math-and-meta

[old swift]

Didn't say it was hard

just I find it annoying to setup

[unique cypress]

Just don't mix fresh and byproduct water or use one of the prioritization techniques and it's basically just another factory

[quaint condor]

Nothing wrong with mixing fresh and byproduct if one desires. works perfectly fine when done right

[frosty owl]

Just like 🍣

[slate pagoda]

Nah fresh and bypriduct water doesnt make my factory unefficient unlike sushi😭🤕

[frosty owl]

Sounds like a skill issue :P

[slate pagoda]

🤕

[frosty owl]

Tbf, one could argue that sinking solids is easier than "sinking" fluids, thus making overflow management easier with belts than pipes

[faint epoch]

We ignoring the name?

[dusky panther]

Does anyone know the number of drone ports it would take to transport the total number of materials on the planet?

[unique cypress]

Considering a drone can move up to 312 ore/min between ports right next to each other, a lot

At least 300 ports just for iron

[dusky panther]

Hmmm would it be possible at all to fuel all of those?

I know drones are able to use liquid fuel now

[unique cypress]

With Plutonium Rods, probably

[dusky panther]

Didn’t think of plutonium

[unique cypress]

It would be much easier to use trains for that, though

[dusky panther]

Oh 100% but I’ve had this mega project in my head for a long while of a large space ship sitting above the center of the map- so I’m just trying to theory craft to see if it’s even feasible

[unique cypress]

Unless you make a ton of early-game parts, you'll never use up all iron, limestone, etc. You'll run out of other resources (mostly SAM and Bauxite) fitst

So you can save a lot of drones by simply using a third of the iron (or w/e)

[dusky panther]

Exactly I just need to figure out exactly how much of each material I’d need

Hell I need to figure out a design for the ship too

[unique cypress]

Calculate how many machines you'll need first, the area they'll take up and multiply that by 2 to 3

That's how much buildable surface area you'll likely need

Unless you make ultracompact blueprints or something

My average foundation coverage is about 50% but working in inconvenient, pre-determined shapes might bring that number down by a lot

[old swift]

Tbh in my old world

I had like 5 drones at my Battery Depot

and their sole job was to drop off batteries

for other drones

worked pretty well

[vapid gorge]

it'll also depend how far you're moving each node

[severe mauve]

How does one balance turbo fuel? The 22.5 per minute really bugs me

[deft lichen]

what?

22.5/min is bad but 16.6667/min is fine?

if you don't like seeing .5, get ready for .625 or .875 coming sooner than later

lol

[tawny agate]

No spoilers, please)

[deft lichen]

what

I'm... not answering your question nor is this a story spoiler

[tawny agate]

But this is a spoiler for the upcoming fun

[deft lichen]

?????

[tawny agate]

Never mind...

[unique cypress]

80% clock speed makes all the numbers whole. Dunno why you'd care about that though

[severe mauve]

So I can balance stuff properly? If it's whole numbers it's easier to figure out how many refineries/generators. I keep getting issues with my current fuel plant. Im Producing 400 fuel/min, with 18 generators conduming 20fuel/min and a packager consuming 40fuel/min. There's too much being produced somehow

[unique cypress]

Neither do you need to balance anything nor do fractions make it any more or less difficult

[vapid gorge]

wdym balance?

[severe mauve]

I know liquids don't work exactly the same way trying to figure it out.

By balancing i mean like some iron node producing 120 per minute. I need say 2 smelters asking 60 per minute. All of them work at 100% efficiency

[vapid gorge]

so just everything running at the same time. That's easy. Figure out how much total clocking you need from the process, spread it among however many machines you want

'balance' means something very specific in the game. Manifolds don't 'balance', they simply provide items in a timely manner

are you trying to figure out how to provide fuel for the turbo step here ?

[severe mauve]

Yeah 16.667 is akward to work with unless i use 16 and figure out how to sink the 0.667

[vapid gorge]

wait. Are you trying to figure out how to provide fuel or how to use the turbo fuel you have produced?

[severe mauve]

I think I'm good now. If it needs 20 fuel/min, I'll need 20 refineries for my 400 fuel/min input. Which i get 333.34 turbo fuel. I just need to have one generator running a bit less

[vapid gorge]

yup. No need to 'sink' it.

clocking is your most powerful tool. Decimals are basically meaningless

[severe mauve]

Burn rate is 7.5 so i need 44 gens an a extra one undeclocked

[vapid gorge]

or over clock a bunch. It's pretty common to OC them to 250%

and if you sloop your slugs you get lots of shards to use

[severe mauve]

Yeah that's what I did. Have a ridiculous amount now🤣

I can go grab a screen shot in a few minutes. What i dont understand now is that the setup is have right now before playing with turbo Is producing 400 fuel/min. I have 18 generator asking 360 total per minute. I have a packager for the last 40 fuel. My fuel is still backing up and there's like 3 refineries that get filled up and can't continue producing Not sure if I'm clear with this

[vapid gorge]

your packagers aren't keeping up you mean?

this is for diluted packaged fuel?

[severe mauve]

No just regular fuel. Just got both alt recepies. Will be used once i switch to turbo

[vapid gorge]

ah so what part is backing up?

[severe mauve]

3 refineries that make the fuel from the crude oil. I got 10 total of them at 100% so 40/min each

[vapid gorge]

and they aren't getting enough oil?

[prisma kraken]

1. check the math on your pipe capacity. 2) i find dilluted fuel a lot less hassle when you take 1 blender's worth at 200% (for a total of 200/min) and pipe that into generators instead of trying to do something where you try pushing 400/min through an mk2 pipe

[severe mauve]

Nevermind i got the other alt recepie. Cant remember the name. I haven't gotten to the blender yet

[prisma kraken]

oops, 2 blenders for 200/min, sorry

dilluted packaged fuel

[severe mauve]

Produce too much fuel. They stop working for a few secound because they're full.

[prisma kraken]

if you're making fuel with the packaging loop, keep the packaged fuel on belts and distribute it to generators on the belts with an unpackager direct piped into a small number of generators

[vapid gorge]

are you sinking the excess packaged fuel?

[severe mauve]

Yeah. Hang on I'll hop back on. A screen shot will probably help

[vapid gorge]

hard to tell from that honestly. If the yare stuttering because they are full on fuel I'd guess you haven't mathed something quite right. or maybe the packaged fuel is backing up

[severe mauve]

omg its so stupid

i have 16 fuel gens not 18

[vapid gorge]

that'd also do it 😛 bad math

[severe mauve]

who knew miscalculating would be my worst enemy in this game lmao

thank you

[vapid gorge]

no stres xD

[prisma kraken]

well, as i said, check the math first, lol

[severe mauve]

tha math was correct. i just didnt count to 18 correctly lmao. switching to diluted package fuel now

[fallow siren]

kinda funny how we have production rate for equipment but no way to automate them

[vapid gorge]

and '+2' is an important math 😛

[vapid gorge]

I don't think that's an accurate rate either

[radiant plank]

It would be cool if we could like populate the planet with something else than factories

[unique cypress]

Yeah, you make 8/min by hand

But each recipe has a "craft time" and a handcrafting multiplier. Dunno why the normal time isn't just 7.5 and the multiplier 1 but whatever

[prisma kraken]

i think hand crafting 'dinks' are tied to the production rate listed as some fixed fraction

[vapid gorge]

or they are just listed wrong xD

[harsh mason]

I think I'll be able to turn on my first nuclear plant this weekend

[umbral barn]

Do you use uranium for anything other than nuclear power/nukes

[plain rivet]

no

[crude echo]

Only equipment I know that can be automated is the portable miner alternative recipe

Haven't been that far into the game yet though, only halfway through tier 5

[umbral barn]

So I can use all of it for power?

[frosty owl]

@thorn bane (Asking you as you suggested the tool to me 😆)
Do you happen to know if there's an easy way to use one factory's inputs to calculate the limits of another factory?
Eg: Factory A uses 1k Iron Ore, the plan for Factory B (including a maximized production) starts off with world resources minus 1k Iron ore (from plan, not manual input)

I'm talking about the XYZ solver you suggested to me ^^

Would be a handy feature to have in SFTools too, assuming it's not already accounted for...
( @wind spade )

TLDR: Use one plan's required resources to limit aviable resource for another factory plan

[quaint condor]

Modeler does this rather well. Though takes some setup for sure.

[frosty owl]

How so, exactly? I couldn't find a way to do it when I tried

[quaint condor]

Have you played with "outposts" yet?

[frosty owl]

I don't think I have...
Thanks for the hint 😆

[quaint condor]

Utilizing the outposts make it easy to have multiple different 'factories' and to organize the inputs/outposts with them

[hazy minnow]

which plutonium encased cell recipe uses less uranium waste per cell

and uranium in general

[unique cypress]

Instant

[hazy minnow]

aight ty

[unique cypress]

Unless you use sloops in both steps, then default because it has 2 steps compared to instant's 1

[hazy minnow]

okay

there arent enough somersloops in the world for me to do the 2 steps with how many machines i have 😦

what silica recipe would be considered the best taking the amount of the ores used into acount

[thorn bane]

sorry no idea i havent used it much

[unique cypress]

Cheap if you don't need quartz crystals and distilled if you do

[hazy minnow]

okay

[unique cypress]

When you're doing distilled silica and you sink a significant amount of either output, it's no longer worth it. So if you need both but in a different ratio than distilled normally spits out, make the rest with pure quartz/cheap silica instead of sinking one of the outputs

[unique cypress]

I suggest you use Satisfactory Tools or another calculator. It'll answer all of your questions about recipe resource efficiency

[hazy minnow]

okay ty

[unique cypress]

<@&387163995947270144>

[crimson moat]

Calculate how many machines you'll need first, the area they'll take up and multiply that by 2 to 3

That's how much buildable surface area you'll likely need

can confirm

[wind spade]

Planned... ish

[thorn trail]

just curious, how much control do you have over the placement of the items in the Visualization portion? Or is it just a self-contained SVG black box or something?

[old swift]

😭 100 constructors for wire

[fossil steeple]

Why are radio control units so evil

[unique cypress]

Fun. I can reply "maybe try using different recipes, then" to 2 different messages at once

[vapid gorge]

use different recipes and a better planner that lets you edit things faster

[vapid gorge]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=WpLyR7rsaCnaRbdUOysh

[unique cypress]

Ew, what are these recipes lol
https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=Ybf0j2vgVfdSlFS5nhaw

[vapid gorge]

ones that simplify things? jfc.

you have a lot of hot takes

[hearty flower]

This calculator optimizes for resource use, even if it means using lots of machines and recipes that complicate logistics. That's the cost of finding the most "efficient" resource use.

[vapid gorge]

only if you allow it to use all recipes

[hearty flower]

It's possible to find solutions that use fewer recipes or buildings, but if you optimize for them they are terribly inefficient and you need to pull lots of resources from all over to make them work

[vapid gorge]

gross over generalisation

for example that link was optimized to use fewer types of resources

and less resources

for example the Iron Alloy recipe is compact and very resource efficient

same with Copper alloy, as iron is a trash resource

[hearty flower]

Yeah, it's a trade off. If you use recipes that use more resources to produce faster, then you use more resources. It's a balance that has a lot of room in the middle.

[vapid gorge]

not always?
bolted plates do that, but it doesn't use very much more at all

and it'll also depend on the recipes used in other steps

[prisma kraken]

i never found bolted plate very compelling to use

back when steel coated plate was a thing, it had a use, but now, meh

[vapid gorge]

the current plate alts do fine with it

[prisma kraken]

yeah, i've just not found a compelling place to use it

most of that is because the combo of adhered plate + coated iron plate is so good

[vapid gorge]

they use basic resources. Jsut about anywhere does the trick.

but using a combo of coke stee + plastic can make for very nice sushi lines.
eh adhered takes up a lot more oil iirc

and isn't nearly as fast

[prisma kraken]

yeah, it makes a lot more rips per biome though

all depends on what you're goal is though

[viral sparrow]

Yes

[jade shore]

In the grand scheme of things, is using 90/min Crude Oil to get 182/min more Concrete out of the same input of Limestone worth it?

[vapid gorge]

up to you. But it sounds like you're using the less oil efficient recipes for that

[jade shore]

OK, answered my own question.. if I did this for every bit of limestone, I would need almost 14k/min Rubber, which is probably 2/3rds of the oil supply

[vapid gorge]

are you using the recycled rubber recipe?

+diluted fuel + heavy oil residue

[prisma kraken]

when you're making a lot of HMF's the extra output is just enough to avoid tapping the next biome over's limestone for what you need, but it is a lot of power and wet concrete is a great way to go as well

[jade shore]

yep.. just not the heavy oil residue... it's 2x basic rubber and 1x plastic, then a blender and recycled rubber. Trying to keep it within two blueprints. Adding in resin and the processing for that got complicated. I'll probably just do wet concrete. Yay "free" water.

Refineries are just so dang big

[prisma kraken]

iirc, heavy encased frame with the proper alts needs 540 concrete/min, which is just what rubber concrete makes off of a normal node

[vapid gorge]

the heavy oil residue alt really is needed to pump out the extra rubber. much more output

[prisma kraken]

i don't have the numbers in front of me, i believe that's enough for 22.5 or 45/min hmf

yeah, it uses a fair bit of rubber. kind of a trade off btw the oil and not having to build transport infrastructure for the limestone

situationally, one may be preferable to the other

[jade shore]

For the 156 Rubber I needed for a full belt of Limestone, going for h.o.r. and a loop seemed to have too many refineries, but I'll try the math

[prisma kraken]

i'll note as well that once you satisfy your hmf and eib production needs, the only further use for concrete ends up being singularity cells in phase 5

raw limestone otoh is also useful in making silica

i should mention basic iron ingot as a thing too, but i feel like that is more of a midgame recipe

[prisma kraken]

looking at some old notes, i think the better ratio to look at is that 240/min rubber turns 1200 limestone into 1080 concrete

or 120+600 etc

[opaque quartz]

My goal is to get the BWD factory done before I hit 500hr playtime (according to steam). Also, before I leave town for vacation

Decorating will almost certainly have to wait till I get home

[crimson moat]

You'll never run out of Limestone or Iron if you spend as much of them as possible, so for world scale optimisation you should spend as much of them as possible without trying to convert other resources into them. Wet concrete, iron wire and iron pipe rather than copper/steel etc.

Other resources such as bauxite, copper etc run out first and prevent you from building bigger.

[unborn dome]

Any thoughts on having a central concrete plant serviced by train, versus just making it on site?

Seems like it would probably be unnecessary, but the thought occurred to me

[vapid gorge]

like any system that does deliveries like that it's generally a lot more logistics planning.
but if you find it fun , do it

[unborn dome]

It'd mainly just be to address getting nuclear fuel up and running

So yeah, guess we'll see. I've been waffling forever on how to do it

[vapid gorge]

personally I would try to keep nuclear stuff as centralised and independent from everything else as much as possible. Because if you tool around and your power hiccups that could be disaster

make a centralised concrete system for everything else

[unborn dome]

Hmm that's a great point

[vapid gorge]

I'm just risk adverse with my power, especially nuclear.
I really don't want a large interconnected system that if I have to modify it I have to take extra care to not cripple power. Or just accidentally turn something else anda cause a domino effect cause I just forgot

Cause I will just forget

[unborn dome]

That's what I did with my fuel power plant. Self-contained, and has giant tanks of spare fuel behind closed valves just in case.

(And a ton of batteries too)

[vapid gorge]

well if it's all self contained 1 priority power switch will make sure you never need back up these days

[wind spade]

Technically full control, practically it's done by a lib

[thorn trail]

i was just wondering if there was any easy way to prevent the crossing of two item flows from always putting their text right over each other by default. For example: https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=ber4cUxDIiPov0ThNKVN

[wind spade]

Not really

I haven't found a graph positioning lib that deals with straight lanes

[thorn trail]

i was more thinking that if you the text could be placed either at the beginning of the line or the end of the line rather than in the middle that might do the trick, and that the positioning of the text allow the line might be a setting ( ie. start, middle, end )

no biggie, just wanted to mention it in case it was a 5 minute fix

[wind spade]

Probably is, but I don't feel it would be good

And the texts could overlap anyway

[daring sonnet]

I was looking at turbo fuel, and considering Sulfur, as I understand is the main issue, Turbo Blend Fuel is probably the "best" turbo recipe right?

[quick gorge]

Say the line Bart

[gleaming shuttle]

are you planning on using all the sulfur on the map?

[daring sonnet]

im planning on going a little nuts on nuclear, as much as I can

and Im guessing it will consume a fkton of sulfur then

[gleaming shuttle]

"max nuclear" (without converters/slooping) doesnt even use all the sulphur on the map

iirc its like 2400 for the uranium phase and 3500 for the plutonium phase

and the map has over 10000

even if you want to go hard on nuclear, you can afford to be wasteful as long as your turbofuel build isnt too big

[daring sonnet]

yeah, so im probably fine then, my plan is using +- 2400 sulfur for the turbo setup

[gleaming shuttle]

thats totally fine, just consider whether you want to retrofit it into a rocket fuel plant later

since that might involve adding more sulphur

[daring sonnet]

im doing rocket from the get go actually

but Im probably missing a recipe then, I dont have one that uses sulfur

[gleaming shuttle]

nitro rocket fuel skips the turbofuel step but uses much more sulfur (and nitrogen)

[daring sonnet]

prob a stupid question, but is it the "meta"? or smt like that

[gleaming shuttle]

there isnt one "meta", it depends on your use case

but if you are optimizing for, say, maximum power output from all the resources on the map, you dont use nitro rocket fuel

since you actually do run out of sulfur

you use base rocket fuel instead

[daring sonnet]

oh nice, I REALLY appreciate the feedback thx

[gleaming shuttle]

nitro rocket fuel is the easiest way to make rocket fuel though, super simple production chain

make fuel and throw it in a blender with nitrogen, sulfur, and coal

thats it

[daring sonnet]

yeah, I dont really mind going for a long run, the turbo setup seems like the way for me

[gleaming shuttle]

yeah fair enough, IMO for most players the nitrogen cost is more onerous than the sulfur cost

running out of nitrogen is actually something that can happen in "normal" endgame play

"normal" in the sense of building big but not like, using the entire map

[daring sonnet]

i havent considered that yet, but Im betting the if the sulfur is feasible, maybe the nitro should be fine too?

[gleaming shuttle]

there are some alt recipes that are very heavy on nitrogen

like OC Supercomputers or Quartz Purification

so if you like using those recipes then you can actually run out eventually

if youre only using nitrogen for basic aluminum products + power then youll be fine

[daring sonnet]

I was considering OCs, but never tried quartz purification

[gleaming shuttle]

i really like the nitrogen alts personally so i typically hold myself back with rocket fuel

though on my current run im making a 200 GW plant lol

[daring sonnet]

thats actually helpful, if I go over 200GW im probably in the danger zone

[fallow siren]

default rf recipe use less sulfur, while nitro use more sulfur and nitrogen but skipped tf

but nitro has nicer ratio to work with than default rf

[gleaming shuttle]

nitro rocket fuel also saves coal and oil fwiw

obviously coal and oil are both more abundant than sulfur and nitrogen though

[daring sonnet]

yeah I was really not minding coal and oil at all

[gleaming shuttle]

coal does end up being pretty limited in endgame if you go really hard on diamonds

well, i guess "limited" is the wrong word

theres plenty, its just a big project to collect it all from all around the map

like copper powder

[fallow siren]

if you have spare quartz, you can use pink diamond to cut coal cost for diamonds

and its also use converter instead of particle accelerator

[gleaming shuttle]

i am a turbo diamond addict personally, but yeah theres a bunch of options for cutting coal usage if you really need it

[daring sonnet]

probably even combine a purified quartz with pink diamond for a better output right?

[fallow siren]

no, pure quartz has better yield than purified

[gleaming shuttle]

quartz purification is worse at getting quartz crystals than pure quartz

[fallow siren]

purified if you want both crystals and silica

[gleaming shuttle]

the draw of quartz purification is that it gets you quartz crystals and silica

if youre heavily using pink diamonds, you want way more quartz crystals than silica

so quartz purification ends up being more awkward

you can still use it ofc but youll probably have excess silica

[daring sonnet]

oh I get it

[vapid gorge]

it's great if you're using a combination of recipes that need both. Like silicon circuit board and crystal computer

[gleaming shuttle]

the thing with coal is that theres a tooon of alts that can be used to remove coal in some way or another

or reduce your usage of it at least

iron pipes, oil-based diamonds, aluminum beams, etc

[daring sonnet]

I just looked at the turbo diamonds, Idve probably never considered it if you didnt mention it

[gleaming shuttle]

so even if youre "wasteful" with coal in power generation, you can often compensate elsewhere

[daring sonnet]

seems insane

[gleaming shuttle]

turbo diamonds are logistically difficult but very resource efficient

personally i enjoy the logistics, and also... yknow, "TURBO DIAMONDS"

who can pass on something called "TURBO DIAMONDS"

[vapid gorge]

pink diamonds don't use particle accelerators though 😛

[fallow siren]

if you have "excess" coke, you can use potrelium diamond

[vapid gorge]

iirc oil diamonds is more efficient than coke

[fallow siren]

yeah, hence i said excess from burning byproduct hor

[daring sonnet]

my eye is really drawn to pure quartz and pink diamonds after this convo

[gleaming shuttle]

pink diamonds is a fun recipe yeah

[fallow siren]

my mega factory has excess coke around 5k, so i just use all those for diamonds

[gleaming shuttle]

you do kinda need to spam converters a bit

but its easier to spam converters than to spam particle accelerators

[vapid gorge]

I truly hate Particle accelerators 😛 it's why I like pink diamonds

[gleaming shuttle]

i like particle accelerators, but in moderation

[vapid gorge]

technically it's less power efficient. But I don't care

[gleaming shuttle]

which is part of why i like turbo diamonds so much - its the fastest diamond recipe so it needs fewer accelerators than the others for the same output

[vapid gorge]

yeah but I'd rather have Zero and use more power

[gleaming shuttle]

i once tried using cloudy diamonds because "limestone is basically free" and it was absolutely miserable lol

[fallow siren]

except my power plant is big enough, particle accelerator power consumption doesnt matter

[daring sonnet]

thats a respectable flex

[gleaming shuttle]

the caveat is that turbo diamonds is very very hard to triple overclock

its technically possible but you need to sushi belt one of your inputs

and the ratio needs to be correct

kinda cursed

[vapid gorge]

what?

just have 2 belts of 900?

[gleaming shuttle]

right, so you need to sushi it with the packaged turbofuel

you cant have 1 coal belt and 1 turbofuel belt

[unique pulsar]

helo guys !

can you give me advice how to copy this megafactory ? Because i make nuclear power plant and i need 2 more of this factories and because this is so complicated i didnt know what to do...
maybe there some kind of mode like shematica in minecarft ?
aproximate size of this shit is 27 x 55 x 15

[vapid gorge]

well first you'd need to know what the final output is and what recipes they are using

this isn't particularly fancy or need anything special to replicate it as long as you know those 2 things

[unique pulsar]

"final output" you mean like final resource ?

[fallow siren]

end product

what are you making

and plan how much resources you need

[vapid gorge]

yes

[unique pulsar]

yes but main problem is belts because i made it like that

and it will took at least 10 hours to only conect and understand how this work

machines is easy to bulid and place but belts

[vapid gorge]

oh so this is your system?

you can make blueprints of like 2 or 3 machines with al lthe belts and power systems connected already, that speeds things up

as for the under belting it looks like you could organise the sections to feed into ieach other more closely

are each of these belts going to like 1 machine port?

[unique pulsar]

no
there are alot of system like 1 to 5 spliters and 1 to 13 and atc

[vapid gorge]

right then obviously it's going to take ages to load balancing things. Manifold them and it'll take liek 1/10th the time

[unique pulsar]

oke thx for advice )

[vapid gorge]

yeah no stress 🙂 if you like load balancing thats fine, but you gotta accept that its a LOT more work

[brisk breach]

is satisfactory calculator working for anyone else?

[gleaming shuttle]

Down for me as well

[unique cypress]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production isn't down (like ever)

And it's a better calculator soo...

[wind spade]

Except when 1.0 hits

[frosty owl]

Performance anxiety

[wind spade]

More like server ddosed by sf community

[unique cypress]

Should've taken longer to update kekw

[prisma kraken]

a lot of low-volume sites use hosting services that leverage content delivery networks and caching web proxies to reduce the amount of server and internet traffic. whenever you see a 502 error, it is most often because some maintenance was done on the caching proxies and it takes about an hour for stuff to 'heal'

[chilly plinth]

can anyone help me design this and help with the math to evenly split it into 3

[unique cypress]

split what into 3?

[chilly plinth]

essentially what its supposed to be is a compact auto crafter of either copper/iron items

what im at rn is it gets to 4 smelters to maximize produciton

i just cant figure out a method to merge it into 1 get it to the next floor then split it into 3

[unique cypress]

merger, lift and splitter?

[chilly plinth]

yea but idk the math for the splitter mainly or a neat way to place it

[noble ermine]

well the splitter will just split evenly into 3

4 smelters, 60 items/m
60/3 = 20 items /m

[unique cypress]

* /min, not /m

[chilly plinth]

yea but the hard part is making it look somewhat decent due to 2 smelters being on the side i need it to go into

[prisma kraken]

just connect a lift to the merger and a splitter to the other side of the lift

[chilly plinth]

like this?

[prisma kraken]

that's one of many ways, sure

[unique cypress]

put the merger on the bottom floor, lift up, short 90* belt into a splitter

[prisma kraken]

passing lifts through floor holes helps with the tidiness of it all

[chilly plinth]

the overall goal is for it to look clean

[prisma kraken]

keep building, as you learn your skill with it all with improve

[chilly plinth]

i figured it out ty for the tips

[brisk breach]

thanks

[warm wren]

1680 total by product water 🤔 Thinking of the best way to cycle it back into input. Each machine is producing 140 by product, so maybe I could do 3 (540) and then on a 4th machine split off 60 with a value (600 total)... since each input is 200, use that 600 water. Keep repeating this with "splits" using valves. Should work right?

[tame python]

@quaint jetty using pure quickwire to take up excess water production is flippin brilliant!

[opaque quartz]

Keep your fresh and waste water separate. Make two different groups of machines and clock them accordingly

Valves only regulate flow rate, so your system can still jam up if there’s any interruption or stutter causing the fresh water to over supply causing the waste water to back up

[warm wren]

I was more concerned about if the "split" idea would work. 600 twice, with 480 left over, another 400 to knock down two more machines... 🤔 Leaves 80 left over but I have plans for that for wet concrete to keep my sub space storage capped.

I explain things poorly, I know 🤔

[unique cypress]

are you using sloops or something? aluminum needs more water than it makes. if you put it back in, you shouldn't have any leftover

[warm wren]

See this is what I mean by I explain things poorly... it's just the way the math works out... because I have 1680.. the first 1600 can go back into the system for "even math"... the other 80 can be used for that concrete... the rest will be made up for with fresh water. This uses up all of the byproduct water and doesn't mix it with the fresh 🤔

But the trick is that to get that "even math" I need to split the byproduct coming off one of the machines

[quaint jetty]

thanks

its a perfect ratio with the byproduct water with aluminum scrap as well

[opaque quartz]

Clock the wet concrete to consume exactly the amount you need it to and that’s how it will split

[boreal heron]

Is there a way to test throughput on train that is not packaging the material and sinking it because I want to test the throughput for an hour before I start building?

[unique cypress]

you can calculate it

[amber umbra]

@boreal heron Train throughput measuring:

1. Use stopwatch measured round trip time, items/train
2. Directly measure the items delivered and total time by collecting items in industrial storage container buffers, stopwatch measuring time
3. Indirectly verify sufficient throughput in a setup that has trains move when full/empty by checking where the trains wait; if wait at unload with full trains, you have enough throughput.

Usually people design trains to always have excess item/minute throughput via train to not bottleneck, so #3 is sufficient.

[boreal heron]

Ok thank you for the tip

[prisma kraken]

or much less scientifically, but just as effective, watch the exporting station for a couple of train trips and ensure that the entire contents of the station gets picked up each trip

(i truly don't understand why people always turn train throughput into a higher math problem)

[unique cypress]

It's not that hard

just this lol

and you get to know how to fix issues

[prisma kraken]

it isn't actually difficult math - high school algebra is enough to do it. the number of variables affecting throughput though is very rarely modeled correctly, and modeling the bottlenecks and pauses for an entire rail network is higher level math.

as such, you can do the basic and time consuming easy way that models stuff poorly, or you can just empirically test things which is much simpler

[unique cypress]

just measure the time with a stopwatch and add 10-20% for potential delays

and then calculate throughput from there

[prisma kraken]

my general approach is just to go by the 600/min per car yardstick for a 100-stack item, doubling that for 200 stack things and knowing that for 500 stack items, that exceeds belt capacity

[unique cypress]

it works for <5 min 20 s round trip times

and a single train on route

[slate pagoda]

Monkey build train monkey look at green light monkey happy

Monkey see yellow monkey build more train

[thorn trail]

sounds like a lot of monkey business to me

[barren python]

Totally planned that

[unique cypress]

This is one of the many reasons why I don't use modeler

[barren python]

Ohh. I was just making a joke. I personally find it handy for making a blueprint of a factory

[vapid gorge]

much quicker to use tools and just make a quick note

[prisma kraken]

i really find a list view of just machines, recipes and clockspeeds much more helpful since i already know what goes into what

[opaque quartz]

So I did technically get my 10/min BWD factory operational this afternoon, but didn’t have enough time to let it bake to see how it will operate long-term. Even without that I can see the coal throughput on the train won’t keep up, as I feared. 1920/min needed for pink diamonds for dark matter trap

I have ideas on what I can do, but it will have to wait until we’re back from vacation

[thorn trail]

grats on the factory, and enjoy the vacation

i'm still trying to push past 45 BWD/min on mine without having to cart items all over the world

[opaque quartz]

I’m not super happy with how the infra-factory logistics turned out, kinda ended up rushing it a bit. I’ll noodle on it and might revisit the design

Ended up doing a stack of 12 belts running around the perimeter, pseudo-bus style. It’s kinda ugly

[thorn trail]

considering that mine is entirely bus style, i might take offense to that remark. 🙂

[opaque quartz]

lol, maybe that’s unfair. I guess I just had a different picture in my head of what it was gonna look like but didn’t appreciate just how tall a stack of 12 belts is

[thorn trail]

i'm just pulling your leg, i know that the general feeling about bus bases on this discord is fairly negative, but I don't let it bother me.

you shouldn't either, even if you are just dabbling with the dark side

[opaque quartz]

oh I know. It’s not really a true bus in the like factorio sense

I did similar stuff in my first playthrough too

[thorn trail]

oddly i've never played Factorio, so I only partially get the references

[opaque quartz]

Same

It actually makes sense here given how complex the factory is and how many discrete materials are needed. I did my best to lay out the sub factories in a logical manner

[thorn trail]

i'm pretty much using the entire flat central section of the Rocky Desert for mine, from the big towering rock at the east to the west coast and beyond.

#screenshots message

everything is made there, with some additional outside inputs for high volume items that I needed more of coming in by drone to supplement the bus production

[opaque quartz]

looks like you did a real bus there, with all the different modules running perpendicular to the belts?

[thorn trail]

yes, you are correct

[opaque quartz]

Nice. I watched through Nilaus’s playthrough of 1.0 and he did the same

[thorn trail]

mine is mostly modeled off of his

i keep trying to do the same type of build in another spot but I can't find one that has everything as close as the RD

either bauxite is far away or oil is

is your BWD factory somewhat modular or is it specifically setup for that production number?

[opaque quartz]

Tailored production for the target number. I spent weeks planning it out in a spreadsheet as I’m using sloops for a number of intermediate steps which drastically changes the numbers that sftools would otherwise spit out

Using a lot of alt recipes I hadn’t tried out before like turbo pressure motor

[thorn trail]

how did you handle all the DMR required?

[opaque quartz]

pink diamonds for dark matter trap. 1920 coal, 720 quartz crystal, only 300 RSAM

Slooping the intermediate steps helps cut down on the total input amount needed. BWD, singularity cells, superposition oscillators all slooped

[thorn trail]

i think that is where i ended up having to spend a lot of sloops, because i couldn't make enough DMR for all the crystals I needed

the amount of diamonds needed was insane

[opaque quartz]

Yeah it’s silly, even with pink diamonds

[thorn trail]

i'm doing a mixture of pink and oil

[opaque quartz]

There’s a cave in western dunes with two pure quartz nodes and a water well, using pure quartz recipe to supply about 1000/min by train, mostly for the pink diamonds

I built the factory overlooking the waterfalls next to paradise island

[thorn trail]

nice location, though getting stuff there must have been a bit of a pain

[opaque quartz]

Wasn’t too bad, I already had a rail network going along the coast to the oil islands. Autoconnect blueprints in 1.1 makes extending the rail network so much faster

[thorn trail]

i'm kinda excited and scared about that part of 1.1

[opaque quartz]

Nitro and RSAM via drone

It’s great, once you get the hang of it

[thorn trail]

i'm just worried about how many of my blueprints i'll have to redo

[opaque quartz]

I was able to keep using my pylon blueprint from before

[thorn trail]

even though i'm sure they'll be much nicer than before

[warm wren]

Thing I was talking about earlier but never could explain properly... not sure if it can work... basically what I'm doing is taking the byproduct water and trying to put it back into the system, but to keep the numbers even I'm trying to create "groups" using values. So if each machine is giving out 140 byproduct I'm doing 140 + 140... then on the third machine I use a valve at 120 to get to 400, then the rest gets "split off" to be added to the next set of 400...

[gleaming shuttle]

Anyone know off hand how much sulfur "max nuclear without SAM/slooping" uses? (As in, using all uranium, no slooping or matter conversion, standard 50.4 power cell chain processed into plutonium rods and sunk)

Assuming you're not using leached alts or whatever

[mighty steppe]

sloop

[prisma kraken]

there's two ways to feed the water back into the system. you can build the factory robustly and make sure its output never stops (and math everything correctly), or you can partition your machines into a group that takes freshwater and another group that takes wastewater and keep them logically separate pipe networks. partitioning them that way is a more robust way of building aluminum, but i find that if you have your sinks on output lines to prevent pauses, the former works rather well too

[prisma kraken]

it depends on the recipe chains. sulfur use to get uranium->plut rod is equal or slightly more than the amount of uranium ore you use. usually ranges btw 2100 to 2400

if you do infused U cell->U fuel unit -> fert uranium->plut pellet->encased plut cell->either plut rod recipe, you're sulfur use is 2100 for 2100 uranium

[thorn trail]

@prisma kraken did a new Northern Forest start today after all the talking we did about it earlier, and I remembered why I don't start there anymore. No cables from the drop pods at all up there.

[prisma kraken]

really? its been a few updates since i've started there

[thorn trail]

yeah, i decided to try it out and ran around collecting a bit before settling and was surprised

[prisma kraken]

that may be much improved in 1.1 since you can dismantle the drop pods

[gleaming shuttle]

Alright that's around what I remembered, thanks

Was considering actually using leached recipes this playthrough, but man they just use so much sulfur

[thorn trail]

plus several of the pods are guarded by alpha hogs and are therefore a bit of a pain to deal with at the very beginning

[prisma kraken]

thid is the chain for 300 uranium, you can x7 it for a full max build

[prisma kraken]

there's always some dead spot near those pods where you can stand and poke the hog from safety near the pod

or you can just jump atop them and make faces at the hog

[thorn trail]

true, but that is time spent doing something that could more quickly be done with a rebar gun later

gonna try a grasslands start and run around the west coast to the RD and see if that fares better, long distance to run though

[prisma kraken]

i think some of the 1.0 changes to North Forest were specifically to foil some of Epiphane's speedrunning tricks, lol

where i find value in a NF start is not only the proximity of pretty much all resources, but also that the rocky desert crash sites are really nearby for early hd hunting trips

i think the 6-7 drives scattered around rocky desert are some of the easiest drives to collect

[thorn trail]

true, but i'm mostly after the materials to speed up building and help me to avoid having to manually craft anything

[prisma kraken]

yeah, i understand that, especially with the wire/cable

you might want to watch one of epiphane's package-1 runs to see how he deals with the wire in NF

[thorn trail]

good suggestion

[prisma kraken]

i have a feeling there's probably a crash site that has some that you've missed and it probably is one that he intentionally hits in the first 10 minutes

[peak rune]

What the

[fallow siren]

valves arent needed, you can separate byproduct and fresh water into their own system
for example, like this setup of sloppy alumina + default scrap recipe

its just a math work

and this system is unbreakable

[thorn trail]

how dare you put limits on my ability to break things

[quaint condor]

Wanna try to break mine when you get the sloppy and electrode alts? 😏

[warm wren]

I just feel like no matter how I explain it I'm not being understood 🤔 Oh well. I've been playing this game for 3000 hours. My question was specifically about if a specific thing would work.

[prisma kraken]

is that default solution + default scrap?

(asking for the sake of others)

[fallow siren]

sloppy

[quaint condor]

Are you on 1.1 or 1.0?

[warm wren]

1.1 but it won't matter for this, it hasn't changed 🤔

[fallow siren]

i already have the number for set of 600 for sloppy + electrode

[prisma kraken]

the reason why it doesn't break is that the fresh and wastewater never mix

[quaint condor]

I have a 500 baux > 500 ingot bp if you want a look. Then easy to expand to 7 assemblers making 500 sheets .. 1500 casings ... is that what you're looking for?

And using byproduct

[fallow siren]

with number for 600, it works well with system for 300 and 1200

altho you want to add 4th scrap refinery if you overclock the system for 1200

[quaint condor]

@warm wren

I always forget to hit reply 😦

[quaint condor]

I could do a 600 .. when I get the mk3 bpd lol

[prisma kraken]

if you do wish to mix the fresh & wastewater, i find this design quite reliable which works with all combos of solution and scrap recipes

[warm wren]

Oh right 🤔 Each machine is producing 140 by product. I am putting it back into the system by trying to do "chunks" of 400. But to keep the numbers "even" I am attempting to have machines byproduct output "split" using valves. The first two machines do 280 so I need 120, so the 3rd machine connects in and a valve limits it to 120 to make the even 400, that gives me 2 left over which I add to the next set... Adjusting the valves as you go to get "groups" of 400... It's the splitting part with the valves, I've never done it that way before, I don't know if works.

[quaint condor]

Also a simple one that works

[prisma kraken]

valves don't work as advertised. except if you get very lucky with your numbers, their precision on metering flows can be quite a bit off

[thorn trail]

i've done gravity based waste water mixing before but never done it using valves

i think the only valve settings i've ever used were 0 and Max

[prisma kraken]

i've found that you can change that junction to be horizontal and forego the VIP voodoo

[quaint condor]

The only real way recycling work is if you make sure that youre fresh input is not more than "Total needed water for sloppy - byproduct"

This therotically can be done with valves, but much easier by just clocking the extractors.

[prisma kraken]

well, you need to math it all out exactly. the thing that hangs people up is that the aluminum refineries can never, ever pause if you're mixing the fresh & recycled water

[warm wren]

I'm not mixing fresh and byproducts 🤔 It's more a matter of 'can I get perfect numbers splitting the flow off a machine using valves'

[prisma kraken]

no

[quaint condor]

Abolutely not true

Firstly, water does not flow back into the machines.

[prisma kraken]

valve's internally represent the fraction of flow as pipe capacity over x where x is an integer [0, 255]. their precision sucks

[quaint condor]

Second, if the the electrode stop because of scrap, it will stop, and wait for the scrap to start being drawn again.

[warm wren]

🤔 Shame then. It would have been a fun idea.

[quaint condor]

The one reason I kinda am linking the 500 setup is because with 780 output of mk5, it allows the output to clear quickly once the problem is resolved.

[prisma kraken]

if you're using one to cut a flow in half or quarter, they'll work, but anything that isn't a power of two and the flow rate is rounded

[quaint condor]

With the setup I have been running, I have been beating the crap out of it trying to break it, but not once has water been left in the elctrode refineries.

[warm wren]

Two of the machines have a 98% uptime... the rest are running fine... so close and yet so far

[prisma kraken]

yep, that's that lack of precision

i've also found that even using a standard aluminum build, when i build it with mk2 pipes instead of mk1's, i can hit that annoying 9x% uptime problem. I think it actually has something to do with your fps remaining above a certain number to process the pipe flow in real time

(i've spent a lot of hrs screwing around with such things)

[quaint condor]

Like, right now I have 24 of them placed.. only two are hooked to baux atm though, and are purpsoly stalled. I could hook the out put to a sink and they will be at 100% within about 5-10 minutes (Since 5 is apparently the minimum it takes to refresh). Also, all the buffers are full, ingot to sloppy.

Except byproduct of water that is

But, the pipes of the recycle line stay full as well

[prisma kraken]

the vip probably does help with that

[quaint condor]

vip?

oh,

[thorn trail]

maybe you could chain the valves using known values to get the exact result you want, similar to using splitters to load balance. Since the 0-255 range is a power of 2 ( 256 ), setting the value to exactly half should be accurate always

[prisma kraken]

'variable input priority junction' as termed by McGalleon in his pipe manual

[quaint condor]

Ahh

[prisma kraken]

essentially, going into a pipe junction, flow with highest headlift wins

or maybe it's lowest, i don't remember

[quaint condor]

I believe it's gravity driven, so I would say lowest 🤷‍♂️

[prisma kraken]

playing such tricks with pipes to me violates rule #1

[thorn trail]

keep it simple?

[quaint condor]

It's not a trick?

[prisma kraken]

yep

[quaint condor]

And how is that not simple?

[prisma kraken]

the simpler you keep your pipes the less problems you'll have with them

[quaint condor]

I guess I'll know when I run into a problem 🤷‍♂️

[prisma kraken]

there's a lot of different things you can do that work, don't misunderstand what i'm saying

[quaint condor]

Hell, just brought 10,800m3 up 485 meters lol, pipes are fun! 🤣

[prisma kraken]

the game does a simulation of fluids rather well, but it has limits. I prefer to stay well within the game's simulation bounds with my stuff

[prisma kraken]

yeah, i'm not envious

[thorn trail]

the lack of accurate pressure simulation annoys me to no end

[prisma kraken]

max nuclear is-a-coming for me at some point though

[quaint condor]

Psshh, Hire me! Rofl

[prisma kraken]

I am not looking forward to building my reactors

[vapid gorge]

'pressure' is jsut moving to the more empty section of pipe. which if you flood your system shouldn't cause you grief

[quaint condor]

Though I did not do this part..

[thorn trail]

you should paint one of them a slightly different shade of those colors to make it seem odd amongst the group

it would make people look at it and wonder

[quaint condor]

https://tenor.com/view/the-big-bang-theory-big-bang-theory-jim-parsons-sheldon-cooper-twitching-gif-17997938

[thorn trail]

@prisma kraken as it turns out, Grassy -> West Coast -> RD was definitely the way to go, 600+ cables along with lots of other good starter mats along with the blade runners along the route

[gleaming shuttle]

For what it's worth, I think the satisfactory speedrun discord did some theorycrafting and believes that grassy would be the best spawn biome for a hypothetical "deathless" any% run

for the reason you described basically

Pick up the easy pods as you head north and then make a permanent base in rocky

Just as an additional data point supporting your conclusion here

[prisma kraken]

well, i mean, if you're pretty good with combat and know how to cheese the mobs, i don't think that area safety is much of a factor

[gleaming shuttle]

The deathless restriction is relevant only because speedruns use death warps

Deconstructing the HUB and dying puts you back at your chosen spawn, so you want it to be very close to your central base, and grassy is a much worse location than the others for resources

Kind of orthogonal to the main point here, I'm just saying that other people also think grassy drop pods are the best for a fast start :)

[prisma kraken]

what i've found is that NF is kind of close to everything or has an easy route to get places and the shorter travel times really help

being honest though, grass fields with the addition of the quartz nodes near the void hole is a lot more appealing, and blue crater really is one of the best concentrations of resources in the game

speedrunning the game is a different beast though. things you think are good aren't anymore.

i'm kind of surprised, i just built a train line to move the titan forest quartz to the bay in north forest, and while i was expecting to get around 600/min per train car for it, the throughput was more like 480/min

i was reasonably certain i'd need two trains on the route and that i'd be slightly under what a single train could carry, but not by as much as it was under

i think a lot of that is that the downhill from titan forest didn't really end up boosting the train's speed at all due to signalling at intersections

[unique cypress]

You can get 600/min/wagon for a 100 stack size item for round trip times shorter than 5 min 20 s. And you get 480 at 6 min 40 s. Not that big of a difference in time

With 2 trains, those times double. Though you might need to set them to only depart when empty/full, otherwise they might bunch up and you won't get the benefit of using 2 trains

[prisma kraken]

nah, 2 trains on the loop just does what's needed. no need for fancy

[tulip portal]

with sulfur being the limiting factor (2460/min in my case), what is the best set of recipes to make the maximum amount of rocket fuel per unit volume of crude. im not concerned about size of factory or building count etc, (im also pretty sure that whatever power consumption increases certain recipes have are offset by the extra rocket fuel). i just finished unlocking tiers 7 and 8. i currently have a fuel plant that uses heavy oil residue alt, diluted packaged fuel (as far as i can tell no justifiable reason to swap to diluted fuel since the infrastructure is already there) and turbofuel alt. it appears that regular rocket fuel recipe is best when sulfur is limited but not sure on how i want to produce the turbofuel.

[unique cypress]

ask satisfactory tools

[thorn trail]

nitro rocket fuel has the lowest crude consumption of the recipes, but it doubles the sulfur

the default rocket fuel recipe has a fairly balanced resource consumption profile, 2 oil to ~3 nitrogen/coal/sulfur

[tulip portal]

i wasnt asking about rocket fuel, i was asking about turbo fuel while making rocket fuel

[oblique hollow]

probably Turbo Blend Fuel into default Rocket fuel

Turbo Blend saves the most Sulfur of all Turbofuel Recipes.

but it in turn needs more oil

even so, the fuel cost difference of Nitro Rocket Fuel vs Rocket Fuel is negigible imo

that comes with the caviat of Compacted Coal byproduct

but you can recycle that with default turbo or turbo heavy.
Though mixing Turbofuel recipes gets messy fast

[unique cypress]

this is the most RF you can get from 2460 sulfur:
https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=lz4jQ1t1IWGItLlMS6R7

slightly over 10k/min

good luck burning all that

[oblique hollow]

haha yep would you look at that

Turbo Blend into Rocket Fuel along with normal Turbofuel for the compacted coal recycling

the pure iron recipe is kinda superfluous here but whatever

[unique cypress]

I only tuned recipes to get rid of tools 0x errors

left everything else enabled

[thorn trail]

did tools also throw in the diluted packaged fuel rather than just using diluted fuel?

[unique cypress]

nope

it does that in maximize sometimes

[oblique hollow]

nah

[thorn trail]

seems that half the time i'm doing anything with fuel it will do that

[oblique hollow]

dpf and df do the same job so ultimately tools doesnt care which one it is

[unique cypress]

but using a graph from maximize is a mistake

[thorn trail]

one clouds the visualization display a lot more than the other, which could get rather annoying the more complex the build is

[oblique hollow]

yep but tools doesnt care

[thorn trail]

plus the power and machine count factor

[oblique hollow]

if it bothers you disable DPF

[thorn trail]

which, as you said before, tools doesn't care about

i do, just a UI pet peave of mine

[unique cypress]

I've never seen tools use DPF when DF is enabled unless in maximize mode

[thorn trail]

it definitely happens most for me when in max mode

[unique cypress]

then don't look at the graph in that mode

it's shit anyway

copy the output number back into items/min mode

[thorn trail]

i use that to get a general idea first, then move to something more specific usually

but entering in direct numbers also results is weirdness sometimes from rounding issues

[unique cypress]

only 0x machines

never noticed anything else weird

[thorn trail]

no, in some cases it just says it won't work

case in point, https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=SI2JWKGB350A0ByBM1gz vs https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=Gcr744TWQX0UTkSJL1M8

i cloned the maximize tab and typed in the value that maximze gave and it now says it can't make that

because the .741 is getting rounded from .7407 or something

and, as you said, even if i correct that and type in the 740.7407 value, i then get the 0x machines

[unique cypress]

yeah, rounding. just decrease the last digit by 1

[tulip portal]

thx guys, i havent had a chance to run the numbers on blend fuel yet, (i like to do everything via excel generally) thats crazy numbers i didnt realize it was that much more efficient for sulfur

[thorn trail]

then it also gets worse, because then tools goes off and tries to make residual plastic and empty containers on its own

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=wgRX3cUmMMfuC7snsaBT

[unique cypress]

cause canisters are "free" with a resin byproduct

[tulip portal]

but ya the amount of crude i would need is now the limiting factor in that setup so i would need to find a balance. can tools take 2 inputs and maximize from there? lets say 2460 sulfur and 2550 crude

[thorn trail]

they cost water, which in some cases will put you over the limit for your pipes or add another extract

actually, i take that back, it's making the plastic to optimize the iron plates

[unique cypress]

for tools, water is free

resin -> plastic -> canisters doesn't cost any resources tools optimizes for

so it does it sometimes, because it doesn't matter to it

[unique cypress]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=m9WxYM9EQvtnrYjuPgHJ

[thorn trail]

the odd part is the canisters though, plastic itself is the more useful product, not canisters

i'd much rather have the plastic as a byproduct than empty canisters

[unique cypress]

tools has no concept of "usefulness"

[thorn trail]

then why isn't all resin byproduct converted into plastic and then to empty canisters?

[unique cypress]

because it doesn't care which one it ends up with

if the first solution found was with canisters, then you get canisters

[tulip portal]

is that the same as the one i made, it looks the same, shape is different cant really tell, same end amount of rocket fuel tho https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=NmJsNf5ZHHHxCRdT3l40

[unique cypress]

you just have DPF instead of DF

and a resin byproduct instead of canisters

[tulip portal]

resin isntead of cannisters?

[unique cypress]

doesn't matter

[tulip portal]

wouldnt both have resin?

[unique cypress]

just sink the resin

[unique cypress]

^

[tulip portal]

ya so i have a turbo fuel plant setup from phase 3 and i eventually want to upgrade it to rocket fuel with blenders hence this whole exercise.

[thorn trail]

it looks so much cleaner when you just supply the iron plates manually -> https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=uhJcWxMpkDY9KXDYkFBN

[tulip portal]

if i use the turbo blend recipe im going ot have to start from scratch arent i

as i need to reroute the heavy oil residue damn

if i jsut wanted to take the fuel im already making (maxed from dpf) and maximize rocket fuel how could i do that in tools?

it would mean i have no heavy oil residue to add

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=VPVacN1hGFaNIi61lRRV

i think thats it, i take about 1000m^3/min hit on the rocket fuel but still end up with aroudn 6500 which is nutty

is there any chance 350GW base power (im factoring in around 30GW of power to run fuel plant) is enough to make massive plastic, aluminum, and space part factories for phase 4

[wind spade]

technically, it costs very minimal amount, just so that if two solutions with same non-water resource cost are found, it uses one with less water cost

[wind spade]

any power is enough, only depends on how much you build

[unique cypress]

really?
https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=cu8OuhdfgM32I8noi1wS

could save water by not making plastic for canisters. and it's not maximize

[tulip portal]

whats the opinon on best aluminum setup recipe wise?

[unique cypress]

all alts: sloppy alumina, electrode scrap, pure ingot

[wind spade]

depends on what you call "best"

[tulip portal]

fair, maximum volume with no concern for power

[unique cypress]

volume?

[tulip portal]

amount of aluminum produced per bauxite node

[wind spade]

I mean... should

private const ZERO_WEIGHT = '0.000000001';

[unique cypress]

then default ingot. it gives more alu per baux but costs an insane amunt of quartz

[tulip portal]

im assuming bauxite nodes are the limiting factor but i could be wrong

[tulip portal]

but still sloppy alumina and electrod scrap?

[opaque quartz]

Sloppy + electrode + pure has lower yield than default ingot recipe but cuts out the logistical headache of introducing extra silica

And it has a nice clean number of refineries per 600 bauxite (3 for alumina 4 for scrap) which is easy to clock so that waste and fresh water aren’t mixed

[oblique hollow]

Or instant scrap.
Its exactly as efficient as sloppy + electrode

its just a matter of if you wanna use oil or sulfur and coal

[opaque quartz]

Instant scrap is nice due to the 1:1 ratio of sulfuric acid to scrap, but yeah you have to supply the sulfur

[tulip portal]

sulfur is pain lol

tho idk if theres any good spots of oil near bauxite

[opaque quartz]

Depends on where you build tbh

There are a few. Lake forest/red bamboo forest is my go to

[oblique hollow]

hmm... instant is one of the things i would actually consider using alchemy for. to make the sulfur.
you can turn coal to sulfur and then its just coal and sam to make aluminum

[tulip portal]

i think im gunna build my recycled rubber/plastic first since thats more straight foward

[tulip portal]

just finished unlocking phase 4 (all milestones researched)

[thorn trail]

West Coast there are two pure bauxite nodes up on the cliffs right next to a ton of oil below

[warm wren]

Anyone have a diagram for a perfect math distribution for sloppy/electrode 🤔 I swear I had one in my folder of Satisfactory stuff but apparently not

[ruby shoal]

Is there anything wrong with doing my coal plant like this? I'm concerned the water extrators won't work properly, but the idea was building it like this would allow me to add on more generators when I can.

[brave cave]

can anyone run me over?

[low vigil]

Yeah, primary issue is that you'll run into limits with the pipes

Mk1 pipelines can transport up to 300 m² of water

But overall it seems pretty good

[ruby shoal]

I get that, but I'm not sure how else I could set it up without running into this issue.

Each set of 3 generators only requires 135 water/min, which is fine for the 300 limit. But I'm worried about how I should connect all the pipes

[low vigil]

The best option would be branching pipes instead of a single pipeline running horizontally

i.e. a pipeline runs horizontal until it can't flow anymore, then it ends, then new input

Honestly redoing my power plant is on today's agenda for myself and I'm on coal as well

So I'll show you

[ruby shoal]

Ah, awesome! I'd love an example!

[faint epoch]

i would set up 1 or 2 more extractors right behind that gap and fill them in the center since fluids dont like manifolds

[ruby shoal]

That's something I was a little concerned about, I've already built it so that I have an excess of water, but I will add that!

[ruby shoal]

I've been doing two extractors/3 generators. For the middle row, should I just use 1 extractor for each half?

[faint epoch]

yeah so that it fills it from both ends

[ruby shoal]

This just looks like such a mess lol, but I'll stick with it

[tulip portal]

That’s where i was planning to put my recycled plastic/rubber factory, maybe I should offshoot some crude for plastic or move plastic to the north waters

[thorn trail]

there is a LOT of oil there, i'm running 2400 aluminum, 900/900 plastic/rubber, as well as oil diamonds from there

[deft lichen]

Looks clean, only the pipe splits too soon unnecessarily

[tulip portal]

Ya true lol

[thorn trail]

plus rubber/plastic only need oil/water, so they can be made more places

[low vigil]

Ah they don't?

[low vigil]

Is that why my pipeline math isn't lining up?

3 extractor should power 8 generators but that's not what I'm seeing happen in real time

Ah nvm just needed to wait for the manifold to fill up

That's 8/16, maybe 32, done today

[opaque quartz]

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=juyxBGaIX1qLiP0k8bnu

[low vigil]

Yeah I stopped at 16, that's a gigawatt added to my power grid

Was lucky enough to find a pure coal vein so I'm using the shit outta that

[umbral barn]

can you turn all of the uranium in the world into ficsonium or is there a limit? (i havent used any sam btw)

[twin fractal]

Is there a website with layouts for production, load balancers, manifolds?

Kinda like how Builderment has a wiki for it

[umbral barn]

thats a thing? I've just been manifolding everything

[unique cypress]

Theoretically, yes

Practically, you either can't have anything else in the world, or have to deliberately waste uranium or uranium products so you end up with less Ficsonium Rods

[umbral barn]

well i do enjoy having other things in my world and dont wanna dedicate the whole save just to make power for nothing

tbh i kinda just dont wanna make ficsonium at all

is it even worth it?

[unique cypress]

Hell no

It's so fucking expensive that I don't know why it even exists with these recipes

[unique cypress]

Exactly what I thought like 4 months ago

And that's why I'll be releasing my mod around 1.1's release, and it adds alts to make Ficsonium cheaper but even more difficult to make

So if you want, you can use that lol. Mostly made it for myself but there's no reason not to make it public

Even with it, it's still not "worth it" imo, but at least it's not as atrocious as vanilla

[opaque quartz]

Just make plutonium rods and sink them (or use them in vehicles waste-free)

[unique cypress]

Couldn't make my recipes much cheaper because then they'd become too good unfortunately

[opaque quartz]

You’ll get plenty of power just from burning uranium rods. Doing the full ficsonium chain is a fun challenge but not really “worth it” otherwise due to how resource hungry it is

[umbral barn]

idek how to mod the game and I dont even know what kind of mods I'll want after i beat the game

[unique cypress]

Installing mods other people made is thankfully a lot easier than making your own mod. Just install Satisfactory Mod Manager, download the mods you want, enable them and launch the game

[umbral barn]

Making anything sucks in terms of just the programming cries in actively making a new game engine for my own games

[warm wren]

No no, I know about the tools. There is for instance a chart I've seen for exact ratios for various things, I thought I had one for sloppy/electrode, I have one for sloppy/regular alum scrap 🤔

[opaque quartz]

Oh, it’s on the wiki. It’s pretty easy to work out tho

!wikisearch alumina+solution

[brisk shore]

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/index.php?search=alumina+solution

[opaque quartz]

One sloppy alumina refinery at 90% will take 180 fresh water
The other two sloppy refineries clocked at 105% each take 210 waste water each (420 total)

[unique cypress]

Making a basic recipe mod like I'm doing doesn't even involve writing any code. It's just unreal editor stuff. It still took me like 40 hours. To add 10 recipes. Half of that was balancing them, though

[umbral barn]

damm, speaking of mods, do you know of any mods like Satisfactory+ (if there isnt going to be a version of SF+ for 1.1) coming out for 1.1?

[unique cypress]

Afaik SF+ currently overhauls 2/3 of the game, currently doesn't work on 1.1 experimental and when it's released for 1.1 stable, it likely still won't have all the content

The only overhaul mod I know of is refined power, but as the name suggests, it only affects power generation

[umbral barn]

well i just wanna make the game way harder/more complex and as far as i know SF+ is the only mod for that

[unique cypress]

There's also more milestones or something like that

There should also be something that increases unlock costs 100x or something. That should be decently hard, no?

[umbral barn]

increasing unlock costs just means i need more shit but wont change the unlock reqs, makes early game more monotonous, but after coal it just means wait longer for your stockpile to get bigger

[vapid gorge]

I'm pretty sure there's a mod that just lets you create recipes in game in a few moments

[unique cypress]

Found it and yeah, like I expected, it's not what I want. No way to set unlock conditions (as far as I can tell) and no way to share the recipes

And no support for 1.0 machines or for byproducts

[prisma kraken]

what sort of power output does train's regenerative braking give off?

5-10 MW?

[vapid gorge]

pretty sure a lot more down steep hills

I was thinking of making a regenerative train power system by hooking up augmenters

[prisma kraken]

i don't think it's worth it, but actually needed to jiggle the handle on some fuel gens, so turned off all the geotherm and started seeing the effect of the train braking. seemed to be in the range I listed

[vapid gorge]

worth it? no. Funny? hell yes

[prisma kraken]

i'm not sure you could properly harness it, honestly

[vapid gorge]

repeated up and down hills with multiple trains could do it I think.

[prisma kraken]

if you ever figure that one out, let me know, lol

yeah, but you need to put power in for the trains to run

[vapid gorge]

kick start it with bio burners, have power storage to catch the excess power from the braking

[prisma kraken]

if you make it work, i'll be interested in seeing it, but atm i have 5 apa's and the amout it generates seems to be less than a bio burner's worth of power

[vapid gorge]

should be +50% of whatever your power station is making, no?

[prisma kraken]

yeah it is, just like the amount from the train braking is so small

[vapid gorge]

I could have sworn the regen breaking was a lot more than that

[prisma kraken]

i think the only reason i even noticed it is b/c i have 5 apa's going

[analog plover]

kinetic energy? another battery solution? just trains running around, if only we also had Factorio style logic gates

[prisma kraken]

nah, just double checked, it's like 5-10mw blips for a second when a train is braking

[vapid gorge]

why? also yo ucan make them in satisfactory but they are pointless

[vapid gorge]

wiki says 33mw from braking, but the train uses 25mw

BUT... the +% from the APAs should be increasing the 33mw portion, not what is left over

[prisma kraken]

well, 33 - 25 is in the range i listed

[analog plover]

well you'd have a logic gate that would output electricity to the track with forever kinetic train rollercoaster only if the speed of the train falls below a certain point, otherwise you'd be draining energy out of a couple batteries setup there, and when those run out you'd still have the train goin at full speed for a little, i.e. - a kinetic battery

[spring palm]

coal generator. so it randomly trips. it only has 5 mk 1 miners attached currently.

Not sure if related, but maybe. i don't understand water. but my water pipe has enough pumps on it, and they're all a couple metres below the highlighted blue area where you place the next one, just to be safe. but it takes forever for my pipes to fill back up after i flush them. forever! like a good couple minutes

[vapid gorge]

it only uses power to accelerate + it's base power requirement anyway

[prisma kraken]

incidentally, the reason i even started looking at power is that i noticed some fuel gens cutting in & out. seems after a few 100 hrs, the filled pipes didn't have enough in them anymore. I'm guessing there's a really small precision error in piping calcs

[analog plover]

afaik the speed depends on the amount of water, the closer to max capacity in the pipe - the faster it flows

[vapid gorge]

how much water are you feeding in that pipe?

[spring palm]

1 main pump thingy in the water. but the other coal gens are on standby

[vapid gorge]

and the one generator isn't getting enough water? the pipes seem full

is it connected to yoru factory?

[spring palm]

idk what the issue is, but the fuse blows randomly and repeats that

[analog plover]

what if you didn't want it to accelerate at all until it falls below a certain speed? like if there's a speed range close to max where it would still be moving through the rollercoaster without accelerating

[spring palm]

coal gennie is powering 5 mk1 miners

[vapid gorge]

ok disconnect your power station from everything except it's own miner and the water extractor

[vapid gorge]

you would need a fully different mod to completely alter train behaviour

and then I wouldn't care because it's so far outside what satisfactory is that this conversation is pointless.

[spring palm]

its now disconnected from the power circuit. just has the conveyor with coal and water pipe attached now

[vapid gorge]

cool, kick start it with bio burners

[analog plover]

nah, Factorio style logic gates could do it, what's the problem of sending/receiving direct signals to and from trains on a powered track?

[vapid gorge]

but trains run as a continuous system. If you mod the game to be factorio and enjoy it, go for it, but this conversation is now pointless as it's no longer satisfactory, and I don't want to play factorio

factorio can diaf

[analog plover]

trains don't need to stop working like they do, you can get inside the train and accelerate/decelerate at will

that functionality is already in the game

[vapid gorge]

I don't care. This game isn't factorio and that's what I love about it. This conversation is pointless.

I don't care about 'what if this game was factorio' arguments

[analog plover]

i mean ok

[spring palm]

im not doubting you, but what does this do?:P and its done, its noisy, using coal and water but putting no power out obviously as its still only attached to bio reactor

[vapid gorge]

it's often hard to restart a power station while it's connected to a factory.

[vapid gorge]

wdym no power?

if the 1 coal gen is running it should be putting out 75mw

[spring palm]

sorry. im dumb. looked at wrong number

[vapid gorge]

ah now connect it to yoru miner and water extractor

It's generally good practice to have a power station as it's own grid, with 1 power line out to power your factory. That way you can manage it much more cleanly and cut off power when needed

[spring palm]

ohh, ok. i had water extractor running on bio just incase it caused issues. will do the own grid thing!

do i leave the bio reactor attached and running to the coal?

[vapid gorge]

well they won't burn unless you go over yoru power limit

ok next step.

how much does each coal gen use in water pm, and how much does 1 water extractor output pm?

[spring palm]

sorry, did lots of running around :p

so not sure. it could only be coal or water being the issue why it blew a fuse. coal was fine, there's lots of that. so that leaves water and there should be enough flow for 6 coal generators

[vapid gorge]

again - how much does 1 water extractor output, how much does 1 coal gen need?

[spring palm]

300-600m3 a minute for water extractor output, coal gen needs 50m3. noooo. that's wrong? was i looking at the wrong numbers again? it puts out 120m3 a minute?

[vapid gorge]

yes 120 a min from 1 extractor
and a coal gen needs 45 pm

so you don't even have enough for those 3 coal gens

[spring palm]

gah. rookie mistake. many thanks. makes sense it hasnt tripped since i shut the other 2 down

[vapid gorge]

ok next thing you're not going to like

you're going to want to move and rebuild your power system 😛

[spring palm]

uh oh, why's that? although i did just remove my main base as it was a mess and i didnt need bio fuel stuff anymore

[vapid gorge]

redoing your starter base after bio burners is pretty normal. Finished with the pre tutorial

as for the why, well you're going ot need a lot more power, and using nearby coal for steel is more useful

you're proably in the grassy field with a small pond as a water source and dragging coal a ways to it?

[spring palm]

there's a big lake in a crater type thing, thats where i get it from. coal travels a looooong way to get up that hill out of the crater. but i have just unlocked the car thing, so that may help in the future for further away things

[vapid gorge]

it's it a big lake past a cliff?

to the north?

[spring palm]

north, yep. 2 coal nodes down there and some ores i can't use yet

[vapid gorge]

You like making life hard on yourself 😛

that's the beginner's spot for coal power. Just burn it there. No reason to move either coal or water

use all 4 nodes for power

[spring palm]

yea, i didn't think about burning it there >.<

would be a tonne easier

[vapid gorge]

common rookie mistake 🙂

but you will want all 4 nodes dedicated for power. It's pretty common to have 48-64 coal gens before doing a serious fuel power station

my 96 machines

[spring palm]

4, hmm, i saw 2 but didn't look closely. So i'll demolish it all and just power up down there, thanks! easier and less messy too

dang 😮

[vapid gorge]

!wikisearch CG

[brisk shore]

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

[vapid gorge]

these are simple beginner friendly coal layouts.

3 water extractors to 8 gens match the numbers pefectly, and need 1x mk2 belt of coal each

just make groups of these and you'll be good.

also build on foundations

this may sound silly and obvious, but pipes aren't belts. You can slap belts around and they'll do whatever you like. pipes aren't like that

[spring palm]

as in they don't lay how you want them to unless its on a foundation?

ahh, gotcha. many thanks!

[amber umbra]

The idea is pipes are more "finicky" than belts. So it's good to follow the best practices to avoid them having unexpected issues. Hence, "just build on foundations".

Mainly that pipes care about elevation with the head lift thing. So it simplifies to build on foundations as you can trivially guarantee the same elevation for everything.

[spring palm]

Ah, understood. Many thanks!

[umbral barn]

are there any buildings that need the pressure conversion cube or fused frames?

or can i just act like they dont exist until i need to do bs with them for builds

[amber umbra]

Satisfactory tools -> codex -> items -> item name. It lists what all the uses are for any item.

Really nnice for planning at that stage of the game.

[umbral barn]

i know

also is the alternate for plutonium fuel rods worth it?

I've been told pcc sucks

[amber umbra]

Essentially every alt has a niche, so yes/no depending on your needs.

[umbral barn]

well im talking in general since it seems like everyone and their mother uses this shit

[amber umbra]

Tldr for nuclear power generation afaik is to be resource efficient pre-waste then resource innefficeient for processing waste.

So whichever alts do that.

[vapid gorge]

yeah pipes have gravity flow, and keeping them tidy is one of the basics for managing it

[umbral barn]

iirc this doesnt apply for gas tho?

[vapid gorge]

gas has it's own flow issues in which shape is less important but still need to keep it tidy and clean. few mergers and splits

it tries to equalise between sections

basically treat gas like liquid

[fierce ruin]

scam promoter

[opaque quartz]

<@&387163995947270144>

Thank you

[crimson moat]

Version: 415558, IsEditor: No, IsPerforceBuild: No, BuildConfiguration: Shipping, Launcher: Steam, NetMode: Listen Server, IsUsingMods: No, IsSaveGameEdited: No

Fatal error: [File:D:\BuildAgent\work\SM_BT\UE4\Engine\Source\Runtime\CoreUObject\Private\UObject\UObjectArray.cpp] [Line: 534] Maximum number of UObjects (2162688) exceeded when trying to add 1 object(s), make sure you update MaxObjectsInGame/MaxObjectsInEditor/MaxObjectsInProgram in project settings.

Here we go

Like 15% of the way through world resource usage lol

[prisma kraken]

so i've been doing a lot of train work to move ores around, and in order to give my trains a bit more distance, have adopted a 5 car length for them. In doing so, splitting the output from miners has been tricky and i didn't want to use a 5-way feedback splitter for 1200 lines. to evenly split 2 miners output between 5 train cars, i found that this works pretty nicely

[unique cypress]

a 2:5 balancer isn't that hard to make

and I kinda doubt you're loading the wagons equally with this setup

[outer vale]

nope, that'd be 600, 300, 600, 300, 600

unless that's using specifically mk4 belts nah even that's not quite gonna work on the inner splitters, would need to split into 3, 2 one way and 1 into the merger

[unique cypress]

With mk4 and smart splitters with priority to the platform, it'd work

But it still wouldn't load equally until the belts saturated

Idk how much that matters though

[wind spade]

@molten raft for your alt recipe lists:

all alternate recipes are useful in some scenarios, so pick whatever you feel like using. There's no recipe that is "always good", and there is no recipe that is "always bad". It also depends a lot on combinations of recipes, so a single recipe rarely tells the full story. And finally, you can get all the recipes anyway, so the choice doesn't matter that much.

[white bloom]

@unique cypress @outer vale as long as the outgoing belts are MK4s, moonchild's setup is perfectly fine and balances the outputs correctly immediately, what are you talking about?

[frosty owl]

The only waiting time needed would be for the smart splitters' overflow inventories to fill up (3 items per splitter)

[white bloom]

don't even need smart splitters for this, ordinary ones suffice

a splitters buffer is 10 items iirc, it's 1200 ipm, you need to "wait" 0.5 seconds lol

[wind spade]

afaik it was 9 items, but maybe got changed?

[white bloom]

something like that yeah

[frosty owl]

True, but then you'd have to wait for one belt (per side) to back up (the ones leading the the merger)
BTW, splitters/mergers buffer 1 item per output. So 3 and 1 items respectively

[frosty owl]

Tbf, I'm not sure wether the overflow buffer specifically still holds up to 9 items...

[white bloom]

all of this is practically instant. It's negligible compared to the time it takes you to move your mouse cursor to point and place the splitters and connect them with belts

[low vigil]

Even .5 seconds is an inefficiency that could get exasperated down the line

[white bloom]

No. Because anything that balances it better will take more than .5 seconds longer to build

therefore, this is the optimal solution if you're concerned with minimizing the delay

[frosty owl]

They haven't said the solution is bad. Just pointed out that the "not exactly instant" part may not be negligeable for everyone ^^

[unique cypress]

Right, it's symmetrical so it should work without smart splitters. But this kinda thing doesn't always work. Mergers take equally from both sides, so unless they get equal amounts, you aren't going to get the distribution you expect

[white bloom]

it's not a logically consistent stance to take. someone who values the delay until items are running through at the correct rates that highly should still prefer moonchild's solution over anything else because it's faster to build by more than the miniscule time that belt and splitter/merger buffers take to fill up.

also this critique of it is still ignoring the fact that a better balanced solution would almost certainly have longer belt running times, which also introduces a delay that's likely greater than the belt/splitter/merger buffering

[unique cypress]

Both are equally fast to build when pasted from a blueprint

[frosty owl]

Nobody mentioned choosing one solution over another, just that the time needed for the system to work as intended (albeit small) may not be "negligeable" for everyone. Depending on nerdiness the precision and number of systems involved, such delays can pile up and cause unwanted results

[white bloom]

The point is that with 5 outgoing belts with 480 capacity matching the input capacity, the output of that belt network is virtually guaranteed to be balanced as long as you don't stall either input belt (which moonchild's solution does not)

[white bloom]

Not quite, to build something larger you likely need to move around your player character more, which takes a bit of additional time. Plus you likely don't have a blueprint set up for it either, or you needed to create the blueprint at some point in the first place which took different amounts of time then that you can't catch up even when using it in 20 places

[white bloom]

They were criticizing moonchild's solution which implies there is in any sense a better way to do it, but there is not. It wasn't justified critique so that needed rectification

[unique cypress]

This solution only works for loading 2 1200 belts into 5 wagons. A 2:5 balancer could load any 2 belts into 5 wagons

Also, with unequal input belt lengths, you'd load slightly more items into 3 front/back wagons, which is bad for departing when full

A supply interruption of one of the miners also won't unbalance a balancer

[vapid gorge]

it would be meaningless
platforms hold more items than train cars, all that would happen is that the outer platforms would have a handful more items than the middle

[unique cypress]

If a train is set to only depart when empty/full, it'll only depart when all platforms are empty/full. It's departure time is decided by the slowest wagon

[vapid gorge]

yes, and the cars will fill up before the platforms, thus theres no issue unless you don't have enough throughput

[unique cypress]

I don't know why you're bringing up platforms. If you're using all the items you're putting onto the train, they'll never fill up. Just get to 32 stacks and then transfer onto the train

The train will arrive, the faster platform will have 32 stacks, but the slower won't and it'll have to wait more than the bare minimum

Granted, it doesn't matter unless you're right at the limit, but it's absolutely an issue you could have

And if the imbalance is large, it creates a lot more significant delay

[frosty owl]

I didn't read it as a critique, just an observation 🤷‍♂️
If one cares "that much" about having the same amount of items in each freight, there are better solutions to be found (eg: actual balancers, making sure belts have the same length etc)

[vapid gorge]

because the platforms hold more than the train cars
if you wait until they are full and you have enough throughput, the absolute worst that will happen is the outer platforms will hold a handful of items.

if you don't have enough throughput yes there will be a problem, but there'll be a problem even if you start the feeds evenly.

i have no idea what issue you think there could be

[frail sigil]

Are malls standard practice in satisfactory?

[robust raptor]

If you mean a mall as in a place where buildings are built, no, because you don't make the buildings themselves in satisfactory like in other factory games, just the components

If you mean a mall as in a central storage where all the components are brought to for you to pick up, that was more common before 1.0, but nowadays DDs allow you to not have to do that

So either way, a "mall" is either non-existent or not necessary

Although you can still build a central storage / construction train if you like that kind of thing

[vapid gorge]

not really. Even before you had access to dimensional depots mechanically they took a lot more time to build and plan than just using a quick hyper tube to get things. Build them if you think they are cool

[wind spade]

not really, given we have dimensional depots

[prisma kraken]

they can still be useful, but nowadays in the game with the DD's having the mall distributed between factories is considerably less logistics work

my early game builds for this playthrough all exported stuff via truck station and after components got rounded up, they dumped into an autosorter that filled containers in a mini-mall of sorts. most more distributed factories i have have the upper level components going to a dim depot before even hitting a train line

[unique cypress]

Even before DDs, I never built a mall. I did basically what I'm doing now, except instead of having the materials teleported to me whenever I need them, I'd add all the machines to the to-do list and then hypertube back and forth between the new factory location and the factory where said materials were produced

[wind spade]

before DD malls were pretty cool, especially in combination with construction train

[amber umbra]

@prisma kraken Nice double sided manifold loading of trains. Good stuff. Really don’t see much discussion of more advanced train loading setups.

[prisma kraken]

thanks. i really am opting for some out-of-the-box balancing solutions just because the ore volumes i'm moving are so large and my experience with feedback balancers just makes me not wish to use them unless there's other ways

[flat trail]

trains are bad

kilometer long belts are clearly the better option

[soft wing]

but trains go choo and are fun

[amber umbra]

Fair. My understanding from Factorio station setups is the upside of using balancers for even loading is faster loading speed especially for long trains; that gives effectively more station buffer time which can be useful for fewer trains needed. Satisfactory often uses short trains which don’t really show the benefit of balanced loading.

[prisma kraken]

well, even better is daisy chaining storage crates so you get the items insta-teleport between the in & out ports to speed their transit

[flat trail]

what you can do that?

[flat trail]

yea..

not wrong lol

[prisma kraken]

what i'm doing is rounding up the bulk of the worlds quartz for purification and feeding a 600 line out of each train recieving platform, as such, grooming the the sender's input to the proper rate makes sense to me

[unique cypress]

Feedback balancers are often built by people who don't know how they work. And then you end up with one that can only handle 5/6 of a full belt

But if built correctly, it's just a balancer like any other

[prisma kraken]

well yeah, you have to be mindful of constructing them to not exceed belt speeds, but in addition, they're computationally expensive

[amber umbra]

Mhm. Seems like a fun project moonchild. Guess the other thing that kinda discourages balancers in satisfactory is that you need stations directly paired with other stations. So if you need to fiddle with stations anyway, it maybe pushes away from an “it always works” style setup that balancers can give.

[unique cypress]

Computationally expensive?

[prisma kraken]

i don't want 12k/min of ore flowing through 5-way balancers

[unique cypress]

Idk how that makes any difference, but my suggestion would be to just use an even number of wagons

That's what I do

[prisma kraken]

every time a belt is split the game needs to do a computation as to which output to send it

[amber umbra]

If balancers, choosing train sizes based on what balancers are especially nice, convenient makes sense.

[prisma kraken]

feedback balancers require things to loop indeterminently through them (i assume upper end is probably 3 transits), but that's more computation

[unique cypress]

I do the same in factories. If I end up with something inconvenient like a 4:5 as a bare minimum, I try to make it more convenient.

[prisma kraken]

yeah, as i mention, i've been using a 5 carraige size for this project for a number of other reasons, and i do think it is the right choice, balancing 5-way is just the problem that needed solving for the decision

[amber umbra]

Mhm. Always tradeoffs of course.

[unique cypress]

I've been using balancers for years and only recently built my first 4:5

[prisma kraken]

my first thought was to use 4 cars of 600/min, but looking at the distances, upping it to 5 cars extended the route range before needing a second train

sidenote: while we've been calling what my OP was speaking of a balancer, it really is a balanced splitter instead of true balancer

true balancers have the property of evenly distributing inputs at different rates evenly between all outputs. my designs assume constant input rates

not many use-cases in SF for true balancers since input rates can always be controlled

[unique cypress]

but with a balancer, they don't need to be controlled

as long as I balance the belts, I can slap together whatever I want and not care how many items are on each belt

[prisma kraken]

yeah, there's benefits to them, i'll agree. in the DSP early game, i use them to mine more evenly and extend patches lifespan. I understand factorio favors similar ideas. In SF, there's just not a lot of uses for true balancers however

[flat trail]

balancer are for lazy people

[prisma kraken]

i think it's a lot of extra work and space for something that doesn't solve the problem at hand

don't get me wrong, i use them when i need them

[unique cypress]

well, then you'd be mostly wrong. they take up space yes, but making a blueprint for each of the common sizes and then pasting them over and over is very quick. and they solve a lot of my problems. because I don't have to do a lot of math to make a multi-belt setup work. I just need to stay within belt limits and that's it

[umbral barn]

Like liquid without head lift-

[prisma kraken]

i would agree with you if the volumes in the game were larger or more variable, but they aren't

[unique cypress]

the volumes can be large if you want them to be

I balanced 20 mk5 belts of quickwire for my nuclear plant in U8

[amber umbra]

The station pic from moonchild is just manifold fed station. Essentially everything belt is either exactly a balancer or its manifold.

[unique cypress]

nah, there's some stuff that isn't either

[amber umbra]

Feel free to give definitions, examples 👍

[unique cypress]

ratio splitters

[wind spade]

those are balancers

3:5 ratio splitter = 3:5 balancer

[unique cypress]

tf are you on about?

[amber umbra]

Just define terms please, etc.

[unique cypress]

a 3:5 tratio splitter takes 1 belt and spits out 2, with a 3:5 ratio between them

a 3:5 balancer takes 3 belts of input and 5 belts of output, and every input is connected to every output

[amber umbra]

Hmm. Yea, not a balancer. Sure, seems worth being considered a unique subset of manifolds just like balancers are a subset of manifolds.

Maybe terminology would be ideally more distinct to avoid confusion. 3:5 3:5

[wind spade]

that's a balancer with 8 outputs

3:5

ratio

[unique cypress]

I'd say if anything, manifolds are a subset of balancers. Every input is connected to every output but not with equal priority

if you build it like that, then it contains a 1:8 balancer. but it isn't one, and you don't have to build it that way

[amber umbra]

Without crisp definitions kinda a “sure I guess”.

I consider manifolds the more general “it’s just belts” category.

[wind spade]

balancer can output in different ratio than 1:1 🤷

[unique cypress]

then a manifold is a balancer

[wind spade]

no, because manifold relies on overflow

while balancer works 100% of the time

[unique cypress]

I mean I'm fine with that but it's not a very useful definition

[amber umbra]

We are seeing why I requested crisp definitions from the start.

[wind spade]

which is what I'd define as the difference - does it rely on overflow or not

[unique cypress]

if a belt fills up on a balancer, it'll overflow too

[wind spade]

"does it rely on overflow to reach the desired functionality"
yes? manifold
no? balancer

[amber umbra]

That’s a good consideration for the definition, yup

[unique cypress]

but then you define based on use

and not structure

[amber umbra]

Yea

[unique cypress]

I'd say the definition should be based on structure

[wind spade]

the whole "point" of balancers is to get rid of the "wait for fill up" point, so I'd disagree, the difference is the functionality

[unique cypress]

would you call this a manifold then?

[wind spade]

what is its desired functionality?

[unique cypress]

balance belts

[wind spade]

define "balance"

[unique cypress]

items from any input can end up on any output

with equal priority

[wind spade]

does it work like that as soon as you put items in? or does it have to fill up first?

[unique cypress]

depends where I put it

for filling a train, it works instantly

but for emptying, it depends on the pull from the outputs

and what about this?

is that a manifold when put on a bus in Factorio?

[wind spade]

that's a balancer

[unique cypress]

and a balancer when used on a train?

[wind spade]

al;ways balancer

and shouldn't be on a bus

[unique cypress]

this is the same, but 4:3, instead of 4:4

[unique cypress]

but can be

[amber umbra]

Balancers do often have caveats on their functionality for balancing function. My classic description for train context was “balancer needs either all inputs supplied or all outputs consumed” for it to just work. Otherwise gets into the weeds of universal balancers, etc.

[wind spade]

but always is a balancer

so is your 4:3

[unique cypress]

then so is this

but when I pull unequally from it, it has to fill up to function

which is why your definition is incorrect

the object doesn't change depending on where I put it and how I use it.

so the name shouldn't either

the factorio definition of a balancer is "every input connected to every output"

[amber umbra]

My point from above is that balancers act as a balancer when you use them right. Most balancers don’t work with all permutations of inputs, outputs, etc. Does point to balancers being based more on supply balanced outputs or balanced consumption not just the design inherently being a balancer.

[unique cypress]

equal priority of inputs and outputs is almost always included, but I've seen weird prime ones that didn't have it

[wind spade]

that's not relevant to its function

[amber umbra]

It gets weird, messy

[wind spade]

Most balancers don’t work with all permutations of inputs, outputs, etc
then you're not building true balancers 😉

[unique cypress]

A TU balancer works with all possible ratios

and a universal one retains equal priority with clogged outputs and empty inputs

[amber umbra]

Let’s just avoid diving into the details. Balancer vs input balancer vs output balancer vs TU balancer vs universal balancer. It’s a lot.

[unique cypress]

well, you said that if it needs to overflow to work, it's a manifold