math-and-meta

[pulsar lagoon]

this is what i see in the map

yes

[vapid gorge]

so, you use SCIM, which you obviously know what it is, even if you say you don't, and delete the chest

then re download the save file

[pulsar lagoon]

ohh i think i got what you mean

like edit the save file online and download it again? something like that

thats works?

[opaque quartz]

yep

just make sure you load that specific file when you open the game

[junior veldt]

math? 1+1 = 2

[nimble haven]

LMFAO same

[fierce ruin]

Anyone able to help? I have 10 refinerys getting 600m³ per minute (each needing 60m³ per min ofc) Producing 40m³ of fuel going into 2 fuel gens or i could just overclock it. But after all this which is very simple I thought it would be done and I easily have power but no matter what I did my last few refinery where never full efficiency and therefore about half of my fuel gens are not very active.

[vapid gorge]

over head shots of the pipe system

[fierce ruin]

Wym where my pipes are going up and down?

[vapid gorge]

over head shots.

pictures looking downward over your pipe layout

[fierce ruin]

I'll be honest I'm not even at my pc rn just thought I'd ask on here rn for some reason but I can say it's a manifold of a flat ofc I think the big problem is my oil is coming through a big pipeline but it also has pumps and is always full al the time however the flow per minute is not the amount a need it's like 300m³ to 450³ or more most of the time but never that stable

I was thinking about moving the fuel to the nodes but I'm making a base where pretty much everything is in one place

[vapid gorge]

ask again when you're at your pc.
it's nearly impossible to diagnose pipes w/o images and poking at things while the discussion is going on

pipes are really simple when you know what you're doing.
but when you don't know what you're doing it's really simple to make less than efficient systems

[opaque quartz]

Oops! All pitfalls!

[vapid gorge]

and by 'know what you're doing'
I mean both, knowing the pitfalls and being able to avoid them in the first place AND being able to work your way through the system to trouble shoot it

it's not actually hard, but it is a skill to learn

[fierce ruin]

Yea i struggle with pipes 90% of the time I'll ping you when I can send some images

[vapid gorge]

pls do 🙂 I can take you through some basic rules for building consitently functional pipes

[nimble haven]

Why arnt my water pipes working? They are max watered

[vapid gorge]

whats the whole set up?

aluminium?

[nimble haven]

Get water up to my nitric acid

Flushing out the water pipes works so well

It gives like “restart your computer”

Well it’s not really fixed

My water extractors are still getting backed up

I still don’t understand how my mk2 pumps say they have 50 deadlift but and lift the water from the extractor to my blenders

[opaque quartz]

Could you try taking screenshots directly in the game instead of pictures of your monitor?

Are the lights on your pumps yellow or green?

[nimble haven]

Sure

Can you tell me exactly what you need to see?

[vapid gorge]

everything

so this is gas and water you're feeding in?

[nimble haven]

From the water extractors info to the end?

The gas isn’t an issue. Gas does good things

Water can seem to make it up pipes even with pumps

[vapid gorge]

here try this

slide the pipe over the left so you can place a powered pump before the two machines

you're essentially bottom feeding those 2 blenders with water which is a no no, something I'm almost 100% we've mentioned to not do before with pipes

[nimble haven]

lol. Bet bet

[wooden jasper]

don't die from radiation

dying is against the ADA worker's handbook policy

[nimble haven]

I have gas masks and rad masks in my inner dimensional storage

[nimble haven]

Sorry i completely forgot to send SS. but this looks more complex than it is but the pipes only 2 are working. one isnt.

[vapid gorge]

Well I hope the initial solution I gave you worked, but people have have warned you several times that you need to keep your pipes tidy and organised otherwise it'll cause problems and be much harder to trouble shoot. It doesn't seem like you've followed that advice so don't be surprised

[nimble haven]

i like to consider it a rough sketch

[vapid gorge]

well you're trying ot patch a rough sketch rather than a final draft. which is kinda pointless

[opaque quartz]

Can you show us the control panel for one of the blenders?

I’m wondering if maybe you have the blenders hooked up backwards?

[simple vector]

i just want ti make it go up in like a curve up

[vapid gorge]

ok after you place the tube, tilt it with the mouse

[simple vector]

OMGGG

tyyyyyyy i didnt know u can make it tilt after palacing it like that

[opaque quartz]

Because despite these heinous pipe crimes, it seems like they are all full, and your pumps are placed the correct direction yet nothing is happening, which could happen if you hooked them up to the blender outputs instead of inputs

[vapid gorge]

whenever there's multi clicks to place items it means you can adjust their position in some way between each click

otherwise they'd just be click and place

[vapid gorge]

for example if you place a pipe stand, after the first click I believe you can adjust the height by looking up and down

and at some point tilt the pipe facing bit

I don't remember the sequence offhand

[wind spade]

@storm bane better ask in a channel where we can write 🙂

and the answer is - yes, easily - make two groups of smelters, each group making the exact amount you need

[vapid gorge]

@storm bane or one long manifold that servers both points. It'll also balance out

[visual cypress]

maths

"temproary" platic until I get peopper assembly lines up for it. this is mainly because I wanted the coated iron plate alt, for now.

[sonic bison]

So this game was made by math teachers trying to prove why we need to know algebra right?

[gray flower]

I have atm for plastic and rubber just 2 machines with a large line of big storage containers

I need to do a big Plastic and rubber factory

[vapid gorge]

not really. It's jsut basic arithmatics

[remote flame]

Nahhh clearly not, like @vapid gorge said it's pretty basic stuff! like when making a Diluted Fuel/Residual Rubber Fed factory powering a Recycled Rubber/Plastic loop, it's common knowledge that the Fuel needing to go to the Rubber and Plastic refineries are F_rubber = (16/27)R_out + (7/27)P_out - (2/27)F_out , and F_plastic = (8/27)R _out + (17/27)P_out - (1/27)F_out respectively (modified equation by apocalyptech that accepts Fuel as an output too)
_or we just accept that using those recipes, 1 unit of Oil equals 3 units of output and worry about the fuel later~ _ - #math-and-meta message

No algebra required to have fun though! Just my requirement for insanity 🙂

[vapid gorge]

lots of basic maths xD
which is why planning tools are good. Unless you just like doing a ton of addition and division

[robust raptor]

Well, you do need slightly fancier maths to write something like a factory planner

But that's for people like greeny to figure out lol

[wind spade]

It's still basic math, just with sprinkle of salt linear optimisation threw in

So just basic math with 150x250 matrix

[smoky aurora]

its so basic i dont even know what a 150x250 Matrix is in this context ,.. or even any context 😄

[wind spade]

basically a big table with numbers, you do basic math with those numbers

[smoky aurora]

Basic math is + - × ÷ 😂 ... At least in my under standing ... May some formulas ... But that's it .. never heard from matrix ever in school ...

But Yeah some are gifted with understanding math ... Some not 😂

[smoky aurora]

😂

[robust raptor]

Well, I suppose linear algeba is basic

[wind spade]

well you do the basic addition and subtraction and stuff for the numbers in the matrix

[robust raptor]

But it's a different form of basic from basic arithmetic, basic arithmetic is primary school basic while linear algebra is undergrad basic

And the maths behind linear optimisation is pretty interesting

[smoky aurora]

i never had algebra

it´s High School Stuff ,.. i only did middelshool graduation

10 grade here in germany

[wind spade]

that's like 3rd year of basic school

[smoky aurora]

no Algebra is nothing you need in your basic life

[robust raptor]

I wouldn't say so, algebra can be handy when solving more complex problems

[smoky aurora]

nothing i needed to learn in math i ever used except some small formulas in real life

[robust raptor]

It's just a useful tool to have to think about things

[smoky aurora]

but in daily life u dont face such problems

[robust raptor]

Depends on what you define by basic life

I certainly encounter such problems when playing factory games lol

[smoky aurora]

We also use algebra in all other areas of mathematics, as there is also something to calculate or an equation to solve at the end of every task. This applies, for example, to the determination of zeros in analysis or the calculation of probabilities in stochastics.

Algebra couldnt be further away from 3rd grade

[wind spade]

elementary algebra is like 3rd-4th grade

[robust raptor]

I learnt algebra in the equivalent of 6th grade myself

[wind spade]

you're just not taught it's named algebra

[smoky aurora]

well i guess i have a different understanding of algebra

well if i see this as a video ,.. sure its 4th grade math

[robust raptor]

Basic algebra just involves replacing numbers with variables, nothing complex

[smoky aurora]

but this is not algebra considered in my understanding ,.. an noone in germay would consider this as 4th grade math

[robust raptor]

And thinking about problems this way is very helpful

[smoky aurora]

common understanding is the Algebra is like u go to university or study ,..

there you have algebra

[wind spade]

you said you don't need algebra in your life while being in a server of a factory game which heavily benefits from knowing algebra 🤔

[robust raptor]

You don't need to go to university to learn algebra

Unless you're talking about abstract algebra

[smoky aurora]

as is said ,.. its not the common understanding of algerba here

[robust raptor]

Then yeah, that's 2nd or 3rd year of maths undergrad

[wind spade]

arithmetics: 3+3=6
algebra: x+3=6

it's that simple 🙂

[robust raptor]

But basic algebra with variables like x and y, that's not complex

[smoky aurora]

sure i do math in this game ,.. but its math not algebra in local understanding ,..

[wind spade]

you may not be aware what "algebra" stands for then

[robust raptor]

If you manipulate formulas, that's algebra

[smoky aurora]

for you ,... maybe ,..

but variables as x or y are already advanced math

[wind spade]

It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic operations other than the standard arithmetic operations, such as addition and multiplication.

[smoky aurora]

less the x ,.. but the y

[robust raptor]

Formulas involve a bunch of variables, moving them around is basic algebra

[smoky aurora]

alright good to know ,.. but its not the common understanding here

[robust raptor]

What is the common understanding?

[wind spade]

what letter you pick for your variable doesn't change how hard that formula is lol

[robust raptor]

I'm curious what your common understanding of algebra is, exactly

[wind spade]

or you're just talking about something different 🤷

[smoky aurora]

algebra is here a seperated part of shool lessons ,..

like today in 5 shool hour i got algebra ,.. and it often from highshool or univerity

[robust raptor]

If it's linear algebra, then yeah, you typically learn that in late high school or early undergrad

[wind spade]

there's many branches of algebra, sure. But that doesn't mean the basics aren't taught early

[smoky aurora]

sure this may bee ,.. but in this case they never mentioned it with a single word

[robust raptor]

And variables aren't advanced maths, that's basic algebra

Replacing numbers with variables and manipulating them as you would numbers

[wind spade]

well you don't come to a 12yo person and say "this is now algebra"
you just say "this is also math"

[smoky aurora]

for people understanding math as you seem to do ,.. sure its "super basic" ,.. but math is not as easy for everyone

[robust raptor]

That's certainly true, but I was just confused by how you said you need to study algebra at university

[wind spade]

x + 3 = 6 is easy for 99% of people

[robust raptor]

Because that's not something you learn at university, that's something you learn in maybe secondary school

[smoky aurora]

because here it not labeled with a single word its algebra ,... common sense here is Math is math ,.. algebra is somting different

[robust raptor]

What does algebra stand for then?

I'm guessing it probably stands for linear algebra? That's my best guess

[wind spade]

essentially you can think of it as "math" being split into "arithmetics" (calculating with numbers) and "algebra" (calculating with variables)

[robust raptor]

Maybe calculus idk

[smoky aurora]

🤷‍♂️ never had such a discussion 😄

[robust raptor]

Well, what are you learning in your classes labelled "algebra"

[smoky aurora]

i just try to understand and learn right now from you guys xD

as is said i never had algebra

as ist labelled as such adifferent thing to math

"basic math"

[robust raptor]

Interesting

[smoky aurora]

Google says if i put whats algebra in germany

It is a branch of mathematics that deals with numbers and unknowns. It is about representing mathematical operations and relationships. Equations are mainly used for this purpose. In algebra, letters are often used as symbols for numbers.

[wind spade]

well obviously you have to use english, not german

but even the german definition is what we said

[smoky aurora]

thats already kinda higher math ,...

and i cant remember i ever heard "thats algebra" ,..

searcching for x ,.. is sure kinda common

like rule of three ,... so as i see this already would be algebra right?!

[robust raptor]

Solving for an unknown in an equation is in fact basic algebra

[wind spade]

searcching for x ,.. is sure kinda common
yes, that's algebra

hence why I said it's taught super early

[smoky aurora]

alright guys ,.. now i know i already do algrbra and i didnt know 😄

[vapid estuary]

Grade 6, age 11, here

[robust raptor]

I learnt it around that time too

[smoky aurora]

yeah recalling like the rule of three is 5th or 6th grade ,..

alright guys thx for enlighting me

[robust raptor]

I had to search up what the rule of three was, no idea what that is

But that looks like basic algebra to me

[smoky aurora]

i think this is the only formula i really use more often ,...🤣

except + - / *

[robust raptor]

Although it's a bit strange that you need to memorise a specific rule for basic algebraic manipulation

I guess that's when you're first learning it

[smoky aurora]

not sure what u mean ,..

[vapid estuary]

I was never taught the rule of 3. I thought it was the rule that the digits of a number divisible by 3 sum to a number divisible by 3

9366921 is divisible by 3

[smoky aurora]

also i´m more a worker with leading skills as a thinker ,.. i could never do jobs including seriously advanced math

[robust raptor]

That's cool

[smoky aurora]

but to be fair ,... germany is not know for it shooling ,... we are very backwards oriantaded ,...

if i see Tiktoik ,. there a soooooc ool mathematically rules or ways to solve a problem ,.. sooooo much easier as i needed to learn ,.. thats sometimes seriously stupid ,..

at least in regular shool ,..

study and university is defintly better and way higher valued

[wind spade]

99% of the "tiktok tricks" are just bs made for a few specific examples and don't work in general

[robust raptor]

Really? I thought the german school system was pretty decent

[smoky aurora]

i dont know ,.. i seen a few ,.. and they seemed ogical

[robust raptor]

What's not good about it?

[smoky aurora]

depends on state and grade ,.. there a seriously hig differencc since every state is in charge for shooling system and what to learn on its own ,.. so different state different education ,..

also we still suffer and deal with the west and east germany stuff ,... STILL! ,.. thats so riddiciouls

[vapid gorge]

really? like what?

[smoky aurora]

former east germany is still less educated less money less equality ,...

also east germany is more radical right as the west german´s ,...

its so more than 30 years after the german reunion still not one country

its not like this on the paper ,.. sure theres no border anymore ,..

but you still see huge differencec in different aspects of life

[vapid gorge]

surprised east is poorer even with teh same policies

[robust raptor]

From what I've heard, there's quite a few general issues from the merging of east and west germany that still haven't been resolved since the reunion

[smoky aurora]

west germany still pays the so called solidarity surcharge to east germny ,... depending on the state you life in ,.. but i guess at the end our money goes everywhere instead of where it should go

but this opns a whole different topic

also i guess #math-and-meta is not the right channel ,.. i´m sorry this went out of hand

[storm imp]

What exactly is the point of Liquid Biomass?

So I've given my self a slight challenge on my current save game, no alternative recipes and green energy only (meaning I'll run Biomass and eventually be saved by Nuclear energy for automated power)

But if you setup a small factory to produce Leaves and Wood into Solid Biofuel, it seems to be 1.000.000 times more efficient to just put them into a huge cluster of Biomass Burners, instead of hassling to make Liquid Biomass..

Why? - Because Biomass Burners only uses the fuel that necessary to keep your production running.. So you may have 5GW of potential output from your Biomass Burners, but if your production only requires 1GW, it will just adjust the burn time of the fuel provided..

Meanwhile if you pick Fuel Generators fuel by Liquid Biomass, you wont have that luxery.. Making in my world, Liquid Biomass an unnecessary hassle to setup - because Biomass Burners are far superior, and you don't gain any significant energy advanced either by switching to Liquid Biomass.

[timber holly]

I think liquid biofuel is good in jetpacks

[fallow siren]

mostly used as jetpack fuel

using it as fuel for gen is very niche use

[robust raptor]

Fuel generators with liquid biofuel is wild

If you're already doing a self-imposed challenge, why not try doing that for fun lol

One small benefit is that you get to sloop the extra production step to get 2x liquid biofuel

On top of the 4x from slooping the previous steps, so you get 8x

[timber holly]

Well you could add sloops all the way though

[robust raptor]

So it might be beneficial to do liquid biomass with sloops if you want to extend the lifetime of your biofuel

I would also say fuel gens are less annoying to spam than biomass burners, but considering how small biomass burners are, maybe not

[storm imp]

Honestly forgot we had sloops :D

But that would be a massive improvement to running Biomass Burners untill Nuclear for sure

[vapid gorge]

bioburners are pretty obsolete very soon in the game apart from hard drive unlocking. liquid bio fuel is good for jet packs

[storm imp]

That was my idea also.. Until my current setup that produces just 3500MW from Liquid Biofuel was consuming 180 Solid Biofuel / Min.. Which is tough to keep up with if you just gotta provide Leaves and Wood..

Guess ill just massive spam Bio Burners instead..

[storm imp]

Yeah unless you're just some dumbass like me.. That wants to try reach Phase 5 using a "green" Energy source

[robust raptor]

It's kinda funny to go green with power while having an oil refinery next door

[vapid gorge]

that seems tedious.

[robust raptor]

I guess you aren't burning the oil and coal, but still

Wait, I just remembered biocoal exists

That would be pure suffering

[storm imp]

You'd be surpriced to learn how relaxing it is to just remove an entire forest to keep your machines running :D

[vapid gorge]

nah, don't want the extra load time and uglifying the map

[crimson moat]

yeah if you sloop then you get like 2.3x more energy per leaf/wood

[dusky dust]

Technically bio burners are the least green energy source, if you're using wood+leaves, since none of that stuff respawns. :)

(Though I admit if you're powering your burners with remains that's another story)

[storm imp]

Well that begins to sink in now.. I've cleared the south western part of the map of forest :D

[rain lichen]

how long do you spent refueling??

[storm imp]

Well if I divide my time.. its currently 3/5 of the time gathering leaves and wood.. and 2/5 of the time building

[amber umbra]

Yea, in a game with infinite resources biomass is exactly analogous to irl fossil fuels and coal/oil to irl renewable resources.

[crimson moat]

it's gonna hit 100% unless you turn stuff off by default and only put it on when you want that thing

[storm imp]

But tbf.. When 1.0 was released, I did a complete playthrough - completed Phase 5, and gathered the Steam archivements..

So this playthrough is just a stupid idea to hinder my self a bit.. But that would be until I reach Nuclear if I have the determination to continue that far :)

[fierce ruin]

Sorry I didnt send for ages but this is what it lookes like Im using 5 refinerys rn so its somewhat a little bit efficient so I have some power

[rain lichen]

would this work as a "buffer" for drone ports? right output is set to overflow, going into a Sink

[alpine mortar]

is this on the input or output of a drone port, im assuming the output?

[rain lichen]

output, yes

[alpine mortar]

If it's on the output you may have the issue of all the resources being thrown away before the drone has a chance to return to refill the port/storage

Since once your machines fill all resources still coming out of the port will be sunk

I recommend putting this sort of buffer into a sink at the place you're loading the drone instead

[rain lichen]

is that a problem though? as long as the machines are getting what they need and the drone ports don't clog up?

[alpine mortar]

It could be an issue, if the machines fill up and then the rest gets sunk, the machines could burn through all of the resource before the drone returns, and that extra materials that would have fed the machines got sunk instead

[rain lichen]

true

[alpine mortar]

If you added a storage container after the splitter that would make it nearly impossible, but creating this type of buffer at the place the drones being loaded would eliminate this possibility entirely

[rain lichen]

i'll just stuff in a "temporary" (extremely permanent) storage buffer for now then i suppose

[alpine mortar]

xd, yeah, good plan

[rain lichen]

also is there even a single downside to using sloppy alumina? not only does it lower required input without even budging output, but also removes an annoying byproduct

well i guess the only difference is more water/min by a miniscule amount, but that's really nothing compared to the doubled output

[alpine mortar]

sloppy alumina is such a good recipe that ive seen numerous people recommend not even starting to make aluminum before unlocking it

[opaque quartz]

The downside to sloppy alumina is that you have to source even more silica for the aluminum ingots if using the vanilla recipe there

Which is why sloppy alumina and pure aluminum ingot recipes pair so nicely together

[amber umbra]

@rain lichen For production line output, I usually give highest priority to downstream consumption (drone port, etc.), then dimensional depot, then sink. I aim to have excess production relative to consumption.

[thick plank]

i mean the byproduct IS the main benefit of the standard recepie. Though tbh I also usually use sloppy alumina

[rain lichen]

well if you use pure aluminum alt, isnt silica completely pointless?

[thick plank]

i mean you can do that and the setup will be fine

on a purely aluminium/bauxite metric that is however less good

its the question of what you prioritize

[dusky dust]

Yeah, though Pure Aluminum is less bauxite-efficient, and sometimes you want to get all the aluminum you can out of a node

[thick plank]

my last setup was sloppy+electrode+normal ingot, wich has the best conversion rate of bauxite -> alu

on the flipside, I also used multiple nodes of quartz and an oil node

[dusky dust]

All the aluminum recipes have niches where they're useful; I've got six aluminum-processing factories spread out over the map on this save, and I'm using like 3-4 different production chains across 'em

[thick plank]

i mean its like that for all products

we all have our preferences, but in the end there can be no standard set of priorities cause everyone has different ones

some dont want to build a pumping station, so they dont use pure ingots

[dusky dust]

And even one person may not have "general" priorities. :D

[thick plank]

others (Like me) will happily tear down all factories built just to include that one

[dusky dust]

The factory location often dictates your production chain more than personal preferences do. :P

[thick plank]

not really for me actually

I really like building conveyor buses over half the map (In one save I have a factory that stretches from the grasslands waterfall to the blue crater)

[wind spade]

fyi, if it's just conveyor(s) going from A to B delivering resources, it's not a "bus"

[thick plank]

what would you call a bus?

[wind spade]

a logistical system for distributing resources within a factory. Usually built as several stacked belts.
you split resources from a bus to nearby machines and merge the products back onto the bus

[thick plank]

i mean that can apply to my setup. I cant send pics, but it starts out with water that gets delivered to the middle of the grasslands, merging with some copper partways, feeding into a large basic copper plant, continuing on as plates and cables to the blue crater

[wind spade]

yeah that's just stacked belts

[thick plank]

but honestly if thats a "bus" or not really isnt important

[wind spade]

a bus is not a transportation system

example I found on google

[thick plank]

i mean thats just a mainbus

[wind spade]

there's splitters that split ingredients to machines and mergers to merge back products

main bus is just a bus that is in your "main base"

you can have such a bus in any number of factories

[thick plank]

well anyways, core statement was that you cant even get any objective consensus for recepies based on location

[wind spade]

and yeah, I'm just clarifying the generally accepted terminology in factory games (not just SF), because a bus is generally not recommended in SF, so if you say "I have a bus", you may get some opinions on other things 🙂

[thick plank]

because you have maniachs like me that transport resources over half the map sometimes

[fierce ruin]

hhhhhhhhhhhh

[thick plank]

i never had a mainbus game. But maybe some day I will

[wind spade]

in SF I wouldn't recommend it at all. Except obviously if you want to do it just for the sake of doing it

[thick plank]

yeah, doing a mainbus is just gonna kill your pc

however, sometimes sacrifices must be made

[wind spade]

well the other point is that bus' main advantage is dealing with variable consumption and production, neither of which we have in SF

so it's just easier and (imo) better to build direct input instead

[vapid gorge]

you still get less aluminium ingots that way

[amber cobalt]

hey guys, i have 5 constructors making 240 screws (50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 40), but i am limited by the mk2 belts which can handle only 120 items per minute. i have to get these screws to 4 assemblers. what can i do?

[outer vale]

you could split that 40 into 4 10s, then merge each of those with one of the 50s

the other typical recommendation is to adjust clocks so you do get numbers you can work with, eg changing those assemblers (and adding another) to use 50s and 40 respectively

[amber cobalt]

thanks!

[vapid gorge]

you could also just over clock 4 machines and directly feed. depends on your situation

[crimson moat]

underclocking 5 is easier early and best practice imo (technically you don't even need to clock mod, if you have zero unlocks - just having 5 machines instead of 4 doesn't do any harm)

[wind spade]

Build 5 assemblers clocked to 80% and make it 1:1

[thick plank]

Is underclocking even worth it in general? Didnt they change the power formula anyways?

[wind spade]

depends what you mean by "worth"

[dusky dust]

Underclocking's super useful. It's not necessary but it's a fantastic tool.

[outer vale]

still non-linear, but it's more about making the numbers easier than saving power

[dusky dust]

And if you do use it, you have the benefit of saving on power

Yeah, the main benefit is just being able to wave your hands at a set of machines and suddenly the numbers all match up

[thick plank]

Is there any upside to having your machienes underclocked to the mathematically correct value

[wind spade]

slightly less power consumption (and less fluctuating)

[thick plank]

Oh true, it was only the generators that were made linear

[dusky dust]

If you don't care about machines flipping on/off occasionally then there's less benefit. :)

[thick plank]

Honestly, thr best way to get a straight line isnt to have everything work perfectly. Just build your factories large enough that the fluctuations just dont get shown on the graph

[dusky dust]

Of course the other benefit to clocking things exactly is that if you ever see a yellow light somewhere, you know something's wrong. Whereas if you allow fluctuations then you may not be sure if it's intentional or not. (Again, personal preference kind of thing there, but it's a nonzero benefit)

[wanton hawk]

unless I'm capping a resource out or the inputs are 1:1, I like starting from the end product and rounding up the amount of buildings I need upstream. I send the extra to storage then sink. that way all my inputs are full and my outputs flow freely.

it also makes it easy to see what section is problematic because it fills the belts up to the overflow splitter

[crimson moat]

Underclocking slightly improves efficiency, and overclocking slightly worsens it. The effect isn't large enough to cause major problems or build deviations either way.

Underclocking (or just building extra machines if not unlocked) can allow for simplified logistics (like belting 5 machines into 5 machines, instead of 5 into 4)

generally simplifying logistics is king i think (you might want to pipe 10 refineries into 10 blenders @ 80% with 1:1 pipes, instead of trying to do some wonky 10-to-8 conversion/manifold)

[viral sparrow]

power should not be a concern for the majority of the game, build lots of it when you can and you wont need to worry about it and can do what you want with clocking (provided you have shards)

[slender notch]

Honestly I built like 90 coal generators early on when I could over clock mk2 miners, still have room for 4kMw and 20KMw worth of stored power

[alpine mortar]

90 coal generators is absolutely insane xddd

[wind spade]

90 is pretty low

[wind spade]

fyi kMW doesn't exist, use GW

[thick plank]

considering the dilluted fuel recepie exists you dont need to worry about power

[alpine mortar]

is it really? I completely skipped coal for geothermal in my 1.0 playthrough, the thought of building 90 instead of just going to fuel is crazy to me

90 is sooo many especially that early on without proper logistics and belt capacity

[wind spade]

depends on size of your build

and you can still build coal even if you have fuel unlocked

[magic dock]

Are the fuel usage number in truck stations exact or are they rounded up/down?

[wind spade]

all numbers you see ingame are rounded

[magic dock]

Assumed the truck station would be as well but just making sure as it doesn't show any decimals

[slender notch]

Sorry, game literally says 4,000Mw

[wind spade]

yeah, 4000 MW is also fine

just kMW is not

[slender notch]

Sorry should’ve put a space between 4k mw

[wind spade]

that wouldn't have helped

it's still two SI prefixes in front of SI unit, which is not allowed by the standard

[slender notch]

Your taking it way to serious, 90% of ppl know 4k mw means 4,000 mw

Putting k after any number means thousand to the average person, not energy related

[wind spade]

putting k after any number means kilo, which is thousand in SI system

but the power unit (Watt, W) already has a prefix of M (mega), which means a million. And SI system forbids multiple prefixes

I'm not saying that I don't understand what you mean. I'm just saying that you're using SI system wrong 😉

[slender notch]

Yea you def take this much more seriously then I do my friend, not arguing with you on this one

Ima just leave it at I may be wrong but the average person should’ve still known

I can’t argue over English and si systems at 2:15 on a Tuesday, too early

[wind spade]

I mean SI system is set up so that we can talk about units and amounts in unified sense 🤷

rather than everybody having their own definitions

[slender notch]

Just too early bud

Not disagreeing

[fierce ruin]

all buildings at 100% efficiency

pain and suffering are the only constants i know

[opaque quartz]

Why a dedicated production line for screws?

[fierce ruin]

i dont know

but at this point, im not tearing this thing down

ill leave it

[opaque quartz]

The only standalone thing you need screws for is building the awesome shop. And maybe a crash site pod or two

[fierce ruin]

i just kinda automated it without thinking if i should

oh well, this took longer than it should have

[crimson moat]

you'll do well here

[past hollow]

i set up 8 coal gens to 3 water exctractors with 2 normal nodes connected by a mk2 into a manifold but the last 3 gens on the manifold turn on and off did i do this wrong?

[vapid gorge]

Shots from overhead

Scout tower or ladder or foundations

[vapid gorge]

Get rid of all the pumps

Where is the water coming in from? Hard to tell

[past hollow]

i think my problem was that i needed to prime the last ones with coal

mb its my fist time playing a game like this

[opaque quartz]

That’s the trick with manifolds, you have to give them time to warm up or pre-load them. Looks like you figured it out

[vapid gorge]

Is the water coming in at both ends or not?

But you also need to remove the pumps

[crimson moat]

Hey guys, i have a really stupid design that might actually be genius. I came up with it by accident earlier and i just threw it on a large scale test rig and.. it seems to work flawlessly

Every pipe is pipe > valve > pipe. Zero backflow

literally slapped 30 fuel gens on a manifold without a loop or anything, no elevation assistance, and it runs flawlessly

next testing stages: I'm not gonna do it right now, but i don't see why it wouldn't hold up to like ridiculous elevation changes and stuff.. and if 30 gens work flawlessly, why wouldn't 300? All of the pipes and gens are staying full with the front end pipe pegged at 600/600 and the gens consuming 600/min. The generators which are 15 junctions down from the feed pipe are literally sitting at 50/50 fuel and topping back to 50 right after they eat some.

In case anyone wants to replicate, i put down the junctions and valves FIRST, and just connected the empty gaps with new pipes - and all valves are fully open ofc

[lean blade]

Man I wish I had a Bp for this

[versed violet]

Imagine that in some online game communities folks use kk as suffix for milion, because they can't wrap their heads around m instead. Capitalization omitted, usually clear from context.

[vapid gorge]

don't, it's an unreliable solution

[lean blade]

I wish I could build a bp for this*

[vapid gorge]

you can build an infinite number of unreliable bps on your own shrug

[lean blade]

Also I do turbo fuel all the way. On my save I have a massive oil factory that uses the resin alt and it only makes turbo fuel as a byproduct. That goes into like 60 fuel gens so the valve flow would have to be set to I think it’s 8.33/min

[vapid gorge]

just build a loop

don't use valves

[lean blade]

Dawg the platform is literally 800m long

[vapid gorge]

ok?

loop like this down the centre. Can even have a bp to place the gens down with the junctions and pipe stands to loop quickly

[lean blade]

Attach a fluid tank?

[vapid gorge]

buffers won't help

[lean blade]

Also didn’t mention I’m at nuclear by now so this whole power plant is making like 1% of my total power. All this would be for a revision or a new save

[vapid gorge]

ok?

[lean blade]

I wanna try valves tho

[vapid gorge]

gl

[lean blade]

Just hold my beer

[vapid gorge]

nope. I warn people of doing unreliable and stupid things, I don't stick around for it. gl with it

[twilit fractal]

@vapid gorge

[vapid gorge]

images that show more of the pipe work

[vapid gorge]

are teh generators not working/

[twilit fractal]

everything is working

I had to shut everything off to get water in tho

[vapid gorge]

shut down 1 or 2, let it flood, put them back on

[twilit fractal]

worked ty

[vapid gorge]

always pre flood a fluid system

[timber hedge]

speaking of fluid, im gonna be starting to make a fuel/rubber/plastic factory soon for the first time, so thatll be fun

planning on making it in the bottom right of the map where the 2 pures and some other nodes are

[steel monolith]

WE LOVE SCREWS

[vapid gorge]

fair enough

[remote flame]

In a general case, A valve can still behave unexpectedly if the pipe on its input side is not full. In a full pipeline manifold, all the valves would have to be set to the exact consumption rate needed per machine and even so the last few valves may behave unexpectedly if the manifold is not flooded prior. Or, you just build a pipe loop.

Now a pipe loop (circuit) is made to mitigate the backflow issue from when a machine fills early on in the manifold (and hence can effect the flow rate/turning machines on and off at the end), and is incredibly effective in every case. I design every blueprint (and particularly where long manifolds are being utilised) to have a pipe loop, and since then I have never had flowrate problems on full pipes (600m^3/min or 300m^3/min), let alone any strange fluid behavior. You don't necessarily need a pipe loop for pipes not operating at their max flowrate, as there is room in the pipe to absorb/mitigate the standard backflow issues.
all my rocketfuel plants have 'strings' of x4 generator blueprints that are in total 30 machines long (60 gens at 240% is 600m^3/min of rocketfuel), and have never ever had problems with the pipe loop design, it even doesn't need to be pre-filled to completely balance out properly. It is also top-fed, which is a recommendation for fluids.

[vapid gorge]

you're forgetting you often can't accurately set valves

[remote flame]

Oops shows how little I use or respect valves 🤣

I won't shite on people who use them, as they still have a function and use for full pipes , like distributing certain rates to different sections of a factory on a single junction... Or.. hear me out, you let the pipe flood w. a loop from the first machine to the last in each individual manifold justtt in case, and it'll do that anyway 😭

[vapid gorge]

I only know the vague basics of it. Something about the way they are programed is they have only certain settings that actually flow to that accurately.
I can't be bothered knowing more about it since it's easier to just not use them

[crimson moat]

Valves for limiting flowrate are wonky in several unintuitive ways, but if you understand those limits you can still use them effectively to do that.

This setup has nothing to do with flowrate limiting though, it's purely using valves/pumps for enforcing a flow direction effectively on each and every pipe. Which is something that i have not seen demonstrated ever before outside of gravity systems which are the current gold standard yet a pain to work with sometimes.

it somebody finds an example where it doesn't work, they're fine to post that

it has a 100% success rate thusfar

[fallow siren]

have u tried using the setup while feeding from bottom?

[crimson moat]

The pipe going into a consumer should be level or above the consumer, there is a seperate issue there where it can be a problem sometimes when a high flow rate is required. I'm not sure if that's effectively mitigated or not and in which circumstances.

but other pipes going up, yes

[lean blade]

That actually explains things really well thank you.

[lean blade]

I’ve had coal generator setups with the pipe below and they worked pretty well. As long as you have more input water than intake. NOT EQUAL the pipes will fill up and the overflow runs up the fold into the generators

As long as you have less than 10m of uplift

[crimson moat]

just well worth it to bring the pipe to consumer level and then pipe it in, rather than connect them all from individual pipes that are all going uphill

[lean blade]

A pump before the manifold will make it work the same way as a normal pipe into generator from above

[crimson moat]

it doesn't because it's not a headlift issue, it's a thing with pipe flowrates and fill requirements changing depending on the height of the pipe relative to the thing that it's connected to

for a dumb example if you put a pipe directly above another, it can flow 100% rate even when it's <5% full

but if you put a pipe directly below, it must be 100% full to flow at full rate, any dip in capacity will slow the flow rate (despite both having headlift)

[lean blade]

Level pipes is definitely the way to go since the water level across the pipe will always be the same as the pipe connection to the generator itself

Having it above just makes the pipe to generator pipes drain out the input pipe

[wind spade]

are the valves set to a specific number?

[crimson moat]

100% on all so no 255 funny business

[wind spade]

then I don't feel like they are in any way useful (at least those on side pipes 🤔 )

[crimson moat]

On side pipes maybe, it was a test of concept. The main feed pipe is the main one that might choke

[vapid gorge]

Apparently mcgal found a valve right before a manifold can stabilize a manifold without a loop, sometimes

Another unreliable solution

[crimson moat]

100% success and 0% failure isn't unreliable

if you wanna call it unreliable, log in and prove it - should be easy, right?

otherwise stop inserting yourself into other peoples conversations just to spread FUD

[lean blade]

I never use valves for basic fluid machines unless im using loops or the byproduct is the same as the input such as alumina or EUCs

[wind spade]

on a single pc/save doesn't mean it's reliable

[lean blade]

In that case you want your input to never be overflowing

[wind spade]

it's reliable for you, and good for you

[crimson moat]

Yeah, it's just shown that it works better than a looped manifold and open for other tests.

[wind spade]

but I've seen first hand how people claim their setups are reliable and then anybody who built them on their save got issues

[crimson moat]

the reason i post it here is so that people can engage with the scientific process

[wind spade]

there's just so much hidden stuff like build order and hardware limitations and so

[crimson moat]

follow along, do their own tests if they are interested

and hopefully find build improvements that they can use to make things easier or simpler for themselves

[wind spade]

sure, just claiming "it's 100% reliable" makes it seems that it's always reliable, not just on your save in one instance

[crimson moat]

I didn't say that it's absolutely 100% reliable, i said that i did some tests and it worked flawlessly in 100% of those

you can't really prove that something will always work because it's impossible to test every possible configuration, just that it works or doesn't work in certain conditions - but people are more than welcome to put the concept through more or different tests if they think that they can break it (or want to show off it not-breaking in some more extreme case than a 30 generator manifold)

[past hollow]

does putting mk 3 belts on stuff that only needs a mk1 give you less effeciency idk how to spell

[vapid gorge]

Nope

[past hollow]

ok cool thank you

[vapid gorge]

Often easier just using your highest belt every where to avoid mistakes

[past hollow]

thats what im doing lol

[wind spade]

also people need to stop using the word "efficiency" to describe literally everything

[vapid gorge]

Good plan 🙂 so often a system breaks bevause someone left a small bit of mk1 somewhere xD

[lean blade]

I don’t believe in 100% reliability but I do in making the best decisions

[vapid gorge]

To be fair, if you’re not very experienced you could just worry that it’s being built wrong

xD

[wind spade]

sure but "being efficient" currently has like 50 different meanings and when someone asks "is this efficient", you need to dig to see what they actually mean

[crimson moat]

my current working hypothesis (and the significant difference vs prior builds) is that running pipe>valve>pipe on joints is probably both more reliable and more simple than connecting pipes directly together and trying to enforce flow direction in other ways, such as gravity grading and loops. From the tests i did thusfar i saw good evidence that this is the case and nothing to contradict or cast doubt on it, so i bring it to others to play with 👍🏻

[wind spade]

(and game defines efficiency as "% of time a machine runs")

[vapid gorge]

Probably people coming from games where there’s often a single narrow efficient path

[wind spade]

or from youtube with those "100% efficient iron plate build" titles

[crimson moat]

the efficiency that i pay most attention to is resource efficiency, like how much rocket fuel or GW of fuel can you get out of 1 sulphur using different methods

but yeah, many different types

[robust raptor]

The efficiency I pay attention to is refinery% efficiency, how few refineries I can get away with in my factories

[remote flame]

I was just about to make that example since it's a classic one that better differentiates some of the differences in 'best efficiency'. For example, I've heard all of these before on this discord;

• Maximum Efficiency on a particular resource (common one, again Nitro Rocket Fuel as an example is absolutely horrible on Sulfur so it might not be the best choice if this is a key efficiency you want to improve. But since Sulfur is not even a requirement to complete Project Assembly just like Uranium, it's not often cared about).
• Maximum Efficiency in terms of amount of items/resources in -> items out aka Production Efficiency (no cares given to ones 'personal value' of each resource, just straight up x resources in -> y items out). This goes hand in hand with Material Efficiency [So when you have a byproduct or any unnecessary excess, rather than Awesome sinking it, you use it in another production line to produce even more items. So Polymer Resin is a common example]
• Maximum Efficiency in terms of scaled items/resources in -> items out (Value to more sought after materials is considered, so iron and copper as an example are the least valued where as SAM could be the most valuable, very personal scaling choice.)
• Maximum Power Efficiency (although if that is actually a concern then you go down the rabbit hole of running everything at stupidly low clockspeeds like 1% so Im glad I haven't seen that one often talked about)
• Maximum Space Efficiency (again, weird one as Satisfactory is a gigantic open world so having things super compact is not really needed.. Hence my personal reasons against modded/stacked BP's. Compact <-> Clean factories are not the same.)
• Minimum Factory Process Efficiency aka Operational Efficiency (not often talked about. This is the process of getting the same output desired, in the least amount of steps. So Nitro Rocket Fuel vs. the standard method as an example).
• Maximum Machine Efficiency (if you did the maths right or know how to use a satisfactory calculator with a few braincells to spare, using up all incoming resources with no machines idling out. Running truly at 100%)
• Maximum Logistics Efficiency (Keeping the belt full or its distance/quantity low, trains/drones count to a minimum while having short routes, well organised signalling, high throughput / full vehicle inventories. Arbitrary too, Generally where you end up building your factory determines all of this far more, and using belts that aren't full is completely fine, you can build beautiful conveyer belt weaves inspired from LetsGameItOut for all you care, items will still get from A to B eventually )
• Maximum Production Amplification Efficiency ( @outer vale ) (Targeting the prime manufacturing stage in a factory with Sloops that best boosts/assists with Production Efficiency (above) )
• Maximum Clickbait and Ad-Revenue Efficiency ( @wind spade ) (The art of extracting more revenue/min on YouTube than actual resources/min in-game, often at the expense of 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back trying to see where the goddamn thumbnail comes in to it)

Idk that's all I can think of off the top of my head there are bound to be more lol

[outer vale]

could probably also add Sloop Efficiency, another one that doesn't really come up much if at all but can be a consideration

[wind spade]

or "youtuber efficiency" which is "put 100% efficiency in title for most efficient gathering of views and subscribers"

[robust raptor]

I refuse to click on nilaus' videos on principle because he always puts "100% efficient" or "the right way" in his titles with a giant main bus in the screenshot, which is rarely the most efficient way to do things in any factory game

Let alone the implications of there being a "right way" to do things

[wind spade]

I refuse to watch most if not all SF videos because of the sheer amount of misinformation or straight up wrong things in them

[robust raptor]

I like building inspiration ones

Because I'm not that great at building aesthetic things in satisfactory and it's always nice to see cool stuff other people have built

[edgy leaf]

it's quite sad

I wish we had more content like in Minecraft, where people do a crazy deep dive on the most unimportant Features and turn it into a 200 page doctors Thesis or whatever

[midnight shell]

guys my 600/m pipe isn't fueling my 600/m fuel generators properly, can someone help

[outer vale]

#math-and-meta message

[vapid gorge]

Give us over head images of the layout

[vapid gorge]

Or just build the feed pipe like this, flood the system by having a few gens at 50%

Get rid of valves and buffers

Honestly I think it’s a testament to how reliable the loop system is. That, without seeing the set up or knowing anything about it, that this will just have a good chance to solve the issue

[remote flame]

I did some testing with the valves (burst of energy to go back to an old save and play around with my disfunctional diluted fuel plant from a long way back haha) (thanks to @crimson moat for the burst of inspiration to make me use valves for something haha)

Using a standard, one-sided pipe manifold (same feed in height to generators), 30 generators long (600m^3/min of fuel at 100% clockspeed):

• Original design: Had 'sloshing' issues, approximately a magnitude of about 20m^3/min lossed potential on the input side (timed/checked with a buffer further up the main input pipe), resulting in 580m^3/min average, so of course, some generators were red lighting at the end.

• Valves in-between every single junction on the main feed pipe: Sloshing was still occuring, but so negligible that it was barely filling the buffer at all (over 3 minutes, the buffer had about 6m^3 more inside then when I started the test. The end generator was displaying an efficiency of 98%, average flow rate was approx. 598m^3/min

• Valves in-between every single junction on the main feed pipe generators and every single generator: Sloshing became so tiny I couldn't measure it anywhere without deliberately turning a generator off for half a minute then restarting it to watch what it does. In this design, the length of the pipe between the valve going to the generator and the junction branching off the main pipe was directly responsible for how much sloshing can happen. The longer it is, the effect starts to become more noticeable once again. Average flow rate was 600m^3/min when the pipe was 5m^3 of capacity between the valve to the generator and the junction. end generator at 100% without needing to flood the pipe first. It drops to 599m^3/min input when this pipe gets to about 11m^3 of capacity (longer pipe).

• Pipeline loop (like @vapid gorge image above): Built the loop as a VIP Junction to better see the effects of sloshing (the fluid having nowhere to go down the main line then flows through this pipe), and found the looped pipe running to the end to have on average, 20m^3/min flow down it (just like the original design's lossed potential) , resulting in the main feed pipe to be at a steady 600m^3/min. All green lights

tldr; Either give fluids somewhere to go (looping the pipe, squashes sloshing problems), or direct the flow so hard it doesn't even have a chance to effect other junctions down the line haha, each to their own
Personally I'll still loop pipes since it just works, but it was a creative way to spend an hour in satisfactory today lol

[midnight shell]

I tried this before already, still doesnt work. where can i send the screenshot

[midnight shell]

how do you "see" sloshing

what causes this "sloshing" exactly

[crimson moat]

fluid doesn't have any mandated or even preferred flow direction unless you impose one, so it likes to flow back the way that it came sometimes.

Tools to impose a preferred flow direciton are limited. Verticality is the most powerful of them, and in some instances valves. Other mitigation methods rely on being able to absorb backflow and still move enough fluid, rather than preventing it.

[fallow siren]

send here

[midnight shell]

instead of the ends dropping off now the middle is dropping

[fallow siren]

send the whole pipe system, also take a photo from bird's eye so i can see the whole thing

[fallow siren]

are the last few blenders are backing up?

did u prefill the pipe?

[midnight shell]

how does one "prefill" the pipes

[midnight shell]

the last few blenders are line 3 which is for my plastic, they aren't connected to anything above

[fallow siren]

underclock or remove the connection of the last few gens so the pipes are filling, then u can reconnect the gens when the pipe is full

[fallow siren]

blenders that are making fuel, are they backing up?

[midnight shell]

no, the main line is running at 600/m when I check but like mentioned above there are some amount that are not making it through due to sloshing or smth idk

[fierce ruin]

is the fix really that simple? thats how you get 100% efficiency with them??

[sage cloak]

If I connect 4 different ores like 60+60+240+90 outputs - connect them all with a Mk4 belt - is that the max effiency I can get?

Mk4 only transfer 450

the belts connect at different parts of the main line for this ore

[fierce ruin]

it transfers 480

[sage cloak]

oh

but essentially it would be just the 480

regardless of how many ores I connect

[smoky aurora]

yepp the belt is capped

[fierce ruin]

if i understand, yes they will all be on the mk4 belt and not be too much

[smoky aurora]

it is 450 input on a belt capable for 480 ,.. so its fine ..

[fierce ruin]

i am SO glad its all at 100% efficiency, i am tired lol

[midnight shell]

doesn’t work for me tho

[fierce ruin]

im sorry???

ill stick to 2.5/min instead...

oh yeah my alts

[robust raptor]

Heavy encased frame drastically reduces the cost of most material inputs

It's an excellent alt to use for HMFs

And there's a lot of other alts you can use to cut material cost even further

Or even do fun stuff like make HMFs cost only iron

[versed violet]

plus concrete, but yeah, iron only is neat

[opaque quartz]

I like encased heavy frames + encased pipes to simplify the production logistics on the steel side (only pipes, no beams)

[fierce ruin]

encased pipes (i have) seems to really simplify things

no underclock is kinda crazy

ill have to do my fuel gens before that though

[outer vale]

personally I go solid steel + encased pipe + encased frame

[versed violet]

This is the way

[fierce ruin]

will it be 100% efficient and not have the refineries not have enough oil

[opaque quartz]

Have you turned it on to see? Or are you just asking preemptively

[fierce ruin]

preemptively

they are filled now

so will the pipes not go empty?

[opaque quartz]

How much is the oil extractor producing?

If the answer is 90 (or more) then no it shouldn’t go empty

[crimson moat]

If you're connecting 3 machines you can do it directly with a single 1:3 junction

[fierce ruin]

last time i did, i had problems with the pipes emptying so i had to overclock my extractors a bit to fill them

otherwise my fuel gens would go on and off

[crimson moat]

probably backflow with your pipe going uphill and then flat

[fierce ruin]

maybe

[opaque quartz]

Sounds like an issue between the residual fuel refineries and the generators. Which is different than what you are asking about here

This build plan is simple enough that you shouldn’t have any issues if you are keeping everything flat and the pipe plumbing simple and clean

[summer gyro]

@midnight shell have you tried having the manifold a bit higher than the input

this makes it impossible to slosh back

[midnight shell]

hm, I did consider this design previously but didnt like the looks of it

[dusky dust]

Sloshing can still happen in basically any pipe network, even when raised -- what helps alleviate problems with sloshing is looping the manifold (so that it doesn't matter when sloshing happens)

Feeding liquid from above is very good advice, of course, but that's not what helps deal with sloshing in particular

[summer gyro]

I dont have any of my pipe networks looped and none of them are experiencing sloshing with how i build them but maybe im just lucky idk

[crimson moat]

a looped manifold with 30 things on it is basically analagous to just splitting the pipe into 2x15

[dusky dust]

You're almost certainly experiencing sloshing, it's just that in your case it's not causing you problems. (Which, indeed, can certainly happen! It's possible to get working networks while ignoring basically all our usual advice)

[crimson moat]

the reason that it works is that each pipe is only moving 300/600

[dusky dust]

Sloshing's always gonna happen since machines consume chunks of liquid all at once

You get sudden voids, and liquid that's further down the line is liable to head backwards to fill it up

[summer gyro]

this pipe is at the very end of my manifold and ive been staring for over a minute and its stayed full but maybe somewhere

perhaps on my wet concrete

[dusky dust]

Yeah, I don't mean that you're gonna have it everywhere, but I'm guessing it's happening at some point in there, occasionally

Anyway, I'm picking nits regardless. :D Feeding fluid from above is great advice no matter what the underlying reason. :)

[crimson moat]

Do you have a manifold of 80 turbofuel generators? (or equivelant overclocked)

[midnight shell]

then what helps with dealing with sloshing

[crimson moat]

if it's less, then you're not using the full 600/600 so there's room for some sloshing without it impacting the final flow

[summer gyro]

no i dont have enough turbo fuel production for that

[dusky dust]

In general, if you're having problems with sloshing, it's looped manifolds which tend to resolve it

[crimson moat]

ye so the reason you are not seeing issue is because you're not using the whole pipe flow

so if 10% of it goes backwards it just flows forwards again after

[dusky dust]

Well, I guess we can embed images in here, eh?

Though, as I say, that's not always required, and folks can have working pipe networks without doing that

[midnight shell]

yes, i know. I've done this but instead of the ends dropping the middle one is dropping

[dusky dust]

It tends to become more important as you approach 600/min

[crimson moat]

the easiest solution is just dont approach 100% of pipe on any demanding section, that's the primary mechanism that loop uses to help a lot. It's basically turning your pipe from a 600:600 interface to 600:1200, and the 1200 part can slosh and still be fine because it's 1200

[midnight shell]

what? 1200 what, in pipes?

[crimson moat]

yeah, two 600 pipes in parallel

[midnight shell]

how would that change anything

did u mean 300:600

[crimson moat]

if you have a 600 pipe and 550 goes forward but 50 goes back, you use 600/600 flow to move 500m3.

If you have two 600 pipes and 550 goes forward but 50 goes back, it's using 600/1200 of your flow and it's not choking so it can just flow faster on the next tick to make up for it.

[crimson moat]

It's basically like using two entirely seperate 600 pipes with half of the input in each.. but it's simplified a bit. The pipe that isn't at risk for sloshing is combined into one and it saves space.

[midnight shell]

what does 1200 refer to, you mean feed 1200 worth of fuel into a manifold that only takes 600?

[crimson moat]

No. Feed 600 fuel into 1200 width of pipes.

If you feed 600 into 600, there is zero tolerance for sloshing.

if you put 600 into 1200, or 300 into 600, then it can slosh all over and just make up for it on later fluid sim ticks.

When you're at 100% of pipe capacity, anything that goes back CANNOT go forwards and that flow is lost forever, which compounds. When you're at 50% capacity it can go back and then forwards again by just temporarily spiking to e.g. 60% for some ticks.

[midnight shell]

that the idea for the loop, but like I said instead of the ends dropping off the middle is dropping now

[crimson moat]

you have built it wrong in some way

mixing together multiple inputs/outputs for fluids, especially near pipe capacities, is sensitive to a bunch of variables and easy to break

If you literally just pipe like 1 blender (100 fuel) into 5 generators using a single flat mk.2 pipe for example, that is pretty much impossible to accidentally break

[opaque quartz]

There’s a reason this is one of the top discussed issues in this discord. Getting 600/600 pipes behaving is very very sensitive

[midnight shell]

so what I'm getting here is... either feed it from above so sloshing cant happen (from the machines) or don't feed a full line into a manifold that perfectly uses a full line

[summer gyro]

wait, my oil pipes are using the full 600 per minute and it seems to be just fine as well, they are staying full with my design and fueling 10 refineries into fuel, utilizing the full 600 per min

[opaque quartz]

Some folks have given up entirely on making it work. The fluid sim mechanics are complex and somewhat inscrutable

[crimson moat]

It can be done perfectly or so close to perfectly that it's difficult to distinguish them, but there are a bajillion ways of not perfectly doing it which ruin everything

[crimson moat]

just use a maximum of half a pipe if you have a lot of trouble.

trying to uberscale density without understanding the fluid mechanics ingame is a recipe for disaster, but you also just don't have to do that at all

[midnight shell]

that's not the point of this conversation, the math isnt wrong

but by right I am, cuz there is a line of 300 below and a 300 above

[crimson moat]

you are basically trying to copy the most difficult build mechanics in the game (liquid manifolds at or near pipe capacity) but not making a perfect copy so it doesn't work, and it's pretty much impossible to fix that for you without being ingame to do it

but you don't have to do that, there are far simpler and easier methods to route fluids

[midnight shell]

what's even a "perfect copy" anyways, it's literally the same thing but scaled

[crimson moat]

You can make something that appears literally identical on a screenshot, but has the connections between one pipe and another at a different place.. which changes the fluid sim, and can break the entire setup. I've proven this, and that's when i pretty much stopped bothering with screenshots other than obvious errors.

[midnight shell]

what are you going to be able to see inside the world that's so beneficial that screenshots cant illustrate anyways

[crimson moat]

pipe connections like i've said can invisibly change fluid sim behaviors

you cannot see them unless you press F for dismantle and mouse over the pipe to see exactly how big that section is and where it connects

and you can build the same thing in 2 slightly different ways, which have different pipe connection locations, which then simulate differently so that one works perfectly and the other flops.

despite looking exactly the same

so yeah, getting to a consistent 100% pipe utilisation especially on a complex system like having 20 things connected to 1 pipe is pretty damn complex and reliant on variables that are difficult to understand or show in screenshots

it's pretty much an art

[summer gyro]

i mean, my system is working at full capacity so im just trying to help out, you could try moving these up vertically to be higher and it will do the same thing as having the inputs slightly lower than the main pipe

[midnight shell]

not sure if this is related, but the last blender of the manifold is kinda piling up

maybe this is the issue instead?

[summer gyro]

tho your entire system is way different so idk

[midnight shell]

cant think of how it could be cause tho

[crimson moat]

you're effectively not putting as much fuel into the pipe as you think you are

because it can't flow out of the blender because the pipe in front of the blender is full when it's not supposed to be

as to why the pipe is full, it's probably being filled by other machines which are excessively loading it given the design of the pipe, and you would fix that by redesigning the pipe in a more favorable way (such as flowing downhill out of the blenders) or using extra pipes so that you're not hitting the flow rate caps as easily

1 blender making 100 fuel is no problem to move in a mk.2, 600 pipe

3 blenders is probably easy. 4 or 5 with decent design. 6 requires perfection.

[summer gyro]

if your system is raised you can easily fix it by doing this

into a main system below

[midnight shell]

so basically, running a pipe at 600 is just a bad idea?

[crimson moat]

at 100% yes

if you are not deeply familiar with the fluid mechanics then it's laughably easy to break things going over 90% and there isn't really a good reason to use over 50% of a pipe

[midnight shell]

so unless it's an input pipe aka from extractors it shouldn't be filled to the brim

[crimson moat]

yeah, if it's full and there's fuel sat in the blender then it's proven to be overloaded for that pipe design.

[midnight shell]

hm I see

[crimson moat]

and yeah i don't mean to be snappy about it 😄 It's just hard, and frustrating

and poorly understood

[midnight shell]

what is

[crimson moat]

the simple answer is just use more pipes and flow less through each pipe if you're having any pipe overloading

and that makes it easy to complete the game and do almost anything without descending into the hell which is analysing fluid sim test rigs at 3am 😄

[desert oxide]

Pipe flow at 600 works fine, even with manifolds, just flood (all pipes are full) and loop. As long as your inputs match the usage.. you are good

[crimson moat]

behaviors in fluid systems, liquid in particular, when connected with many pipes and machines

[crimson moat]

They don't though, not always

and "loop" means split your 600 pipe into two pipes to avoid pipe overloading, which is the problem we're talking about

[desert oxide]

Then they are misconfigured, stuff will flow at 600 if setup properly

[crimson moat]

How to set up "properly" is the subject of the discussion

[desert oxide]

Sure, a standard straight-through manifold (akin to belt) doesnt work with pipes... but saying they dont work is wrong as well as there are reasonable workarounds

[crimson moat]

splitting your 600/600 flow into 2x 300/600 is one of the widely suggested mitigations

[desert oxide]

There are many resources/guides on how to set things up properly with dos and donts.. its not some black box that isnt understood at this point

[crimson moat]

(or simply just having two 300/600 pipes from the start, rather than one 600/600)

[midnight shell]

again, I have already done that. but if you mean try that split for the machines too and make 2 manifolds I'll consider that too

[crimson moat]

In your case you have more generators than you do fuel so it wont work

because your blender is turning off

because that stage of production is overloading pipes

[midnight shell]

so I assume this "overload" issue comes from the fact that the machines dont produce the fuel at the smae time?

[crimson moat]

no, that part is not very problematic on production

The fuel can't move through the output pipes at a sufficient rate because there aren't enough of them / they aren't optimally designed

mixture of both

Like if you try to put 6x100 blender output into a 600 pipe, that is extremely easy to break.

If you try to put 3x100 into one 300/600 pipe, and the second 3x100 into another 300/600 pipe, that is very difficult to break

[rain lichen]

...nuclear power will be fun (this isn't all of it ofc, this is only a plan featuring 1 of each machine i'll need)

[hollow mica]

ok guys... my brain is about to blown up, i need to help for Belt math, i have 10 Belts MK5 at 580 items/m

AND i want to make 7 belts at 780 item/m and 1 for the overflow

how can i do this without it being big and ugly

[opaque quartz]

What are you trying to accomplish, exactly?

[vapid gorge]

Design and clock the machines layout so you put 780 on it

[timber hedge]

I am planning on making an oil factory for fuel/rubber/plastic and I have an alt recipe choice between heavy oil residue and diluted packaged fuel, since this is my first time playing and getting to this stage, im not sure about the best choice

also looking to make it at blue crater if that helps

[wind spade]

pro tip: there's no "best" choice, all recipes are good in some scenarios, so it just depends on what you prefer

[fallow siren]

heavy oil residue and diluted fuel alt are used if you want to produce large amount of fuel for recycle production

[opaque quartz]

For maximum yield with the recycled recipes you will ultimately want both of those recipes. If you are just getting your first oil production going, the default plastic and rubber recipes are fine. Just make sure you are dealing with your byproduct

[vapid gorge]

You’ll want both if you want to squeeze all you can from each oil unit 🙂

[uncut jewel]

hi, just layed out a max rods nuclear power plant with ficsonium rods (as a lot of you probably already did)
did i missclick something or is it actually impossible to create the maximum number of ficsonium rods out of the 22.4 plutonium fuel rods due to the lack of sam on the map (almost 19k needed, only ~10k available)?

[wind spade]

I don't have the exact numbers but yeah it's pretty limited. Though you can also make less than 22.4 plutonium 🙂

[uncut jewel]

well, thats a bummer
on the other hand, i'll avoid the headache to produce the ficsonium in this scale
thanks anyways

[fallow siren]

can sink half of plutonium rods or use as drone fuel

and burn the half in gen

[opaque quartz]

You might be able to get there if you sloop all your reanimated SAM constructors

[vapid gorge]

I think most people skip ficsonium honestly

It was probably added to stop people bitching about plutonium waste, even though no one forced them to burn the rods

[opaque quartz]

It’s a fun challenge, but resource hungry like woah

[vapid gorge]

Never really looked at it honestly, but I never plan on burning p rods so a bit pointless

[opaque quartz]

Lots of SAM for dark matter and trigons, and singularity cells. It’s pretty brutal

[raw cobalt]

Quick question, is it better to underclock all, or just one

[lunar ingot]

it is slightly more power efficient to underclock everything, but not a huge difference. my preference is to underclock everything since it's fast to copy-paste the settings

[remote flame]

Because of how power scales in satisfactory, the further you underclock the less power consumption is needed overall, even if it does mean you need to place more machines down to manufacture the same output. It is given by the relationship P = B x S x (C/100)^log_2(2.5)

Where P is power consumption,
B is the buildings base power consumption (100%),
S is the sloop production amplifier, given by (1+FilledSlots/TotalSlots)^2, without using sloops this is just =1,
C is the clockspeed for the machine you want to set to,
Log_2(2.5) is a constant used. It means that you need 2.5x more power to double productivity.

Generally going super low with underclocking is more of a hassle then it's worth. If power is an issue, just build more power plants 🙂

[raw cobalt]

Guh

Oh also, im im the rocky desert atm, where would be the best place to set up SAM fluctuators? (I do have access to trains)

[wind spade]

near resources it needs 🙂

[raw cobalt]

And also any alts i should use?

[wind spade]

whichever you find useful 😉

[opaque quartz]

There aren’t any alts for Sam fluctuators themselves. The recipe is pretty basic

[raw cobalt]

I see, i more mean the other resources, since it could be more convenient, still not sure about a factory layout or where to put it

[opaque quartz]

You could use iron wire and/or iron pipe to cut out the need for coal and/or copper

But those are easily found near iron

The thing you actually need to worry about is the reanimated sam

[raw cobalt]

Howcome?

[opaque quartz]

Have you found a SAM supply? And worked out the logistics for it?

[raw cobalt]

Ye, just not sure what location to pick, the cave node in rocky desert seems the closest but also most inconvenient, not done any logi yet thou

[vapid gorge]

all recipes are situational.

want ot make Steel pipes w/o coal? then Iron Pipe is pretty good, but it uses a butt load of iron as a trade off.

All recipes are trade offs, it's up to you to decide when those trades are valuable

[brazen path]

Can you just reloop canister after you u package them infinitely

Un package*

If its the same amount you need

[vapid gorge]

Yes

[rigid harbor]

how would i go about splitting the output into 1.5 units/min and 2 units/min

[vapid gorge]

is it just going to 2 different machines?

[rigid harbor]

yes, ended up finding a solution by just using two seperate machines making the plates

[vapid gorge]

you could have also just used a manifold and let it self balance in that case

like so

[rigid harbor]

yeah i know how to use manifolds (or at least i think i do haha) but im purposely making this factory without manifold for a little challenge haha

[vapid gorge]

gl

[rigid harbor]

current progress :)

[vapid gorge]

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

what are the recipes are you using and what amoutn of bauxite are you processing?

the buffers...

[glossy raptor]

i have caterium and quartz. but i wonder which computer recipe to choose. Caterium computer or crystal computer?

what do you think?

[vapid gorge]

depends on your location and anything else yo uwant to make there

[glossy raptor]

at the moment a relatively small computer factory to progress through the game

[vapid gorge]

well if you do caterium circuit boards and cat computers all you need is cat and oil

[glossy raptor]

yes that is neat

and any advantages for the crystal recipe?

[vapid gorge]

if you have a lot of crystal in your location, crystal is pretty good xD

alt recipes are options. It depends on your needs and the location you choose 🙂

all recipes shine in their situation

[final compass]

bauxite refinery is on 250% scrap is on 200%, foundry is on 167% with 1 sloop, right smelter is on 250% and left is on 185%

[glossy raptor]

problem is that i can choose the situation atm xD

[vapid gorge]

that is neither
a) the recipes you're using
b) number of bauxite pm you're processing

[vapid gorge]

flip a coin then 🙂 if you're going up the tiers it doesn't really matter anyway. It won't mesh with any post tier projects you start

[final compass]

the recipe is alumina solution and scrap metal and bauxite pm is 300

[vapid gorge]

so the base recipes?

top left diagram

have 2/3 of your bauxite use fresh water, 1/3 use waste

you'll need at least 2 refineries for the solution

don't use a sloop in the middle of a loop. It's a massive pain, just bring in more bauxite

[glossy raptor]

for crystal oscilator and silicon circs i don't even need oil

isn't that insane?

[vapid gorge]

not really? I think you need 2 other resources? can't recall off the top of my head

[glossy raptor]

copper and iron

[vapid gorge]

so 200 bauxite pm in refinery #1, 100 baux pm in ref #2

[vapid gorge]

simple enough if you pick the right location

[glossy raptor]

yes

[final compass]

so i need 5 refineries 😮

[glossy raptor]

that just blew my mind

[vapid gorge]

I think you could over clock it so you only need a total of 3?

1 waste water, 1 fresh water, 1 processing the scrap?

[final compass]

but i tried 3 and that was worse

[vapid gorge]

ok but you built it like this , of course it's going to be worse

[final compass]

whats wrong with the way i made it?

[vapid gorge]

buffers? partially feeding to a packager? slooping?

here , blue is fresh water, red is waste, grey is solution

clock as needed

[final compass]

ill try it, cheers

👍

[fierce ruin]

this is insanity

thats 6000 mw

i ❤️ alt recipes

[smoky aurora]

but u dont actually need to pack the water ,.. if you build near water

or am i wrong

it need´s to be packed? ,..

i wouldnt use it 😄

[vapid gorge]

packager - > refinery -> unpackage.

just loop

[smoky aurora]

i like fresh water ^^

[vapid gorge]

well if you don't have blenders this is basically the exact same recipe

[raw cobalt]

Oki, im decently new, would appreciate a factory layout to just see how others have done it :3

[vapid gorge]

what are you trying to make?

[raw cobalt]

SAM fluctuators

[vapid gorge]

how many per min?

[raw cobalt]

Not sure, just going to end up sending them to storage for the time being, what would you suggest?

[vapid gorge]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=cCNVytutB0JP2GNPYF5r

a basic plan that uses only base recipes

if you had the iron wire and iron pipe alt recipes all you'd need is iron and SAM I guess?

[raw cobalt]

True

[vapid gorge]

depends on the spot you want to build it in if that helps or not

[raw cobalt]

Not too sure on the spot, closest to me is the rocky desert cave, but that seems inconvenient

[vapid gorge]

there iron and coal and I think copper to the east of it ? shrug

[raw cobalt]

True ig

[vapid gorge]

remember, tiers 1-9 are basically a tutorial to teach you things. Make choices and learn

[raw cobalt]

oh also, i have 2 pure quartz nodes, but for the time being want to send quartz crystals and silica just to storage, how much should i produce?

[opaque quartz]

What purity are the nodes? What’s your highest tier belt and miner?

[raw cobalt]

mk2 miner and mk4 belts, both pure like i said :3

not sure on a reasonable amount to produce purley for storage

[wind spade]

5-10/min for most items is usually more than enough

with exceptions being concrete and belt materials

[eager steeple]

thoughts on my fuel power plant design? I'm going to have each section 4M down, (Refineries) Heavy Oil Residue, then to Diluted Fuel (Blenders) then (Fuel Generators) Fuel. I built it all on a flat surface before and was having trouble keeping all the fuel generators full.

[sage cloak]

I have a question:

I input 300 iron ore per minute into 24 smelters - they produce iron ingots - into 16 Constructors who only need a total of (4x30 + 4x15 + 8x12.5) 280 ingots per minute

for full effiency on everything, I need to underclock my 24 smelters to to 12,18 ore per minute

correct?

[eager steeple]

i wouldnt bother underclocking the smelters

have too many iron ingots isnt a bad thing

[sage cloak]

I have 9 of them with 100 ore and the others dont receive anything

so they just sit empty

[eager steeple]

what is 9 of them

[sage cloak]

the smelters

[eager steeple]

what belt are you using

for feed the smelters

[sage cloak]

a 300 ore/minute iron node

[eager steeple]

no for the input for the smelters what belt type is going from your miner to the smelters

[sage cloak]

Mk4 on everything

[eager steeple]

ok

check the miner if its overclocked

[sage cloak]

it is to 300 ore - its max output for that one

[eager steeple]

hmmm why does it look like more that 10 smelters?

[sage cloak]

its 24

[eager steeple]

you can only run 10

on 300 iron ore

300/30

[sage cloak]

henceforth the question about underclocking the smelters

[eager steeple]

just build 10 smelters

and dont bother with more

thats what i'd do

or if u want to keep the extra one sdont plug em into the manifold iron ore line and leave em till u get better belts

[sage cloak]

what do you mean better belts?

[eager steeple]

mk.5 belts

780 items per minute

wait

[sage cloak]

yeah but that wouldnt make a difference

I need to connect another iron ore thing

[eager steeple]

it would you could bring in more iron

to run all of them

i gave you a solution if you dont wanna use it thats fine lol

[opaque quartz]

It’s completely possible to run this configuration flat or even with the generators above the refineries. I have multiple diluted fuel power plants where the generators are on the top floor. If it wasn’t working for you then there was some issue with your plumbing or your math

[eager steeple]

your making it complicated @sage cloak

just run 10 smelters

[eager steeple]

def not my math i double checked everything lol

i think bc i was underfeeding some of them but i make sure to use pumps

im just going nuclear to try and fix it

[opaque quartz]

Pumps won’t affect flow rate, only head lift

[eager steeple]

i spent hours trouble shooting it yesterday

[eager steeple]

yeah ik but they were underfed

like from a lower floor to a higher one

[opaque quartz]

eg adding pump to a flat pipe network does literally nothing

[eager steeple]

so i made sure headlift was ok

and i was making enough to feed everything

both were ok i double checked

[opaque quartz]

Have you already torn it down and given up?

[eager steeple]

i can go back and show u

[opaque quartz]

Or did you want help figuring it out

[eager steeple]

im only using one pure oil node

so its not so bad to redo it

[eager steeple]

i used 6 water extractors for simplicity and i have the power

i used power shards bc i have 1500 with nothing to use em in except miners

[opaque quartz]

How do you have the generators plumbed? Did you loop the manifold? Did you prefill the pipes?

[eager steeple]

i did prefil and loop the manifold yes

the oly thing i didnt try to fix it was gavity and containers for the fluids to balance out the output

[opaque quartz]

None of that should be necessary, especially if it’s flat

I can post screenshots of my setup in a bit to describe what I mean

[eager steeple]

idk what i was doing wrong ima just overdesign this

:/sure!

show me

[opaque quartz]

When I can take a break from work and fire up my PC

[eager steeple]

sure take your time!

[fierce ruin]

i just overclock my oil extractors a bit

then prefill and use loops

[opaque quartz]

@eager steeple here's my current diluted fuel build under construction. Single pure node extracting at 600 crude/min - feeding two banks of 10x HOR refineries. Each bank of refineries feeds 4 blenders at 200% OC - each blender takes 200 water from an OC'd extractor and produces 200 fuel/min. Each blender produces 200 fuel/min, feeding 4 fuel gens at 250% OC, consuming 50 fuel/min per generator, generating 2500 MW total per four gens. Things to note in the build:

• the refineries and oil extractor are at ground level, the generators are on the floor above. I run a single pipe vertical from each blender with a mk2 pump to get up to the next floor
• I run a manifold loop around each bank of generators so that every gen can be fed from both "sides" of the junction. This is the way to avoid sloshing and starvation issues. A stacked pipe manifold loop would also work here, but I prefer it this way because of how the generators are oriented based on using a mk2 blueprint
• I ran all the plumbing and let all the pipes completely fill up, and then connected the generators one at a time. I waited until the generator was fully running and had a full fluid buffer of 50 m^3 of fuel before moving on to the next one. the power graph on the generator console shows that the power generation is smooth and steady and the fuel buffer is staying full

i'm only halfway done with the build. it will produce 20 GW once all said and done

[eager steeple]

i was talking like running the pipes bellow the fuel generators then popping them up to feed them

[eager steeple]

ty

[opaque quartz]

Bottom feeding the generators themselves is much more problematic because then you are fighting against gravity. What I shared is working 100%

Had to learn that lesson about bottom feeding the hard way in my first playthrough

[raw cobalt]

is it worth getting this early on?, only have limited computers from crash sites etc

[opaque quartz]

Manual uploader is super handy to have

[magic dock]

Basically inventory expansion on top of the actual DD functionality

[raw cobalt]

waiting for 27 hard drives is going to be fun

[magic dock]

The timer continues while the Mam isn't build

So you can just build it, put a hard drive in and continue exploring

and then you'll get a message when its done

Saves some time

[eager steeple]

thats why im not doing it anymore

@opaque quartz its why i'm trying my tiered approach something different something intresting to fix my problem, if it doesnt work i'll just copy you next time LOL

[opaque quartz]

makes sense. good luck 🙂

[eager steeple]

yeah its going to look quite cool

just a waterfall of machines

this was my first time building a fuel powerplant

before 1.0 i had three saves and i only got to teirs 3&4 then lost interest. About 400 hours between them

[opaque quartz]

second half of the diluted fuel plant is now online. water extractors are still my least favorite

[raw cobalt]

a little curious, how would i split this?

[opaque quartz]

Just use a manifold

[raw cobalt]

alr, hows this in general?

[opaque quartz]

Or, clock and group your smelters to produce 37.5 and 112.5 respectively

[raw cobalt]

might use steel screws or copper alloy but not sure

[opaque quartz]

Seems fine? Are you happy with it? Do you have the resources necessary to feed this production plan and the power needed for the machines? If so, go forth and prosper

[wind spade]

never merge it 🙂 then you don't have to split

[raw cobalt]

wdym?

[wind spade]

if you have two groups of smelters, each making the amount you need going to one side, then you never have to merge them

[thorn trail]

use 6 smelters, 4 for the 112.5 and 2 for the 37.5

[raw cobalt]

its more working around the weird numbers that are confusing tbh

[wind spade]

you just clock the smelters to make that much

[raw cobalt]

ah

would it be worth doing 2, 1 overclocked and 1 underclocked, or 4-5 that add up?

[wind spade]

you can do it in any combination you like

[vapid gorge]

just use the node up and sink the overflow? remember, this is a tutorial, don't stress

[civic bronze]

compacted steel ingot be like 😂

[summer gyro]

built mine on two floors to take less space (this is actually solid steel not compacted)

[undone tusk]

there is a calculator for satisfactory....?

[summer gyro]

its very useful

[undone tusk]

I will kms I am 60 hours deep in 5 days finishing phase 3 and I have done all of my math in 3D paint...

[civic bronze]

verticality is key 🔑

[summer gyro]

ive done it all in my discord server lmao, i made a whole seperate channel called factory ramblings

i just use satisfactory calculator to find the best spots on the map, i enjoy doing the math myself

[civic bronze]

well you can also pull up in-game searchbar (default key: "N") and do basic math there like 2+2, 2-2, 2*2, 2/2

[undone tusk]

yeee the math was more like: 240 iron coming in 8 smelters 30 iron each 100 and 100 for 2x steel pipes and 40 overflow double that for 80 overflow then have another factory where you manage making modular frames and have 20 overflow so you can feed 100 iron into another pipes... it ain't hard but if you are rebuilding whole base bcs you were a little stupid 3 days ago when u started and made ur base on the ground and not platforms and now you have to build all factories for 2 and a half phases it would really help to have known about the calculator xD

[summer gyro]

yeah thats where i get all my per minute numbers for the maths

[summer gyro]

why rebuild just make a new factory on a new node

i still have my first reinforced iron plate factory going

[undone tusk]

I wanted it to look like a actual factory not random buildings scattered over the floor

also getting 90 angles when I didn't use any grid system was a nightmare

now it is pretty :3

[civic bronze]

there's a world grid, if you have foundation equiped hold CTRL

[undone tusk]

yeye ik that now but I didn't know it when I was starting out

that's why I nuked and rebuilt

[civic bronze]

that looks cool, raining belts from the ceiling

[summer gyro]

you could have a factory encompassing multiple nodes, or have the nodes feed into your already established factory, no size limit in this game really

[undone tusk]

there was no established factory that's the point

it was random smelters and constructors scattered over the ground

had to make an actual building to make it look nice

[summer gyro]

oh yeah i forgot it takes a bit to get foundations

[opaque quartz]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production

[midnight shell]

bottom line is not used here

[vapid gorge]

get rid of the valves

[midnight shell]

how this goofy ahh looks

[vapid gorge]

did you pre flood your fuel gens before turning them all on?

make the outputs just 1 pipe, get rid of the valves

[midnight shell]

someone told me this would reduce sloshing, but the ones at the end are still dropping

[vapid gorge]

that's just a single pipe

[midnight shell]

bruh like I said, the bottom line isn't connected to anything

[vapid gorge]

is it 3 manifolds of 600 fuel each?

[midnight shell]

well 2 of 600 and 1 of 400 which I'm not using for power

[vapid gorge]

and all of them have flow issues?

[midnight shell]

there is only two, and yes

like the 600 line will drop to 550 occationally and go go back up, but that's enough to get blenders to throttle

[vapid gorge]

rebuild the loops exactly like this, flood the system by ahving a few gens at 50% for a while, once every machine and pipe is full crank them back up

[midnight shell]

yes I have seen this image like 10 times at this point, and yes I let all of them fill to 50/50 but they ever so slowly drop until they're empty and starts throttling

also instead of the ends not having enough fuel, the looped varient just has the middle drop off instead

yea I get that using a line less than 600 would work, but I think it's a short term solution and wont help me if I run into the same issue in the future

[vapid gorge]

yes rebuild this section

[midnight shell]

bruh that's temporary, the blue lines aren't supposed to be there

[vapid gorge]

pot a powered pump right before it, flood it.

'bruh' , I'm trying to get you to use an identical and stable set up and then go from there

[midnight shell]

isnt this the same as what I did tho

[vapid gorge]

Looks nothing like it

Then Powered pump and then flood it.

If that doesn’t work we’ll follow the issue down towards the producers

[midnight shell]

this better?

[midnight shell]

what does "powered pump and flood it" mean

[vapid gorge]

I honestly cannot tell what’s going on in this pic.

To make it simpler please just rip up the entire junction and build a copy

Afterwards , right before the start of the manifold. Build a pump facing towards the manifold

Power it

Then flood the system, pre fill it, by turning off a few generators to ‘flood ‘ it

[thick plank]

Honestly, I believe there should be a dedicated fluid mechanics channel

[vapid gorge]

Math meta is fine

[thick plank]

I mean the entire thing about fluid mechanics is that they dont act according to the math

[remote flame]

You should get a dollar for every time I see that image 🤣

[vapid gorge]

They do, it’s just fluids are bi directional, so there’s design elements too

[oblique hollow]

If its not math its at least meta

Speaking of meta, it might be beneficial / possible to supply manifolds not from the ends

A junction in the middle gives the fluid 2 paths to flow to

Which is similar to looping

It does work if you do it like that too as the backflow is not a death sentence

Since each of the splits is expected to be well below 600/min

[raw cobalt]

True ig, my only limit myself for this playthru, is no spaghetti and make all my factories clean and nice (this is my first playthru lol)

[vapid gorge]

would this not do the same thing?

[raw cobalt]

Ive probably spent more time decorating than anything lmao

[thick plank]

Quick question about the design. The botton line is prioritized if I understand the mechanics correctly. So wouldnt it make more sense to zhe have the outputting pipe on top so that the fluid enters from both directions?

[oblique hollow]

Thats what i said, yes

[vapid gorge]

ah I thought you meant specifically in the middle split left and rigth

[oblique hollow]

Doing that or looping is the same thing

That was my point

Topologically, if you subtract the "loop" part, having the split near the beginning or somewhere in the middle doesnt matter much

[knotty siren]

I'm curious, is this the output with fuel in it?

[vapid gorge]

this is to feed machines - and it's for any fluid system

generally fresh water and crude oil feeds don't need a loop though

[raw cobalt]

are there ant alt recipies that would be nice in a steel beam, steel pipe, encased beam, automated wiring, versitile framework factory?

also motors

[fierce ruin]

solid steel ingot for one

use https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production and fiddle with the alt recipes

[raw cobalt]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=rNj56YbmuvkadTGWJdE7 this is what i have rn

for the motor + wiring part

[fierce ruin]

send a screenshot lol

the links just show what you personally have

[outer vale]

looks reasonable

[fierce ruin]

OH

[outer vale]

share links are for sharing

[fierce ruin]

my fault theres a shared tab

[raw cobalt]

Should i try minimize the amount of weird numbers?

[outer vale]

if you want

the numbers there look pretty straightforward

[fierce ruin]

i do tbf

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=Hg1T7x9MO7KBXyyrodnk this is my steel factory for instance

[raw cobalt]

not sure how i would go abt that

[fierce ruin]

the only reason its making rods and plates is because it simplifies the numbers

i just use them for personal use

[raw cobalt]

seems nice, the only problem for me is i need to fit automated wiring + versitile frameworks atm

[fierce ruin]

i prefer making the factory parts semi automated

you make a dedicated factory for them where you input the resources and wait

[raw cobalt]

i like to have everything fully automated tbh

Also i feel the need to decorate my factory and have it super organized lmao

[outer vale]

I usually also just slape the materials in some crates and a dedicated assembler or the like, but totally valid to make an actual factory

[fierce ruin]

oh yeah 100%

[outer vale]

easy sink points once you've made what you need

[raw cobalt]

i came from mc tech mods :3

[fierce ruin]

https://tenor.com/view/hey-gif-22425574

i should probably get to work on making the stuff for phase 3

[raw cobalt]

ye, but anyone got any advice for cleaning these numbers?

[fierce ruin]

i do, but im really struggling to put it into words

i look at the input numbers for what youre making, and try to find like

numbers that go into each other

i dont know how to describe it

[raw cobalt]

real

how is the steel rods alt actually?

[fierce ruin]

what is it?

molded steel pipe?

[outer vale]

probably Steel Rods 😛

IIRC it's a tad more steel efficient than going straight to Steel Screws, at the cost of more buildings?

alt recipes are all about tradeoffs, compare them and see what suits your production line

what's "better" in one setup might not be in another

[raw cobalt]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=xzsKbapkjaeSeEf2RP0T this is the other half :3

[fierce ruin]

with 9 encased beams the limestone numbers become nice

apart from the 135/min

and 26 steel pipes (numbers nicer then)