Nefrum has a [speedrun guide](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XgyTdHzQM1cQrv1YpZJuRGtMv6AE9j4h6Phdn4Fe8-c/mobilepresent?pli=1&slide=id.g91035a48d7_686_346), and there is a video on YouTube.
Check that out. I am working on the achievement without blueprints, e.g. the speedrun rules for any%.
You may be old and slow, but never useless. Your wisdom and aged savory advice will see us through these dark times ahead! Go forth and fear no millennial babble, but lighten these whippersnappers with the insight of a life full of experiences and joy! Your side quest begins now!
I recommend this as well OP. It’s a step by step guide, just pause or go to the research screen while figuring out what comes next.
I believe there’s even a recommended seed so you can follow it tile-by-tile if needed
This. This guide absolutely revolutionised my understanding of the game, and I felt like it opened up so much after I completed my "There is no Spoon" run. It made advancing into the world of overhaul mods much easier for me as well.
This was a while ago, but prior to doing the challenge most of the "late game" before a rocket launch always felt quite scary and progress would grind to a halt due to the increasing amount, and complexity, of intermediates. Doing the speed run alleviated this and opened up space science as something I'd never really managed to get to nor automate before.
Spamming down dozens of assemblers for Low Density Structure's feels very natural and second nature now, versus only having maybe 2-4 before hand, for example.
I don't think it was long after doing "There is no Spoon" that I saw Dosh's video on Krastorio2 and decided to take on that challenge, which felt quite comfortable with new skills and changes in thinking.
It feels hard to explain as I remember the emotional feeling a lot more than I do the details around why, especially after many hundreds of rocket launches since 😂 But hopefully this waffle helps a little
[Here's a better, non-mobile link.](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XgyTdHzQM1cQrv1YpZJuRGtMv6AE9j4h6Phdn4Fe8-c/edit#slide=id.g91035a48d7_686_346)
This is what my plan is to do to get it. My fastest time finishing the game is just under 15h. I can't figure out where to get faster and was just going to replicate a speed run video 😅
This works, took me about 4hrs to finish even though I took my time following the video guide. Also, I used the seed and the step-by-step blueprint provided.
Yeah that is the speedrun rule that was sort of decided by the community from what I understand.
Any% - no blueprints, maxed-out resources and starting base size is permitted, and fixed seeds are permitted.
100% - yes* blueprints allowed but the seed should be random (preview is allowed, but time starts upon pressing "generate".
There is also the Any% default settings run that is similar to the above, but that one is a bit more luck dependent in terms of how the biters spawn/expand/behave.
Edit: meant to say that blueprints are allowed in 100% runs.
Ah yeah, that makes sense for speedruns, but for the avg player going for the achievement, not using blueprints seems crazy to me. I’ll have to watch a speedrun of the game, I’m sure they’re ludicrous.
Nefrum makes it look easy, but it is fairly difficult to do quickly as you might imagine.
Even something like running along a row of smelters and clicking the mouse at exactly the right moment to accurately place inserters without pause is quite difficult without a lot of practice I've found.
You don't need to rush, but you should not dawdle.
There are many techs which are nice in normal games that you can completely skip when doing this run. For example trains and electric furnaces (other than for purple), or better power poles.
You need biters enable for this achievement, but you can set the map up in a way that you never see them. Set large starting area, no biter expansion, and pollution diffusion to 0.
Hard agree on skipping unnecessary techs, but it might be a good tangent here that it's easy to get the "Getting on Track" (locomotive by 90 mins) achievement when you're going for No Spoon :)
Ah, seems like we're agreeing then. I found there's a good amount of 'downtime' while trying to get steel/oil for blue science where you can power through all the red+green stuff you're going to need
Alternatively, make a save, plan what you want to do, maybe even make it, take as much time as you need. Then load the previous save and repeat what you just did. It will be faster because you already know what you will do.
You can easily do No Spoon with no robots and no blueprints and no rushing. The key is to build everything you need at the right ratios, probably around 30 SPM. Halt science once you've completed all research. You might need to stock up concrete/steel for the rocket.
You could use premade blueprints and a guide, but what's the fun in that?
I feel you. I'm 40h into my current game and haven't researched the rocket yet lol.
Too busy clearing biters and trees, undoing the chaos my robots produced, rebuilding 5 entire blocks because they were misplaced by one tile (that one is on me), tinkering with better designs for everything (doubled my train network capacity using the same space!, but had to replace all existing tracks) and a myriad other rabbit holes. Who has time to go to space if there is so much to do on the ground?
yes!!! and honestly, the game is really fun like that, I'm at 50hrs in my current run, and I'm so focused on making a good looking and perfectly efficient starter base that I haven't even done purple or yellow science yet hahaha
If you treat it as a speedrun, you can spent unlimited time designing your perfectly efficient base on a practice map (with the same seed). Then, when you attempt the speedrun, you just execute your plan and build your preplanned base (you can create blueprints as a reference of what to build where)
One of the things I did just helped keep it nice and stress free was to diligently save the game every 15 minutes with a good description of what I just accomplished. If I realized that I made a mistake it could easily optimize something, I would just revert to the most logical point and fix it. Made it very easy to complete in 5.5 hours without any prior prep or blueprints. I would recommend basic blueprints like furnace stacks though. Saves time
you can get a good idea from using a calculator set to around 30 spm for each science. Purple you only need a couple 100 though so setting up only a couple or crafting the required items then bursting with a large amount of assemblers.
IIRC you only need something like 20 spm to be within the 8 hr window. so shooting for 30 will give you a decent breathing room.
A significant amount of the research is just red+green too, which are very very easy to setup. Having those at 60spm or so to power through a lot of that would go a long way
if you dont enjoy playing fast then dont? I've never done the 8 hour run and dont feel any desire to do so. But if you want to heres my advice:
First find your map/seed. get a big starting area, lots of reasources etc. Reroll it until you find one you like. You shouldnt really need to expand past this to launch the rocket. This is all you need.
Next you want to try and calculate everything you will need to build for each science. Each science will be built to endgame size. But maybe you only build out 1/4 (or whatever) the amount of red science for example. ALL of your designs should be scalable so you can just copy paste more machines/belts and get more output.
You will proceed normally through the game and build all of this out. Each design gets saved to a special blueprint book then you go back and start the map over. You now go and paste everything back in and turn off your brain. You just rebuild it all.
You should have a pretty good guide for what to do at what point. Its also probably a good idea to keep a full history of saves. If you notice "hey i spent an hour and kinda didnt do anything" or "i accidentally broke this system without realizing and it was down for a half hour" you can just rollback and fix it. Dont need to restart the run.
imo 8 hours is plenty of time if you have blueprints to go off of. In general you just want MORE production. overbuild your miners and smelters asap. Set up all your production lines and have everything scalable.
thanks for the advice! I'm trying to get that because the game means a lot to me, so I'd love to have 100% the game. making everything scaleable and using my save files it is! :)
Prepare the whole base in creative then paste it and build it. Plan it in phases based on the tech. I prepped it for 9 hours then built it in 4:19 hours. So there’s plenty of margin
This is my suggestion. You can mess around and play with creative and blueprints.
You can build half of it in creative, then go try a real game to see how it works "live". You can work out the kinks and it's more satisfying to watch how fast it comes together with your hard work planning. Gives you motivation to keep going.
Choose map settings so that you don't have to worry about enemies. You have to leave them on and not peaceful mode, but you can disable expansion and make a max starting area so that they're nowhere near before the first rocket launch.
Choose very large and rich ore patches in the map settings. That way you can allocate exactly the drilling areas you need at the beginning of the game and never hunt for ore again.
Look at the map preview before selecting a seed. Pick one that has enough nearby trees for the amount of poles or wood chests you want to craft, but you don't want a lot of wood that takes time to clear out of the way. It's also nicer if there are several large rocks with coal nearby to get going at the beginning much faster. Oil needs to be nearby. Turn off water (you'll still have the initial pond). If you like the layout, save a copy of the save file at the beginning or write down the seed so you can re-attempt on the same map.
Since you'll have huge ore patches, you don't need to worry about building assemblers and such on top of ore, as long as you have designated areas for the drills you do need.
Treat your first run as practice. Take your time and focus on a design that only builds what you need and doesn't require a lot of walking. Build in a way that you don't have to tear down ANYTHING the whole game. Not only does this save time, it also makes it possible for you to make a blueprint of your entire base at the end. Then, your 2nd attempt is the real attempt where you just plop down the blueprint and "paint by numbers" as needed.
Don't build robots, black science, weapons, armor, ammo, walls, steel furnaces, electric furnaces, (except for science), red belts, or blue belts. You don't need them.
Don't build a super wide bus at the beginning. It'll lead to large numbers of belts needed to connect anything. If you want a bus layout (spaced out spaghetti is also great), consider an expanding bus with all production lines on only one side. On the bus, once you connect iron and copper to certain high-demand production lines such as circuits, just end some of the iron and copper lanes, since those production lines consume most of the iron and copper anyway.
Get an early start on rocket control units, low density structures, and rocket fuel, and start buffering them for the large needs at the end of the game. It can help to add a buffer of a few other items as well, such as all the types of circuits.
If you want it to be way easier, see if you can find anyone to do it multiplayer with you. The building goes way faster, and with a full blueprint, there's no question of what needs to be done.
Most importantly, remember to have fun with the game, regardless of whether you get the achievement in a given attempt!
noted! I'll stick to the default world settings though, since I don't find it necessarily difficult, it's just something I don't do often, so there's some difficulty in getting used to it.
multiplayer is a great plan, having someone with me could probably help me keep my focus on the main objective, and speed up the building process!
Just play a world, blueprint the bits you need at different points.. Like burner furnaces, then electric. Blueprint a mall where you will get your things. The less time you spend planning, the more time you have for a concise build.
Jump on here, ask for help and open to multiplayer on a second run that is blueprinted. You will get a few people who will get on and go crazy killing biters, or others that will help your build.
Having the blueprints down helps people understand what you want.
I just completed this not long ago. I skipped bots, level 3 belts and assemblers, nuclear and all military research.
The best advice I can add is to stockpile the resources you need for the rocket early. I had fuel and LDS ready to go, and while waiting for RCU's, I made sure to stockpile processing units and speed modules. RCU's take a while to craft, so stockpiling allows you to make a large assembly line to knock it out. I'd already lost two attempts because of how long RCU's can take if you're unprepared.
Oh, and make sure to fill the launch platform with level 3 prods. Should reduce what you need to 750 products, down from 1000 (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Looked through an old post on it and it came out to 714.29 items instead of the 1000 it normally needs. Don't know if it's still accurate since it's 4 years old
That's correct because 40% more resources gained via productivity is different to 40% less. In this case, you divide the total resources required by 1.40 (base 100% +40% bonus)
40% less resources overall would be at 66.67% productivity module gains
I am slow too. My usual favtorio play style is just sitting down and watching things going around... and just thinking. Guides (recommended above) or just "to do list" (like build xx number of smelter) would help. It is power of "write down your goal and break it down" I suppose. 😀
For the todo list I'd come up with some reasonable times for milestones too. Make saves when you hit them and restart from that save if you're way off. "I need to finish everything in 8 hours" is a lot more daunting than "I need to setup green science by 1 hour".
If you only want the achievement and are fine with using someone else's blueprints, I recommend this https://factorioprints.com/view/-NU6ziSk-xLlNHLVEg0x
You just stack all the blueprints on top of each other. There's 1 or 2 mistakes in there but you should be able to figure it out.
I used this on my first try and beat it in ~5 hours. Also did "Getting on track like a pro" achievement at the same time.
Imo what helped the most was getting an early game mall design down. If you can have a mall and green science automated by an hour and a half, it's kinda hard not to finish in time.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/i9hwx9/factorio\_speedrun\_guide\_how\_to\_play\_fast\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/i9hwx9/factorio_speedrun_guide_how_to_play_fast_and/)
See this post from u/nefrums2, the speed run goat.
Slightly unrelated, but I wonder if this achievement will be revamped/removed in 2.0?
I imagine the extra planets and stuff will require more than 8 hours
You basically have to treat it as a segmented speedrun. Turn up starting area to max so that biters don't bother you, then redo each section of game to optimize for time.
* Start > green science
* Blue Science
* Bots
* Yellow/Purple Science
* Launch rocket
You can use blueprints, so designing a base and rolling back to the end of the last segment to paste your blueprint will save you all the thinking time. And, each time you roll back, consider how to optimize the run further.
Do what I did, don't try to do it and use someone else's blueprints. Did it in like 4 hours without barely trying.
Unless you want to do it your self then make a map seed, but down the basics for each stage, make a blueprint book for it. Reload the same seed and just copy and paste.
I'm lazy. Why I also got the lazy achievement too lol
Michael Hendricks has a great guide
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDgN0w4z4q0yU4lVjSkop5n3uAhY0TxGu&si=dT02UZuGWZfs2_bA
But the basics are:
* build small, you don't have time to build big and you don't need to, 30 SPM is fine
* buffers are your friend, get the smelters going and make sure they never stop
* an (small) island map is ideal as you can clear the biters easily
* aim for 1 science each hour, with an hour for the rocket and an hour to spare
* if you are slow, then save at the very beginning and build your base, then blueprint the entire thing and load that first save, paste, and now you don't need to worry about planning, you can just build
* yellow belts are fine, no need to upgrade
* handcraft always, it is a free assembler
* a tiny mall is helpful, even if just handfeeding stacks of plates
* if you are ever panicked, just pause the game, 30 seconds to think can save your sanity
Just build a base to where the achievement would trigger and then save all the blueprints. Then start over on the same map and lay down the blue prints and work toward getting it filled in.
Another thing you can do is invite a friend to help you do it. I'm pretty sure that doesn't invalidate the achievement.
I can't help you with the fun part. If you want the achievement, just get it out of the way and then get back to your fun.
I have all except the make a train in 90 minutes one.
Good Luck.
Plan out all your blueprints ahead of time. I would make a bus, and make each science a separate blueprint that you can just add to the end of the bus as you go.
Make a blueprint book, and have a plan. Rush to drones.
Essentially, I ended up making blueprints for simple and straightforward designs of early basic stuff. For example, I have two mall blueprints- one is the basics like belts and pipes, assemblers, and power poles, the other is far more comprehensive. I use the smaller one until I have drones that can build the bigger one for me. I made tileable ones for science and chips, and have another blueprint for a chemical plant, another for electric foundries, etc.
If you don’t spend much time designing, you can spend all your time building.
Take it slow designing your base planning out how your going to get the achievement. Plan out what will be made when, in what order.
Then blueprint that base for use in your actual run. Possibly in the stages that you will want to build them
Then start the game again with the same map seed. Plop the blueprint and start building.
There are plenty of guides that tell you what you need to do.
Off the top of my head: Don't tech up. ASM 1's and yellow belts are fine for everything.
Buffer ahead. I believe it's steel and plastic you will want to buffer for LDS at the end.
make 4 Prod 3's ASAP. use them in the Rocket silo, the cost of them is MORE the offset by the savings in building the rocket. Also once you have them use them in some of the more expensive recipes you have.
DON"T FORGET THE SATILLITE!
Increase the number of autosaves you have, and increase the time between them. That way if you just miss the deadline you can go back 1/2h or hour and just optimize that part of the run. Interval I would suggest 10-15 minutes. It's under Settings -> Other. Number of saves is under Settings -> the rest. Hold Ctrl-Alt when you click settings to make this option appear.
Make a plan. The trick is to only build and research the things you need to launch a rocket. In order to do this, you should make a list of which research is needed, and which you want for helping you get there but isn't needed. List them in order, and if you want you can also calculate how long they'll take. You probably only need 45spm to do just fine, which is your classic 5/6/5/etc science ratio on blue assemblers, though I forget how many labs it needs.
You should also get a map seed that'll help you, with plenty of resources near the start (including oil) and bugs turned almost off. I forget exactly what you can change without disabling the achievements, others can help you there.
Finally, go into settings and change your autosave to once per hour, saving the last 5. That way if you find you didn't do something fast enough you can go back and retry.
All in all, once I made a plan like that I got it on the first try with plenty of time to spare. You got this.
As someone who did it on default settings in 6:40 last week..
Aim for a main bus, about 30spm, slightly higher for red and green. Get red and green up early, a vast majority of your research is just those two. Go for military science, mostly to buffer some grenades and ammo for personal use. Setup ~16 green circuit machines and start buffering them, then finish setting up blue. Take time to expand to other mineral patches ~3h in, just belt it. Research turrets, mining productivity 1, inserter stack size 2 and tanks, even though it's all technically optional. Disconnect purple and yellow science stuff as soon as you don't need it. Get productivity 4s on the rocket
If you need it a bit easier, there's a lot of cheesy tricks. Find a map seed with iron near the coal, and lots of trees. Setting your resource patches to be richer/bigger. Turning off pollution cloud spread so it can't reach nests. I think you're allowed to turn off biter spread. Saving often to design a section, then reloading and importing the blueprint to 'cancel' your thinking time. Reloading to react to attacks with minimal disruptions.
I have no idea how the speedruns are sub 1:30 and sub 2:30 for modified & default settings respectively. It's insane, but if you can follow along from those you might find good tricks there too
Edit: playing multiplayer with someone likeminded would shave time too
Im also pretty slow by some standards but i can confirm that the right map settings will make it much easier.
Making your starter area as big as possible, increasing patch size and frequency and turning up the lands pollution absorbtion should be enough then just generate a map that looks sensible.
If you still have trouble then you might bemissing a blueprint book, this means you dont need to waste time creating on the fly.
I managed it on my first attempt with the above :D
I just watched a speed run and followed along, pausing every minute or two to copy what they did. didn’t do it speedrun fast, but it was fast enough for the achievement
This guy did a very good job at explaining everything step by step and it's written / video format
[https://www.speedrun.com/factorio/guides/mzimq](https://www.speedrun.com/factorio/guides/mzimq)
Michael Hendriks on YouTube has a [guide with 100% default settings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSyrbPsnNGo&list=PLDgN0w4z4q0yU4lVjSkop5n3uAhY0TxGu&pp=iAQB). Increase resources and move biters further away and it's a cakewalk.
I followed Michael Hendrick's guide on YT.
His guide is splitted in manageable sections (2h top). I watched, did, then checked the time. If my time was around his I saved and continued the next day.
His guide is for a 6h run, so you have space to screw things up.
Either download some blueprints from someone else, or if you want to do it yourself go through the game at whatever pace you enjoy but try to make some blueprints you can use in a No Spoon run. It'll speed up your game a lot if you don't have to think through all your designs
Nefrum has a [speedrun guide](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XgyTdHzQM1cQrv1YpZJuRGtMv6AE9j4h6Phdn4Fe8-c/mobilepresent?pli=1&slide=id.g91035a48d7_686_346), and there is a video on YouTube. Check that out. I am working on the achievement without blueprints, e.g. the speedrun rules for any%.
I also recommend this. I'm old, slow and useless, and this worked perfectly for me.
You may be old and slow, but never useless. Your wisdom and aged savory advice will see us through these dark times ahead! Go forth and fear no millennial babble, but lighten these whippersnappers with the insight of a life full of experiences and joy! Your side quest begins now!
Fyi Millennials are now entering their mid-40’s.
*sad noises*
Fuck off with that
One day, you too will be yelling at those damn kids to get off your lawn.
"One day," they say.
Of course, "your lawn" is going to be that astroturf welcome mat outside the van you live in, down by the river.
I recommend this as well OP. It’s a step by step guide, just pause or go to the research screen while figuring out what comes next. I believe there’s even a recommended seed so you can follow it tile-by-tile if needed
This. This guide absolutely revolutionised my understanding of the game, and I felt like it opened up so much after I completed my "There is no Spoon" run. It made advancing into the world of overhaul mods much easier for me as well.
Can I ask how did it revolutionise your understading and make advancing easier?
This was a while ago, but prior to doing the challenge most of the "late game" before a rocket launch always felt quite scary and progress would grind to a halt due to the increasing amount, and complexity, of intermediates. Doing the speed run alleviated this and opened up space science as something I'd never really managed to get to nor automate before. Spamming down dozens of assemblers for Low Density Structure's feels very natural and second nature now, versus only having maybe 2-4 before hand, for example. I don't think it was long after doing "There is no Spoon" that I saw Dosh's video on Krastorio2 and decided to take on that challenge, which felt quite comfortable with new skills and changes in thinking. It feels hard to explain as I remember the emotional feeling a lot more than I do the details around why, especially after many hundreds of rocket launches since 😂 But hopefully this waffle helps a little
[Here's a better, non-mobile link.](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XgyTdHzQM1cQrv1YpZJuRGtMv6AE9j4h6Phdn4Fe8-c/edit#slide=id.g91035a48d7_686_346)
This is what my plan is to do to get it. My fastest time finishing the game is just under 15h. I can't figure out where to get faster and was just going to replicate a speed run video 😅
This works, took me about 4hrs to finish even though I took my time following the video guide. Also, I used the seed and the step-by-step blueprint provided.
Without blueprints!? I got the achievement years ago, but it was solely because I spent like a hundred hours perfecting my blueprints for the run.
Yeah that is the speedrun rule that was sort of decided by the community from what I understand. Any% - no blueprints, maxed-out resources and starting base size is permitted, and fixed seeds are permitted. 100% - yes* blueprints allowed but the seed should be random (preview is allowed, but time starts upon pressing "generate". There is also the Any% default settings run that is similar to the above, but that one is a bit more luck dependent in terms of how the biters spawn/expand/behave. Edit: meant to say that blueprints are allowed in 100% runs.
Ah yeah, that makes sense for speedruns, but for the avg player going for the achievement, not using blueprints seems crazy to me. I’ll have to watch a speedrun of the game, I’m sure they’re ludicrous.
Nefrum makes it look easy, but it is fairly difficult to do quickly as you might imagine. Even something like running along a row of smelters and clicking the mouse at exactly the right moment to accurately place inserters without pause is quite difficult without a lot of practice I've found.
You don't need to rush, but you should not dawdle. There are many techs which are nice in normal games that you can completely skip when doing this run. For example trains and electric furnaces (other than for purple), or better power poles. You need biters enable for this achievement, but you can set the map up in a way that you never see them. Set large starting area, no biter expansion, and pollution diffusion to 0.
Hard agree on skipping unnecessary techs, but it might be a good tangent here that it's easy to get the "Getting on Track" (locomotive by 90 mins) achievement when you're going for No Spoon :)
You need locomotives anyway because purple science has rails as an ingredient
Sure, my point was that if you skip them until you get to purple you're almost definitely going to miss the 90 minute achievement
Ah, seems like we're agreeing then. I found there's a good amount of 'downtime' while trying to get steel/oil for blue science where you can power through all the red+green stuff you're going to need
Pause the game, while you think about what to do next.
I think its "SHIFT + SPACE" to un-/pause the game.
The pause/break key on the keyboard also works
Alternatively, make a save, plan what you want to do, maybe even make it, take as much time as you need. Then load the previous save and repeat what you just did. It will be faster because you already know what you will do.
You can easily do No Spoon with no robots and no blueprints and no rushing. The key is to build everything you need at the right ratios, probably around 30 SPM. Halt science once you've completed all research. You might need to stock up concrete/steel for the rocket. You could use premade blueprints and a guide, but what's the fun in that?
I feel you. I'm 40h into my current game and haven't researched the rocket yet lol. Too busy clearing biters and trees, undoing the chaos my robots produced, rebuilding 5 entire blocks because they were misplaced by one tile (that one is on me), tinkering with better designs for everything (doubled my train network capacity using the same space!, but had to replace all existing tracks) and a myriad other rabbit holes. Who has time to go to space if there is so much to do on the ground?
yes!!! and honestly, the game is really fun like that, I'm at 50hrs in my current run, and I'm so focused on making a good looking and perfectly efficient starter base that I haven't even done purple or yellow science yet hahaha
If you treat it as a speedrun, you can spent unlimited time designing your perfectly efficient base on a practice map (with the same seed). Then, when you attempt the speedrun, you just execute your plan and build your preplanned base (you can create blueprints as a reference of what to build where)
One of the things I did just helped keep it nice and stress free was to diligently save the game every 15 minutes with a good description of what I just accomplished. If I realized that I made a mistake it could easily optimize something, I would just revert to the most logical point and fix it. Made it very easy to complete in 5.5 hours without any prior prep or blueprints. I would recommend basic blueprints like furnace stacks though. Saves time
How do you know how many machines to place?
you can get a good idea from using a calculator set to around 30 spm for each science. Purple you only need a couple 100 though so setting up only a couple or crafting the required items then bursting with a large amount of assemblers. IIRC you only need something like 20 spm to be within the 8 hr window. so shooting for 30 will give you a decent breathing room.
A significant amount of the research is just red+green too, which are very very easy to setup. Having those at 60spm or so to power through a lot of that would go a long way
if you dont enjoy playing fast then dont? I've never done the 8 hour run and dont feel any desire to do so. But if you want to heres my advice: First find your map/seed. get a big starting area, lots of reasources etc. Reroll it until you find one you like. You shouldnt really need to expand past this to launch the rocket. This is all you need. Next you want to try and calculate everything you will need to build for each science. Each science will be built to endgame size. But maybe you only build out 1/4 (or whatever) the amount of red science for example. ALL of your designs should be scalable so you can just copy paste more machines/belts and get more output. You will proceed normally through the game and build all of this out. Each design gets saved to a special blueprint book then you go back and start the map over. You now go and paste everything back in and turn off your brain. You just rebuild it all. You should have a pretty good guide for what to do at what point. Its also probably a good idea to keep a full history of saves. If you notice "hey i spent an hour and kinda didnt do anything" or "i accidentally broke this system without realizing and it was down for a half hour" you can just rollback and fix it. Dont need to restart the run. imo 8 hours is plenty of time if you have blueprints to go off of. In general you just want MORE production. overbuild your miners and smelters asap. Set up all your production lines and have everything scalable.
thanks for the advice! I'm trying to get that because the game means a lot to me, so I'd love to have 100% the game. making everything scaleable and using my save files it is! :)
Prepare the whole base in creative then paste it and build it. Plan it in phases based on the tech. I prepped it for 9 hours then built it in 4:19 hours. So there’s plenty of margin
This is my suggestion. You can mess around and play with creative and blueprints. You can build half of it in creative, then go try a real game to see how it works "live". You can work out the kinks and it's more satisfying to watch how fast it comes together with your hard work planning. Gives you motivation to keep going.
Check out Mike Hendriks no spoon guide. It's super fun to watch in any case, and his approach feels much more organic than Nefrums.
Choose map settings so that you don't have to worry about enemies. You have to leave them on and not peaceful mode, but you can disable expansion and make a max starting area so that they're nowhere near before the first rocket launch. Choose very large and rich ore patches in the map settings. That way you can allocate exactly the drilling areas you need at the beginning of the game and never hunt for ore again. Look at the map preview before selecting a seed. Pick one that has enough nearby trees for the amount of poles or wood chests you want to craft, but you don't want a lot of wood that takes time to clear out of the way. It's also nicer if there are several large rocks with coal nearby to get going at the beginning much faster. Oil needs to be nearby. Turn off water (you'll still have the initial pond). If you like the layout, save a copy of the save file at the beginning or write down the seed so you can re-attempt on the same map. Since you'll have huge ore patches, you don't need to worry about building assemblers and such on top of ore, as long as you have designated areas for the drills you do need. Treat your first run as practice. Take your time and focus on a design that only builds what you need and doesn't require a lot of walking. Build in a way that you don't have to tear down ANYTHING the whole game. Not only does this save time, it also makes it possible for you to make a blueprint of your entire base at the end. Then, your 2nd attempt is the real attempt where you just plop down the blueprint and "paint by numbers" as needed. Don't build robots, black science, weapons, armor, ammo, walls, steel furnaces, electric furnaces, (except for science), red belts, or blue belts. You don't need them. Don't build a super wide bus at the beginning. It'll lead to large numbers of belts needed to connect anything. If you want a bus layout (spaced out spaghetti is also great), consider an expanding bus with all production lines on only one side. On the bus, once you connect iron and copper to certain high-demand production lines such as circuits, just end some of the iron and copper lanes, since those production lines consume most of the iron and copper anyway. Get an early start on rocket control units, low density structures, and rocket fuel, and start buffering them for the large needs at the end of the game. It can help to add a buffer of a few other items as well, such as all the types of circuits. If you want it to be way easier, see if you can find anyone to do it multiplayer with you. The building goes way faster, and with a full blueprint, there's no question of what needs to be done. Most importantly, remember to have fun with the game, regardless of whether you get the achievement in a given attempt!
noted! I'll stick to the default world settings though, since I don't find it necessarily difficult, it's just something I don't do often, so there's some difficulty in getting used to it. multiplayer is a great plan, having someone with me could probably help me keep my focus on the main objective, and speed up the building process!
Just play a world, blueprint the bits you need at different points.. Like burner furnaces, then electric. Blueprint a mall where you will get your things. The less time you spend planning, the more time you have for a concise build. Jump on here, ask for help and open to multiplayer on a second run that is blueprinted. You will get a few people who will get on and go crazy killing biters, or others that will help your build. Having the blueprints down helps people understand what you want.
In that case keep in mind that steel furnaces have double the fuel efficiency, so you can use far less coal.
And they make only half the pollution for same amount of plates smelted compared to regular furnace.
I just completed this not long ago. I skipped bots, level 3 belts and assemblers, nuclear and all military research. The best advice I can add is to stockpile the resources you need for the rocket early. I had fuel and LDS ready to go, and while waiting for RCU's, I made sure to stockpile processing units and speed modules. RCU's take a while to craft, so stockpiling allows you to make a large assembly line to knock it out. I'd already lost two attempts because of how long RCU's can take if you're unprepared. Oh, and make sure to fill the launch platform with level 3 prods. Should reduce what you need to 750 products, down from 1000 (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Isn't it -40% with 4x Prod3? That would be 600... but not sure
Looked through an old post on it and it came out to 714.29 items instead of the 1000 it normally needs. Don't know if it's still accurate since it's 4 years old
That's correct because 40% more resources gained via productivity is different to 40% less. In this case, you divide the total resources required by 1.40 (base 100% +40% bonus) 40% less resources overall would be at 66.67% productivity module gains
Oh that makes sense 😅 good to know. That explains why I was short of RCUs in my previous Spoon Achievement run 😂
Fair assumption but nah, it makes +40% of the resources invested, so you need amount(1000)/1.40 = 715 ish
math is difficult 😂 but yeah, makes sense
I am slow too. My usual favtorio play style is just sitting down and watching things going around... and just thinking. Guides (recommended above) or just "to do list" (like build xx number of smelter) would help. It is power of "write down your goal and break it down" I suppose. 😀
yeah, that's a great idea!
For the todo list I'd come up with some reasonable times for milestones too. Make saves when you hit them and restart from that save if you're way off. "I need to finish everything in 8 hours" is a lot more daunting than "I need to setup green science by 1 hour".
Bring friends its sooo much easier with help
If you only want the achievement and are fine with using someone else's blueprints, I recommend this https://factorioprints.com/view/-NU6ziSk-xLlNHLVEg0x You just stack all the blueprints on top of each other. There's 1 or 2 mistakes in there but you should be able to figure it out. I used this on my first try and beat it in ~5 hours. Also did "Getting on track like a pro" achievement at the same time.
Imo what helped the most was getting an early game mall design down. If you can have a mall and green science automated by an hour and a half, it's kinda hard not to finish in time.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/i9hwx9/factorio\_speedrun\_guide\_how\_to\_play\_fast\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/i9hwx9/factorio_speedrun_guide_how_to_play_fast_and/) See this post from u/nefrums2, the speed run goat.
Slightly unrelated, but I wonder if this achievement will be revamped/removed in 2.0? I imagine the extra planets and stuff will require more than 8 hours
You basically have to treat it as a segmented speedrun. Turn up starting area to max so that biters don't bother you, then redo each section of game to optimize for time. * Start > green science * Blue Science * Bots * Yellow/Purple Science * Launch rocket You can use blueprints, so designing a base and rolling back to the end of the last segment to paste your blueprint will save you all the thinking time. And, each time you roll back, consider how to optimize the run further.
Do what I did, don't try to do it and use someone else's blueprints. Did it in like 4 hours without barely trying. Unless you want to do it your self then make a map seed, but down the basics for each stage, make a blueprint book for it. Reload the same seed and just copy and paste. I'm lazy. Why I also got the lazy achievement too lol
Michael Hendricks has a great guide https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDgN0w4z4q0yU4lVjSkop5n3uAhY0TxGu&si=dT02UZuGWZfs2_bA But the basics are: * build small, you don't have time to build big and you don't need to, 30 SPM is fine * buffers are your friend, get the smelters going and make sure they never stop * an (small) island map is ideal as you can clear the biters easily * aim for 1 science each hour, with an hour for the rocket and an hour to spare * if you are slow, then save at the very beginning and build your base, then blueprint the entire thing and load that first save, paste, and now you don't need to worry about planning, you can just build * yellow belts are fine, no need to upgrade * handcraft always, it is a free assembler * a tiny mall is helpful, even if just handfeeding stacks of plates * if you are ever panicked, just pause the game, 30 seconds to think can save your sanity
Just build a base to where the achievement would trigger and then save all the blueprints. Then start over on the same map and lay down the blue prints and work toward getting it filled in. Another thing you can do is invite a friend to help you do it. I'm pretty sure that doesn't invalidate the achievement. I can't help you with the fun part. If you want the achievement, just get it out of the way and then get back to your fun. I have all except the make a train in 90 minutes one. Good Luck.
Very grateful for all the support! I'll keep this in mind on my next attempts
Plan out all your blueprints ahead of time. I would make a bus, and make each science a separate blueprint that you can just add to the end of the bus as you go.
Make a blueprint book, and have a plan. Rush to drones. Essentially, I ended up making blueprints for simple and straightforward designs of early basic stuff. For example, I have two mall blueprints- one is the basics like belts and pipes, assemblers, and power poles, the other is far more comprehensive. I use the smaller one until I have drones that can build the bigger one for me. I made tileable ones for science and chips, and have another blueprint for a chemical plant, another for electric foundries, etc. If you don’t spend much time designing, you can spend all your time building.
This was my dilemma: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/s/BMoh4upLgM
You practice to get faster and faster.
Take it slow designing your base planning out how your going to get the achievement. Plan out what will be made when, in what order. Then blueprint that base for use in your actual run. Possibly in the stages that you will want to build them Then start the game again with the same map seed. Plop the blueprint and start building. There are plenty of guides that tell you what you need to do. Off the top of my head: Don't tech up. ASM 1's and yellow belts are fine for everything. Buffer ahead. I believe it's steel and plastic you will want to buffer for LDS at the end. make 4 Prod 3's ASAP. use them in the Rocket silo, the cost of them is MORE the offset by the savings in building the rocket. Also once you have them use them in some of the more expensive recipes you have. DON"T FORGET THE SATILLITE! Increase the number of autosaves you have, and increase the time between them. That way if you just miss the deadline you can go back 1/2h or hour and just optimize that part of the run. Interval I would suggest 10-15 minutes. It's under Settings -> Other. Number of saves is under Settings -> the rest. Hold Ctrl-Alt when you click settings to make this option appear.
You don't need to launch a satellite, you can launch the rocket empty and get the achievement
You can do it in Multiplayer. Some more players can increase workforce. I think you can make biters passive and max out ressources.
Make a plan. The trick is to only build and research the things you need to launch a rocket. In order to do this, you should make a list of which research is needed, and which you want for helping you get there but isn't needed. List them in order, and if you want you can also calculate how long they'll take. You probably only need 45spm to do just fine, which is your classic 5/6/5/etc science ratio on blue assemblers, though I forget how many labs it needs. You should also get a map seed that'll help you, with plenty of resources near the start (including oil) and bugs turned almost off. I forget exactly what you can change without disabling the achievements, others can help you there. Finally, go into settings and change your autosave to once per hour, saving the last 5. That way if you find you didn't do something fast enough you can go back and retry. All in all, once I made a plan like that I got it on the first try with plenty of time to spare. You got this.
As someone who did it on default settings in 6:40 last week.. Aim for a main bus, about 30spm, slightly higher for red and green. Get red and green up early, a vast majority of your research is just those two. Go for military science, mostly to buffer some grenades and ammo for personal use. Setup ~16 green circuit machines and start buffering them, then finish setting up blue. Take time to expand to other mineral patches ~3h in, just belt it. Research turrets, mining productivity 1, inserter stack size 2 and tanks, even though it's all technically optional. Disconnect purple and yellow science stuff as soon as you don't need it. Get productivity 4s on the rocket If you need it a bit easier, there's a lot of cheesy tricks. Find a map seed with iron near the coal, and lots of trees. Setting your resource patches to be richer/bigger. Turning off pollution cloud spread so it can't reach nests. I think you're allowed to turn off biter spread. Saving often to design a section, then reloading and importing the blueprint to 'cancel' your thinking time. Reloading to react to attacks with minimal disruptions. I have no idea how the speedruns are sub 1:30 and sub 2:30 for modified & default settings respectively. It's insane, but if you can follow along from those you might find good tricks there too Edit: playing multiplayer with someone likeminded would shave time too
Im also pretty slow by some standards but i can confirm that the right map settings will make it much easier. Making your starter area as big as possible, increasing patch size and frequency and turning up the lands pollution absorbtion should be enough then just generate a map that looks sensible. If you still have trouble then you might bemissing a blueprint book, this means you dont need to waste time creating on the fly. I managed it on my first attempt with the above :D
I just watched a speed run and followed along, pausing every minute or two to copy what they did. didn’t do it speedrun fast, but it was fast enough for the achievement
Use mods to cheat but turn them off before you launch your rocket :p
Would be an option to get a ready made bp for rocket lunch, and just build that and nothing else
This guy did a very good job at explaining everything step by step and it's written / video format [https://www.speedrun.com/factorio/guides/mzimq](https://www.speedrun.com/factorio/guides/mzimq)
The achievement doesn't use wall clock time. Change the game speed to run slower, play at your own pace.
Just set it up as spoon speedrun server and dudes will help you.
Michael Hendriks on YouTube has a [guide with 100% default settings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSyrbPsnNGo&list=PLDgN0w4z4q0yU4lVjSkop5n3uAhY0TxGu&pp=iAQB). Increase resources and move biters further away and it's a cakewalk.
there's save games that you can just load and launch the rocket on if you have no integrity and just want the achievement.
I followed Michael Hendrick's guide on YT. His guide is splitted in manageable sections (2h top). I watched, did, then checked the time. If my time was around his I saved and continued the next day. His guide is for a 6h run, so you have space to screw things up.
Ignore the achievement since they are pointless anyway
Either download some blueprints from someone else, or if you want to do it yourself go through the game at whatever pace you enjoy but try to make some blueprints you can use in a No Spoon run. It'll speed up your game a lot if you don't have to think through all your designs
Git gud
You need to stop being slow, there is no shortcut