Speculations

[misty falcon]

Maybe biter stuff tomorrow?

[crystal dune]

Maybe something about the mystery building on the title screen belt

The searchlight/turret/ion thruster thingy

[sand saddle]

sToMp STomP?

[young breach]

yeah new enemies

[agile river]

maybe we'll see more about space platform scheduling and logistics

[misty falcon]

Ah that's an important one too

But I feel it'll be some unexpected QoL

[agile river]

now that we have an official announcement i wanna say FFFs will be heavier on new content

but QoL is always welcome

i think aquilo should stay shrouded in mystery until release, maybe just one FFF to set the scene but no more

[dull grove]

14 FFF left. Someone can probably do a count on current SA/Quol/... etc. ratios.

[indigo fog]

I kinda hope we can learn what the packs take/give you

[stray wharf]

If you mean science packs, we already have the general ingredients list for each of the 3 planets' packs, along with most of the synthesis chain. It's interesting to know, but note that they didn't make a production out of telling us. We had to deduce it from pictures.

Similarly, the only reason we know that green belts are on Vulcanus is because it just so happened to be in a page they showed us on the Factoriopedia. I don't think WUBE is going to give us a "tech tree FFF" or something. I think they consider information like that to be incidental.

[dull grove]

3 Enemy FFFs
1 circuits FFF for new circuit building

[timid crescent]

Interesting point, I think the first 2 red wires are actual wires, at new abstract item version. The only other items that go between roboports and deciders are lamps, arithmetic and wires.
The last 5 are odd. Spent UFC's are really low in the sort order afaik, Which limits what they could be covering, if this image is doctored to cover up spoilers beyond the abstract wire tool. How likely is it to be military related?

[late sentinel]

How did we miss this initially?

I feel like we absolutely combed over inventories, but using the sort order did not occur to me yet.

UFCs are in the 'nauvis exclusives' row of intermediates (uranium stuff) - after that is vulcanus, fulgora, and gleba exclusive intermediates respectively, then military tab, then space tab.

[radiant quiver]

Right after announcement seems like a good time to finally reveal enemies

Well... One week after

Or it's gonna be another QOL that 5% of players care about, like FISH AI

But what if it's both? Fish friend evolve and become floppy foe

Floppy foe Friday facts

[late sentinel]

you have cursed us funnyduck

I liked yesterday's prediction more

[indigo fog]

Good point. I'd be interested in some of the unique recipes still, but probably after Aquilo (if we get it at all), like looking at the endgame pack and the kind of research we can get that's not really been shown

Other than that I wonder how much actual content there is left to show; obviously a handful of machines, a new planet, and enemies, but beyond that, I wouldn't be surprised if we've looked at everything new (even if just on a surface level)

[cobalt blaze]

fluid system 2.1

(I honestly like fluid system 2.0 even though I think its a bit funny)

[crystal dune]

I mean Raiguard is doing something with it

I definitely wouldn’t expect a fff on the changes he made

But there may or may not be a fluids 2.1

[dreamy eagle]

I have a hard time trying to make a guess on what is in the next FFF after the launch date announcement. Was it the end of a chapter or was it the beginning of a one? I feel like that changes what are the possibilities today. Or was it neither.

[tawny snow]

signpost!

[timid crescent]

Display panels! I'm kinda glad I was wrong!

[misty falcon]

OK that answers what's the combinator in the image ;D

here I mean
#1240418991386787920 message

[plain ermine]

i dont see any combinators in the image other then the decider combinators in the inventory

[misty falcon]

The , don't be cheeky

😛

[tardy quarry]

ice cube, calcite, and what?

or perhaps the bottom right is nothing

[late sentinel]

this is same topology as supercap recipe right?

JG even soft confirmed (may have been joking) that these are just supercaps

I like the new graphics for them in this case, they're much more production ready imo

[dreamy eagle]

Do we have an idea on the rods on the left?

[late sentinel]

superconductor wire

same recipe as super cap before

[tardy quarry]

aha

the holmium plate graphics also seem to be more refined compared to the old version

looks thicker

grenades for artillery shells…?

in 1.1 artillery shells need no steel or grenades

[crystal dune]

Might just be a copy paste leftover

Look here

Same as always

[dull grove]

Does this count as a new circuit building?

[timid crescent]

Yes

It's unlocked with all the other combinators

[weary widget]

so that solved the mystery of the strange robot object

[tardy quarry]

14FFFs left!

[crystal dune]

Wow, 2 weeks until spage release, it got here so fast

[agile river]

its the age of spage

[tardy quarry]

SpoilAge

[plain ermine]

Ace of spage

[misty falcon]

If you like to gamble (quality), I tell you I'm your engineer

You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me

[tardy quarry]

save scum

[dull grove]

doesn't work

afaik it's implemented via counter when the respective qualities appear

Since they spoke of Law of Large Numbers in the first reveal

so, no save scumming for you

[stray wharf]

... I've never heard this. Everything I heard about it says that it does a random roll when the craft starts.

[tropic basin]

it's pseudo-random though, so by manipulating the seed it should be possible to do
possible doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do though

[dull grove]

I could have sworn a dev confirmed this since random number generation this often is quite expensive

[sand saddle]

The game seeds its RNG, and many things happen that change the progression of the randomness, so if you can do those things specifically you could try save scumming

[serene sage]

the law of large numbers is about randomness

[sand saddle]

Or, you could just build a bigger factory

[serene sage]

I don't know how you can use its applicability as evidence against randomness

[tropic basin]

It's required because the game is deterministic. True randomness and determinism don't go well together.

[dull grove]

Well, is it seed-based rng or internal machine clock. Each is deterministic

But seed-based rng is still prohibitively more expensive than i++

[stray wharf]

More expensive? Possibly. "Prohibitively more expensive"? I doubt it. There are cheap and effective PRNGs.

One thing to keep in mind about performance on modern CPUs is that math is cheap; memory accesses are expensive. So while i++ as a set of compiled assembly instructions may appear cheap, doing a read/modify/write to the state of every assembling machine that needs a "random number" can be costly since that state may not be in the cache.

By contrast, if the PRNG is shared by a lot of code in each loop, its state may already be in the cache. So even though the "modify" part is technically more instructions than i++, the fact that you dodged a cache miss matters way more.

[cobalt blaze]

"they must be running out of qol updates"

[weary widget]

"we're getting exciting new content this week!" is becoming the new "bwuhuo this week!" cope

[wanton igloo]

The CRTs were fun, but I now want it as an option for the engineer's head

[serene sage]

"we're getting exciting new QOL features this week!"
*FFF is about fixing an obscure bug only three people have encountered*

[leaden socket]

Probably worth doing for that legendary spider and PA2

In most cases it will surely be irrelevant like uranium

[tropic basin]

I think scaling up the production gets you the faster than save scumming.
Just throw more ingredients at the problem.

[weary widget]

yep and run the game overnight for a few days/weeks

[sand saddle]

why did discord hide this thread in my sidebar again 😭

[serene sage]

threads are archived after a period of inactivity

[sand saddle]

so what you're saying is I haven't speculated enough...

[tardy quarry]

I kinda want to predict an enemy fff within 5 weeks

if there’s anything relatively big between Gleba and Aquilo reveal, it would be the new enemies

we could even get more than one fff about enemies

perhaps a combat overhaul

reworked resistance system

more damage type

friendly fire issues

[errant crest]

that would be amazing

[crystal dune]

What is there to overhaul

[stray wharf]

OK, but like... what does that mean? Juggling more turret and ammo types? Not being able to use multiple rows of turrets because they cause "friendly fire"? How does "more damage type" make the combat more interesting or engaging?

[tardy quarry]

I won’t expand on details but I have my answers.. too much typing and I need to sleep for now

[late sentinel]

So a few minor things left? That’s not a lot.

[tardy quarry]

robots killed by fire

[late sentinel]

That’s not an overhaul though

resistances and damage types I could see

[cobalt blaze]

Resistances and damage types were inspired by Starcraft and other RTS's but are pretty much meaningless in the game right now. They'll definetly become more important when SA enemies that have (I assume) different damage types and resistances come into play. There are 3 outcomes here:

• the current resistance and damage types will remain unchanged but will be fully explored and will come into their own as an important or even central combat mechanic
• resistances and damage types will remain unchanged but continue to be meaningless
• resistances and damage types be reworked to fit into the SA vision

I have my own pet combat rework fantasies, mostly around improving engineer mobility, that I doubt will ever happen.

[stray wharf]

I don't really see a way to make damage types matter without:

1. Forcing the player to fiddle around with ammo a bunch, or

2. Making certain enemies virtually immune to certain turrets, forcing the player to put every kind of turret at every defensive point in the base.

On space platforms, #2 can be OK, since the defensive surface is pretty clear and player-constructed. But for general defense, no.

[crimson bough]

Resistances and damage types were inspired by Starcraft and other RTS's but are pretty much meaningless in the game right now
The current armor system keeps armor values meaningful in both late and early game and allows us to have useful resistances like fire being immune to walls, so i don't think they are meaningless

[cobalt blaze]

One example could be making hypothetical Vulcanus enemies highly immunue to fire damage so you cannot really use flame turrets on vulcanus

[vivid turret]

People will use what's convenient for the planet.
There's a reason that laser turrets are seen so much in Vulcanus screenshots, other defenses are much less easy to support.

[stray wharf]

It occurs to me that tank shells are more damaging than rockets, but are shorter ranged and significantly more expensive (requiring plastic). We saw those blue tank shells on the space platform pick for SA. I wonder if Vulcanus gives us a tank-shell turret and has enemies tuned towards that kind of thing: penetrating damage in large swarms.

That could be interesting for burrowing enemies.

[vivid turret]

Gun turrets are a lot less attractive if uranium isn't available.
Flamers are a lot less attractive if you need to use coal liquefaction to fuel them.

[timid crescent]

Glad to know that my walls won't be killing any fires!

[crimson bough]

So true

[tardy quarry]

I hope bots and landmines are immune to friendly fire

[serene sage]

bot places landmine
bot immediately sets off that landmine
:(

[wanton igloo]

This is the real reason bots fly

[crystal dune]

I thought the reason tank turrets don’t exist is because tank shells can’t go “over” anything. They have to pierce everything in their way, including your buildings and walls

Also the graphic is just a placeholder, it could be anything

Just like how tungsten carbide isn’t a placeable tile despite being recoloured concrete

[tropic basin]

using a tank shell icon means something, it's at least something related
there's also a blue stripe added to the case, it's more than a recolour
(could be a charge indicator for an internal battery or smth - yes, that's me wishthinking)

[crystal dune]

I mean, it doesn’t have to be a tank/cannon shell specifically, it could be a shell for any kind of heavy projectile weapon

I remember railgun was a popular guess

[tropic basin]

yeah, I've been chanting railguns a lot

[leaden socket]

Tank shell is still physical + explosion damage

I hope to get something with a different damage type

[crystal dune]

Reminder: Biters are immune to acid damage, but that may not be the case for other enemies

[tardy quarry]

piercing damage when

[leaden socket]

There could be an large asteroid with high flat physical defense and percentage explosion resistance

Yellow ammo can't penetrate the flat defense without high upgrades, red and green ammo are too expensive to manufacture onboard, and rocket suffer from the explosion resistance

But tank shells can go through the physical defense with ease

This is probably not a good example, as plastic is hard to get on platforms

[crystal dune]

Prohibitively hard

Coal crafting, liquefaction powered by nuclear steam, a lot of cracking

[tropic basin]

Biters are Xenomorphs?

[weary widget]

next fff will probably not be filler

[plain ermine]

what do you mean by a filler? 😠

[crystal dune]

All the fffs are “filler” because they “fill” my heart with joy

[timid crescent]

Amen

[late sentinel]

I was looking back and trying to find an actual filler FFF - slightly hard pressed to.

[timid crescent]

"filler" FFF is just something people use to describe a post which they personally didn't find interesting.

[late sentinel]

Well, some of them are close.

[timid crescent]

I happen to really enjoy the technical ones, but I know some people consider them filler because it's not necessarily new content.

[late sentinel]

My opinion is more nuanced.

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-415

This one was technical, but it didn't actually substantiate or explain enough to actually follow imo.

Perhaps that's more of writing issue than a filler issue though

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-379

I would count abstract rewiring, but it includes other changes that take it out of that.

It's also much more explanatory and well written.

While I think for sure, there are different levels of impacts with FFFs, I'm hardpressed to find an actual full fledged filler one.

[timid crescent]

I would have to agree

[young breach]

I speculate tomorrow will be about the 'stomp stomp' enemy/creature (maybe it's not hostile)

[barren oasis]

That's how I felt about the music posts 😅
Then I went back and actually listened to them... So damn good.

Now everything they blog about excites me

With that said, the only one that has been slightly less exciting is Gleba... But only because I was extremely excited for that blog and it didn't include the "why".

So that's what I'm hoping for in the next FFF - what's the reason to pick Gleba first?

[weary widget]

418

[plain ermine]

[tardy quarry]

420

[weary widget]

i am not sure that emoji means what you think it means

it is for when xqc hits the 720 noscope headshot on a small child through smoke

[plain ermine]

art means what the viewer think it means. you argument is invalid

[young breach]

the viewer or the creator?

[plain ermine]

the viewer obviously

[weary widget]

aha, but to a zoomer the word viewer doesn't mean what you think it means

reject dictionary, embrace twitch culture

[plain ermine]

What the sigma

[dull grove]

So...
I expect
2-3 Enemies
1 Gleba
2 Aquilo
1 Carbon
1-2 for the new sciences rewards (e.g. spidertron)
FFFs

[crystal dune]

Carbon?

What is there to say about carbon besides its mysterious earthbound recipe

[plain ermine]

I can give you an fff about carbon: it's a non-spoilable intermediate product in SA that is used for some stuff

[wanton igloo]

It's not even Friday

[plain ermine]

And it has an icon that resambles black hexagon shaped something

I bet it is Friday somewhere

[wanton igloo]

I guess it is by now lol

5.5 more hours to go here

[agile river]

thursday has just begun what are you guys on about

i woke up like an hour ago

[viscid ferry]

Would you like some fries with that?

[late sentinel]

Actual carbon question: we know you can make coal from carbon with sulfur. Is there a similar process to get carbon from coal?

[plain ermine]

If you don't know that then it means I'm not supposed to answer

[tardy quarry]

I know the answer

[plain ermine]

[tardy quarry]

SA has new recipes

[crystal dune]

I mean we know there’s some way to get it either out of coal or oil, nothing else on Vulcanus could be a source. And you can get oil from coal. Therefore, you can indeed get carbon from coal, no matter what

[stray wharf]

We've seen carbon on Vulcanus, so there has to be some way of extracting carbon from coal or some derivative thereof (maybe heavy oil?).

[late sentinel]

But you said it’s an FFF!

[tardy quarry]

JG what are the considerations when creating the carbon-coal loop?

[late sentinel]

That’s why I asked. It seemed just inconsequential enough that I might get an answer.

but if you can make carbon from coal and coal from carbon, given the right numbers you can turn whatever catalysts are used into carbon or coal by creating a loop. That would be kinda weird.

[tardy quarry]

I’m expecting a solution similar to recycling to prevent carbon/coal positive loop

[agile river]

FFFs dont always reveal everything

[weary widget]

bestagons confirmed???

[crystal dune]

They’ve been confirmed for nearly 2 weeks

The release date fff and steam page showed them

[stray wharf]

The thing that stops a loop is sulfur (and water, but also sulfur). Making coal requires sulfur. If you make carbon from coal rather than an oil refinery product, you lose the sulfur that was there. So to loop coal/carbon, you have to constantly inject sulfur into the system. And water.

The water obviously isn't a big deal on Nauvis. But even though sulfur can be extracted from space, it's still going to be way more efficient to just mine more coal than to loop it to try to multiply it.

[late sentinel]

That’s converting sulfur into coal was my point

[crystal dune]

I was also in the process of typing that

[late sentinel]

It’s not likely useful but it is funny

[crystal dune]

I’m still hoping it’s heavy oil>carbon so the loop is less direct

And as a bonus it provides a path to coal on Fulgora

[stray wharf]

Yeah, that last part is a good reason not to do it 😉

[crystal dune]

You may be right

I was just contemplating the implications of obtaining plastic out of the tar sands

Of course you’d need water from scrap, but besides that it should be pretty trivial

[dull grove]

and two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large soda.

[crystal dune]

Also, (I already came to this conclusion last time and pointed it out, but forgot this time 😭) it would allow you to theoretically completely ignore coal mining on Nauvis

And it may even be desirable to do so, because oil is infinite and coal ore is not

That would be cool in a mod, but vanilla factorio usually tries to avoid such situations
So, I suppose all cope is lost…

[dull grove]

let's be real. Any ore is infinite for all intents and purposes.

Especially with the new drill which only mines 1/6 of the time.

[crystal dune]

That’s at legendary quality, at base it’s half the time

That’s not exactly weak either, but still

[crimson bough]

Whats the output of the BMD

[crystal dune]

2.5/s

And regular drill is 0.5

[crimson bough]

And it always outputs full stacks or does it depend on your research

[crystal dune]

I’m assuming it depends on research

[agile river]

isnt bmd 1/6 at

oh nevermind normal is 1/2

[weary widget]

prediction: #3

[late sentinel]

You're in the plant #3s before Aquilo group?

[weary widget]

yeah I suspect they'll hold off on Aquilo until near release

[late sentinel]

Interesting. Most expect AQ 1 & AQ 2 before any 3s

But Aquilo is free to break the pattern

[crystal dune]

I think it’s more likely

[spice yew]

i'm in the no spoilers for final planet till after release camp

[vivid turret]

Wube has repeatedly stated that they intend to cover every planet.

[late sentinel]

Source?

[tropic basin]

Steam page clearly states that Aquilo remains shrouded in mystery. Might not be until release, but definitely for the thyme being.

[vivid turret]

It was in several FFFs
Including the first Vulcanus one

[barren oasis]

To be fair, they didn't say that they'd cover them all before the release 🤷‍♂️

[late sentinel]

As you already know, there are 4 new planets in the expansion. We will take an in-depth look at each planet's terrain, challenges, processes, technologies, and new gear, but not all at once. In some cases the planet content will be split into multiple parts

[barren oasis]

Exactly, they might end up saving some for after the release - to avoid spoilers for the first wave of players

[late sentinel]

I would say this heavily implies they will be all in FFFs

[barren oasis]

Yeah, but this is Wube.
They didn't say when the FFFs would be 😉

[late sentinel]

What you imply by ‘this is Wube’ and what I would mean by it are the opposite though.

[barren oasis]

I was thinking more of the specificity of the "no less than 1 year" statement 😄

[late sentinel]

they never said that

[barren oasis]

Either way, I'd be more than happy getting the FFFs before or after the release

[late sentinel]

What would you even do with FFFs after release

Imagine you get to play space age in a few weeks - would you still have much to learn from the remaining FFFs?

[barren oasis]

we don't think that [the expansion] will take less than a year to develop

That had some people convinced that it would release in a year

Which the devs had fun with playing on their emotions

[late sentinel]

That’s different though. This rather explicitly says that they will show us all of them, and it’s heavily implied in FFFs. There’s also just enough time for them all to fit at the current planet cadence

[barren oasis]

Seems a pointless thing to go back and forth on 😄

All I'm saying is that the devs have an "out", since they didn't promise that all the FFFs would be before the release date

I'm excited to eventually read whether or not it's before or after

[young breach]

yeah but that only works for the fastest players(speed runners and people with a lot of free time) then they will show it here and on YouTube and reddit, so if you don't want spoilers then you have to avoid everything factorio online

so I don't think they will do that for the spoilers

[tardy quarry]

I just don’t think factorio is a game that has anything to spoil

all the tech tree are available to read right at the start

[late sentinel]

And all of the complexity is emergent anyways. It would be like spoiling chess by telling you the rules.

[tardy quarry]

FFF will definitely explain all the new mechanics so we can be prepared for the release (sort of like a pre launch tutorial for me)

and there will be new mechanics on Aquilo

so I see no reason ro not reveal it before release

[late sentinel]

@hexed chasm boo!

[muted wraith]

space age should come out with steam points shop items

[crystal dune]

I would love that

[tardy quarry]

hoping a combat drone overhaul

[late sentinel]

pepperbox you have the weirdest hopes nowadays. Have they given you every reasonable thing you want already?

[tardy quarry]

humm

idk if yellow science tweak is a reasonable request

I’m still not fully satisfied with the fact that for space u technically need only blue science but u practically need also

[late sentinel]

I think we'll need to play with this to actually appreciate it.

[tardy quarry]

also they haven’t give bot immune to flames made from friendly flame turrets

[late sentinel]

that one I would argue is almost more of a bug fix 😆

such an obvious change

[tardy quarry]

I’ve played enough SE 0.5 to know that I don’t appreciate blue science rockets/space station, so idk how it will work for SA

[late sentinel]

trying to make even the most generalized comparisons between SE and SA I think is usually a fool's play.

[tardy quarry]

by far I find the most similarities between SE and SA is the tech tree structure

SA has less grinding and has smoother difficulty curve so its less obvious

it kinda is a similar issue like in the old days u can reach bots with green science

where u go through a deep research tree with relatively low tech science, but when u get there u r already at a stage where u would already make more advanced sciences

[late sentinel]

I'm not convinced it will be so unnuanced which science packs to do in what order. It's important to remember that 'both' is an option as well.

I also believe that space science itself will have a few unlocks, and it's only a bit more complex than yellow or purple. Remember that you don't have to do space science and then fly straight to Vulcanus for instance - you can just do space science as a thing itself.

[tardy quarry]

space science do have some unlocks

T2 modules and kovarex

[crystal dune]

But if you close your eyes…

This was absolutely hilarious to me when I realized, I’m surprised I only noticed it yesterday

And I think the last two packs will actually roughly match astro and deep space too 😭😭😭

From what we’ve seen

[late sentinel]

@tardy quarry fission pack is likely space or yellow

[tardy quarry]

found u the new machine

cryogenic plant

[crystal dune]

I wonder what it’s doing in this shot

What are those buildings around it?

[tardy quarry]

99% confirmed that the Aquilo machine will be covered

[crystal dune]

I guess they might be old graphics for the fusion parts?

[late sentinel]

you think aquilo machine is the same machine that will cool fusion stuff @tardy quarry ?

[tardy quarry]

yes

[late sentinel]

speculation: something bad will happen if fusion reactor loses power

[tardy quarry]

at the end of Space Age

[misty falcon]

Yea it'll shut down, and it requires power to restart so you might black out.

[late sentinel]

nice catch pepperbox haha

[plain ermine]

ors f

[late sentinel]

100% match

we can start putting the pieces together

[plain ermine]

🧩

[late sentinel]

see if you can find more @tardy quarry. I'm going to start merging these

[plain ermine]

i cant wait to see what you will come up with

i hope its something similar to pepperbox pfp

[late sentinel]

imagine it's the entire thing

we still have no fucking clue what that arm thing is. I keep forgetting about it.

[crystal dune]

I don’t

[plain ermine]

🫢

[crystal dune]

I wish I could though

It haunts me

It’s tormenting me

[tardy quarry]

not sure if this is the same machine

[late sentinel]

I couldd see if it fits.

have to relearn gimp. at this point it might be easier to pay JG to put his pieces back together.

[tardy quarry]

[plain ermine]

merge it anyway!

[tardy quarry]

I’m on my cell phone so its a bit difficult to do now

someone help me

[late sentinel]

I'm about to try to merge them

[late sentinel]

idk if those are the same as it, they seem kinda weird and more rounded.

[crystal dune]

AI upscale it so it becomes an impressionist painting 😭

[plain ermine]

dont forget to resolve the merge conflicts

[late sentinel]

I'm doing it in ms paint.

hard to say if these are the same

[crystal dune]

They could be different rotations

Since it has fluid connections

[late sentinel]

this is not very illuminating

[tardy quarry]

hard to say, but likely just because low resolution

[plain ermine]

reverse the nighttime LUT

[late sentinel]

it is likely somewhat reversible, but that is beyond my willingness with me seeing SA so soon.

[misty falcon]

Can be done quickly with a tool like PIL, unfortunately I'm not near a computer now

[late sentinel]

not really enough to see here anyway

we're at a point where this is more detailed

[misty falcon]

Less detailed than the teaser

[late sentinel]

and still more detailed than what we got today :P

[tardy quarry]

the bottom part

yeah it does match with the other half from christmas gift card

[late sentinel]

almost a whole circle

[tardy quarry]

the snow makes the top left connections very unclear

[plain ermine]

why monochrome?

[tardy quarry]

less light/color inconsistency

[vivid turret]

If Aquilo is cold, why do you need a building to cool stuff

Just leave it outside for a while

[viscid ferry]

ENHANCE

[weary widget]

i was right

[tardy quarry]

u learn how to cool stuff on a cold planet, I think it makes sense

maybe warm/cold coolant is a more general mechanics on Aquilo?

[plain ermine]

this feeling... i think its chilly out there.... what if... no...... but what if maybe i can make stuff even more chilly?

[tardy quarry]

is the coolant made from water and lube

[crystal dune]

😭

Because of the colour?

[tardy quarry]

because it’s common

[crystal dune]

This might depend on the route they go with the coolant

Do they want it to be a proper resource along with the fuel, or more of a logistical concern

Aka can you make it wherever you use it

Because making lube in space would be extremely annoying

And even more annoying if it was with the express purpose of power generation

[weary widget]

yeah i imagine coolant is cheap partially to encourage platform use

and isn't water expensive on platforms

so it likely doesn't use that

maybe you just toss some solids in a chemical plant and it turns them into coolant

[crystal dune]

Of course, things could be very different if basic coal liquefaction didn’t use steam

Then oil processing would be on the table

And lube would be a decent choice since it wouldn’t require any cracking either

[weary widget]

true

[timid crescent]

I'd lean more into it being a moderately expensive fluid that is consumed incredibly slowly

Such that a few barrels would be more than enough to feed a reactor on a platform for at least an average round trip

[tardy quarry]

They said that the output warm coolant is equal to input cold coolant so probably in the cooling process u lose a small percent of coolant so its mainly a logistics challenge but u still need a constant input

[shrewd citrus]

yes, and if you can recycle the coolant you get a big reduction in consumption, just like kovarex for fission

[silk citrus]

factorio was made by big govt to push recycling into the public mindshare

[tardy quarry]

I think coolant loop is pretty much required, u probably can’t void warm coolants, even if u can, it would be silly to do

[weary widget]

or if the generator loses coolant...

[unique barn]

Perhaps it can cool or heat. Maybe controlling temperatures will be the important unique mechanic here

[olive seal]

Aquilo might have a cryogenics theme

[misty falcon]

The cold planet? No way 😉

[crystal dune]

Engineer needs to research cryogenics so he could survive the interstellar flight home…

And to do infinite research, he makes bioflux homunculi and sends them instead

[tardy quarry]

cryogenic plant it is

or cryochamber if we follow the Gleba naming scheme

[crystal dune]

Foundry renamed to fryochamber

[tardy quarry]

electromagnetic chamber

[crystal dune]

Biochamber renamed to plant plant

[crystal dune]

Wirochamber maybe? Does that work?

It’s the only one that comes to mind

[misty falcon]

Fryerchamber

Spinnychamber for

[crystal dune]

Gyrochamber

[tardy quarry]

electrochamber

tbh its not even a chamber

but the cryochamber does look like a chamber

[barren oasis]

🎵 It's cold outside, no kind of atmosphere.
All alone... More or less... 🎵

(whoops, didn't mean to make that a ping reply)

[tardy quarry]

that’s nuclearchamber

[tardy quarry]

this layout (unit block shown on the left, the purple chest is 4 neighbours, steel chest is 5 neighbours) when infinitely tiled in both xy directions gives average of 4.5 neighbours

[tardy quarry]

this layout has an average neighbour of 4.46

oh actually it could be higher

4.478 average neighbour

similar size, different tiling, 4.278 average neighbour

[misty falcon]

I'd just use a 6x6 warehouse mod ^^;;;

Something like AAI Containers & Warehouses

but yea that looks great

you can also make them 90 degrees to get the second kind of hexagons

[normal wharf]

i was reading this shit thinking it was new... its from 15 days ago

[misty falcon]

Imagine the forest of generators to support this

[tardy quarry]

imagine the 1M SPM base it can support

[late sentinel]

I’m not imagining it - I’ll be building it 😎

[misty falcon]

Makes sense?

[crystal dune]

For a second I forgot scrap was white on the map and wondered if we had somehow missed a new ore in that image this whole time 😭

[late sentinel]

We’re not that unaware … probably

[stray wharf]

I didn't think it was important enough to warrant commentary. The island is a mined-out small scrap island. So it had a few strands of ore left.

[tardy quarry]

wild guess: to use fusion, u need to combine materials/technology from all planets: fusion cell from Nauvis, tungsten for high temperature and structural strength, holmium for magenetic field for reactors and generators, Gleba bio products for the coolant base fluid, Aquilo machine for cooling

another possibility for Gleba is nanomaterials

[crystal dune]

I'd say that's like a 4/10 on the wildness scale

Not very wild

[late sentinel]

I give it a 2-3. It makes total sense to me

[crystal dune]

But there you go again with the fusion cells are from Nauvis stuff

I don't get it

Eff3 on Aquilo is more feasible than useless fusion cell on Nauvis

Didn't they specifically make a big deal about the player not having access to fusion on Nauvis

With the personal reactor thing

Oh wait nevermind

You probably meant like, they're manufactured on Nauvis because their production involves uranium somehow

Not that they're unlocked on Nauvis

My bad

[weary widget]

something like carbon fiber is in one of the screenshots on the SA steam page

[tardy quarry]

tbh there’s a small chance that they are unlocked on Nauvis earlier for something else

imagine if they’re byproducts from fission

[late sentinel]

makes no sense pepperbox, that's plutonium - which is also fissile

fission and fusion fuels just have like no significant relation

[crystal dune]

Also again if we had anything even remotely fusion related on early Nauvis, then there would have been no need to redo the portable fusion reactor

[olive seal]

Those green cubes look delicious

[tardy quarry]

weird, I remember that in K2 there were fusion as fission byproduct

[late sentinel]

Well K2 is silly

[tardy quarry]

portable fusion reactor would need Aquilo cooling tech

and probably materials from other planets

[crystal dune]

Not really, the fission reactor only needs a fuel cell, no water. The same will probably apply to the fusion one

[tardy quarry]

the thing is, if we assume eff module 3 is unlocked not on Aquilo and requires fusion cell to make, the only reasonable conclusion is that u unlock fusion cell before fusion power

[tardy quarry]

I mean u need special materials for the mini reactor just like the real one

[tardy quarry]

what I mean is that u need to unlock the proper fusion tech before u unlock the portable version

just having the fuel cell doesn’t allow u to get fusion tech

I wouldn’t mind if blueranium cell is an early Nauvis unlock that’s used only for eff 3 modules, and later used for fusion power

[late sentinel]

That seems incredibly unlikely.

I think you have found a theory that fits the evidence, but not a good one. It's more indicative that we don't know something/have misleading information than this is the case - even though it is the only theory that follows easily

[crystal dune]

If we could make an efficiency module out of it, then we could also make a mini reactor out of it

And we can’t

[tardy quarry]

efficiency module is clearly less powerful than a mini reactor

[crystal dune]

Is it really?

[tardy quarry]

it is

[crystal dune]

750 kW is not a lot

An efficiency module can shave off more than that

[tardy quarry]

that’s 2.5MW

[crystal dune]

I’m talking about the current one

[tardy quarry]

u need a machine with base power of 5MW for eff module 3 to worth 2.5MW

[tardy quarry]

u make mini fission using uranium cell not the fusion cell

why mini fission is relevant at all?

[crystal dune]

My point is: If we could do anything fusion related on early Nauvis, then one of those things would definitely be a portable mini reactor. But we can’t do that, so they changed it to a mini fission instead

[tardy quarry]

?? mini fission is just renamed 1.1 item

[crystal dune]

I know that

[tardy quarry]

why are u assuming that we can do a portable version of something before we unlock the non portable version?

that’s not how technology works

[crystal dune]

Because functionally a fusion cell powered efficiency module would be doing the same thing

[tardy quarry]

no

not 2.5MW

[crystal dune]

[tardy quarry]

at least not for normal quality

[crystal dune]

If it was an early tech it would still be 750 kW like it is now

[tardy quarry]

such tech doesn’t exist in early stage

[crystal dune]

I’m saying you either have both or neither

Eff3 and current state portable fusion
And we don’t have one of them because it was replaced by portable fission
Therefore we don’t have the other either

[tardy quarry]

u can have just one

why u have to have both or neither

[crystal dune]

Because they require the same level of technology, the same limited use of the fusion cell to produce a small amount of power

[tardy quarry]

modules are for machines, portable reactors are for armor, they are completely different

imagine eff 3 are unlocked on Aquilo

unless the fusion cell is not used for eff3

[crystal dune]

I agree that both options are absurd, but I think mine is the less absurd one

[tardy quarry]

hard to agree

[late sentinel]

is base power 5MW that out there?

[tardy quarry]

I haven’t seen that

[late sentinel]

what's foundry eat?

[tardy quarry]

iirc foundry has base power of 2.5MW

[late sentinel]

I thought it was a few megs

yeah that seems in the same ballpark to me

[tardy quarry]

I mean u can’t compare it that way

[late sentinel]

the idea that you use the bluranium for eff 3 is not convincing to me

[tardy quarry]

one is for machines and one is for equipment grid

[crystal dune]

I don’t know, the graph was pretty convincing to me

[late sentinel]

also I do not agree with the premise that an efficiency module is just a mini reactor to power the machine. that's like, not what that means

[late sentinel]

Eff 3 is unlocked on nauvis.

Also, we see consumption of bluranium on the graph, but no production

I think you guys are just seeing something that isn't there - remember that we only saw items in that.

[tardy quarry]

bluranium is consumed at the same time with , and

[crystal dune]

Exactly, and I’m using that as an argument for bluranium not originating on Nauvis

[late sentinel]

I argue that's more likely to be a coincidence

[tardy quarry]

tbh it’s unlikely to be an coincidence

[late sentinel]

That seems true

[tardy quarry]

the graph is precise to 0.2 seconds

[late sentinel]

the machine speed and offsets just need to match up

[crystal dune]

No eff3s definitely take bluranium

It’s simply too close too many times

[late sentinel]

I'll stand on this hill: I don't believe they use Fusion fuel. We'll come back to it when we find out.

[tardy quarry]

fair enough

[crystal dune]

So, all evidence points to eff3s being unlocked on Aquilo

[late sentinel]

We have verbatim evidence that it does not.

One minute.

[crystal dune]

Bold

But if you can show something, then I’m interested

[late sentinel]

I'm almost sure somewhere it says eff3 is unlocked by space science

@tardy quarry do you have this?

[crystal dune]

I don’t think anyone does

[tardy quarry]

no

[crystal dune]

I would remember something like that

It was a popular theory, but nothing more

[tardy quarry]

I only know T2 modules unlocked by satellite space science

[late sentinel]

It's t2 modules, that's right.

[crystal dune]

Womp womp

[late sentinel]

Okay - Eff 3 can be on aquilo

[tardy quarry]

it’s possible that eff3 is by space science in space

[late sentinel]

I got t2 modules and eff 3 mixed up there

[tardy quarry]

makes sense that eff 3 is unlocked along with/right after space platform

as they’re mostly useful there

[crystal dune]

Yes, we have been over this before

It makes a lot of sense, but the evidence so far makes it really hard to believe. Even just the production graph image already goes against it

There is no production of bluranium on Nauvis, only consumption

[late sentinel]

I agree. But what good could they do on aquilo?

[tardy quarry]

this kinda makes sense if we assume there’s extra input due to inserter stack size, 5:5:1:4 ratio of ingredients

[late sentinel]

5:5:4:1 is more clear to me :P

I see you are referring to the order in the image

[tardy quarry]

yeah

[late sentinel]

I agree

[crystal dune]

Actually, looking back at it now…
There is one colour on the production graph that’s actually unaccounted for…

We don’t actually see what yellow is

[late sentinel]

Yellow!

[tardy quarry]

number here shows 4:1 ratio between eff2 and bluranium, and with more than 5:5 for the circuits

[late sentinel]

maybe it's something else... maybe we're seeing eff3s being made to produce fusion reactors

that makes more sense, but doesn't exactly fit what we see...

[tardy quarry]

the rock thiny probably for prod3

[crystal dune]

It seems to line up

Yes, perfectly

So, prod on Gleba

I’m getting de ja vu…

[tardy quarry]

SE module splits

except Nauvis is the energy planet

speed3 on Vulcanus then?

so we really don’t have modules match their planet color

[crystal dune]

Well, we haven’t had that since trash to treasure

[tardy quarry]

yeah, and it’s actually consistent if so

I originally thought its prod on Vulcanus, speed on Fulgora, eff on Gleba, quality on Aquilo

[late sentinel]

I wonder how legendary and epic quality are gated - as well as on which planets

[tardy quarry]

perhaps epic on Fulgora

[crystal dune]

Ok, time to pull up my backup counterargument to my own argument that I always have prepared in case of emergency:
Portable fission was done only because the devs wanted an even stronger grid generator for lategame, so instead of adding something stronger than portable fusion they just buffed it and filled its old spot with something new

[late sentinel]

idk, fulgora is already really good... maybe epic is on gleba?

[crystal dune]

Epic on Fulgora makes the most sense

So far it’s been the quality planet in almost every aspect

[tardy quarry]

it doesn’t make much sense to introduce epic without recyclers

[late sentinel]

that's kinda fair

but it can always be a fulgora + gleba science

[tardy quarry]

they said its on one planet

[crystal dune]

Besides, I’ve always liked the idea that you research the higher quality by studying the ancient craftsmanship of the Fulgorans

[late sentinel]

we don't discuss science crosses enough, but if it works anything like and there are cross techs too

[late sentinel]

that is a good point

I just want to point out that we shouldn't assume sciences are a 'per planet' thing

[tardy quarry]

I may hate a tech with icon like

or

[late sentinel]

Every technology has a really good icon - that's why I'm asking how they could gate them

[weary widget]

wasn't this confirmed some time ago?

[late sentinel]

It would seem weird to just be a tech to me

[crystal dune]

Wait, what does this mean for unlocking legendary on Aquilo

[late sentinel]

But I suppose a tech is the most likely hypothesis

[crystal dune]

Don’t worry, they will render it like a big 3rd block of the icon, with a shadow and everything

[tardy quarry]

I originally thought u get up to epic from quality module 2, and get legendary from quality module 3

[crystal dune]

But that doesn’t make much sense, T2 is in norbit and not on another planet

[tardy quarry]

but the T2/3 quality module unlock places makes this theory fall apart

yeah

[late sentinel]

me too

[tardy quarry]

having an unlock affecting all quality factories is kinda unwanted because u can’t have aearly setups that assume theres only 3 possible quality outputs and expect it doesn’t break after u unlock more quality

or they could make quality jumps 1 tier at max so u have better control of what’s the maximum possible quality output

i.e. u have 0% chance to get >= from normal quality input

[late sentinel]

I follow, but I don't think it actually makes it better behaved

[quiet marsh]

How many quality setups are you going to have before recyclers?

[tardy quarry]

idk how important it is practically

[tardy quarry]

how so?

[late sentinel]

How does it make it behave better?

[tardy quarry]

u set specific recipes for specific quality isn’t it

[late sentinel]

yes, but I would expect to have a quality splitter for removing items, right?

[tardy quarry]

u won’t put quality modules in the assembler that takes max quality input

[late sentinel]

you'd just set that splitter to Q3

[tardy quarry]

the point is that u may not want to future proof but u kinda have to for all early quality setups

what even worse is that u may not know that u need to future proof

[late sentinel]

This problem is much more serious

[tardy quarry]

if I have an assembler taking normal ingredients, with quality modules and proposed behavior, it doesn’t matter how many tier of quality is unlocked, I can expect it will only have normal and uncommon outputs

[late sentinel]

that's not true at recycler stage though

you might not know there is legendary

you at least probably know quality upgrades are a thing that is possible at that point though - but even that isn't certain (recycler is unlocked before q4)

[tardy quarry]

u won’t recycle epic items

[late sentinel]

true if you use >= or >

but imagine someone uses =

[tardy quarry]

why would u recycle epic item when epic is the max quality

[tardy quarry]

in that case u won’t get epic item

the point is that, to get epic item u need to put quality modules in the rare input assembler, but u won’t do that before unlocking epic if u don’t know epic exists

and if u know epic exist, u r probably doing fine future proof

this is how the proposed behavior works

[late sentinel]

that's forgetting about arbitrary quality recipe

[tardy quarry]

u r assuming that people will like to use it

why use it at all

its not even the default recipe

even if u don’t know future proof, u probably won’t find the ‘any quality’ recipe useful

devs: fxxk u if u don’t know that more quality tiers exists. Now go fix all your quality factory jamming!

[late sentinel]

arbitrary quality will be used by people that think it's smart and then it will bite them

but they might not realize that

[stray wharf]

At some point, on some level, you need to give people the freedom to screw up. You can give them reasonable defaults and good explanations for how stuff works. But at the end of the day, if you're going to give them powerful tools, some of them are going to use them poorly. And developers should be comfortable with that.

[tardy quarry]

I can’t help those people if they don’t know more quality exists

if they use the arbitrary quality input then they may have jamming issue way before they unlock epic

[late sentinel]

The important thing is for them to screw up, and to feel like it was because of them.

[errant crest]

is = condition even gonna exist? imo there's not that much good reasons for it to exist in the first place, >= is just better

[stray wharf]

I mean, you could probably create designs that accomplish the same thing without = testing specifically. Like, if you want to create a splitter array so that all base quality stuff gets culled here, then Q2, then Q3, etc, you could do <= Q1 followed by <= Q2 etc.

But that's not how most people are going to think about these kinds of things. They want all of quality X to be on this belt. They want the inserter to only pick up quality Y stuff. Etc.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with = testing. It can be bad in some cases, but it isn't a priori bad.

[forest cradle]

the quality fff says legendary is unlocked on the last planet and epic is on one of the 3 earlier ones, and making that earlier planet anything other than fulgora would be really weird

[indigo fog]

it might make sense to have it unlock somewhere else, so that if you want the most quality stuff, you need to go two planets

[quiet marsh]

Fulgora unlocks a lot of quality stuff, but it's not a great place for making quality things because you can't scale up making one thing without scaling up everything. If you don't have a huge amount of science production up but want to start getting quality infrastructure, too bad, you're limited by how fast you can burn through all the resources you're not using for that quality infrastructure. You could start voiding things in recycle loops, but that just means your quality stuff is even more expensive. Also, space is limited, and expanding mining and processing of scrap is hard. Vulcanus is a hugely simpler place to set up large scale quality production

[leaden socket]

The problem is not eff3, it's eff3 vs eff2

You need a machine with base power 25MW for eff3 to be worth 2.5MW vs eff2

[tardy quarry]

then u need to compare portable fusion vs portable fission, one is 0.75MW, one is 2.5 MW

[leaden socket]

2.5MW is a big upgrade from 0.75, but -50% is not much better than -40%

[tardy quarry]

my wild theory about fusion and eff 3 modules:

-fisson cell reprocessing is tweaked, on top of U238, u also get some tritium that u can turn into fusion cell (but u can’t use them for fusion power as u need to unlock the tech on final planet) as a byproduct, which is kinda like nuclear waste but it’s higher density than fission nuclear waste so it take much longer time to fill a chest full.

-After u unlock space science in space, u will have access to eff module 3, which take the fusion cell as ingredient so u can trun them into something useful. The idea is similar to using U238 for green ammo before u have kovarex enrichment.

When u finally unlocked fusion on the final planet, u will get an advanced fission reprocessing recipe that gives u much higher yield of tritium and less U238 from used fission cell, but u will still rely on fission cell reprocessing. This means u still need the fission reactors to make used fission cells to support fusion cell production, but at this stage u don’t necessarily need to use the heat from the fission reactors as they won’t stop consuming the fuel even the temperature is maxed out. If u want, u can still use the power from the fission reactors but it will probably be negligible or need too much building space compared to fusion.

Although u can’t use beacons to speed up the consumption of fission cell, but quality reactors consume the cell faster, or we may get a new way to make fusion cell at very end game.

[misty falcon]

That sounds cool! Something that E would do for SE, but not sure Wube will do for SA

[tardy quarry]

I think Wube wanted to do some serious nuclear byproduct puzzles but vanilla was too short

and with the addition of recyclers (relatively early), people who don’t want to deal with fission byproducts can just void them

[late sentinel]

It's possible to make things explicitly unrecyclable, I think fish are this case.

[tardy quarry]

will they do that for nuclear wastes tho

[late sentinel]

I hope you're not willing to take bets, because I think I would take all of your money betting against this one :P

that is a crazy theory to fit some, to be fair, really weird evidence we have.

Almost 'god of the gaps' level crazy :P

[tardy quarry]

lol

I’m so excited to see if this is correct

[late sentinel]

I'm so excited to see how it is incorrect

the how is more interesting than the wehter it is or not

[tardy quarry]

it kinda fits the vanilla nuclear byproduct idea

[timid crescent]

Personally I'm not keen on fusion being dependent on consistent used nuclear fuel cells.
Maybe if you need some to kick-start similar to ?

[late sentinel]

Dramatically more likely

[tardy quarry]

imagine u put fusion fuel in fission reactor to get more materials for fusion fuel

[radiant galleon]

are we all in agreement that the undisclosed music track from fff 406 is for the last planet

[tardy quarry]

no

I still think it’s Gleba

but the faith is not that strong

after knowing that Gleba is not a jungle planet

so perhaps yes it is for Aquilo…

but I refuse to accept it

[radiant galleon]

cmon those echoey synths have to be for an ice planet

and to me it sounds climactic and emotional in a way that seems unfitting of anything but the last planet

[misty falcon]

"What's Aquilo?"

[radiant galleon]

teehee

[misty falcon]

Yea it sounds icy to me, at least the 2nd half

What would be Aquilo's new name?

Snowball

[radiant galleon]

could be literally anything. hard to tell

[timid crescent]

I'm pretty sure it's not going to be called fireball

[radiant galleon]

well it's probably not gonna be that yeah

once i hear that track in game though im losing my shit

[shrewd citrus]

It definitely has ice world vibes due to the instrumentation and textures

[stray wharf]

If you can't produce efficiency 3s at will, then there's not much point to them. And no, using nuclear power does not produce nearly enough eff3s to make them useful.

Remember: one of the biggest reason for eff3s to be on Nauvis is that the utility of efficiency modules goes down as the game progresses. So saying that you can make eff3s, but only a few and only if you're using nuclear power a bunch, isn't really helping with that. It'd be so much easier to just make higher quality eff2s.

[dull grove]

Which is why I hope for some rework to make them more interesting

Because I love the idea, but hate the execution

[dull grove]

We're still missing a building to transfer circuit signals inter planetary

[stray wharf]

Why do we need one?

[misty falcon]

To trigger production for lower spoilage

[stray wharf]

That's a pretty good use case. Normally, backing up is enough to stop production. But spoilage on Gleba means that you need an alternative method to say "I don't need more of this, so stop making the stuff that takes it."

[dull grove]

Why do we need anything circuit related? Mostly shit'n giggles.

[tardy quarry]

that a cost problem, u can make each used fuel give a good amount of fusion fuel depending on the processing method

and fission reactor is basically an assembler

[late sentinel]

I'm curious what you estimate the % chance you are right pepperbox

[tardy quarry]

30%

low percentage because even if the idea is correct, the details are probably mostly wrong

but I like my theory

at this point I have no idea what next fff could be about

[stray wharf]

No, it's not a "cost problem"; it's a fundamental problem of the concept. The entire purpose of efficiency module 3s is to get more out of whatever power source you're using. But you want to make producing them consume more of the fuel you use to make power. That's backwards logic.

It's one thing to allow spent fuel cells to be reused into something more useful than just U-238. But it's quite another to have a vital resource only come from burning fuel cells in a nuclear reactor.

[tardy quarry]

I don’t think this argument stands because

1. each cell have finite enrgy, eff module give constant power reduction which eventually payoff.
2. even if u have nuclear power, eff 3 are still important in specific places such as space platform, as they are still what u need to make the platform the most space efficient even with fission /fusion power on board

[tardy quarry]

note that I suggested an alternative late game route where u can get fusion fuel more effectively

[stray wharf]

But one that still relies on using spent UFCs. Which is the entire problem.

[tardy quarry]

how does that matter

I think its the cool part

[stray wharf]

What you're basically saying is that, if a player wants to not use fission power ever, if they want to run off of boilers/solar on Nauvis and move much of their production to Vulcanus... then they can never use efficiency module 3s or fusion plants.

[tardy quarry]

u don’t need to use fission power to get used fuel

[stray wharf]

You have to put down a reactor and put fuel in it. That's "using fission power," even if you waste all of it.

[tardy quarry]

I don’t see that as an issue

its basically a special assembler

[stray wharf]

It's not a special assembler. It's hundreds of red circuits, concrete, and steel, all for the purpose of making the least useful module 3 in the entire game.

Quality module 3's don't require that.

Prod and Speed modules won't.

[tardy quarry]

its still a cost problem. if each used cell give u 1000 fusion cell then its cheap enough

its just complex

[late sentinel]

Reactor processing is not out of the question imo.

Reactor processing for is however.

[stray wharf]

You aren't really engaging with the point I'm making. Why do you want to make efficiency module 3s the hardest module 3 to make in the entire game?

Why do you want to have an entire building for making efficiency module 3s?

[tardy quarry]

to have fastest space platform

[stray wharf]

Yeah, it's not worth that.

[tardy quarry]

it is as spoilable items

[stray wharf]

... what are you talking about now?

[tardy quarry]

u need faster platforms to get freshest spoilable products across planets

‘just add more’ doesnt work in this case

[stray wharf]

Yeah, it's still not worth it. You're still forcing people to build a building that they don't want to build, just to make a byproduct out of it, so that they can make a thing that isn't all that great to begin with, for no actual quantifiable reason.

[tardy quarry]

that a lot of opinions here that I don’t want to argue with

[weary widget]

more chem plants, more thrusters. plus as we now know, power can take up a much smaller space and has a much higher density. so small power hungry ships become viable

[late sentinel]

It doesn't really make any sense nuclear chemistry to me either.

[stray wharf]

I trust that WUBE aren't the kind of developers who will force players to build a building unless they want to use it for its actual purpose. The purpose of a fission reactor is to produce heat to generate power; spent UFCs are a byproduct. I trust that they aren't going to design the game to make you want to waste the primary product (heat) to make the byproduct for something completely unrelated to the actual purpose of the building.

That's something you might see in Py or other mods, but not base Factorio.

[tardy quarry]

this part is fair

which is why I suggested that perhaps later u have another way to make fusion cell withoutneeding fission reactors

[late sentinel]

What I think is that we have some really confusing evidence, and we're just reaching at any theory that works because we're desperate. None of these theories seem particularly likely to me; but it is very hard to explain the eff3/fusion core correlation.

[stray wharf]

There are two possibilities to me:

1. There are two items that use "bluranium" as its placeholders.
2. The fusion fuel cell item has earlier game uses. A component of eff3s, but also a component of some personal gear or power armor or vehicle or whatnot.

[cobalt blaze]

I missed it, whats the correlation?

[stray wharf]

This production/consumption graph

Bluranium spikes in consumption correllate with eff2 and blue circuit consumption (with reds hidden by the blue line). That strongly suggests the efficiency module 3 recipe: 5 blues, 5 reds, 4 eff2s, and 1 bluranium..

But "bluranium" is also the fuel for a fusion reactor, which lives at the end of the tech tree.

[tardy quarry]

2. is more likely than 1. I think

so u r mostly against the idea that blueranium strictly rely on fission reactor

[stray wharf]

The main issue is that eff3s being unlocked on Aquilo makes no sense, because that's the same planet that unlocks fusion power, which makes most uses of efficiency modules unnecessary.

[tardy quarry]

yeah I do agree with this

[late sentinel]

Let's point out 3: the correlation is not causation. We are simply being fooled by assemblers with the same crafting time.

[tardy quarry]

well yeah this is also one possibility

which I don’t want to admit

[stray wharf]

It's possible, but every single consumption spike with eff2s and bluranium correlates with consumption of blue and red circuits. It's not just one assembler doing it; it's several assemblers.

Now, it could be some other recipe than eff3s. But the fact that it consumes eff2s is peculiar.

[vivid turret]

16 / minute.
That's peculiar.
takes 5 of each component.

[stray wharf]

True, but given that the module 3 recipes now require some additional material, maybe they decided that 5 module 2s was too much.

[tardy quarry]

hummm

hard to tell what’s the recipe because extra buffer

[indigo fog]

I kinda hope all 4 modules will have different recipes that tie them to a specific planet. T3 Quality modules depend on Fulgora for the superconductors, after all

[vivid turret]

being on Aquilo is a strange possibility but kind of makes sense because it's a far less attractive module than the others.
If it is the case that each planet unlocks a different module 3, they factor in to which of the middle planets you visit next. If one of them unlocks , it's clearly not as good as the other planets' modules.

Of course fusion power makes it look much worse, and can't require that ingredient anymore.
I still don't think any level 3 module is worth putting on the last planet, but isn't as silly if you look at it that way.

[stray wharf]

Sounds like a really good reason to put it on Nauvis then.

[vivid turret]

Sure, but this seems to not be the case from what we know.

Which is almost disappointing.

[late sentinel]

I wonder what size portable fusion reactor is

[stray wharf]

The problem with putting eff3 on Aquilo is not that it's "not as good as the other planets' modules". It's that efficiency modules have an expiration date on their utility.

Speeds and prods are always useful; delaying them to Aquilo would be annoying, but you still want them. And unless you're just not going to engage with quality modules, qual3s are still very useful for making Q5 goods.

Efficiency module 3s aren't like that. They are at their most useful early on, where power is still a concern. By Aquilo, power is almost solved, and Aquilo has the final thing that basically solves power anywhere forever. The only place you might use eff3s are on space platforms, and high quality eff2s can probably do the same job.

It would not be merely "disappointing"; it would be clearly bad design. Much of SA's design is about making you scrounge for power, forcing you to engage with efficiency modules just to operate in some of those power constrained environments. They aren't just a pollution control measure anymore; they are a real tool that you can use to jumpstart your new bases.

But you'll eventually outgrow them. And that fact is why you need eff3s as early as possible.

[late sentinel]

they're used to craft some stuff too I think

[stray wharf]

Eff3s are used to craft one thing: the Spidertron. A thing we know that we get before Aquilo. So if Eff3s are on Aquilo, the Spidertron doesn't use them.

Maybe they could add something else that are used to craft them, but that's just making them into an expensive intermediate, not a useful module.

[radiant galleon]

they're putting quality 3 on fulgora so i find it highly unlikely none of the modules will be locked by then

[vivid turret]

FFF-373 has in plain text that tier 3 modules aren't on Nauvis.
Tier 2 is unlocked at the same time as platforms for whatever reason, it's clear that is what you're intended to use for a while.

Hey here's a scheme:
unlocks (very attractive when bundled with recyclers)
/ unlocks (arguably the best module)
/ unlocks + (bundled together to compensate for neither being as strong)

[stray wharf]

I don't know what to tell you. Putting eff3s on Aquilo works against everything they've done with power that we've seen in SA.

[cobalt blaze]

eff3s are going to be the last tech you unlock because thats just how strong they are

[forest cradle]

could be unlocked in space

[stray wharf]

Technically, all module 2s are unlocked "in space" since they use space science.

[stray wharf]

Speed module 3s are very strong. Also, the reason we think eff3s might be on Aquilo at all is because of the consumption correlation between "bluranium" and other ingredients indicative of eff3 production, coupled with the revelation that "bluranium" is used for fusion fuel. So either it's on Nauvis (and fusion fuel gets produced as a uranium derivative) or its on Aquilo, or the correlation is leading to an invalid conclusion.

Or that "bluranium" is using the same placeholder graphic for two different things (possibly at different times).

[weary widget]

I'd assume both that + portable nuclear are the original size. do you think they would change that?

[late sentinel]

I do, yes.

I'd expect it to be a little bit bigger.

[weary widget]

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-blueprint-spidertron.mp4 this is from FFF #380. but of course (new) fusion could've possibly not been added yet

[vivid turret]

It's even showing an output of 750KW there

[stray wharf]

Or that could just be vanilla.

[compact sigil]

couldn't that clip be vanilla 2.0 and not space age?

[late sentinel]

it is

You can see 750kw

[weary widget]

ah yeah

[vivid turret]

Vanilla 2.0 should still be using the new fission reactor asset. It's an old video, probably before that change was made. Or it was covered up on purpose.

[stray wharf]

I'm not so sure. If it uses the new asset, then that would mean it should use the new recipe that involves a UFC. But PFRs never needed uranium processing at all before, let alone nuclear reactor tech. So either they change that (which would be a very strange change) or they use the original picture.

[vivid turret]

Fine by me if uranium takes a more important place in the game. Especially if it's unlocked so long after nuclear power became a reality.
Tangentially, i still think PFR shouldn't be unlocked so late.

[late sentinel]

I think they reasonably say that it's going to be swapped in 1.1

it would be weird if they didn't.

[stray wharf]

It's more that it changes the overall flow of vanilla in a way that I think no other change does.

[late sentinel]

I think they're fine with this change though

[stray wharf]

For SA, yes. For vanilla is to be determined.

[timid crescent]

I don't think it would have that much of an affect on vanilla gameplay.

Adding a couple extra research prerequisites and needing to slap down uranium processing instead of it being completely optional wouldn't change my gameplay at all in fact

[stray wharf]

Skipping nuclear has consequences beyond just not getting nuclear reactors. For SA, where uranium processing is mandatory for a host of reasons, that's fine. For vanilla, it feels like a wart, a thing you have to do because SA did it.

[late sentinel]

Fusion weaponry?

[late sentinel]

Or, it makes uranium less optional in 2.0

Reinforcing existing crafts for many purposes is something factorio loves doing - see how all of the sciences have factory stuff in them (best example is electric furnaces in prod sci)

Fusion nukes will be scary

[agile river]

the ultimate cliff explosive

[stray wharf]

I feel like any "fusion nuke" is like a "Category 6" for hurricane scales. Cat5 is supposed to represent "total destruction"; you can't get more destruction than "total". So unless something can actually survive a current nuke, there's not much point to "nuke-but-more".

Give it longer range, and you may as well just have nuclear artillery. Or Rods From God.

[late sentinel]

Well, what do we think that blue shell is?

I think fusion nuke is a bad concept for it, but I don't have a better idea.

Aren't we missing whatever we need to take down biggest asteroid?

that's can't be fusion though...

[stray wharf]

It looks like a tank shell, so it probably is. But we haven't seen anything with a blue tip. It could be tungsten, but tungsten doesn't make for a better shell than uranium.

[stray wharf]

Well, it is possible that there are routes post-Aquilo that have the most dangerous asteroids on them.

These would be shortcut routes, but they'd require the best weapons and biggest platforms to traverse safely.

[late sentinel]

Maybe. That's a reasonable idea.

[timid crescent]

https://tenor.com/view/seismic-charge-obi-wan-gif-19534230

One of these maybe?

Get rid of the really big asteroids

[late sentinel]

that's basically alfonse idea haha

[radiant galleon]

im personally praying for an orbital superweapon that you can put on your space platforms

[stray wharf]

With target priority, there just isn't much need. You can load one Spidertron up with nukes, load the rest with regular rockets, and just let them walk over nests, with the Nukertron only targetting worms and nests.

Sure, it's not quite click on the thing on the map and the baddies disappear, but it's not far short.

[timid crescent]

Do we know that spidertrons get target priority?

I wonder if quality spidertrons also get more rocket targeting range, same for other vehicles for that matter

[stray wharf]

Well, it'd be weird if rocket turrets got a power that the thing you make from rocket turrets doesn't.

[tropic basin]

I like that, and it makes sense.

be ready to spend 1 nuke/nest though

[radiant galleon]

in a perfect world the devs would spoil us and give us special spidertron targeting ai for the nukes

[tropic basin]

perfect worlds are boring af

[timid crescent]

Would being considered boring not make it an imperfect world?

[tropic basin]

Nice paradox, you just proved the non-existence of a perfect world

[late sentinel]

Assuming we agree with your premise- (I do not)

[tropic basin]

that perfect worlds are boring?

[late sentinel]

Yeah. I don't think imperfection is what makes things interesting.

[tropic basin]

If we take "perfect" literally, it means there's nothing left to improve. In a perfect world, there's nothing at all to improve.
I believe that we humans thrive on improving stuff. so ..

[late sentinel]

but that will quickly go to #more-offtopic - I just wanted to point out this logic is far from bulletproof :P

[tropic basin]

oh, you can disagree, it's alright :)

[late sentinel]

It is bulletproof only if the first statement is true

If perfect worlds are boring, and boring worlds are imperfect, clearly perfect worlds do not exist.

[tropic basin]

yup. reminds me of Gödel's incompleteness theorems

[radiant galleon]

is there anything we know about the "red area" of gleba? i have a feeling it's significant

[weary widget]

all we know through that one video is that some kind of enemy is there

[radiant galleon]

i have a feeling it relates to the enemies but most of the enemy settlements aren't even on it

[tardy quarry]

we know that the red area was still wip and were saved for future fff

[misty falcon]

Someone called "Seele" posting Eva memes?

[dull grove]

I didn't even think of that

[weary widget]

any guesses for Friday?

[misty falcon]

I'm guessing some facts

[weary widget]

endgame SA items being revealed has to signify we entered a new season

[dull grove]

I expect
2-3 Enemies (e.g. rocket turret, brain biter, plasma turret?)
1 Gleba (brain plants, red sea, Benefit as first planet)
2 Aquilo (Fusion cooling, map, ore, products, enemy reveals)
1 Carbon (Prob. Gleba.)
1-2 for the new sciences rewards (e.g. spidertron)
FFFs
^ max 9 total. 12 FFF left.

[tardy quarry]

my guess:
power priority fff
1-2 combat/asteroid fff
1 space map/space platform/asteroid fff
2 Aquilo FFFs
Vulcanus pt3
Fulgora pt3
Gleba pt3
rebalance summary fff
endgame goal fff

juicy

[late sentinel]

We know some of these are here for sure.

[tardy quarry]

tbh I really didn’t expect fusion power. That one was a big surprise

[late sentinel]

me either, but in hindsight we should've been obvious on the fulgora thing being some sort of reactor, I mean, I described it as "this weird thing with a bunch of pipes around it"

and Fulgora had suspiciously low power infra for how beaconed it was

[tardy quarry]

yeah

[serene sage]

everything is obvious in hindsight

[forest cradle]

i thought it was some sort of power plant, but I figured it was a lightning collector, keeping with the theme

[radiant galleon]

the fools we were, thinking nuclear was the only thing we'd ever need

[stray wharf]

The existence of fusion reactors does raise the question: so, you can get 100 MW on a space platform with minimal space... what are you actually doing on those things at the end of the game?

[radiant galleon]

i think a lot of people (me included) are underestimating just how big the game gets

[stray wharf]

It's not a question of "big" really; indeed, with belt stacking, infinite pipeline throughput, beacon changes, and super-buildings like the Foundry and EMP, builds are going to get smaller, not bigger.

[radiant galleon]

does higher quality increase power draw as well as speed? i feel like legendary quality builds offering insane amounts of productivity would need more energy to sustain it, not less. that'd just disincentivize scaling up energy

[timid crescent]

Higher quality does not increase any draw or penalties

So higher quality machines draw the same power put craft faster, higher quality modules have better bonuses but the same penalties, etc.

It's important however to note that some 'penalties' are directly tied to the effect boosted.
Inserters draw power based on how much far they've rotated, meaning increasing their rotation speed through quality necessarily increases their power draw.
Same thing with roboports, they gain increased charging speed which necessarily increases their power draw.

Another entity of note is beacons, who's quality effects include reduced power draw. It's almost certain then that a higher quality beaconed build uses less power than a lower quality one with the same number of entities, while producing upwards of 10-15x the product

[stray wharf]

Note that higher quality beacons also increase the effect they transmit. And those effects also include the penalties of modules too. So a high-quality speed beacon will boost the power draw penalty from its speed modules more than a lower-quality one. Power-per-craft will remain the same however.

[stray wharf]

As for "disincentivize scaling up energy"... have you met Factorio players? We don't scale down power; we build more stuff.

[late sentinel]

Are you sure about that power per craft claim? speed and power usage both get added to the base level, so I think it's not actually true.

I do think it's asmyptotic though

It's an equation like (c1 + ax) / (c2 + bx)

[stray wharf]

The ratio between the speed boost and the power penalty is the same regardless of the beacon's broadcast effectiveness.

[weary widget]

you can ask the same thing of the added power from personal fusion reactors. it probably isn't just to use more personal roboports at once.

[late sentinel]

Yes, but that boost is being added to the machine's existing effects.

[timid crescent]

Have you seen the power draw of quality roboports

[weary widget]

thats true lol

[late sentinel]

We also don't know how big a portable fusion is

[timid crescent]

They're very silly haha
https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-375-assembling-machine-tooltip.png

I love it

[late sentinel]

In 1.1 btw, you actual do very quickly run into the bot dispatch limit with how crazy quality roboports are

more accurately quality power armor

[timid crescent]

(I understand that it's not always drawing power but it's still funny)

Bot dispatch limit? Is this a defined number or does it depend on how quickly robots get deployed?

[late sentinel]

It's implict. the game 'tries' 3 blueprints every tick currently.

[stray wharf]

It can't be more than 7x7; anything more than that, and PFiR will produce more power per tile.

[late sentinel]

current fusion is 4x4 right?

so it can be [4x4-7x7]

[stray wharf]

Yes.

[timid crescent]

Yeah so it depends on the dispatch speed. Isn't that getting increased a lot with the optimisations?

[late sentinel]

Yup.

But just notably you really can't even test it in 1.1!

I was wondering if a maxxed out spidertron could build my solar fields without stopping walking

answer was: no, but not for reason I expected

[timid crescent]

Yeah apart from the obvious issue of bots moving too slow they can only be deployed so fast

[late sentinel]

I expected a bot throughput issue, not speed

[stray wharf]

And the PFuR probably shouldn't even be 7x7; while that's still more power-per-tile, it's not more by very much. Also, 7x7 can't even fit into a base-quality Spidertron.

[late sentinel]

I got a bot throughput issue... but I had many bots that were sitting in the spider

5x5 is very possible I think.

[timid crescent]

If it's not 4x4 I'd expect it to be 5x5

[late sentinel]

Agreed

6x6 is in pushin' it territory

should be noted legendary spidertron and power armor are odd, so 5x5 complements them

assuming we don't have even cooler armor

[timid crescent]

We need more grid items that are an odd number height

[stray wharf]

That'd be a good size. Big enough to technically fit into a base quality Spidertron, but it pushes you to get at least a Q2 Spider.

[timid crescent]

We have batteries for horizontal 1-tile filler, but solar panels make for a lackluster vertical 1-tile filler

[stray wharf]

I wonder if portable solar panels on Vulcanus will be an effective replacement for a PFiR, what with their 4x solar boost.

[timid crescent]

Almost certainly, yes

[weary widget]

if only a row of belt immunity equipment did something

[timid crescent]

30 x 16 x 4 = 1,680 KW

vs 750 KW in a forced 4x4 placement

[late sentinel]

so vastly

[timid crescent]

I suppose you'd need to replace some of it with batteries and it would be ~70% so count it as half and it's still better

[late sentinel]

welp.. legendary portable solar it is

[timid crescent]

It gets beat out by portable fusion reactor

Man just thinking about how much better power armour MK 1 would be if everything inside it is at least 30% better

[timid crescent]

Honestly I find this a more convincing argument to go to Vulcanus first than anything else

[late sentinel]

The foundry making iron and copper plate virtually limitless is quite the argument - infinite logistics via pipe as well.

[timid crescent]

Yeah I jest. The utility offered in increasing base resource throughput is easy to undervalue. I know I have until recently.

[late sentinel]

think about how much time you spent building either mining or smelting, or logistics for ore/plate.

[timid crescent]

I expect the foundry to make it "easier" in it's own way.

But also more interesting.

[late sentinel]

being able to replace all of that nonsense with a pipe - given you have a bit of calcite, is an insane value proposition

green circuits are the new iron plate

(I expect to make green circuit from fluid blueprint)

[timid crescent]

Absolutely, although I'd be tempted to wait until getting the EMP to commit to that. Instead just placing plate foundries at the start of whatever existing circuit build I have.

[late sentinel]

both are easy

remember that casting plants don't need calcite routed

you just give them a pipe and they work

There are so many ways to get buffs in SA that it's really dynamic how you go at it.

[timid crescent]

I've been mulling over the value proposition of (before unlocking the recycler) just storing a buttload of normal quality stuff like personal equipment just to get all of the stuff that I use to uncommon+

[late sentinel]

tricky one

[stray wharf]

For one-off personal equipment, it's just too easy to stick some quality modules in miners, which will give you all of the base materials you need.

[timid crescent]

Problem is the value lost by buffering is determined by the efficiency of your quality build.

Like you said Alfonse, if you start with quality ore then you can guaruntee a very small amount of buffering, but if you just stick the modules in the last assembler, you'll end up with a lot

[late sentinel]

depends if there are more miners than machines that need quality modules

I expect it to, practically speaking, be difficult to actually use those quality ores.

[timid crescent]

My main worry about quality ore is the loss of throughput and the increased complexity.

[stray wharf]

There are always "machines that need quality". And using quality ore is just having a separate furnace stack.

[late sentinel]

I don't expect much increased complexity of actually collecting the ore

[timid crescent]

I don't see needing more than just a couple electric furnaces with quality modules for what quality ore you'd end up getting though

[late sentinel]

but then how do you craft with it?

[stray wharf]

With a small, separate mall.

[late sentinel]

you need to place assemblers for your entire chain and manually feed them

[timid crescent]

I think if it's just for personal equipment hand feeding assemblers is fine

[late sentinel]

I play faster than that would make reasonable.

[stray wharf]

At the start, you'd hand-feed everything. But once you get logistics chests, you can build a reverse-Fulgora base.

[timid crescent]

Otherwise you'll want 2 assemblers for everything, one for rare and one for uncommon quality

[late sentinel]

or you can use the final assembler early game, and be happy with that

this is what I will go with

[stray wharf]

Be happy with what? 3 Q2 chemical plants?

If that?

[timid crescent]

I'll want to see the effort required and output of both methods before deciding myself

[stray wharf]

Maybe 1 Q2 thruster and 1 Q2 crusher?

[late sentinel]

Well, the strongest advantage of alfonse' solution is that it lets you pick what to put all the quality items to

[stray wharf]

My plan is to leave on a platform that's mostly Q2 at least.

[late sentinel]

I'll probably be back from Fulgora by then :P

[timid crescent]

quality ore method is much easier if you have a small selection of items you care for getting to high quality

[stray wharf]

I'm not running a race. And there are plenty of infinite techs to research (which will also give me a bunch of quality prod modules and electric furnaces).

[late sentinel]

If you are not running a race, then there is no useful metric to compare on

[timid crescent]

Plus there's nothing stopping you from doing some of A and some of B

[late sentinel]

the Q is which is better for progress

time is the only sensible unit to measure that in

[stray wharf]

No, that's your question.

[late sentinel]

What's your question?

If we do not start with common and reasonable goals 'which is more effective', we obvious will get different results, even if we both have perfect reasoning.

[timid crescent]

effective at what?

[late sentinel]

progression through the game

[stray wharf]

Which one is the most likely way to do a Fulgora smash-and-grab effectively? Power is going to be the biggest limiting factor, and high-quality buildings are power-efficient.

[late sentinel]

If your goal is a fulgora smash and grab, then time to have fulgora done is the defining metric to a degree

If your solution gets significantly better rates at fulgora that is another story

[timid crescent]

This entirely depends on how much time you expect to spend on this "quality ore mall"

[stray wharf]

Building on a single island is key to the strategy. If you can put more production in the same space at less of a power draw, then you'll get your ~200 EMPs faster.

[late sentinel]

my answer to that is whichever gets me to my goal sooner with less hassle.

[timid crescent]

I'm pretty much only thinking about it as a method of acquiring quality personal equipment right now

[stray wharf]

Also, quality miners will be critical for making more EMPs from relatively limited resources.

[late sentinel]

so if building the mall takes 5 minutes, and saves 4, it might as well have not been done, for instance.

[timid crescent]

Yes, but we don't know what those numbers are yet

[weary widget]

and if you're not playing with multiple people, the time spent with quality will come at the cost of everything else not being attended to. I've played some long solo games with janky quality and I realized the time I spent screwing around with quality would've been better off just progressing elsewhere.

didn't mean to respond to you

[late sentinel]

7itanium is describing exactly what I am saying

I don't know them, that is right sticks, but we have a rough idea of the search space.

We'll only know once we play, but we have to at least have something to benchmark strategies against.

[timid crescent]

I'll probably set up 2-4 miners making quality ore and turning them into quality plates, I'll see what happens from there 😛

[late sentinel]

experimentation is key at first anyhow yup

[timid crescent]

Otherwise I expect spending time scaling will be time better spent

[late sentinel]

we don't know the search space entirely so we need to search it!

[stray wharf]

Why did you have to stop progressing? There's going to be plenty of dead time. Whether it's building test ships to make sure you don't get yourself killed getting to the next planet or loading up your ship with your few rocket silos. Or even just waiting for that 40th U-235 so you can start Kovarex. There's plenty of time that you'll need to spend that you're just researching some infinite tech or something.

[late sentinel]

Usually I don't have any dead time. That's almost always a sign that you need to reorder something in games like these.

(IE you should have did A before B instead of B before A)

Of course sometimes the only option is to fill the dead time - in which case such a strategy might prove essential.

[stray wharf]

Progression through Factorio is not something I'm trying to get through as quickly as possible.

[timid crescent]

I think you're using different definitions of "dead time"

[late sentinel]

I define dead time as time when you have no other good options so you must wait, or do something minimally productive.

You have no high impact tasks because they are blocked by a process you must wait on

imagine your limit is power, and you need reactor to do reasonable impact to that. you have 36 u235 and can't afford running them now.