Simple Questions and Short Answers

[astroshak]

Not sure about Rampant, as I don’t play with that mod.

For Vanilla behavior, however, yes. Generally speaking, you should not see any attacks if you do not bother them with your Pollution.

The only “exception” is biter expansion parties. Depending on your game’s settings, biters try to expand every so often. They gather a small party of biters/spitters from one base and then move to a new location. Then they just sit there and turn into biter spawners, spitter spawners, and worms. Should one of these expansion parties run into your stuff, they will attack. If they run into your pollution cloud (without running into your factory or an outpost) they will NOT attack, and will instead form their new base.

Expansion parties are not an attempt to attack you, though depending on where they are attempting to expand into it may seem like they are. But they are the only biter movement you’ll see in a vanilla game that has no biter bases under the cloud.

I am not sure if Rampant does anything about that.

[Porter65]

Not sure either, I checked the Rampant thread and it seems there is not much change here.

I have a question about expansion party, is it handled on a per base basis (meaning possible exponential expansion speed...) or there is one and only one at a time on all the map (meaning the bigger the explored map, the less chance this will bother you?)

[astroshak]

As far as I know, it is one party at a time, in total. Timing depends on settings when you created the map.

[Nemac]

Hey,

how to deal with overlapping ressources field?I got iron and Copper. Sometimes my belt get full with mixed stuff.

I use slow yellow belts and filter inserters now so sort them out, but mybe you have a better way?
Yellow to give the inserters time to sort all wrong out..

thanks

[Impatient]

Filter priority spliters.

When you hover over a miner you can see what kind of ores it will mine. Try to place as many miners which mine only one kind of ore. For the ones which mine several kinds of ores, cerate separate belts, which you sort using filter spliters. And the filtered belts you merge with the one-kind-of-ore belts using priority merging (priority splitters). This way you have very little mixed ore and the mixed belts will be emptied first.

Additionally you can build buffers with chests for the ores you don't need. But this just postpones the jam of the mixed belts.

[astroshak]

As stated, filtering Splitters.

What I generally do is have the mixed belt running counter to the rest of the belts. At the end of the column of miners putting out mixed ores, I have splitters filtered to pull stuff off, which then go to through the first column of that ore’s (not mixed) miners. This way, that first column is getting the ore from the mixed belt, and only if there is room is it putting more ore onto the belt.

But either way (using priority splitters to put the stuff from the mixed belt on first, or my method) the idea is to ensure that you are using the stuff from the mixed belt, so that it can go to being a not-mixed belt as soon as possible, and that it prevents those miners from becoming backed up unless the entire belt is backed up.

[Porter65]

Is it possible (even if a mod is necessary) to edit the map of an ongoing game? I would like to do some light terraforming there and there (removing ore patches I find excessive for my gaming style)

[boran_blok]

If it is just for ores you can use the Ore Eraser mod:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/OreEraserContinued

[Porter65]

Excellent!

[Nemac]

Hey there,

is this simple and short or do we need a own thread for this?

I see many video but still dont understand trains. Please tell me why both signals on the right side of each train are green?
If i set the left side train on "auto" it drives to the signal with the green circle and blocks the whole crossing.

left hand train never goes down. right hand train always go down, never go left if that helps.

Train.jpg (948.96 KiB) Viewed 5990 times

thank you

[Trific]

Signals divide rail into blocks. Only one train may be in a block at a given time (in automatic mode). In the picture, the rail is divided into four blocks. Two are currently occupied by trains, the lines leading northwest and east, the line leading southwest (not occupied), and the intersection itself (not occupied). A rail signal will be green, and permit a train to pass if there is no train in the block it is "guarding". The signals circled in red are green because they are guarding the block containing the intersection, and no train is in the intersection.

A chain signal says "do not pass this signal unless you can also pass all of the signals leading to the next regular rail signal, and that regular rail signal". Such a train will want to reserve all of the blocks those signals are guarding, or it won't be able to pass the chain signal. Since you don't ever want a train to enter the intersection without also being able to leave it, the rule of thumb "chain in, rail out" generally applies to intersections. That is, you want to place chain signals before all blocks where a train sitting there would block a train on intersecting rail from passing through. Replace those signals circled in red (and the corresponding one on the south line) with chain signals, and the trains will not enter the intersection unless they can pass through to a line that is not occupied by a train.

[Impatient]

Don't think in signals, think in (track) sections, which are guarded by signals.

The section delimited by the 6 signals is empty, so both trains are allowed to enter it. Every track section, which is empty and guarded by normal signals, a train can enter. That is the direct answer to your question.

The problem you have now, is, that the left train is allowed to enter the section and by doing so would block it for the right train. You have two options there:

1. remove the two signals on the right of that track section. This way that section would become one section with the right one, where the right train is in and the left train would not be allowed to enter it. That is the proper and efficient way to do it.

2. The improper and convoluted way to solve this, is to use 3 rail chain signals at the 3 entrances to the section (leave the 3 normal signals at their exits). It is improper and convoluted, as no fork (or merge) needs signals on the merged side of it. Remember this (you will understand it later). In fact, the reason for your problem is exactly, that there are signals on the merged side of that fork.

But if you want to go that way, then here is some more explanation:
A rail chain signal only lets a train pass, if it would be able to leave the section, the chain signal guards, again (has an unblocked section after it, where the train can exit it to). Thus the intersection can be empty, but none of the two trains would enter it, unless they also can exit it. In your case, first the right train would enter it and exit it on its path to the south and then the left train would enter and exit it on its path to the east. The left train can not enter it first, as its exit (the section to the east of it) is currently blocked by the right train.

Makes sense?

Don't think in signals, think in track sections, guarded by signals.

[2B1]

Enrty 1 for new question:
How can each train be displayed in the Train GUI Trains tab?
On the left I see each train listed.
On the right is a tiled area that I would think can display each train.
Whichever train I click on the left shows its mini-map on the top left tile in the grid.
I've tried double clicking train entries on the left, draging, right clicking but haven't found a way to get a train mini-map to show anywhere except the top left tile.
Same for the Schedules tab.

TrainsTabQuestion.png (1.1 MiB) Viewed 5843 times

[disentius]

Trains are grouped by schedule. You have 5 schedules, and 5 trains. I bet you have 1 train on each schedule atm?

[2B1]

disentius,

Yes, that is correct, one train per schedule.
Is there a way to display each of those 5 trains/schedules on their own tile in the right portion of the GUI?

[2B1]

Here's a screen sgot of the Schedules tab if that helps.
Can't find a way toii see any more than one here as well.

SchedulesTabQuestion.png (1.56 MiB) Viewed 5796 times

[disentius]

No, there is not at the moment.
2 flavors:
- Trains tab shows trains per schedule
- Station tab shows trains per station

[raneo]

Hello!

I am planning a 5.5 spm base and got curious about which belt loading to use.

More specifically I want to know if it is still beneficial to reduce the sideloading as much as possible?

Which variant of the plastic belt loading has the least impact on performance?

1: no sideloading, 3 splitters
2: no sideloading, 1 splitter
3: 50% sideloading, 1 splitter

Regards R

[DaveMcW]

I assume you mean 5500 spm with that many plastic plants.

Sideloading is cheaper than splitters. Avoid splitters whenever possible.

Sideloading is roughly equivalent to having 2 inserters on the same belt, they both break the transport line, but both don't require expensive merge calculations like splitters do.

I propose variant 4: merge two belts (2 chemical plants on each) in a T junction with zero splitters.

[Farwin923]

Hello, how can i get Spidetron remote? I can't find it in crafting and in technology tree it only shows that it unlocks Spidetron, not remote.