How do I get started on a new map?

[UndyingUndyne]

No, this is not a topic asking how I mine things, use the burner miner, etc.

I recently bought this game, and from the videos I've seen it looks very, very interesting. However, every time I try to start a new game, I find myself constantly restarting before I even unlock steel production. The reasons for this are varied. The starting patches of ore are too far apart. They're too close to each other. There's not enough water to defend against nearby Biter nests. There's too much water and I can't expand my factory. Even if I do stick with a map for more than five seconds, I still find myself abandoning the map and restarting after asking myself more questions. Where am I going to put my labs and smelters? What about my Red Science production? Where am I going to put my Main Bus? And so on.

Pretty much, it seems like my biggest problem in trying to play this game is it all seems too overwhelming at the start and if I see anything that might make things less-than-perfect, I immediately restart.

So my question here is, how is it you guys go about when starting new maps? Just how do you manage to get past the very start of the game and continue to expand your factory with minimal worry?

[DaveMcW]

Try to push yourself to Automated Construction, no matter how ugly your factory gets. Then use construction bots to tear down everything and build your perfect factory.

[Kelderek]

One of the beautiful features of this game is that everything can be picked up and reused somewhere else. So you really shouldn't worry too much if you have a poor initial design or if you make some mistakes - you can always pick up the parts of your factory and rebuild them in a different configuration. Don't be too concerned about it being optimal at the start or in your first few games. You'll learn as you go and become better at it over time.

You can try your map settings in the Map Editor first if you want a chance to see what the map will look like for a bigger area. Try different seeds and settings and when you find one you like (especially regarding water like you mentioned), then use the same values for starting a regular game.

[LucidMoses]

during the new map setup there is an option to not allow the bitters to attack first. If your having troubles getting started maybe this is a good option to try. In the long run it will make the game more boring but it will give you some time to get the hang of it.

[Ragleh]

Well I may only have 55 hours but what I do is just don't worry, and after it's all automated just use your bots or make a different base far away and set up a train to go to your old base and carry supplies to the new one.

[Tepalus]

Like all other people here said; Just go over it...nothing is perfect at the start.

I can remember my first game. It was horrible. I playied about 40h and discovered i have problems with the biters, too small area used and my production has stoped. Then i made a new map and planed with a bigger consideration of the future. But you know what? If i hadn't expirienced the game 40h, i would still restart and restart and restart...

So, just make a new map (perhabs with less biters) and learn the mechanics, robots and automatisem and then after some hours startover.


I now have 2 worlds where i play (a "infinite x 50" Line and a map with a huuugeee sea next to my base where i want to go around)

[Xterminator]

I have a couple suggestions and such.

Personally I like to explore my starting area before I even build anything to see if it's suitable at all. I either do it manually by walking around or use the Initial Map Scan mod that automatically reveals part of the map the size of your starting area. Super helpful.
Anyway, I think it might save you some time and frustration later down the road if you explore things first to see if you would even find the area viable before taking the time to build stuff.

But also that's the great thing about Factorio and what I think a lot of people enjoy is having your factory develop and expand organically based on the Terran and your play style, etc. Unless you make a map in the scenario editor, there won't really ever be a "perfect" map, at least not in my opinion.

So my advice is just have fun and treat it kind of like a puzzle. Just start building and maybe plan a bit ahead but don't worry about everything being perfect. Let the factory expand naturally as you need it to, and if your really unhappy with it, you can just leave it, go something else on the map and build a better one with the materials you have already made in your first Factory.
So it's kind of like starting over again but without that early game grind again.

Hope that helped with your question.

[Qon]

I heard RSO mod can respawn ore pathes with a command. I haven't tried it but that seems useful if you feel that you got a boring layout, too much, too little or whatever. So then you don't have to restart because of that. Water then? Well with Landfill mod you can always fill water patches that are in the way. When you are ready to build big you can make a big empty space for yourself. And you can install mods into ongoing games, so you don't even have to restart to play a modded game. When you feel that the map isn't good enough, install the mods that you need to modify the map to suit your needs. Water well mod is usefull if your map is completely dry (drill your own water wells anywhere) but landfill also has bombs that can be used to blow a hole in the ground so you get a tiny water patch that you can fit some water pumps in.

It's even better than restarting and using map editor because you get the tools to terraform in game though game mechanisms and it really adds an extra element of conquering the land. RSO command to respawn resources isn't really lore friendly, but there's also http://www.factoriomods.com/mods/mining-tools which gives you options for getting to new ore patches through in game mechanisms (I haven't tested it yet though). The Ore Processing mod viewtopic.php?f=93&t=22383 can be used to build factories that create ores. It needs some balancing to be useful though, which I'm in the process of doing. Check back later on that one if it seems interesting.

And build bad factories that get you to robots. Then just remove your bad factory and build a new one based on robots to get to the end game. Then when you have enough landfill, blue belts and modules to build a megafactory... do it!

[Umcookies]

Unsurprisingly I know exactly what you're going through, had a couple of friends who were interested in playing a map as co-op so I spent ~2 days trying to find the perfect map, played with RSO's settings more than I care to admit and then I finally found one that didn't have ore too far apart, or too sparse or too big, bitters close enough but not too far ect ect. In the end I still wasn't entirely happy with everything but my friends were getting impatient so I just gave up and started playing it. Turns out I'm actually enjoying playing the map even though I was annoyed with the map itself, part of the fun is overcoming the challenge of the terrain and not simply nailing the prettiest base from the very start.

So, in short my answer would be, focusing of making a working base within the confines of the terrain, not making a pretty one. At least at first.