What starting settings does everyone use?

[xZippy]

#thread_title. I always crank everything up, "everything" being frequency and richness. Especially for oil, seeing as world generation can be an absolute monster when it comes to placing oil. Ever have a map where it was borderline impossible to find oil, and you felt like you had to restart your world? Yeah, I'd rather have so much oil that it makes things too easy, rather than driving for miles and barely finding one or two oil slicks at like 30% yield.

Please tell me your starting settings. Or else.

[Qon]

Most of my last tens of maps are Default + Research Queue from start.
I start new worlds to do mod debugging or self building factories (so worlds which are also for debugging purposes, but coded in circuit networks).

Last world of actual play was a combination of Rail + Death world with Alien Biomes mod (searched a long time for a seed that splits the world into lava and ice through the spawn with massive regions) and Custom Terrain Generation mod (spiral map with a multiplier of maybe 4 and ratio of maybe slightly above 0.5? small and cozy in the beginning a bit like a ribbon world but then gives larger scale features further out so you aren't restricted) and no cliffs. Can really recommend, you have to fix version number in the mod CTG from 1.0 to 1.1 to make it work though.

[Tertius]

I'm always using standard settings for everything. It's well balanced. It's part of the challenge to find and get to the oil. I only make sure there's not too much water in the starting area, but that's all. Resource fields get bigger the more far away from the starting area, so I don't have any issue with size or richness. Just expand the base and explore.

[Serenity]

I set resources to be pretty rare, but rich. I don't want ore patches everywhere. There are way too many resources that way. And I want to explore a bit and need long rail systems.

[FuryoftheStars]

I set resources to be pretty rare, but rich. I don't want ore patches everywhere. There are way too many resources that way. And I want to explore a bit and need long rail systems.

This is me as well.

As I like to start off slowly and take my time with everything, but also like the combat, I also tend to set terrain gen settings such that I get a starting island (with a mod) or other starting position that has easy choke points (with the right settings, you can come pretty close to an island start with vanilla). Biters I typically set to be fairly infrequent, but leave expansion on so they can grow to be a threat.

[vjbone]

Railworld

[astroshak]

Minimum frequency for resources, but I like to bump their size and richness up; I want a few good patches rather than a lot of lesser patches.

I always bump both water settings to the maximum.

I leave biter expansion on (which is turned off by railworld default) but TBH I don’t find them much of a threat most of the time, even with expansion on.

Research queue, of course, on.

And I just hit the random seed a bunch of times and then go in blindly. I find its more fun that way.

[Amarula]

Research queue on always.
Rich resources, except I turn down uranium, a little goes a long way.
Turn down trees and water, I already live in a swamp thank you very much.
No cliffs.
No pollution - no biter attacks until I attack them, and I can still get all the achievements.

I would love the ability to have a map based on real (or imaginary) geography...

[Abarel]

Resources:
Frequency and Size to 33%; Richness to 600%. I use several mining locations for each resource, deliverying with 1-1 trains.
Terrain:
Water and Trees scale and coverage to 150%. Cliffs frequency to 150% and continuity to 600%. I try to respect terrain, using few or no landfill, remove trees just as needed, and using very few cliff explosives, exclusively for rails. I play with defense perimeter layed out as small "patches" blocking where cliffs have "holes" (natural or for rails).
Enemy:
Default values, except starting area size to 600% (so expansion is ON but I have time to prepare).
Advanced:
Default values, except Research Queue, always ON.

It is intended for a slow solo play for fun, not for big production.

[Hannu]

My usual settings are: resource frequency 50 %, iron and copper richness 200 %. Water scale maximum. Big start area. Biters and others settings default.

I build rail worlds with separate factories and train network connecting them. I never use beacons but use modules in assemblers because in my opinion beacons do not fit in this game in any meaningful way. I use only belts for main material flows but use logistic bots for entity workshop or very small scale logistics (like satellites to rocket silos). I run 200-300 hours after official "completion" and build relatively high production but not actual megabase class (500-1000 SPM). I prefer to use time to build large sparse system instead of copying blueprints to achieve effectively maximum production. Also the beacon ban make extremely high production values impossible for me.

[Khagan]

Mostly default; it's a well-balanced game. Just two tweaks:-

• Research queue always on; this should be a UI setting, not an advanced(!) gameplay setting.
• Starting area size turned up to 150% or 200%; being swarmed by biters when you've only been going for 20 minutes and don't yet have any defensive tech, let alone any actual defences, is Not Fun.

[pwhk]

Nobody tinkered with research cost? I tended to set it to 4 because I found research in vanilla too fast ... No reason to really pick research as I could research everything easily.

And lately I am turning biters and pollution off. Walling off one's factory get old fast. No enemy means pollution means mostly nothing so that's gone too.

Always wanted to experiment with terrain settings but not really playing much on that front.

[Hannu]

Nobody tinkered with research cost? I tended to set it to 4 because I found research in vanilla too fast ... No reason to really pick research as I could research everything easily.

This is true. If you have even little experience and you build moderate sized factory you get all science of certain tier far before you can build next tier production and your factory stalls. But I think research phase as early game and my "real game" begins when I have all non-infinite research and begin to build final factory so I do not care and keep multiplier as default.

[Qatavin]

I use the research cost multiplier. Currently I'm doing Space Exploration for the first time with a 5x multiplier, though I've gone as high as 20x, with appropriately increased resources as well. I don't want to be running out of stuff before I even manage to research trains. But the bigger everything is, the more you're pushed to set things up in a way that lets you expand efficiently. Of course, I use the research queue too.

I often play around with the cliff and water settings. I do like to have a nice, defensible position to work with.

[Tytan]

Mods:
Alien Biomes, Cold Biters, Explosive Biters, Bobs (everything), Qatavin's More Stuff, and probably a few more small things.

Settings:
Railworld, Biters still expand but slower, starting area 160%, expensive recipes, research cost to x16.

Research rates are way too fast in vanilla. I may set it to x32 in my next map. This gives me time to care more about my base layout, makes choosing what to research next more meaningful, and makes getting larger amounts of resources needed to actually make progress on the research.