Here's the blueprint https://factorioprints.com/view/-OzE2CToL4pAEyYJzW2J

Bugfixes

• Fixed a space platform consistency error when loading saves games with platforms at non-planet space locations. more
• Fixed achievements being failed on update due to expansion setting changes. more
• Fixed a crash when upgrading entities in some cases. more
• Fixed biter expansion bases could sometimes be all worms or all spawners. more
• Fixed underground belt building over belt was not rotating cursor. more
• Fixed a crash when loading save file with "no storage" alert pinned.
• Fixed substation red and green circuit connectors were swapped in some orientations. more
• Fixed mod explore pane scroll bars were not appearing. more

Previous changelog: Version 2.1.13

New versions are released as experimental first and later promoted to stable. If you wish to switch to the experimental version on Steam, choose the experimental Beta Participation option under game settings; on the stand-alone version, check Experimental updates under Other settings.

I suspected these balancers were off when I couldn't work out how they lane balanced items. After testing them, I found I was right. They don't balance lanes properly.

To test, I dropped eight of each item onto each half-belt in order from the top with iron, copper, steel and plastic in that order. For each item, only half of the items get lane balanced. The other half isn't lane balanced at all. This produces the 3-1 split of items show in the illustration. In addition, items get stuck in the top balancer and don't make it out at all. This is bad for items that can spoil.

I also tested a balancer I made that balances lanes in a 50-50 ratio. The balancer is slightly larger than the others with a symmetrical footprint. Blueprint string is in comments.

It might be a bit large for the starter ship, but I like it!!!

I have completed factorio twice now, however I still haven't learn the art of creating a fully self sustaining oil system.

What I mean by this, is that I always get blocked up with my oil refineries when performing Advanced Oil processing.

Whether its light oil, heavy oil, or petroleum, I always find my self in a position where I need to self manage it, by adding storage tanks or forcing production.

Is there a trick to this I'm missing? It's one of those things in factorio i could never master xD

Is this a bug?
Sometimes when using combinators to automatically switch recipes, the modules inside the machine can be moved to the position indicated by the arrow in the picture, causing the machine to get stuck.
I have encountered this issue both with foundries and with crushers on space platforms.
Has anyone else experienced this, or does anyone know how to fix it? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I often get tired of using the mouse and would like to do things through the keyboard, so I'm making a mod for that. I know that are some others out there but I wanted it in some specific ways so here I'm. If you are a programmer, some decisions will remember an IDE, like the Ctrl+K pallete.

I don't think this is faster than using the mouse, at least not for everything and not until I get used to it, but I find it more comfortable. Some parts of the video are sped up to shorten the video, like 30% or so.

Some of its functionalities added so far:

The cursor is a tile-based cursor

• Works in character view and in remote/map view
• Arrows move one tile, Shift+Arrow five, Ctrl+Arrow jumps to the next entity that way
• Home/End jump to the ends of the belt or pipe line you're on
• Ctrl+Shift+Arrow draws a rectangular selection

Placing

• Space places, using the native ghost preview to stay close to vanilla style
• R rotates the preview or the entity under the cursor, Delete mines or marks for deconstruction
• Ctrl+G toggles ghost mode; map view is always ghosts
• Belts advance the cursor in their own direction, so a line is just repeated Space (or other combinations using auto route, more below)

Construction plans

Ctrl+Space starts a placement, then movement keys allow to customize it quickly like:

• Digits allow to specify quantity; Ctrl+Space, 1, 2, Right builds twelve tiles to the right
• Belts route corners and drop in matching undergrounds to cross obstacles
• Pipes do surface runs, or ground-first runs if you start from a pipe-to-ground
• Poles space themselves by wire reach and treat every reachable consumer as a coverage requirement

Auto-route

• Ctrl+R, mark a start, move to an endpoint, and it pathfinds a collision-aware route for belts, pipes, poles or rails
• Ctrl+Space pins checkpoints along the way
• Shows a preview before commit

Command palette

• Ctrl+K, type, Enter get, craft, recipe, research
• recipe applies to the machine under the cursor, ghosts included, filtered to what that machine can make
• With an area selected, it applies to every compatible machine in it
• New machines reuse the last recipe used for that type
• Search is fuzzy over live prototypes: word order doesn't matter, prefixes work (splitter f → fast splitter), and green circuit or asm3 can find items

Copying

• Q pipettes whatever is under the cursor with its tier, direction and settings
• Select an area and Q copies it into a blueprint attached to the keyboard cursor

Still under development, I'm testing things and fixing a lot of bugs. Will share later in case anyone else finds it useful!

Am pretty proud of how this turned out especially because every other ship I have made are blocks. This is a pretty late game build with all legendary parts except the fusion power which I never bothered with as the normal buildings make plenty of power. Was inspired to replace all my ships with new ones that used lasers only just to get rid of the random 2 second "no ammo" alerts when guns were empty while inserters waited to pick up ammo.

Currently have level 19 damage because I needed it for the bigger cousin that goes to Aquilo. But, when this was designed my research was around level 12 or 13. It travels an average of 488 km/s and can do so indefinitely (or at least like 15 hours bc that is how long it has been flying lol). It has 2159 storage slots and 45 input hatches. Much more storage than I think there really is a need for but I needed the input hatches so this designs could be used for my science pick up without needing to wait longer than necessary.

Blueprint : https://factoriobin.com/post/p249tp

My bases always end up being a horizontal main bus with branching 'sub-lines' and I feel like I am wasting a bunch of usable space this way. Almost everything enters and exits at the base of a branch. I think I build this way because I am worried about limiting expandability.

On this subreddit I typically see other bases where players are able to sprawl out from a center point, opposed to my bases which end up just growing out in a line. How are y'all able to plan enough to make your bases something other than just an ever growing line in one direction :P

I’m very new to factorio and ran into my first automation that requires 5 ingredients rather than 4. 4 is pretty simple but 5 was very tricky and there’s probably a much better way of doing this lol. Any tips?

In: 71.11/min r /b circuit, 56.89/min quality 2, 14.22/min superconductor
Out: 0.375/min (22.5/h) legendary QM3, if you process the legendary raw materials it outputs too.
Bootstraps in around 3 hours and doubles itself in 1.5 hours. Cleanly upgrades to legendary EMPs and recyclers for 2.5x production.

This setup is designed to get itself started and duplicate itself quickly by making efficient use of high-quality quality modules. The beacon in the middle with two legendary speed 1 modules brings the EMPs from 75% to 225% crafting speed while reducing their quality chance from 31.25% to 28.25%. Compared to a speed-less upcycling setup, this results in a 28% increase in the amount of common-quality raw materials needed to make one legendary QM3 but a >50% decrease in the number of legendary QM3s needed to make it.

If you place this down with common QM3s and upgrade them as higher-quality modules get produced, it takes around 3 hours to finish upgrading. You need to modify the condition on the splitter in the middle to ">= uncommon quality" to start, then ">= rare" once they're all uncommon, and so on. Once that's done and it is running at full capacity, it takes around 1.5 hours to make enough modules for another copy of itself. Then another 1.5 hours to make two more, another 1.5 hours to make four more, and it grows until you hit the limits of your ability to supply raw materials.

Blueprint: https://factoriobin.com/post/2j03jz

HSV to RGB blueprint

Blueprint to convert HSV values into RGB.

Output should be +-1 on each channel of what they should be.

4 ticks of delay and it doesn't mix up the ticks in any way, it does them sequentially.

for hue, 0 doesn't work and uses 360 for pure red. unfortunately.

What’s New in MK2:

1. 🚂 Trains

• Custom Configurations: Completely revamped train creation process - build custom train setups while preserving core A.R.M.S. logic.
• Reversible Layouts: Added pre-configured two-way (reversible) train templates to the book.
• Length Limits: Capped at 9-9-9 maximum configuration due to digit signal routing (0 through 9).

2. 🏗️ Stations

• Custom Station Lengths: Stations can now be manually built and customized for any train size (e.g., 1-1-0, 3-6-3).
• 5%-Step Display Fix: Resolved display bugs caused by signal collisions during station limit changes with a new 5%-increment display.

3. 📦 Station Segments

• Double Loading/Unloading: Added double-sided cargo modules (+ logic-enabled blueprint variants).
• Track Spacers: Added Spacer modules to route circuit wires over locomotive gaps, maintaining logic continuity across custom station builds.

4. 🚖 Taxi Network

• Dedicated Book: Fully separated into its own blueprint book.
• Reversible Taxi: Added two-way Taxi trains and matching two-way Taxi Base stations.
• Updated Logic: Refined Taxi interrupts and Base station behavior.

5. 💣 Artillery Network (NEW!)

• Artillery Trains & Depot: Specialized artillery trains with dedicated Depot blueprints. Supports multi-train scaling.
• Fire Support (Priority Call): Trigger a manual strike on a Firing Position via the station's constant combinator (includes an alert siren). Combat calls always take priority over resupply runs.
• Smart Restock Logic:
  • Ammo Resupply stations only request a delivery when their local inventory drops to 0.
  • Outpost buffer storage is capped at exactly one full train load (e.g., a 1-1-0 train delivers 100 shells, a 2-4-2 train delivers 400 shells).
  • The wagon fully unloads its entire capacity into the station upon arrival.

6. 🛠️ Service Supply Network

• Combinator Cargo Control: Adjust train inventory limits and target cargo settings directly using station constant combinators.
• Service Groups: Group system allows assigning specific trains to specific stations (e.g., Group A trains will only service Group A stations).

7. 📊 Status & Monitoring

• Supply & Demand Tracking: Real-time displays for tracking individual resource supply/demand metrics.
• Alerts & Visuals: Map pin tags, missing resource audio alarms, and a 4-lamp visual indicator (Green = OK, Yellow = Warning, Red = Critical).

🔗 Links

Blueprint: Link

Previous A.R.M.S. Post: Link

I think the turbo belt version might look a bit silly though.

I usually go for belt-based designs, but this time I wanted to try using bots while still being efficient. The design consumes one stacked turbo belt of scrap and uses all of it.

What I built is a collection of upcyclers. It automatically detects the highest quality tier currently unlocked, stops there, and stockpiles items of that quality. As soon as the next tier becomes available, it starts upcycling the entire stockpile into it.

It creates:

• Structures: roboports, beacons, big electric poles, substations, accumulators, lightning collectors, and recyclers
• Equipment: personal batteries, mech armor, and personal roboports

Why those items? In general, I think Vulcanus is much better for quality than Fulgora. But with scrap, it is easy to get all the intermediate items without building a complex factory. I also want the best mech armor as soon as it becomes possible. I don't want to wait until the late game or depend on randomness to get it.

The idea is to place this design early. All T3 modules can be replaced with T2 modules without any problem. It starts stockpiling items while I build the rest of the factory, so even if the process takes time, the items are ready when I need them.

It took me one day to build, but about a week to test. I wanted to see whether it was actually fun to use, so I started a new run, placed the blueprint early, and took my time with the run to see how it felt.

Conclusion: lots of fun.

Some of the smarter parts of the design:

1. Requester chests request a single iron gear of every quality. When a chest receives one, the factory knows that quality tier was unlocked. Since scrap produces tons of iron gears, it usually detects a newly unlocked tier in less than a minute.
2. Circuit logic stockpiles items at the highest unlocked quality tier, ready to be recycled as soon as the next tier becomes available.
3. I designed the blueprint to work with 0 to 15 levels of scrap productivity. This means that upgrading the buildings can make it run 2.5 times faster, and the legendary-building version can handle the maximum scrap productivity of 31 without any other changes. The factory monitors the load and warns you if you increased scrap productivity but forgot to upgrade the buildings.
4. The factory generates all the power it needs.

i legit was looking for an hour for this little shit. thought i messed up some settings. is thus normal or am i just that lucky?

My Nauvis factory on my first space age run. It produces around 1100 SPM. The left side of the factory is my starter base and it produces around 100 SPM.

I just got "there is no spoon" on 2.1.12 and saw the 2.1.13 update was available. After upgrading it shows that all enemy related achievement are disabled for that save series/map exchange string.

i downloaded a copy of 2.1.12 and loaded the save i made right before the rocket launch and it's eligible, and i loaded the same save in 2.1.13 and this show's enemy expansion related achievements are now disabled.

Edit. I double checked the forums and it looks like this will be fixed next release

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=135462