math-and-meta

[wind spade]

why no?

[analog ruin]

12.5 is the cap with only normal battery

i don't use sommersloop

[wind spade]

multiple machines

[analog ruin]

naaah i know that this is possible but idk how

i don't want to add another assembler

[wind spade]

clock one to make 10, clock two other to make 15 in total

[wind spade]

then use single splitter to split it

[analog ruin]

yes i know that answer but i dont want to

[analog ruin]

it will give me 12.5 12.5

[unique cypress]

Smart splitter can also work when a regular doesn't

[wind spade]

and what happens if you feed 12.5 to a machine that only needs 10?

[analog ruin]

this break my ratio because i want to produce 10/min reinforced plate to stock
and 15/min to produce modular frame at 10/min

[wind spade]

smart splitter then

[analog ruin]

i'm trying to compact as much as i can

this is my last step

i'm 100h only...

[wind spade]

no reason to compact imo, map is huge

[analog ruin]

...

the game is such a mind-breaker, it is fun to try these type of "challenge" u know

that's y im playing tho

[wind spade]

sure, just saying

you can probably do a balancer but tbh it will take similar space to the extra assembler you could build to resolve it

with all the limitations you've set for yourself, smart splitter is probably best choice

[analog ruin]

aaaaaaaargh 😂

[wind spade]

smart splitter is single splitter to resolve it 🙂

[analog ruin]

but i cant set ratio on smart splitter idk how to setup it

[wind spade]

no, just give priority to the side that needs 15

overflow will go to storage

[analog ruin]

yes but to work it need to fill up the entire assembler of mod frame in order to have my 10/min reinforced plate stockage

am i right?

[wind spade]

yeah

or just hand-feed it

[analog ruin]

🤷 ima try to

[wind spade]

or use any of the other solutions I've given you 😉

honestly I think best is to clock machines to make exact amounts, makes things super simple

[analog ruin]

yea i know but i just dont want to add an extra assembler

[wind spade]

at some point you'll need to, anyway 😉 but yeah, as I said, it's just the simplest option, but not the only one

[lone igloo]

I think ama try transporting gas and oil via a train to grass lands to make a massive facility. What do you think can I pull it off?

[deft lichen]

gas and oil?

like nitrogen gas?

[lone igloo]

yeah

Oil from the Islands and Nitrogen gas from Dune forest

or Dangle Spires

[deft lichen]

jungle spires, there's no such thing

I mean, if you want to, sure

[deft lichen]

use trains

[lone igloo]

I got a question to ask about train tho which is kinda bothering me hard.

[deft lichen]

@pulsar stratus this is supposed to be Jungle Spires

[deft lichen]

if it's complicated, post in #1038092680493801533

[lone igloo]

If I have facility that uses idk like 1800 iron and I have 3 normal nodes giving me 1800 ore will train ever keep up with demand for 100% if I load like 4 carts at once evenly split or use 2 trains of 4 carts to evenly ditrubute the ore. Just for example.

[deft lichen]

that depends on how long it takes to complete the route

4 freight cars * 32 slots * 100 stack size = 12800 items

without accounting for lockout that's 7 minutes (12800/1800), with lockout it's probably about 6 minutes (I don't want to do the complicated math)

for a round trip, not just one way

[lone igloo]

Yeah see this is where I get kinda stuck

I got everything above with ease but its the whole 5 minutes for whole train to load but that means for buffers to fill it also takes 5 minutes

[deft lichen]

the easiest solution would be to add more freight cars

[unique cypress]

*32 slots

[pulsar stratus]

Was it before?

[deft lichen]

I keep forgetting if it's 32/48 or 24/32 for some reason

[deft lichen]

when creating the biome map on the wiki for the first time, we misread the dev map

and mistakenly labeled it as dangle spires instead of jungle spires

[lone igloo]

would having more than 1 train for same resource going at once and only allowing it to load for idk 1minute and set off and while that one is making it way to the facility the 2nd one is loading for 1 minute and going or will I end up with the same result as just having like 8 carts?

[unique cypress]

There's a page on the wiki for that

!wikisearch tutorial:train+throughput

[brisk shore]

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/index.php?search=tutorial:train+throughput

[deft lichen]

the wiki page explains it thoroughly but I still feel like the answer gets lost in the sauce

[unique cypress]

I made my own calculator lol

Before I knew the wiki page existed

Somehow got everything right

[deft lichen]

it should solve for "I have X items/min, how many freight cars do I need for Y round trip" or "I have X items/min, what's the max round trip for Z freight cars"

that's the most common problem people want to solve for

[unique cypress]

I just have a desmos graph that plots throughput vs RTT for different train settings and setups

And sliders for stack size, belt speed, number of wagons and number of trains

[lone igloo]

the freight/fluid platform blocks all in-and outputs for 27.08 seconds DAMM its that LONG 😯

[unique cypress]

And that's why you can't get 2 full belts per platform unfortunately

[lone igloo]

Why is the animation that long tho damm.

so basically I should kinda scrap the idea of perfect 100% factory performance and just setup couple trains and go with it. As kinda CBA to solve anything like this ngl. ahaha

[unique cypress]

As long as the trains aren't a bottleneck, the factory they're supplying can absolutely run at 100%

[lone igloo]

I feel like my trains will be the bottleneck as I want to send only the needed resources to the facility and the rest can go somewhere else or I can just over send some.

[unique cypress]

Then only put the needed resources into the train?

[lone igloo]

I will try that 1st and if they're bottleneck just add more ahah.

[unique cypress]

4 wagons is enough for 1800 ore/min at a round trip time of less than ~7 mins

[lone igloo]

Ty 🙂 its 100% less than 7 minutes

[dusky dust]

Any of the available logistics methods (trains included) can be built out to support whatever throughput requirement you need. There are some limitations inherent to all of them -- for trains, it's mostly that you might have to use more cars.

For solids, you use an ISC in front of the platform to help even out the loading/unloading delays, though as mentioned, you cannot get a full 2x belt throughput with a single car. You can absolutely get full 2x belt throughput with two cars, though

All the logistics options have at least some learning curve, of course. If you CBA (your phrasing, not mine. ) to take the effort to go through that, then yeah, there are simpler options out there. (Not trying to be dismissive or rude, just acknowledging that some folks might not want to put in that effort. :)

[lone igloo]

I usually mainly build x2 or x4 carts for trains as I'm aware of the x1 carts issue from previouse PLs.

[dusky dust]

I tend to just do 1 belt == 1 train car, but I admit that leads to longer trains than necessary in many circumstances. :P

[lone igloo]

I just kept reading on the wiki and I want to try keep this in mind If trip ≥ buffer-fill time → train always leaves full, fast turnaround.

[unique cypress]

You can get 1.9933 belts in/out tho

If they're mk1

And the stack size is 500

And you can maintain that at round trip time of up to 2h

The bare minimum you can guarantee is 1.1926 belts per platform with mk6 belts and stack size 50

[crimson moat]

1 belt is nice and clean for margin IMO

[unique cypress]

fun fact: with a 1773/min belt or faster, you could no longer get 1 full belt per platform at stack size 50

and with a 17725/min belt, the same is true for stack size 500

[dusky dust]

Oh yeah, for sure; if you limit yourself to one belt per car you're definitely losing out on throughput-per-car

[balmy sandal]

So I'm making a BP that makes 300 Aluminium ingots. I'm using sloppy alumina and pure ingots. To deal with the waste water from the scrap (it is producing 200) I have fed that into a single refiner that requires 200 water (making alumina). in theory this means that it will work. There is a second refiner for alumina solution in the setup. If I plug everything in. will it gradually spin up to provid3e the full 200 for the refiner or do I need to jump start it somehow?

[dusky dust]

It'll eventually fill itself up, but I do recommend flooding the "recycled" pipes (and the input buffers of the recycled-water-intake machine(s)) with water before starting things up, just so the system comes up at near-100% efficiency right away

[frigid maple]

all this for modular frames 🥲

10/min

[balmy sandal]

So temporarily hook up an extractor to the water recycle pipe to fill it up before I start?

[dusky dust]

Yeah; I usually just use the same extractors I was gonna use for the ones taking in fresh water

[balmy sandal]

the numbers in this bp are very precise and its making me nervous. to get the 400 I need I have one underclocked to make up what I need from the one that's just taking the 200 water. I have hooked the one using the recycled water closer to the one making the scrap so hopefully it will prioritize that one in outputting alumina. because if it backs up for any reason the whole thing will shut down. I dont have room for a buffer though.

[balmy sandal]

I managed to add a fluid buffer. I don't think I'll fill it but it will at least handle any sloshing

[balmy sandal]

it is situated higher than the refiners and regular pipe

[dusky dust]

Yeah, when splitting liquid byproduct, you'll often need to underclock to make sure the numbers work out

I'd recommend not using a buffer, btw -- at best it doesn't cause problems, and at worst it does cause problems, or even mask problems so they don't show up until hours later

[balmy sandal]

Willl it not prevent like a temporary back up in the pipes while I'm starting up?

[dusky dust]

Sort of no matter what you do there's likely to at least be some minor hiccups while things are starting up. I personally don't sweat it; I just babysit the factory for a little bit if need be, until things are running smoothly

[dusky bronze]

like this @autumn kayak

[autumn kayak]

thanks that's about wha i had in mind

just wanted to confirm before i got my research

[balmy sandal]

cool thanks!

[woven stirrup]

some of those belts are not straight and it bothers me

[cosmic zinc]

which do you prefer i need the least complicated but somewhat good recipe

[sour bison]

Whats the best recipe for heavy modular frames at phase 3?

[sour bison]

get the stitched iron plate alternate

[unique cypress]

I use default RCUs

[cosmic zinc]

i prefer this one its easy and resource eficcent

[cosmic zinc]

thank you

[unique cypress]

Heavy Encased Frame. only. never use default
flexible is serviceable, but I wouldn't recommend it

[sour bison]

well anything to mutilate screws obviously but I was wondering which recipe to use

[woven stirrup]

with other alts you get hmf with only concrete and iron

[sour bison]

and coal, no?

[woven stirrup]

no

[sour bison]

for steel

[unique cypress]

iron pipe and you don't need coal

[sour bison]

i thought the ratio on iron pipe was terrible

[woven stirrup]

but tbf a lot of iron

[unique cypress]

it's really not

[sour bison]

also whats the best thing I can sink for points other than alien dna?

[unique cypress]

the most complicated item you can make is always worth the most points

[sour bison]

computers?

i already have caterium computer automated

[woven stirrup]

the elevator parts

[sour bison]

i have like 10k versatile framework

[sour bison]

redid my turbo plant

[floral mica]

tip that helped me with turbofuel: use hybrid manifolds

a lot of machines take 60 or a factor of 60 parts/m so you can use mk 1 belts to split 60 off of a manifold and work with that

so if you've got a 480 belt of compacted coal, you can split off 60 using a mk 1 belt and split that into 4 15 belts to input into the refineries

I often underclock things so that numbers work better for hybrid manifolds

[balmy sandal]

anyone on that knows trains? I have a train claiming the signal is preventing them from reaching the next station. AFAIK all I have is block signals from where it is to where it is going. I built it right near the station it was to hit first I tried backing it up l9ike I did with every train before that but it is still saing the signal is bad. (willing to provide screen shots if you tell me what to take a pic of)

[unique cypress]

make sure that the station is facing in the correct direction

[balmy sandal]

OMG I'm an idiot built the platform and everything in the correct direction but the station itsself was backwards. THANK YOU

[thorn trail]

so you are saying that this orientation probably isn't going to work then?

[dusky bronze]

only 1 way to find out

[dusky bronze]

for booting up a power plant should i go and hand fill all the reactors or let the manifold do it over time

[knotty hornet]

How many machines are we talking?

[dusky bronze]

100

[knotty hornet]

Just max belt speed so it fills faster, then downgrade

Or leave it max

[brisk smelt]

oh boy... 24 full mk6 belts of aluminum scrap

fun

[brisk smelt]

youre gonna have a BIG pile of red on ur map... 100 in a row is a bit

[dusky bronze]

its set up like this

atm im just waiting for the plutonium fuel rod manifold to fill before connecting my fuel rod bin to the reactors

[brisk smelt]

dang that waater extractor pipework is clean

i would have just glitched them all togehter in a blueprint if i were you 🙏

[dusky bronze]

its my favourite part about the whole build lmao

heres a bit of a better picture

[vapid gorge]

@toxic current and the main reason I said to post here is becaues you can actually talk about your problems

[brisk smelt]

thats a lotta pipes

[vapid gorge]

this looks like your output pipes

[toxic current]

oh ok, heres a better picture

[toxic current]

yes, carrying rocket fuel

[dapper drum]

toss the pumps

[vapid gorge]

ok well teh flow issue with pipes are almost always with the inputs, not outputs

[dusky bronze]

i dont know how much pipes i placed but there should be 101 600 pipes

[toxic current]

oh i forgot its a gas i dont need pumps

[vapid gorge]

are your generators starving ?
or blenders backing up?\

[toxic current]

the very last 2 blenders are backing up

[vapid gorge]

yup will need to see how you're feeding yoru generators then

[toxic current]

its a big image

[brisk smelt]

holy 😭 😭 😭

[toxic current]

sorta cant fit it in one ss

@vapid gorge so there is like 100 rows of gens just like this one

i flat out turned the ones that arent getting fuel off, just for now

[vapid gorge]

ok so it's hard to see how it's laid out exactly. are the pipes looped?

[toxic current]

wym looped?

its like 2 layers of manifolds

[dapper drum]

basically want to loop the end of the pipe in with the beginning somehow

[toxic current]

wth why

[vapid gorge]

ok I'll take that as a no

why 2 layers? what's the 2nd layer doing?

[toxic current]

cuz every 600 pipe is going to i think 12 rows of 24 gens, so i needed a manifold to get the fuel to the other manifolds

[vapid gorge]

I'm not sure I understand, can you give me a more ground view of them pls?

[toxic current]

i just underclocked one of the back blenders and overclocked one of the front blenders and its fixed

[toxic current]

maybe

[vapid gorge]

I mean if it's fixed it's fixed. And i wouldn't touch it. But I'd be surprised if it's truly stable now

but it looks like you're doing many branches of manifolds off one pipes, and fluids often don't like that

[toxic current]

its a gas

[vapid gorge]

gas is a fluid

[toxic current]

yea but its way easier to work with

[vapid gorge]

Rocket fuel is a gas
water is a liquid
both are fluids

[vapid gorge]

the main difference is just not neeting pumps for headlift.

other than that they really arn't much different

except that gasses hate buffers even more

but if it works it works. In the future though I wouldn't recommend branches like that unless you look into how to manage them.

[toxic current]

i aint usin biffers

[vapid gorge]

and probably loop like in the image I shared

[vapid gorge]

I know, I was just clarifying the differences

[toxic current]

ive been working on this plant for like 30 hours i dont care about 10000 mw

[vapid gorge]

... I mean it sounded like you cared.

And my advice is for your pipes in the future. Where you might care

[toxic current]

not gonna make a big diffrence imo

[toxic current]

oh ok 👍

[vapid gorge]

if you don't want to think too hard about pipes and layout/design in the future use a lot lower flow pipes from your machines. Make groups of 300 flow or something and you do nearly whatever you want

[toxic current]

REALLY hard to do when your dealing with like 3k liquids per min

[vapid gorge]

nah, easy enough. Just make smaller groups 🙂 work with verticality and build up too. You can design sectiosn that work really well like that

[dapper drum]

smaller groups always treats me right

[toxic current]

im ok, i will just keep strugging and eventually fixing my problems, usually by underclocked the ones that arent getting enough fuel

[brisk smelt]

modularization is your best friend

benefit of being able to copy paste your build

[toxic current]

word to big

oh wait nvm i read it

[toxic current]

i have never once used pbs

[brisk smelt]

you should

[toxic current]

nah

[crimson moat]

[toxic current]

its still stable 🤷‍♂️

[toxic current]

use horizontal to vertical

[vapid gorge]

the main thing about laying pipes down 'properly' is that you get reliable results and if something is wrong you can track it down easily

[toxic current]

i can

[vapid gorge]

ok gl

[toxic current]

its fixed so i dont need to worry about it

but ty

also my pipes are pretty organized no?

[crimson moat]

Ye i just find it funny 😄

[toxic current]

lol yea

[delicate night]

anyone know a doc like Pipeline_Manual.pdf but for trains?

[crimson moat]

no, and pipeline manual is a bit out of date especially with recent revelations. I think @oblique hollow was working on a new one

[frosty owl]

It'll come out the day before CSS update fluid dynamics

[still blade]

So update on the blue crater power plant, I’ve placed everything down, all that’s left is to get the belts in (encased industrial beams my behated) and to charge up backup batteries since I know that my grid will crash without them trying to power it up.

Currently in batteries I have about 6k MW in backup, should I add more? The total consumption is roughly 2.5k MW so it should last somewhere under three hours

[wind spade]

(fyi - batteries don't store MW, but MWh. And if you want to say thousands of MW/MWh, you can use GW/GWh 🙂 )

[visual yarrow]

Well, my very important and serving-an-actual-useful-purpose belt speed regulator works. Math.

In this case, it's just a 1/6ths splitter that priority merges back into the input, outputting onto a MKIII belt. As long as the container keeps enough HMFs in it, it will always output 45/m at a consistent pacing. Since that matches my (when I finish the build) rate of production, that should be no issue.

Huh. Interestingly, when the supply does run out, it still keeps a steady pacing between item outputs.

[frigid maple]

can mk3 conveyors handle 240/min?

mk4 definetly can right?

[vapid gorge]

The tooltip should tell you how fast it is

[frigid maple]

oh

didnt see that thx

here

240 ingots per min

[severe girder]

Whats the best way to move 2,100 items a minute ( packaged oil ) 4km

[vapid gorge]

like most things inthe game, there is no 'best'

evaluate the terrain and what infrastructure you already have, if you're wanting to move anything else along the path in the future, ect

[wind spade]

I'd recommend processing it at source

[limpid vapor]

i have 4 belts carrying 390 ingots each that i merge into 2 belts carrying 780 each, on top of each of the two, i have machine manifolds that consume 600 per minute each, i then collect the overflow from both belts and merge it into a third belt that on its own is carrying 390, which should give me a belt with 750 items, this belt ends with a manifold using 467 ingots, and another smart splitter to collect the final overflow from all the machine blocks, note, the belt leading out of this is not full. yet my source machines fill up with ingots as if there is no room for the ingots to go. any ideas whats going on?

(its not an errant low tier belt, all belts leading here were blueprinted)

the 2 mergers at the bottom is where the initial merge happens

[severe girder]

780-600 =180, 390+180=570 570-467=103

So 103 should be left over right?

[limpid vapor]

there are two so another 180

[severe girder]

So there should be enough ingots to reach the end is what you’re saying?

Maybe the machines are backed up, if there backed up and full so there’s no way for the resources to go into the machines they will go past.

[limpid vapor]

the machines at the end get fed fine, its the machines doing the feeding that are experiencing issues

the 3 southward belts are where the manifolds are built, i do the dividing here first, in this basement

they are supposed to go past

the problem is that the feeders clog, even when on paper there should be room for iron to go elsewhere

and i dont understand why

the final overflow is supposed to exit left out of the topmost merger on the pic

the two southward belts on the right are the 600 belts, and the left one is the 467 one

ok, i will try feeding only one of the sets of 180 into the last belt, and the other straight into the waste

[limpid vapor]

ok. i think i got it working as intended. i feed the two left over 180s into a waste line, from which i then collect the missing amount for the 467 belt

i do not understand why this functions differently 🤷

but i guess its just better somehow to not feed extra where it isnt needed only to overflow it again later

[frigid maple]

after lots of pain.. i turned on the heavy modular frame factory

now just waiting so it turns on and makes its first products

im gonna cry

FINALLY

[severe girder]

It’s seems to be a slow factory

Great job tho! I am yet to do it so idk :)

[delicate night]

rip thanks

[delicate night]

how many per min

and witch AR did you use

[visual yarrow]

oh really now? that's actually news to me

well, thankfully, curved build mode makes the pentagram-shaped pipes needed to compel fluids to move in a rational manner much easier to build

so on a different note! personnel elevators have a max height of 200m (the first floor stop isn't counted in the measurement, but adds 4m.)

each stop needs 5m of space- 4m for the stop itself, and a 1m gap between stops.

this means that you could in theory cap out the number of stops well before the max vertical height, by making them uselessly close to each other.
also, if you make each stop 4m from each other, you would get approximately (if not exactly, I don't feel like calculating it right now) 25 stops, matching the elevator buttons.

no, there is absolutely nothing useful about this information.

[frigid maple]

oh boy..

[frigid maple]

3.75/min
im using somersloops but ill prb need to stop using them since of power

atleast until i fix my power problems

[old zephyr]

Does flow rate equal max amount per min like belts

[wind spade]

Yes

[still blade]

it has gone online, its starting rough (no thanks to the vast distance the packaged water and empty canisters have to pass during packing and unpacking) but i've now start to consistently get above the blue line

[visual yarrow]

Hmm. That production line doesn't look like i'd expect a power plant that's just starting up to look, even accounting for geothermal.

Are there generators at different clock speeds from one another or something?

[still blade]

its mostly just a lot of fuel generators that dont have full pipes and keep running out

[still blade]

they're all at 250%

[visual yarrow]

Yeah, but that produces a pretty... distinct, I guess? pattern, that this doesn't seem to quite match. It's probably not a problem, I just find it curious.

[still blade]

thats what happens when you dont prefill the 46 refinery manifold ig

[visual yarrow]

It's more that the spikes in power when generators turn on and off aren't as uniform as i'd expect.

[still blade]

funny part is that the heavy oil pipes are perfectly fine, its the packaged water that's causing hiccups. my current guess is that there isn't enough canisters in the packager loop so im making more

[still blade]

well some generators are more lucky than others and get more juice more consistently

[visual yarrow]

No, I mean, like... the power should be spiking in a more observable pattern?

[still blade]

🤷‍♂️

its like 5 lanes of 12 generators each and each lane has its own pipe from 8 refineries +/-

[visual yarrow]

Like, with all the generators at the same clock speed, the spikes should be roughly equivalent in length, or multiples of that length.

But I see parts that are too spikey to be geothermal, but don't match the length of other spikes?

[still blade]

ill check if my early game coal plant is causing some issues

[unique cypress]

not necessarily

[visual yarrow]

Maybe also double check that all the clock speeds are set.

[unique cypress]

especially not with fluid problems

[visual yarrow]

Shrug. I'm just basing this on what i've personally observed. And it's probably nothing.

[still blade]

well it aint the coal, guess i'll check the clock speeds

[visual yarrow]

Hmm. Maybe it's actually because the relative difference in power across the graph isn't as drastic as what I usually see when I set up a new power thing.

[still blade]

tbf i went from 4k to that so its not as drastic

[visual yarrow]

Oh, so this is a while into the startup process, then.

[still blade]

the 4k is before the plant went online lmao

at the time of screenshot it has only been like 3 minutes into startup

[visual yarrow]

How... uh, symmetrical is your fuel piping?

It's entirely probable that it's just that my obsessive compulsive piping and generator layouts create those patterns because the generators themselves are in a pattern and thus the fuel saturates in a predictable way.

Or a pattern-y way, at least.

[still blade]

its a manifold

[visual yarrow]

A single manifold?

[still blade]

3 pipes stacked on top of one another

but layout wise yeah

[visual yarrow]

Ah. That would explain it, then.

In my case, I have generators that stop and start in sync with one another because they're equidistant from the fuel source.

[vapid gorge]

the packages are in a manifold? this is for diluted fuel?

[still blade]

each pipe is feeding into the exact amount of refineries it needs, and troubleshooting shows that the pipes are sufficiently full even at the end of the refinery manifold

[visual yarrow]

You keep saying refineries. Do you mean refineries?

[still blade]

yeah

[visual yarrow]

I'm talking about the generators.

[still blade]

the fuel output is somewhere around 5 pipes, each going to its own lane of generators

[still blade]

oh then thats fine

[visual yarrow]

Well, either way, it's... really not important. You do need more canisters, though. You always will need more canisters.

[vapid gorge]

because if that's so check the end of hte packagers and see if you have enough empty packages coming in. People generally have issues trying to manifold diluted packaged fuel

[visual yarrow]

Why specifically diluted packaged fuel?

Other than not having enough empty canisters.

[vapid gorge]

because the system is a loop that depends on itself
so if it doesn't run at 100% it won't provide 100% and generally never actually get going

it's the one place a basic manifold generally doesn't work
but there's an easy fix if that's the issue

[visual yarrow]

Depends on itself... how?

Do you mean the return packages?

[still blade]

and theres also the risk of overfilling with canisters, leading to backups, meaning you cant produce fuel, meaning you dont consume canister, meaning fuel keeps clogging, etc etc

[vapid gorge]

yes, and to get those returned packages it needs to run properly. But if it doesn't get those packages it doesn't run properly.

[dusky dust]

Yeah, on my first U3 save I'd ended up trying to manifold a big ol' diluted loop; I remember spending quite awhile debugging it and egging it along before it was finally working properly

[visual yarrow]

Priority mergers.

Just sayin'.

Yes.

[still blade]

thats what im doing, sending the canisters from the fuel unpackagers back into the water packagers since the ratio is 1:1

[vapid gorge]

@visual yarrow the solution is easy here in any case

just before the packager manifold starts have a flooded storage full of empties to make sure the manifold is constnatly full

[dusky dust]

Far easier to just make single isolated closed loops, especially with the blueprints we have now (you can fit the 2x Packager + 1x Refinery module in a 4x4 blueprint, and even have the Empty Canisters inside the machine in the blueprint)

[unique cypress]

manifolding canisters for DPF is a waste of time, effort, and canisters

[vapid gorge]

ah cool, then that's not the issue

[still blade]

but yeah went ahead and dumped another 2.4k canisters into it

[vapid gorge]

this was a solved issue years before priority mergers. There's zero need for it

[still blade]

its absolutely over double whats needed but you cant depend on perfect numbers on a wind-up system

[visual yarrow]

Oh, I don't want to hear this again.

[vapid gorge]

yes yes people hate the truth.

[vapid gorge]

If you're still having pipe issues in the morning feel free to ping me, heading to bed though. gl with it!

[unique cypress]

if you just do separate 1:1:1 loops, there's no need for any splittes or mergers, smart, priority or otherwise, and you need several times fewer canisters

[visual yarrow]

I'll put it this way. I'd much rather set up a priority merger to automatically get the exact amount the system needs, than to play guessing games with how many to dump in.

[still blade]

...i have a hunch that i found the problem

[visual yarrow]

Yes. That is the problem.

[vapid gorge]

it's not a guessing game. You just have a container full of empties and keep the manifold flooded. No math. No thought. Just do

[visual yarrow]

It reminds me of my own problem I had with my packaged oil loop. I had a belt connecting to the wrong merger in a way that made it look like it was connected to the correct one.

[visual yarrow]

Okay, and what happens when you have too many packages in your container because you flooded it with packages, and suddenly the packagers can't output?

[vapid gorge]

that doesn't happen

[visual yarrow]

Actually, wait.

[unique cypress]

just make a BP with the right amount already in it?

[vapid gorge]

the empties incoming from the system replace the empties in the container

[visual yarrow]

Is it actually possible to blueprint things with items preloaded into them? I was under the impression that was not possible.

[wind spade]

and 1:1:1 solves it all

[vapid gorge]

literally every system in the game has been trivialy solved and managed w/o priority mergers.

[still blade]

i had an even weirder one when i first built the system. built the return belts, hooked up a canister injection, but the mergers somehow destroyed the belt in a way that made the initial belt highway input nonexistent and couldnt feed into the system. as if the mergers were placed where the belts are, without actually connecting to the belts

[vapid gorge]

there wasn't some critical gap that people just couldn't make some parts work

[wind spade]

it's just people inventing weird ways to do stuff and then needing prio mergers for that

[visual yarrow]

Once again, you're looking at this from the wrong perspective.

It doesn't fix existing problems. It creates new solutions.

[vapid gorge]

the perspective of objective fact

[unique cypress]

methinks you are

[vapid gorge]

sure you can do dumb things with priority mergers. But you could always make the systems work, with often less effort, before they existed

Like the really stupid Bauxite packaged priority water merger thing someone did

[unique cypress]

DPF already has a much better solution than prio mergers

[wind spade]

and that solution is "no mergers"

[visual yarrow]

Are you incapable of having opinions without needing to insist that any differing one is objectively wrong and bad?

[vapid gorge]

yeah 1:1:1 just makes it zero effort and easily BPed

[visual yarrow]

I'm so tired of hearing this sort of shit.

[vapid gorge]

all I'm saying is that the issues were easily solved before hand and thus they don't present a thing that was needed to accomplish things

Also that most of hte 'solutions' with them are more effort

both are true. If you want to call them bad that's up to you

[visual yarrow]

You're ignoring what i've actually said. I'm not talking about any issues.

[unique cypress]

I mean you're free to use a more expensive and more complicated solution that doesn't have any benefits

[visual yarrow]

Once again: they're not about solving issues. They're about creating new possible things to make that weren't previously possible.

[vapid gorge]

I've yet to see one. Which isn't surprising since there isn't dynamic production

[visual yarrow]

They're things that are "dumb" to you.

[wind spade]

you still didn't gives us an example

[visual yarrow]

Me?

[unique cypress]

I used prio mergers for alu water once, though I don't think I ever will do that again. but they're nice for the plubber recycling loop
they should not be used for DPF tho.

[visual yarrow]

I already gave one example, but I can provide another if you really need one.

[old zephyr]

Is heavy encased frame not good because of the above 1 min make time

[unique cypress]

it's by far the best recipe for HMFs. also, it makes 3 at a time

[vapid gorge]

cycle time isn't gneerally a consideration

focus on the parts per min

[old zephyr]

Yeah it’s just some awkward numbers that scare me

[vapid gorge]

Also, ignore people who go around just claiming any particular recipe is 'the best'

[wind spade]

as with all recipes, "good" depends on what you personally like or don't like

some people will say one thing, other people will say other things, so it's generally up to you to decide whether you like what the recipe does or not

[vapid gorge]

Become friends with decimals 🙂

clocking machines essentially makes decimals meaningless

[old zephyr]

I think we can at least agree eliminating screws is a nice add on

[wind spade]

not really

[vapid gorge]

depends! a lot of screw recipes are extremely compact 🙂

especially with Steel Screw

[unique cypress]

have fun spending double the time building a HMF factory with one of the other 2 recipes then

[vapid gorge]

With experience you'll find the 'value' of any recipe you use will highly depend on all the other recipes you combo with it 🙂

[wind spade]

well, you don't necessary want to "ignore" them, more like "assume that message is their personal opinion rather than straight fact, and treat it as such - opinion of a person on the internet, which may not (and probably does not) align with your opinions and preferences"

[vapid gorge]

not when they are trying ot make something subjective to situations sound 'objective'.

[old zephyr]

Time to make a manufacturer manifold bp then

[wind spade]

as some people do not optimise for time because they have plenty, maybe they will indeed have more fun with those recipes

[vapid gorge]

consider using sushi manifolds 🙂

it can make much cleaner feed systems

[visual yarrow]

Okay, I spent like five minutes looking for a certain screenshot that I couldn't find, so I am unsure of what the subject is now.

I'll just get a different screenshot.

[old zephyr]

I am considering bringing in all of the stuff for the heavy frames from elsewhere via train. I already have a factory making 20 modular frames per min.. it is hooked up to my supply/dimensional depot and sink overflow though… so I don’t know if I wanna just make a new one

[visual yarrow]

This is a belt speed regulator. It averages out the spacing of items on belts.

[old zephyr]

I haven’t really made a big big factory yet though so this may be the perfect opportunity

[vapid gorge]

well as long as the parts for the actual HMF step isn't brought in with vehicles then it's very easy to sushi it 🙂

[wind spade]

what realistic use that has? 🤔 other than "it looks nice visually"

[vapid gorge]

since you need to control the actual flow of parts per min

[old zephyr]

Is it better to bring in ingots or ore via train (or does it literally not matter cause it’s 1-1)

[visual yarrow]

There are certain splitting methods I use that require me to ensure that belts have specific, known, consistent rates of item flow.

[vapid gorge]

well it's not always one to one 🙂
so really depends on you

[visual yarrow]

So these at vehicle dropoffs let me control how much is being output so I can use those methods.

[vapid gorge]

also there's lots of spots that you can make HMF all from the stuff on location

planning locations for factories is an important part of planning

[old zephyr]

Yeah I need to find a spot for both hmf and a computer factory

[visual yarrow]

The one I showed is just one for the sake of looking nice, but I couldn't find the screenshot of the one that actually serves a purpose.

[vapid gorge]

oooh a fun thing with computers, with the right recipes you can make them from just Caterium and Oil

[visual yarrow]

Oh, there it is.

[old zephyr]

That’s kinda crazy

[vapid gorge]

I think you can make up to Supercomputers just from oil and caterium? can't recall exactly though

[visual yarrow]

Yes, with plastic AI limiters.

[vapid gorge]

it's things like that that make recipe values completely up to you

[old zephyr]

I like lowkey can’t ever find crash sites

[vapid gorge]

xD use zip lines and jet packs and stuff to get a good vantage point 🙂

[visual yarrow]

I... honestly have most of them memorized. But the object scanner is also good.

Don't underestimate it.

Okay, here's another example. The steel pipes and concrete are delivered by train. I use smart splitters to throttle 270/m concrete from one belt, and 60/m from the other to get 330/m, and a similar thing with two MK3 belts with the two belts of steel pipe.

But in order for this to work consistently, there needs to be constant item flow- meaning that when a train arrives, bulk cargo flows too quickly and disrupts the method. Priority mergers let me ensure that the loopback that controls the flow rate is prioritized.

It's like a pipe valve for conveyor belts, that actually works.

It also occurs to me that my example earlier with empty packages, this was all for plastic and rubber, so I literally had a constructor producing packages from the plastic being made until it didnt need to make any more.

Not sure if that matters to... the people who seem to have left, but... eh, whatever.

[visual ocean]

How do i use 4 stations to get like 8 or 12 different items? Do i need to sushi belt everything?
i'm just worried with one train dropping a full container and the next one not being able to drop what he needs to drop. Any tips to this?

[visual yarrow]

I usually try to avoid mixing items in stations. One station segment will be for one item, for me.

[unique cypress]

my advice would be not to do any of that

but I'd consder using 1 platform per item instead of 1 station per item acceptable too

[visual yarrow]

But train cargo wagons hold... I think half of what the station itself can hold?

[vapid gorge]

yeah you'll need a sushi sorter and buffers after that on delivery point as well as a sink, so it doesn't clog

[visual yarrow]

Possibly multiple sinks.

The rule of thumb is that you always want items to be flowing. If items can flow out of the train station, then you shouldn't have problems, assuming you aren't trying to deliver too many items than what belt throughput can handle.

[visual ocean]

How do you get a train to load only freigh cart number 3 for example? Do the filters work for this?

[vapid gorge]

blank platforms

[visual yarrow]

A mix of filters and controlling what items are where in the platform.

[unique cypress]

fill the other platforms with empty platfoms

[vapid gorge]

it's much much easier to have dedicated stations going A to B instead of shuffling cars like that

[visual yarrow]

And, yeah, blank platforms. I have a train that delivers steel pipe and concrete from two separate locations to a third. The first two wagons take steel pipe, the third and fourth take concrete.

[visual ocean]

No, i mean, the train itself. I have like a 4 station. But that station is pickup item X only. So to get the train to pickup only from freight spot 3, its impossible no?

[visual yarrow]

The cargo wagon that is physically in that spot will interact with that platform.

[vapid gorge]

oof I can't actually recall if there's a setting to tell a train to only pick up specific item types.

[visual yarrow]

There is, in the timetable.

[vapid gorge]

you could look at the UI and check? but I think it'll interact with any platform it lines up with

[visual ocean]

oh so you set the route to pipes and then concrete

[visual ocean]

There is, but not by wagon..

[visual yarrow]

But here's the thing: the station segments match the train segments they deliver to.

[vapid gorge]

yeah you probably could finangle platforms mixed with blanks ect to do that.

I tend to keep my trains simple though

[visual yarrow]

So the steel pipe station only has freight platforms in the first two spots. The concrete station only has freight platforms in the last two spots.

Thus, the train loads it's first two wagons at the steel pipe station, and then it loads the last two wagons with concrete. And the dropoff station is belted according to what wagon each resource is in.

[visual ocean]

Ok in that case you dont use that station for no other trains

[visual yarrow]

Yes, this is also true, but I usually avoid having stations that service multiple trains.

[visual ocean]

I mean i'm being a bit complicated tbf. I can probably be okay if I build like a storage and have overflow for all the items. Then its a matter of making unloads quick and loading long

[visual yarrow]

With the exception of ones that run identical timetables for increased throughput.

[visual ocean]

So far I'm doing 1:1 on every station. But it's like, to do HMF i need 4 station for 4 materials

and like 4-8 manufactureres. It's a rather small factory

for the gigantic station xD

[vapid gorge]

yeah at that point I'd plan for a different location that doesn't need all of it brought in xD

[visual yarrow]

Are you sure you need four stations? My HMF factory has 16, and uses only one station.

Well, one station at the HMF factory.

[visual ocean]

yes, because my input stations feed more than one train. So if i need screws i have a central screw station that any train can go and pickup from

i cant do the empty rail method

[visual yarrow]

Okay, that right there is part of the problem.

[vapid gorge]

there's 2 main styles of sorting out factories

either doing a lot of low grade parts and moving them around to combine them in locations
benefits are a lot less planning for location and recipes but tons of logistics planning (what you're doing right now)

then there's super local factories. Uses 90-100% local stuff. More recipe and location planning but almost no logistics.

and you can be in the middle too to degrees 🙂

[visual yarrow]

Satisfactory doesn't work as well with overproducing materials and then supplying them to things as needed as other factory games.

[stoic gorge]

these are still the best sites?

[unique cypress]

https://satisfactory-calculator.com/ is still a dogshit calculator

[visual yarrow]

When handling long distance logistics, you really want to look at when you're transporting it, in terms of the production chain.

[unique cypress]

not sure why it's listed thera as anything other than a map

[visual ocean]

Yeah im pretty invested on getting a huge train line going. It's already from blue crater to the oil beach

[stoic gorge]

why

[vapid gorge]

both are very useful. I prefer tools for the UI though. SCIM does some things weird though, and doesn't handle loops well

[visual yarrow]

So when I planned my HMF factory, I knew that I had a location with iron, copper, and coal, and a location with limestone and water.

[vapid gorge]

might be best to just have multiple smaller stations then. Maybe make a basement with the stops and build above to use space effectively

[unique cypress]

makes mistakes, incapable of calculating some chains, chooses recipes at random

[stoic gorge]

https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/interactive-map this map is updated to 1.0?

[visual yarrow]

Thus, by making components at those locations, I reduced the number of total items needed to be transported to two.

[stoic gorge]

for the ores noddles?

ok thanks

gonna start my first save on the 1.0 update

[visual yarrow]

You also want to pay attention to how much each item changes in volume when processed. 2160 steel ingots turns into 1440 steel pipes. That's a pretty big difference- especially since steel pipes also have twice the stack size.

[vapid gorge]

why? 1.1 pretty much just added QoL things

[unique cypress]

their map is good. the only downside is that it's riddled with ads. not an issue if you have adblock

[visual yarrow]

Okay, before I keep going, is anyone actually benefiting from what i'm explaining?

Or interested.

[visual ocean]

I am

[visual yarrow]

Okay. Do you have any specific questions?

[visual ocean]

you literally touched in a bunch of things im doing wrong

[visual yarrow]

That will probably be more focused than me infodumping all my train facts.

[visual ocean]

I'm trying to wrap my head around what I should do next tbf. My logistic network is already prettty developed, but up to modular frames

[visual yarrow]

And... since this isn't a train fact, i'll mention that i'm bringing the regular modular frames in via drone from elsewhere.

[stoic gorge]

yeah 1.1 I will play, last time I played was update 6

[visual yarrow]

The map is updated to the current version, if that answers your question.

[visual ocean]

Yeah, i was also considering them. It's easy to use and now input issues

I can slap like 12 of them and have 3 high tier items producing

one station for batteries and voilá

[visual yarrow]

The way that I like to fuel my drones is to make a port at the place I produce the packaged ionized fuel I use, and specifically don't put a drone there.

That way, any location I want to support drones at, I can make one station that goes to pick up fuel and supply the rest. By not having a drone at the supply station, it will never block other drones from picking up due to not having anything to do.

[visual ocean]

i got confused there

i need to read that twice

[stoic gorge]

ok thank you

is it good to use trucks or should I got directly to trains?

[visual yarrow]

Trucks are sort of an aquired taste. They're definitely usable, but you may not like them.

[vapid gorge]

they both have learning curves
but trucks probably do best planning on using natural roads along the map

[visual ocean]

So the port is getting feed fuel, but then the drones you want to charge, go there to get the fuel. But then how do they do the other 2 ports they need to go? Or you just have one going to the ionized fuel, drop at a port that distributes?

[visual yarrow]

Trucks also benefit heavily from having explosives automated to clear those natural roads of rocks. And trees. And such.

[stoic gorge]

yeah I tried to use it once, I could, but I had so much trouble

but trains dont look so different

[unique cypress]

I find trucks are more decoration than functional transport

[visual ocean]

I have two trucks doing my drone fuel route for ages. They sometimes love to jump off cliffs

[visual yarrow]

I also like to use a truck when setting up outposts to bring extra materials. It's not as useful nowadays due to the dimensional depot, but it still helps early on when I may not have a ton of upload rate.

[vapid gorge]

a lot of people probably use trains more because the tracks physically define the path trains take and take away a lot of the planning as they'll probably be in the air somewhat at least

[stoic gorge]

I use it because I had to bring resources from far away, but I didnt had trains yet, how can I do the same without trucks?

[visual yarrow]

To clarify, what I just said, I meant manually driving a truck.

[stoic gorge]

lol

[visual yarrow]

It still annoys me that reversing in a truck doesn't constantly beep.

[vapid gorge]

you do need to record turns on the path slowly so they follow the way points xD

[visual yarrow]

Slowly, except when you don't. It's really more about controlling your speed.

[stoic gorge]

I dont understand the concept of modular factories, because how are you supose to constantly move from factory to factory

[vapid gorge]

you or the items?

[visual ocean]

I mean, I will get rid of them and get a train there very soon, but ive been lazy with that, since it works

[stoic gorge]

me

[vapid gorge]

well they both have their uses. For example over short distances a single truck can move an insane number of items pm

[visual yarrow]

Slide jump off a conveyor belt and ionized fuel jetpack. Or hypertubes. Or an explorer.

[visual ocean]

@visual yarrow you saw my drones message?

[visual yarrow]

Or... um, sprinting.

[vapid gorge]

hyper tubes. You won't need them that much though

[visual yarrow]

Let me double check. I'm very distractable right now.

[stoic gorge]

ok then

[visual yarrow]

Let me get you a screenshot. But I think you have the right idea.

So this is going to be screenshot(s). The port on the left is the fuel getting port. The drone is currently idle because the port is full. That's good, because it means it only travels when it needs to.

[stoic gorge]

is satisfactory much heavier now or is my pc trash?

it keeps crashing even on low

[visual yarrow]

It then supplies itself and the other ports with the fuel it picks up.

[visual ocean]

Btw isnt ionized fuel overkill for them?

[visual yarrow]

Yes and no. It gives them the fastest speed possible.

[visual ocean]

is that a doggo jail??

[visual yarrow]

The destination port, as you can see, has no drone. And yes. It is a doggo jail.

The reason I don't put a drone in that port is because it is designed to supply any drone that travels to it- having it's own drone would lead to cases where it blocks other drones from picking up cargo.

Drones always load and unload at both ends of their destination. This is what makes them very flexible.

Both ends of their route, I mean.

IE: if a single drone can handle the needed throughput for a simple point to point connection, you don't need a second drone. And if you need more throughput, a second drone at the target station with it's destination set to the first station means two drones on that route.

Here's another example, with a very lazy long distance screenshot. This port is sending aluminum ingots to Runagate, where they're used to make Ficsite.

I am eventually going to need trigons in that general area, so what I can do at that point is start loading the needed trigons into the port that the aluminum is being delivered to- and the drone will start bringing those back when it makes it's aluminum trip, at no extra cost to me.

Oh, it's worth mentioning- you may notice that port has no fuel input. Drones can actually fuel themselves from either of their relevant ports- their home port, or their destination. They just need one load of fuel to make an initial trip.

Also: drones are cute. He's taking a nap because he doesn't need to get any fuel right now.

[visual ocean]

They are simple. I like that

[visual yarrow]

One word of advice- it's easy to lose track of how much fuel they're consuming. Keep an eye on it.

There's (afaik) not an easy way to see the global fuel consumption, but the main limiting factor to your drone usage will be how much you can produce for them for fuel.

Anyways, I haven't actually finished this HMF factory, mostly because I keep getting distracted by things not limited to but including:

• doggos
• putting beams everywhere
• this channel
• randomly feeling like playing touhou

so i'm going to attempt to focus, and/or possibly just take a nap.

damn it, touhou actually does sound fun right now. i do this to myself.

[old zephyr]

you can sink polymer resin yeah

[visual yarrow]

oh I haven't colored that path pattern.

i really need to remember to set the concrete structure's default secondary color to white before I start getting used to concrete doors with ficsit orange trim

okay i'm going to delete that because it's not going to produce the result I want and is just going to put myself and possibly others in a bad mood

[oblique hollow]

@vapid gorge if you want to test the pipe stuff i talked about recently, PIpeTuner mod just got updated and includes these as a preset to pick

Pick "Hydrostatic" mode and feel free to test it out

[stoic gorge]

when youre overlaping its just visual right? it doesnt have chances to occour any bugs?

[unique cypress]

it doesn't matter, unless we're talking about railways

[visual yarrow]

I have a vague recollection of being recommended to not mix MK1 and MK2 pipes a while back. But i'm not actually sure if that was because of an actual reason, or if it was just someone saying to not bother using MK1 pipes at all or something.

So TL;DR: I kind of hate the way MK2 pipes look, and I try to use MK1 whenever the needed flow rate is at or below 300/m, including, say, after pipe splits. Is there an actual issue with doing this, or...?

I'm also not entirely sure why i'm asking this at the moment, since i'm not actually working with pipes right now...

...actually, no, I guess i'm technically making steel pipes.

That is a pipe.

[unique cypress]

you probably shouldn't connect a mk1 directly to a mk2, but connecting them at junctions is fine. and you probably should use a mk1 when flow is 300 or below

[oblique hollow]

its ok to mix at junctions

[visual yarrow]

yeah, I was considering that.

but luckily, there's no use-case based on my criteria where i'd do that anyways. uh, actually, this is a galleon question: both tiers of pipe have the same capacity, right? so the only difference is how quickly they either move fluid through it, or.. simulate flow, or however it works.

i should have asked that differently: does pipe flow actually take the inventory of each pipe into account, or is the system more... abstracted?

[unique cypress]

afaik, the only fundamental difference is the max flow rate, but that is factored into flow calculations

[visual yarrow]

yeah, what I was thinking was the whole... full pipes = flowing, and how that would change when for one pipe, being full is only half full for the other?

@oblique hollow okay could you just... real quick, explain every single nuance about precisely how pipes work, in excruciating detail? (joke)

[oblique hollow]

bernoulli

nuff said

[visual yarrow]

well the first thing that comes to mind is "that sounds like pasta", which probably means that i'm not alert enough to properly absorb this information anyways

i'm not entirely sure why i'm asking it, given that i'm not even dealing with any sort of pipe issue right now in the first place.

oh, no, right. i just really really hate the way this build is turning out and i'm procrastinating on laying out this soulless blueprint for it.

[oblique hollow]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli's_principle

[visual yarrow]

okay, here are my actual follow up questions:

1: does this mean that the old adage of "don't expect pipes to work like actual fluid dynamics" is outdated
2: are pressure and head lift, as I have suspected, usually generated from the same sources, but are not the same mechanic?
3: i... don't have a 3, but I feel like only asking 2 is a waste of a numbered list

[oblique hollow]

1. pipes are still very much unrealistic in a way, but the core of them uses bernoulli's principle
2. head lift is a specific measurement taken in parallel to pressure. Generally, you only get head lift when pressure is there.

To be more precise: when pumps apply head lift, that is a measuremeant of pressure, but only for vertical distance and only from gravity, measured back against the pump

it does not measure pressure from flow rate

[visual yarrow]

actually, here's an actual 3: can you explain how gases are different in terms of pressure and how that affects flow? I think that may help me get a more solid understanding of the whole thing

[oblique hollow]

gasses have no gravity and no pump pressure.
the rest is still bernoulli.

Gas flow rate is only affected by the fullness of the pipe.
what matters here is that dynamic pressure exists for gasses and liquids

dynamic pressure is the reason why flow rate tends to overshoot and then die down, only to overshoot again

[visual yarrow]

i frequently compare how gases and liquids behave to attempt to understand pipe things. so one thing i've always noticed is that fluid buffers behave in a certain way with both gases and liquids that led to me suspecting some kind of pressure mechanic to begin with

[oblique hollow]

its also the reason 2 pipes in isoation endlessly trade liquid and why buffers endlessly move fluid between each other

[visual yarrow]

i guess I should ask this now before I make assumptions, is it correct or incorrect (or something in between) to think of fluid buffers as very very high capacity pipes?

[oblique hollow]

if you wanna see the differences, install the Pipetuner mod and try vanilla vs "hydrostatic" preset

(just know that you need to click "apply" in the mod savegame settings twice for the preset to actually be applied right now)

[visual yarrow]

so buffers will trade fluid when you have them connected, but... hmm, what I want to know about is what the potential significance of buffer's tendency to find an "equilibrium" where the actual fluid content of the buffer doesn't seem to change at all, but it has the usual oscillating flow rate you'd expect from a pipe segment

fluids... I want to compare them to, like..... a more viscous substance, like a syrup. Which I guess is still a fluid, but still.

The way I interpret the way they work is the same way that a viscous substance won't just immediately flow in the direction of gravity, like water would, but it will pool and build up, and tends to "stabilize" even on flat surfaces, as more of a "blob" with volume. If you pour syrup directly onto your kitchen table for some reason, it will spread out to a certain extent, but if you don't keep pouring it, it will reach a point of equilibrium. But as you keep adding more mass, the existing syrup puddle spreads out.

I see fluids in pipe networks behaving in a similar way. They're kind of like... they seem to try to equalize the relative fullness of connected segments with an inventory, which is why full pipes flow better. And in a stable, functional system, you have an equlibrium where you are metaphorically pouring exactly as much syrup onto your kitchen table (fluid producers) as is being removed by... I don't know, your cat licking it. (fluid consumers, do not feed your cat syrup.)

I don't know how actually accurate that is, but that's how it comes across to me.

To be clear, i'm attempting to create my own layman's terms for understanding bernoulli's principle and how it applies to the pipe situation, given my general lack of knowledge of fluid dynamics and the math behind it

oh, and for the purpose of my excellent syrup metaphor, gases are just syrup you are pouring onto your kitchen table, if your kitchen table is in zero gravity.

now the real question is how fluid pressure and flow rate is affected if the fluid's flow rate is approaching the speed of light. does the increase in mass affect the pressure?

imagine light as being, say, a syrup, that you are pouring at the speed of light onto your kitchen table...

[oblique hollow]

when not full, pipe pressure is mostly determined by their level
they try to equalize, but the problem is they tend to overshoot due to dynamic pressure increasing flow rate too fast

dynamic pressure is calculated by taking the square of flow rate

and multiplying it my some constants

so if pressure determines flow rate, and flow rate is used to calculate dynamic pressure, then that means flow rate makes flow rate have more flow rate

thats the main problem

[visual yarrow]

and that causes the "backflow" issue with flow running into full pipes and bouncing off, correct?

[oblique hollow]

yes, as far as i could tell

which is why Pipetuner now has hydrostatic mode

[visual yarrow]

I don't think i'm in the right frame of mind to fully grasp all of this right now, to be perfectly honest. My frame of mind right now is kind of just bouncing off of everything and wanting to share every single thing it thinks of without really absorbing as much as it needs to from the information.

And also is finding that whole syrup metaphor significantly funnier than it actually is.

So thanks for the answers and your time, but i'm going to stop myself there, since the line between actual question and actual nonsense is starting to get blurrier.

[oblique hollow]

its not that syrupy actually

it just has inertia if you will

[visual yarrow]

Oh, inertia? That's actually very interesting.

I haven't ever thought of fluids having inertia, but it does make sense.

Mmm... i'll afford myself one final question, then: would it be reasonable to say that the reason pipes are so fickle to both use and understand is because fluids themselves are defined quantities that need to be obtained and used in specific amounts, but the way that they are moved treats them more like abstract values, rather than something with a proper tangible presence, in the same way that items on belts are individually defined? I... think I just confused myself. I'm probably overthinking something.

Maybe i'll just wrap this up by saying i'm looking forward to the revised pipeline manual.

[wind spade]

which is easily done by clocking machines to produce exactly that much

[visual yarrow]

Yes, let me do that with my train station delivering bulk cargo.

[wind spade]

that averages over time

[visual yarrow]

Not necessarily. If you have shipments delivered in bulk, you will have the average amount delivered to that station over time, yes, but the periods where no items are flowing out of the station cause those splitting methods I mentioned to fail.

[unique cypress]

just let people do what they want to do when they clearly know what they're doing

[unique cypress]

buffer and it's stable

[visual yarrow]

This can work for simpler production lines, or higher throughput materials, but when you have... let me give an example, but give me a moment to write it.

Let's say you have a train or a drone delivering a fairly small quantity of a part, or several parts, in somewhat infrequent shipments of multiple stacks. If you route them where they need to go at your max belt speed, you will have all of those... say, computers, flow directly into wherever they're belted to go, hit the internal machine capacity, and then begin to desychronize because some of those machine buffers have longer belts leading to them.

This isn't really a problem for a standard manifold setup. But my preference is having belts that are constantly moving items. I don't like having items sit idle on belts.

It's only really something that's functionally useful (albeit very useful) when making nuclear builds without lots of ambient radiation, but even so.

Priority mergers fundamentally are about controlling item flow, so they are extremely useful for my playstyle. Everything from prioritizing automatically produced items being sunk over bulk-produced alien DNA capsules so that machines don't back up, to those splitting methods, to belt speed regulators purely for aesthetics.

But yes- buffering it will make it stable. But I don't just want it to be stable. I also want it to be... um... what's the word I want. Consistent? Synchronized? Something like that.

Or maybe a better way to put it is that I use them to deal with what happens when things aren't synchronized.

I'll conclude with this: they are fundamentally a part of the same set of reasons why I avoid using overflow-manifolds as much as I can: because I do know what i'm doing when it comes to splitting and general belt management, and because non-harmonious belts make me feel itchy. That is not hyperbole.

Also, they look cool.

[slender sundial]

I want to start constructing a turbo fuel power plant but im not sure what recipe tree line i should follow, i see videos where people get 20GW with 600 oil but for me to get that i need like 1000+ oil when i put into recipe planner site?

[visual yarrow]

You probably need the heavy oil residue and/or diluted fuel recipe(s).

[deft lichen]

which site

[visual yarrow]

Oh, also that.

I forget if turbo blend fuel's inefficiency is in oil or other resources...

[unique cypress]

you can get 20 GW from 600 oil even without turbofuel

[brisk urchin]

yeah the very much needed recepies are heavy oil residue, diluted (packaged) fuel

turbo i would just use the default recepie

[wind spade]

turbo I wouldn't use 🙂

[brisk urchin]

yeah

[unique cypress]

burning turbofuel made with any recipe other than default makes little sense

[brisk urchin]

ye cux the other 2

there are 2 right?

[wind spade]

burning turbofuel made with any recipe other than default makes little sense

[unique cypress]

there are 3 TF recipes

[brisk urchin]

need heavy oil besides fuel as an input

[visual yarrow]

I haven't actually made turbofuel in a while, but IIRC, turbo blend fuel traded efficiency for simplicity.

[brisk urchin]

4 with default?

[wind spade]

(also TF doesn't have default recipe 😛 )

[brisk urchin]

yes it does, u dont unlock the default via hard drives

[unique cypress]

default, blend and heavy

[brisk urchin]

yeah ok so 2 alts

[wind spade]

anything unlocked with hard drives is considered alternate recipe

[unique cypress]

all 3 are alts technically

[deft lichen]

I had a huge excess of coke from the initial oil setup I didn't care to rebuild, so turbo blend fuel was a good choice

[visual yarrow]

You actually literally do unlock it with a hard drive.

[brisk urchin]

oh because in the mam u also need one

right

i was thinking in like researching it in the hard drive library

but yeah if u look at it like that its also an alt

[visual yarrow]

Basically, turbo blend fuel is similar to nitro rocket fuel.

[brisk urchin]

not realy

it needs heavy

[visual yarrow]

You're being somewhat too literal.

[brisk urchin]

alright

[visual yarrow]

Okay. Why is everyone taking umbrage with that particular statement, of all things?

[brisk urchin]

but the purpose of all of this efficient recepie choosing is kind of to stay efficient the whole way

and now you need a previous step again

[unique cypress]

well, you're wrong about it being simpler than default turbo

[slender sundial]

yeah i put inheavy oil residue, diluted (packaged) fuel, and i saw i could make 1300 TF

[visual yarrow]

They're similar in the sense that they simplify the production chain. Turbo blend fuel makes the total number of resources lower by making 3/4 inputs oil-derived, and nitro rocket fuel removes the need to process anything other than just base fuel.

[unique cypress]

that's why it's not similar to nitro rocket

[visual yarrow]

Okay. Let me try again. They are similar in that they are both blender using recipes that are not direct upgrades to the others, but provide increased simplicity in some form.

[wind spade]

no recipe is a direct upgrade 😉

[visual yarrow]

Do I need to be more specific?

[visual yarrow]

Are we not counting combinations of recipes?

[wind spade]

combinations of recipes are usually upgrade in some properties, but very rarely (if ever) in ALL properties

[visual yarrow]

I'm getting distracted. Why are you telling me this?

[wind spade]

because you still won't find any "direct upgrade"

[visual yarrow]

Never said you would.

I just said that they weren't direct upgrades.

[wind spade]

well that's true for all recipes

[dusky dust]

If we're being pedantic and restrict our dataset heavily, Cast Screws is probably the one direct upgrade if you're only comparing it to Iron Rod -> Screws. Although I suppose one could argue that the change in production speed could be considered a downside for some folks. :D

[visual yarrow]

I don't really know how to respond to this. Why is this particular subject provoking so many nits to be picked?

[wind spade]

because you're in #math-and-meta

[dusky dust]

Heh, yeah, this is the channel for explicit nit-picking. :D

[visual yarrow]

Anyways, i'm going to double down and say that nitro rocket fuel and turbo blend fuel are still comparable.

Mostly because it's objectively true.

• faster production speed per machine
• removes the need for certain resources entirely, simplifying
• directly input fuel and sulfur
• removes or replaces earlier processing steps with simpler ones

[wind spade]

I'd be also careful with using the word "objectively" here

[visual yarrow]

Normally, I would, but given how often it's been used against me in improper contexts, i'm mostly just using it out of spite.

Which is probably a sign that it's time to take a break from socialization.

[wind spade]

well I for one am pretty sure I haven't used it against you improperly (because I use it very rarely, as I know how very not often it is actually correct to use)

[visual yarrow]

Mmm, you were not really the one it was directed at. In hindsight, it probably came across like it was. Sorry about that.

[wind spade]

dw about it

[visual yarrow]

It can be easy to conflate various people's opinions and messages and even tones when the chat is moving fast, and I have trouble keeping up.

And then it slows down and I have a chance to formulate my response and wait where'd everyone go? That has.. been a recurring theme.

[wind spade]

(your attitude is probably better than most people that argue with me anyway 😄 and I don't mean "arguing" as a bad thing)

[visual yarrow]

I like to differentiate the two things you're referring to with the positive version as "debating".

[wind spade]

fair enough (just another sign of me not being native english speaker 😉 )

[visual yarrow]

I do enjoy debating, when I feel that it's done in good faith and respectfully between all parties. Unfortunately, it can be easy to interpret hostility when none actually is there, and vice versa, even.

And that tends to escalate things.

[wind spade]

yeah, I'm well aware that voice tone is practically impossible to convey in text, and even though most of my messages are meant to be friendly/neutral, some people still take it as a personal attack

[visual yarrow]

....But frankly, i'm also just pretty tired right now, so i'm probably just kind of grumpy.

I think, actually, i'm going to try very hard to take a break from the channel for the night, since i'm not really being productive anyways, and am in fact procrastinating ridiculously as a result.

Well, okay, procrastinating a standard amount, for me.

[haughty barn]

Dark matter trap

Plus dark matter crystallization

[wind spade]

how is it a direct upgrade?

[haughty barn]

Trap is better for conserving dark matter, crystallization is better for getting rid of dark matter

[wind spade]

so... it's not a direct upgrade, but situational upgrade?

[haughty barn]

Combined its direct

[wind spade]

combined it's more complex, so not upgrade in terms of complexity

[oblique hollow]

hey @cinder silo remember that "Refinery Failure" save you sent me some time ago?

So... it seems that the PipeTuner mod literally just fixes it - which means that it can also be fixed in vanilla if the devs just adjust some parameters of pipes

[dusky bronze]

are there any fluid wizards around that i can bother for a minute or two

[oblique hollow]

yes

[dusky bronze]

so i have kind of a weird problem and im pretty sure its just something to do with headlift but im not entirely sure

so there are some pipes of nitric acid going into a building, going up, and then going back down to ground level

the input pipes are fine but the output pipes are sometimes completely empty

[oblique hollow]

pipes that go down tend to be empty because gravity increases their pressure

[dusky bronze]

and both pipes are flowing at the rates they should be

ahh

[oblique hollow]

that pressure increase makes them flow like they should

[dusky bronze]

that makes sense

[oblique hollow]

so they dont need to be as full to flow at the same speed

[dusky bronze]

this whole nitric acid setup is scuffed but i think everything is working

[cinder silo]

I was still better off hugely simplifying the piping instead of overthinking it 🫡

[oblique hollow]

yeah but i think its very funny

Ive solved pipes.

[oblique hollow]

https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/post/68b22be2dbe2e46a549b0664

[visual yarrow]

I have at last finished my unfortunately/apparently now traditional completely overkill 45/m HMF factory. As per usual, I have functionally no use for them right now.

All according to keikaku.

I can tell that i've really accomplished something because my FPS is starting to drop and I didn't even put any lights in here.

[flint oyster]

Batch feeder system 5 pcs / 10 min. with 2 priority mergers and 2 smart splitters.
10 min timer from 600pcs mk1 belt loop.
You need to take belt compression into account, so the high speed loop is loaded with 27 pcs , then you get reliable switch. you can use batch size of 1 to ...
Nice for e.g restricted loading of plutonium or ficsonium fuel rods in reactor complex from remote stock to keep radiation low.

[visual yarrow]

When you say remote stock, do you mean, like... a supply that isn't being burned as fast as it's produced?

[flint oyster]

Yes 😁

[visual yarrow]

Okay, so the idea is that you put an amount of parts in something, and the filler items delay the throughput of that item?

Or something like that. I'm more asking about the utilization than the mechanics, to clarify.

[flint oyster]

Yes, so the plutonium stock stops at the batch feeder input, 5 pcs of something do a 10 min loop and then trigger the release of 5 rods at once onto a belt..

[visual yarrow]

Nifty. So that's something like... 0.06/m? That was a complete guess, my brain is fried.

[flint oyster]

I have tried long time to make a timer and now it works. Its cool

[visual yarrow]

Other question: why silica as filler, and not a slug rave?

...I am apparently in a silly mood.

[flint oyster]

🤣

They all compress the same

[visual yarrow]

I guess it's not too surprising, given that I feel relief and a sense of accomplishment from finishing this damn HMF factory and actually having it work exactly as intended.

[flint oyster]

Uhh HMF....

[visual yarrow]

Including the part where I don't really... need more than the tiniest trickle of HMFs for building right now, and yet am making 45/m.

If the usual pattern continues, I will then do essentially the exact same thing by converting most of them into fused modular frames I will proceed to not know what to do with, while simultaneously abruptly finding actual reasons to need HMFs in constant supply.

[flint oyster]

You will need a lot when going into tier 9

[visual yarrow]

Yeah, i've been in tier 9 for a long while now.

I still haven't automated computers. That was next.

[flint oyster]

Do you use trains?

[visual yarrow]

Kind... of.

I build extensive rail networks and then am so picky about how the stations look and branch off the track that I have very few actual trains using it.

[shadow wraith]

bruh my friend is flexing he finished coal power

i just got done with phase 2

[visual yarrow]

And, in case you are wondering, I accidentally fell asleep while autocrafting computers a few weeks ago.

So plenty of signals for meee.

[shadow wraith]

i have a mega base work in progress

[flint oyster]

I don't like them.. so i had all trucks and lots of roads as i thought they where cool, but there physics is soo bad, it is impossible to rely on them.

Now i build a 80 drone port central hub, that is also cool to watch

[shadow wraith]

it takes 2.5m power it is the base storing everysingle item in game

dont evan ask how long it took me to connect THE 290 TRUCK

[visual yarrow]

The thing about the modular frame line of items is that they are used mostly for buildings, which are one-time costs, essentially. They don't get a lot of use in actual recipes, other than project parts, for the most part.

[vapid gorge]

sounds like you were making poor recordings :\ or it was ages ago. Like u6

[visual yarrow]

IIRC, HMFs are only used for fused modular frames and adaptive control units- and those are something like 1/m and use 1HMF/m

I guess it is at least 486,000 more points per minute.

[flint oyster]

290 trucks... in 1.1 if u use over 40 then they just stop all over the place or behave like they have alzheimer. So i wonder how u managed that!

[unique cypress]

Trains exist???

[flint oyster]

If you build lots of drone ports u need HMF

[fallow siren]

2/min for build gun is plenty

different case when hmf is used for fused frame

[unique cypress]

2 sounds low. I usually suggest 5.625, or 2 HEF manufacturers. I'm doing 22.5 but I'm insane

[flint oyster]

Nope, in the past yes that was an issue with the splines , but now they just behave stupid as soon as you have some serious automation structures on going

[fallow siren]

i did 24/min for build gun before, completely overkill

so most of the time i decided with 6/min

[visual yarrow]

honestly

before this point, I had been getting by with just dumping parts into a slooped manufacturer every once in a while

and then going and.... well, usually not doing anything remotely productive.

for drone ports, though, RCUs are the real bottleneck

i usually actually automate those a lot earlier, but i've been really.... not enthusiastic to do my second, non-starter aluminum setup, due to a lack of faith in fluid recycling loops and a vehement dislike of not looping it "properly"

i guess I do have instant scrap to work with, though.

[flint oyster]

No problem, have good prod running.

This drone port, its 80 ports i move about 25.000 pcs per min, and thats not so bad , they are fast on long haul

[visual yarrow]

ahh, but then it becomes this whole thing with... i have those two full pure quartz belts that I could do quartz purification on and get like 1450 crystals and 2700 silica but that's going to be a whole thing and I feel like I have other priorities.

like, yknow. automating computers.

but then i'm like "well I could do crystal computers...." and I look at the 2,400 raw quartz and kind of just. twitch a little.

it doesn't help that the actual location of it is in perhaps one of the worst possible places to branch off a train station, let alone more than one.

[flint oyster]

Where are u building

[visual yarrow]

buuuut it's right next to the nitrogen and limestone i'd also need so I kind of want to make it on site except THEN it becomes so much more item

uhh. nothing right now. i'm contemplating my options.

it's in that part where everything has a level of interconnectedness, and because I have access to everything now, I feel obligated to go to the full extent when doing anything. so I go overboard on just about everything

[flint oyster]

I am on the sea at northern forest

[visual yarrow]

oh, WHERE

i'm tired, apologies.

[visual yarrow]

uh.. isnt that the west coast of the rocky desert

well anyways, i'm roughly located in this general area.

[visual yarrow]

i'm a lot more spread out, though. i've got something like four large bases and three smaller ones in various places

though they are gradually encroaching upon one another and becoming one, large base, as intended.

[near smelt]

I've never actually moved liquids by packaging them, loading them onto a train, and then unpacking them. What's the estimated rates for moving liquids this way? Obviously it varies from train to train, but what is a general idea?

[visual yarrow]

well, there's a few points to consider.

[near smelt]

Distance and how much I need?

[visual yarrow]

the first is that fluid wagons beat out solid freight until MK6 belts, at which point they're roughly equivalent

[near smelt]

Oh interesting

[visual yarrow]

the second is that gases compact multiple units of fluid into one item, so they are always better to package.

[vapid gorge]

fluid wagons typically match packaged until mk6?

since packaged a car carries 2x as much but you need a return car for hte empties

[unique cypress]

The max depends on belt speed, but with mk6, it's 1790/min/platform. You will need several trains to achieve that at any appreciable distance tho

[near smelt]

So package gasses but not liquids?

[visual yarrow]

the third is that you're basically choosing between dealing with pipes and choosing between setting up packagers and devoting half of the wagons to the return canisters (or potentially doing something with multiple stations)

[vapid gorge]

gasses do very poorly in buffers, so you kinda have to package them if you want full throughput

[unique cypress]

Packaging nitrogen is 6-8 times more efficient, packaging liquids is 1.5-2x

[near smelt]

Nice, I need to send nitrogen a quarter of the way around the map, so i guess im packaging it.

[visual yarrow]

it's really one of those things where circumstances and preference are what you need to consider

nitrogen also works pretty well with drones.

[near smelt]

Yeah this is my first time getting past supercomputers and RCUs so I have no idea what im doing at this point 🤣

[visual yarrow]

well, drones work well with all packaged fluids, because drones load and unload at both their home port and their destination port

and thus they avoid the issue of needing to devote logistics to returning packages, because you can just send them back into the drone port

[near smelt]

I guess I have some leftover oil at my turbomotor factory im building. So I guess I could fuel drones with regular fuel. No idea what the math is on that though

[visual yarrow]

but it generally becomes an issue of how much you want to transport.

or rather, drones are going to be probably a better option the less nitrogen you're transporting, while trains edge out for large shipments

[near smelt]

I need 540/min.

[visual yarrow]

nitrogen gas, or packaged?

[near smelt]

Nitrogen gas

[visual yarrow]

well, that is I believe 135/m packaged nitrogen, so I would personally say that's a drone situation

but you might also want to consider the future. there could be benefit to having the rail and station(s) in place near the well for future nitrogen things

[unique cypress]

Yeah, that's basically nothing for a train. One wagon could deal with that at basically any reasonable distance

Though if you already have rails at both ends, it might still be easier than a drone

[visual yarrow]

you could build a train that is a single freight car, and two locomotives, but facing inwards towards the freight car

[near smelt]

There is already a rail close to the node

[visual yarrow]

i'm just establishing the fact that you can do that

[near smelt]

And I appreciate the advice. I might do it anyway just to get past the, "new things are scary" stage.

[visual yarrow]

tbh the only reason why people don't build trains with the wagons in front of the locomotive is because the way the train station needs to be built means you kind of need a wagon in front to not waste space

oh my god i am so tired, i am just spouting nonsense now

i finished my project, tommorrow is a new day, i want pizza.

wow it's only 8:15? huh.

let me leave with a train secret for y'all

much like I want belts to always be flowing, I have a very strong compulsion to ensure that train wagons are fully unloaded. i don't like the partial unload animation. i want that whole damn container to go into the station.

[unique cypress]

I'm not entirely sure if that's a legal configuration in this game

[visual yarrow]

it might not be able to dock

but it should work when driving manually

[unique cypress]

Last I checked, the trains need a forward facing locomotive at the very front for the autopilot to work

Haven't checked it in years though

[visual yarrow]

yeah, that's essentially what I mean

[flint oyster]

U need about 10 trains with 8 wagons to equal my drone port throughput however, it uses 8 GW... but they are fast when u fly them on batt rock fuel or better on plutonium rods, but then batch feeding else you die of radiation all over the place in the hub

[visual yarrow]

since autopilot is based entirely on stations, and it needs a front locomotive to dock as well as various pathfinding things (usually related to double-headed trains)

[visual yarrow]

i like ionized fuel, personally

same speed as plutonium rods, not radioactive, also good for personal use.

[flint oyster]

Yeah thats true

[unique cypress]

Expensive though

Plutonium rods are essentially a waste product of certain nuclear setups

Using them for drones essentially costs you sink points

[visual yarrow]

i think I value sink points significantly higher than you do

but I also just don't like the radiation if i'm being honest

[flint oyster]

Well fly them or burn the waste via ficsonium, but flyong them is cool

[visual yarrow]

i always try to do my nuclear setup in a way that minimizes the ambient radiation. i find it to be a good challenge

[flint oyster]

Its like a real stress level, o spend about 1000 hours on it , and have nuclear all over the place , so if i make some mistake then all is wasted, just left with 2 big containers of iodine masks 🤣

[visual yarrow]

it's funny when you realize you can walk on belts of uranium waste without starting to consume filters, up to a certain point

but that's mostly because uranium waste's radiation density primarily comes from it's high stack size

[flint oyster]

Well if i go near my stock pile of plutonoum and ficsonium the filter go like a second hand...

[visual yarrow]

the parts that are inevitably going to be radioactive are the plutonium processing, because plutonium pellets/encased cells have both fairly high radiation values, are crafted in large batches (and thus stack a fair amount in the machines), and plutonium rods just have a ton of radioactivity

[flint oyster]

Thatd why i have it way out at sea, on level edge

[visual yarrow]

i build mine at sea, too, but mostly just because of the access to water

but it's a very nice feeling to be able to walk around the majority of a nuclear plant without consuming filters at all

...it also tends to be a good way to notify you that something may be wrong in a production line.

okay yeah im just exhausted. calling it a night. or attempting to

[flint oyster]

It is 3:30 am here 😆

[toxic current]

should i wait until tier nine to make a huge nuc plant? i wanna do it now but i think the benifits of waiting are to great

[unique cypress]

Imo, the only real benefit of waiting is mk6 belts

[toxic current]

sf tools says i should use the converter but i aint doin allat

[unique cypress]

Which are, admittedly, quite helpful, but the extra 50% capacity isn't strictly required

[unique cypress]

Nah, Tools chooses resource conversion sometimes because it's "cheaper" by its metrics

[toxic current]

is it not possible to do 40 uranium fuel rods without it?

[unique cypress]

You could make 50.4 uranium rods even before 1.0

[toxic current]

oh shi is it limited cuz of uranium or cuz of other stuff

[unique cypress]

50.4 is the maximum you can make from 2100 uranium without using sloops

As of 1.0, you can get more than 2100 uranium via conversion

[toxic current]

thats all the uranium? thats it?

[unique cypress]

But 2100 is what you can get from the map

[toxic current]

nah cuz now we got mk6 belts to

so a pure gives 1200 not 740 or whatever

[unique cypress]

There are no pure uranium nodes. So a mk5 can get all the uranium already

[toxic current]

oh bummer

ok how much can i make from 1 node?

[unique cypress]

14.4 from a normal and 7.2 from an impure

[toxic current]

aint even worth it lmao

[unique cypress]

14.4 rods is 180 GW

[toxic current]

already got 200 gw from oil

ig it would be cool

[unique cypress]

Yeah, nuclear's effort to power ratio is questionable

[toxic current]

scammers

[unique cypress]

And it doesn't really get better with higher tier rods

[toxic current]

man ive never done it before tho i think i gotta

[stoic gorge]

is it safe to assume that if the miner and the final machine output are at 100% so the intire system is at 100%?

[toxic current]

no

depends on your scale

i didnt know for like 12 hours my powerplant didnt have enough fuel 🫠

all my calcs were right, but the pipes in this game a terrible lol

[unique cypress]

Depends what you put in the middle. You're getting 100% the output from what you've built, but it doesn't say anything about the status of the machines in the middle of the chain. If you overbuilt one intermediate step by 2x, all the machines would have an average efficiency of 50% and yet still produce exactly the items you needed

[low spruce]

im too dumb to figure out why this is negative and what it means 😭

[unique cypress]

But I think 100% uptime is a scam. You only need it on the last machines to make sure you're getting the output you were expecting, and the rest doesn't matter

[unique cypress]

What mode is the calculator in?

[low spruce]

it is in manual mode but i was hoping i could fix this without going back to auto

[unique cypress]

If you went into auto, it'd probably zero everything out

[low spruce]

yeah lol

[toxic current]

what calc is that

[low spruce]

modeler on steam

[toxic current]

worth it or nah

[low spruce]

yeah its free

[toxic current]

like to bother

[unique cypress]

For most people? Not really

[toxic current]

oh thanks

[unique cypress]

SFTools is better

[random creek]

I am having trouble deciding on if i want to use the sulfur or not

[toxic current]

use the sulfer

[random creek]

1 is a blueprint of 2 overclocked refiners for pure ingots and 1 is the same but with leached

[unique cypress]

Oil processing recipes make items in a very specific ratio. For example, default plastic makes 1 HOR for every 2 plastic. And you have to use both of these outputs in exactly a 2:1 ratio for it to work.

You often need either sink the excess of one to make enough of the other, or use a recipe chain that can use both items in any ratio

[random creek]

actually forgot to label the outputs but i would say the sulfur is superior since i get about 2.5k extra iron

[low spruce]

i cannot even wrap my head around what the negative number means so im not sure how to deal with it unless it would involve some overly complicated math to stay in manual mode

[unique cypress]

Also, I feel obligated to mention that these recipes have awful efficiency and you can likely get the oil usage down to 1k with the right alts

And you wouldn't have to deal with ratios either

[low spruce]

im not sure, i put the same end output into satisfactory calculator with every alt recipe selected and the crude oil amount is 3.4k but im not actually sure if calculator uses the most resource efficient recipes or not, so the only other option is use my brain to make something better though it is already stupidly complicated

for context if it helps, but it might just be a throw away plan entirely lol

[unique cypress]

Satisfactory calculator is an absolutely awful calculator and if you just enable all alt recipes, it might even tell you you need like 12k oil because it's fucking stupid

That's why I said earlier that SFTools is better

[dusky dust]

Those modeller graphs are nearly useless for trying to convey information to other people, since literally nothing's labelled, btw

People trying to interpret the graph have to zoom in and hope they recognize the recipes, and the resource icons, etc

[low spruce]

lol yea thats why i switched to modeler in the first place. the last time i used sftools it was still in 0.8 so i havent tried it

[dusky dust]

And if you don't recognize the recipe, what's your options? Scouring the wiki in the hopes that you do find it

To say nothing of the two recipes which have identical resource inputs/outputs, so you'd have to actually calculate ratios to know which one the graph is using

[dusky dust]

sftools has been (IMO) the best online solver for quite awhile, btw. Since prior to Update 8, for sure.

(Not trying to say you shouldn't use modeller, but it's a very different class of software than a solver. They've both got their uses. Though IMO the best "modeller" to use is just the game itself. Learning how to use a third-party app to do the stuff you can just do ingame instead feels a bit self-defeating to me. :))

[low spruce]

i wasnt expecting this person to interpret the entire graph, they said the recipes are inefficient so just trying to give context to where the crude oil is going which is 5 basic recipes with no exact alternates

[dusky dust]

It's still an absolute nightmare for anyone who's not the one making the graph to interpret

Every single step of interpretation requires conscious thought and interpreting tiny icons

As opposed to literally every other solver out there which labels things

I'm grumbling at the Modeller devs, not you, btw. :D Though it's worth keeping in mind that those graphs are essentially useless if you're trying to give anyone else info about your production chains

They're fine for whoever's using the app because you've got mouseovers and stuff, but as a static image it's just awful

[low spruce]

sftools has indeed reduced the amount to 508 crude oil. lol. but at the cost of my own sanity

[dusky dust]

Heh, the most-oil-efficient petrochem loop is a bit of a trip if you're not familiar with it. :)

[low spruce]

i knew it was possible, but definitely not capable of recreating it in modeler as i am not a super computer

is there a way to get nice numbers in sftools even if it changes the end output or is everything being 3 decimal places unavoidable..

[vapid gorge]

it uses the first recipe alphabetically.

[low spruce]

no wonder its so bad

[vapid gorge]

well it's not really any worse than having a calculator have weights to different resources. Just a different kind of random

you don't get to choose which resource to value more

the way you should go about it is to swap recipes in and out of any planner, tha tway it forces it to go down a path and you can look at the output and see if that's what you want to do

the main issue with SCIM is it doesn't do loops well, and some people use 'realistic' view which is just awful

like, the layouts technically work, but the program has no idea what a human looking factory should look like

[low spruce]

realistic mode is so funny, i remember using it when i first discovered the planner. i think this is why i prefer modeler because i can use numbers that are easier, it just requires a lot of knowledge to be relatively efficient i guess.

[frosty owl]

*anyone who has trouble with icons

I do find it surprising how many that is, but it's still just a portion of people (arguably, icons are literally faster to read than tsxt; that's kinda their whole point as an information tool xD)

[sturdy sage]

Modeler? I’ve never heard of it. What is it?

[low spruce]

i think no matter what it is gonna be hard to read a model, and arguably worse on tools like sftools where if you zoom out to a reasonable point, the words disappear and you have lines scattered all over the place for efficiency. i agree with both sides though and can see an issue with recipes like the reinforced iron plate which is identical to the regular recipe. you can put labels in modeler but i still think at some point it will be just as unreadable

[sturdy sage]

I’ve heard of satisfactory tools and satisfactory calculator. I’ve just never heard of what you’re talking about.

[dusky bronze]

its a program on steam that does the same thing but a little worse

[low spruce]

you can basically create your entire production line manually. i think it can be very useful if you know what youre doing. you wont be as perfectly efficient as a computer like sftools but sometimes those other tools make it difficult to make them do what you want in many different cases

[sturdy sage]

Mhhhmmm k

Thanks

[frosty owl]

Having enough zoom is always needed to make things readable, no matter the tool you're using (I'd argue icons are easier to read even when tiny, but that's besides the point). What I don't find agreeable is that "anyone but the creator" of a plan is able to read a plan if it just has icons instead of text 🤷‍♂️

[crimson moat]

You need to be able to see a recipe name or inputs/outputs, as well as connections.

which requires a certain level of zoom

that being said, i find overlapping lines MUCH harder to read, as i can't trace if A is connected to B or C or D without very carefully following each line one at a time. This is unavoidable on SFTools at scale, but avoidable on Modeller.

[upbeat turtle]

what site is this?

[crimson moat]

This is the plan that i'm working with atm, as generated, and zoomed in enough to be able to read the text.

[crimson moat]

It's Satisfactory Modeller on steam.

[frosty owl]

I don't see the point in mentioning zooming at all
Like: no matter what software you use, if you don't zoom enough you just see rectangles and lines

[low spruce]

my point was just that sftools becomes harder to read faster than modeler as you zoom out, at least for my setup. i completely agree with you though as there are very few identical alt recipes

[crimson moat]

This may be a bit confusing for some. But it's trivial to zoom to read the relevant chunked section extremely clearly, and without unneccesary information clogging or overlapping stuff that you need to look at.

see e.g.

on Tools by comparison, if i look at iron wire or pure iron ingot then it's connected to many other things that i don't care about right now, they're all overlapping each other, and lines are going completely off the screen so i can't see where they do.

This happens because it's a common recipe, and tools enforces 1 recipe = 1 node.

On Modeller, you can have one node making iron wire for X thing, another node making iron wire for Y thing, another making iron wire for Z thing, and they don't HAVE to be linked together.

[frosty owl]

Even when the overlap can be alleviated, it's hardly worth it if you can't save that (eg: making a complex SFTools plan more readable, only to have it reset after you change any number)

[crimson moat]

Yeah that is a big usability issue as well which could be improved

Modeller has its own usability issues, but it does some of this stuff very well in a way that other tools don't/can't, to the point where i find it the most useful way to map out factories after i already decided on which recipies to use.

For which i use SFTools mostly.

[dusky dust]

There is no universe in which having a label which just says what recipe is being used isn't far less work to interpret than having to look at a collection of tiny icons and hope that you remember the name of that recipe

With modeller you have to intuit every single element, and if you happen to not know one of the recipes in the graph then you have literally no choice but to start scouring the codex or a wiki

If it just effing labelled things you could just glance at the image and know exactly what's being used

And, yes, much can be gleaned from context, but good luck guessing if something's coal, compacted coal, or petroleum coke at a quick glance

Or an SE part whose icon you're maybe not familiar with because those aren't things you actually see very often

I'm not saying that Modeller graphs can't be interpreted, and can't provide information, but if you're posting a graph to convey information to anyone else, it is the absolute worst graph format for that purpose out of any Satisfactory grapher I've ever seen

Unlabelled Modeller screenshots require that the third party be willing to do work to even know what it is you're producing, let alone what the intermediate steps are

Anyway, I'll just step off this soapbox and see myself out. :D