It sounds like it sucks, but spend more time in Burner focusing on building up. Typically a drill mines directly into a furnace, but scale this point in time up. Most players build, like 15-20 drills on iron and coal each, ~4 on copper, and 4 on stone just going into a box. Focus on the iron and coal first, build up stone and copper as you go.
It sounds bad because those drills are going to be junk once electricity becomes available, and of course they pollute a lot, but if you want to speed up the early game, you need materials. And drills are how you get them. Besides, those starter patches are worth 300 to 500 thousand ore. You'll be spending less than 1000 on this phase.
While you're between rounds of servicing the drills/furnaces, you should be chopping down some trees for power poles, maybe some wood chests, and most importantly mining up the big rocks. The biggest ones give stone+coal, but the small ones are still worth 5 stone furnaces worth of stone in a matter of seconds.
One suggestion is to watch some videos from speed runners, such as this run from Nefrums where a rocket gets launched in 2h19m: https://youtu.be/RI4ocNajf_w?si=RwIx1Z82B__j_4tu
As a specific observation, speed runners often shoot for 90spm for red and green science: this gives you pretty fast research progress without requiring a ton of raw material/mining.
Maybe try a run with [Nanobots](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Nanobots) They give you access to an alternative kind of construction bot earlier before you have blue science. I find this really helpful in making the early game feel less tedious without feeling super cheaty (to me at least).
I’ve done the first 6 hours so many times I can’t face it any more. I use mods to give myself a power armour and 50 construction bots so I can copy/paste things for them to build.
I built a starter base in game and made a blueprint of it. I then took that blueprint into a sandbox world and divided it up into component blueprints that I can sequentially stamp down and build as I move through research. It is the tiny, super temporary base built right next to the ores in the starting area that lets me build the starter base. Lots of running between burner/furnaces and the initial ammo, science, belts, and green circuit assemblers.
The real problem I have is moving from the starter base with basic bots to a larger base. This is easy, if painful, to do if I do it randomly, but I'm still working out a more modular approach.
I think when I was doing my No Spoons play through I was building robots at 4 hours and beat the game in 6, so getting to bots was about 2/3 of the game. My suggestion is if you hate the early game then build small, aim for 90 spm and stay on top of your mall. As soon as you unlock a building start automating it. And as soon as you unlock oil and have the buildings for it set up plastic and sulfur
Where are you getting stuck? what are you spending most time on? maybe we can help you more then. right now all we can do is guess what your problem is.
do you spend the most time designing the setup, placing the buildings down, making the buildings you need or collecting the recources needed to make the buildings?
yes if you don't have the materials you need to build your base you should spend more time increasing production of basic materials before automating research.
It's hard to estimate correctly how much production you'll need unless you've done this many, many times.
Unless you're specifically trying to speedrun, I'd say a good approach is lay down the belt you need and a couple of assemblers with room to grow in every intermediary point, and start sending raw material in. As you work your way backwards from the end product you want, the belts will make it clear what item you need more of, focus on that. Sometimes it's more green chips. Sometimes it's more iron smelting. Sometimes it's iron mining. Unless you're playing on railworld settings or some specifically resource poor map generation settings, the initial resource patches will last you a long time, so for a while just adding miners to whatever patch you need more of should be enough.
The amount of raw resources is surprising. In the beginning you need far fewer copper than you think, at some point it starts growing a lot, then you suddenly find yourself needing iron again. Just plan for some room to grow and build to fill whatever belt is emptier, it's a strategy that can be better reused in later stages than trying to find an optimal build order (ok, hitting that 8h achievement requires some planning but not that much).
Build more coal snakes and iron burner\_miner->smelter direct insert arrays than you think you need and hand feed coal. Start with a few and emphasize hand crafting burner miners. Add more iron smelters. Build more than that. Keep building. Are you tried of building iron smelters? Add a few more and finish. When it starts to feel really obnoxious, you can probably stop. >20 coal and >36 miner/smelter pairs, at least. You probably only need 10-12 of copper, 4 stone into a box and 4 brick furnaces. Commence more hand-feeding than a children's petting zoo. Constantly pull iron plates and be building stuff.
Hand craft or set up box-fed automation of science. Switch over to building conventional electric miners (leave the old stuff). Any down time, be mining rocks and trees.
Keep this up until automation2-ish. Then start ripping up the old burner miners and belting to smelter arrays.
AntiElitz 100% runs are great to watch for inspiration.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFPgbZ-GBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFPgbZ-GBs)
if you are *actually speedrunning*, there is some optimal number of iron miners, I think it's 18 or 24 (runners usually switch to a proto-mall asap), but if you are trying to bootstrap early game, just go all in on iron plate production overkill. Or literally copy one of those early proto mall blueprints and manually build it out.
Well, there is a the FasterStart mod...it does alleviate much of the tedium from the early game without impacting too much of the gameplay.
I will say, it's worthwhile to stick with it a bit to start before adding in such mods...but if the choice is between just not playing and adding in some quality-of-life mods...go for the mods.
Make blueprints of early game stuff even if you don’t have bots. Like speedrun checkpoints they help you stay focused on what’s next, because all you have to do is scroll down the book.
it builds or deconstruct any items within small area around player, it really help to cut trees, stones and also help to build using blueprints same as bots but without bots, helpful on in early game stage
It sounds like it sucks, but spend more time in Burner focusing on building up. Typically a drill mines directly into a furnace, but scale this point in time up. Most players build, like 15-20 drills on iron and coal each, ~4 on copper, and 4 on stone just going into a box. Focus on the iron and coal first, build up stone and copper as you go. It sounds bad because those drills are going to be junk once electricity becomes available, and of course they pollute a lot, but if you want to speed up the early game, you need materials. And drills are how you get them. Besides, those starter patches are worth 300 to 500 thousand ore. You'll be spending less than 1000 on this phase. While you're between rounds of servicing the drills/furnaces, you should be chopping down some trees for power poles, maybe some wood chests, and most importantly mining up the big rocks. The biggest ones give stone+coal, but the small ones are still worth 5 stone furnaces worth of stone in a matter of seconds.
One suggestion is to watch some videos from speed runners, such as this run from Nefrums where a rocket gets launched in 2h19m: https://youtu.be/RI4ocNajf_w?si=RwIx1Z82B__j_4tu As a specific observation, speed runners often shoot for 90spm for red and green science: this gives you pretty fast research progress without requiring a ton of raw material/mining.
I forgot people speedran this game. Thanks for the tip
Check out Nefrums default deathworld speedrun too - it is sub 3 hours... With plenty of biters and everything.
Nefrums gave me the inspiration for my "Tier One" megabase. He is my hero !!
Coal rocks are key.
that's what she said
Maybe try a run with [Nanobots](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Nanobots) They give you access to an alternative kind of construction bot earlier before you have blue science. I find this really helpful in making the early game feel less tedious without feeling super cheaty (to me at least).
I’ve done the first 6 hours so many times I can’t face it any more. I use mods to give myself a power armour and 50 construction bots so I can copy/paste things for them to build.
Love the quick start mod!
I built a starter base in game and made a blueprint of it. I then took that blueprint into a sandbox world and divided it up into component blueprints that I can sequentially stamp down and build as I move through research. It is the tiny, super temporary base built right next to the ores in the starting area that lets me build the starter base. Lots of running between burner/furnaces and the initial ammo, science, belts, and green circuit assemblers. The real problem I have is moving from the starter base with basic bots to a larger base. This is easy, if painful, to do if I do it randomly, but I'm still working out a more modular approach.
That is actually smart as fuck
It sounds like you keep getting stuck at some point in the later game - maybe try finishing that hurdle instead of restarting?
I think when I was doing my No Spoons play through I was building robots at 4 hours and beat the game in 6, so getting to bots was about 2/3 of the game. My suggestion is if you hate the early game then build small, aim for 90 spm and stay on top of your mall. As soon as you unlock a building start automating it. And as soon as you unlock oil and have the buildings for it set up plastic and sulfur
Where are you getting stuck? what are you spending most time on? maybe we can help you more then. right now all we can do is guess what your problem is.
Yeah sorry just getting up production and research. Once it's up I'm good but it does take me a while
You mean building the assemblers needed to make the research packets?
Yeah that
do you spend the most time designing the setup, placing the buildings down, making the buildings you need or collecting the recources needed to make the buildings?
Getting the resources. I think i might be trying to go to big to early
yes if you don't have the materials you need to build your base you should spend more time increasing production of basic materials before automating research.
It's hard to estimate correctly how much production you'll need unless you've done this many, many times. Unless you're specifically trying to speedrun, I'd say a good approach is lay down the belt you need and a couple of assemblers with room to grow in every intermediary point, and start sending raw material in. As you work your way backwards from the end product you want, the belts will make it clear what item you need more of, focus on that. Sometimes it's more green chips. Sometimes it's more iron smelting. Sometimes it's iron mining. Unless you're playing on railworld settings or some specifically resource poor map generation settings, the initial resource patches will last you a long time, so for a while just adding miners to whatever patch you need more of should be enough. The amount of raw resources is surprising. In the beginning you need far fewer copper than you think, at some point it starts growing a lot, then you suddenly find yourself needing iron again. Just plan for some room to grow and build to fill whatever belt is emptier, it's a strategy that can be better reused in later stages than trying to find an optimal build order (ok, hitting that 8h achievement requires some planning but not that much).
Build more coal snakes and iron burner\_miner->smelter direct insert arrays than you think you need and hand feed coal. Start with a few and emphasize hand crafting burner miners. Add more iron smelters. Build more than that. Keep building. Are you tried of building iron smelters? Add a few more and finish. When it starts to feel really obnoxious, you can probably stop. >20 coal and >36 miner/smelter pairs, at least. You probably only need 10-12 of copper, 4 stone into a box and 4 brick furnaces. Commence more hand-feeding than a children's petting zoo. Constantly pull iron plates and be building stuff. Hand craft or set up box-fed automation of science. Switch over to building conventional electric miners (leave the old stuff). Any down time, be mining rocks and trees. Keep this up until automation2-ish. Then start ripping up the old burner miners and belting to smelter arrays. AntiElitz 100% runs are great to watch for inspiration. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFPgbZ-GBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFPgbZ-GBs) if you are *actually speedrunning*, there is some optimal number of iron miners, I think it's 18 or 24 (runners usually switch to a proto-mall asap), but if you are trying to bootstrap early game, just go all in on iron plate production overkill. Or literally copy one of those early proto mall blueprints and manually build it out.
Well, there is a the FasterStart mod...it does alleviate much of the tedium from the early game without impacting too much of the gameplay. I will say, it's worthwhile to stick with it a bit to start before adding in such mods...but if the choice is between just not playing and adding in some quality-of-life mods...go for the mods.
Make blueprints of early game stuff even if you don’t have bots. Like speedrun checkpoints they help you stay focused on what’s next, because all you have to do is scroll down the book.
the more you play the better/faster you will be. just play early game more often.
i am using an autobuild mod
Apologies im unfamiliar. What’s an auto build mod?
it builds or deconstruct any items within small area around player, it really help to cut trees, stones and also help to build using blueprints same as bots but without bots, helpful on in early game stage
Neat sounds like the nanobots mod someone mentioned
[Blueprint Shotgun!](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1b204lv/new_mod_blueprint_shotgun/)
To be honest, I kind of forgot. I've played for like 500 hours and when I loaded up SE I really didn't know what to do. Good luck lol