math-and-meta

[fallow lily]

The tradeoff to underclocking is more buildings and more belts.

[boreal cypress]

u can build more machines than miners

[fallow lily]

While it may be more power efficient to build 100x the buildings at 1% underclock, the time needed to build so many buildings would be an issue.

[glacial hemlock]

Fps is the bottleneck

[fallow lily]

Not to mention hooking them up.

[boreal cypress]

and setting all the machines

[eternal slate]

well that's why 50% isnt too bad for only 2x more buildings to build

[boreal cypress]

And woe, you see only one misplaced building and all you built after that

[eternal slate]

I wish there was a way to "under clock" vehicles to make them use less power for speed and acceleration

[boreal cypress]

But what do you have to underclock this? Electricity is enough in the end

[eternal slate]

I guess it doesnt matter in the end but it might help you on the way

[patent bough]

I underclock stuff when I don't actually care about high production rates and don't feel like routing in more supplies

Mostly on advanced parts like supercomputers and turbo motors

[boreal cypress]

i have everything on 100% dont matter if i need it or not

[eternal slate]

you can set up your factory before you have all the materials needed to run them 100% and then overclock when you have more available

[boreal cypress]

Better an overproduction at the end than a subproduction

[eternal slate]

think about this: you have a production line filled with material consuming 0 energy --> you take some of the end products from container --> with 50% under clocking your energy consumption will spike less than 1/3 from what it would with 100% clock rate

same applies with power black outs

ofc it's not problem if you overproduce a lot of energy too

[swift panther]

@wind spade i need u

or someone

i did a small fuel power setup, 300 fuel/min. the calculator says that 25 fuel gens consume 300 fuel/min

i've made that and the fuel is wicked overflowed and i have a shitload extra, why?

[summer field]

Are you consuming all the power they generate?

[swift panther]

no

[summer field]

Then there's your problem.

[wind spade]

the calculator will tell you the maximum amount of power they can generate and if you generate that amount of power, then how much fuel do you need

[summer field]

They only consume the fuel they need, to provide the power you require. So if you use less power, they throttle down.

[swift panther]

i had no idea they did that lol

thought they just ran balls out 24/7

[summer field]

They're being efficient, as is required by Fiscit.

[swift panther]

well its still good to have it well balanced for the future then i guess

thanks guys

[summer field]

Yeah, if you match their max capacity/production, you shouldn't worry when you increase your power consumption, at least until you hit their cap.

[swift panther]

so say i had like 10 identical stations like that, and was only using enough power to cap out 8 of them. would 8 cap out or would all 10 balance?

balance right?

[summer field]

It should balance.

so they all run at 80%, instead of 2 of them not running.

[swift panther]

right, okay cool. thanks homie

[summer field]

I got ya 👌

[swift panther]

🍾

[glacial hemlock]

should be glad as the RL power generations are much more complicated

[feral dew]

You start the game with a magic gun that can make anything, and the thing that you're concerned about is power generation?

[wild plover]

10/10 comment ^^^^

[rich tusk]

*There are 3 types of people in the world Chuck..."

[worn cloud]

There are only 10. Those who understand binary and those who don't

[shrewd yacht]

would you run out of quartz before oil if you go for quartz computers and alt motors and turbo motors?

that is a lot of oscillators to be made

[wind spade]

I don't think so

[fallow lily]

https://satisfactory.greeny.dev/alternate-recipes

Plug in the alternate recipes you're using and see how it turns out.

The wiki gives 11,100 quartz/minute and 9750 oil/minute as the current maximums.

[shrewd yacht]

hmm ok

[fallow lily]

Use the checkmark for the ones you're definitely using, and ? for any that you want to compare.

[shrewd yacht]

probably going back to the crystal computer once I get my factory floors expanded a bit more

[wind spade]

I tried the setup you said (crystal computer + alt motors + alt turbomotors) and it gave me 8300 oil and 4500 quartz for 50 TMs

[shrewd yacht]

interesting

[wind spade]

that's with alternate oscillator tho

without it, it's 6400 oil and 5700 quartz

can't get the quartz requirement to be higher than oil

[shrewd yacht]

had not expected that

those AI limiters are a pain

the wire requirements for them...

I'm currently working on a big caterium wire setup to make sure I have enough for later

I'm using alt stators as well so need a lot for that

[gilded parrot]

I have plans to make modules for smelting aluminum ingots and there are some complications, I'm just doing the math and would like some assistance as I don't feel like thinking that hard atm

I have 2730 silica per minute which boils down to 26 smelters. or 3.5 modules of 780 lines which would be....7.428571428571429‬ smelters aka 8 smelters with one underclocked to 43%?

wait

I'm lost

ok 26 foundries divided in 3 modules is 8.6 but divvying up the bauxite to match that I get 7.43.

edit: so there's an extra 130 bauxite per module that has nowhere to go...

egh why 105 bauxite?! I'm just gonna tie it in every 5th foundry and call it good

[glacial hemlock]

If have doubt, just round up the decimals

[boreal cypress]

What I ask myself, these things that transport the material up ... where do they go? You do not see them going down again. But conveyor belts have a texture underneath, where you can see them move backwards.

[swift panther]

Magic

[glacial hemlock]

These conveyor lift will sometime moves in reversed direction in random. This is when those platforms rewind.

[somber axle]

Yeah I think the art in the back should be empty too, correct?

[frigid sluice]

@gilded parrot I'm replacing Greeny and telling you to use manifold

Correction: 🇲 🇦 🇳 🇮 🇫 🇴 🇱 🇩

[wind spade]

MUHAHA

[sand garnet]

oh no

[wind spade]

well spent money for discord nitro 🤔

[oblique perch]

Is it though?

[wind spade]

for that one icon, 9.99/month sounds reasonable

[oblique perch]

If you say so, i support you

[wind spade]

well now I can express my hatred for screws through emojis

[gilded parrot]

I only use manifold

[boreal cypress]

me too

[oblique bloom]

i'll ask jace to remove global emoji perms for pioneers

[wind spade]

I can demote myself to a normal user

[oblique bloom]

yeah, but then you probably lose wiki, too

[wind spade]

sacrifaces are necessary

[oblique bloom]

as long as i'm not it

[vernal birch]

IMO that perm is fine, as long as it's used in moderation, ie common references (screwscrews) and i guess advertisement (very moderated obviously)

[wind spade]

well screw screws is almost a meme at this point

and also I just paid 10 USD just so I can put the icon on this channel, so don't take it from me lol

[empty hemlock]

but greeny being happy with it is a clear case that someone should take it away from him to ruin his fun 👀

[wind spade]

I'll ask Jace to remove Lead Pioneers from #math-and-meta 🤔

[empty hemlock]

how rude and completely unwarrented

[boreal cypress]

@wind spade A 5$ subscription would have done the same

[wind spade]

not if I wanted to boost my server 🤔

[boreal cypress]

thats another point :D

[glacial hemlock]

:screwscrews:

[wind spade]

[glacial hemlock]

screwscrews

[wind spade]

it's from my server lol

[glacial hemlock]

Wth

[wind spade]

external emojis

needed to subscribe to discord nitro

to use them on different servers

[boreal cypress]

and u need the permission to use them on different Server ^^

[wind spade]

well the permissions are on by default

[empty hemlock]

nope, need to be pioneer and up for external emotes

[wind spade]

I mean, when you create a server

[vernal birch]

in everyone's "megabases" how many steel ingots per minute do you use?

[dim thicket]

In my "kinda big" base, I use 240/min

There's room for improvement

But I make everything I need at an alright speed

[boreal cypress]

480/min or something

[boreal cypress]

now im producing 2340 Steel per Minute extra xD

[somber axle]

wait how are screws advertisement? I get you don't want external emojis, but is that like a product someone sells?

just have one of the bots like edit or delete the comment, or react with emojis to make you feel bad

[pale jetty]

😦

@wind spade

[wind spade]

rather

[pale jetty]

Ty

Will always ping you 😂

[feral dew]

[wind spade]

[rocky bough]

[weary ravine]

[sullen cloud]

[glacial hemlock]

@rocky bough the nobelisk matched your shirt quite well

[vernal birch]

@somber axle the screw wasn't the advert ;)

[rocky bough]

@glacial hemlock i know hahhaha

[glacial hemlock]

I found a workaround lol

[wind spade]

rofl

[sand garnet]

uranium on belts is still radioactive right?

[frigid sluice]

Think so

[sand garnet]

if so, what would the radius be of a single belt?

[frigid sluice]

From what I've heard it depends on how many items you have on that belt

[sand garnet]

@wind spade master of the calculator, knower of radiation distances

any chance you could tell me how I could use your radiation calculator to show the radius of uranium on a belt?

[boreal cypress]

a belt with uranium dont have a high radius... maybe like 5m

[ornate flint]

It's not radioactive

@sand garnet

[sand garnet]

have you tested it?

[ornate flint]

I was expecting the same but when I stood next to it I had no issue

Don't know if it's a bug or what

The bug surprise was when I dismantled the belt and I took uranium in my pocket

I nearly instant died

[sand garnet]

lol

break the machine and then push the uranium into a container first then i guess

then when belt is empty dismantle it

[ornate flint]

If you break the machine you'll take the stuff inside it

[sand garnet]

yeah but at least thne you're aware ofit

[ornate flint]

But you can cut the power line from the extractor

[languid estuary]

So when uranium is on the belt its not radioactive? But the uranium node itself is radioactive when you get close to it. And the miner becomes radioactive when its mining uranium.

[sand garnet]

ah yeah true

[ornate flint]

So the belt gets used and there's no uranium left around

[sand garnet]

seems like it anchit

[languid estuary]

Yea, cutting power stops the miner to stop getting more uranium.

Thanks

I was wondering how far away from the belt is a safe distance when mining uranium. I’ll set the miner to start and run away. Lol

[sand garnet]

just connect the belt to the miner first

and make sure tyou're away from the miner so that doesnt affect the test

so you only have to worry about belt radiation

[glacial hemlock]

Uranium on belt radiates about 13meters

2 belts is about 19 meters.

Recently there seems to be some nerfing on the belt radiation

[sand garnet]

confusing conflicting data

[ornate flint]

Are you sure about that? I was just next to my belt today with no side effects

[frigid sluice]

Are you sure you didn't have hazmat suit on?

From programing perspective it actual,y nakes sense that belt's wont radiate. I can't see how the density could be calculated and then turned into radius

[glacial hemlock]

Each items on the belt is count as individual radiation source

[wind spade]

yeah, every item on the map radiates across the whole map

and the radiation intensity is then summed and if it's higher than X, then you are in radiated zone

and about belts, I don't think 13 meters is correct

[glacial hemlock]

Might be because there are several ISC that are nearby, but not enough to trigger radiation damage without the belts nearby

Considering there are more than 100 deposits and 3 nodes on the map, i guess the entire map is contaminated by the 'background radiation'

Which in turn, increases the radiation radius of all subsequent radioactive items

[wind spade]

the radiation intensity is like 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

so I doubt it's observable

[glacial hemlock]

@ornate flint how long is your belt? We are assuming more than 200m

[ornate flint]

Don't know

I'll check and let you know

[glacial hemlock]

Ideally we would like to consider a belt of infinite length, but 8km should be a close appropriation. Lol

[ornate flint]

It's definitely not 8km LOL

[wind spade]

@drowsy aspen what do you define as "efficient"? 🙂

I'd say just open any calculator and put the numbers in

I mean any of the online tools that will do it for you 😉

[glacial hemlock]

didn't see @drowsy aspen nearby

[drowsy aspen]

anyways 🙂

[ornate flint]

@glacial hemlock The belt is approximately 850m long

[glacial hemlock]

good enough... i see

[shrewd yacht]

did anyone calculate how many turbo motors it is possible to produce per minute currently? 😛

@wind spade seems the consumption calculator ignore alt Beacon recipe on/off

[wind spade]

yes, current limit is 186.3 TM/min

and consumption tool only uses the recipe if it's benefitial for the build

[shrewd yacht]

hmm

[wind spade]

so probably the recipe doesn't help with production of TMs

[shrewd yacht]

some other weird thing going on

I set input to the current max for each raw resource

then add turbo motors and nuclear rods

moving the percentage of rods create double production chain with to many rods

move it one notch with mousewheel to 2% and its fine

next step and the list shows a second rod production

[wind spade]

what do you mean by double production?

that's probably because the "other production" uses a different recipe

[shrewd yacht]

oh wow

so mixing the alt and normal for fuel rods is helping efficiency?

guess it is trying to max out the use of available resources

[wind spade]

for your setup, yes. I assume that mixing those recipes creates a nice amount of remaining resources for TMs

it tries to produce as much as possible

[shrewd yacht]

wish I could set the exact value as well as %

I know how many rods I need to produce the power

[wind spade]

then just substract the needed resources from input and only leave TMs

[shrewd yacht]

but with the way this works it mixes the alt recipes for rods to max out

[wind spade]

I don't think it will be that much of a difference

it's probably only slightly better

[shrewd yacht]

strange thing is its regular recipe for most of the rods

5.9/minute with normal and only 1.4 alt

[wind spade]

I don't think it will be that much better

just try it with the way I suggested

[shrewd yacht]

so I'll have to figure out how many raw resources making 6 rods per minute use and subtract

[wind spade]

you can use production tool for that 😄

[shrewd yacht]

you need about 75GW to make the TBs

and the rods

seem to be about 65 mfs making tbs

but this is without underclocking

reducing all mfs to 50% saves 33% on the power consumption

something the consumption tool can't do

saving around 12GW on the mfs and refineries is a lot

[sly aurora]

Do splitters always half (If there's only 2 connections) from the point that they are, or do they split evenly across a number of splitters in the same network?

[boreal cypress]

they split half

[wind spade]

each splitter splits on it's own between all the connected belts to it

[sly aurora]

So multiple splitters in one network with e.g. mk1 belts would go 60/30/15 etc

[boreal cypress]

provided both lines are empty

yes

[sly aurora]

In that case how would you distribute evenly across many different machines

[wind spade]

the answer may surprise you, but exactly as you told. One belt, with splitters 😄

[boreal cypress]

Manifold is your man

[sly aurora]

Surely the one belt would be biased towards the first machine it gets to, giving 30/min to that one and 30/min to all the others?

[boreal cypress]

first one get 50% second one 25% third 12,5% and so on
but if the first one is full the second one get 50% and so on

[wind spade]

depends on how much the first machine is eating

if it's eating 30/min, then sure

but if it's eating less, it will fill up

[sly aurora]

ahh so the buffer would balance it out

[wind spade]

yeah

[sly aurora]

ah I understand now

thanks a lot

[wind spade]

no problem

[shrewd yacht]

@sly aurora greeny has a website with a manifold timing calculator

https://satisfactory.greeny.dev/

[glacial hemlock]

I guess i will have to rewrite the splitter page. Hmmmm

[indigo dirge]

that map tool that reads the save is pretty badass

[pulsar stratus]

@indigo dirge thx

[indigo dirge]

i love tools that reverse engineer things like that and make useful tools

[willow igloo]

Does the game run smoother if you block the line of sight of inner factory bits with walls?

[empty hemlock]

If you are GPU limited yes, if you are CPU limited no

[willow igloo]

ah, I've noticed sometimes the belts will run at 1 fps while other belt pieces run at 60 fps. It's weird to look at and I know the game is trying to prioritize what to animate and what to just do low-res animations

[restive portal]

I'm not sure if I'm super dense, or if something is up

I've got 2 Mk2 miners, during iron on pure fields

thats 120 ore/each a min

[fallow lily]

That should be 240/min each.

[restive portal]

Now, I've got 4 smelters for each, making it into ingots, producing 30 ingots a minute each

Only says 120

Might not be pure then?

[fallow lily]

Then they're not pure or they're not Mk2 miners.

[restive portal]

Regardless, I'm getting 240/ore a min, going into 8 smelters total

each producing 30 ore a min

But, I'm still getting a backlog of iron ingots

Even though, I've got 8 constructors, all using 30 ingots a min

[fallow lily]

And the constructors themselves aren't backed up?

[restive portal]

So by all accounts, it should be just enough to get by, but I seemingly always end up with more iron on my hands, and productivity at a standstill because the smelters can't smelt anymore due to the backlog

The constructors all have 100 smelted ingots in them

If I empty it all out, and let it start anew

they'll all be full within 1-2 mins

https://athenas.engineering/ss/Worthless-Shoddy-Squeaker

[fallow lily]

Don't forget that the smelters themselves have a buffer in the form of a stack.

[restive portal]

Just one out of 8 constructors, this is literally 4 mins or so after bleeding the system and restarting it

Yeah, the smelter's buffer also fills up

Which doesn't make sense, by all accounts they should be using everything they get

[fallow lily]

And you're sure that the problem isn't upstream of the constructors?

[restive portal]

But they build up a buffer

https://athenas.engineering/ss/Dreary-Female-Turaco

They're just going into storage for now, with no bottlenecks by the looks of it

https://athenas.engineering/ss/Stormy-Single-Thrasher

https://athenas.engineering/ss/Lightgoldenrod-Warlike-Racer

[fallow lily]

Are you using a balancer or a manifold to fill the constructors?

[restive portal]

The smelters only really move product every few seconds

https://athenas.engineering/ss/Cheap-Unwelcome-Angelfish

[fallow lily]

Well, then I don't know.

Are you sure everything is connected?

[restive portal]

yes

Everything's connected and producing

It appears to be a common issue all around

[fallow lily]

Then to be completely sure...

Turn off the iron supply. Let the constructors and smelters drain.

And then turn it back on and see if it backs up again.

[torpid robin]

If you are using a manifold system that’s how Itl work . The one in the front will fill up then the next will then the next

Just cause belts are full and machines are full . Go look in it and see if it is running at 100% if they all are . Well the. There is no problem

[fallow lily]

And you're sure that you have exactly eight constructors and exactly eight smelters?

[solid fjord]

@torpid robin Based on the screenshots it looks like he's using a balancer setup rather than manifold.

[torpid robin]

oh.fair. i couldnt see to well on my phone

[languid estuary]

Is the manifold setup a good idea for setting up nuclear power plants?

[solid fjord]

The main downside of manifold is that it takes a while to reach peak performance.

The main benefit is space.

[languid estuary]

also simplicity of setup of manifold compared to balancers

[wind spade]

And expandability

[solid fjord]

I haven't gotten to nuclear yet, but depending on the time it takes to craft a single unit it could be an issue.

Since you have to fill that 100 item buffer regardless of how quickly the items are crafted/consumed.

[languid estuary]

I plan on running 8 nuclear power plants, supported by 3 manufacturers making fuel rod (alt. recipe), and 3 assemblers making uranium cell. I'll be shipping in elctro-magnetic rods from else where by train.

[solid fjord]

The faster items rotate, the faster it balances out.

[languid estuary]

@solid fjord , the stack size for nuclear fuel is 50, so I have to fill each power plant with 50, then it will start to roll over to other plants

[solid fjord]

Ah, 50 then. 😛

[languid estuary]

So far, I'm mostly used the manifold and double manifold system in all my factories

I prefer them way more to balancers

[solid fjord]

If that doesn't seem like an issue then go with it. I personally lean towards balancers most of the time, but that's just me being me.

[languid estuary]

But in case of nuclear power, the production time for each unit is much longer

So, i'm a little concerned, but having done the math it seems that I will be producing more fuel rods per min (1.2/min) and will be consuming less than that.

[solid fjord]

What is the consumption rate?

[languid estuary]

its complicated...

[solid fjord]

You were on a break?

[languid estuary]

So, here is the deal...

[empty hemlock]

the consumption rate is the rate at which you use power

[languid estuary]

At max power consumption, my whole map will draw 13,000 MW. I have turbo fuel generators providing 11,000 MW

But since most of the production is now backed up, I'm only using 5,000 MW

So now, the question is, if I add 20,000 MW of nuclear power bringing my total capacity to 33,000 MW, and Peak Power consumption to 13,500 MW; then at what rate will the nuclear plants consume 1 fuel rod?

Lets say I will be using 5,000 MW out of 33,000 MW, so around 15% power consumption.

[earnest orchid]

so anyone else doing stupid amounts of production?

[peak wedge]

yes me here

[languid estuary]

I checked the wiki, and it says that 1 nuclear fuel rod lasts for 0.2 mins (300 secs) at 100% usage. If the usages is lower, shouldn't the consumption of nuclear fuel rods be at a slower rate?

[solid fjord]

So at max consumption it should be 0.2/min, right?

Yea, what you said.

[languid estuary]

So, i guess I'll be okay with my plan...to support 8 nuclear plants consuming 1.6/min with 3 manufacturers producing rods at 1.8/min; because I'm not running on 100% load

That should also allow for some fuel rods to stock up and fill up a few ISCs so I get a buffer in case my power usage skyrockets after the next update.

[solid fjord]

You could always just set the clock speed lower to force a maximum consumption rate.

[wind spade]

You don't want to stockpile fuel rods

[earnest orchid]

well you could, but it's very dangerous

[wind spade]

Also buffering fuel items isn't recommended it's better to have more production than consumption

[rancid lark]

Why don't you want to buffer fuel items? I'm planning on having a turbo fuel reserve and about 10% more fuel gens than I can support. Reason being if I temporarily go over my capacity while building the reserves will help keep things running until I bring more capacity online.

Or are we just talking nuclear here?

[wind spade]

because you already have buffer in your power plants

that's enough for power spikes

and if you start consuming more power than you have, then with buffer you will find out later, when it may be harder to reset the power

[languid estuary]

Thanks for the input greeny

I checked my saved file on the satisfactroy-calculator site and confirmed that my peak power usage is 1/3 of the total power capacity that I have.

I will just have to keep an eye on my new construction, but I will not be building any more stuff at the moment until new content updates come out.

I wanted to dabble in nuclear stuff, so I built a few extra powerplants...hehe

[glacial hemlock]

@wind spade , to put it in a nicer way, the buffer in power generators should be just enough to even out the power spikes, so that the sustainable power capacity should be just above the averaged power consumption.

[fierce ruin]

so much planning in excel and draw xD

[torpid robin]

The planning is great in this game lol . I have pages and pages of notes 📝

[junior cloud]

@languid estuary I did the exact same setup for 8 nuclear power plants. My current power draw is 3 GW due to having filled all my ISCs and my non-nuclear power production is 12GW. I maxed out all 8 reactors with 50 fuel rods in no time at all. Place is a radioactive nightmare. The interactive map didn't indicate how much radioactivity there would be due to all those fuel rods on the conveyor belt bus line 😦

[fierce ruin]

for 6/pem heavy mods i need 930iron /pm xD 56 constructors

[amber nebula]

40 modular frames per minute
10 assemblers

iron rods 240/min 240 iron ingots min
16 constuctors

reinforced iron plate 120/min
16 assemblers 120 reinforced iron plate
400 iron plate min
960 screw per min

11 constructors 990 screw min 165 iron ingot min

27 constructor for 405 iron plate min
810iron inget per min

that is what I just went through.....

[fallow lily]

Don't let greeny see that.

So many screws.

[torpid robin]

That’s not too much ? I’m currently building a 60pm heavy modular frame lol . . 210 steel pipe constructors later

[wind spade]

do you know how many screws do you need?

exactly?

I know. Exactly 0

[patent fractal]

I promise i'm not trying to be provocative or start a fight, but i'm having trouble understanding how trains are better than belts. I'm certain they're probably better for CPU cycles in the end game, since a 20km belt would likely cook a CPU on it's own, but for logistics are Tier 5 belts not better?

[torpid robin]

I think for short distances belts are better . But long distances trains are . As you can just add more freight carts. Instead of running 10 odd belts across the map

[patent fractal]

Yeah that's a good argument.

[glacial hemlock]

@wind spade to assemble an explorer, you need exactly 0 screws. Use only flex glue.

Trains can be lame for anything less than 1km.

[languid estuary]

@junior cloud , How far away is your nuclear production site and power plants from your base(s)?

[languid estuary]

I built my nuclear power and fuel rod processing all inside the void next to the grass lands, and using the uranium node from that cave with a mk3 miner. I have a mk4 belt from the cave to the void, and i got it as close to the cliffs as I could since my main base is on top of the 3 normal iron nodes a little ways away from the void. When building the area for nuclear power, I got down the void as low as i could get without dying, and then covered up a large area with foundation, and made a 3 floor building over those foundation. Each floor is 5 foundation high (4mX8m). The top most floor as 8 nuclear power plants with 2 sets of mk3 belts going across the center to feed nuclear fuel rods and take waste away. The second floor is the nuclear processing site where all the materials I are brought down using conveyor lifts (a lot of them) down to that level. Also using a train station to bring in non radioactive processed items (beacon, crystal oscillator and elector-magnetic control rods) from my base over the nuclear void. And finally the basement is 3 rows of ISCs each each row having 18 ISCs with plenty of room to add more waste storage capacity, or some future nuclear waste recycling thing should such a thing come up.

At present, I dont feel too much radiation unless i go down to the void on the floor of the reactors. All the reactors are very radioactive since all have 50 stack of fuel rods in them. Also, the basement is radioactive from the 2 full ISCs. But as I climb up out of the void, the radiation meter goes away half way to the top (around 5 foundations) So, on the surface I dont feel any radiation...yet! I'm not sure how things will turn out after more ISCs fill up with waste. Like when 10 full ISCs are stacked with waste, i hope the radiation does not come up to the surface.

[glacial hemlock]

Radiation eventually build up, so instead of the center void, try corner voids

[wind spade]

Radiation builds up if number of items increases. For thr same amount of items, radiation stays constant

[languid estuary]

I'm hoping that I built my storage and power plants deep and low enough that even when 10-20 ISCs fill up, the radiation will not reach the surface....that is the hope anyway!

lol

Btw, how long will it take for the 50 ISCs to completely fill with nuclear waste? What is the math on that?

[wind spade]

1 plant does 1 ISC/80 hours

On max power drain

[languid estuary]

Does is scale proportionally with lower power usage?

[wind spade]

Yeah

50% power usage = 50% fuel usage

[languid estuary]

Cool

[ornate flint]

Little update on the uranium in belt discussion we had few days ago. If I got really close to it (like 3/4 meters) radiation starts kicking in

[junior cloud]

@languid estuary my nuclear reactors are sited 2KM away from my grassland base. If you look due north from grassland to the red trees + waterfall into the abyss (also near quartz), I built my first reactor 8 foundations above the waterfall, with the rest following in a line along the cliff. Waste is stored 500M into the red tree area. All the reactors are perfectly visible from my main base. In my build, I try hard not to have anything that wouldn't work if gravity was actually working, so getting a rail line up there was a job. 260 KM/H roller-coaster going down though, so no regrets.

[glacial hemlock]

great, but still, I don't recommend building nuclear anywhere near to the land area.

[cedar mica]

If I want a smaller build, is 200% or 250% overclock the best option?

[wind spade]

well if you are ok with your "smaller build" making you require more power

then 250% all the way

[cedar mica]

Question is how to scale power stuff, as I want an all inclusive skyscraper

[wind spade]

can't really give you anything on this topic

[cedar mica]

Hmm... 28 fuel rods, would be ether 69.18634x or 82.14223x reactors.

Ether way, I need to get a doggo farm going, to find all those slugs

[indigo musk]

Tested "manifold" VS "balancer" for 52 steel p***s constructors. I don't find any argument in favor of the manifold system. It's slower, made for building a looooooong line of constructions in parallel (ugly) and only cheaper when you also chose that layout for the constructors (any stacked layout make the construction cost similar).
One hour to get that manifold system run at 100%... vs 30s for balancer to reach over 95%

[empty hemlock]

based on you saying that it's slower to build the manifold i assume you don't know that you can snap splitters onto existing belts

[wind spade]

1 hour (my tool says 46 min, I assume you got like 50 and rounded up) to get 52 machines working. However only 15 minutes to get 46 machines working

may I ask you how did you make 1:52 balancer and how it looked nicer than a row of machines with splitters before them, which is considered perfection?

[indigo musk]

The building time is rougly the same for both system. More possibilities of errors on the balancer though. If the manifold deserves a praise that's certainly for being idiotproof.

Cost more aliminium to do a balancer if you put all your constructor in one long line ; but that difference disappear when using a more compact layout (The advantage of "scalability" of the manifold also disappear when using a compact layout so I went for a long line.)

The balancer doesn't look as "nice" and small than the manifold line. However the 52 constructors in parallel are way uglier than the balancer.

I did steel prod -> 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 (-2) -> p***s prod

That's why this setup reach 95% efficiency and not 100% after 30s

Yes, I rounded up the starting time. That was too long to wait for. I went to build miscellaneous stuff aroudn and came back a big half-hour later, to see the last 3 machines still not receiving enough steel ingots

5 min after starting production : manifold gave me 2045 items, balancer gave me 6800 3243 items.

[wind spade]

well, as was said multiple times, everybody has a different opinion

I think that constructors in row look good

and yes, I also mentioned that manifold's only real disadvantage is the start time

which is often ignored, since you'll build the manifold and while it's filling, you build another part of the factory

or you can prefill the machines

one of the advantages you didn't considered (not realistic in that case you tested, but often realistic in other cases): adding a few machines

it would be much more painful to add machines to your setup rather than to manifold setup

and another point you probably didn't consider: manifold works super well with different consumption ratios on buildings (e.g. mixed recipes or some buildings overclocked/underclocked)

[indigo musk]

Well, manifold work just the same no matter the consumption ratio. It just doesn't get much worse when you change them. The balancer efficiency will drop if it's not perfectly adapted indeed, but then it will start behaving like the manifold, fill up then go backto 100%.
I guess youc ould say a bad balancer is as good as a manifold. Advantage to the manifold for being extremely simple of use.

Aesthetics and the long line of conveyor I don't enjoy is just... personnal taste. Can't argue over that.

[wind spade]

I think we kinda agreed on the same thing. My opinion is, that there is no need for balancing in this game, since manifolds will work with the same efficiency eventually. I'm not talking about aesthetic as that's personal, but otherwise I think that manifolds are faster to build, takes less space (yes, you can make balancer compact, but I doubt it will take less space than manifold), is easily expandable and can work with different ratios and lastly, is easily connected to overflow storage. For me, these advantages are enough to not care about the fill time (as I can spend the time doing other stuff or prefill the machines).

However, I'm not saying balancers are bad. They are perfectly valid. I just don't think they are required anywhere.

[indigo musk]

Actualy, early game you might meet situation where you can build a dozen of constructor fast, and a manifold with early game belts will still take 30 min to fill up...
Early game, time can more valuable than space, especially for player who don't have dozens of hours to spend on the game each week. Some people might find the balancer more rewarding.

[empty hemlock]

early game you don't even have belts that are fast enough to supply dozens of constructors

[fierce ruin]

this. Also please define early game.

and just by building manifold in proper order you dont have to care about fill time. maybe later when blueprints will be aviable.

no really, start-up time in such a game - come on

[indigo musk]

When building your first heavy modular frame production for example. That's when I used the first manifold because I wanted to go fast and easy.
Coal came from far away by train, and there were some trouble with some trains :p so the production was turned off, and on, and off, and on...
Because of the manifold (short one, 4 advanced smelters) the coal when first to steel bars instead of last to steel pipes. Ended up with a slow production of heavy frames, and machines full of steel bars I didn't need.

That mess delayed my 1000/1000/1000 elevator milestone.

The steel bars being stored at the end storage of their constructor, and also atthe entrance of encased beam assemblers. I had hundred of these useless items when I just wanted heavy frames. With a proper balancer I would have avoided that frustration.

[patent bough]

with proper math you probably would've avoided that frustration.

[rancid lark]

Thing is, most people wouldn't do a full manifold on 52 machines but rather split it up into 4 runs of 13 or something similar. As I said yesterday, most players design all output as manifolds and that also has some inherit inefficiency when starting from a fully loaded state. If you want to observe this, direct the output from your carefully balanced 52 constructors into a single ISC until everything is full and the machines are paused. Empty the ISC and then observe how long it takes for the furthest constructor to get up to 100% efficiency. You'll notice about a 10-20% longer time for the machines to get back to a paused state than what you'd expect to just fill up the ISC again.

[patent bough]

if you want to speed up manifold saturation just hand feed some of the end machines....or if you have your source input already going to the manifold then try building the central line then the feed to the far end machines first and work your way closer.

this all of course assumes you have sufficient supply for all the machines, underclocking if necessary to match

that being said, a balancer might technically work better with insufficient supply. The machines would still be at below-peak efficiency -- but the inefficiency would be spread out.

but who would do that.

[wind spade]

with insufficient supply, manifold is better imo because of less power spikes (less machines turning off and on again)

[patent bough]

fair.

[fierce ruin]

@rancid lark "Thing is, most people wouldn't do a full manifold on 52 machines" / any data on this?

[rancid lark]

just saying most people aren't going to do a line of 52 constructors in a straight line but rather try to make more of a grid or different levels. that lends itself to a small balancer on the input side to break it up into 4 runs of 13 rather than one long run of 52

[fierce ruin]

one more time - "most people aren't going to do a line of 52 constructors" - any data on this?

[rancid lark]

sure, screenshots if you want "proof"

how many screenshots have you seen of a single row of machines all in one line vs in more of a grid

[fierce ruin]

way more in a line

[rancid lark]

sure thing, not going to waste time arguing the point

[fierce ruin]

because you don't have any arguments - just a "feeling"

[glacial hemlock]

@indigo musk interesting viewpoint there.

[indigo musk]

@patent bough This is not about "math", this is about serial vs parallel distribution and only considering the established / stable regime instead of the dynamic one you get whe' turning power on/off.
You can do plenty of "math" and still get a disapointing result.

[patent bough]

🏓

please don't @ me and please don't patronize me

[glacial hemlock]

It is an overdebated topic, lol. But in your opinion spaghetti of mergers and spliters and lots of diverging belts look nicer than a single row of belt. Haha

[patent bough]

to be fair, i don't always care about aesthetics. but i do care about potential for expansion. a perfectly crafted balancer cannot be expanded upon, it has to be torn down and rebuild. a perfectly crafted manifold can be added to easily when additional supply is available.

[indigo musk]

No. I avoid spaghetti belts.
There's no spaghetti if you avoid doing a guant line of machines and use different floors.

[fallow lily]

You can still end up with spaghetti with short lines and multiple floors.

[glacial hemlock]

With balancer it is almost impossible to connect this kind of setup

[fallow lily]

Planning ahead is the best way to avoid spaghetti.

[indigo musk]

You can turn a balancer into many small balanced manifolds, just adding more splitters on the sides... If you don't care about efficiency, what's stopping you ?

[glacial hemlock]

https://satisfactory.gamepedia.com/Coal_Generator#Beginner.27s_guide_for_setting_up_coal_power

@indigo musk what do you think about this coal generator setup?is it looking ugly?

[indigo musk]

Kinda yes. Not as bad as a line of constructors because tall buildings make the line look thicker/shorter

I have something similar, but shorter,on two floors

And I'd probably go for a triangle tower with 9 generators per floor if I were to do it again.

[glacial hemlock]

Oh... i see.

[indigo musk]

Also a balancer for gen as in the pic doesnt look like spaghetti...

Unless you have compulsive disorder a'd always put spaghetti one by one in your plate, straightened, without overlap...

I make my factories so I dont have idle items on belts (except ores / raw). Manifold isn't good for me + I need visible belts for checking everythi'g is running smoothly.

I do need to do further tests for checking about power spikes.

[glacial hemlock]

I get the point. But just for your info, everything eventually back up. There is no resource drain in the current game.

[indigo musk]

I'm too aware of that limitation...

[willow igloo]

I've found that this sort of factory works for up to tier 3 materials, but how well do you think I could make this work in the future. For reference, this is a no alternate recipe reinforced iron plate factory, enough machines to run a single assembler with the idea that I can stack multiple floors as demand requires.

The idea is that there is a vertical bus in the center of machines on either side using splitters and vertical lifts, which then feeds back into the center to travel down the production line. usually 5-7 tiles wide and as long as the production line needs to be

Assuming I use top tier belts where necessary to keep the number of belts down, how viable would this be to higher tier materials?

[glacial hemlock]

Poor buildability in my opinion

Means hard to construct, not to mention expandability

@willow igloo for higher tier material you might need 30+ different groups of machines just to produce 1 product

Like, turbomotor

[willow igloo]

I was thinking as much

What about a factory that has one floor per manufacturing step? Seems like if you had a floor that is producing iron ingots, when you get the alternate recipe you can just demolish it, rebuild it, using the same inputs and outputs? Not sure how well that works. I'd love a base that evolves from the same building, but it just feels like it's better to build a separate production building per material

[wind spade]

I'd get the alternate recipes before building anything

[glacial hemlock]

@willow igloo you will need skyscrapers for everything if you want to implement that idea. Not bad though

[wind spade]

I'm still a bigger fan of dedicated factories for certain product

so a factory for reinforced plates, accepts iron, produces reinforced plates
factory for MF, accepts iron and steel, produces MFs
etc

[glacial hemlock]

I am more to hierarchy system where goods are dedicated to the next tier only.

[glossy knoll]

is there a command to see diag info for a belt? I'd like to get an idea what kind of throughput there is

[glacial hemlock]

I don't know, but you already can do it using the online interactive map

[fierce ruin]

?

belt throughput in online map? How?

@glossy knoll I dont think so - there is mod with item counter that gives items/min but it's not very accurate for me - propably fps related issues

[glossy knoll]

OKay thanks, I'm just trying to make sure I have enough throughput on my trains

[glacial hemlock]

Not belt throughput, is factory total production

[astral bay]

I tried to calculate how fast you can run in satisfactory... and I got|| 9,1||m/s

[wind spade]

what method did you use to calculate that?

[sand garnet]

you could probably do it by laying out 10 foundations and then starting at the edge of the first, look straight down and run all the way to the end while looking straight down

so you can see when you cross each foundation line

then time it

[wind spade]

you also need to run in a straight line. I'd say better way to do it is to get the distance from coordinates delta

[glacial hemlock]

running speed is mentioned in the wiki iirc

[tawdry pebble]

General community question power related, what efficiency of feeding fuel do you run your power stations at? I am running mine at about 91%. 100% seems pointless since at that point the fuse trips.

[fierce ruin]

I could misunderstood, but power stations use only as much fuel as they need to

[tawdry pebble]

I’ll break it down further then, for my current 72 fuel generators I am producing 300 turbo fuel per minute and their max rated consumption is 4.5/m. I am feeding them at maximum 4.1/m or 91%.

[rancid lark]

are you downclocking the assemblers and oil refineries to make the turbo fuel or just the fuel gens?

downclocking the fuel gens will just make your breakers trip more often and won't have any effect on how much fuel you consume

[fallow lily]

It does have the effect of evening out consumption.

In this situation, it allows all generators to run continuously despite not having enough fuel to run them all at 100%

[fierce ruin]

if you produce 1000MW and use 500MW than your power plants run at 50% efficiency - and use 50% of resources

[fallow lily]

I approach that situation by building fewer generators, though.

[fierce ruin]

they will only consume what they need

[fallow lily]

Better to supply the generators with a slight surplus than try to match it exactly.

[rancid lark]

ya, if you are producing 300 turbo fuel/min then only feed 66 fuel gens and turn off any others you may have hooked up

[fallow lily]

aY227, this isn’t about efficiency. It’s about matching fuel production with peak consumption.

Also, @tawdry pebble , generators and clock speed are weird

[fierce ruin]

@fallow lily He's offline now

whats the reason to provide less fuel to power stations?

[fallow lily]

91% clock on a generator doesn’t mean that it runs at 91% of normal speed.

[fierce ruin]

yes

"their max rated consumption is 4.5/m. I am feeding them at maximum 4.1/m or 91%." why?

[fallow lily]

And while they may be offline, they should eventually see the ping.

[tawdry pebble]

On my phone reading I am here in and out. I am doing so for more power generation and if I am reaching 90%+ power consumption to generation then I need more power plants

[fierce ruin]

but if you are producing 300 tf/min than all you can sustain is 10k MW (66.6 generators) - it gives NOTHING to you if you will give them less fuel. If you want to counter power spikes, you can build a storage, that will buy you some time - but imho it's counter productive.@tawdry pebble

all you are creating is a very small buffer in building inventory

[patent bough]

Also, turbo fuel is inefficient in terms of % of power spent just producing the fuel.

Better off with coal until you get nuclear and a bunch of alt recipes

[cedar mica]

4279MW to produce 37,5GW. Dont sound so bad

Same amount of coal and fuel, would just make 18,1GW

37.5GW with fuel, would require 6772.5MW to make

And you would need 8334 coal, to cover the same amount. Yes, its just 1805MW to keep those miners running, but thats around 1/3 of the coal on the map

Why 37.5GW? Because you can quickly need 10GW, just to power the nuclear production, then the stuff to make building materials, comes on top

Not to mention, its just 1.5 MK3 normal coal and sulfur. Which can easily be started at lower tech, then upgraded as you progress

[patent bough]

You only need 3.2 fuel rods per minute to generate 40GW

Using greenys calculator I noted only 2.2GW are needed to produce that with the right combination of recipes.

As a percentage of peak power capacity that's pretty good.

[cedar mica]

Sure, but that leaves you with ether 68.8 or 360 uranium, used. Which means you are leaving a lot untapped, which will need a lot of filters, to fix

[patent bough]

I for one am in no hurry to use all the untapped uranium on the map

However, if you want to make a terrawatt factory, go nuts.

[cedar mica]

With just a mk2 miner, you have 480 on a node

[patent bough]

Why the concern about surplus uranium?

[cedar mica]

Just saying, if we got the power to build 100GW+ easy, tier 8 is going to be power hungry

[patent bough]

We'll find out when they actually release stuff.

[cedar mica]

Also, people seems to forget that trains are power hungry also. 125MW per locomotive, at peak draw

[patent bough]

A bit. Plus each freight car has temporary power usage during load/unload

[cedar mica]

Then 50MW per station

It adds up, when you have resources from accross the map

[patent bough]

Have to have the capacity for all your trains to be loading all at once

But the draw only happens at stops so the average consumption and thus amortized fuel usage is not so bad

The load sequence takes, what, 15 seconds?

So in a 4min RTT with 2 stops it's only 30 seconds of increased usage (or 12.5% of the time)

I'm estimating here; I'd be curious what the actual load/unload time is

[cedar mica]

Trains also draw the most power, when stopping or accelerating.

[patent bough]

Ay there is that.

Big fan of making 2 stops max per train loop and keeping tracks flat to minimize acceleration/braking

[cedar mica]

Even if its overkill, so will I go with 28 fuel rods a minute. 350GW should be more then enough, for whatever comes down the pipeline, even with an overclocked factory

Then again, calculator says max draw is around 110GW, for what I'm planning. + Trains and new stuff

[wind spade]

@cedar mica I did some math on fuel efficiency

[patent bough]

there it is

can someone just pin that

my biggest surprise was that the uranium fuel cell alt recipe appeared to increase power usage. however, it also cuts the amount of uranium used significantly

[sand garnet]

that's actually a very useful little graph

[lapis jay]

Thanks greeny for the graph!

In wich point the fuel generators start to be unefficient? I’m in tier 6 and I just unlocked trains and fuel generators. I don’t know if is worth to build a fuel generator plant or I sould wait to nuclear plants to do a big production plant?

I mean, I obviusly have fuel generators laying arround but I don’t know if I sould do a huge power plant

[sand garnet]

they're just 'easier'

less space for equal power basically

but if you care about efficiency, stick to coal until you get to nuclear

[patent bough]

The only downside is having to devote a lot of coal to power when it could be used for steel, but there is a lot of coal on the map.

[sand garnet]

yea exactly

[patent bough]

But fuel also has the downside of diverting petroleum to fuel instead of plastic for computers

[lapis jay]

Ok, I was planning to expand my coal plant and, use the fuel generators in a different line for the trains. I don’t want to mess with my factory electricity line.

Thanks for the help with this!

[patent bough]

Interesting choice.

I've only integrated trains into one factory and i wish I'd kept them in a separate grid. Actually shorted out my factory before I knew the power requirements.

[lapis jay]

Ah, I see

[patent bough]

Luckily I had already delivered a lot of coal to my base and had materials to make a quick manifold to supplement the grid

What kept getting me was the load/unload power usage

I've a ridiculous nuclear surplus now but getting there was an adventure

[lapis jay]

Yeah, I’m worried about that. And that is why I want the trains in a different grid. Because I’m a disaster and I wouldn’t notice that my factory was shut down like one hour after 😂

[patent bough]

Well.... Not that ridiculous. Only 25 GW. Small compared to some of these megafactory builders.

[lapis jay]

Yeah

[patent bough]

Just 10 plants floating above the ocean.

[lapis jay]

In the screenshot channel I see that someone wanted to build 150 nuclear generators. Ridiculous

[wind spade]

fyi the table with efficiency assumes mk3 miners 250% overclocked

[lapis jay]

I saw*

[wind spade]

so essentially the "worst" case

[lapis jay]

Ahh ok

[patent bough]

Hey, people gotta have goals

[wind spade]

so if you use 100% miners only, the efficiency is better

but it's better on all fuel types

the ratio between them should stay similar

[patent bough]

Better efficiency but lower maximum.

Also did you use the uranium fuel cell alt that costs slightly more power but uses 1/3 of the uranium?

[wind spade]

there are two rows in the table, one is without alts and one is with alts

[patent bough]

I know but there's a lot of ways to arrange the alts. If you optimize only for minimum power usage you miss out on that one difference

[wind spade]

I only analysed all vs none situation

everything in between can be done using a calculator

[patent bough]

I almost overlooked it myself but was wondering "why would this alt use more power?"

[wind spade]

essentially the "with alts" setup aims to lowest possible resource consumption

[patent bough]

I see.

[fierce ruin]

When the end of the line is filled. And u have storage of everything you can possably automate then what?

Its like creative

[glacial hemlock]

Modded game is not to be discussed here...

[dim thicket]

The graph is misleading. You don't care about (power made / Power used) but instead (Power made - Power used), in which case always upgrading is a no brainer.

@lapis jay
Don't stick with coal power, it clearly supplies much less power than fuel.

[wind spade]

I disagree

if I have enough coal, it's better to build coal plants rather than fuel plants, because less power would go to the fuel production and therefore you'll have more power available for the factory

[dim thicket]

But you're not dividing your available power by the amount you use to make fuel

You're subtracting

[wind spade]

yeah, that's what I did lol

[dim thicket]

Oh

[wind spade]

the % is just how much of the power generated from X pieces of fuel you need to produce X pieces of fuel

so essentially a loss of energy, because that % won't go to your base, but to your power production

[dim thicket]

You did
(Produced - Cost)/Produced
That makes even less sense

[fallow lily]

That makes perfect sense.

[wind spade]

that's actually exactly the % that you "lose" for producing the fuel

[fallow lily]

It tells you the fraction available for things outside the powerplant.

Which is how you can compare coal and fuel and nuclear on a level field.

[dim thicket]

But why would I care about the fraction? The amount that's available for the rest of the factory is simply (Produced - Cost)

And the field is level already; coal simply isn't as good as fuel in any meaningful way

[wind spade]

again, I disagree

it's different when you lose 100 MW from 270MW produced from coal, than if you lose 100 MW from 12500 MW produced from nuclear

[dim thicket]

The only stat people might want to pay attention to is
(Energy gained - cost)/Resources used
You'd want to know how much energy the rest of your factory gets for every coal you mine, or for every oil you drill

[wind spade]

well that's what is in the table

it tells you how much power (well, it should've been energy) you need to produce 10 fuel

and how much you get from 10 fuel

[dim thicket]

You almost have that, but then proceed to divide that by the MJ of the fuel

[wind spade]

well that's for the percentage

that's perfectly valid reason

[dim thicket]

But I don't care how much % of the energy of any given fuel is actually used for the rest of my factory, I only care how much energy is left for my factory

[wind spade]

well.. you should care about that

if there was a fuel that produces 10000000 MW, but uses 9990000 MW from it, it's not a good piece of fuel, although based on your suggested formulas , it's the best in the game

[dim thicket]

Why? How much of that fuel is actually useful is not important to me

There's infinite of it, of course

I only care how much energy I can get out of burning it

[wind spade]

well then you are wasting resources

[dim thicket]

But there's infinite

[wind spade]

no

we care about items per minute

and those aren't infinite

[dim thicket]

But your formula doesn't reflect items per minute, it's only important if you're trying to maximize the energy you can recieve from a finite pool of resources

[wind spade]

I'm not talking about formula now. I'm just saying that your "resources are infinite" is only half true

[dim thicket]

"How much energy can I get from each item" vs "how fast can I pull energy out of the ground"

[wind spade]

yeah, I don't care about the second one. That one is already solved and it's a different discussion

[dim thicket]

But that's the one most people would consider important when deciding whether or not to upgrade

[wind spade]

I would definitely consider the fuel's efficiency (based on that table) before upgrading

[dim thicket]

Okay. I just know a factory that uses fuel rather than coal will have a lot more available power with less resource cost, even if you're wasting a higher ratio of that power

[wind spade]

I never said that's not true

I just said that they will waste more power just to keep the power production going

[dim thicket]

Fair enough! My apologies I wasn't on the same page

[wind spade]

I made the table mostly for cases like this:

I need X MW of power for my factory. What should I use, if I have enough nodes for any fuel type.

[dim thicket]

But what are you trying to minimize?

[fallow lily]

More pertinent to me is the amount I need for other uses.

[wind spade]

wasted energy

[fallow lily]

The need for oil products makes fuel generators unappealing.

[wind spade]

I don't want to build 1200 MW when I only need 1000 MW

[fallow lily]

Even if they were the most efficient source in the game...I still need oil for other uses.

[dim thicket]

If you're looking to minimize energy waste, then sure.

I personally would try to minimize resource usage, and build size

/build effort

[fallow lily]

Nuclear has issues on those last two points.

Size/effort.

[dim thicket]

@fallow lily
And that's fair, if you don't want to use something to save it for other things that's the best reason

I've never actually used nuclear! It doesn't look easy. Turbofuel is my bae

[fallow lily]

Radiation and no way to recycle waste are big problems.

[wind spade]

tbh radiation is a problem only for a few hundreds of meters

and waste is easily solved by just placing a few containers

(yes, it's temporary, but only a few containers per plant can give hundreds of playtime, so who cares)

[fallow lily]

Apparently, at least one person.

Radiation is a hassle because filters are not readily automated.

[wind spade]

well it's not like you will build your power plant in the middle of your base

you will probably build it somewhere far away and not touch it for the rest of the game

[fallow lily]

But if I ever want to expand or retool that plant...

[wind spade]

retool?

[fallow lily]

Modify.

[wind spade]

afaik there is no way to modify nuclear power plants

apart from overclocking which isn't something you want to do

[dim thicket]

I just don't see the point of upgrading past turbo. It's already an incredible fuel type that gives lots of energy per oil and coal. Maybe if your base is so large that you can't get more oil/coal?

[wind spade]

@dim thicket it eats a lot of oil, which is a bottleneck for bigger builds

[fallow lily]

I include the factory making nuclear fuel in “power plant “

[wind spade]

coal is almost never a bottleneck

@fallow lily ah, well I would build that separated

radiation from the factory isn't big, so you can build it pretty close to your base

iirc it's like 5-8 foundations depending on setup

so if you just build it like 30 foundations away from base on edge you won't need, it's totally fine

[fallow lily]

It’s still a hassle if I want to work on the radioactive parts of the factory.

[wind spade]

that's why you should just build the factory first and then let the resources flow in it after it's finished

[fallow lily]

Which, depending on what the devs add or change, I may want to.

[wind spade]

I don't think nuclear will change

[fallow lily]

So you can say for sure that uranium products will have no changes or further uses?

[wind spade]

I think that uranium is pretty much finished

unless we are getting atomic bomb, which I doubt we are

[peak wedge]

i hope for it

[fallow lily]

In any case, until waste can be recycled and filters fully automated, I don’t really want to touch nuclear.

[wind spade]

I doubt waste will be recycleable

the whole purpose of waste is to be waste 😄

[peak wedge]

[wind spade]

and for the filters, you won't need much of them anyway. You'll just find a few mycelia stacks and be good for the rest of the game

[fallow lily]

Which is fairly meh in my view.

I don’t have “a few mycelia stacks” and I do have zero interest in hand gathering if it can be avoided.

[wind spade]

let me guess, you didn't do much exploring and drive hunting

[peak wedge]

[wind spade]

I'm not even at supercomputers on my best save and I already have a good enough amount of mycelia just from my trips for HDDs and slugs

[fallow lily]

I spend much of my time building factories, and explore when I need more resource nodes.

[wind spade]

so you don't use alternate recipes? 🤔

[fallow lily]

I do not see a strong reason to at the moment.

They screw up nice, neat ratios.

[wind spade]

maybe 50% resource and power savings

[fallow lily]

Those aren’t exactly in short supply.

[wind spade]

maybe not dealing with screws

maybe having better productivity

and I don't see alts that ruin ratios

[fallow lily]

I like screws. They’ve driven the most interesting layout planning.

Particularly for rotors.

[wind spade]

e.g. alt. rotor, it saves you from needing 132 screws/min

and idk, but saving build size is something that may be interesting

[fallow lily]

As for exploration...when I am exploring, I don’t take a chainsaw to everything I see.

[wind spade]

as well as saving like 80% resources for HMFs

mycelia doesn't require chainsaw 🤔

[fallow lily]

I don’t like removing foliage unless I have to.

I like the way the world looks.

[wind spade]

well then that's an issue, when the whole point of mycelia stuff is to be collected

"I won't go nuclear because I like how the world looks"

[fallow lily]

shrugs.

[dim thicket]

Oh my god you aren't using alts? At least get iron wire + Stitched iron plate. I just refuse to build a factory without those two

But yeah there's none that are great for saving oil, is there?

Crystal computer is pretty lit

[wind spade]

there are a few

circuit board alt, crystal computer

HSC alt

I think there are a few more

[royal cloak]

The only one I really want is the one that replaces screws for rotors

22 screws is not a nice number

It barely fits with any of the other recipes

[wind spade]

it's 132/min

you don't care about the recipe numbers, but about the per minute values

[royal cloak]

132 is also not a good number

[wind spade]

yeah, but alts aren't supposed to fix the numbers, but to save you materials

[royal cloak]

sure, whatever you say

[wind spade]

well if I take a few alts, I save 80% of resources for HMFs for example

so I can make 5x more HMFs from the same resources

I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want that

[dim thicket]

Like I said, Iron wire + Stitched is the alt to get

That cuts down on a lot of screw usage

The other is alt rotors. Problem is, they need steel to make

[wind spade]

there is a lot of alternate recipes and like 80% of them are really useful

[dim thicket]

Other than the godly iron wire + stitched plate combo, best alt/alts?

[eager spindle]

alt fps upgrade: delete your save

[dim thicket]

Immediate 60fps

[eager spindle]

*infinite fps

[wind spade]

I can't say "best", but "good":

• iron ingot, steel ingot, enrirched steel ingot
• qucikwire alt
• rotor, MF, HMF, EIB
• circuit board, crystal computer, quickwire computer
• silica
• ECR, RCU, TM, heat sink, HSC
• uranium cell + fuel rod

ignoring turbofuel and compacted coal as those alts are the only way to get those resources

[dim thicket]

Oh yeah, I forgot about steel ingot

[royal cloak]

Iron wires ?

[dim thicket]

That's probably second best, yeah

[wind spade]

the question was "other than iron wire and stitched iron plate"

that's why I didn't include them

[dim thicket]

@royal cloak
Iron wire is an alternate, 2 iron ingot makes 9 copper wire

(I think)

[wind spade]

yeah

op

[dim thicket]

Do you think they'll ever nerf?

[wind spade]

nah, it's not that op

but it's op over normal recipe

that's why I don't get people who don't want to do alternate recipes

[spark blaze]

I don't think it is an issue of not wanting to do alt recipes... I think it's people not wanting to stop progression to retool a whole process

[wind spade]

yeah that's why you first get recipes and then build base 😄

[worn cloud]

Or build more modular

[wind spade]

I see no reason building without proper alternate recipes

but yeah, modular builds ftw

[fading pine]

hello?

[dusk wave]

Hi @fading pine

bye pancakes

[fading pine]

what the fuck

[meager mason]

Isnt Ironwire and stitched iron plate the 2 recepies you first get?

Or have been really lucky?

[cedar mica]

Iron wire is not that good early game, as you normally start near some copper. Its more for late game

Iron ingots to screws and stiched plate, is the first grabs for me

[royal cloak]

the content of the hard drive is always random, but based on what tiers and tech you have unlocked

[cedar mica]

If you grab them early enough, you can somewhat control which once you get

[glacial hemlock]

True. For example if you hunt for hard drive just after you unlocked Hub 5, you will have a high chance to get on Iron Wire. And stitched plate if you get it around Part Assembly.

[wind spade]

@cedar mica I think Iron Wire is good early game as well

it reduces the amount of resources needed

well, if you have some spare iron

what I did was I used iron wire for production of stuff and used one copper node to produce wire and cable to storage for usage in building and unlocking milestones.

[glacial hemlock]

There are 2 hard drives close to the stone arch those are quite easy to get, literally free real estate

You can also opt for the alt steel and alt EIB, if you hold it until tier 4

I start drive hunting after i get my basher

[dim thicket]

Iron wire is only good early game. Later you need to conserve coal and oil instead

I shouldn't say only, but it makes the early game much easier

[cedar mica]

Early game, 1 copper node, even normal grade, is enough to keep you going. Late game, you want to use copper to boost caterium and make aluminum. Making iron wire a very good one to have.

[wind spade]

quickwire, alclad sheets and iron alloy

only legit uses of copper

[cedar mica]

Atm so can you make 42720 Quickwire, 2228.28 Alclad Sheets and 39343.44 Iron Alloy, using the Copper available on the map

But it will take a while, before all you copper is needed for that, so use it for wire, early game. Then switch when you have more stuff unlocked

[wild fractal]

Is it better to try and replace screws with alternate recipes as much as possible? I've heard people use it before but I don't know how good it is.

[fallow lily]

Almost uniformly, alternate recipes are more resource efficient and more productive on an output per machine basis.

[patent bough]

It's possible to entirely remove screws from all production

And desirable

[fathom willow]

agreed

[summer field]

Will no one think of the ?

[empty hemlock]

well i won't kinkshame you for it

[summer field]

Thanks.

[regal mantle]

Not only screws, but iron rods I think

BTW is there any alt recipe that id bad?

Other than caterium wire?

[empty hemlock]

alt plastic i think it was. increases cost and complexity for no gain

[wind spade]

Motor, stator, plastic, cat wire, beacon, both screws, concrete @regal mantle

[regal mantle]

Stator? I rhought making motors only out of wire and pipes had its benefits

[wind spade]

Alt stator makes it quickwire + pipe

[regal mantle]

Oh, I I mixed that eith alt rotor then

[wind spade]

Yeah

[regal mantle]

k thx

[wind spade]

also, rubber cable

[royal cloak]

Should I go for Enriched Steel or Alt Steel ?

output is the same, but is it worth putting sulfur in the equation ?

[wind spade]

output isn't the same

at least not compared to input

alt steel is generally preferred because it costs less iron. If don't have enough coal, I'd go for enriched steel

[royal cloak]

"Output isn't the same" Please tell me how 45/min is different from 45/min

or are you specifically going out of your way to try and find and point out anything wrong about what people are saying ?

[wind spade]

"at least not compared to input"

for alt steel, you need 3x iron ore->6 steel ingot

enriched gives you 6x iron ore -> 6 steel ingot

also, you don't need to be rude

I'm trying to help

[royal cloak]

ok

I guess it's also more efficient to go with iron wires, and turn copper into iron ingot alloy

[regal mantle]

Yeah, definitely

[wind spade]

iron wires are like the best alternate recipe you can get

you should get it before you start building anything

[regal mantle]

Copper ore has obly two endgame uses: iron ingots and quickwire

[royal cloak]

that's subjective, but it is very usefull

my favorite remains alt rotor

[wind spade]

@regal mantle 3 uses, you forgot alclad sheets

[regal mantle]

Oh, indeed

[wind spade]

@royal cloak ofc it's subjective, but I did a lot of math about it and it saves a lot of resources and wire is used in many recipes, so it cascades nicely.

and yes, copper is mostly useless. Even if you tapped all nodes and made as much quickwire and alclad sheets, you are still left with around 60% copper that you can use for iron alloy

[warm wren]

Trains bug me 🤔 4 x 18 rubber production running to 4 pick up stations. The drop stations run dry before the train gets back around since it has a long route that also picks up plastic and bauxite. I routed in a 'extra' where it goes rubber > plastic > bauxite > unload > rubber > unload before looping back again. This sort of helped. It's not a matter of the train not picking up, it always gets a full load when it stops... I even put in a 5th load/unload that I use to feed back into the other 4 unloaders.

[viral jay]

@warm wren trains need a buff like the longer the tracks the train goes faster.

[wind spade]

also, don't mix trains. Have one train for rubber, one for plastic, one for bauxite

saves you a lot of trouble

[warm wren]

Or they could just run faster or carry the full 4800 because that's all I need them to do 😜

Maybe we'll get MK2 train cars that hold more 🤔

[wind spade]

no matter how fast they run, mixing items in trains isn't recommended

or rather, going to multiple stops to pick up items

it's better to have train go between two stops only

[sand garnet]

I kinda want to have a central base around a giant station

shipping all mid/ high level components in by train and then sending those off to structures that need it

[wind spade]

that's fine

issues arise when a train has multiple stops

[sand garnet]

how so

[wind spade]

well now multiple stops are kinda bugged and trains sometimes skip stations. In the future when we'll have collisions and signals, a train having multiple stops can be delayed by a lot, so it's better to shorten it's journey as much as possible. Also if the train stops somewhere for any reason (traffic jam, deadlocks, etc.), it would stop all production, because it has multiple items in it. If you had separate trains, they could theoretically carry on with their resources

[sand garnet]

Yeah im thinking a transfer station would solve that

[wind spade]

yeah, transfer stations are fine

way better than one train running around the whole map picking stuff

[earnest orchid]

😠 Why didnt I think of that

the question now becomes do I undo what I have already built or keep going?

[wind spade]

hard to say without knowing what you already have 😄

[earnest orchid]

you should know by now I will have a screenshot

[fringe perch]

Anyone have the layout for a computer fsctory

factory

[rancid lark]

@fringe perch https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/c9vvo5/stackable_computer_factory_floor_plan_mk1/

/u/oldshavingfoam has a lot of templates if you are looking for a good starting point

[true adder]

can someone help me with simple math?

[empty hemlock]

1+1 is 2

[true adder]

how do i convert 30mw of 500mw into %

[empty hemlock]

in which context?

[true adder]

i want to know what percent of 100% is 30 mw

[empty hemlock]

cause thats just 30/500*100 for 6%

[true adder]

ok so

you do 30 / 500 first ?

[wind spade]

why do you need that anyway?

[true adder]

im trying to figure out how much percent im using and my math is scary rusty

[wind spade]

[power used] / [power capacity] * 100

[true adder]

im going to build 24 more coal power plants is the next step

each is 50 mw

/calc 1 + 1

xD

so my maximum over head is actually 8%

at 40 mw

[empty hemlock]

tho really all that math isn't neccessary, generators automatically underclock to exact usage, so aslong as you have more total capacity than total usage you are good

[true adder]

is there a smarter way to add in the 24 coal generators or should i just start from scratch

[wind spade]

what do you mean by "smarter way"?

[fallow lily]

The most straightforward way is to build the generators in a line, connect them to a manifold, let them fill up, and then connect them to the power grid.

[wind spade]

I mean you can just build them (assuming you have enough coal to support them)

[true adder]

is there a way to modify 8% of 500 mw to add in the 50 x 24 megawatts

[fallow lily]

I don't see much point in bothering.

I just build my generators adjacent to the coal nodes.

[wind spade]

I'm not sure what are you asking. If you need more power, build more generators (and ensure you have enough coal). If you have plenty of power, don't do anything

[fallow lily]

(As far as terrain and vegetation allows.)

[true adder]

im literally asking math questions.. more about doing the math properly then doing the coal generators

[fallow lily]

I'm unsure what the question is about.

[wind spade]

I don't understand the question about modifying 8% of 500 mw ....

[true adder]

well 8% of 500 is 40

[wind spade]

agreed

[fallow lily]

Yes...but what's the significance of 8%?

[true adder]

but how do i add in the extra 24x50

40 megawatts (8%) is what im currently using

[fallow lily]

What do you mean, how do you add it in?

If you're using 40 megawatts, you have biomass generators.

So, there's nothing to really modify or "add in?" here.

[true adder]

im asking how do i do the math lol

[wind spade]

well if you are currently generating 500 MW and you are adding 24x50 MW, you will be generating 1700 MW

if that's what you are asking

[fallow lily]

The math for what?

[true adder]

24x50 x500 - 40 ?

[wind spade]

you can literally just paste that to google and it will give you answer

[fallow lily]

I'm still confused by what you're trying to ask here.

[true adder]

but is that the right equation lol

[fallow lily]

I don't know.

[wind spade]

for what?

[true adder]

seems higher than 1700

[fallow lily]

I don't know what you're trying to solve for.

[wind spade]

that's what you haven't told us yet

[true adder]

im trying to solve fora linear acceleration gravitational flux so i can makea time machine

just kidding

im trying to find maximum volts

but whats the proper math x.x

[wind spade]

that's what I already told you here https://discordapp.com/channels/370472939054956546/558721941410807812/617087881403432973

[fallow lily]

The maximum megawatts is the number of generators times their output.

[wind spade]

check the link

[fallow lily]

So if all you have are coal generators, then it's the number of coal generators times 50 MW.

[true adder]

oh

so 500 / 50 + 24 x 50

[wind spade]

no

[fallow lily]

Basically.

[true adder]

o.Q

[fallow lily]

You need some parentheses for that to be proper, but it's the right idea.

[wind spade]

500 + 24x50

[true adder]

aha

now it makes sense thanks all of you.

[fallow lily]

greeny is just (unless I'm wrong), providing a correct form, given order of operations.

[true adder]

thats what i needed

♥

[wind spade]

@fallow lily well the original equation is wrong. And even with parentheses, it will be still more complex than what I suggested (if you mean (500 / 50 + 24) x 50 )

[fallow lily]

With parentheses, it still ends up in the right place.

[fierce ruin]

Max reactors with the 3 uranium nodes

[wind spade]

420

[jovial fiber]

blaze it

[viscid raft]

I wish it was a perfect square so I could build a spire

[glacial hemlock]

21 x 20, is almost there

You could adjust the spacing in-between

[wind spade]

you can also build 3 pyramides with 7x7 base to get 420

[stark lichen]

I found it interesting that the wiki states train routes 800 meters long have average speeds of only 30ish km/h.

If that is the case then there is a point to which trucks have more throughput when compared one to one with a freight car.

On flat ground in a straight line in fantasy land.

[wind spade]

yeah, but it still doesn't outweight the fact that you need fuel for trucks

[patent bough]

not to mention the freight capacity

[glacial hemlock]

Manual driven trains are fast. Unfortunately loading/unloading didn't work in manual mode.

[inner yacht]

seems like a mark or pixel could be placed where to stop the train for manual load/unload. looks like its possible just need to align the freight wheels correctly to the box

[solemn parcel]

yeesh, haven't played in months, looks like I have a lot of math to catch up on 😦

[shy mason]

Mk3 miners and mk5 belts will have you redo every calculation and layout you made

[wind spade]

or just expand them, if you build normally

[fallow lily]

There's a "normally" in this game?

[wind spade]

not spaghetti

[fallow lily]

Mmm...I don't know. Spaghetti seems to be a fairly common build type, judging from the pictures that come up.

[solemn parcel]

welp, with my train I just built up my ramp and a truck parked on the end, I realized there may be a way to play football or some sort of sport

300kmh lmao

[deep kestrel]

yeah i was able to manually load/unload

[glacial hemlock]

Wow, how did you aligned it?

[fierce ruin]

you can 3-3 balance like this, but god won't forgive you for the sin of belt-clipping

[broken brook]

What happens if I split 5 in two ways?

It'll go 2 in one belt and 3 in another?

[wind spade]

5 what?

5 items? Yeah, 3:2 split

5 items/min? 2.5:2.5 split

[broken brook]

Thanks for your tools greeny, hella helpful

[umbral scarab]

Is there any real use case for the enriched coal steel ingot alt recipe?

[wind spade]

saves coal

[zenith solar]

Also depends on what you plan on using your sulfur for

A lot of mine will be going towards nuke rods, but there will be some left over

[wind spade]

well compacted coal is like the only real use of sulfur

apart from alt uranium cells

[zenith solar]

Could also make batteries for vehicles, but in my case i don't use many, mostly trains

[patent bough]

yeah i fed sulfur into batteries, nobelisks, and ammo, just to have a stash of each available.

forgot about the alt uranium cells, need to pick up that recipe

[tawdry pebble]

Just to share my load balancing nightmare, not sure how well this will translate to text: 900 ( 3 normal nodes 250% OC) iron mined per min into manifold setup of smelters lined 210 -480-210 with 480 line into 2 spliters (to pull 120 out) and 1 merger for 210+210+120 = 540 line into 1 spliter for 270 each output feeding 2 - 18 constructor lines making iron wire at a combined 2400 wire/min then feeding 6 lines in the level of line 1: 450-450-300 line 2: 450-450-300 feeding 32 assemblers making 240 stiched
iron plates a min.

[wind spade]

@tawdry pebble for stitched Iron plates, I would underclock the assemblers to 90% and have iron wire made 1:1

that will save you from needing to manifold wire

[tawdry pebble]

ah if past self thought of that i might do that but just have to flip the switch for power and underclock the constructors to match output-input and i am limited to 480 belts for the time being untill i get bauxcite ore coming in

[wind spade]

making wire and quickwire in some good ratios like 1:1, 2:1 or 1:2 is mostly better than manifolding it

[tawdry pebble]

Wish me luck....... about to dive into 50.4 motors per minute production with 1008 steel pipe per minute with rotor and stator alt recepies @9 per minute with 3 pipe lines of 360, 258, 390. Can up the recepie a little if i pull the 42pm from the weapons factory.......to be decided.

[glacial hemlock]

You will need a few coal nodes. Luckily you can find additional coals around the lake.

Other than the 2 pures at the starting area

[tawdry pebble]

I am starting in the grass lands and yet to start a train all conveyor belts so far and I am pulling from 1 pure node @ 480 MK2 and 2.5 normal nodes MK2 @ 250% but the 3 values above are leftovers from other steel needs. Just hit a sidestrack and started up my 360 rubber circuit boards per minute just needed 1440 wire @ 320 iron pm.

[fierce ruin]

@wind spade what are the best alternate recipes?

[wind spade]

@fierce ruin how do you define "best" recipes?

[fierce ruin]

the most useful I guess

[wind spade]

well that usually depends on your available resources

iron wire is useless if you don't have any iron and have tons of copper

(example)

but generally most alternate recipes are good

[fierce ruin]

ok

[wind spade]

you can check the "good/bad recipes" section I wrote for wiki here https://satisfactory.gamepedia.com/Hard_Drive

[stuck stratus]

Alt plastic is the only one to avoid really

[summer field]

Greeny, taking over the world, one website at a time.

[wind spade]

@stuck stratus there are a few more, like rubber cable, motor, beacon (and screws)

@summer field well should I stop contributing to wiki?

[summer field]

Oh, I wouldn't want you to stop. I for one welcome our new colorcoded overlords.

[stuck stratus]

I generally agree, tho there are niche situations that those might all be useful (minus screws because who uses screws in automation?). I'm actually playing with an alt motor factory just for the fun of it

[wind spade]

well that's what I mean

if you don't have a legit reason to use it, you should avoid those

[summer field]

They're more like difficulty sliders than alternatives. Do you want to make it easier/harder? 🤷

[wind spade]

alt motors for example just add oil consumption to motor production, saving iron. Usually you want it the other way

and also make it harder

[glacial hemlock]

Do you want some logistic challenge? Pick alt beacon!

[ivory prawn]

Rubber wire seems promising