Factorio Modded Playthrough #2

Pixie35

19 Jan 2026 — 6 min read

Previously on...

Right, here we are.

It's time to start some serious work, by getting a lab running. I'm just going to splice in a simple boiler/engine combo at the bottom of the current pair. That should provide enough infrastructure for the lab to get the first key technologies up. This has reminded me that I'm going to need to go and harvest a boat load of wood for poles and circuits soon, and I want to state that I am not looking forward to it.

Now with a lab in place, I need to figure out what techs I need first. Automation for the assembly machine 1 is top of the list. Gun turrets, Military, walls, radar and repair packs can wait due to the lack of biters. Lamps will be needed in a while but isn't a priority. The question then is "Are Electric Mining Drills worth it?". As an electric drill has a mining speed of 0.5/s, that's only slightly faster than the current steam powered miners at 0.4/s. The power consumption is a lot lower, at 90 kW of electricity. With coal having 4MJ of power, each miner costs 0.0225 coal/s. Again, only marginally better than a steam powered miner. So the electric miner, with the lack of basic circuits and iron cog automation, is not worth it right now.

Automation science unlocks Basic Chemistry, Basic Algae processing and Washing 1. Basic algae gets a automated source of wood for circuits, whilst basic chemistry and washing lead to coal processing, mechanical refining for sorters and farming from washing. With my initial drive to stop crafting things, basic algae wins out.

A pretty picture of the planned layouts for the starter base — Bet this plan doesn't last long...

A reason I picked this map was due to the location of all the starter ores all being clustered in top right. This naturally broke the map into easy quarters where I could do all the independent steps until I needed to start bring trains into the base with more ore. The top left quarter suits that train depot need very well. Bottom left can be used for the large refining chains and stone processing that comes with Angel's refining and Smelting, before the bottom right corner being for circuit construction, a small main bus and the resulting labs. I'll tuck power up next to the lake for the moment.

All this to lead into: Top right can be my skunk works. Here I am going to build initial belt construction, circuits and all the buildings I need in decent quantities. Which starts with automating assemblers:

A box fed assembler and circuit build — Step 1 in automation, automate the assemblers.

Then quickly, belts. Which I then use to compress the by-product crushed stone, and also then start weaving belts through this mess to mean I have a single drop off point.

A image showing the missing pipe, in red. — The smallest of errors, the biggest impacts.

Oh no, something’s wrong... After moving a miner due to depletion, I'd forgotten an input pipe, starving all the miners and bringing all production to a halt. Damn.

Already, I'm out of wood for circuits, that small forest I took out was no where near enough. Which reveals another gotcha, as green algae to cellulose is unlocked with Basic Algae processing but cellulose to wood is not unlocked until Arboretum 1. If I had that, I might as well just make a full tree farm. Well, I best go cut down another forest, I'll need the space anyway. Returning I expand the skunk works to include Inserters and Automation Science Packs, in preparation for the refining overhaul I need. This is due to my skunk works now consuming more than my current iron supply when running full tilt.

And I've not talked about belts yet. Bob's Logistics adds a lower tier of belt, the basic transport belt with 7.5 items/s, and a couple higher tiers Turbo and Ultimate transport belts at 60 items/s and 75 item/s respectively. Without Space Age there's no stacking so I'm maxed out with these transfer speeds. Why is this important? As I am figuring out all my builds, I will need to factor in these speeds to make sure the bottlenecks are on the variable I pick, rather than my own oversights by picking the wrong belts.

The first Ore Crusher has a 1.5 crafting speed, so now the crushing takes 0.66 seconds to complete. Therefore I will need to provide 3 ore/s, and output 4.5 item/s total, being 3 crushed ore and 1.5 crushed stone. With my cap of 7.5 items/s provided by the transport belt, a pair of Ore Crushers will consume 6 ore/s and produce 9 item/s. I will figure out how to separate the crushed stone out, but two belts will be required for the outputs alone. With adjustable inserters, each possible combination has a different speed of throughput. Inserters at a 180 degree angle have a 1.2 item/s throughput, or 2.31 items/s when at a 90 degree angle, which are the two configurations I have available.

A ghost blueprint showing the four assemblers laid out. — Nice and symmetrical, as all things should be.

Each crusher uses 3 180 degree inserters to meet that 3 ore/s input need, whilst 3 filtered 90 degree inserters deals with the output of one full belt of crushed ore and half a belt of crushed stone. I've planned to expand it horizontally in preparation for transport belts and left space next to it for a dedicated ore to steel build. I'll end up replicating this for all the ores down the line.

With this new found bounty of crushed saphirite, I do plan on turning it all into sweet iron ore. However, that would then require the start of Angel's smelting, which I don't think I'm quite ready for. Instead, a new furnace block but "bigger" to handle the new ~3/s crush saphirite.

A furnace block of 16 furnaces and the wonderful iron output. — A full 7.5 iron plate/s belt!

Look, its not pretty but it's in. And yes, it uses the now confirmed cheaty steam inserters. But, there is plenty of throughput now to link up with the skunk works for more automation. Things have definitely grown a little this time, its likely that I'll be unable to fit the starter base on a single screen next blog post. I'm not sure where I'll be heading in the tech tree, I'll end up giving it some thought whilst at work.

Overview for the end. Look at that single spaghetti strand.

This post was pretty quick, mainly focusing on the basic start ups for expansion. I think power might be next on the cards. If you have any feed back, please leave it below, or find me in the Angel's mods discord. If you want these posts in your inbox, subscribe and never miss a single one.

Playtime: 2:55:17

Research Complete: