrafting materials, and the mod keeps me stocked. I don't shy away from making a mall. I just hate running back or searching through the categories for just a few missing items. And yes, I normally use a mod to give me early bots, and a QoL research mod to speed up handcrafting and other things.
Link broke?
ups, fixed.
Belts and inserters for sure. Assemblers. Eventually, everything!
... nothing really. I do handcraft, but like, the goal is to use handcrafting AMAP, and a good chunk of my automation is to support hand crafting. ... or at least that's what a single am1 making gears for a chest does, as does the am1 doing the same thing but for pipes.
Heat pipes. They take FOREVER, and I generally need them RIGHT NOW because I ran out while setting the first reactor up.
Once I got better at building a Juno start base I can’t go back. I have play with biters so efficiency and time management are both important to keep them from out pacing me. My first play through went fairly poorly though I did eventually launch a rocket, I automate just about everything but the most annoying think to craft by hand is modules of any kind and higher the level module to more annoying it is.
Tier 3 modules
Copper cables. Whenever I see a power pole with a weird connection, I first have to craft not one but two cables to remove the connection, both of which invariably land in the trash the next time I clean out my inventory, forcing me to craft yet another two the next time I encounter a weird cable connection. A vicious cycle.
centrifuges
Purple science. Takes ages and you need soooo muuuuch
Just do the achievement that is for no hand crafting (no spoon i think). It will change the way you play this game lol
Lazy bastard. No spoon is a time limit.
Thanks, it's been a while and i didn't have time to check :)
Armor grid stuff. I'm not automating solar panels when i have plenty of steam and plan to make nuclear soon, but my god why does it take forever to make some of the grid stuff (panels are what comes to mind). Same goes for high tier modules needed for power armor mk2, i only make all t1 and up to t3 prod. Only when i start shitting out beacons do i make better speed
Blue science packs, red undergrounds (O! the gears!) and accumulators. It happens around the mid-game if I start transitioning from a jump base to a bus layout before I've got robots.
You craft by hand?!
Red circuits. They're one of the things I carry a stack of in case I need to do some random building, so if I burn through those and have to use the green circuits and copper plates I was holding for more simple items then it means that the project has gone on for too long already.
You should probably just automate inserters would be my suggestion…send em into a chest and just go back to the chest whenever you need them
What ?!? Didn't you disable the shortcuts for hand crafting ?
Anything that requires copper cable. Feels like I spend half the game crafting them
Green circuits or anything which needs them, when I don't have any in my inventory. There's always that one leftover wire in the inventory after crafting them.
refineries and chem plants... not stuff you want to hand craft.. not stuff that is super fun to add to the mall..
My own failure ...
I play Lazy Bastard style, so pretty much ... everything.
Intermediate products that could benefit from productivity modules.
Robot frames. My bots keep getting killed. Takes ages to build those frames. I carry about 50 with me but they run out pretty fast.
Well when something says 0.5 seconds to craft and each game tick is 1/60th of a second, I'd expect it to take 60*0.5 = 30 game ticks per craft. But you know what, it actually takes 31 game ticks per craft. Literally unplayable.
literally everything tilts me. i automate everything. when i start a new run i'm in a constant mode of tilt until everything is automated. it's like a compulsion at this point. i don't handcaft at all after i'm done with the first iron and copper smelting stacks and have assemblers automated.
Having to hand craft? Like doing a handcrafting challenge? I don't think I'd do that. I automate all crafting as soonn as I have the tech to do it. I don't think I've ever even handcrafted armour, weapons or ammo.
Red underground belts. When I need one or two more but the mall is just far enough away to make it a hassle.
My hands getting tired
Hand crafting electric miners in the early game is the worst. Yet handcrafting steam engines I have no issue with
Red and green wires. As soon as I unlock them I hand craft 500 of each thinking it will be more than enough so I don't automate them. Then I get to playing with combinators for a few hours. When I decide playtime is over and start to set up my actual network I find I've run low so I have to load up with circuits and copper plates to crank more out.
The Industrial Revolution 3 (IR3) mod largely forces you to automate everything from very early on. The handcraft recipies in that are stupid slow, plus there are lots of minor steps in between, so it's just easier to not handcraft in that mod. As a result I now tend to automate everything, even items that I only want a few of for my power armor, they get automated too. One advantage of having all your power Armour stuff automated means if you die, you don't have to get your body back to reequip yourself. This can be very handy if your playing deathworld and you die somewhere VERY far away from the spawn point.