The Factory Must Grow: Ratios & Fluids
Introduction: The Bottle(neck)
"Why is my science stopping?" You trace the belt back. No Red Circuits. Trace that back. No Plastic. Trace that back. Petroleum is full? No, Heavy Oil is full, blocking the refinery. Welcome to Factorio.
The Three Factory Failures
1. The Green Circuit Ratio
3 Copper Wire Assemblers -> 2 Electronic Circuit Assemblers. This is the golden rule. If you belt Copper Wire, you are wasting throughput. Direct insertion is key.
2. Fluid Deadlocks
Advanced Oil Processing produces Heavy, Light, and Petroleum. If ANY output fills up, the machine stops. You must use Circuit Conditions to "Crack" excess Heavy into Light, and Light into Petroleum.
3. Bus Saturation
A Yellow Belt moves 15 items/sec. If your iron furnaces produce 30/sec, you need a Red Belt or two Yellow Belts. Do the math, or the factory starves.
How Otagon Debugs Your Factory
Ratio Calculator: "I want 60 Blue Science per minute." Otagon calculates: "You need 12 Assembler 2s, 144 Sulfur/min, and 24 Red Circuits/min."
Blueprint Help: Share your rail intersection. Otagon: "You have a Rail Signal inside the junction. Change it to a Chain Signal, or trains will deadlock in the middle."
Fluid Analysis: Snapshot your pipes. Otagon: "You're mixing water and oil systems. Check the pipe at [coords]. Pure fluid systems are mandatory."
Launching the Rocket
- The Bus: Build a Main Bus. 4 lanes Iron, 4 Copper, 2 Green Chips. Leave 2 spaces between belt groups for underground weaving.
- Mall: Automate belts, inserters, and assemblers first. Never craft by hand.
- Nuclear: Uranium processing is complex but necessary for the endgame power spike.
Pro Tips
- Cliff Explosives: Rush this tech. Cliffs are the enemy of clean layouts.
- Spidertron: Fill it with construction bots and lasers. It's your personal building/fighting tank.