Factorio Tutorial - The Debug Menu and Statistics

[@TijmenZwaan]

One of the settings I also have turned on the in the basic view is the train pathing. I find it really useful for determining certain throughput issues and stuff, but most of all, you can very easily see if there's a train coming. If there is no path on the rails you're trying to cross, you know for sure there is not a train coming. Considering your regular conflicts with trains, it might be useful to check it out.

[@Xterminator]

That is a very good idea actually! Personally I would consider that a bit cheaty for the not being hit by trains usage, however it is definitely something that I of all people could use. xD

[@good4usoul]

Between the video and the comments, this is a very good reference on the debug menu. Thanks.

[@Xterminator]

Jonathan Doolin Thanks. Glad it helped out along with the comments. :)

[@GlitchGuy24]

I really like the debug menu, its really great for testing new types of defenses with the biter pathing option on.

[@Xterminator]

Yeah definitely! Lots of useful info you can check out there.

[@KaneYork]

Re: Game update numbers. Here's some math. Take 1 second. Convert it into milliseconds: 1000 milliseconds = 1000ms. Divide 1000ms by 60 frames per second: *16.666 ms per frame.* Subtract out a fudge factor for the OS and background programs, and: if the program needs to do more than *15ms* of work per frame (or Game Update), it breaks the frame budget and you're going to lag. That's why you start noticing problems when the number goes above 15 and above 32.

[@Septimus_ii]

I'm currently sitting on around 37ms for the whole update section of which about 27ms is just entity update :( Around 24 UPS isn't an ideal way to run a factory!

[@DRY411S]

Great video thanks. I agree that the enemy expansion thing is a bit cheaty, but the fluid flow and bot path overlays are great for helping find breakages and bottlenecks, and I didn't know they were there! A couple of questions. What exactly ARE latency buffers and jumps, and what are good and bad values? Also often there are 3 numbers displayed with slashes between. Why 3? Similarly, sometimes a red, green, and blue number are displayed. What's the difference between the 3?

[@Xterminator]

Of course! :) Unfortunately I can't answer all your questions because honestly, I don't know the answer. Haha I can answer a bit of it though. Latency is similar to ping but a bit different. Essentially the higher the number for that, the worse it is. Not entirely sure about jumps, but my best guess would be number of jumps to the server or something, but really not sure. Buffers, if I remember correctly, is like how many ticks or seconds you are behind the server. So the higher that number goes the worse it is and more lag you will be getting. For example, in the early Earth Map videos before I got my new PC when I would completely lag out, my buffer numbers would be in the high hundreds sometimes thousands, indicating I was that many ticks behind the server and couldn't keep up. Not sure about the colors though, sorry. Hope this helped though!

[@ShadowScotsman]

i think a good way to describe the debug menu, is that it is a tool that nerds (like myself) can use to better understand game mechanics, such as inserter throughput, most effecient roboport placement for pathing, most efficient defence rules. while the straight info from the debug menu is basicly one massive cheat code in alot of ways with the info it gives, its not meant to be balenced, its the factorio game designers understanding that with base building games, people want to know, how does this system work. not for cheaty reasons but becuase its tedious and anoying when you fail to build a good base not because you planned badly, but because the documentation/learning material needed for you to know what to aim for to get a good base is missing. think of minecraft for example, for complex redstone mechanics people had to painstakingly test, take notes, test take notes, just to understand, ahh ok so a 1 tick pulse makes a sticky piston move and release a block, factorio is trying to give us the debug menu as a way to cut down on the ammount of boring repeating of tests to confirm what we think we know, its giving us the raw numbers so us nerds can check the math, figure out what we would expect to see, test it and ultimately understand that system alot faster, and thats when people who enjoy sharing that info like xterminator will put it into understandable terms for those who dont want to figure it out themseves. and for anyone who might think oh cterminator didnt explain every single option there, just take a guess, ask what you would expect to see if your guess is right, turn the option on and then see if it fits. eg "show_pollution_values" ok we can guess its gonna be something to do with pollution, well lets see, turn it on and we see numbers, 3 sets, a big one that changes alot, one that is almost always 0 and one thats a negitive small number, and then you can set up a rig with machines to pump out a set ammount of pollution and we can then watch the numbers and eventually work out the exact math that determines how pollution spreads. TL;DR the debug menu is just a tool, google is your friend, and whatever the first thing you thought it was when you read it, yea it probally is that, just play with it, test things and you will quickly understand what all the options mean, ultimately the debug menu can be a powerfull tool if you are really into min maxing.

[@Radimkiller]

I have GTX 950 and sometimes when I zoom out in a middle of a factory my FPS drops from solid 60 to 50-55... Does anyone else have this problem?

[@Xterminator]

If you have a lot of stuff going on in your factory, especially lots of robots then that's honestly not surprising. Zooming out all the way with lots of things happening will definitely cause FPS drop.

[@Apfelkerncod]

i never bothered with the debug menu. i accidantly pressed f7 once and it caused massive laggs because i where zoomed out and i was overwhelmed by all the stuff. knowing you can actually check what you want to see could be intresting. nice video, good to know this.

[@Xterminator]

Oh jeez, yeah I would imagine that hitting f7 accidentally without knowing what it did would be super overwhelming. Glad you learned some stuff though, there is certainly some very helpful info you can get through the debug menus. :)

[@rainerzufall1337]

Great tutorial, thanks for providing all the details! Only one thing I just don't agree with: When your FPS drops, this rarely has something to do with the graphic card, because the very most things in Factorio are calculated by the CPU. My graphic card always is in desktop mode when playing Factorio. You need to have a VERY OLD graphic card or very limited VRAM, like less than 512MB, that this would impact the game by any chance.

[@Xterminator]

Thanks, and your welcome. :) You do have a very good point and I probably should of phrased it differently so it didn't sound like the graphics card was the issue most the time, because your correct, it usually isn't. It can be though in the cases you mentioned. I have launched Factorio on some PCs with integrated graphics cards where the FPS is below UPS pretty much the entire time. But yeah, the GPU should almost never be the case of FPS drop itself, usually just if you have insane amounts of stuff going on, like 10s of thousands of robots flying around etc.

[@rainerzufall1337]

Xterminator Yeah that is totally true. I missed that point. When playing on a notebook with integrated graphics especially older one like Intel 2000 or earlier that could affect FPS.

[@AncalagonGames]

i use the rail blok segments to se where to drop the chain and rail signals :)

[@mrpe0p]

in the top of the debug menu, you have a menu for force but what does it do?

[@danielmcgowan3707]

The force is basically the teams in this scenario he's on the "enemy" force which is the bitters. This is the force your put in when you play on peaceful or when bitters spawn they get assigned to the "enemy" force. This can also be used in multiplayer games if you go and read back through the multiplayer re-write you can get a better understanding of forces used between players, but generally if you want to have a different team to a friend you would create and then join a new force but by default you're all assigned to the "player" force. Hope this helped.

[@mrpe0p]

tnx, i think i understand it now

[@LibertyJava]

for some reason my biter expansion circles don't come up when I select it in the basic menu and hit F5

[@Xterminator]

Hmm that is weird. I assume the other stuff comes up though? I honestly can't think of a reason that they wouldn't show up at all. :/

[@hayzersolar]

so it be better if just use a mod turn off pollution?

[@maxkoppold]

Is this the Cracktorio Map? I feel like it is

[@kiritgupta]

Maxi Koppold 2:03 is when he talks about the map

[@maxkoppold]

Kirit Gupta I overheard it :D

[@coldy938]

Omg, old factorio looks so weird

[@Bluewave10146]

tk u

[@Mgis90]

This video sucks! I could have done better even if I opened the debug menu for the first time. You just say "oh here are some values im not gonna explain" and "heres what im gonna do, i will click this and uncheck this" OH wow man that was awesome