math-and-meta

[wind spade]

almost like devs didn't want you to play that way

[main dirge]

Manifolds don't help, they'll overconsume without manually setting speeds on several dozen machines in a production loop

[livid forge]

its like, how do i get resources from one edge of the map to the other?

build a belt. A very, very long belt. It works, but its far from practical. The solution would be a train

[wind spade]

manifolds don't overconsume
once they are filled, all machines run at 100% capacity

[main dirge]

Yes that's the problem

[livid forge]

what "way"?

this is strictly a consequence of not wanting dedicated factories for LOW tier stuff that dont produce tickets

[main dirge]

The aluminium recpie doesn't consume exaclty 23 quartz

[snow dove]

and the devs directly encourage you to have dedicated factories for low tier stuff

[wind spade]

not having 100% efficient factories
even ADA mentions efficiency is the key

[wind spade]

set clock speed for one machine to consume 23 quartz

[livid forge]

what is "efficiency?

having every production unit work at 100%? I dont conisder that efficient

I consider "efficient" as making the most of the resources you have, to generate as much "currency", in this case tickets.. as possible

[wind spade]

efficiency is shown ingame on machines, it's % of time the machine is running

[main dirge]

That'd be great if it wasn't a production loop

[livid forge]

for THAT machine

[snow dove]

tickets are basically just a happy bonus for a system they put in place so that factories never stop

[wind spade]

how does that matter?

[wind spade]

you can have 100% efficiency and still optimise for resource production

[livid forge]

a miner into a smelter into a constructor into a sink would be blizz for you then. Thats a waste in my eyes, and not efficient

[main dirge]

Because setting that one machine to 23 quartz means it gets less "effective" quartz than that, because less silica is produced later

[livid forge]

no, cause you sink stuff that generate next to 0 tickets

[wind spade]

the complete factory produces enough silica and quartz for all usages
so there's no way you'll end up with less

[snow dove]

cause i don’t sink stuff for the tickets, i sink stuff so nothing ever stops

[wind spade]

it's up to you what you sink

doesn't mean your factories are not 100% efficient or aren't optimised for resource efficiency

[livid forge]

as i said earlier, my setup is

1. More power efficient than yours
2. More ticket/resource efficient than yours
3. More lag friendly than yours, minus the merger splitter bs i need to do cause we dont have that smart merger
4. more space efficient than yours

3 of those sentences have "efficient" in it. Efficiency is not just "run factories at 100%"

[wind spade]

except it is
"efficiency" is just that
"power efficiency" is indeed something else, but that's not what I mean by "efficient"

(because the game already defines what "efficient" means in the game context, so I don't see a reason to use the word differently)

[wind spade]

and all of that is only true when your storage is full 🤷‍♂️

[livid forge]

no, those are always true

the factory running at that 100% efficiency you're so craving becomes true when its full

[wind spade]

when you take items from storage, it hurts production further down the line

[livid forge]

Lets take the computer part of the factory into consideration only.

It uses 250 iron rods
800 plastic
400 sheets
and 350 wires

if i were to take those exact items out, the only thing that would go down in the factory, would be the manufacturer, and it'd be down for 1 minute.

If i take, lets say 200 of everything, then the manufacturer would shut down for about 50 seconds
while the plastic, Sheet, and Wire side of things would shut down for maybe 10 seconds, while waiting on those last rods to come in.

In total, we're looking at the factory dropping to perhaps, 90%, for about a minute, if i take one stack of everything.

Its the equivalent of turning the whole thing off for about 6-9 seconds, per stack taken from it. Slightly longer if i take higher grade items like Circuit boards

[wind spade]

it's still more than 0

[livid forge]

who cares

[wind spade]

I do

[livid forge]

good. Good for you. I dont

[true junco]

Why?

[livid forge]

Thats not the goal for me, to avoid my factory going down for less than 10 seconds

[wind spade]

because ficsit demands efficiency

[snow dove]

i mean basically, the devs aren’t gonna add a priority merger, you want a priority merger, there’s probably a mod for a priority merger

[livid forge]

i avoid mods

[snow dove]

then you’re sol

if you want it in-game post a game suggestion on the Q&A site

[livid forge]

Ficsit demand efficiency. In my eyes, thats Power, and Tickets per resource used

[livid forge]

this was never about a "game suggestion"

[wind spade]

in my eyes it's what the game tells you efficiency is

[snow dove]

given the game literally gives you a percentage on every machine showing efficiency

[livid forge]

just cause the buildings have an efficiency meter?

That meter may aswell be called "uptime" and everything would make the same sense. Stop with this "game tells you" bullshit. The game tells you to be efficient, it does not tell you what efficient is

each buildings "efficiency" is just a metric to show "uptime". Those words can be swapped and nothing would change

[wind spade]

it does not tell you what efficient is
except it's literally called "efficiency"

[oblique hollow]

actually it calls that value productivity

[wind spade]

does it?

I could swear that it said "efficiency"

[oblique hollow]

Its productivity meter

for some reason the wiki says productivity but then on one imagw it shows "efficiency" as the description

so i think we sorta conflates the idea

[oblique hollow]

thats the one

I think this one is just wrong then

[wind spade]

the article itself mentions efficiency multiple times 🤔

doesn't it have like a tooltip or something?

[livid forge]

it is a metric for a building, not the sole goal of the game

[wind spade]

it's a goal for me 🤷‍♂️ no machines ever stop

yellow lights bad

[livid forge]

then stop labling it as the sole goal for the game and recognize it as a personal goal

[wind spade]

I'm not?

[livid forge]

you have been for the last hour

you continually critique how the factory going down for the equivalent of shutting it off for 10 seconds, as bad. Almost as if i was "failing the game" at that point

[wind spade]

in my eyes it's what the game tells you efficiency is

I literally said multiple times that it's what I consider it, never claimed it's "the game's goal"

[livid forge]

"what the game tells you efficiency is"

nonono.. the game does not tell you what efficiency is. There is an efficiency meter on each individual building, and THAT is your goal. Its not what the "game tells you"

[wind spade]

game tells me that it's efficiency 🤷‍♂️

same as game tells me that a piece of silver rock over there is called "Iron Ore"

[livid forge]

as i said, that could've been changed to "productivity", or "uptime", and nothing would change.

The game still tells you to strive for efficiency, not "productivity", or "uptime"

the efficiency on buildings == Productivity of buildings == uptime on buildings

Games efficienct =/= Building efficiency

[wind spade]

and that's your take on things 🤷‍♂️

[oblique hollow]

Well, there is other texts that directly call the productivity efficiency

[livid forge]

building efficiency is your goal.
Game efficiency is a much wider spectrum and can be interpreted in may different ways

[oblique hollow]

Game efficiency is "have fun"

[wind spade]

sure? how does that change mine or your views in any way?

[livid forge]

no, you have a perfectly valid view. But its not "what the game tells you to do"

[wind spade]

well, ADA does tell me to make efficient factories

[livid forge]

ADA also told me to make efficinet factories, so im trying to get the most value out of the resource nodes as i can

[wind spade]

so am I?

I never said I'm not optimising for raw resources?

[livid forge]

well no you're sinking wires, which is objectively less resource efficient, thats not even an argument. Converting those into higher grade items would be more resource efficient

[snow dove]

there’s infinite ore, just per minute values

[livid forge]

then its not infinate

[snow dove]

what

[livid forge]

you have a finite amount of thoughput

make the most of it

[wind spade]

you have infinite resources
you have finite resources per minute

since my storages are almost never full, then sinking wire is better than waiting for other resources

[snow dove]

i also sink stuff like wire so my sorting system doesn’t fail

[wind spade]

that as well

[livid forge]

imo fundamentally flawed storage system then

[snow dove]

that’s how sorting systems work

if anything backs up it can’t sort anymore, hence the sink

[livid forge]

thats how your system works. So if you didnt have the sink, everything would fail. Thats not the case for me

[snow dove]

How

[wind spade]

if you put a thing in a storage and the storage is full, what do you do with that thing?

[livid forge]

well i sink whats worth sinking. My system doesnt fail. If the sink failed, it'd simply back up. The system would still work

[snow dove]

If your wire storage bin is full, and you feed wire through the sorting system, what happens to the wire

[wind spade]

ok, so it'd back up
so I can end up with a dump container full of things that are not worth sinking

[livid forge]

i dont make waste wires in the first place

i turn those wires into something worth sinking

[wind spade]

I'm talking about dump container

you dump wire into it

[livid forge]

i didnt reply to you

[wind spade]

Iroh has the same point as I do though

[livid forge]

I dont want small factories for tier 1-4 items
I dont want to sink items from tier 1-4

I think those are both pointless. Just as pointless and running around slapping a miner on every node in the world, just to sink the ores, to keep all nodes digging. In my eyes, those two options are about as valid. One is just a bit more obviously stupid, but the other is equally stupid

[snow dove]

So you just avoided the question

[livid forge]

so back to the point, i'd love a smart merger 🙂

[snow dove]

You send wire to the sorting system right?

[livid forge]

have a good day, im going out

i produce wires when i need wires. No wire factory needed. Short, temporary efficienct loss is irrelevant

[snow dove]

That’s not what i’m asking… the wire you take from the middle of your production line has to end up in the sorting system somehow

[wind spade]

and you don't have a storage where you can take wire?

[oblique hollow]

I steal products directly out of machines

Because yellow lights ARE funny

[snow dove]

still not a clue how they have a sorting system with no overflow to a sink

[oblique hollow]

And since there is no global efficiency tracker, if i just look away long enough the machines climb back up to 100% and nobody can ever prove anything happened

Take me to court, you have no evidence of my crimes

[snow dove]

pulls up keylogger

[fierce ruin]

i do the same, so sue me; lol

[lethal prism]

When he need wires he walks to a copper node, manually mines it and crafts the ore into wires 😂

[nimble light]

ngl i need wires for most of my builds of basic stuff, cables, rotors and stitched iron plates and more so its automated at this point

[river night]

I would just be annoyed having to walk to random places to pickup construction materials, so i want them all collecting in a storage somewhere 😄

[true junco]

I just make sure i have multiple places where i can grab everything i need. Like i have my railways delivering all parts to a railway hub in RD right now. Im basically making nothing in RD yet. Lol.

[vapid gorge]

Hyper tubes are your friend

[wind spade]

why go to items when items can come to me? 😛

[tropic cape]

Sometimes I think "there should be hypertubes for items." Then I realize those are called conveyors and trains.

[brittle kayak]

What I would love to see would be the ability to "order" items remotely. Like, I have a central storage facility, I'm out and about far away, establishing a new factory, and then I run out of, say, copper sheets. Wat do?

Currently: run, Forrest, run (or, after like 2 trips back and forth: hypertube).

[thorny cedar]

use drones

[brittle kayak]

I wouldn't want stuff to be sent over continuously + it's considerable hassle to set up a drone operation.

Also, then I would only be getting the items I redirected to the drone port. What if I need something else?

[thorny cedar]

no but u can set up drone ports in ur storag

feed them some batteries and remote request if u want

all u need is electricity and enough materials for a drone port

[tropic cape]

There's some PowerSuit modules for that

[brittle kayak]

In principle, sure, it would be possible to just build so many drone ports that I can have a dedicated drone line for every item imaginable, along with battery supply, and then just build a drone port at the new factory and set a route for, say, those copper sheets, until I have enough, and then remove that connection.

[thorny cedar]

thats what i mean yea

[brittle kayak]

Actually, I think I'm going to do just that. Would always have pretty much guaranteed full drone inventory whenever I need something.

[thorny cedar]

you dont need perma routs and you dont need 100 bats per minute

[brittle kayak]

Also, if all drone ports are around the central storage facility, filling them all with batteries would be next to trivial.

[thorny cedar]

and yea if i go for stuff most of the time i get more then 9 stacks anyways

[tropic cape]

Just mind that drone ports draw a lot of power at all times

[brittle kayak]

I can have them on dedicated (or, more likely, grouped) power circuits that I can just turn off remotely.

[thorny cedar]

if u are in u8 sure

[brittle kayak]

Electricity is required at every new factory in any case.

[thorny cedar]

otherwise there is always the simple solution...

more power!

[brittle kayak]

That too.

My current power production is somewhere between 2-3x my current consumption (6 fully OC'd nuclear reactors + 50-ish fully OC'd fuel generators + around a dozen fully OC'd coal gens) so there's some headroom to play with.

[wind spade]

construction vehicle

[frosty owl]

Tbf, item hypertubes would still look cooler

[shell panther]

I'm working on a thing. I have a pure iron node, and a mark 2 miner on it. How many smelters do I need?

[wind spade]

open miner, see how much it makes
open smelter, see how much it needs
do math 🙂

[rustic patio]

something simpler and imo maybe even more convenient: a construction train. make a really long train and fill it up with everything you need. build rail access first and call in the construction train. now you have everything you need, in one train

[brittle kayak]

That would require building tracks.

[true junco]

Technically you can do that with the awesome shop. Tho i wouldnt recommend it.

[hasty wedge]

Spend 60% of your playtime in hypertubes because you forgot it, then go back again because you forgot you needed both copper sheets and concrete and only grabbed one.

[rustic patio]

im a giant train simp so i do that anyway

[brittle kayak]

Well, I'm kinda sorta on track there as well (see what I did there!) - I built my 3yo son a train track that circles the entire world.

So it's going to be relatively easy to make side tracks and actually cover the whole map.

[cinder lintel]

Can someone check my math for my aluminium ingot set up, its just not mathing, I keep having too much water in my system and have to flush my buffer. I have 297m3/min of water input, to my Alumina Solution recipe (3 machines) require 450m3/min, they go to my Aluminium Scrap which provides another 150m3/min of water which I have tied to the input of my first. so 297 (was 300, but tried to fix it) + 150m3 = 447m3/min of water. why does my system keep flooding itself?

[thorny cedar]

you use valves?!?

[snow dove]

don’t use valves

[cinder lintel]

i used a valve

[thorny cedar]

dont use them

[snow dove]

remove the valve

[cinder lintel]

are they bugged?

[snow dove]

no it’s just how the devs made valves work

[thorny cedar]

they work on an 8 bit integer

[snow dove]

and they’re entirely unneeded

[thorny cedar]

600/256

and round to the next number

[snow dove]

or just don’t limit the throughput, cause it’s never needed

[thorny cedar]

that aswell

[cinder lintel]

i had it set to 600m3 which should be more than enough

but i removed it and ill see what happens

[thorny cedar]

so full pipe valve just packflow

[snow dove]

separate the machines that use recycled water from the machines that use fresh water

don’t mix recycled and fresh fluids

[thorny cedar]

yea you cant prefill the system and if u split it the scnd closed part will work out the water on its own

[cinder lintel]

To my understanding i havent been prefilling the system with water, i just keep having to come back and drain it for my factory to run again

[thorny cedar]

yea bcs it still fills your pipe over time and your machines dont drain who produce water

[cinder lintel]

oh so its like its operation order is water out of machine -> water in pipe- > water in machine so when it counts water out, it says full and shuts off?

[median heath]

If this is Aluminium, why not just build a VIP and recycle the water back into the system?

[wind spade]

or use water in other recipes that want water

[cinder lintel]

VIP? im trying to recycle the water back in, i have my input water supply below demand but it keeps filling up anyways

[median heath]

Recycled supply should be below fresh supply.

Not sure where input and demand terms are coming from.

Both of them are inputs.

[cinder lintel]

i have something similar set up, but i'm just unsure why my system isn't working.

[thorny cedar]

can u provide screenshots

all of them

[true junco]

Valves are such a weird thing in SF.

Its simultaneously a manual shut off valve, a check valve, and a proportional flow regulator.

Combined with the incremental step size due to discrete 8 bit integer the set is limited to.

[thorny cedar]

cant work like that

[median heath]

How is this "something similar" to the screenshot I posted?

[cinder lintel]

i had a valve to the left of the buffer, to try to be used as a directional control valve and i kept having to flush

[median heath]

Like at all similar -- how?

[cinder lintel]

lol looking at it now, not at all i was assuming something that makes no sense

[deft lichen]

I avoid such troubles by strictly separating fresh and recycled water supply

[cinder lintel]

i think thats what im going to do lol

[median heath]

Ondar plz, this isn't a trouble at all, it is very simple.

But fine... I will shut up.

[cinder lintel]

whats the easy fix?

[cinder lintel]

yes

[thorny cedar]

input flows in both ways

... even with the valve at the end

of the recylce thing

[cinder lintel]

i was under the assumption a valve can be a check valve

[deft lichen]

valves are really terrible, they appear to help when they rarely do

[thorny cedar]

yea but the pipe behind the valve is pressured

and valves work like if the pipe is 100% the valve works at 100% or sm "stuff"

[median heath]

The only functional use of a valve is in a VOP.
And given you have no interest in VIPs, you won't be building VOPs, so inherently you will never need to build a valve.

[cinder lintel]

i just dont understand how everything fills up with water, surely the consumption of the initial three refineries being more than the total water input in the system would stop that

[thorny cedar]

like this for example and adjust the overheat

would be a simple solution if the numbers are good

fills itself basically you need to overflow sink the hardware at least in the ramp up!

[cinder lintel]

i dont know what these are

[median heath]

Which ends up meaning you never need to build a valve.

[true junco]

#math-and-meta message

Go to the link for pipe line manual.

[cinder lintel]

Thank you!

[thorny cedar]

you are right but cc you rly dont need it for this problem

with no float errors u dont rly need to sink water

[thorny cedar]

oh and for your note... you build a track and on each end one stations and you build a train on track and you are good to go 😄

[cinder lintel]

lol thanks, i dont remember how to remove that note

[thorny cedar]

open a menu go with your mouse to the right side of your screen

like your inventory

[cinder lintel]

lol thank you

[thorny cedar]

and at least i overflow my alu

in the end aswell to make sure the system runs a 100% all the time

[true junco]

Of course. A lot of what is in that manual is not strictly "necessary" since there are problems that are solved in that manual which are technically "problems you choose to have" but thats a whole other topic.

And once you see how all those things work, you can change them up and see if they still work. Its one of those "do it exactly like this and it works" situations. You deviate, and it might still work, or not. The only thing i think is actually missing from the pipe manual is a good example of how to buffer trainstations. Sevrahn has shared one a few times before that is effective. Again, you can deviate, but you'll have to verify it still works.

And of course some folks have reported that their VIP/VOP devices stopped working in U8X. But thats a crap shoot since many others have reported theirs still work fine.

[cinder lintel]

lol i think solved it with that manual @true junco linked, I put a pump after the buffer. it seems to have stopped the backflow, and the valve just wasnt working

[true junco]

That may be a bandaid fix. Buffers, pumps and valves can often just slow a problem down rather than solve it, tho maybe you will be ok. I would still recommend building a legit copy of the VIP. Where you put the recycled water as the priority input and the fresh water as the non-priority input.

Note that the Blue Print system is great for this. Make the VIP once, use it as often as you need afterwards. (Well, i made a right and left handed version, lol)

[thorny cedar]

in this case it might even work bcs its the only pump in the system

[elfin nebula]

also a note that vips in u8 arent a thing anymore

[thorny cedar]

i was thinking about it

[elfin nebula]

so legacy tech

[thorny cedar]

try without the buffer

if it stalls it takes less long

[cinder lintel]

i think thats my problem, i thought the water extractors would have enough head lift but maybe not.

[cinder lintel]

oh thats a good idea

[cinder lintel]

I really should utilize blueprints more often

[thorny cedar]

no the headlift is good

[true junco]

Some folks say otherwise. 🤷‍♂️. But some folks have pipe issues and some never do too so 🤷

[thorny cedar]

10 meter +10% error

is it 10 or is it 8 for extractors?

[true junco]

BPs are great for stuff like this.

[thorny cedar]

regardless its enougth

[snow dove]

10 for extractors

10 for anything that outputs fluid

[cinder lintel]

does it measure center to center of the pipe?

[snow dove]

iirc it’s the top of the pipe

[thorny cedar]

still 10 meter are 2 4 meter and a 2 meter foundation

thats way more

[snow dove]

just don’t work at the upper limit of throughput

[cinder lintel]

its 2 4m foundations difference

[elfin nebula]

only person i saw saying otherwise is the person who always says otherwise

[cinder lintel]

or close too

[thorny cedar]

so you got space

i mean the thing wouldnt start in the first place if the headlift wasnt enough

[elfin nebula]

ny test failed, baldur failed and iirc that pipe guide writer, with the blue name confirmed it as well

[cinder lintel]

oh thats fair, the replacemtent of the valve to the pump fixed it, but i dont understand why lol

lol maybe i had it backwards?

[thorny cedar]

bcs how fluids work in pipes

[cinder lintel]

wish i had the screenshot before i deleted it lol

[thorny cedar]

picture it like this

in a pipe the fluid runs from one side to the other

it pictures u the avg filled in the segment

[elfin nebula]

but thats the opposite of how they work

[thorny cedar]

i dont understand so i take the calculation * -1?

[median heath]

Valves prevent backflow but not backpressure.
Pumps prevent both.

[thorny cedar]

that what i was trying to say

if the segment behind the valve is at 100% the valve wont use the water

it just dont take more into its pipe

[silent patrol]

can someone tell me an effective splitter setup for this monstrosity

the generators further to the end dont get as much coal as the ones on the front

[twilit mango]

you could send some of the coal down the chain but it wont fix it entirely

[lethal prism]

Just keep it all on one belt and split it off in front of every generator

As the generators in the start of the chain fill up they will start to take less coal off the belt

Do make sure that your belt can handle the amount of coal on it though

[silent patrol]

I have been using this so it should be enough generators per coal

[silent patrol]

thats what i have done

[oblique hollow]

that works here too

it will just take a while to start up

[oblique hollow]

Hmm...
I know we talk about this before but.... I just wondered again if buffers can actually help with the issues pipes face when theres 600 flow and you have flow reversal at the first junction....

Effectively a pressure surge tank. Probably has been tried before but i cant remember

Not inline buffers however

But instead a sideline buffer

[wind spade]

Wait a bit or prefill the machines

[vapid gorge]

It’ll self balance after a while if built right

[silent patrol]

im going to leave it be then thanks

[vapid gorge]

A way you can check if it’s right - put a stack of coal in the last gen by hand - if it ends up starving again you’ve got a build error

[wind spade]

or it got used before the manifold stabilised

[vapid gorge]

I’m not sure I’ve had a manifold situation where the last one starved after dumping in a stack. I guess it’s possible?

And I’ve put together a lot of them

[wind spade]

nuclear is definitely a hot candidate

[vapid gorge]

Ah yeah, haven’t built one of those yet, that makes sense xD

Is there anything else though? Rod burning is a bit unique in its production consumption cycle

Although a full stack of rods in the last gen would last a while

And it’ll get new ones. Damn now I want to test that

[wind spade]

I think it's definitely mathematically possible

780 belts into long manifolds of machines eating low amounts per minute with low stack sizes

yes, the validity of those manifolds is another question (why not replace them with direct input, etc.), but theoretically it's definitely possible

[true junco]

Well the point of folks using balancer with nuclear is so none of the machines have a stack of rods in them so you have no radiation lingering around.

[wind spade]

nuclear will have radiation anyway so idc if it's 10m or 100m, I won't be going there anyway

[brittle kayak]

I pretty much think the same way and couldn't be arsed to make a perfect split for the waste recycling. Idgaf if that causes the radiation around the recycling facilities to extend 100m further than it would if everything was perfectly optimised.

The whole facility is right next to paradise island anyway, so right at the edge of the world.

It generates a nice amount of electricity and it gets rid of all of the nuclear waste. That's all I care about.

[true junco]

All i said was, that was the point of doing it that way. 😆 its all a moot point if you dont go near it and/or always have your PPE.

My POV on it is that i both want to make a perfectly balanced set up. And i want to populate my world with a bunch of radioactive death trucks running off of Plutonium rods...

[brittle kayak]

I've got a ISC full of uranium fuel rods anyway so there's quite a bit of radiation coming from that alone. 😂

16 hours worth, to be exact, should the rod production be interrupted for some reason.

[true junco]

Why tho.

[brittle kayak]

🤷‍♂️ just felt like it. I hhhate the grid failure sound. 😂

A bit of buffer to allow for maintenance works without disturbing the grid.

[vapid gorge]

Only weaklings don't want death zones

[true junco]

I dont want static death zones... i want rolling ones... lmfao

I want a world where visitors grow to fear the sound of an oncomming train or truck. 😆

[oblique hollow]

btw @true junco saw your table for aluminum stuff. Heres one i worked out long ago for a base rate of 120

[true junco]

Took a second to figure out what you meant, but i see it now. Thats handy.

[true junco]

Guess ill put this here so its easier to see both at once

[oblique hollow]

yours is kinda an inverse

where you use a fixed input and ask for max output, i have a fixed output and ask for min input

[true junco]

Exactly. I was trying to determine global max ingots using different alt combos.

I reorganized it by increasing yield per bauxite.

Thing is tho. Anything above 9780 Aluminum ingots will consume a lot of quartz... so the real question is, do you need more than 9780 Aluminum Ingots more than you need the quartz it will take? Or more directly. Is 3260 Aluminum worth consuming 6985.71 (66.531%) quartz.

[high latch]

@true junco these are our numbers for the other recipes. oil being our bottleneck so calculating tfuel per 30 oil

[elfin nebula]

what is that exactly?

[true junco]

uses all applicable alts for opimum yields.

dflt turbo uses least crude. blend uses least sulfur. heavy uses most of all resources. it just involves less buildings and production steps. so its only redeeming value is that it is easier to set up per crude consumed... but is ultimately not any better to set up per unit of turbofuel produced.

[high latch]

I got 66.6 tfuel per 30 oil which is slightly over double

still the 2nd best option tho

[true junco]

66.6/30 (aprx)= 60/27

how is heavy the second best option?

it takes the most of all resources.

[high latch]

32 is higher than 22

[cobalt magnet]

astute observation

[true junco]

but why are you using default fuel over diulted. with dilute to turbo you get 66.6TF per 30 crude, vs 32TF per 30

the 22TF/30CO is only if you skip diulted fuel.

[high latch]

Im not using fuel?

[true junco]

so heavy turbo is the 2nd worst way to make turbofuel if you count using default fuel to make default turbo. not the second best way. its still way behind diluted turbo and diluted blend

in your calc that shows 22.25 turbofuel per crude, you are

because with diulted default turbo gives 66.6 turbo per 30 crude. not 22.25

[high latch]

you're losing me

[true junco]

@high latch this is all 3 turbo fuel alts compared using the best combo of other alts for them. scaled to your calcs for 30crude oil as the starting point.

[elfin nebula]

600 oil to turbofuel with recipes:
normal: 1333
heavy: 640
blend: 800

sulfur needed for these:
normal: 1066 (0.8 per tf)
heavy: 640 (1 per tf)
blend: 400 (0.5 per tf)
so heavy needing much oil and much sulfur, always being quite bad

Most oil-efficient: Base
Most sulfur-efficient: Blend
Most space-efficiecnt: Heavy

since oil is in abundance on the map and sulfur is one of the rarest resources, you almost always want to optimize for sulfur usage, except you skip nuclear, then the normal is okay. heavy only when you want it tiny, but why 

and the turbofuel production is really small in comparison to the generators anyway
so space optimizing is a weird concept here
so heavy basically is a bait and sulfur waste
would always go for turbo blend. save the precious sulfur
turbo heavy is one of the closest recipes of being objectively bad
is for space optimization in a factory thats small in comparison anyway```

[magic island]

iirc, turbo heavy would compete with default turbo IF diluted fuel didn't exist

[elfin nebula]

well, diluted is always implicit

most people come from diluted plant anyway

[magic island]

yeah, diluted is so good you never want to skip it

I just mean that heavy/default turbofuel seem to be balanced as though diluted doesn't exist

but since diluted DOES exist, it buffs default turbo and leaves heavy behind

[true junco]

diluted fuel is one of the alts that is pretty much a given. its better to used diluted fuel in any path that involves fuel whenever possible. its only a problem for set ups that are very far from water. or if you really struggle with dealing with fluids.

heavy turbo fuel would have a use case if they rebalanced it somehow. like if it involved no sulfur at all maybe

[median heath]

Turbo Heavy has the same tradeoff multiple other recipes do.
Higher cost for reduced space.

[true junco]

a lot of things that trade production for space, dont save much if any space if you try to make the same output because you have to duplicate it more. they only definitely save space when solving forward from the same amount of inputs to get lower outputs. which certain people keep saying we should never do anyways... lol

[elfin nebula]

with the problem, that the turbofuel production makes like 10 % of the whole power plant anyway. so you trade for like 1 % of space saved

most part are generators

[true junco]

is that the turbo heavy vs dflt? or vs blend?

[elfin nebula]

turbo heavy in comparison to diluted blend saves almost nothing in practise

because the processing is quite small in general

[true junco]

in terms of input balance. the fact that blend takes no coal, default takes coal and sulfur. it would have been nice if heavy took no sulfur.

[elfin nebula]

that would be too op again

[median heath]

Saves tons of space because less building to make the turbo and it provides for fewer generators.
Saving space on both ends 😉

[true junco]

well. i would assume making such a balance change would also involve using more coal to offset not needing the sulfur.

tho perhaps it would be OP because you could use blend and heavy and they would only both need crude and share no other input.s

[elfin nebula]

coal is quite useless in comparison to availability

its the only resource you can completely remove from the game

nothing really needs it

asnd since there is so much, more coal would still not balance it

[true junco]

to be fair. you dont need uranium either. you can finish the project parts without ever touching the stuff.

[high latch]

you'd still have to transport all of it

[true junco]

that's true of everything else tho, so that doesnt mean much.

[high latch]

yeah but different kinds of resources are generally clumped together so needing a little iron and a little coal isnt as big a hurdle as needing a LOT of coal

[elfin nebula]

well, coal most time comes in huge amounts per place

[true junco]

depends on the location. blue crater has a lot of oil, coal and water all fairly close together.

but again. once you start talking about Oil, sulfur, bauxite, quartz and uranium. logistics are always going to be something to deal with.

[magic island]

the sulfur aspect of turbofuel is honestly more about the fact of having to transport it in at all, not really the amount you use

a sulfur-free turbo recipe feels like it'd defeat the spirit of things

[true junco]

that i can definitely agree with. lots of spots with coal and oil close together. its the sulfur that always seams to be away from those fossil fuel deposits.

[elfin nebula]

its about the amount, because our turbofuel limits our batteries as well as nuclear power

and that with blend already

[true junco]

there is a reason most folks who aim for optimum uranium fuel and a lot of batteries tend to not use turbofuel at all.

and i have to correct myself... reviewing the map... it would definitely be a subjective statement to say whether oil and coal are close to each other anywhere...

blue crater is definitely a good spot for water+coal+oil tho.

i forgot to turn on resource wells. lol. hmmm. there are some decently close places in the area between RD and NF starting zones with a bunch of sulfur too.

for a crazy intermediate area, you could just pull all the oil/coal/sulfur surrounding the NF start area. lol

[oblique hollow]

that reminds me....
i have one of these for turbo too xd

huh.... i forgot that the savings of oil for Turbo Blend arent even that great

25% and its still worse than Diluted Fuel + Normal Turbo

soooo unless you are REALLY tight on oil. diluting fuel for Turbo Blend is apparently not that useful?
you could probably balance Between Turbo Blend and then Diluted Fuel + Normal Turbo

[true junco]

the point of diluted blend was to save on sulfur really. its better for oil than heavy at least.

[oblique hollow]

better for sulfur and coal

not using diluted makes Blend WORSE than Turbo Heavy

but still better than normal turbo with residual fuel

though im afraid once the rebalance rolls along some day they will change things up because Diluted Turbo Blend is apparently the best in basically all regards. Maybe Power Hungry? Dunno

but then again they make fuel so they directly cancel out their power cost i guess (if you burn the fuel for power that is)

[wind spade]

I'd like to see diluted fuel get slightly worse than diluted packaged fuel

so that you'd have a choice between more complexity for more yield, or less complexity but less yield

[snow dove]

please no

[wind spade]

why not?

[magic island]

they really don't seem intended to compete. it's really just one recipe in two formats based on tech level

you're not supposed to compare them by resources, it's just "do i have blenders yet, y/n"

[snow dove]

i don’t wanna change my fuel factory

Plus that just sounds annoying

[wind spade]

I mean as part of the recipe rebalance

[snow dove]

wait i just realized i can just clip it

[wind spade]

how so?

pretty much all recipes in the game are "do more complex thing to get more"

[magic island]

the tradeoff is "more complex, identical efficiency, but possible earlier" which is not a tradeoff you see very often in the game but it's legit enough imo

[wind spade]

point is that once you have the better one, there's 0 reason to use the older one

same reason I'd like them to touch on cast screws

[deft lichen]

it came to be because DPF was in the game before blenders existed

[magic island]

does there need to be a reason to use DPF in endgame? I really do just think of them as one recipe that gets upgraded to a better format

[wind spade]

I just feel sad that the nice packaging loop goes unused in most games

[magic island]

I would be down for more recipes that use packaged fluids in other ways

[wind spade]

I'd like the rebalance to bring majority if not all recipes to "decent", rather than having recipes that are almost always used vs recipes that are almost never used

[magic island]

I think there's a place for recipes that fade out of use endgame but have a niche during progression

[wind spade]

but not pretty much exact copies

just better in everything (less machines, less complexity, less power, less space)

[rustic patio]

id like more stuff like diluted fuel

like, you get a lot more out of it but it takes a ton of effort

[wind spade]

well that's DPF as well

DF isn't that much effort

manifold

--S--S--S--S--S
  |  |  |  |  |

[rustic patio]

or the recycled plastic/rubber stuff

something a bit more complex than just item in item out

do any of you have the sims on manifolds with low tier exit belts being slower than full speed manifolds?

[rustic patio]

thank u!

[summer flare]

Is there more to that question, a splitter will output 3 equal outputs from a single input, so 30 in will have 3 x 10 out.

[brittle terrace]

is it better to have alot of 1 engine 4 freights or do larger trains but less of them? also is the items per min counter in the train staion acurate?

[fierce ruin]

i prefer a bunch of 1 engine 4 car's

[brittle terrace]

Alright 🙂

[median heath]

Trains have dynamic weight, there is no golden ratio.

1:4 isn't necessary anymore, it's just a relic of the past that people keep using out of comfort.

[brittle terrace]

dynamic as in the stuff carried changes it?

[median heath]

Amount of stuff being carried changes it.

[oblique hollow]

!wikisearch freight car

[brisk shore]

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/index.php?search=freight

[oblique hollow]

agh

!wikisearch freight+car

[brisk shore]

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/index.php?search=freight+car

[oblique hollow]

see the weigh table on that page

[fierce ruin]

ty for the info. didn't know that now.

[prisma kraken]

yeah, technically the wiki lists the limit to be 5 full cars on an incline, i'll be seeing how well that works soon 😛

[deft lichen]

the recommended ratios might need re-measuring

1:5 as a max limit sounds wrong, the train will slow down, but I don't think to some absurd speeds

if the train enters the slope at speed, it should be fine with more than that

[median heath]

There aren't any recommended ratios anymore though.

Amount being hauled + inclines being hauled up/down being contributing factors makes it impossible to have a perfect ratio that all the lemmings can just blindly follow.
Which I would assume was kind of the point of the change.

[deft lichen]

the old recommended ratio was specifically for tracks with major slopes

[wind spade]

And for what? Train keeping max speed? Train accelerating to max speed in given time? On what track?

[deft lichen]

I totally agree that it would be more valuable to provide more values than just one flat ratio

[median heath]

It is more accurate and simpler to just tell people they have dynamic weights now, so you need to find the amount of locos specific to what you're trying to do.

If one doesn't work, add another. Repeat until desired result is achieved.

[oblique hollow]

try it. it of course depends on length of the slope and initial speed

but from personal tests, above 1:5 the train is overloaded on those slopes and starts losing speed

if it doesnr have enough speed, it may even roll back

[oblique hollow]

Hence why i includes the math on the locomotive page

that page plus the freight car page leave you enough info to do math with KiloNewtons yourself

The main problem is spirals

since those have Inclined Slope Resistance AND Curve Resistance at once

[wind spade]

spirals are horrible 😄

[median heath]

Elevators ftw.

[cloud marlin]

Would sloppy alumina + electrode scrap be 3:4 refinery ratio?

[snow dove]

do the math and find out

[cloud marlin]

trying to confirm my findings with you

but it seems like it is

[elfin nebula]

18 to 24 is indeed 3:4

[cloud marlin]

I remember someone putting a design of sloppy alumina -> electrode scrap with sloppy refineries being 90% 100% 100% and 10% i can't remember why it was done like that instead of 3x 100%

[oblique hollow]

oh that was specifically so you can seperate the water loops

for smaller machine sizes, you could probably get away with just... doing the water loop smartly

[cloud marlin]

i'm trying to implement a VIP Junction into my design so it'd be all connected

would that be also better for 3x 100% sloppy refineries -> 4x 100% electrode scrap refineries?

[elfin nebula]

i think vip are garbage, so cant say yes

also dont work in u8 anymore for most people

[cloud marlin]

ah ok so it's back to the above blueprint then

[median heath]

They work if you build them right.
So it's up to you.

[cloud marlin]

do you mean in U8?

[median heath]

U8 and U7.

[cloud marlin]

do you have an example of working VIP junction in U8? I have something like this and wondering if it would work right

[snow dove]

build it exactly like in the pipeline manual, or there’s no guarantee it will work

looks like it should work

[oblique hollow]

If you cant get it to work, make sure to tell us

[vague hawk]

I'm planning on building a giant railway system composed of 3 small loops (one for the rocky desert, one for the grass fields and one for the dune desert) and a bigger one linking them all so I could bring as much raw resources as possible but tweaking is not something I'm good at and the more I think about it, the more I wonder if at some point there will be so much resources that all of the miners will be full 24/7. Is this even a good idea ?

[wind spade]

I very much prefer rails that go from A to B instead of doing loops

and procesisng resources at nodes

[vague hawk]

by processing you mean turning ores into ingots or straight up making, say, RIP ?

[wind spade]

make final product

and then ship it to storage

[uneven kernel]

how do I spilt 1 input into 8 outputs evenly?

[deft lichen]

split in two, three times

but what do you need it for

manifolds work in 99% of cases

[wind spade]

either what ondar said
or just simple

--S--S--S--S--S--S--S--S
  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

[wind spade]

well, 100% 😛

[uneven kernel]

didn't think of manifolds

[deft lichen]

nuclear power plants are the 1%

[wind spade]

they work there as well

[deft lichen]

they work poorly

[wind spade]

aka they stabilise eventually and allow 100% efficiency on all machines

[deft lichen]

the stabilization can take very long and leads to more radiation

[wind spade]

but they still work

and radiation is hardly an issue, since most of the times you won't go to your NPP anyway after you start it 😄

[barren elm]

I think NPPs is the one place where you can justify using a balancer over manifold though

No logistical benefit true, but it's nice to be able to admire your builds

[oblique hollow]

Less radiation

due to no stockpile of rods

[wind spade]

well I don't know many people that build NPPs in their base so radiation isn't an issue anyway

[torpid gust]

There is something satisfying though about a perfectly load-balanced NPP getting rods delivered just in time every time.

[thorny cedar]

same with the recycling :3

bcs waste rec is 1/4 to 3/4

[stoic gorge]

the main line ill connect to the right

[coarse steppe]

If they're unclocked then it's 30 pm

So just tier 1 is needed since they can't process anymore

The main feed belt needs to be as highs tier as possible

Needs to handle at least 120 pm

[stoic gorge]

so what the guy said dont make sense?

[coarse steppe]

It's just a waste of resources since the smelters can't process anymore then 30 pm

Tier 1 from the main feed to the smelters is all you need

[stoic gorge]

ok

thanks

[coarse steppe]

Whatever the machine needs pm is the tier of belt you'll need

From the splitter

The main line needs to be tier 2 or higher since it's 120 pm

To feed all 4

[median heath]

Doesn't harm anything to go higher though.
So if you prefer to just use mk3's or mk5's for everything because it is simpler, that also works just fine.

[stoic gorge]

and on manifold if i turn the machines on immediately the system wont work on max efficience or it just will take a long time?

[coarse steppe]

It just takes a little bit to stabilize

More machine usually takes longer

It may not read 100% on all but it's 100% efficient based on the math

30x4 is 120

When you expand you just follow the same math

[median heath]

Prefeed the manifold and it will start immediately at max eff when you turn it on.

[stoic gorge]

ah ok

[stoic gorge]

ok thanks

[stoic gorge]

wdym?

[coarse steppe]

Fluctuations

Downstream

[stoic gorge]

ah ok

but on this picture i only used tier 1 belts and there is coming 120p min at the main line

[coarse steppe]

Are the belts tier 2 coming out the smelter?

[stoic gorge]

but the final belts are not full

[coarse steppe]

Just give it time

[stoic gorge]

only where the ore is coming is tier 2

and the first connection bc the guy on the video said

[coarse steppe]

They need to be tier 2 coming out since it's 120 going in

[stoic gorge]

i have this system for like more than 10 hours

[coarse steppe]

Doesn't take that long to stabilize 4 smelters

[stoic gorge]

yeah

i mean

[coarse steppe]

If the belts coming out of the smelters aren't tier 2 then it's backing up the system

[stoic gorge]

in the graph all the smelters are at 100% efficience

[coarse steppe]

Since they're putting out 120 ingots pm

[stoic gorge]

but the belts are not full

[stoic gorge]

yeah but its not merged

its all splitted

[coarse steppe]

Iron rods?

[stoic gorge]

yes

[coarse steppe]

So 2 constructors per smelter

[stoic gorge]

right

all the smelters are 100% efficence

[coarse steppe]

Good

[stoic gorge]

i just dont get why the belts arent full of ores

[coarse steppe]

They don't have to be completely full to be correct the math is still correct

[stoic gorge]

oh yes my bad

i thought the smelters needed 60 p min

but its only 30

[coarse steppe]

No 30 unclocked

[stoic gorge]

so its going just what they need

[coarse steppe]

Yes

[stoic gorge]

but if i had prefeed then all the belts would be full?

[coarse steppe]

At first it would be backed up

But would even out over time

Pay attention to the math not the belts full or not

You're only moving 120 iron ore

[stoic gorge]

yes but now other thing doesnt make sense for me

[coarse steppe]

Tier 5 belts you may notice more ore on the belts

[stoic gorge]

there is 120 ores p min coming

[coarse steppe]

Is the lift mk2

[stoic gorge]

and its splitting out at a mk 1 which is connected to the smelter and the mk 2 that is going to other splitter

[stoic gorge]

yes

[stoic gorge]

so how the mk 2 going to splitter is full of ores?

[coarse steppe]

As long as all the main belts feeding the splitters is mk2 its the same math

Just hasn't evened out yet most likely

[stoic gorge]

yes but shouldnt it be 60 to each side

[coarse steppe]

The same thing happens when you preload the machines and have the belts full

[stoic gorge]

its going 120p min in one side and 60 p min at other

with just 120 p min coming

[coarse steppe]

No it's 30 per smelter

You need the main feed belt to be mk2 for 120 pm

[oblique hollow]

at first, 120 gets split into 60 and 60
but smelters need 30
so the smelters gets full and then cant accept any more

[chilly lion]

worth? or should I scale back a bit?

[oblique hollow]

entirely up to you

imo not worth it but you gota decide

[stoic gorge]

yes so it should go 90 to the other side, right?

[oblique hollow]

once the smelter is full, yes

[stoic gorge]

but its going 120

[coarse steppe]

It's takes 120 and splits into 4

[chilly lion]

yeah its probably something i should waste time with

[coarse steppe]

30 each

[oblique hollow]

how do you know its 120

because the belt is full in that one image?

[stoic gorge]

bc it is a mk 2 belt

and its full

[coarse steppe]

What's the miner put out?

[oblique hollow]

its full now

[stoic gorge]

yes

[oblique hollow]

but it wont stay full in the future

[stoic gorge]

120

[oblique hollow]

it will be full and then not as full

[coarse steppe]

Then your fine

[stoic gorge]

but i have this system for more than 10 hours

does it take that long to things organize?

[coarse steppe]

The math is correct I don't see what's the issue

[oblique hollow]

look, you cant put in 120 and then have 30 on one side and then 120 on the other side

makes no sense

and the game is not so buggy that it makes resources out of thin air

[stoic gorge]

there is no issue in the system at all

but im trying to understand bc i never used manifold

[oblique hollow]

there is no issue then

[stoic gorge]

and i just followed a tutorial but now i want to plan at my own

[oblique hollow]

you know the math

[coarse steppe]

Whatever you feed along the main belt gets split into whatever machines you're using

Just add up each machine

And see what the total is and match the belt to it

[stoic gorge]

so if the belt was mk 1 the system would broke?

[oblique hollow]

which belt

[stoic gorge]

not the main one

[oblique hollow]

the ones after the splitter?

[stoic gorge]

this that im pointing at

[oblique hollow]

if that was mk 1 it would break

[coarse steppe]

If it's 130 you need an overflow or sink or some other machine to use the access that's where the tricky stuff starts

[oblique hollow]

because you need to move 90 out of the splitter

and mk 1 only does 60

[stoic gorge]

ok

[coarse steppe]

Hence tier 2

[stoic gorge]

but i still didnt understand why this 90 turn into 120

[coarse steppe]

It doesn't

It's what's left after the first smelter

Since it takes 30

120-30

Then the next one will be another 30
90-30=60

So on and so on

[stoic gorge]

yes i got this

but why is it showing the belt full? if it was 90 it would have spaces

[coarse steppe]

You can have anymore coming in then 120 since that's the max the belt can handle

[oblique hollow]

its not constant 120

belt is full, but does it also constantly move? or does it stop sometimes

[stoic gorge]

at what im looking it is, the only thing is that this belt stops frequently, maybe is this?

[stoic gorge]

yes it stops

[oblique hollow]

if a belt stops, it moves nothing

if it stops, it no longer moves 120/min.
it moves 0/min

[stoic gorge]

ohh now it makes sense

its stopping the 30 for the next smelt

thanks for the help

[oblique hollow]

yeah, it fills all the smelters until they are full

and then it must stop

because they cant accept any more

[coarse steppe]

That's the advantage of a manifold do the math and set it and forget it

[stoic gorge]

yeah, but the guy in the video showed how it should looks like when its done and all his belts are full, is that because he prefeeded?

thats what he showed

[oblique hollow]

probably

prefeeding is not needed, it just makes things start a bit faster

[coarse steppe]

You can also you the satisfactory calculator to make it super simple to set up a production line

Does all the math for you

[stoic gorge]

ill try that

any site works well?

[oblique hollow]

or try satisfactory tools.

theres only really 2 calculators left that are both well known and also still maintained

[stoic gorge]

ok thanks

[brittle terrace]

can you guys look at my post in screen shots? i dont know where i should build my turbo fuel factory 🙂

[median heath]

You shouldn't because it's Turbo 😉

[brittle terrace]

Not a fan of turbo fuel?

[median heath]

Not about being a fan.

Diluted is far, far more than enough to get you to nuclear.

Turbo's only practical use in U7 is making bullets.
In U8 it is making bullets and jetpack fuel.

[brittle terrace]

Hmmm I see I’ll look at diluted

[median heath]

And the amount you need to do both of those things is very, very small.

[median heath]

Diluted is also far simpler and faster to set up. Blenders ftw.

One pure oil node into Diluted is 20 GW.

[brittle terrace]

hmmm just realized i dont have blenders xD

[median heath]

I wouldn't do any major fuel setups yet then. 🤷‍♂️

Can easily get to T7-8 on 3-4 GW of power.
Once you have Blenders then you crank it up.

I honestly don't even build a Fuel Gen until T7-8.

[brittle terrace]

so u just do really big coal plants? i only got 9600MW atm

[median heath]

9.6 GW is bigger than I build in T5-6

Like I said. I usually don't even hit 4 GW prior to T7-8 because you don't need that much.

[brittle terrace]

alright 🙂 thx

[median heath]

Average run my T5-6 total is 3.75 GW.
2.4 from Coal and 1.35 from Coke.

[brittle terrace]

im at 7500 MW consumption atm

[median heath]

Personally I would say you have built too big for the stage you are at. But that is just my opinion.

[brittle terrace]

prob not wrong

[median heath]

The amount of stuff you will want to/have to redo once you unlock mk5 belts is the reason I wouldn't recommend going that big that early.

[brittle terrace]

this is my main area

😬

[stoic gorge]

wich tier mk 5 is unlocked?

[median heath]

T7-8

[brittle terrace]

plus i have a whole seprate area for steel and then plastic, rubber and circuit boards

[stoic gorge]

how am i supposed to divide 67.5 p min to a side and 52.5 to other?

[median heath]

Single splitter.

[stoic gorge]

sorry but i didnt get it

[coarse steppe]

Add them in

[median heath]

What happens when you send 60 to something that wants only 52.5?

[coarse steppe]

In the options

It'll show how many and where you need them

[stoic gorge]

its gona pass 7.5 to other

[median heath]

Hence, single splitter will get you those amounts to those sides without any other complications needed.

[stoic gorge]

ohhh makes sense

thanks man

[stoic gorge]

where?

[median heath]

1. I don't think Tools has that option.
2. You don't want to use that option.

[coarse steppe]

Options at the bottom

Where output and input is

[median heath]

The point of Tools (and why it is better) is because it doesn't tell you HOW to build anything.
It just does the math and tells you what you need. It leaves the "how" up to you.

[stoic gorge]

yeah makes sense

it would take out the fun of the game

[stoic gorge]

im using other site i think

[median heath]

Yeah, you're using the better site. Just keep with it.

[stoic gorge]

hey man

how do i prefeed?

i need to prefeed all the system or just the first roll

[median heath]

Take materials, go to machines, place materials in machines.

[stoic gorge]

yeah but like just first machines that ill work or all the system

[median heath]

If you're prefeeding, do the entire system.

[snow dove]

if you can only do a couple, it doesn’t matter what machines

[stoic gorge]

ok thanks

[true junco]

Usually i just try to build from the start of the process going forward so things fill as i go. Means the inputs belts and pipes are full before the machines power up. And early stages of processing are already putting out material before the next line is ready to consume it.

As for manually prefilling machines, it isnt usually important, but ill do it sometimes. Just depends on if i have anything handy to do it. So really, just fill as much as you can spare at the time and it should be fine.

[stoic gorge]

what wait times on truck docks do?

because it moves everything immediately

i just have to guess if the distance is gonna be enought to transport all the items at time?

[snow dove]

why would you want it to be a completely full truck

[stoic gorge]

i dont mean that

its like

imagine i put 120 ores p min in the truck station

how do i know if the distance between the two truck stations are good enought so i ll be the same speed as if i did a mega 120 ore belt

[snow dove]

you find the round trip time, then you see how long it takes for the storage to fill up

well how long it takes for the storage to fill up to the size of the truck

[stoic gorge]

where can i see the round trip time?

[vapid gorge]

It also gives you really dumb layouts

[prisma kraken]

tractors & trucks 'burst' 18 stacks of items and then 1 stack every .5 seconds of wait time, if either is full, the default wait of 1 second only transfers 20-21 stacks (it varies based on how long the vehicle remains in the station hitbox)

imho its really dumb behavior

and btw, the only way to really know how much you can transfer in a trip is to time how long it takes to drive the route

unfortunately, there's no in-game timer for displaying the RTT, it will vary for each trip anyway, so you always want to treat vehicle and train estimates as estimates with a variance and account for some margin of error

[stoic gorge]

this is very complex to dont have even a simple instruction in the game lol

[prisma kraken]

yeah, its early access, they need to provide some in-game documentation on it all, but the wiki contains much of what you need to know as well

[stoic gorge]

oh yes i always forgot about wiki

i nedded to do a lot of testing in a cheat world to figure out how it works lol

because on youtube i didnt find any really usefull video either

[prisma kraken]

there's guides out there on YT, but imho not many are very good 😉

[true junco]

Problem with youtube is sifting thru videos from previous updates, and whether they have applocable info or not.

[fast cobalt]

well i could always rely on good ol' chat gpt for those issues if they're too complex

[prisma kraken]

yeah, some old guides from the u4 era aren't very good anymore

[wind spade]

Why would you want to rely on a text generator

[oblique hollow]

chat gpt knows nothing about Satis

[wind spade]

chat gpt knows nothing

[thorny cedar]

well the free one is just a chat bot :c

[wind spade]

it's not even that. It's a text generator

[harsh elm]

would you guys recommend i get windows or lights first

and if i get lights so i NEED to unlock the switch or is that only to turn them off

[stoic gorge]

i dont think you need

but im not sure

[wind spade]

neither is required so it boils down to "which one you want to use earlier"

[harsh elm]

yea that’s why i said what you guys recommend

afaik everything in the coupon shop is visual and doesn’t actually give you an advantage so

[wind spade]

which one you want to use earlier

this is what I recommend

[harsh elm]

right

do you use windows or lighting more in your personal builds

[wind spade]

neither

[harsh elm]

damn

my problem is that lighting works at nighttime but doesn’t change the exterior whereas windows makes it look better but isn’t useful at night

is there some sorta mechanism that detects night and day loops for switches?

[wind spade]

get both

no

[harsh elm]

yeah that would take like 200,000 resources so that would take me a little bit

[wind spade]

why so much?

[harsh elm]

idk it says like 40,000 items for a coupon or smth

[true junco]

No b ut lights have a "night mode" so they can auto shut off during the day.

[wind spade]

what are you sinking?

[true junco]

40,000 pts. Some things are worth more than that per item.

[harsh elm]

any excess

so all iron and copper items currently

still working on steel

[harsh elm]

is there a chart for this

[true junco]

On the wiki, yes

[harsh elm]

would anything be more efficient than a mk3 pure node straight into the sink

[deft lichen]

!wikisearch AWESOME+Sink

[brisk shore]

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/index.php?search=AWESOME+Sink

[true junco]

Almost everything. Ore is almost worthless.

[wind spade]

anything, yes

[deft lichen]

raw quartz is decent early on but better converted to crystals/silica

[true junco]

Generally. Everything is worth more than its parts, with a few exceptions.

[wind spade]

every base recipe is double it's ingredients

[harsh elm]

silica is worth like 40% of quartz

wait apologies i was looking at crystals

[true junco]

Right. Either way you have to notice that some things like silica make more items than they take in too.

Generallt speaking you double your ROI for each step of making a part. So youll see end game parts worth tens of thousands per item.

[deft lichen]

15 raw quartz (255p) = 9 quartz crystal (450p) OR 25 silica (500p)
silica gives more, but there's more of it, so you might end up building more sinks and using up more precious early-game power

[harsh elm]

true

i’m on the stage of unlocking hyper tubes or blueprints

so if i unlock the blueprint i could copy paste my coal power plant

[deft lichen]

you know the limitations of blueprints right

[harsh elm]

i think i’m at 600MW

[harsh elm]

i can’t remember is it like 5x5

[wind spade]

it's 4x4 and you can't "copy" existing builds

[harsh elm]

even if i rebuild it inside the box?

[wind spade]

then it's not copying 😄

[harsh elm]

wait could i even place the water gens

[oblique hollow]

building inside the box is the only way to make blueprints

[oblique hollow]

no

you can put like 3 coal generators into the blueprint so you can place 3 at once

instead of one at a time

[harsh elm]

ah

with enough space to fit tubes or is that full

[oblique hollow]

some place left to fit splitters and junctions

but it will be tight

[harsh elm]

gotcha

[wind spade]

personally I don't see reason to make the blueprint, by the time you're done with it, you'd have your coal plant built normally

[harsh elm]

won’t i need to build heaps

what stage do i unlock a better fuel method

[wind spade]

there's different power plants

[oblique hollow]

Tier 6

[wind spade]

fuel gen, nuclear

[oblique hollow]

i manage to get to tier 6 with like 16 generators. sometimes 32

[harsh elm]

tier 6

i think? i’m at 5

[oblique hollow]

then you wont need much more

[wind spade]

then you're at T6 as well

[oblique hollow]

Tier 5 and Tier 6 are unlocked at the same time

[harsh elm]

nope i’m at 4

[oblique hollow]

then you just gotta do the space elevator delivery

[harsh elm]

i haven’t done phase 2 yet

[true junco]

I put 4...

[oblique hollow]

wasnt sure

[true junco]

It depends on which direction you place coalgens. For some reason 1 way they clip slightly closer together and you can fit 4 in a BP.

[harsh elm]

what was the decision behind making cosmetic items unlockable through coupons there’s so many decorative items i need but won’t be able to get for weeks

[wind spade]

because you don't need them

it's completely optional and skippable part of the game

[true junco]

Something to give players goals, but none of it is manditory. That and ill say once i unlocked a bunch of them very quickly and it was momentarily a bit overwhelming to go thru the build menues. 😆

[harsh elm]

nah trust me i need them

no more box bases 💀

[true junco]

Everything available in the awesome shop is "side quests" basically.

Yeahm. You dont "need" them to play the game, but you do "need" then for mental health reasons imo.

And it really doesnt take long to unlock everything if you focus on overflow sinking all the most complex parts you make... also sinking DNA capsules is good too.

[harsh elm]

that’s true except the most complex items i make are rotors and reinforced plates so

[wind spade]

and you're at T4?

where's steel products?

[harsh elm]

I’m making steel pipes

and working on a beams one

they’re literally just smelters and assemblers though

[true junco]

Rotors are worth a lot more than steel beams when sinking at least.

[harsh elm]

i don’t think my rotor storage is even half full yet so i haven’t sunk any

[barren elm]

Just cheat them in if you don't want to engage with the system

There's no prizes for doing something you don't want to do here

Upload your save to SCIM and there's a toggle to enable all (or specific) cosmetics

Alternatively, run around wrecks, they usually contain some high value items, and sinking them early gives tons of tickets

[true junco]

Assuming you have used whatever you needed to unlock those wrecks, and those items can also be useful to jump thru milestones too. Either way. Items from wrecks are usefull.

[barren elm]

Useful but you can still afford to sink plenty of them

[median heath]

Just go hunting 🤷‍♂️

Or set up an AIL line (which can be done in T1-2)

[wind spade]

@near lichen see #math-and-meta message for alt recipe choices

[near lichen]

Alright thanks!

[fierce ruin]

Did they change how hard drives work?

[wind spade]

wdym?
there has not been a change recently iirc

[fierce ruin]

I am still on coal but i got refinery recipes on hard drive

[wind spade]

yeah that's normal

[fierce ruin]

Oh i did not know that lol.

Since i do not have a refinery can you guide me?

I have iron wire
Wet concrete
Charcoal

Which should i get?

[wind spade]

alt recipes are added in the pool when you unlock certain milestones, pure iron and copper alt recipes are added when you unlock coal power

[wind spade]

see #math-and-meta message

[fierce ruin]

Thanks

[prisma kraken]

yeah, really the best recipe is the one you have immediate use for

probably iron wire is what i'd pick, but wet concrete is a very nice recipe when you're making HMF's and charcoal, despite people's dislike of it, actually is kind of useful in making a weapons plant

a single ISC of wood makes enough coal to pretty much fill a container with every ammo type and filter type

[stoic gorge]

can someone explain me something?

i have 2 truck station transporting ores

each one is receiving an miner with 120 ores p min

and in the destination when they unload each 2 truck station unloading is with a belt mk 2 (120 items p min)

and i use this ores to make a factory

and the factory is working 100% efficiently as it needs 120 ores p min

but the truck station that receive the miner gets full

so in theory its not transporting the 120 ores as the belt would do, right?

so how the factory is still 100% efficient?

[coarse steppe]

The truck transports more them 120 ore

Per load when it's full

[stoic gorge]

i use tractors

[coarse steppe]

Same difference

[stoic gorge]

but i still didnt get the logic

if the truck station gets full so the miner is not 100% efficient

but the factory that needs exactly 120 ores p min is 100% efficient

[brittle terrace]

@prisma kraken idk what im dooin wrong so how would i set up siganls on this intersection?

train drives on the right side or the track, i have one train pass this staion then one that goin in the staion and back

both go right to left in the photo if that makes sense

if i need to explain more i can

[cloud marlin]

Path signal on entrance to junxtion and block signal on exit

[brittle terrace]

so path on right side? of rails?

[cloud marlin]

Yes if you are doing right handed rails

[coarse steppe]

The time it takes for the truck to go from station to station isn't factored in
Once it dumps its ore at the station which is hooked into a system and it's 120 pm again for that side

[brittle terrace]

ITS ALL ERRORS! i have been trying to figure this out for the past hour and a half becuse my trains are being werid

I NEEED heeelllpppppp

im so lost

[cloud marlin]

Can you post error messages

[brittle terrace]

yea 1 secv

new thing has happend?

o_O

now the train at intersection #2 stays there untill the other train gose past intersection #1?

[brittle terrace]

I spread them out more u can maybe see in the picture and it worked now I have the new issue

[prisma kraken]

sorry, i just saw your posts

...first thing, don't mess with path signals, use block signals at first to simplify the signaling

path signals are totally optional things that can increase network throughput, but they add complexity and just are hard to troubleshoot

technically there's a case i know of that requires a path signal (by-pass on a bidirectional rail), but you can signal a unidirectional railway like yours with block signals

now, let me open paint and mark up your photo showing where signals should go

[brittle terrace]

Ok thanks

So u can only use blocks and it will work?

It’s just annoying one of the 2 trains have to wait super long for the other one

[prisma kraken]

yeah, here's where they should go

you can place a block signal at every green chevron, or optionally change the ones that have an orange chevron as well to be path signals and it should work

the rules for signals are that you want a block signal at the entrance and exit of every station, a block signal at the exit of every intersection, and either a path or block signal at the entrance to every intersection

if you use path signals EVERY entrance to the intersection has to be a path signal

also, it should be obvious, but the chevrons indicate the direction the signals should be as well 🙂

there's one small suggestion that i may make on the layout of your station though

the section of track between the intersection and station should be at least a 4-car train in length so that it can accommodate a waiting train w/o its rear blocking the interesection

[brittle terrace]

these say signal loops into it self should i remove? orrrr

[brittle terrace]

i have thought this but atm my stations are single train back and forth so there isnt any waiting 🙂

[prisma kraken]

that's because you're not done signalling the intersection and the track spanning to the right is probably a large loop, right?

[brittle terrace]

yes it is a loop wym not done signaling?

[prisma kraken]

your missing a signal in your photo on the right hand of side of the intersection

right next to the signal you circled

btw, sometimes the game gets a little confused at what's connected to what and you need to do some janky delete & rebuild to fix it, but in your case, finish droping all six signals for the intersection and those errors should disappear

[brittle terrace]

im so lost i really appreciate ur help 🙂 what is wrong here?

[prisma kraken]

signals are a little annoying when you're first starting your railway because you don't have enough of them segmenting pieces of the network and you get all sorts of weird errors until your done the minimum amount of signals

[brittle terrace]

sorry i feel stupid

i removed the 2 on the right and everything is good? i think?

[prisma kraken]

hmmm

there's something that i think is probably off with something in your intersection

[cloud marlin]

You might want to watch this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yKB-TofdWiA&list=PLluRQkwJ8qYhcodn_LAWVw0f5SKF9zj2L&index=3&t=7s&pp=gAQBiAQB

[prisma kraken]

i'd delete and rebuild these things i've hilighted

like honestly, sometimes the game just gets confused

i was laying this out yesterday, and the game got really confused, lol

[brittle terrace]

nvm it didnt fully work it stays here untill the train returns from the right side xD

[brittle terrace]

i will watch

[brittle terrace]

ok ill try

[brittle terrace]

😮 worked

all this time and thats what it was 😭

[prisma kraken]

i think there's some condition in the game where with rails and with pipes, sometimes they just connect wrongly 🤷

after a while, you kinda get used to the rules and know that something should work and recognize that something needs to be rebuilt

[brittle terrace]

ok ill save this little area so i can come back to it 🙂 thanks for ur help and i will def watcvh that video

[prisma kraken]

yeah, the rules are path signals entering intersections, block signals exiting intersections, block signal at the entrance and exit of stations

that's the tl;dr version of train signalling 😛

i go a step further and say don't even mess with path signals until you need to increase network capacity

[brittle terrace]

ok thanks 🙂

[prisma kraken]

being honest, i think you could probably remove path signals from the game and it wouldn't matter for 99% of builds

[brittle terrace]

that simplifies things for me so much thank you 🙂

[prisma kraken]

you need to get to a critical mass of trains where they start backing up at intersections for path signals to actually make any difference

[brittle terrace]

i dont plan on that any time soon so i should be good for a while 🙂

[prisma kraken]

little known fact never mentioned in guides, trains travel more slowly when approaching a path signal

[true junco]

Usually. Ive had a few plow thru at top speed occasionally. But very often, yes. They slow down a lot. Especially at certainintersections.

[prisma kraken]

yeah, takes time to reserve the path

[true junco]

It looks like too short a section between station and intersection to me. I know they dont seam to like signals stacked close together sometimes. Which is part of the problem with some types like roundabouts with way to many signals.

[brittle terrace]

yea it was a temp setup i think imma expand it a bit to add more room

[prisma kraken]

damnit, triggered the truck stop bug again

[brittle terrace]

i havnt ever messed with trucks, they any good?

[true junco]

The hell.

[prisma kraken]

in u8, the math on their display of item/min is all wrong and it sometimes leads to a floating point trap

really annoying bug

[true junco]

Thats just the AI Limiter kicking in because a truck was on the verge of Sentience.

[prisma kraken]

tractors and trucks are ok-ish in a limited role

the second you start ramping up your infrastructure, they start going all wonky and do cursed things

[true junco]

Anti AI program. Asks AI "are you self aware? 1 for yes. If answer is one divide AI by zero.

[prisma kraken]

the mam will already do that if you spam the research HD button 🙂

seriously. its an easter egg

[true junco]

I know. I love it.

[prisma kraken]

anyway, the truck stop bug is like one of those things i just wish they'd fix, leads to more crashes for me with u8 than anything else

[true junco]

Shame. Sounds pretty bad. I wonder what triggers it exactly.

Its a calc error. But what triggers it?

Hmmm. I do not know a lot about coding but I know math and apparently some languages do not like i or arctan(x)or 0/0. And i can see why.

[vapid gorge]

if it's how you described it's probably chewing through a buffer of ore.

[vapid gorge]

@worthy sorrel so like this?

[worthy sorrel]

no no no

let me draw for u wait

[vapid gorge]

so you DONT want 10 rip and 10 rotors pm?

[worthy sorrel]

wait

[vapid gorge]

this is a plan using the basic recipes for what you told me you were wanting to make , this might be easier to read

@worthy sorrel oi, I gotta make dinner in a min

[worthy sorrel]

my recipe makes screws from irons

[vapid gorge]

you need more than 90 ore pm to do the plan you were telling me about

Please look at the image above

[worthy sorrel]

i can do that only with overclocking

i can make 120/min max