math-and-meta

[lethal kettle]

ahhh i used 0 oil

[fiery viper]

I'm currently trying to debug my problem file for Zistacks python script to figure out the theoretical maximum for the new advanced-all pure settings and will definitely report back once i figure out how to stop this recursion error

[crimson moat]

it uses more SAM than exists, requires sloops.

[leaden depot]

slooping the trigons is pretty efficient on sloops to sam savings

[crimson moat]

higher up the chain is better iirc

[lethal kettle]

oh i forgor they exist

[tropic zephyr]

This should be enough until the end of the game :D

right?

[fervent spire]

Depends on what you're doing, I'm in phase 4 and I think I've used more than that many already lmao

2-3 in pretty much every resource node, I don't even use them on machines and I won't until I can automate them probably

[tropic zephyr]

I thought this would be enough.
damn it

[fervent spire]

I mean it can be, I just have big plans lol

[teal tiger]

is 1 industrial storage container per car station good enough for buffer?

[fervent spire]

If you are only taking one 1200 belt worth out of one station, then it will take 0.66m for 16 stacks of 50 to be emptied from the container (this is worst case, higher stack items will take longer). Belt is only locked for 0.4513m so it's good, assuming you have the train throughput to match

If you're trying to do more than 1200/m out of a single freight car then godspeed I guess

[somber sedge]

Hey guys i was doing some logistics but uhh is it not possible to hide these?

[mint coral]

You can hide them all. I cannot remember how though

[somber sedge]

i figured it out thanks

factory carts are a really clean solution ngl

they have to be the ONLY useful car

[mint coral]

I use them too

[naive tree]

share

how you do it?

[leaden depot]

factory carts delivering nuclear fuel rods for some reason is the funniest thing ever to me

[somber sedge]

Sit in a vehicle and it shows u which button to press to hide those things at the bottom

[fiery viper]

FINALLY figured out the theoretical maximum awesome sink output for what i assume is all the Random>advanced ores>all pure maps:
801,043,720.27 points/min!

(it might vary based on how the resource wells are randomized, i havent checked that part too closely and just based it off my one save, but i'll look into that soon enough)

This is based on the output of a slightly-modified version of Zistacks Satisfactory Optimizer python script; had to futz around with some dictionary stuff causing infinite recursion, but i finally got this output file, which documents the entire theoretical factory.

[fiery viper]

Doing more digging into resource well randomization:

it looks like the resource wells are throwing a wrench in things. Because the randomizer changes things based on the central node (but keeps the number of satellite nodes confined to the location), saves can vary in how much nitrogen gas and oil are available. (and water, too, but that's trivial)

Gonna have to figure out a way to determine what the ideal theoretical distribution would be and re-run the numbers.

There are 17 central wells (6 with 6 nodes, 8 with 7 nodes, 2 with 8 nodes, 1 with 10 nodes); advanced random distributes the resources randomly between them with 6 as nitrogen, 3 as oil, and 8 as water.

Presumably the best seed would have the largest wells as nitrogen, followed by oil, followed by water (since water is infinite). This gives a slightly larger theoretical max awesome sink point total of 806150517.561/min, a 00.63% increase

(file for that math, in case anyone is crazy enough to try finding a seed matching these conditions and subsequently building it)

no, wait; prioritizing oil boosts things even more! 809,377,520.308 ppm. (i checked, water is only 800946260.122 ppm)

[grand lotus]

is me doing all the constructors lined up like this fine? im confused on how to get those specific number of iron ingots into all the diff constructors so i was thinking of doing it like a sushi belt

i was thinking that if i let everything overflow it would work fine but im not sure if that checks out

[meager kettle]

a tier 1 belt aint gonna handle that

[grand lotus]

i got t 3

i was only planning on sushi belting the ingots but idk if this would work

if it doesnt, anybody got any tips on how to split the iron properly?

[meager kettle]

sushi is doing diffrent items, not same

if you have tier 3 then just manifold it

[grand lotus]

manifold all the ingots into the diff constructors?

[meager kettle]

ya

[grand lotus]

k ty

wait do u think i should split the iron into the diff constructors by the belt in the middle, or do u think i should keep them all on 1 line with the three constructors on the right

[meager kettle]

do what ya prefer, makes no real diffrence

[grand lotus]

k

[tropic zephyr]

What language do you speak? 😭

[grand lotus]

huh?

[tropic zephyr]

Anyway, do you think it's sensible to research all the hard drives I have? Because it seems like they only offer alternatives to things I already know the specifications for, meaning I'll probably have to go and build new hard drives again when new parts become available in the future.

[grand lotus]

yeah u should research them all

but dont choose any alt recipes

save them for until u need them, and if u get enough u can easily get the ones u need like cast screws

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, I'm doing what you suggested, but I'll be opening up a lot of parts later on, moving to Phase 4, and I have no hard drives left. I'm thinking I wish I hadn't used them up, because I'll have to find another one later for new projects.

[grand lotus]

alr

[tropic zephyr]

what

[wind spade]

yeah, just get all the HDDs you can, pick any recipe you get and scan next. No reason to keep them in the library unless you're looking for a specific one

[wind spade]

cast screws are pretty overrated tbh

[grand lotus]

nah they a game changer, i hate making rods just for screws when its so common

[wind spade]

they don't really offer anything compared to other chains

the only time when they offer anything is when you're pre-steel and want to make screws

[tropic zephyr]

The instructions coming from the hard drive are alternatives to the parts I currently have in my codec, right? They don't show alternatives to the parts that can't be opened, do they?

[grand lotus]

what does pre steel have anything to do with screws? is it for a better alt?

[wind spade]

it's not exactly like that, but basically yes

[tropic zephyr]

oh okay

[wind spade]

both steel screws and steel rod are part of chains that offer more resource or machine/power savings

[grand lotus]

ohhh oik

i lowk hate dealing with steel since the foundry has a weird shape

either i have to space them apart by 1 or deal with it by putting them next to each other

[mint coral]

yopu can make smaller adjustments when the item is in the hold mode by pressing ctrl plus the arrow keys

it helps with the annoying shape when laying out splitters and merging

[grand lotus]

tbh i dont mind the splitters n stuff, i got a decent way to do it, but i just hate how asymmetrical it is

it just genuinely pisses me off

[meager kettle]

can just make it symmetrical

[grand lotus]

wdytm

[meager kettle]

you can downclock machines to have the same amount of them, makign symmetrical

[mint coral]

this came to min for some reason

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aEAKz4bKDuQ

[meager kettle]

or just make more and sink what you dont use

[modest schooner]

dont know if this is the right section to ask.
but i need to split the iron rod output from this 50/40.
it generates 90 rods a minute and i need 50 to go to screw constructors and 40 to go straight to the rotor assembly.

[wind spade]

you can just use single splitter, it will self-balance

or you can have two groups of machines, one making 50 rods and one making 40 rods

[modest schooner]

i dont think im at the point of the game where i can change what the machines output yet

but self balance sounds good

[wind spade]

that's like at the point where you can build MAM

[modest schooner]

yea i havent touched that thing yet outside of scanning a few random tree nuts

[wind spade]

yeah that's the most important building in the game

[strong garden]

I went through stage 1 and 2 without it. Regret

(Without overdrive not the MAM)

[main shuttle]

do mob enemies like when a stinger attacks a spitter need to have line of sight to each other to trigger?

[half geyser]

The idea behind merging them onto a single T2 belt and then using a single splitter here is that it will split them 45/45, but when the side that only needs 40 eventually fills up (which takes a lot less time than you think) and backs up the extra input all the way to the splitter, the splitter will take that extra 5 and send it to the 50 side, thus splitting it 40/50. It will just take ten to fifteen minutes before it reaches this point, until then, your factory will run slightly below optimal performance

If you want to speed up that backup process, you can underclock the 40 side temporarily. Or just manually fill up whatever is using those rods on the 40 side. But, personally, I just wait.

The only case I can think of where you need it to be running 100% reliably immediately rather than after a few minutes of operation is for your very first coal power plant. That’s about it, all future power plants should be supported by batteries and prior plants while they are still onlineing.

[quiet hare]

question for anyone who uses satisfactory tools website, is there a way to input an available amount of power shards to the layout it provides so it doesnt tell me i need some crazy amount of machines

[vapid gorge]

it uses clockign automatically

4.34 machiens is 434% clocking

[dusky dust]

Yeah, arguably it "should" report it as 434% rather thatn 4.34, though that would presumably be even more confusing for more users

[quiet hare]

so this is like 2000%

[dusky dust]

But the tool doesn't actually care about the implementation details at all. It's up to you to decide how to divide up your machines/belts/etc, and the details of how you're providing the required raw materials and such

[vapid gorge]

23.018 smelters is 2301.8% clocking

spread it how you like

[quiet hare]

okay this is good to know, thanks much

[grand lotus]

yall how do i remove these paths in 1.2 experimental?

[vapid gorge]

maybe you need to physically delete the 'rail' ?

[grand lotus]

yeah i did that but i think i couldve also just deleted and replaced the truck stations for the same effect

[somber sedge]

my factory carts seem to keep attempting procreation here instead of moving along

any ideas why

[vapid gorge]

@meager shadow

[somber sedge]

i mean

it looks like theyre curing their own depression

also can they go up 4m

4m ramp

[frosty owl]

They can probably go up 8m roofs too, can't they?

[half geyser]

Ghosts, probably

[oblique hollow]

Blocked by invisible collision box of their own making in all likelyhood
A quirk of the current vehicle system

[meager shadow]

Is there possibly a pause node on your route around there?

[faint magnet]

Is there a good guide for general advice on starting layouts? It's difficult for me to do initial setup every time I play the game, everything always starts off so disorganized and by the time I get to the point where I can rearrange things with foundations I get lost on how I should do so.

[mint coral]

ya Spectrumdad has some good videos on the subject. Although you should check the dates, any older then 2025 are pre 1.0

mind you these early game layouts are the games way of teaching you. they only get more complex

[faint magnet]

Naturally, I just need something to build off of. Thanks for the recommendation :-)

[mint coral]

amny would advise buckling down and figuring it out yourself, When i started playing i found visual aids really helped until i got experience in

[vapid gorge]

if you keep building new thigns attached to old things that'll happen - since you're not building from an endpoint

[vapid gorge]

use a planner like so to help manage new sections https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=FGl6dYQHsHttJZsT5vTn

and keep them seperate

[faint magnet]

What visual aids?

[mint coral]

Actually seeing someone build a layout on youtube

[viral canopy]

this is what helped me build my first own factory

[merry sundial]

last 2 blenders having problem extracting

[vapid gorge]

yeah try to use photomode, P, to take direct overhead shots pls

details are important with pipes

[vapid gorge]

ok you're branching your manifolds

[merry sundial]

excuse messy pipework i marked how it goes

[vapid gorge]

so your HOR purpple pipes, how much pm total in them?

[merry sundial]

each should be 600

but it s not due to fuel blenders not working properly

last 2 blenders look like this

[vapid gorge]

so this is 600?

[merry sundial]

yes

but i m not having issues with HOR

[vapid gorge]

what's the issue?

[merry sundial]

Fuel is not getting out of blenders and not getting into refineries in middle of stuff

I marked fuel route and which machines are having problems emptying/being filled

[vapid gorge]

I cannot even tell what is going on with your fuel here https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/558721941410807812/1484160575599677502/image.png?ex=69bd37bf&is=69bbe63f&hm=6e638e087c4d5a3870842bddb3579c1482c339cd25e10db89fab317d24568a89&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

[merry sundial]

I makred it with red line how it s going

look it s messy because i m trying to fix it

[vapid gorge]

what is going on here? another net worked connected to the first ?

[merry sundial]

no... this one is seperate and having it s own issues but those 2 networks are not connected

it s cursed rn because i have 2 pipes basically clipped into each other but it s 2 seperate networks

and right now trying to figure out what's wrong with red one

[vapid gorge]

do you have any valves on this part of the system?

[merry sundial]

i have a valve before water towers on floor level

[vapid gorge]

yeah get rid of all valves

that's step 1. Just every time you see a valve , kill it

step 2 is check all the refineries inputs and outputs, because in none of hte pictures do any in this section have yellow lights

which isn't definite info, you just might have taken pics at the right time to avoid it, but if they are all fed and outputing right then you probably have a math issue

[wind spade]

Also water towers are kidnda just pumps with extra steps, I'd remove them

[vapid gorge]

ok take off the hover pack and manually check them. Hover packs can stutter machinery

[merry sundial]

huh

[vapid gorge]

if you have power switches anywhere in your grid, hover pack can stutter machinery

hence, take it off, then manually check the refineries and show me images of their inputs and outputs

hell it's possible the stuttering is happening because you're flying around and stuttering the system, backing up the fuel in the blenders

[mint coral]

ill be glac when 1.2 is live and that issue is gone

[vapid gorge]

did the ysay that was fixed in 1.2?

[merry sundial]

i am on experimental

[mint coral]

yes sir. they mentioned it specifically

[vapid gorge]

ok please, manually check your refineries,

are their inputs full? any starved? are their outputs clogged?

[vapid gorge]

are all of them starving? just a few?

[merry sundial]

just 3 in middle out of 9

[vapid gorge]

did you flood the system before ?

as in , underclock a few consumers , let it flood, then clock them back up?

[merry sundial]

i did put some machines for like working on 10% for 2 minutes instead of 222.2222%

[vapid gorge]

ok and did you wait until everything was absolutely flooded?

[merry sundial]

maybe not... i ll try to underclock them a bit and then bring them back to what they were once every machine is absolutely full

[vapid gorge]

also this pump might be above or just edging the headlift limit , flatten the pipe and replace the pump

[merry sundial]

raise pipe here a level and put pump on it?

instead of the water tower?

[vapid gorge]

yeah just flatten it and put a pump somehwere before hand

it's hard to tell but it might be a headlift issue

[merry sundial]

ok pipes and machines are full of fuel

[vapid gorge]

cool, flood the system and ping me , 50% underclocks is good so it can finish the cycle faster

and the machines?

nice, kick them up

[merry sundial]

i'm bringing them back now to 222.2(2)%

[vapid gorge]

let it run for 5 minutes

[merry sundial]

seems to be working now, thank you!

[vapid gorge]

no stress! prob just on the edge of the headlift you had 🙂

just a few things thoguh - in general

avoid valves

and I know you didn't have an issue here, but in general avoid branches https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/558721941410807812/1484161087569006682/image.png?ex=69bd3839&is=69bbe6b9&hm=f6cfd7afd63b9c6802038bd9ff4d8f976837e42299da9e8ad492083daee88137&

have fluid go from A to B, no branches or weird merge/splits with other lines

[merry sundial]

but mah aesthetics 😮

[vapid gorge]

I'm not saying its impossible - but tons of issues happen from that

[somber sedge]

how is my factory layout

[vapid gorge]

in that case you'd have 1 pipe for each row - which doesn't really change much

[mint coral]

looks like a circuit board

[somber sedge]

this is the first one ive done with designated walking spaces

[vapid gorge]

something else to keep in mind, once you fix an issue further down the line, you might find you have flow issues in the previous steps

[merry sundial]

yeah... i noticed that...

i still have to go back and fully fix my turbofuel power plant i made in phase 3...

i ll get around it someday...

[vapid gorge]

I'd probably just let it be and run at whatever % it is, learn from it.
patching messy fluids is often more work than building it in the first place

and accepting a % loss on a power station isn't a huge deal. Just slightly less power

[merry sundial]

yeah i think i spent like 2 days building it, and another 2 days trying to fix it and it s still not working properly...

[vapid gorge]

there's probalby a simple issue - but branching manifolds and valves can cause issues

and if you were doing it here you might have been doing it there

[merry sundial]

1 sec bcs i m curious about sth

[vapid gorge]

sure

[merry sundial]

the reason i started building water towers in the first place is because this bauxite refinery was not working at 100% even when prefilled due to the pipe on the left constantly fluctuating, but once i built this water tower all the issues disappeared instantly

[vapid gorge]

correlation vs causation, a lot of times with pipes you just need to give it time, but people fiddle with it , do X thing and go 'oh, X must have fixed it'

for example, unless pipes are full full , those valves were probably causing flow issues

and it looks like youre ... feedign waste water back into fresh? that's notoriously unreliable

[merry sundial]

this is build i m having here that is actually working correctly

[vapid gorge]

yeah feeding waste water directly into fresh is a flip of the coin if it'll be stable enough in most designs

[merry sundial]

ignore 2 not working refineries

seems to be working fine

i guess i just love my hate - hate relationship with pipes

[vapid gorge]

thats why I said flip of the coin
unreliable doesn't me 'can't work'

they are very delicate though

[merry sundial]

fair

[vapid gorge]

blue is fresh, red is waste

completely unbreakable, should be able to restart from being clogged w/o manual interference

[merry sundial]

ooooh i see

[vapid gorge]

and you can use that same basic design in the future with waste gasses since you really can't feed waste gases into fresh

[vapid gorge]

also don't feel bad for not realising such a simple design. I don't think I've ever met anyone on this server that instinctually kept waste and fresh split

including myself

it's blindingly obvious when someone shows you though xD

example ratios for all the recipes

example clockings on my first image

[merry sundial]

thank you for showing me this arcane knowledge this will be invaluable when building the large scale alumina processing plant

[vapid gorge]

oh absolutely , something to remember is you're better off NOT interlinking them

meaning process each belt of bauxite on it's own.

basic rule for pipes in general honestly - keep systems in discreet units. Simpler to build design plan and troubleshoot

[merry sundial]

ok so dedicate pipes to each bauxite belt and then feed waste water into machines for the same belt

[vapid gorge]

basically

again, interlinking up like 10 bauxite line processes isn't impossible... but it can get real obnoxious real fast

one of those thigns where you could spend just as much time trouble shooting as building and still not get it to work right

just too many variables and points where the issue could be

[mint coral]

complete the needed rituals and pray to the machine god.

[vapid gorge]

where as if you have 10 seperate systems you'll find the problem spot much easier

heading to bed though, gl with it!
Remember, every possible process and system in this game can be basically as simple as you'd like to build it, or as crazy complex as you'd like. But the difficulty is always optional

it's just particularly true with fluids

[woven schooner]

are micro spikes in energy (like my full factory going from 24.350MW to 24.368.3MW for like, one second sometimes on the monitor) just a visual error?

[outer vale]

got trains?

[woven schooner]

I do, not consumption though, generation

[outer vale]

regenerative braking

[woven schooner]

weird it only started showing now after so many hours

I've had like, tens of trains for the past hundreds of hours, never seen that until I just turned off some machines in my older factory

I might've just not noticed. I guess it's a downside of having trains - not having the absolute straight gray line in the graph

[naive tree]

i have those in some of my early saves without trains

the spikes i mean

[urban gate]

I have weird fluctuations as well. 1225000MW production, and sometimes 1225007.8MW production. It's weird.

[dusky dust]

Yeah, that's just trains giving power back to the grid as they brake

It's easy to miss; most of the time it's such a small difference that you won't even notice on the power graphs. You'll generally only notice if you're looking at the actual numbers, etc

[naive tree]

but i dont have trains?

[dusky dust]

Well, then something else is causing it for you. For anyone with trains, though, that's the culprit

[naive tree]

my other guesses are idle buildings and biomass burners

[mint coral]

@subtle wasp in the futue if you post here we can help in #screenshots we cannot reply

#screenshots message

[wind spade]

or in #1038092680493801533 , even better choice

[tropic zephyr]

I built a factory that produces iron goods, and I don't think I've overestimated the number of products it should produce per minute (have I?), but it says it requires 2700 iron. Miner V2 only produced a maximum of 450, or maybe 300. How am I going to find that many nodes?

[wind spade]

by looking around. There's almost 100000/min iron available on the map, so you should be fine

[tropic zephyr]

Of all the alternative recipes, I chose those that contained iron. I wonder if that's why? Because I thought it would be simpler to produce everything from iron.

[wind spade]

it's more expensive in terms of weighted resources

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, I know that, but the railway points are very far apart and I haven't even started the train yet, and I don't want to deal with trucks and tractors.

[wind spade]

(and generally, I'd recommend making small separate plans and factories, rather than placing everything in single plan and single factory)

[mint coral]

i make all this across three factories in the grassly plans

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, what you're saying makes sense, but looking at the statistics, I'll still need the same amount of iron to produce the same products.

[tropic zephyr]

HOW

[wind spade]

for sure, but you can place small factories in places where the nodes are, instead of having to build single factory and moving everything to it

since your issue was "I don't want to move things to one place", that seems like a reasonable choice

[mint coral]

the center of the plans has many impure nodes i made all the phase one related things there.

then near the Coal node to the south west i made a steel factory for personal use.

in the south west is another pure coal nod i routed that to near the sam and build a third factory for SAM and motor and rotors for personal use

Iron Limestone and Coal nodes

Copper and sulfur

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, what you're saying makes perfect sense right now, but speaking of maps, it just occurred to me that I can't access the Satisfactory Calculator. Why is that? I was trying to calculate the locations of my factories from there.

[mint coral]

its down. youd have to ask there discord why. I do not have a link

[tropic zephyr]

If it doesn't open, I'll be in trouble. damn

[mint coral]

use tools for the calculater and ping in game or use rader towers.

I have the benifit of not knowing any of these cools tools existed before putting in 900 plus hours

[tropic zephyr]

I have one more question. I've unlocked almost all the alternative recipes for Phase 3 items, but in the Satisfactory Tools, I only selected the less demanding, iron-heavy recipes. I think this is wrong because if I had selected all the alternative recipes, it would have given me the most perfect factory.

I would like to use radar towers myself, but I don't have enough equipment.

[wind spade]

"perfect" changes based on preferences and goals. There's no single optimal way to play or build

[mint coral]

greeny is responding he made tools lol

[wind spade]

Tools just optimise for one property in one way, but that doesn't mean it's the best or anything. It's just one of the reasonable optimisations which I kinda subjectively picked so that the Tools optimises for something

but if you don't like that, you are free to change the recipes to your liking

[tropic zephyr]

Friends, it's almost time for iftar (breaking the fast), can I eat quickly and then we can talk? This is important to me; if we discuss it, I'll be designing my factory tonight.

[naive tree]

you shouldn't have to ask, this is digital, you can pause and resume whenever you want

[mint coral]

im going no where

[wind spade]

well, then you go design a factory 🙂 don't need our help with that anyway, as you should design it in a way you find fun, not in a way we tell you to do

[merry sundial]

will i run into issues with pipes if i merge 300 and 600 pipe like this?

these are both coming directly out of oil extractor

[dusky dust]

Possibly. It should theoretically work but complications are things you generally don't want to add to your pipe networks

The fluid simulation has a ton of odd behaviors which aren't obvious, and if you do experience fluid flow problems, the first advice is always gonna be "simplify the system"

[merry sundial]

i m trying to process 900 crude oil to keep numbers nice later on :/

[dusky dust]

I'd recommend just sending the 300 directly to a bank of machines that can support the 300, and the 600 directly to a bank of machines that can support 600

That way the two systems are totally separate, and if you have problems, you've got a simpler system to debug

[merry sundial]

🤔

i need to check my math for machine ratioes

[dusky dust]

Remember that you've got machine clocking, too! Once you free yourself of the desire to have "clean" numbers everywhere, you can do basically anything. :)

[subtle wasp]

alr thanks

[wind spade]

why not use 300 and 600 separately?

[merry sundial]

because then i get 400 and 800 heavy oil residue and i need 300 in a pipe to make 600 diluted fuel. if i feed 2 rows of refineries 450 crude oil i get exactly 600 heavy oil residue out of both

[wind spade]

you can get 3x400

or any other number

there's not much reason to max belts/pipes anyway

[merry sundial]

maxing belts seems like a no brainer, pipes not really but i ll think about it

600 throughput is nice too look at -_-

[tropic zephyr]

So, the people here are helping me, and it would be rude of me to just leave suddenly; I wanted to be polite.

[naive tree]

i get that, but like, you can just say "I gtg. I have to do something important"

people here are very understanding

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, you're right, but I wanted to be more descriptive. You're right too.

[mint coral]

Fast over? Eat well be fat

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, it's over, and Ramadan is finally over, thank goodness I can finally have breakfast.

Now, getting back to our topic, I was last talking about alternative recipes.

[mint coral]

You just pick whatever meets your goals. Each have trade offs. More of one resources for another is common. Power, water, and space are something often overlooked as you have access to so much

The pure iron recipe is a perfect example of this as you input 1 ore and get 1.8 ingots back

This costs you more power, you need water and refineries are huge

[tropic zephyr]

I've unlocked almost all the recipes for Phase 3 items, but in Satisfactory Tools I've only unlocked the iron recipes because if I unlocked all of them, I'd be too lazy to manage it. Bringing plastic, then iron, then copper, etc., would be tiring in a factory, so I decided to make everything iron. But now that seems a bit wrong because it requires almost 3000 iron, and I have other factories to build. I know there's a lot of iron in the world, but getting it from somewhere will be difficult. As you said, building small factories makes sense, but it will still use the same amount of iron. How will I manage the storage system when building factories on widely spaced nodes?

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, refineries are very large and consume a lot of energy, but Satisfactory Tools says it designs the best factory mathematically, which is probably true; it adjusts the settings accordingly.

[dusky dust]

sftools solves for "least resource usage" based on some hardcoded weights of the various resources. It's not necessarily best (and not even necessarily "best" for your local resource nodes, unless you've also gone to the Inputs tab to limit the solver to what resources you have locally available, or if you happen to value resources differently than sftools' hardcodes) -- I'll often tweak recipe selection at least a bit after getting the initial suggestion

[tropic zephyr]

And I don't know how to build small factories because the satisfactory calculator isn't working and I can't check the mine locations; otherwise, I would build them accordingly. And I don't have enough materials for the radar.

[mint coral]

Choose the recipes based on the nodes you are willing to access. There is no water of note in the south Grasslands. That cut off all the pure recipes.

I have a pure coal node. Thats a lot of coal you can extract your max belt speed easily. Which since you are planning on encased beams is a mk4.

So standard coal. Redue the tools calculations with just standard recipes. Does you resources support your need?

[tropic zephyr]

I think the translation got this text a little wrong; I didn't quite understand it, but what you said was still helpful. Thank you.

[mint coral]

You can also split this up into multiple tabs to make it easier on you.

For example take steel beams, steel pipes, encased beams and sam into one tab.

#math-and-meta message

[dusky dust]

Oh, sorry! I'll try to phrase it more simply. :)

sftools tries to give you a graph which uses the least amount of resources possible

It does that using some "weights" on the resources. Like sulfur is "worth" more than iron, so it'll be willing to use more iron to save on sulfur

Those weights are hardcoded, and might not match what your local nodes give you.

Like maybe you're building somewhere that has a lot of sulfur but hardly any iron

[tropic zephyr]

I think it meets the requirements, I'm not sure.

[dusky dust]

(sulfur and iron were weird examples to pick, but I guess I'm going with it. :D)

But just because it's giving you the least amount of resources used, based on those weights, doesn't make it the best factory plan

You might want a simpler production line which uses more resources

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, while trying to make similar things, I saw so many similar recipes and wanted to gather everything into one factory, but I think that was a bit of a mistake.

[dusky dust]

Or maybe you would prefer to use more sulfur instead of iron, etc.

So just use sftools as a starting point, is all. :)

[tropic zephyr]

You didn't need to go to all that trouble, but thank you anyway.

[dusky dust]

All good! I tend to write in complex multi-clause sentences

[tropic zephyr]

yes i think i know that

[dusky dust]

Which is harder for translation software. :)

[mint coral]

this is just the Sam pipes and Encased beams you listed

the south east of the grassy plains easily handles this no alts needed

[dusky dust]

My writing style tends to err on the side of "Victorian novelist." I've never met a sentence I couldn't spin out to a full page of text. :D

[tropic zephyr]

Ah, that's great then, I didn't know that. I just thought he was trying to produce the most using the least amount of resources. I didn't know he was calculating the value of the minerals.

[mint coral]

Instead of making a HUGE facility break it up to small ones that the local resources use

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, that's true, Satisfactory Tools can't calculate that; I need to do it myself.

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, that's exactly what I wanted. Iron is everywhere, after all. I initially thought I'd produce everything from iron, but I didn't think it would require so much iron.

[dusky dust]

What you can do is go to the "Inputs" tab and change the available resources, if you want

It'll still have the hardcoded "weights" of how it values the resources, but you can at least tell it how much you have locally available

[tropic zephyr]

Okay, so what can I use for bigger things? Could I perhaps build all the factories I used to produce all the items in Phase 3 myself using satisfactory models?

[tropic zephyr]

Yes, that's why I was translating your sentences one by one, but I couldn't quite grasp it. Writing it like this is much better. Thank you for your effort.

[tropic zephyr]

"alt" is alternate recipes right?

[mint coral]

Yes sir. Ill try not to abbreviate

[tropic zephyr]

What you're saying is true, but setting up such small factories creates another problem. How am I going to establish a storage system? If these small factories are far apart, I'll have to walk quite a distance to get the necessary materials.
And it's difficult because I haven't opened the train services yet.

[dusky dust]

I'd recommend finding Mercer Spheres while exploring, and researching them in the MAM

You'll unlock a thing called "Dimensional Depot"

It gives you a "cloud" storage which gets used while building stuff

You won't have to walk around to pick anything up, after awhile!

It does take a lot of exploration to build it up to full functionality, but it's worth it

[tropic zephyr]

ohhh you are saying this okay

it makes sense maybe i can use this tab

[dusky dust]

Yep! The site will recalculate the graph whenever you change anything

Changing values won't always change the results, of course

[tropic zephyr]

Brooo, please don't tire yourselves out, I'm just trying to understand the translation. and you dont need to say sir :DD

[tropic zephyr]

yes i have it

[tropic zephyr]

YOU ARE REALLY A GENIUS, DAMN IT, I'M GOING TO DO THIS, YOU ARE REALLY, REALLY A GENIUS.

I hadn't thought of that, it's so clever!

[dusky dust]

Yeah, it's very nice once it's fully upgraded

[tropic zephyr]

If I do all the research in my knowledge, how much of the Mercer sphere will I have left?

[dusky dust]

About 200. :)

[tropic zephyr]

hollllyyy shittt

[dusky dust]

(There's about 300 on the map, and you need about 100 for research)

[tropic zephyr]

item number in the game?

i think its above the 200 so its not a problem

[meager kettle]

201 are left for use after research

[tropic zephyr]

I tried to write this without using translation, but I made a mistake, I apologize.

[outer vale]

you will not run out of spheres making depots, don't worry about that

[tropic zephyr]

I wrote "above" but I meant "below".

Friends, I might have bored you all a little today, thank you all so, so much.

Your help has increased my enjoyment and knowledge of the game a hundredfold. Thank you all so much!

[somber sedge]

what>>> how am i supposed to bet 2 thousan

2400 iron??

how am i supposed to logically do this

[outer vale]

more than one miner

[dusky dust]

At those scales, it's often useful to build stuff in "modules"

[outer vale]

you chose that plan though, you should've already thought about that 😛

[oblique hollow]

Not merging all the shit onto one belt

[dusky dust]

Like sure, you need 2400 iron total, but you could process that in like four isolated groups of 600/min each (for instance)

(assuming you've got mk5 belts, anyway. :D If you're not there yet, then your module size would have to go down)

[somber sedge]

even then, nothing works out neatly

[oblique hollow]

Average pure iron moment

It just does that to numbers

[somber sedge]

okay lets see, 12 refineries is the max i can take in one belt and that feeds exactly 7.06 constructors. is this how i do this?

[dusky dust]

Yeah, once you free yourself from the desire to have "clean" numbers, the world is your proverbial oyster

You can edit machine clocking; anything is possible. :)

[somber sedge]

i have mk5 btw

[tropic zephyr]

https://tenor.com/view/anything-is-possible-kevin-garnett-celtics-boston-boston-celtics-gif-11745697345490554478

[meager kettle]

could add a little coal and drastically reduce iron needs :p

[somber sedge]

each of those square modules you see holds 4 refiniers, so uhhh

hmm

[meager kettle]

4x16=64

[somber sedge]

ive managed to seperate this into digestable modules

now what do i do hmm

[mint coral]

Shots

[somber sedge]

okay i figured it out, i hope this works!

[somber sedge]

you mean shoot the local wildlife?

[mint coral]

https://tenor.com/view/shots-tequila-gif-20497467

[mint coral]

I thought shots. I didn't realize i typed it lol

[hidden roost]

I have alot of limestone in my randomized seed. are there any alternate recipes in particular that i can abuse that will use limestone to reduce the amount of other resources used?

[mint coral]

Basic iron ingot
Distilled silica

Are the two that i can think of

[tropic zephyr]

How can I see where all the nodes are located on the map?

[mint coral]

Oh sam limestone to iron as well

[mint coral]

In game

You need to set up radar towera

[tropic zephyr]

but i dont have the parts

[hidden roost]

tysm! this is exactly what i was thinking of

also is it distilled silica? or was it dirty silica

[mint coral]

Distilled. Just checked wiki

I was going off the tip of my head before lol surprised I got it right tbh

[mint coral]

Then I do not know what your options are while the interactive map website is down

Just explore using the hand scanner and place map markers of what you fine

[naive tree]

its back up

[mint coral]

I just tried. Down again for me.

Although my internet connection is spotty at work

[naive tree]

its working for me

a bit slow

but its working

[somber sedge]

now how would i split this in these ratios

it seems ill need 2 full belts and 1 belt of whatever is left... but how would i do split this properly

hows this? high priority is marked in red arrows while lower priority is marked in green
all smart splitters (low priority is overflow) and priority mergers assumed

i feel this should work

wait no what am i doing

[haughty oasis]

how muhc uranium power is possible if all nodes are pure?

[mint coral]

Add up the total of that and input the details into a calculator like tools or scim

[frosty owl]

A bit more than 1.4TW

[haughty oasis]

ok thanks, i think an all pure node save next patch will be funny

[frosty owl]

If all nodes are pure, there's ~2.2857 times more Uranium, so we can just multiply the base Uranium power by that (50.4 / 0.2 x 2500MW) x 2.2

[somber sedge]

here, this seems to work. what i have done is i balanced all the three belts, then priority merged them as shown, so the top and bottom belts are 780 maxed and the middle one is unmixed

i feel pretty smart for this

[mint coral]

Ive never tried nor intend to try and max out uranium production. Imma use one node at a time

[meager kettle]

you did make a balancer for 3 to 3 with that clippy mess, btu then ruined with the stuff after it

[tropic zephyr]

this means 42.148 clock right?

[meager kettle]

no it means 42.148 smelters

so 42 smelters at 100% and one at 14.8%

[tropic zephyr]

if i have 27 smelters and they are working at 200 and one at 14.8

it will work i think

right?

[limpid vapor]

27?

21 surely

[meager kettle]

42 at 100% = 21 at 200%

[tropic zephyr]

i am idiot

I've lost all my math skills trying to design a factory for the past week.

[tropic zephyr]

Anyway, the number here is the sum of the clock percentages inside the running machines, right?

[limpid vapor]

Essentially yeah, you could set this up in any configuration

Could just as easily make 20 machines do the work if you like even numbers

[heavy gust]

An all pure mode is such an amazing addition to the game

[lone parrot]

I’m getting trouble seeing if there’s a miscalculation somewhere (1st time using Satisfactory Modeler): every machine is at 250% and there are 2 sommersloops per refinery (the ones using the heavy oil residue alt recipe).

Used diluted packaged fuel alt recipe too, of course.

Result (in theory): 120,000 MW with 192 fuel generators (at 250% too).

With just 2 pure & 2 normal crude oil nodes (western beaches).

Can someone confirm? I’m not saying I’ll build that exact factory (so many sommersloops and power shards), just to verify if I understand Satisfactory Modeler well enough. 🙏

[oblique hollow]

ive used modeler before and i still dont get overclock and somersloops.
i hate that in modeler honestly

[lone parrot]

I don’t think there’s a mistake but if someone here’s used to Satisfactory Modeler?

[mint coral]

dont know anything about modler but my power is largley 900 oil- HOR - PDF

if you are using double of me your power will equal around 60gw

I higly recomend a BP that has two packagers and a refienry for the PDF

its a nice closed loop system that gets around needing high tier blets

[lone parrot]

Yep but there are 2 sommersloops per refinery using heavy oil residue alt recipe, that’s the point, so it doubles again

[mint coral]

how many sloops are you sueing total?

[lone parrot]

That would be… 42

[mint coral]

would it not be better to get 2gw of free energy then the 10% boost in the long run?

[lone parrot]

I know, it’s crazy, just want to know if it works in theory

[mint coral]

seems okay

I persnally wouldnt go this hard on a mid tier fuel though

[lone parrot]

And hundreds and hundreds of power shards

[mint coral]

thoise arre practicly infinite, you only get 106 sloops

[lone parrot]

Yeah? No error?

In my ratios?

[mint coral]

I cant see any. doesnt mean they dont exist. MY eyes break when i look at modular

[summer flare]

The math is correct and it's 48 sloops

[lone parrot]

Sorry, 48 😂

See my math level 😭

[mint coral]

thats a lot of sloops

[lone parrot]

OK so you confirm 👍

Thanks buddy

[summer flare]

Yeah, but it's not something I would build 🙂

[lone parrot]

I would imagine 🙀

[worthy willow]

So I need to feed 15 assemblers would one long manifold work or should i split it into smaller manifolds I have them in three rows of five right now

[mint coral]

depends on belts, throughput and preferenace
I preffer smaller manifolds

[worthy willow]

It’s only 45 reinforced plates per minute for all 15 machines

[mint coral]

then mk1 belts will do. now which do you prefer. do you like long connect runs?

do you want to split it up between floors?

choose whatever you like and what fits your situation

[worthy willow]

It might look nice with one long snaking one but I’m just wondering if it’ll take too long to saturate every machine

[mint coral]

it could. you can hand feed some in

[worthy willow]

Alright thank you

[frosty owl]

I was just sharing a quick way to get the number, skipping the use of planners ^^ (wasn't trying to tell you what to do)

[tropic zephyr]

What do these numbers mean?

[mint coral]

lol i get that. I more against ppl that show up not wanting to do the math hoping someone will do it for them. I was giving the information to figure it out themselves ^_^

[summer flare]

That's the clock speed percentage shown as a mixed number (whole number plus proper fraction) - Modeler's underlying math uses fractional relationships and avoids floating point and decimal rounding errors that other calculators have.
To put that into a Satisfactory building enter 246+2/13

[mint coral]

i rarely get offended.

the other day someone came in her dropping hard Rs

i didnt get mad i just blocked them lol

[tropic zephyr]

I didn't understand the part 246+2/13. How many machines do I need to bring to 246, and what is the remainder?

there is 13 coal generator

i think 12 generator work at 246

the 13. generator

What should I do with it, for example?

[summer flare]

That shows 13 coal generators, each clocked at 246 plus 2/13 (decimal .1538) %

[tropic zephyr]

Ah, but the logic isn't like in Satisfactory Tools.

How do I add that small percentage? Is it even possible to add it in the game?

[summer flare]

Like I said, enter 246+2/13

[tropic zephyr]

oh shit

[summer flare]

The machine UI will do the math

[tropic zephyr]

it works

You're a genius, thank you so much!

[summer flare]

No problem.

[tropic zephyr]

I don't understand why people produce so many screws, why is that?

[wind spade]

when you need them 🤷

same as why you produce so many of other items

[tropic zephyr]

I just saw someone in the chat producing 2400 screws per minute; I wonder if we'll need that many later in the game.

[tropic zephyr]

i dont know :D

[errant dove]

i am making an aluminum factory, possiblly as efficient as possible.
i want to use the sloppy aluminum and the pure aluminum ingot recipes
i have 3 bauxite nodes, impure, normal and pure
for coal i i have like 6-8 nodes next to eachother, 1 pure, 1 normal and 3 impure.
im tryna build the factory at the swamp biome but im not sure if i should just bring the coal to the 3 bauxide nodes or just use the 2 nodes closer to the coal (normal and impure), so i dont have to route all that far

basically tryna find out if i should train the coal nodes to the factory or just make it closer and then how many smelters/refinerys i need

[tiny latch]

can someone tell me how to understand this im far 200 hours in and im dumb af

so what im using atm is the blue one right and my ax is the grey one

[errant dove]

blue one is what u would use if all your machines were running at 100%, in other words this is at max how much ur factorys can use, orange is how mcuh youre using, grey is what u could be making if all your power making machines were at 100% usage, black is the amount of power youre making

[pearl moss]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but is it anyhow possible to make a 30 degree curved road blueprint connect to the straight part and to itself if I want 60 or 90 degree bends? Im a little lost here after trying for hours...

[meager kettle]

yea, just aim next segment at the end of the curve and use default

tho there is an even easier way

#screenshots message

[pearl moss]

NOt sure if I understand you correctly but I tried default snapping before and it doesn't work. It's not snapping to anything really in default and I have to guesstimate which always comes out as of by some metric.

[meager kettle]

you gonna need to nudge it in place, buti default build mode should angle it to be on same angle you aim it at

pretty much how i made this

[vapid gorge]

build your roads on zooped foundations you put the BPs down on, snap them that way

[pearl moss]

Oh I didn't know that it at least equalizes the height and positioning relative to another blueprint if you aim right it. It works - lots of nudging (which I dont mind) and definitly some adjusting of the blueprint but I think this is workable. Thanks so much!

[pearl moss]

I have to try that too. Its nice to have alternatives. So it works like with single foundation pieces when u aim and rotate them by pressing STRG and aiming at foundations?

[vapid gorge]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1448157102966182049/1448167940225499156/image.png?ex=69bd743e&is=69bc22be&hm=643a7a3faf2038b4a9d7d74d933e3ffaa142c41de77b83078e34fc754f98af76&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

the zooped foundations act as a guide line

you can make a 30 degree turn like that

or, depending on how yo ubuild the BP you use a completely straight zooped line of foundation and pu the turn piece on it to create the turn

[lone parrot]

Because it’s crazy regarding the number of sommersloops & power shards or (also) because it requires lots of energy to run, since everything is at 250%?
Just checked the numbers, machines only: around 24,500 MW.

[pearl moss]

If its not a 90 degree turn wouldn't that become a hindrance as after the first 30 degree bend the angles dont align anymore? Or am I overthinking this? Sorry if those are silly questions 😄

[vapid gorge]

no? you just zoop foundations along the new line you placed things in

that 'resets' things and you can continue straight

[pearl moss]

Oh NOW I get what you mean 🙈

Yeah that makes sense. The hoops we jump through to make things palatable to the eye in this game 🤓

[tropic zephyr]

I don't understand if the Satisfactory Modeler application is working incorrectly. It says 900 cubic meters of water is enough for 8 coal generators running at 250% capacity, but 8 generators running at full capacity require 904 cubic meters. Wouldn't that extra 4 cubic meters disrupt the system?

[twin wind]

if i need 8.5 assemblers should i round up or down

[outer vale]

no

[outer vale]

8 coal gens at 250% need exactly 900 water/min. Just be mindful of pipe throughput limits

[lone parrot]

Didn’t understand the 1st part of your answer, what’s that 2 GW of free energy?

[vapid gorge]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/932761153703149659/1463098877728133255/image.png?ex=69bdb843&is=69bc66c3&hm=01e1dd4e0bd763ad636ffc5d16706f9f9ecd21c504b6d18ffde3c6709d3303d0&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1159&height=631

[outer vale]

45/min base, *2.5 for OC = 112.5/min. 8 of those is 900.
I guess the 904 comes if you round up the 112.5 per gen, but that's incorrect

[outer vale]

^

[tropic zephyr]

but in game it says 113

[outer vale]

in game is clearly rounding 😛

[tropic zephyr]

ohh okay

The game needs to fix this; if I hadn't consulted anyone, I would have made a mistake.

[tropic zephyr]

Is this information accurate?

or is it a guess?

[vapid gorge]

what is 45 x 2.5?

[outer vale]

all clocking is just a plain multiplier to the recipe speed. If you run a 2.5x as fast, it will need 2.5x the input

[tropic zephyr]

Bro, I understood that too. I just wanted to ask here after doing the math. The game shows 113.

[vapid gorge]

hell you might be able to hover over it for more decimals in the tool tip?
but you're really going overboard on all of that.

plus you don't get more power per coal OCing generators

[outer vale]

try changing it by much smaller values. what does a 101% show? 102%? etc. I expect it'll just suddenly jump up to 46/min at some point

[vapid gorge]

bit of a waste early on.

[tropic zephyr]

I understand what you're saying, but the game displays the number differently; maybe it wants a slightly rounded version.

[outer vale]

it does not

[tropic zephyr]

Then I trust mathematics more than what the game shows.

thanks

[mint coral]

Alien power augmentors give 500mw each plus 10% of your poweer grid

they cost 10 sloops to make

[lone parrot]

More sloops 😱

[mint coral]

so if you used 40 sloops for Augmentors instead of Fuel they would scale with your grid

[lone parrot]

My plan is definitely not realistic

[mint coral]

i say make 900 oil worth of fuel no sloops and build a few APA. if you need more power later build more power then with whatever power you have unlocked by then

[lone parrot]

APA?

Alien Power Augmenters?

[mint coral]

!wikisearch Alien power Augmenter

[glad apex]

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/index.php?search=Alien+power+Augmenter

[mint coral]

turbo fuel is good later. I usually skip it but its a great lesson and good building experience

[lone parrot]

That was the basic plan with 1,200 crude oil.

[mint coral]

Nitro rocket fuel is ridiculous and Nuclear is great too

[mint coral]

I get that. Do you think youll need that much power before you get to the endgame options of Nitro rockett fuel or Nuclear?

[lone parrot]

Then skip turbo/rocket fuel and go directly into rocket.

[wind spade]

skip TF line and go nuclear

[mint coral]

I can build nuclear now and im using 14gw of the 30 gw im making from oil -HOR-PDF

[lone parrot]

Yep, it’s just I had that crazy idea I talked about earlier, a 120,000 MW fuel power plant using 48 sloops and around 1000 power shards. Crazy shit.

With just 4 nodes.

[mint coral]

But do you need that power atm?

i just dont want you to build all this to then be at nuclear adn nitro and not need it you know

you may want all that oil for other things down the road and it sucks to destroy things

[lone parrot]

Yeah I’m sure you’re right, it was my 1st time on Satis Modeler and I went crazy 🤪

Plus I have to be realistic, there’s no way to build such a plant without duping sloops

[mint coral]

naw i got 60 sloops and I just got to phase 4

[outer vale]

there are, what, 103 available sloops after research?

[lone parrot]

Yeah but you know I’ll need some for some other projects

Can’t just use 48 just like that

Except if I collect them all first for the lore THEN dupe some

But you know

That’s still cheating

[errant dove]

w mindset

cant justify duping sloops unless youre doing like 100x gamemode

[lone parrot]

But with the new game modes, everything’s kinda relative now

Always a matter of point of view, I often change my mind on that subject

It’s even worse now

With pure nodes everywhere

And very soon perfect seeds that community will share

I guess the point is if you still get satisfaction, in your own way of doing things, it’s OK ☑️

[lone parrot]

Thing is, with that 2,400 polymer resin/min, I could do a LOT of things

Stock up enough fabric for the rest of the game

And make a good use of the plastic & rubber I could get from it

Cuz I don’t need much fabric

And 2,400 polyester resin/min is GREAT

Got any ideas, with good alt recipes, with plastic and rubber?

(I’m tier 5)

[vapid gorge]

check out the wiki page for rubber and plastic - it shows all recipes they're used in

[lone parrot]

Yeah depends on what I haven’t automatized yet

[tropic apex]

does the satisfactory calculator work for you guys? Is it me? https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production

[tropic zephyr]

its not working

[mint coral]

SCIM has ahd issues all day

[tropic apex]

</3

[vapid gorge]

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

got a better ui too

[terse stone]

Are total world resouce amounts changed with the new Random resource node setting?

[vapid gorge]

if it's random random sure

if it's just a shuffle? no

[frosty owl]

The amounts change, but one should still find all basic ores in each starting location, more or less

[grand lotus]

yall, i dont completely understand how fluids work, i got 360 total crude oil but pipes can only hold 300

will it work fine if i just fill every pipe before starting the factory?

like a manifold?

[vapid gorge]

you can have more than 1 manifold of oil

in a system

[worthy willow]

Or unlock mk2 pipes they should be around the same time as oil iirc

[wary rapids]

should have a spegi oil phase where you stackc plastic rubber in a box and unlock mk2 pipes.

[vapid gorge]

a planner that's planned your plan https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=qVpIX4sR0ih4GjzONPLS

[grand lotus]

i wanted to first learn properly how liquids work b4 using tools

i dont wanna build somthing i dont even somewhat understand yk

[vapid gorge]

that's just math - got nothing to do with how they work 🙂

with just math, it's like any system
what would you do if you needed 180 ore but only had mk2 belts?

[worthy willow]

Yeah tools just gives you the numbers you still have to work out how to place everything in a way that works

[wary rapids]

have to use math to be sure your not foceing more then possible into a manifold.

sometime the math dictates a manifold or direct feeding.

[dusky dust]

You presumably have that 360/min oil coming from two different extractors, yeah? What I'll generally do is construct the factory in two essentially-isolated modules. If one node's giving me 240/min and the other is giving me 120/min, then I'll have one "module" that's twice as big as the other

(It might make sense to only split up the first few steps and then combine things further down the line, of course, but I'd at least start out that way)

[grand lotus]

ahh

[dusky dust]

Trying to centralize things which don't need to be centralized is the source of many headaches players run into

[grand lotus]

k thank yall for the help

[terse stone]

@frosty owl sure, but across the whole map does the total capacity of production vary on Random setting? I.e. are there still gauranteed 13 pure copper nodes in the map?

[scenic gale]

Provided you havent changed the weightings or purity, yes

Also looking at that graph, another thing that changes is deposits on nodes, resources that previously didn't have deposits on nodes can now have so, like uranium

But if you go for just basic randomisation with priority on fossil fuel, advanced or basic, you should just have the same amount of resources as a default game...just....random

[grand lotus]

guys for liquid, do i need to add 1 or 2 pumps here and there for extra pressure even if everything is even to the ground?

like here should i add a pump?

[scenic gale]

Provided you aren't trekking the output somewhere with headlift, you shouldn't need pumps here pretty sure

[grand lotus]

ok thx

quick question for pumps, is it a bad thing if the ring thingy goes into a machine, where that machine is pushing out?

like does it make it harder for fluid to leave

[vapid gorge]

just aesthetics

[grand lotus]

ok

so no real affect right?

[scenic gale]

Nope

[grand lotus]

k

[tropic zephyr]

Why is this happening? When I place one storage unit, it looks like this, but when I place another, it fixes itself. However, when I destroy all of them and place them back, it gets corrupted again. Why is this happening? I hope my save file remains intact because this is my first save file and I put a lot of effort into it.

[dusky dust]

Your save is fine -- it's a visual glitch that can happen sometimes

It shouldn't happen a lot, but I've seen it too. It's possible updating your graphics drivers could help

[tropic zephyr]

Everything is up-to-date, but it's still happening. I hope it won't be a big problem, please don't let it be.

[crimson scarab]

yeah nah its fine

happened to me just today

usually for something to damage your saves it has to remove things from the game files

[tropic zephyr]

Oh, then that's great, you've relieved me, thank you.

I hope this problem goes away, but it's been going on for 2-3 days.

[crimson scarab]

if youre REALLY concerned you can just make a backup of your saves

[tropic zephyr]

I'm doing this but thank you for information

[tropic zephyr]

Why are these cables invisible? I'm finding my way using the cables, but they're not visible.

I checked the graphics settings, and there's nothing about cable distance.

[strong garden]

Why the conveyors on top of the water pipes? Why not just run them through each other

And how do you make it do that so it looks better

[grand lotus]

bc then it looks absolutely terrible

[grand lotus]

do what specifically?

[strong garden]

Like when I try that it tell me my conveyors are too steep

[grand lotus]

im not using conveyors

im using lifts

[strong garden]

Oh

I’m dumb

Ok

[grand lotus]

lol

but its specifically a glitch that the devs left in

usually u can only make the lift 3 high, but with a glitch u can make it 2 high which looks generally better and keeps everything compact

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XrP4K6s5GGE

[grand lotus]

do yall think i should dedicate this part of the map for fuel? im not sure if its a bad decision but i just dont wanna worry abt power for a long time and also seems like a fun lil project

[vapid gorge]

if you go oil > HOR > diluted fuel you could do a couple nodes and be fine for ages

[ripe mango]

Is this (https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=5XmeKeqL0m8WAuEIF0Nm) a decent start for a rocket fuel factory? Or are there other alts that I should look for? And what do people do with the polymer leftover?

[vapid gorge]

I personally wouldn't bother wit hrocket fuel

[ripe mango]

Just turbo?

[vapid gorge]

I mean diluted fuel will take you to the end of phase 5 pretty easily

and if you're planning bigger projects past that I'd just go nuclear

instead of 1000 fuel generators, 100 nuclear for hte same power

and if you do go with that plan I certainly wouldn't bother with alloy iron ingot - unless you happen to be right on top of some copper. You need very little of it for nitric acid

[ripe mango]

Turbo is certainly a LOT easier by the looks. https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=7A7KJMfSGSBk7Ea4zSFA

Nicer ratios there too, thanks. Might go that route.

[vapid gorge]

even easier https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production?share=UyiWObL94KtalOClPQka
tons of fuel

every step of fuel processing basically converts other resources to oil

turbo blend? just turns some sulfur to oil

because you could just use more oil.

[ripe mango]

But turbo has a slower burn rate right? So more efficient for the inputs. Though I guess there's still a fair bit more in terms of inputs for Turbo except for water which is unlimited.

[vapid gorge]

that still jsut turns it to more oil

a couple oil nodes turned to dilutted fuel is a LOT of power - and yo udon't need all that extra work or have to bring in resources

up to you though

[ripe mango]

Yeah, flexibility of placement is HIGH with base diluted too. Was originally gonna go Blue Crater, but could go pretty much anywhere with straight diluted.

[vapid gorge]

basically

[half geyser]

all it means in this case is that the fluid cannot travel from the output to behind the pump, but it still travels normally from the output to anywhere in front of the pump just fine 👍

pumps are pretty much only used for when you need liquid to move upward, there are edge cases for pressure but they're rare (usually pressure issues are because of underproduction, not because of a lack of pumps)

at least, from my experience

[lone parrot]

I’m thinking about rebuilding my factories / restarting with 1.2 in a few months (console player), really dunno (because I like the way the ressources are the way they are), question is: is it a good idea (seems a good idea to me) to build my factories with the ratios in mind corresponding with the max upgraded dimensional depots ratios? What’s the point of producing more?

[lone parrot]

Don’t know if I’m making myself clear (I’m french)? 🫢

[wind spade]

it's good idea to produce as much as you need

[vapid gorge]

what do dimentional depots have to do with deciding how much to make per min?

[half geyser]

Are you saying you want to only make as many resources as can be uploaded per minute? That’s not really a ratio-related idea, but it is still a good idea because the max dimensional depot upload speed is pretty fast. However, this will be very challenging when you build early game things like modular frames, they aren’t meant to be automated at the same output speed as, say, iron rods.

I would just play the game “normally” without any particular plan in mind until you reach aluminum tier machines, then start thinking about planning things out long-term from there. Anything you build before that will quickly become so outdated that you will eventually want to rebuild it anyway, so there’s no point in trying to make it last forever.

This is my first coal plant on my new world. It doesn’t look particularly nice because I know that I will eventually want to tear it down once it becomes completely obsolete. I made it look and operate just good enough to last until that point.

[flint crystal]

May be a dumb question but this is the first time I am dealing with huge volumes of water pipes , I read somewhere that you can build a single water tower with a buffer at the top and then set a valve to 0 to provide headlift for a unlimited amount of pipes. How would I set this up? I can't find a video of this specific case

[meager kettle]

not a valve, you make one water tower and connect it to each of the pipes that you wanna use

you also dont need a buffer at the top, just make pipe go up and down

[flint crystal]

Won't the (water tower) pipe then just empty into all the pipes ?

[meager kettle]

not if they full and you attach to the back of em

[unique cypress]

Just use pumps

[wind spade]

water tower is just pump with extra steps. Not recommended

[vapid gorge]

just use pumps.
water towers are more work and pumps are essentially free

also consider building closer to the water. Like right on top of the extractors

[half geyser]

As I understand it:

• Fluids can only travel upwards as far as their headlift will carry them.
• Headlift limit determined to be a single plane in space that is not relative to the current pipe’s position (so it’s not “the pipe’s position + 5 meters up”, it’s “the pipe is 5 meters below where the headlift is able to take it”, this difference is significant).
• A pipe’s headlift’s maximum height is equal of the pipe’s highest point or however high pumps could have taken it (so if the pipe was 50 meters up at one point, then the headlift should allow any other segments to push their fluids up to 50 meters for free too, but if there was a pump providing 20 meters of headlift placed 40 meters up, then the limit is actually 60 meters even if there are not yet any segments that actually go that high)
• Headlift stops applying properly when pipes aren’t completely full of fluid (so if you don’t produce enough, you’ll slowly get batches of fluid delivered all at once when it finally fills all the pipes enough to push fluid over into wherever it needs to be, then it gets consumed and almost kinda siphoned up, which drains the pipes and- basically, it’s just janky if you aren’t producing enough fluid)
• This means that when you extract water and immediately run it up a super tall water tower, any pipe that is feeding out of that water tower will be able to climb back up to the height of that water tower for free without any need for additional pumps, so you can just do all the pumping one time as it climbs that tower

I am not guaranteeing that this is 100% accurate, but it’s worked for me so far and I have yet to see any contractions

It is always far easier to just skip the water tower and spam pumps everywhere though

They cost very little energy to run and make everything easier

[naive tree]

whats the difference between pipe position +5m up and pipe 5m below headlift? is it just that the headlift is drawn from the last highest position/pump?

[half geyser]

Yes

It’s not “this pipe has 25 meters of headlift”, it is “this pipe’s headlift limit happens to be 25 meters above its current position”

When headlift is “added” by a pump, that only takes effect if it’s high enough

Like if the pipe is 25m below its headlift limit and you put a pump on it to “add 20 meters of headlift” it will do nothing

It’ll just make the pipe one-way in whatever direction the pump is facing, that’s it, no headlift added

But if the pipe is 15m below its headlift limit, when you add that pump, all of the pipe on the receiving end of the pump will have its headlift limit increased by 5 meters

[half geyser]

And the reason why I make this distinction is because if the pipe goes down by 5 meters then it’s “headlift potential” goes up by 5 meters cuz it’s relative to a certain height in the world rather than relative to the pipe’s current position if that makes sense

It’s a single flat plane

Even if the pipe goes up and down, the maximum headlift for that pipe would look perfectly horizontal if visualized

Think of a graph with a squiggly line (the pipe) and a straight horizontal line (the maximum headlift for that pipe), if the squiggly line goes above the straight line without using pumps, it will stop working

And if it used pumps, that straight line will go straight up wherever those pumps were placed, then immediately flatten back out again

[oblique hollow]

Head lift is measured vertically from the machine that applies it

If theres some pump somewhere in a pipe network and it can do 50m, then the headlift of the rest of that network is "50 m above the height where that pump was built at"

If that pump was 300 m above ground level, then you can move fluid up to 350 m above ground level.
Anything below 350 doesnt need pumps

That pump's height will always be the reference height

And in water towers, you usually need pumps anway

so there the measurement starts from the last pump placed up near the top

[latent shard]

What type of fuel ?

@summer sparrow

[summer sparrow]

the normal fuel

[latent shard]

no turbo fuel or ionized one ??

[summer sparrow]

no, I want to do nuclear at some point and this is more than enough until than

[latent shard]

how can you have enough oil nodes ? i'm just curious

where do you pump it ?

[oblique hollow]

Probably spire coast up north

Which is exactly where that fuel plant seems to be

[tiny latch]

i see thanks man

[unique cypress]

Neither of these is better than regular

[latent shard]

more energy for the same volume of oil extracted...

[unique cypress]

yeah no that's not a particularly useful metric if that's all you're optimizing for

[latent shard]

I planned to make up to 75GW thx to turbofuel

in the blue crater area + the impure oil nodes in the north

i will use all the heavy residues to make plastic and rubber

[low wasp]

Hello I was wondering there is any math model for load balancers? Or is more like by method?

[wind spade]

not sure what do you mean by "math model"

[low wasp]

I refer on a way to know how many inputs and ouputs I need to use for the balancer

[wind spade]

well, that depends on what you want to balance

but tbh, in this game balancers are kinda meh, there's not much reason to use them apart from a few niche cases

[low wasp]

Lets say I need to balance a 3 to 3 for example how do I know where to connect each conveyor belt

[wind spade]

why not use each belt separately?

[summer flare]

That's specifically a "belt balancer"

[low wasp]

Srry I didnt knew the name

[wind spade]

if you have 150/min on a belt, hook it to machines that need 150/min
no balancing needed

if you really want to balance though, usually M:N balancer is just "split each of the M inputs to N, merge one from each M to each N"

there's often easier method, but that's specific to given balancers

[dawn lark]

Even in a game like factorio the only real reason to balance was for long trains to ensure all the wagons were empty at the same time, but in satisfactory the default train criteria is "one transfer"

[low wasp]

Okay thanks

[wind spade]

yeah, we don't really have a reason to build balancers

[ionic sapphire]

Startup time

[wind spade]

that's... not a reason to build balancers

[ionic sapphire]

Is a reason

[dawn lark]

Yeah, manifolds starting up, maybe

[wind spade]

usually building a balancer takes more time than just prefeeding your manifold

[ionic sapphire]

Maybe not a good one, but it is a reason

[wind spade]

or you can just not use manifolds

[low wasp]

I was asking mostly because they are interesting

[dawn lark]

I just use hybrids everywhere I can, I cluster machines to use resources at 60, 30, 20, 15, or 10 per min, then manifold those clusters and feed it with a mk1 belt. Now I can make the manifold as long as my fastest belt can handle and it's always balanced

Anything that uses less than 10/m per machine I just have to accept I need to preload with a normal manifold

[wind spade]

||or, again, not use manifolds||

[ionic sapphire]

there arent many alternatives

[wind spade]

?

[ionic sapphire]

just hand feed

[wind spade]

direct input, or matching ratios

both perferctly viable alternatives

[ionic sapphire]

matchin ratios ?

[wind spade]

machine makes 60, other machine needs 90. You build in 3:2 modules

[ionic sapphire]

still pretty much direct input

[low wasp]

You could have an issue with trains in the case that you have differente inputs of an item in different wagons and you need to get the full belt for machine efficiency thats my theorical case that I can think rn

[mint coral]

My steel factory has foundries direct feeding constructors. I just changed the clock speed to match inputs and outputs.

[wind spade]

some people consider "direct input" to be only 1:1, hence why I included it

but they are still alternatives that are easier than balancing and don't reuqire startup time like manifolds

[dawn lark]

The distinction is that direct input is more 1:1 and self regulated, the machine turns itself off and on, or you underclocked to match

My favorite ratio setup was when I feel like I "cracked" aluminum with a little underclocking here and there. Like if you underclock alumina solution to use 3 refineries evenly the third refinery can exactly use all the water coming out of the scrap refinery

[unique cypress]

For any balancer, every input has to be connected to every output

[dawn lark]

If you underclock the foundries to use 60 scrap/m then you get a nice even 6 foundries to 1 scrap refinery, or 3 pairs that use 120 each. And if you do that it will be 100 silica/m for each pair....... which is exactly how much silica is generated by the 3 solution refineries

Annnnd if underclock silica constructors from 22.5 quartz/m to 20 then you'll make exactly 100 silica/m from 60 quartz/m being split evenly using all the outputs of a splitter

[dawn lark]

So different thing, I was looking at the caterium alts and Tempered Caterium is pretty terrible right? It uses the same ratio of ore but adds coke to be a little bit faster? Doesn't seem to at all be worth the added complexity

50% more ingots/m, hmm

[dusky dust]

There's a few recipes like that whose niche is often along the lines of "I have this byproduct anyway that I'm not making use of; may as well use it to increase the production of this other thing nearby"

Like if you'd had some coke going to a sink, might make sense to redirect that over to a Tempered recipe instead

[dawn lark]

Yeah just making use of an excess

[dusky dust]

(Which is part of why it's so hard to compare a recipe in isolation; what matters is the whole chain of recipes involved, etc)

[dawn lark]

These days I never make coke, I plan for fuel first and then make plastic and rubber out of any resin that isn't sinked, so in my case coke isn't ever laying around heh

[wind spade]

whether it's worth to you or not depends on you

[tropic zephyr]

Greeny, are you the person who made Satisfactory Tools?

[dawn lark]

Very true, the tangiblity of a speed increase I could see as far more subjective over a cost change of a key material

[wind spade]

yes

[tropic zephyr]

Wow, I can talk to the developer of the website I use most often these days!

[celest mantle]

It’s faster, and being in the foundry means less power and space needed for that increased throughput.

So the coke is the only reason to not use it

[celest mantle]

Except for solid steel

[meager kettle]

less power?

[celest mantle]

Foundry I think is 15MW, refinery is 30MW

[meager kettle]

but you need a refinery to make the coke

[celest mantle]

Compared to however many you need to make all the caterium using the pure ingot recipe

I can’t remember the numbers per minute of the tempered ingot recipe but the pure recipe is only 12 ingots per minute

[meager kettle]

50 refineries for pure, 27 foundries + 7 refineries, 1500mw vs ~ 600 mw, yeah fair

[tropic zephyr]

If I have two alien power-generating devices, will that increase my power by a total of 20% or still be 10%?

[meager kettle]

20%

[tropic zephyr]

oh nice

[dawn lark]

I'm comparing it to the default recipe, which has the same 3:1 ore to ingot ratio. The difference in making coke and using a foundry is quite a bit from the single smelter.

But either way, the value in the recipe was mainly having excess coke that was destined to be sunk anyway

[meager kettle]

the alts are 2:1

aside leached which is 3:2

[celest mantle]

Does anyone use any of the leached ingot recipes?

[meager kettle]

prob no

not really good enough to be worth using

[celest mantle]

Leached copper is marginally less ore efficient than pure but is around 3x as fast

[meager kettle]

copper is a downgrade to using just water. iron is same as basic and caterium isnt needed in such amounts it makes sense to use it

3x as fast?

if you mean the amount of copper ore per craft its not really "as fast" it just reduces amounts of machines

[celest mantle]

110 ingots per minute vs 37.5

And yea I meant faster per machine and thus fewer machines

[mint coral]

Its great for compacted builds

[meager kettle]

eh

you still need to make the acid, doesnt save that much

[celest mantle]

I forget how much acid it is per ore

[meager kettle]

you need one acid refinery per two leached refineries

you save a little, but its not that much

[celest mantle]

Eugh

[mint coral]

I view sulfur as a optional resources. If this is how you wana spend it all the power to ya. I usually don't use any sulfur. Which is the true waste

[celest mantle]

If anything I don’t use it because I’m overly cautious about it

[meager kettle]

i like using the instant scrap recipe. sides theres enough sulfur on map to use 4100 for instant scrap, 3200 for rocket fuel and 3300 for nuclear power

with like 300 left to make bombs with :p

[celest mantle]

I’m still traumatized from the time when you needed 5 black powder for a single nobelisk

[dawn lark]

From just a ore to ingot standpoint and normalizing for 2 ingots, default is 6:2, pure is 4:2, leached is 3:2, and tempered is also 4:2

(I coulda sworn when I first looked at it it was 6:2 like default)

So the main value of leached is just if you're desperate to get everything out of the ore you have, which I suppose could have significantly more value now that we have the potential for "all impure" challenge runs

[celest mantle]

But all impure means impure sulfur as well

[somber sedge]

do i really need 25 of these per min

wtf am i doing man

[mint coral]

Only if you want to get through phase 3 in 20 minutes

[somber sedge]

im on phase 4

[mint coral]

Answer is still roughly the same. More you build fast you go. Phase 5 is the end of the tech line. I view it as no rush.

[somber sedge]

i spent 20 hours making a factory that makes 50 magnetic feild generators per minute only to get more magnetic feild generators i will ever need in like 20 mins

[somber sedge]

building more takes time, so more you build, slower you go too

[mint coral]

Sounds right

Do you know what you need for the future?

[somber sedge]

nah im going in blind

i did make it to phase 5 but that was a year ago

this is a different run

[mint coral]

If you want a quick reference

#screenshots message

If not I understand

My first 900 hours were blind. I didn't know this community existed or the online tools there then the (now) bad wiki

[somber sedge]

these are the materials that i have already enough of to finish phase 5 in storage

i could easily get smart plating and modular engines soon

thermal propulsion can be a challebge but i only need 450 of them, and i have all the parts i need to make them in storage, so i can set up 20 manufacturers set to 250% and make all the thermal propulsion i will ever need

[mint coral]

Cool, that all being said. Do you have plans after credits?

[west plover]

Is there any reason that i shouldn't use manifolds to distribute the uranium fuel rods to my power plants?

[river night]

well, you cause excess radiation everywhere, and as slow as fuel rods produce and consume it'll take forever to fill up, its one spot where one might consider a balancer instead

[wind spade]

But radiation is usually not an issue and you don't really need all the power immediatelly, so it's up to you

[pseudo sphinx]

why is my refinery not at 100 % efficency

[bright talon]

either water buildup or just because u set it up recntly and it wasnt running eficently before but with time itll climb to 100 precent

[pseudo sphinx]

i set it up 2 days ago and played since then min. 4 hrs water is completly fine

thats my aluminium production the water from the 2. row of refinerys is used in the first row the water is completly flowing and the silica is used for the alu ingots

[bright talon]

check the effiecency again

and tell me if its the same

[somber sedge]

i only play for project assembly

[pseudo sphinx]

alright its geting up

[west plover]

Would a alternative be to cut off water and let the rods accululate, then turn it on?

[unique cypress]

Yeah, reactors without water fill up much faster

It's like 4 hours vs a day

[lone parrot]

@half geyser @wind spade It was an actual real question, I’m thinking about reorganizing my production lines, so, like, for exemple, let’s take concrete. Max is 2500 concrete right? And max upload upgrade is 240/min? So let’s imagine, if I build a concrete factory producing 240 concrete/min and filling even just one single industrial storage (=24,000 concrete), that’s basically infinite concrete right?

[meager kettle]

2500, 5 stacks

[lone parrot]

Sorry, let me correct

[meager kettle]

depends how much concrete you use. blueprints can use up a lot. I usually have ten dimensional depots doing concrete

[wind spade]

max is 2500 not per depot

[lone parrot]

Yep I corrected

[meager kettle]

its not per

its 2500 period

more depots only affect upload rate, not the amount of storage

[lone parrot]

OK, got it, lemme rephrase

[grand lotus]

yall this might seem like a stupid question, but do most blueprints for train rails have 2 on either side

[lone parrot]

But I mean, is it a stupid way of thinking or a smart way? Should I apply that to all my chains?

[grand lotus]

.

[meager kettle]

yes, only one makes kinda pointless :p

[lone parrot]

@meager kettle I mean base my production on the upload speed of my dimensional depots? So my dimensional depots can refill very fast? Does that make any sense? I’m french so I’m trying my best 😅

[meager kettle]

yes, you can refill very fast with more depots

[lone parrot]

Talking about just one dimensional depot in my exemple with concrete and the 240/min production

[meager kettle]

depends how much you build with it

one is not enough for me, i usually do ten

[lone parrot]

For concrete?

[meager kettle]

yea, ten for concrete, ten quartz crystals, and like four plates/beams/pipes/rods

[lone parrot]

That’s a big production! Talking about concrete, how many nodes?

[meager kettle]

just a pure node, wet concrete, and split it up into ten industrial storages each with a depot ontop

more than enough to buffer and refills when i dont build

[lone parrot]

Starting to think I should build separate factories mass producing stuff like that

So that’s 2,400 concrete/min

Shit

[meager kettle]

you're not using it at that rate

its why you have a buffer storage

you have a short period where you use a lot, then it refills, and then the buffers fills up when not building

[lone parrot]

Wait I’m not sure I understand

What does buffer storage mean?

[meager kettle]

a storage that acts as a buffer

[lone parrot]

You mean the more dimensional depots you got, the more if buffes the upload speed?

[meager kettle]

multiple buffers and depots

[lone parrot]

Meaning… your upload speed is 10 times that of just 1 dimensional depot?

[meager kettle]

yes, and each depot has 49 stacks of materials to draw from

[lone parrot]

And that upload speed is…. 2,400/min?

[meager kettle]

yes

[lone parrot]

And your production 24,000/min?

[meager kettle]

god no

its like 800/min

[lone parrot]

OK I still have things to learn 😅

[meager kettle]

the depot stop uploading when its full

[lone parrot]

You sink the rest?

[meager kettle]

so the storage fills up over time, then when i build and use like 10000 items in a few seconds, then the storage refills the depot, and the storage slowly refills when i dont build

can i do it with just one depot? sure, but i dont like sitting and twiddling my thumbs waiting between placing each blueprint

and its not like spheres are scarce

[lone parrot]

Wait, how can you use 10,000 concrete in a few seconds when the max is 2,500 with the dimensional depots?

[meager kettle]

cause its uploading at 2400/min

and theres a build time for the blueprints, by the time i can place next its refilled

[lone parrot]

Yeah so in 4 min you got around 10,000

And you said 4 dd for all the other products except silica?

[meager kettle]

i add more depots depending on what i use

[half geyser]

You probably won't ever need more than one depot uploader for motors, for example

[lone parrot]

You got a central depot?

[meager kettle]

naw

[half geyser]

no need for a central one

[meager kettle]

dimensional depots make that kinda pointless imo

[half geyser]

just put them at the ends of your autmation

wherever those are

[lone parrot]

I know but some people just love building central depots, like around the space elevator

[half geyser]

the only case where it makes sense is if, say, you're uploading metal frames at only half the maximum upload speed, so you want to use that other half of the uploader's speed to also upload something else like reinforced iron plates

so you'd want to keep those all roughly in the same area

if you do this for a LOT of things, splitting many of your depots into uploading multiple different products at the same time, then yes, you would want to make a central uploading area

but otherwise, no, it doesn't make sense to do that

it'd be purely decorational

[lone parrot]

Yeah I see what you mean

Plus it’s a TON of work to centralize everything in one place, depots + dimensional depots

How many TRAINS?!

Or trucks, now that 1.2 made them better

But still

You DO have a main base right, with your HUB?

What else have you got in that place?

[wind spade]

well hub can be anywhere

[meager kettle]

i dont have a main base, no need for it, just place the hub in the middle-ish of the map

[lone parrot]

Yeah but I mean, what have you built around your HUB?

[meager kettle]

usually crater lakes, since its pretty

[lone parrot]

Near your power plant I guess?

[meager kettle]

no thats in blue crater lake

[lone parrot]

Oh yeah

I mean I’m interested in main bases ideas, if they’re not central depots

I guess the space elevator can be part of it

In some way

[worthy willow]

I have my hub next to my starting iron and copper factory since I spawned in rocky dessert

[lone parrot]

Could be a central station for exemple

[worthy willow]

The hub just has some small storage boxes, the mam, awesome shop, and equipment crafter

[lone parrot]

Just interested in people’s ideas

But sorry, starting to be off topic

[half geyser]

Conveyor belts are still better overall

If you’re worried about space, you can clip like thirty tier 1 belts inside each other for 1,800/m transport, and if you’re willing to splurge a bit, even just t3 belts are 8,100/m

And that’s just a single line

[lone parrot]

Faster than trains?

[half geyser]

Plus, it’s constant

[half geyser]

Oh it can definitely be faster than trains

[lone parrot]

Yeah but I LIKE trains

[half geyser]

I was just talking about one singlular line which could be hidden within a train rail

[half geyser]

Oh, for sure, that’s why anyone would even use them

They have a slight convenience factor but only in theory, in practice belts are cheaper, more efficient, and more effective without even taking up more space or anything

The reason why trains are so popular is because they’re cool

Tractors/trucks are similar, you might use them because it’s more convenient for transporting a relatively small throughput of items over a long distance, but once again, belts are just the better overall solution

[lone parrot]

Clip belts into each others?! Nether heard of that

[half geyser]

You can also just run belts underneath the map

[half geyser]

Yeah, put 4 conveyor poles in a row

Then run a belt from the first one to the third one

And a belt from the second one to the fourth one

That will create a space between the second and third poles where there are two conveyor belts perfectly overlapped

No extra space needed, just extra free throughput

[random plume]

can anyone tell me whats wrong with dis 4 refinaries are making plastic while the other four are making rubber the 2 refinaries that are up are making residual fuel from the heavy crude oil and are feeding it to 4 fuel generators but the power keeps dipping even tho i think i got the math correct

[half geyser]

you can just run this out indefinitely, I dunno how many you can practically fit before you start running out of space to put the poles, maybe you can just keep breaking and replacing poles to infinitely stack conveyor belts all in the exact same space