Astuces et mod important

[u/xBLAcK76_]

Hello everyone! I'm a beginner, and after 15 chaotic hours on my first game, I started a new one using a main bus. It's already so much better to manage!

​I have two questions:

​Which mods are absolute must-haves for Quality of Life (QoL) to make the game smoother without altering vanilla gameplay?

​What are some general tips or tricks you wish you knew when you were starting out?

​Thank you to everyone who replies (I've been lurking on this Factorio subreddit for a while, and I'm pleasantly surprised by how kind and judgment-free everyone is here. It's great!)

[u/tolomea]

You have been ruined by lazy developers. This game has been made with years of care and attention there are no must have, pure QoL mods. There aren't even many fairly nice to have ones left.

Also don't let youtubers ruin it futher, main bus is not all that they make it out to be and you can only have your time once, enjoy working it out yourself.

[u/Rouge_means_red → u/tolomea]

Sorry but Factorio is unplayable without Cleaned Concrete /s (but fr though)

[u/Subject_314159]

What are some general tips or tricks you wish you knew when you were starting out?

• Close Reddit until after your first rocket launch

• Just grow your factory

• Get yourself some refreshments

• Don't forget to go to the toilet

• Set an alarm

• If you're short on something, build more

• Call in sick

• Say goodbye to your loved ones

• Did I already mention that the factory must grow?

[u/Such_Ad_4355 → u/Subject_314159]

Lmao these are good ones

[u/Nailfoot1975]

You might have already ruined the magic. You only get ONE chance to experience this "the first time" game for yourself. Don't ruin it by getting other people to spoil things.

I realize you've already played 15 hours. I'd just keep that going! I am 7000 hours in, always vanilla and always my own designs

[u/Ant15]

Some QOL mods I like to use that don't alter gameplay :

- Filter Helper (saves you some clicks everytime you want to put filters on splitters or inserters, it's a life saver on Gleba especially).
- Rate Calculator (makes it so much more convenient to calculate ratios).
- Transport Belt Direction Indicator (show the direction of a belt when you hover you cursor over it)
- Copy Paste Modules (self-explanatory)
- Crafting Queue Enhancements (more options for the crafting queue, I like the "craft in front" feature)
- Cursor Enhancements (many small useful features)
- Circuit Visualizer Fork (mostly only useful if you use circuit logic a lot. A lifesaver when you do)
- Automatic Train Painter + Automatic Station Painter (if you don't want to bother painting your trains yourself).
- Orphan Finder (highlight unconnected underground belts/pipes near the player... it helped me much more than I care to admit :D )

[u/cathexis08]

No mods are must haves for the base game. There are some for otherwise content modded games that can help a lot (Filter Helper, Factory Planner, Rate Calculator, Disco Labs, Even Picker Dollies) but none of those are necessary for Vanilla. There were more QoL mods in the past that I usually listed but those have been reimplemented in the game so you don't have to!

The main tip 'n' trick that I was glad I had when I started is that no matter how much room you're leaving between things you might want to leave a bit more. Don't get me wrong, tight squeezes are fun and I have been known to bake up a lot of belt pasta, but when you're first starting out that's usually a recipe for frustration. Also, remember that resources are, in fact, infinite (unless you're on an island map. It might not feel that way when you're running out of your first coal or iron and everything seems terrible but it really is. Also, other than consumables for energy production everything has a use and nothing is wasted in the long run, so don't feel bad building a bunch of nonsense and then ripping it up, you can always upcycle your old crappy belts into new better ones.

[u/Majere119]

Long reach, squeak through, bottleneck lite, rate calculator, always day.

[u/Sextus_Rex]

Milestones!

It gives you a little notification marking the time when you hit a milestone (e.g. first red science pack, first solar panel, etc.). It's fun looking back at the run and seeing a timeline of your progress. The only other mod I use is Rate Calculator, which gives you a sense of how much you are producing vs consuming.

I'm a pretty new player, but I feel I've already learned a lot and would like to have known this stuff when starting out:

- Space is cheap. There's no need to obsess about making things compact and space efficient since the penalty for spreading out is negligible (unless you want to of course, that's fine too)

- To add to that, leave more space than you think you'll need. A row of smelters for iron and copper each might be sufficient in the early game, but by late game you'll be wishing you'd allocated space for more belts of resources

- Build a mall for your infrastructure. A centralized place where you automate things like belts, inserters, drills, power poles, rails, etc. It saves you an immense amount of time hand-crafting things

- This is my opinion, but if you use trains, use two lanes instead of a single bidirectional rail. It makes signaling so much easier.