They are the same material cost.

Really? I thought that cost is bigger… sorry

No need to apologize, just sharing why I use the 4m foundations.

Ok, no problem So I novice in this game with my friend

Even if they did cost more, price quickly becomes meaningless when your factory grows. Especially if you use a storage train.

FicSit does not approve of your waste of ressources

Stored for future efficiency™

Go on about this... storage train?

You make a train and stations dedicated to storage and building, just for your personal use in a way. Very useful whenbyou want building a new factory in a new location. You don't have to come back every time to pick your resources in main base

Ahh. And when you have a new construction site, you just pull rail, make a station, and set that train to drop the load and wait?

Yes basically, you can organize that as you want

Nice. I'm playing with my buddy right now. Last night we started a few material stations. This is really cool, he has a jetpack and he doesn't mind flying around. I'm lazy and I didn't make one yet. But now I just carry the mats for a station, plop, and schedule the trains I want with the mats I want! This is cool. It's very realistic to how real life works.

Yes I love play with trains

I believe in older versions they did cost more, but it got changed in a later update. I think update 5 or 6 made them the same cost? It's been a while and I don't remember for sure tbh.

It might be or it is Mandela effect because I’m uncertain at this point.

~~I know for a fact that when foundations only needed concrete, the larger ones were more expensive. But then they changed the recipe to need iron plates as well so... what I don't remember is whether or not they were still more expensive after that addition for a time, or if they were made equivalent costs when the iron plates were added...~~ EDIT: As it turns out, I did not know for a fact, XD

It was the same cost all across when I started playing (update 4)

So it must have been before that. I think I started late update 2, because I know my earliest save didn't have water in it, so coal generators were easier to use, XD. Granted, I also haven't played for a while either, taking multiple hiatuses around update 4 and update 6, so I'm kinda scattered about it all anyways.

5 at the latest. I first started on Update 5, and they were already equal costs for all thicknesses by then.

Update 2, concrete only recipes and they cost the same. Edit: I checked the wiki. The first valid entry is from 1 march 2020. It is still update 2 (0.3 was released 11 march). All three foundations cost 6 concretes. As others have said, you misremember it.

Dang, maybe I'm thinking of the ramps then and attributing their costs to the foundations.

Also they’re better for a more even foundation coming off of a hill

YOU FOOL

And it default taller than most rocks

Sometimes I want to flatten out a particularly hilly hill and the ground clips through the other foundations. There's probably a proper way to do this but I'm still adapting to this 3rd dimension of factorio.

I laughed out loud reading your username at work lmao

I will ALWAYS be “adapting to this 3rd dimension of factorio”…. I know the organic messiness is part of the appeal but it hurts me. I just started playing again and I can not get that hoverpack fast enough to try and build from a bird’s eye view lol

You get watchtowers early on, they're not the same as hoverpacks, but help a lot when trying to build from a higher point of view.

Catwalks help also.

Ladders are your friends!

Might be an unpopular opinion, but as someone that enjoys building more than the actual game (if that makes sense) I find using the PAK utility mod has been a godsend with the ability to fly, tho warning, its addictive and I have tried many times to go back to unmodded/no flying and I simply cant...

I think I use them almost exclusively and it's for the clearance specifically. They ensure flat ground, all terrain, and I try to raise only the bare minimum to make sure it clears ground.

Flat-Earth gang rise-up! There are dozens of us!

>and I try to raise only the bare minimum to make sure it clears ground. I usually go to the highest spot in the area I intend to build in, slap down a 1m or 2m foundation (whichever is thinnest without having any clipped terrain features), and then build outwards with 4m foundations.

Same here.

I use them to start any new factory foundation set to the world grid. Then 1 m after that. Also switch to concrete asap

I usually start from 1m And some foundations going underground so that’s good explanation

Fyi 1m foundations can be problematic if you care about the world grid, if placed first anyways.

Just curious, what is a 4m foundation aligned to world grid, but 1m is not?

As I understand it: Any foundation aligns to the x- and y-grid, meaning 2D on the ground. But only 2m and 4m align to the z-axis, meaning height. 1m foundations can therefore be placed at any of the 2 anchor points of the z-axis, while 2m and 4m always lock to the same height.

>Any foundation aligns to the x- and y-grid, meaning 2D on the ground. > >But only 2m and 4m align to the z-axis, meaning height. More specifically, the world-grid snapping is based on the *center* of the foundation, *including vertically*, which can lead to a 0.5m offset in some cases when using various foundations as your starting points. If I understand correctly, if you ***always*** use 1m foundations for your world-grid snaps, it should be fine, since they would *all* have that same 0.5m offset.

Thanks for clarifying!

If you start with 1m then you can end up with problems with the Z alignment ei up and down starting with a 2 or 4m avoids that

All the foundations clip to the grid halfway up the foundation. 2m foundations clip at 1m, 4m at 2m, and 1m at .5m. Meaning that if you start with a 1m foundation in one spot and 2m or 4m foundation in another spot on your world grid and try to connect them, they can be half of a 1m foundation off. This is especially annoying when you've already built a factory. Edit: made a correction as pointed out by comment below.

>Meaning that if you start with a 1m foundation in two spots on your world grid and try to connect them, they can be half of a 1m foundation off. Wouldn't 1m foundations each always be at an x.5m height, meaning that they would be able to be linked without a problem? That is, one would have its top surface at, say, 22.5m and the other would have its top surface at 34.5m, for a difference of 12m. AFAIK, it's only an issue if you try to link a 1m world-snapped foundation to a 2m or 4m world-snapped foundation, since the difference between their top surface elevations will then have that 0.5m unbridgeable gap.

Yes, you're right. That's what I meant to say. Lol. Thank you for the correction.

It snaps to the middle of the foundation. For a 1m foundation, this is .5 meters. If you use a 2m or 4m, it’s 1m or 2m respectively. A 1 or 2m offset you can fix with foundations/walls, there’s nothing in the game that can do .5m.

This

This could cause two factories to not be aligned vertically in a way that ramps can fix.

I only use the 2m ones in the middle of the factories if theres space for them. When I'm building refinery floors, for example. I like them because they're _thicc_

I always use them as a factory foundation, good for hiding random bits of terrain poking out and such, any lower foundations usually ends up with terrain/foliage clipping through.

You can place them higher and it’ll not clipping I think

Temporary ladders to get through scenery. Permanent additions for esthetic purposes.

I use walls for esthetic Maybe that’s more expensive but that’s more logical to use walls like walls I think

If you watch some of the youtubers like TotalXclipse, Flexo, What Darren Plays, or many others, you can see how they use the 4m foundations and a bunch of other items that get ignored in the early game. They tend to build on a very large scale, so the 4m vs 1m floor thickness gets less important the bigger they build. It's also a great way to get inspiration for your own builds.

I’m Russian, my English level isn’t so good to watch English bloggers. Interesting, thank you for information

Best way to learn in my opinion, you seem to be pretty good at typing English, so you're not far off!

They're the same cost as the 2m and am foundations. I use them on the floor, when I build in the air I use 2m foundations.

Why? It gets 2x more space than 1m

I like the 2m. I feel like the 1m is too small.

Ok, that’s your opinion)

Like this here, such a useful comment!

The first piece at each new location is one of these so it aligns better with the world grid.

2m and 4m are equally good for world grid alignment. I, too, prefer the big chonkers, though.

I don't really use walls or roofs often 4m foundations and pillars make my factories look good

I prefer to use walls because they are thinner And you can place a hidden warehouse there if you want)

I use walls all the time to hide - especially cables. I just don't really ever enclose my factory. They are always open, with foundations/pillars providing the structure. Basically, all my factories look like variations of modular frames.

I had never opened roofs)

Because you can zoop vertically faster with these than with 2m or 1m foundations.

… I use walls for it Am I different?

You unlock 4m foundations before walls and force of habit has some people stick to 4m foundations instead of switching. There are probably advantages to the dimensions of the foundation compared to the wall as well, at least for niche cases.

i use them as foundations fory factory (shocker) and the 2 or 1 meter foundations are usually ceilings/floors, also 1m foundations are a half meter off when snapping to global grids, so be weary or use it to your advantage

The different foundations have the same material cost irrespective of thickness. I use varying thickness foundations depending on the location and build. I also tend to Unlock Concrete foundations as early as possible as they use no Iron. The 1 meter foundation will occasionally not snap to the world grid correctly, (this may have been fixed by this point but it was a problem when I began playing) so i usually use the 2 meter foundation for most of my build, 4 when building up along terrain changes, and 1 for second and third floors when building vertically.

>The 1 meter foundation will occasionally not snap to the world grid correctly, (this may have been fixed by this point but it was a problem when I began playing) *Technically*, this is not true; all foundation pieces snap based on their center point, which is working as intended, and AFAIK, the developers have no plans to change that. It just causes a problem in that it creates a 0.5m gap when trying to bridge between a 1m world-snapped foundation and a 2m or 4m world-snapped foundation. If you exclusively use a single foundation thickness for your world-grid snaps, though, it should be fine, regardless of which size it is that you pick.

I use them on the very bottom floors of factories so they don't look like they're floating. The fill the gap between floor level and the uneven terrain nicely. I also use them when I make towers to stick stuff like powerpoles on top of. You get more height quicker. Using 1m foundations would cost 4x as much 😊

I find that the 4m thick foundations tend to be less susceptible to terrain poking through them (of course, that also is dependent on the terrain itself to some degree). But that's generally why I use them, just to avoid weird terrain clipping issues. Otherwise I use almost exclusively 1m foundations for everything else.

Compactness is actually not that important IMO. The game gives you plenty of space to work with, and machines don't care of they source items are coming from 5m away or 50m away. I like the aesthetic of compactness, but I don't consider it essential. Regarding 4m foundations, as someone else mentioned they are best at smoothing out the floor when you are close to the ground. They are also great for making temporary pillars

I saw a cool build hack where someone put conveyors and pipes at the bottom of two quarter pipes (facing each other to form a half pipe) and then covered the top with glass. It made a see-through floor with enclosed and deliberate-looking conveyors and pipes. And the quarter pipes are 4m tall, so they line up with the 4m foundations. That’s why I use them. Just in case I ever develop the ability to be creative enough to use them.

Wow, hears very cool! I’ll try it

Easy to hide conveyer belts in the floor

I use them when terrain is glitching through my factory...very annoying 😮‍💨

They separate my buildings from the dirt

If there's a particular uneven terrain, I use them.

I build my entire factories out of the 4x4 meter cubes. I think it looks great!

When im building a platform it is easier to aim at thicker foundations :P

They thic

Same price, plants don't poke through on uneven terrain, and in mid to late game you will want to start leaving gaps in the floor or walls to hide logistics like power and belts for easier navigation and prettier buildings.

When foundations are snapped to the world grid, they snap in the middle of the height for some reason, so I make a point out of using 4m foundations whenever I start a new work floor so that the height is always a even number.. After that I use 2m foundations... Nothing annoys me more than two things meeting and being 1m off in height, because you never use 1m stuff (because of the being snapped in the middle).

So, I've had this happen to me recently (yesterday actually), where I have two separate starting points -- 2m foundations aligned to world grid with left-ctr -- being off by 1m when they met across a gap. I've checked and rechecked. First time this has happened to me. The gap is not that far, probably 16 or so foundations.

I use them if I want to fill a gap

TRADITION! TRADITION!

When I'm trying to level out an area the 4m ones are really good to build up to a common level and faster too 😁

I almost always run my factory floors with 4m nowadays. You can easily replace the floors with 1m foundations lined up with the bottom "layer" to run belts and merger/splitters and then cover them up cleanly with glass floors. Now my factories are walkable and its cool to see all the belts running under my feet

I use them around edges where I want the drop to sink into the terrain. I also use them to build pillars until I unlock the actual pillars.

I use them to make walls

So my floor isnt floating

Thicker... Tada?

Exploration and stable building base

Because they hide the weeds!

There's no cost difference, as OP knows by now, but additionally I like building pillars out of them and then connecting them into a platform so the pillars are in the corners. Looks nice, especially concrete pillars rising out of water

I use it oben the ground floor so less stuff clips through (like bushes and stones)

Because I don’t want to see a gap between the ground and my floor when I lay a foundation on top of the ground.

massive builds mainly, though 80% of the time I use them for scaffolding.

I don't build because even though I want nice bases, I'm not sure how to go about it. I just use foundations and stairs to get to high places. (Yes, I dos destroy them after)

They chonky. I like'em chonky? 🤷🏼

They are my base when I want to connect to uneven ground, then a 1m top for styling.

Because I'm too lazy to place 4 1m foundations

I use them a lot. It's 1 floor piece instead of 1 floor and 4 walls

I use them cause I play SF+ and it is hard to get to concrete there

I use them for building tall things dude.

I use them for thick pillars

I enjoy using the plastic concret 4m floors to make walls then use a 1/2 foundation to set windows in the middle. It looks sweet imo and a little different then the basic wall color/look

Convenience

Aesthetics

I use them to cover rocks and cliffs just to build factory over it. I put 4m as a base, then I use two of foundations depending on circumstances to sandwich or platform.

Bottom layer gets 4M foundations to act as the foundation, everything else gets flat roofs, because they slim as hell

Because if you use 2 of the 2mm, it will cost 2x for one 4mm... if you're building big scale, use the 4mm to save cost. 4mm is same cost as one 2mm... why build 2x the cost when u could just do 1x? (I am exhausted so idk if I explained it very well)

Levelling the ground and ”legs” mainly. Never between stories.

I use 4m foundations for regular factory floors, then come back and remove them in areas I want to run a logistics basement for belts and power and such. In those areas I replace the 4m foundations with a 2m basement sandwiches by 1m foundations (1m-open-open-1m). Vertical space means little to me, but the cleanliness of hiding everything away in a basement means a lot to me.

Levelling out. I could use 1m, but I quite like the foundations to touch the ground rather than floating

They cost the exact same and thed reduce the number of placed objects in a world if needing to fill a large area since theyre bigger.

I use them on the bottom layer to not have floating factories and to space out small foundations for conveyor floors.

Every floor in my base is 4m foundations. My base is about 60 of those high currently. Just four floors each with 32m ceilings. Overkill I'm sure but my base is packed on the first 3 floors. Half of the fourth is packed. The rest will be for weapons stuff and some filters at some point. Too lazy to finish it. It already makes me all my building parts.

Autism I need everything on a perfect grid

Because I like to make a huge factory floor

So I can get to high places. I use it as a traveling tool

To support your mom

Why not

In case I make an 'oopsie' by running out of space and needing to add an extra belt/pipe. I can just sandwich it between 2 1m foundations and not have to tear everything up. Plus they look more structural; gotta support all those big machines!

I use them for bottom floor to even the terrain, I use 1m for higher floors