math-and-meta

[thorn bane]

hm now i wanna build some pure recipes using water trains

[median heath]

Diluted Packaged Water when?

[oblique hollow]

Diluted Watered-down Package

[soft scarab]

How about Dissolved Nitrogen Gas package?

[oblique hollow]

Diluted²

[soft scarab]

Get your bubbly water

Hey maybe with particle enrichment we’ll need heavy water sometime

[thorn bane]

particle accelerator water slide lets goooooooooo

[oblique hollow]

"lets go for the old *loooooop-de-looooop-de-*looop-de-loop-de-loo-de-lo-de-loodeloodeloodelololololoololo-llllllllllllllllllll "

[thorn bane]

idk they keep getting desynced causing the train to stay in the station longer even though theres a pipe between them

[wintry aurora]

Hm…. Pump all the fluid?

Lol

[thorn bane]

i am

and the throughput is always ~1150 but its still getting more and more desynced

and thats only 2 wagons not even 4+

[wintry aurora]

Add some cross feeds on the other end? Looks like you have it on one end.

I wonder if the separate buffers are screwing it.

[median heath]

Just, random thoughts question: do fluid platforms have headlift?

[thorn bane]

according to the wiki 11m above the outlet

[wintry aurora]

Based on the height their at, at minimum for sure.

[median heath]

Fair.

Imagine if different fluids had different weights so they required different amounts of headlift 😂

[upbeat tide]

Dont give em ideas

[rough oar]

What recipe would you go for? I have two options I can use for turbo fuel power plant. Need some brains to optimize it.

[wintry aurora]

What’s T-spine?

Or where rather.

[rough oar]

lol, its just name for power plant I am planning to build

[wintry aurora]

Ok

[rough oar]

it will be close to north where bunch of oil deposit is.

[thorn bane]

turbo blend is live turbo blend is love

[wintry aurora]

Spire Coast? I highly advise you to move that elsewhere since the Spire Coast area is slated for a massive remodel.

Out on the water may be ok, but it’s risky.

The nodes and stuff would be fine though, most likely.

[rough oar]

I know, But I dont think it will affect much if the plant is in the middle of the water. and even after it will continue working anyway.

[wintry aurora]

‘K then.

[rough oar]

Concern I have is first recipe needs lot of sulfur which requires to deliver from different area. Second recipe will make use of massive amount of blenders will make plant huge and complex.

[wintry aurora]

All I can really say is choose whichever one fits your resource situation best, or preferences.

[thorn bane]

wait is that turbo heavy fuel?
dont ever do that one
default is maybe debatable compared to blend but heavy is just no no

[rough oar]

and not to forget 600 generators I have to attach in both.

[median heath]

Turbo Blend is the only Turbo recipe that matters.

Turbo Heavy needs a rework or literally no one will ever use it. 🤷‍♂️

[rough oar]

Its so unbalanced that there is no other option if you avoid nuclear power.

[median heath]

??

What does Nuclear have to do with the worst Turbo Fuel alt?

[oblique hollow]

turbo heavy best case exactly doubles the power you get compared to residual fuel

and turbo blend is x 3

while normal turbo is 2.222222222

diluted turns that into
x 4 for blender and x4.4444 for normal turbo

so technically normal turbo has a higher yield for the same fuel but also needs more sulfur

[median heath]

Base Turbo has higher MW potential but burns through more sulfur, which is why you just use Turbo Blend.

[signal nimbus]

I... know I'm an odd one out, but I kind of like Turbo Heavy for the relative simplicity. It's not equal to normal, but it is reasonably comparable (last I did the math in U3).

Basically the lazy person's turbo fuel.

[oblique hollow]

i dont like how much sulfur it gobbles up.
its just as easy if i do Oil to fuel and then normal turbo

same amount of steps

[signal nimbus]

That's completely fair.

[cedar ivy]

what else are you wanting sulfur for?

[signal nimbus]

Nuclear and Aluminum

[cedar ivy]

aluminum makes sense, but wouldn't you be replacing turbofuel power with nuclear anyways

[frosty owl]

Only while they have fuel in them. If you feed it a single rod, it will travel around without giving off any radiation

[cinder silo]

I guess it depends on how big you build the nuclear and if you have a modest turbo fuel system up.

Most people don't build colossal monstrosities 🙂

[frosty owl]

If your turbofuel setup is modest, yoh shouldn't lack Sulphur to begin with

[cinder silo]

Since I demolished my turbo fuel, I ended up with an excess of sulphur that I'll probably sink in to batteries 🤣

[wind spade]

fair, but you still need to somehow feed it just one fuel 😛

[frosty owl]

Sounds like a balancing challenge :jace_smile:

[wintry aurora]

https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Plutonium_Fuel_Rod Is anybody absolutely sure that plutonium fuel unit actually decreases the building count? Because I looked in my build and it doesn't, the default is actually less. Yes, it would vary by rrecipe, but there are lots of recipes behind it, but to be sure, I stripped all other alts and only toggled the plutonium fuel unit recipe and the default needs less buildings than the alt. Someone might wanna check that maybe?

[tardy pivot]

@wintry aurora not sure what you mean with decrease building count. You need uranium waste to get plutonium fuel rods

[wintry aurora]

I mean in the table on the wiki. Somethings not adding up because the alt doesn't decrease building count. I'm just saying 'hey, maybe someone should take a look at it because it's not adding up.'

[cedar ivy]

are you considering the alternate recipes specified below it? it has several exceptions for its ingredient tree

[wintry aurora]

For plutonium fuel rod? The only exception I see is instant plutonium cell and I'm not using that one.

[cedar ivy]

https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Plutonium_Fuel_Rod

`Among multiple ways to produce each of the ingredient, the recipe with the lowest WP is chosen. Exception is mentioned below:

Encased Plutonium Cell#Alternate recipes analysis - Instant Plutonium Cell
Heat Sink#Alternate recipes analysis
Steel Ingot#Alternate recipes analysis
Electromagnetic Control Rod#Alternate recipes analysis
Fused Modular Frame#Alternate recipes analysis
Radio Control Unit#Alternate recipes analysis`

[merry kernel]

Quick question: Are you considering the building count per Plutonium Fuel Rod generated, or the building count to successfully edit:sink a given quantity of uranium waste?

[wintry aurora]

It only lists instant plutonium cell, it doesn't say any other exceptions, the links just go to the parts own alt recipe analysis with no analysis connection to plutonium rods.

[cedar ivy]

oh

[wintry aurora]

I'm looking at it in pure numbers of buildings vs the chart and going 'something's up here'.

Like take this (not finalized) plan https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=XQ8OCuDfK3wTSfBpIOss with the version with plutonium fuel cell activated: https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=o5RAbIKNR1RohBCxtIWU

Maybe I'm looking at it all wrong, I dunno.

[wind spade]

maximise may be at fault - it doesn't optimise for raw resources

also possible that they are talking per-plutonium-rod, not per-uranium-rod, idk

[merry kernel]

I think that may be it, yeah.

[wintry aurora]

Oh yea, you're likely right there.

Looking at production of 2/m rods, I checked the two recipes and default is 211 and with the alt, it's 194, so, yea, it's maximize at fault. Sorry for causing that bit of drama guys XD

[wind spade]

[wintry aurora]

@wind spade Idea, a comparison mode of two plans. Might not be feaseable, but just tossing an idea I just had.

[stuck iron]

I assume @wind spade is accepting pull requests 😉

[wintry aurora]

I don't have a github account though.

[stuck iron]

I am only half joking 🙂

github accounts are free too

[wintry aurora]

Oh

[wind spade]

I am, though I don't assume such complex feature would be done by someone else 🤷

[stuck iron]

hence the winky face

[sharp otter]

Tenteen is 100 and 20 but it is not 120.

[wintry aurora]

Huh? Random comment ok.

[rough oar]

Nuclear will leave with waste as end product. But to avoid that, having everything running on turbofuel removes that part of equation. You will still build nuclear plant as add-on. But I would like not to run anything on it and avoid making nuclear waste and try to figure out storage problem. Also, I have plan to make nuclear plant right in the middle of a map.

[merry kernel]

Since one of the more recent updates, you can have zero-waste nuclear power

For a given value of recent

[rough oar]

what about plutonium?

you can convert uranium into plutonium fuel. But it still leave some amount of(not huge pile like uranium through) waste once you use it. I am trying to build radiation free.

[merry kernel]

You can sink plutonium fuel rods, you don't need to use them

[thorn bane]

the wiki building count is for 60 rods per min
youre comparing 2.074 /min to 3.111/min
obviously if you build more your building count goes up

thats like saying pure iron uses more buildings because you can build twice as many with the iron on the map

[wind spade]

No

Just store the waste somewhere or process it

[oak garnet]

i kinda wish that most items would be deleted if they fall into the void if they are strictly re-produceable. cuz even trying to retrieve said items/vehicles to get rid of potential performance degradation brings in more problems

[wind spade]

You can remove them with save editor if you want 🤷

We can only assume, but the void probably isn't endless (due to us being on a planet), so stuff will pile up there if thrown into the void

[cedar owl]

🔨

Nitro scam moment

[dull bolt]

<@&387163995947270144> - cleanup ping (:

[candid iron]

Is stitched still meta? And are pure recipes meta if you have the power?

[oblique hollow]

Sure

They are still the most resource efficient, kinda

But i personally prefer adhered iron plate

As thats also quite efficient

[median heath]

Stitched yes, Pure Cu and Pure Ct yes.

Fe Alloy, as always, has its scenarios where it beats Pure Fe.

[heady vine]

when should i start care about meta?
spent just 20 hours, phase 2
like optimising things, but still want to enjoy gameplay...

[thorn bane]

there is no 'meta'
people do so different things

[median heath]

I'm confused as to how you're differentiating the terms...

You're saying that meta is unenjoyable?

[heady vine]

using meta kinda removes fun of making mistakes, experimenting, feeling of invention...

[frosty owl]

Except your objective with iron usually isn't "consume as much as possible to make as little as possible" as it is in this case with waste and plutonium ^^

[heady vine]

it is enjoyable ofc, but it lacks some things

[median heath]

I'm still confused...

But honestly play your way. There are very few objectively better recipes, so 90%+ of all of it is up to how you want to build.

[heady vine]

i played factorio before, and it was boring to see my friends just copypasting blueprints

[median heath]

I am a strong advocate of not copying people.
Build YOUR factory, not someone else's.

[frosty owl]

You can't copy-paste here, so while you can just try and copy someone else's idea, you still have to build it yourself (unless mods)
And understanding it often comes with building and using it even if you didn't understand it "on paper" ^^

But ofc, the meta is full of spoilers, so...

[median heath]

That's part of my confusion.
Like, even if you know that meta is Stitched Plates... how you go about setting that line up is completely up to you.

[heady vine]

my idea is:
play by myself some time
get bored of unefficient factories
look for meta to stop wasting my human time
use calculators and other tools all the way (casue i'm a programmer and it's in my blood)

[frosty owl]

If you enjoy fixing the efficiency, you can go as far as you want before seeking for help to go further 👍

[median heath]

Now I'm more confused because I am unsure what meta has to do with making your factory efficiency higher or lower.

Light green = efficiency
Light yellow = uninstall the game and rethink your life (unless you are ZyRa)

Changing recipes doesn't affect whether your efficiency on the UI is higher or lower.

[frosty owl]

The recipe chois is so wide there might be multiple "metas" that you could be jnrerested in trying out ^^

[wind spade]

meta is dark and full of errors

[heady vine]

i'm just not sure that i understand mechanics well enough to be sure

[frosty owl]

I think your plan sounds good in that regard: try things out in game, for any doubts you can clear then up or find answers here 👍

My first playthrough was kind of just rushing to end tiers to "see everything" and restart 😅

[heady vine]

i think that i still need a supply of core ideas which can be turned into design of production chain.
like you can stack similar building on top of each other
or smth

[frosty owl]

Have you tried checking out #screenshots for starters? ^^

[median heath]

This sounds like taking someone's blueprint and copying it as you stack it on top of each other 🤷‍♂️

[heady vine]

so, i commited a sin: i saw screenshots of factory with belts being split beofre production building and merged back after
and was like how it's not slowing down the production, because belt's capacity must get full pretty quickly with growth of number of production building in one line?

[thorn bane]

hm i wonder why its so hard to say whats meta in this game
i guess alot of people feel like doing the most efficient strategy is actually less fun
theres also the issue that theres no clear defined endgame

[heady vine]

well, i got a bit frustrated with my raw of 12 constructors
(even though it was on my second floor)
so now i'm considering making such things more on outposts with miners, maybe. where flat space is a luxury...

[heady vine]

it's the fact that you didn't came up with that strategy but yourself what is not fun

[median heath]

You and I define outposts differently, but you do you.

[heady vine]

my definition of outpost is not connected to hub proximity with belt, for now.
i have just 1 of them - for quartz. totally useless for me rn

[median heath]

Put it this way: I will never have a "main base".
Everything is decentralized.

[heady vine]

base is here my hub is, isn't it so by definition?

[median heath]

When you get into building larger stuff... not really.

[heady vine]

untill i have something to transport myself fast between outposts - it's easier to have everything you need in place, isn't it?
it's not the distance in meters which makes things far or close - it's time you spend to get to them

[heady vine]

yeah, i expect that.

[median heath]

If you're not even at trucks yet then no, you're not outposting.

Unlocking the truck station is when ADA tells you "FICSIT encourages the creation of outposts."

[heady vine]

i'm proud to have 1 tractor

[heady vine]

i heard that message

[median heath]

In that case, yes, you can start decentralizing.

[thorn bane]

ye in the same sentence as trucks which ill never touch

[median heath]

Surprised, given your love of yellow lights.

[heady vine]

i lack power supply rn - after coal gen i will be able to make few stations, and leave steel production where it's mined, maybe...

[median heath]

Well why you here then?? Go get powa

[heady vine]

i'm procrastinating between my work conversations, lol

[median heath]

Go home "sick" so you can get powa.

[frosty owl]

I'm not sure I get what you mean... Like merging the outputs of the machines on the input belt to feed more machines?
Or adding more items on a input line to refill it after some machines have taken items from it already?

[frosty owl]

||B-but you could use them to get rid of some plutonium rods ||

[heady vine]

already. but i promised to get something done on remote. i'm sick of delaying that project by real sickness

[heady vine]

well, this is what i expect from using belts - balancing
#screenshots message

and this is what i was talking about
#screenshots message

[thorn bane]

ah so you mean manifolds
https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Manifold

[heady vine]

i hope such links are permitted... you can see they lead to #screenshots

[heady vine]

yes.
and now i'm thinking this might help with low-rate production, like reinforced plates etc

any ideas how to turn supply of a a bunch of 60/m output into 50/m input?

rn i'm not sure if it's even solvable

[median heath]

Why do you even need to do it?

Send 60 down the line that needs 50, when it backs up, overflow split the extra 10 to wherever you want it.

[thorn bane]

(thats the whole idea behind manifolds)

[median heath]

☝️

[heady vine]

cause i have a bunch of 60s and need to feed them into 6 50s

[median heath]

If you could speak in terms of what items are being used to make what other items, I would be able to follow a lot better...

[heady vine]

ok
cast bolts at 100% - 60/m
supplied to reinfirced plates assemblers - 50/m

[median heath]

Cast Bolts?

[heady vine]

today i heard about underclocking... but i'm not sure i want it - because it seems that supply for those bolt constructors is perfect

*screw

[median heath]

I'm going out on a limb here an assuming we are talking about Screws.

You're self-inflicting a problem right now.

[heady vine]

(isn't it the same?)

[median heath]

No..

[wind spade]

or not do screws at all, stitched plates ftw

[heady vine]

there's no bolts in satisfactory as far as google knows

[heady vine]

i don't have that recipe

[wind spade]

cast screws sound good on paper, but the recipe falls behind super early and I don't feel that it's worth to waste a drive on it

[median heath]

Why are you telling me this when you are the one who said "bolts" to begin with, sparking MY confusion as to your meaning?

[heady vine]

eh. other option weren't better, as i remember. some hightech stuff i didn't even recognise by that time - like use of catherium and iron wires (when i have oversupply of copper)

[wind spade]

at least they would be useful later 🤷‍♂️

[heady vine]

but how would i know back then? even now i don't see use for catherium...

[wind spade]

well checking recipes on the wiki and seeing what they can do is a pretty good thing to do 🤷‍♂️

[heady vine]

cause i genuenly thought that these are two words of pretty similar meaning

[wind spade]

bolts are different to screws

[median heath]

Screws fasten independently, like nails.
Bolts work in tandem with nuts.

[heady vine]

i don't see how that would help me... i have too look like entire chain of catherium usage in production of dozens of thing i don't know usage for and somehow consider how much mines i can use while never seeing catherium mine (and rn i only saw 1)...
a lot of work to be done 😥

[wind spade]

caterium is actually possible to do super early

[heady vine]

so why it's bad?

[heady vine]

yes, but what for?

[wind spade]

because pretty much all screw usages will be replaced with screwless recipes that are better or with steel screws that are a way better alt for screws

[heady vine]

it feels unecessary to build outpost for single mine of catherium without knowing what it's used for (cause game didn't tell me yet)

[wind spade]

so the recipe will be useless for you very soon

game will tell you when you'll put caterium into MAM 🤷‍♂️

[heady vine]

i made it and honestly don't remember

as with sulfur...

[oblique notch]

blade runners

i hate being slow

[wind spade]

there's a whole tech tree that you can unlock with caterium

[oblique notch]

And by what... Tier 6 something? you have to have Caterium anyways

[heady vine]

spoiled myself with wiki knowledge. i want ziplines

[median heath]

Blade Runner, Zip Lines...
"Most importantly" to me -- Smart Splitters.

[frosty owl]

Poggers

[heady vine]

just read about them.
my head exploiding - what can it be used for? (name just 1 thing except dumping overflow to sink)

[frosty owl]

Feeding factories with more than 1 recipe or input via a single belt

Or just manage overflow in lines

[heady vine]

bloody genius

[thorn bane]

hm how would you do 6 * 50 into 5 * 60 (cast screw -> RIPs)

[heady vine]

did you read chat, or just happen to have same problem as me?

[thorn bane]

read chat

[frosty owl]

Depends on the belt aviable...

[thorn bane]

mk2

[heady vine]

well, a bunch of splitters which trasnfer overflow further down the line

[thorn bane]

doest really work with mk2s though (unless you have smart splitters)

would need mk3 and even then you need to inject for the last

[heady vine]

and i was very confused when at the end i saw one straight 60 -> 50 belt... thought it was balanced lol

[thorn bane]

and balancing is kinda big cause you need a 1/5 splitter

[heady vine]

waait, usual splitters are round robin?

[thorn bane]

yep

so are mergers

[heady vine]

s--t

[frosty owl]

Merge in 3*100, split each in 2 and merge 2 of excess belts to feed 1 machine each?

[wintry aurora]

It was the maximize function throwing off the numbers.

[heady vine]

but supply is 60 from 1 constructor

[thorn bane]

you have your numbers backwards i think
cast screws makes 50/min
RIPs need 60 screws/min

[heady vine]

or is it reverse... so confusing....

[thorn bane]

but that wont work since it would only do 50/min not 60

(unless you use smart splitters with any to machine and overflow down the line)

[frosty owl]

It wouldn't be load balanced, it would just deliver with overflow

Without smart splitting

[heady vine]

so you saing
merge 50+50 3 times
than what?

if i split each in 2, that means back to 50+50?

[frosty owl]

You get 3 belts with 100 each (I imagine them trying to feed a row of machines in frot of the constructors)
Split the side belts in 2 again, feed the belts on the sides to the machines on the sides, the belt in the middle is split in 3 and feeds the middle machine
The remaining 2 machines get fed by merging the remaining 4 belts you have

[thorn bane]

ye i dont think that works

[frosty owl]

It's not load balanced, it runs at 100% after overflow

The last 2 machines mentioned would be the first to overflow

[heady vine]

50   50   50   50   50   50
 \   /     \   /     \   /
  (*)       (*)       (*)
 /   \_   _/ | \_   _/   \
60     (*)   60  (*)     60
        |         | 
        60        60```
might work, not bad

[thorn bane]

that doesnt work unless you have smart splitters

[heady vine]

yes

[thorn bane]

because the splitter will split 50/50 not 60/40

[frosty owl]

Overflow

[heady vine]

it might be worth feading 60s by supliying two belts of 33.3

[thorn bane]

once the 2 machines are filleed up it will look like this

so it will overflow to 53.3 in the middle NOT to 60

and the outer screw machines will just idle since they are only supplying 83.3

this is the whole injected manifolds dont work without smart splitters argument

[frosty owl]

That's a good point

[heady vine]

soo, it might be worth undeclocking to 40/m - much easier to split

[thorn bane]

well either underclock RIP so 50 or overclcok screws to 60 but ye xD

[frosty owl]

Eh, one could still fix it by adding a couple more splitters and mergers, but that's getting cumbersome 😅

[thorn bane]

balancing would look like this

[thorn bane]

i dont think so (atleast not with mk2 belts)

but ye you could just use smart splitters

but ye once you have higher mk belts its just merge all -> manifold split all ez

[heady vine]

what black magic is this loop?

[heady vine]

second top splitter with have to split 25 by 3, which isn't 10... will it ever work like this?

[thorn bane]

https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorial:Prime_splitter_arrays
yes basically the idea is to loop back some amount so you can split it as an even number

[heady vine]

this game really needs some monitoring/diagnostics tool for belts/splitters/mergers

[thorn bane]

but its 60 not 50 since you merge it with 10 before

[heady vine]

when you start - there's no 10

[frosty owl]

Yeeeeeeeep

And you haven't even gotten into high MKs or belt mixing

[thorn bane]

theres an explanation on the wiki link i posted on how this works

[heady vine]

ok, i wasn't sure if such system could reach desired configuration

[thorn bane]

it is from the start

[frosty owl]

Bruh, I'm finding so many possible issues and nuances trying to run this nuclear factory...

Now I'm rethinking the balancers where I (eg) split a mk4 into MK1 and 2 mk2 and merge them to get 300/min exactly on the output mk4 belt... Or so it should be

[thorn bane]

or the mk4 + mk2 for 600

[frosty owl]

I might have to rethink those ones too, but I'm doubtful of the 3-way merge of the one I mentioned...
I've noticed cheap silica assemblers running out of limestone (150/min) and consequently filling up on quartz (90/min), so I'm blaming the balancing work atm

[thorn bane]

isnt that pretty much a priority splitter (you know the old overflow similar to priority mergers)

[wintry aurora]

Yea, I’ve got lots of planning and infrastructure to do.

[frosty owl]

Kinda, yeah

[median heath]

Now if only the US Senate would care as much about planning and infrastructure as Satisfactory players do... 😭

[upbeat tide]

Not JUST the Senste. But Congress as a whole, DOT, state level, local level, all are equally worthless.

[median heath]

Equally bought and paid for.
Not "worthless" if they have a price tag 😉

[wintry aurora]

And voting for that matter, dang Sinema and Manchin. ANYWAYS……

[upbeat tide]

Maybe best to take this convo to #off-topic-general 😉

[median heath]

Lol

[upbeat tide]

Before mods get annoyed

[wintry aurora]

It already went through a politics phase this morning, don’t think they want to again right now.

[upbeat tide]

Ah

[nova kestrel]

is there any way to split a flow of 45 items/min into two flows respectively of 25/min and 20/min? (I only have unlocked basic splitters)

[upbeat tide]

What are you trying to do? Maybe easier to overflow it rather than split like that.

[river night]

45 > 3x15 -> 15 > 3x5, combine 1x5 + 1x15 and 2x5 + 1x15

[nova kestrel]

trying to do a rotor factory in early game

[thorn bane]

yep just manifold it
if not just think of it as 9 -> 5+4

[river night]

for these small things its probably easier to just manifold it instead of a 3 tier splitter

[nova kestrel]

I see

[upbeat tide]

Basiclly put both machines in a line and connect the input to the same source belt. It will balance itself out over time.

[river night]

but if you want to balance it, i outlined it above 🙂

[nova kestrel]

so the splitter can be overflowed?

[oblique hollow]

yes

[nova kestrel]

good to know, thanks

[upbeat tide]

Yup

[river night]

indeed if one output of the splitter backs up, all will go through the other outputs

it doesnt freeze or anything

[summer fox]

if i wanted to spilt 15 pm into 10pm and 5pm would a normal splitter work ? they would both be going into constructor that needs 10pm and 5 pm i`m thinking a normal splitter will balance it out in time

[wind spade]

yes

it works even with more machines

--S--S--S--S--S
  |  |  |  |  |
  X  X  X  X  X

[summer fox]

but i though spilters, spilt directly eg 10 goes in put and 5/5 comes out, is that only the case when it is not directly inputted into a machine?

[wind spade]

you can't connect splitter directly to a machine

the first machine overfills and that makes more items go forward second machine

etc etc and at the end all machines are working at 100%

[summer fox]

so does belt length has any input? like if one output has a very long belt and another output has a short one will that effect the spiltting

[wind spade]

after some time, it won't, as long as you have enough input for all the machines, you're fine

[fickle niche]

too much math

[wintry aurora]

Whats the maximum output of train stations again? 1560/m or something?

[thorn bane]

due to docking its
1494 for 500 stack
1405 for 200 stack
1279 for 100 stack
1083 for 50 stack

[upbeat tide]

For trains its just easier to split the load into multiple train cars. For example if I am moving a 600 a min supply of sulfur by train I would split it into at least two cars. Three if its a very long distance route.

[thorn bane]

ye the old ISC into train for up to 780/min still works
its just that you can get more out now with "wait until full"

[wintry aurora]

Well, I'm working this out: https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=kllCZFDSEgfni0zM91Ge for reference.

[wintry aurora]

Yea, I was thinking of splitting it into two, possibly three freight platforms.

[upbeat tide]

Saw your plan. I would recommend to break it up into smaller plans. Seperate plan for the uranium components, etc. just easier to follow.

Also with those low numbers just looking for a bit of uranium usage and not maxing?

[wintry aurora]

I'm doing 30 reactors since it's my first one. That way if things go wrong, they don't go catastrophically wrong.

[upbeat tide]

Ah, nice! Really the hardest part is just setting up the uranium rods them selves. The reactors them selves are straight forward.

I did a full max 50.4 uranium rod setup.

But for me anyway things get REALLY fun for plutonium 😄

[sullen cloud]

So how’s the frame rate with this setup running?

[heady vine]

macking my coal gen (finally)

have mk2 belts, 4 normal coal nodes (so i can make 480/m) and a sea

how should i configure it?
i could use power shards on some coal gens... but i probably will need much more of them in near future.
so every consumes 15 c/m
therefore i can supply 32 of them.
45w/m for each one - so i can merge 3 extractors to supply 8 generators.
or make it efficient (as some guy suggested) and underclock water extraction boosting profit power output

[oblique hollow]

do not use shards on the generators (as you saw in the other channel) as it is inconsistent

[heady vine]

yeah. and i don't have enough of them anyway...

[pulsar idol]

how many uranium fuel rods needed for a 40 nuclear power setup?

[wintry badge]

I use one underclocked water extractor connected to each 2 generators. No pipe throughout issues there.

And I like building generators on a platform directly above the water extractors

Use power shards on the miner - producing more coal / m allows more generators and more power

[strong yew]

is there any documental material of like what flows directly into what so like high capacity iron ore vein -> ingots -> X number of iron bars

[median heath]

🤔🤔

Factory planners have been around since the game was invented, yes.

[heady vine]

i connected 3 extractors at 75% to 6 gens - last 2 doesn't seem to work all the time

[wintry badge]

Feels like that should work fine, no throughout issues there. Do you need a pump?

[oblique hollow]

give it some time

[heady vine]

i noticesd that flow was gradually decreasing from pipe to pipe

so i placed entry near center generator

[oblique hollow]

thats how it is

[heady vine]

and now its fine

[oblique hollow]

generator drinks water, water becomes less

[heady vine]

but flow can be at 300

[oblique hollow]

can be, but wont

[heady vine]

we can't water just self distrbute itself?

[oblique hollow]

you only make 270 to begin with

[heady vine]

why? they consume less than 150m3/m

[oblique hollow]

and? the extractors only make a total of 270m³/min

it wont flow at 300 because you dont make 300

the same way you cant have 240 items per minute on a belt when you only make 150

the water does distribute itself, but its normal for flow to drop after each generator

[heady vine]

last 2 coal gens weren't getting needed volume of water, but i was making 270 of it.
45 * 6 == 270
so why should they be hungry?

[oblique notch]

If you were producing 270 and only using 150 then it would have been fine the other way to after time it takes a while for that stuff to fully saturate the first machine, and pipes are even a little bit more unpredictable than belts (which always split in predictable ways)

[heady vine]

but not so much...

[oblique hollow]

then you were being impatient

[heady vine]

so i didin't wait long enough?

lol, i was trying to be ...

[oblique hollow]

waiting 5 minutes or 10 is not enough

[heady vine]

i waited 40 seconds lol

[upbeat tide]

You should all be insane like me.

252 water pipes and 252 water pumps

[heady vine]

i made a mistake - had to pump water up for 19meters - didn't whant to waste water space, lol

[upbeat tide]

With dead water zones all over the place dont blame ya

I plan to put the reactors above the water pumps too

[heady vine]

whats dead water zone?

[upbeat tide]

Where water pumps dont want to place in the ocean

It will say water is not deep enough even though it clearly is, or the pump outline just doesnt place properly.

[vapid gorge]

did you make sure the pipes and internal buffers were full of water before starting?

[heady vine]

there were filling with water, but not full

[vapid gorge]

I always make sure all gens that require fluid are on standby with buffers and pipes full before starting it.

Did you end up resolving the issue?

And by dead water zone I assume they mean far from significant water source

[heady vine]

just reattached input pipe from side to center - so supply distrbutes more evenly

[vapid gorge]

Cooooool, looping the pipe manifold onto itself can also help resolve a lot of situations

[opaque quarry]

if the input and output is equal none of that stuff should matter right?

[vapid gorge]

With fluids? Not quite. Pipes take time to fill and pipes are bi directional so fluid that's moved past a junction can flow back. It can be quite fiddly with bigger systems.

This is especially the case when flow is slowed by sloshing and causes the machine thats making the fuild to stutter because it fills up

[vapid gorge]

I've got a power station with about 4000 pipe connections and I'm very pleased I'm getting 92% efficiency out of it

[opaque quarry]

D:

[vapid gorge]

It gets worse if you have to move the fluids up and down. Always best to do as few elevation changes as possible with fluids

[opaque quarry]

is this why im having trouble with my aluminum production?

the input and output is equal and shouldnt have any problems but it eventually fills up with water and stops and i dont really know how to fix it

[stuck iron]

Is your water loopback jamming up?

[opaque quarry]

i have 4 water extractors and 2 aluminum scrap refineries feeding water into 4 aluminum solution refineries

the water is getting built up in the 2 aluminum scrap refineries

[cinder silo]

If you have coal nearby you can siphon off the excess water and get some power back out of the deal.

[stark vortex]

I usually Just use a pump to push the water back into the intake side, any extra just pools at the water pump

20MW to not need to think about it again ... is a small price to pay.

[cinder silo]

I have a very spotty record with closed loops, one success two failures.

[opaque quarry]

my setup currently has no pumps but i dont really know why i am getting excess water if everything adds up to 720 in and out

[stark vortex]

downtime in the system leads to the system hydro locking

this includes downtime caused by server slowdowns and saves.

[cinder silo]

My aluminium setup is essentially twelve closed loops that thankfully behaved and has been running for six weeks np.

[opaque quarry]

how would a pump help, it stops flowback?

[stark vortex]

I never had luck without using an extra inline pump. it would run like clockwork for a day or 2 but then it would bind

[cinder silo]

I tend to just use check valves if it's only backflow that needs arresting.

[stuck iron]

Its possible for the pumps to fill up the pipes and block the loopback water. I think if the flow rate is slower in the loopback side. I am testing out a VIP that seems to stop that all together.

See #screenshots

[opaque quarry]

a VIP?

[stark vortex]

as far as i understand the inline pump evacuates the drain line before the waterpumps supply water is used. so when I check my waterpumps there will be water build up in them but the system never locks.

[opaque quarry]

oh a valve might solve my problem hmm

[cinder silo]

It's highlighted with the dismantle tool, is one of the twelve vip junctions.

[opaque quarry]

what is a VIP

[stark vortex]

neat.

[cinder silo]

Some mechanic I don't entirely get causes the fluid in the bottom pipe (the back feed) to be prioritised over the top pipe (fresh from water extractors)

[stuck iron]

My other aluminum plant has the loop back feeding an exact number of renfineries so the fresh water and the loop back never mix.

[opaque quarry]

i dont even know if i have a loop back what do you mean by that

[cinder silo]

Mine is just twelve groups with their own priority, four refineries per loop.

[stuck iron]

It has something to do with how the fluid simulation works. My theory is that faster flow rate will beat a lower flow rate, the VIP setup, I think, causes the bottom pipe to have a faster flow rate because it doesnt need to over come the gravity.

[cinder silo]

It took me several rebuilds to make it work so I'm definitely not going to risk screwing it up now 😄

[stark vortex]

all of these solutions are so much better than what I did my first time, Just ticket sinced all my output fluids that where not directly used.

[stuck iron]

ya, the key is the 2 inputs need to be on the same level first.

[opaque quarry]

this was my idea but i dont have stuff for bottling over here

[stark vortex]

the metal containers is really what made that possible got it early on my first play through. it was really a sloppy wasteful way to do it.

But i got all the ALU I needed to make my T5 belts ... zoom zoom.

[stuck iron]

A loopback is water byproduct going from scrap refineries back to alumina solution refineries

[opaque quarry]

okay thanks. i have split my system in half, one with the loopback and one without, to try and isolate the issue

hopefully the loopback one will break and the water extractor one will live

[thorn bane]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nN7lceueOQClan9NDvEnfBso8sHd1DBlG-qDaMXUrY8/edit

[tropic hawk]

just came over from the reddit... someone asked how to be more resource efficient, and a reply to that was to ditch the 'watered' recipes in favor for the alloy recipes, the only thing they needed water was for caterium, and for fuel.

[frosty owl]

Let the downvote rain begin~

[bronze arch]

For maximum power generation you should turn heavy oil residue into fuel instead of petroleum coal right?

[thorn bane]

if you use default recipes then petr. coke is better

2700 MW <- 36 coal gens <- 900 pet coke <- 300 HOR -> 200 fuel -> 16.6 gens -> 2500MW

[bronze arch]

okay thx ^^

[wintry aurora]

Hm, would a distance of roughly 1.5-1.7 km (exact distance yet to be determined) and a throughput of 83.5 quartz crystal be efficient for drones? It feels a bit low for train, but it'd be riding the same train (maybe) as the silica, and possibly concrete in my plan. So, I'm undecided if I'd like to use drone for that one or not.

[thorn bane]

that would be belt area for me but ye a drone would work, i have one doing 2.5km with 228/min

[heady vine]

what's an about optimal coefitient between production of just concrete and iron plates?
applications are - building conveyors, foundations...

[wind spade]

ideally you want to produce what you need

so instead of deciding at the beginning, just produce what you need right now and increase production when you need more

it also depends a lot on how fast and how much are you building

so it's impossible to say in general

[heady vine]

it doesn't cause i'm talking about relative production rate. which might stay the same nomatter how much i build?
i may be wrong. i expect there to be some way to tell of how much conveyors you need reltively to how many foundation you placed

[wind spade]

it does. Some people like to build tons of foundations, some build on terrain, some build just a few foundations, some build towers, etc.

[thorn bane]

2.163

[heady vine]

to increase production, i need to build new mines. soo... i want to plan ahead of how much of new income i can spend on building resources and how much will be left for progressing

[heady vine]

nice.
i love that coeficient. easy to implement.
thanks!

[wind spade]

I'm 99% sure it's just a random number

[thorn bane]

(its actually not)

i used 68977 concrete and 6184 iron in U4
adjusted to U5 foundations prices thats 58539 concrete and 27060 iron

[heady vine]

except for grass vs foundation, every design aproach changes influences how much belts u use...
i would like to see statistics tbh

[wind spade]

statistic are one thing, but I doubt there's a generic ratio used by "majority"

[heady vine]

where do you find those numbers?

[thorn bane]

i wrote mine down some time back in U4
you can get the data from SCIM

[heady vine]

certainly there isn't, but at least in some proximity for every approach...

[thorn bane]

i mean a foundations costs 5 concrete and 2 iron
soooo....

[wind spade]

I'd say between 0.1 and 10

[heady vine]

but concrete is not used so much in belts and other buildings?..

[thorn bane]

well nuclear power plants 2250
power lines 495.5
stackable power poles 280
pipeline supports 868

but those are just like 1% of your total concrete cost

and again so is iron?

[heady vine]

huh, maybe

idk, i just reaslised that all plates are consumed immediately, but concrete builds up...
i want to balance it, but don't have enough iron production rn
and still need to setup steel factory

[thorn bane]

oh later mk belts dont use iron anymore if thats your concern

[wind spade]

I think much better approach is "just produce more than I need and sink excess"

[thorn bane]

if i would have build all my belts with iron instead then it would have been a 0.91 ratio (a bit more iron than concrete)
but that depends hugely on how you build

[heady vine]

eh. easy to say

balancing factory for phase 2 completion.
how to get rid of that 12.6 contrsuctors of cast screws?
i don't think i need excess of them, and balancing inout between 13 constructors is going to be pain...

https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=MvrjAHrDehGGLRT1LzoQ

[thorn bane]

!wikisearch manifold

[shadow prairie]

https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Special:Search?query=manifold

[heady vine]

or maybe i should think excess of screws for points

[wind spade]

make 30 concrete and 30 plates. If you feel like you don't have enough (often have to wait for items), add more production

[heady vine]

i have seen this before...

[wind spade]

(30 or any number really)

[heady vine]

i have doubts that it works fine without smart splitters

[heady vine]

why you say add more production like that's a task for 5 minutes?

[wind spade]

because it is? both iron plates and concrete is just a few buildings

and even if it isn't, it doesn't really matter when you add it, since you still need to add it in the end. So it doesn't matter if you add it now or later

[heady vine]

it isn't when you don't have node to mine from

[wind spade]

there's tons of iron and concrete nodes around the map, I doubt you've run out of nodes

[heady vine]

yes, BUT it's about not wasting time (haha, lol. wasting minimum time) on building factories you barely use

[wind spade]

you will build it ANYWAY

[heady vine]

yeah, no problem with concrete.
but iron node's a far.
far means that i have to plan and gather resources to building mininful factory, provide electricity supply and somehow bring production back

[heady vine]

but should i spend time on it now with my pure tech, or later, when i will really need it and will have more experience, and better tech?

[wind spade]

the time is the same in the end. if you don't want to waste time, then you really want to build as small as possible and add more later

[wind spade]

it doesn't matter imo. You should spend the time when you need more production, no matter the tech level or anything

[heady vine]

i'm bad at this, so i'm not building at all until i need it (says the gy who mines 600coal/m purely for electricity while actually using only 400MW)

[heady vine]

i just want more details on how to spend time efficiently..

[wind spade]

not asking on discord but building 😛

[heady vine]

haha

[wind spade]

no but seriously - just build what you need at the moment, it's more time efficient than guessing how much you'll need in the future and then (most likely) getting it wrong

[heady vine]

i have doubts that it works fine without smart splitters.
or does it?

[wind spade]

it does

[hot hatch]

If you guess and get it right, go buy a lottery ticket. Your luck that day would be off the scales.

[thorn bane]

it works

well you can just overbuild
if you have 100 machines in a manifold but only take 2 machines worth out then it only uses the input of 2 machines and the power of 2 machines (roughly)

[heady vine]

so, regular splitter is a round robin that does nothing if one of the outputs is overloaded?

[wind spade]

no, skips that output

[supple belfry]

If a standard splitter fills up, it goes to the next output

(With a belt)

[heady vine]

so it doesn't waste time?

[wind spade]

no

[heady vine]

oh, that changes everything

taking my words back

[thorn bane]

it helps to just connect a splitter/merger to some boxes and just see what happens

[supple belfry]

Buddy, from the little bit I’ve discerned, you seem to be really keen on saving time. This game is about efficiency, yes, but reaching anywhere near endgame is a 100+ hour affair, and completing the game in its current state is probably a 200+ hour affair, minimum. Don’t want to discourage you, but these worries about time management are pretty small beans.

[thorn bane]

but its super fun to some, i do exactly the same
obsessing 2h long over how to save 5min

[hot hatch]

And then taking 4 hours to knock it down to 4 minutes.

[heady vine]

it's in my blood.
i'm a programmer - i automate things.
but i'm trying to value my time.
it's hard to balance between two...

i'm considering making hard item's assembly just out of containers and assembler without any production pipeline

it does work at the same speed, but doesn't waster your time on planning and building

[wind spade]

that wastes time in a long run

[heady vine]

for sure

[wind spade]

you want all stuff to be fully automated so you can use it

or rather at least the ~30 items you actually need for building

[supple belfry]

Yeah. You’re looking at a game with a really long tail. You can hand feed production, but that quickly becomes unmanageable if you hope to beat it in a timely fashion.

[heady vine]

m idea is to supply your top tech production with hands - at least until you can do it in under 5 supply iterations.
but everythin else has to be automated

[wind spade]

why not make the last step automated as well? 🤔

[heady vine]

cause it needs balancing and planning and... idk

[thorn bane]

and logistics ghasp

[wind spade]

you don't need any balancing, but you need planning for all of the game

[heady vine]

tbh my last execution of that idea ended up automated

but planning would do better if i knew what to expect next

[wind spade]

plan just for current stage

it's again the same "don't plan for what you don't know yet"

because you won't get it right anyway

[stuck iron]

This conversation reminds me of the xkcd automation chart

[stuck iron]

The Milestones in the hub are a good indication of what you'll need next. And you almost always end up needing more than you thought. Build it such a way that you can scale. As a programmer this paradigm should make sense to you.

[wind spade]

build small module that you can copypaste for increasing production

[heady vine]

if only we had blueprints and building drones...

[wind spade]

they don't fit into dev's vision of this game

[heady vine]

oh that was another small question of mine - what time should i aim at when deciding production rate of tech needed for hub goal?
1 hour? 5 minutes?
I expect it to grow over time with increasing difficulty, but still...

[stuck iron]

I'm hopeful for more QoL building things though. I trust the devs.

[heady vine]

eh. in programming scaling is usually done outside the code - more servers, more data, more processes/thread.
but here i have to scaly by copypasting code...
i probably missing something in that analogy

[stuck iron]

Not true

Scaling your infrastructure is one type of scaling

[heady vine]

of course your code has to be of good quality to be scalable, as well as architecture you implement

[stuck iron]

But #off-topic-general

[heady vine]

if we keep this discussion in scaling factories analogy topic it's gonna be ok, isn't it?

basically, i'm ascing you - how do you define scalability of production blocks?

[stuck iron]

Isn't adding another constructor to a manifold like adding another server to a load balancer (ingoring the differences of balancers and manifolds in satis)

[wind spade]

not scalability. Just make a block that makes e.g. 60 plates per minute. If you need more, just copy that block

[heady vine]

it's a very odd load balancer. cause you implement it on low level (if statements rather than for loop).
so yes it is...

ok, i feel like i have to build that steel production before making further arguments

[stuck iron]

I think you are over thinking it and should just go with the flow until you've learned the game more.

[heady vine]

it may be.
my disatisfaction comes from unbalanced production (copper is underused and builds up quickly, high tech was pain but now i accumulated to much of it and lacking simple iron plates, steel requiers making long conveyors)

so it's coming from unreal problem.
it may be unsolvable, but definetely exists

at least not that type of overthinking 🙂

[wind spade]

follow simple steps:

• figure out what you don't have enough of
• build production for that item (finding nodes for it somewhere around the map)
• repeat

[heady vine]

refactoring is not part of the loop?

i still have to make myself comfortable with logistics over long distance

[stuck iron]

It can be. I've destroyed and expanded and rearranged many times

[wind spade]

at least early it's not worth it, resources are plentiful

[hot hatch]

End-game, it is. But early game, not really.

[wind spade]

building new production is just so much better than rebuilding existing one (at least early) regarding time spent vs gain

[heady vine]

just realised - i'm obsessed with the fact that i don't remember production rates and too lazy to figure them out now.
that's why i wont to refactor

[stuck iron]

It takes time but you will eventually start to have a goal in mind. Like "I want to build 4 computers a minute" you work back from that and figure out what you need.

[wind spade]

use online tools for production rates

[alpine gate]

yeah, there is a website for it

[hot hatch]

Might even be someone here that can point you to an online tool that will let you figure out production rates.

[heady vine]

looping back to how this conversation started

[stuck iron]

Hmm do you know one greeny? ;)

[wind spade]

which is?

[heady vine]

that

[wind spade]

that's like middle of the conversation, but ok 🤷‍♂️

[heady vine]

eh. that question started the programming analogy thread

[hot hatch]

You 12.6 constructors? Underclock one to 60%.

[wind spade]

this whole thread is "how to play early" and "ratio between resources"

[heady vine]

i was worried about balancing betweeen 13 of them, but now it's time to try manifold on belts

[hot hatch]

If one is underclocked to 60%, they'll balance themselves with a manifold.

[heady vine]

maybe. i closed ratio thread right before 12.6

[heady vine]

actually, that wasn't what i meant.
production rates of factories which already working

so it's the other way around

[hot hatch]

That's where having a goal helps. I can tell you the production rate of my level 1 materials factory, because it's built to produce that rate for all of those materials.

[heady vine]

does it make sense to build 2 stations for tractors in order to transfer coal/iron to other location?

or am i forced to build conveyors?

[oblique hollow]

uh, sure, use trucks, why not

[heady vine]

cause i need 2 stations to meet desired transfer rate

[oblique hollow]

or use more tractors

[heady vine]

it doesn't help.
1 station - 2 inputs
1 input - 120/m
i need 300+

[oblique hollow]

oh, you are limited by belt, arent you

[heady vine]

yeah

so i will use trucks, and then upgrade belts

[tough hound]

@heady vine I think it's generally a good idea to build with 480 scale in mind. you'll spend a fair bit of time with Mk4 belts (480/m) and Mk2 Miners @ 200% (480/m) being your fastest option, so I scale my builds around that

[tough hound]

Maths check:

Using alt recipes for Pure Copper and Steamed Sheets, I get
1440 -> 1800 / 1800
Ore Sheets / Cable

So I should be able to split it into...

6 rows of 16 refineries (240 / line)
4 rows of 20 refineries (450 / line)
6 rows of 20-into-10 constructors (300 / line)

[hollow pumice]

How much iron ore does 1 mk3 miner produce on a normal node?

[opaque quarry]

240 at 100%

U can check wiki for that too

[supple belfry]

You’re very early game—rush the tiers and get into Mk 2 miners before you really dump much time into logistics, if you’re really worried about efficiency.

[heady vine]

oh no, i forgot about encased industreal beam...

[upbeat tide]

What? This is heresy! The inquisition will pay you a visit...!

[heady vine]

eh

[upbeat tide]

Guesses the 40k reference didnt land... sadface

[wintry aurora]

Not sure where best to ask this, but, what's a typical bridge type for ~900m bridges? I was thinking a suspension bridge for this, but 900m is kinda puny for suspension bridges. I tried to google 900m bridge but got a ton of wifi accessories instead.

[merry kernel]

900m is puny for suspension bridges? What?

[timber swallow]

Is there a place in the game that you can see the recipient without needing to look at the machines?

[wintry aurora]

They're usually more on the order of kilometers.

[wintry aurora]

The codex?

[merry kernel]

I think you may have suspension bridges confused with another kind of bridge?

[wintry aurora]

I dunno. Been working on stuff ingame all day and tired now.

[merry kernel]

900m is perfectly appropriate for a suspension bridge, basically, and most examples are around that length

[wintry aurora]

Google fu would probably be better when not tired anyway.

[heady vine]

what about connecting everything to single poer network?

[wintry aurora]

If you want to, sure.

[vapid gorge]

Does anyone happen to have the final Crude to Rubber/Plastic cost per unit following max efficient recycled recipes?

[upbeat tide]

The max possible ratio is 1:3 for a recycled loop

Thats if you use

• heavy oil residue alt
• residual rubber
• diluted fuel alt
• recycled rubber alt
• recycled plastic alt

[frosty owl]

Add "pure HOR" recipe and make that "1:4"

||Can you hear Sev screaming?||

[oblique hollow]

I can make that happen

Sev knows all to well what I'm capable of

[thorn bane]

pure recycled rubber when, made in the blender with a water input

[oblique hollow]

Turbo Rubber

[wind spade]

pure water recipe, water + water = more water

[thorn bane]

ah yes finally diluted water

[wind spade]

6 water + 3 packaged water -> 10 water + 3 empty canister, 4s craft time

[oblique hollow]

Dehumidified Water

Take the moisture away from water and put it in a bottle

[frosty owl]

If you put a Doggo on a pipe so that it spits in it, you require 20% less water as the Doggo makes the water wetter

TFW the final error in your factory was... a MK1 belt segment

MK1 belts are the true final boss of SF

[tough hound]

@frosty owl basically every factory I build ever, I'm strangely reassured it's not just me

and it's always some stupid 1m connector that I had in a mockup and just never deleted...

[frosty owl]

[tough hound]

I'm embarking on masochism today: squeezing in 176 refineries into the Titan Forest

[upbeat tide]

Im continuing project Nuclear Haven

[tough hound]

It fits. But.... only just. 20x25 foundation grid accommodates 96 refineries if you squeeze real hard

You don't need to squeeze that hard actually.

[unique lodge]

[sullen cloud]

@oblique hollow hey McK, where can I find the latest version of your pipe guide?

[oblique hollow]

Wiki or reddit post still

Aka pinned in this channel / wiki pipe page

[sullen cloud]

many thanks.

[analog loom]

Using all base level machinery, have 8 impure iron nodes, want to produce rods, plates and screws in a proportional, fully efficient amount, any ideas to the number of machines and what the output of each should be?

[oblique hollow]

unclear unless you have recipes that use those already

[analog loom]

No recipes yet for this run

[oblique hollow]

else its just a shot in the dark for "proper ratios"

i mean recipes as in reinforced plates or frames

[analog loom]

This is a base item storage. May extend it to include reinforced plates but just want to automate plates rods and screws efficiently

[oblique hollow]

just do like.... 20/min each and then your storage fills over time anyway

120/min is a waste, so is 60/min
and 10/min is too slow
so anything below 60 and above 10 can be decent for storage

[thorn bane]

i usually just take a normal node and make as much RIP/frames/rotors out of it as i can
so it would be 60 for plates 60 for RIPs 60 for frames 60 for rotors

[analog loom]

havent unlocked frames and rotors on this run yet, takin it slow

[wicked tinsel]

screws arent used for building really

so no point in storing them

[tough hound]

agreed, screws are almost always an intermediary part between other main parts

[twin cargo]

I used to do above belt pipes

Now I've started sinking floor holes in

And the main pipeline runs underneath the platform

So much cleaner

[tough hound]

^ @twin cargo exactly, with the new buildables you can get everything below-grade... this is just proof of concept to show the spacing 😉

[thorn bane]

well no

[tough hound]

100 screws takes seconds to create, hardly worth a production line

[thorn bane]

it 100% is since you need RIPs/rotors

screws is actually the first thing i automate

[tough hound]

I might recommend against that... the stack size vs. consumption for screws is VERY low, so you need to store a lot per-part-created. It's generally more efficient to build your screws in-line with whatever else you need...

i.e., when building something that requires screws, it's almost always cheaper to build them onsite

[thorn bane]

no i mean screws->box for personal use

[tough hound]

ESP if you unlock Cast Screws, which skips a construction step

@thorn bane I'm just not sure I understand... I fill one large storage box and I'm good through like Tier 7

[thorn bane]

yes but that 1 box is important and is the very first thing i make in the game

[tough hound]

ok! play your way 🙂

[analog loom]

They are used for several hub phases, and i store them for hand crafting should i need to

[heady vine]

any crucial purchases from awesome shop?

[oblique notch]

Nope. It's all cosmetic

Whatever floats your boat. But ramps and ladders make it much easier to get around

[stuck iron]

Beams and wall outlets can make for some clean wiring too

[oblique notch]

Yah everything else is just to make things look good. Ramps and ladders at least help get about before you get the jetpack or hoverpack

[wispy harbor]

So I was trying to do a starter 100% efficient build for Reinforce Iron Plates, but I dont understand how to do the 15/45 split or the 1.5x constructor split how does that work?

[upbeat tide]

Mwans you need 1.5 constructors. Do you have overclocking/underclocking unlocked?

[wispy harbor]

yeah

[upbeat tide]

Than that means build two constructors and underclock one to 50%

[wispy harbor]

I couldnt figure out how the belt work was

[runic anvil]

I believe for a 15/45 split you would need 2 splitters and one merger where the first split would be 30 and one of the 30 belts go into a merger and the other into a splitter. Then 15 back into the merger from the start to make 45.

Then final 15 into the 1.5x constructor

You should be using the top right one

[wispy harbor]

and the 50% splitter has overflow at that point or should it be ok?

60->30>15>7.5?

[runic anvil]

Overflow should only be available on smart splitters unless I'm understanding wrong sorry

[upbeat tide]

The simple soluton is to overflow the setup rather than a splitter balancer, but those are all options

[upbeat tide]

When we say overflow design its a row of machines in serial.

Overflow in terms of smart and programmables is to open a splitter exit if the main output starts to back up

[runic anvil]

Ohh yeah like those manifold systems.. I still haven't figured how to use them efficiently lol

[wispy harbor]

I was trying to do a world with no manifold into machines, but had to balance to make the items

the first T8 world looked like spagetti,

[upbeat tide]

This is a LARGE example but scale as needed. But manifold is just a row of machines with the inputs and or outputs connected to the same feeder belt.

[wispy harbor]

then my friend and I got to T8 in like 80 hours played and we are trying to do a "world Rush" of T8 in 40

with spaghetti, and now we want a balancer world

[oblique notch]

Just use a manifold unless you desperately don't want to see items backed up and in hoppers. If all you want is 100%uptime (ie the 100% in the machine ui) a manifold does this just fine.

Oh I see you said balancer world

[wispy harbor]

I was thinking 100% in the powerUI

yeah full balancer world

[oblique notch]

Then good luck. It's a pain

Might as well do Sushi belts at the same time

It be no extra work

[wispy harbor]

billion items per belt? that would drive my OCD mad

[oblique notch]

Yeah but if you're already perfectly balanced, it works as well.

Someone on here does it, it's in their discord name . Look for their screenshot and videos. It looks amazing when it's done right but I'd be a and hatter before I ever tried

[wispy harbor]

ahh

[kindred laurel]

Does anyone know by how much I can overclock a fuel generator if I have enough fuel for 6.6667 generators? I'm making 80 units of fuel per min

and since they each take 12 per min, I figure I'd make 6 and overclock one but I'm stuck on how much .6667 equals for overclocking

[soft scarab]

Normally it’d be 166% but over/underclocking doesn’t scale the same way with generators as it does with buildings

Why not just make 7 and either underclock the 7th or build a battery to go with it?

[upbeat tide]

You can directly type in 0.6667 into the clock text box and it should spit out the closest option for you.

Or just set it to 0.66.

[fringe pawn]

There's no functional benefit to underclocking the 7th generator, so you don't need to worry about clockspeeds, if you want. As long as all the fuel gets burned and you have power storage (which you should), it's all the same if you're producing and burning your 80 fuel.

[wintry aurora]

How do I stop this switchback loop of an intersection from slowing trains down massively, it has the worst problem of any intersection? Both directions. Ignore the train, that's just personal ride. There''s another switchback design that I made which doesn't seem prone to this problem, might use that.

[potent rampart]

For path signals, the train will slow ahead of the signal so it can stop in case it can’t reserve a path through the junction. It can only begin to reserve a path in the block ahead of the signal however, so if your block preceding the path signal is very short, the train will slow far ahead of the path signal because it can’t reserve a path. You can either make the blocks preceding the path signals longer, or use block signals instead.

[wintry aurora]

I see....

[river coral]

hi so I am building a late game iron factory and want to know what is the average amount of iron ingots that you guys produce!

[frosty owl]

As Lynk said ^^
Efficiency-wise (how close to 100% your power draw and machine efficiency is), balancing or manifolding just change how long it takes you to get to the max. The difference is just in how it looks and in some details...
Personally, I really like to have items not stopping on the belts and have factories at 100%, thus balance quite frequently, but I still manifold the most cumbersome numbers because I can't be asked to make anything more complex than a 1:7 balancer or something 😆 (at least not for less than 10 machines or something)

So, TLDR: Both balancing and trying to achieve a perfect power graph can take incredible amounts of time, knowledge and experience. Go as deep as you like, but try not to burn out 😉

[wind spade]

I'm pretty sure any number you'll get would be "wrong", as every factory is different

[river coral]

Ya... Idk where I should start on checking how much I need with not much of a base?\

[wind spade]

start by defining how much you want to produce

if you don't know that, there's no way you know how much you need

[oblique notch]

Just build, and be prepared to rebuild or expand.

The game is very complex at later stages, If you've never been there before you have no idea what your in for.

Plus alternates means there are literally hundreds of thousands of possible combinations to make items (I'm not even kidding, it's something like 200k possible paths for Nuclear Rods alone - I have a file where I wrote a script to compute the possibilities)

Concentrate on one item at a time and just build. There is no waste, no way to lock yourself out of progression or to loose, and trying to make "enough now" and the beginning of the game you'll never make it to the later stages before you burn out

[wind spade]

technically there's infinite ways to make most of the items, since you can mix multiple recipes for same item in any ratio

[frosty owl]

Technically, it's still finite

[wind spade]

not technically, practically

given the game limitation of 4 decimal places, sure, it's limited

[oblique notch]

Nah still technically. Because I literally computed every possible combination of alternates for every item needed to make nuclear rods

[frosty owl]

I'd say it's practically infinite instead
As in: you could find all the possible routes... But will you? ^^

[oblique notch]

(Actuall I did it for all items)

[wind spade]

not with mixed recipes 😉

[frosty owl]

And I'm sure you read them all too

[oblique notch]

Yes with mixed recipies

[wind spade]

100% you didn't

[oblique notch]

Hold on a sec, let me get my kid back to sleep and I'll show you

[frosty owl]

I don't wanna see sleeping kids

[wind spade]

e.g. making 90/min wire:
3x wire constructor
OR
2.9997 wire constructor and 0.0001 fused wire assembler
OR
2.9994 wire constructor and 0.0002 fused wire assembler
OR
2.9991 wire constructor and 0.0003 fused wire assembler

I doubt you have ALL of these options

[oblique notch]

thsoe arent different combinations of paths

those are different combinations of setups

[frosty owl]

33% wire, 33% fused wire, 33% caterium wire, 1% iron wire

[oblique notch]

we're talking two different things here

[chilly oak]

popcorns

[wind spade]

paths still mean you have to define ratio if one thing is produced in multiple ways 🤷‍♂️

[oblique notch]

They are still both the same way to make the item - some with wire and some with fused wire. But the setup is its own thing

[wind spade]

and we weren't talking about paths. We were talking about "ways to make X" 🤷‍♂️

[frosty owl]

They're not the same though
Sure, you still make wire, but you can make it using (practically) infinite combinations of copper, caterium and iron

[oblique notch]

Yes, exactly. And youre talking about your base set up and i was talking about the combinations of ways to go from Iron Ore -> to some item. Sure, you can use multiple paths to get there, and you could setup different combinations of their paths in different ratios. But the actual path to get there is still finite in ways to do it. Ratios is setup, paths are the actual ways you could do it, nothing to do with how much you are producing.

to give an example:

    "item": "Modular Frame",
    "totalPaths": 1218,
    "allPaths": [
        "[Alternate: Bolted Frame] (Reinforced Iron plate + Screws) -> Reinforced Iron plate[Alternate: Adhered Iron Plate] (Iron Plate + Rubber) -> Iron Plate[Alternate: Coated Iron Plate] (Iron Ingot + Plastic) -> Iron Ingot[Alternate: Iron Alloy Ingot]  -> Resource Node (Iron Ore + Copper Ore)",
        "[Alternate: Bolted Frame] (Reinforced Iron plate + Screws) -> Reinforced Iron plate[Alternate: Adhered Iron Plate] (Iron Plate + Rubber) -> Iron Plate[Alternate: Coated Iron Plate] (Iron Ingot + Plastic) -> Iron Ingot[Alternate: Pure Iron Ingot]  -> Resource Node (Iron Ore + Water)",
        "[Alternate: Bolted Frame] (Reinforced Iron plate + Screws) -> Reinforced Iron plate[Alternate: Adhered Iron Plate] (Iron Plate + Rubber) -> Iron Plate[Alternate: Coated Iron Plate] (Iron Ingot + Plastic) -> Iron Ingot[Standard: Iron Ingot]  -> Resource Node (Iron Ore)",

[wind spade]

well if we are talking about base setup and you reply to us "I've done it for all items", then it doesn't matter what you're talking about, people get confused 🤷‍♂️

[oblique notch]

Youre the one who conflated what I said with setup. I said there are a hundreds of thousands of combinations to make an item. Not base setups.

[wind spade]

also I'm pretty sure that the number of paths is bigger than what you have

[frosty owl]

Ah, a convo on semantics... My cue to leave 😁

[wind spade]

since pretty much every item can lead to packaged stuff and then you can "make" canisters out of unpackaging e.g. sulfuric acid and add whole sulfuric acid stuff to the path. Yes the path doesn't make sense, but it's a path 🤷‍♂️

[oblique notch]

I'll accept that, because if you leave packaging in it leads to infinite loops. But containers are also not a starting point - they arent raw materials extracted out of the ground/water, so while yes you could freely run in a loop over and over again to make a longer path, is it really one? No, its not, its a fake path.

So while packaging is an option in there, the unpackaging is not (to prevent infinite loops)

[wind spade]

then you've disabled packaged diluted fuel

so the number is incorrect anyway

I've done the same thing a while back, I run into same problems with packaging as I'm talking about right now 😛

and at least from what I see from your dataset, it seems that you limit each item to be produced only by one recipe?

[oblique notch]

Thats just the top - its in order. So further down the line, it shows the other alternates as branching tress

[wind spade]

no, what I mean is e.g. you don't allow for iron ingot to be produced both by pure and alloy at the same time in one branch

[oblique notch]

No, but that path is not excluded further down - So its still there. Including with the same rest of the tree above it.

[wind spade]

I'm confused now, you say no, but then you say it's included?

e.g. for iron ingot, there's 8 ways to make it

[oblique notch]

So take for example:
[Alternate: Bolted Frame] (Reinforced Iron plate + Screws) -> Reinforced Iron plate[Alternate: Adhered Iron Plate] (Iron Plate + Rubber) -> Iron Plate[Alternate: Coated Iron Plate] (Iron Ingot + Plastic) -> Iron Ingot[Alternate: Iron Alloy Ingot]

somewhere further in that json file is:

[Alternate: Bolted Frame] (Reinforced Iron plate + Screws) -> Reinforced Iron plate[Alternate: Adhered Iron Plate] (Iron Plate + Rubber) -> Iron Plate[Alternate: Coated Iron Plate] (Iron Ingot + Plastic) -> Iron Ingot[Alternate: Pure Alloy Ingot]

exactly the same branch, only difference is the final leaf

[wind spade]

yeah, but there's nowhere Iron Ingot[Alternate: Pure Alloy Ingot AND Alternate: Iron Alloy Ingot]

[oblique notch]

Those would be, in effect, the exact same thing as the two i listed.

[thorn bane]

but where is this path

[oblique notch]

not different.

[wind spade]

those are three different paths.

one where you use JUST alloy, one where you use JUST pure and one where you use BOTH (since it's path, we don't need to know which ratio they are in)

[frosty owl]

Standard cable

[oblique notch]

no, they arent. In terms of a directed action graph, the one you listed is the same path, just with two leaves. The path ending one node higher up than the iron ingot. In terms of data analyis they are the same.

[wind spade]

then you exclude paths that are legit used in the game and your number is wrong

recycled rubber + residual rubber

[oblique notch]

you're trying to make this out like these are different things, when in fact, they are not. But hey. Its 330am, i have to work and shovel the snow in a few hours, so fuck it. Im not going to try and teach data science to you right now.

[wind spade]

they are different things, they look different on a graph

[oblique hollow]

Arguably Satis has a greater complexity than [2D game] due to the alts

Or rather... Greater depth

[thorn bane]

thats why mods exist

[frosty owl]

Oi, one F word was dropped already, let's keep it at that xD

[oblique hollow]

The recipes arent complex, but the combinations go deep

[frosty owl]

Mods to remove alts?

[oblique hollow]

Ah yes mods to make the game less unique xd

[wind spade]

These are three different graphs, even if you ignore the numbers and you only consider path

the third one isn't included in your "number of paths to make X"

[thorn bane]

tbf almost no one does that

[wind spade]

almost noone does majority of those 1200 ways to make modular frames 🤷‍♂️

but either you want to include all or you shouldn't claim that you've included all 🤷‍♂️

[oblique hollow]

Example path: rubber + residual fuel + recycled plastic > recycled rubber

That is one line

With the same product outcome at 2 different points

[frosty owl]

Bruh... I'm moving the plutonium rods manifacturers outside
Plutonium cells' radiation levels are ridiculous

[oblique hollow]

Give em some fresh air so the normal air isnt as spicy

[frosty owl]

How come they're so much worse than Nuclear Waste?!

[oblique hollow]

Concentrated plutonium

[wind spade]

you get more waste per rod, don't you?

[oblique hollow]

Also, remember, waste is inactive stuff

[frosty owl]

Fair

[oblique hollow]

Rods are fissile, waste is "burnt out"

[thorn bane]

they should just make it so the manufacturer deletes the 30 cells while its running similar to nukes consuming the rod while running

[oblique hollow]

Oooor reduce stack size to 100

[frosty owl]

? Wdym?
Also, plutonium gives the same amount of waste per rod but burns half as fast iirc

[oblique hollow]

5 waste per rod i think

[thorn bane]

its not the stack size in a balancer the 30 cells allone to start the cycle is enough to cause serious radiation

[oblique hollow]

Make machines have shielding

[wind spade]

10 waste per rod

[frosty owl]

What about that though?

[wind spade]

so the amount of radioactive stuff in one rod is roughly equal to amount of radioactive stuff in 10 waste

meaning you should be comparing 10 waste with one rod

[frosty owl]

Manifacturer with 200 uranium cells? You can hug it before feeling any radiation
Blender with 50 waste? Eh, just don't touch the blender and you shouldn't notice.
30 (not even 60!) plutonium cells in a MF? Yeah, let's leave a few tens of meters of clearance

[thorn bane]

plutonium still has more

[wind spade]

even then tho, plutonium waste has 200 item decay and rod has 120, so waste is worse

[frosty owl]

Nobody mentioned plutonium waste

[wind spade]

uranium waste is 10 compared to 50 of fuel rod

so 5 waste = 1 fuel rod

[thorn bane]

well its not the rods that are too radioactive its the cells

[wind spade]

plut cells = 120
plut rods = 120
plut waste = 200
uranium cells = 0.5
uranium rod = 50
uranium waste = 10

cells are same as rods apparently (for plut)

[thorn bane]

and you need 30 of em

[wind spade]

fair, but then it's not the cell itself, it's the amount of them 🤷‍♂️

[thorn bane]

wait the encased one is more radioactive than the original one?

[wind spade]

both cells are encased

[thorn bane]

no i mean Plutonium Pellet is 20 encased is 120 (but its 2:1)

encasing a cell increases radiation

maybe it actually IS just a bug

[wind spade]

compressing radioactive material

[thorn bane]

but its not its 2:1

[frosty owl]

It still feels disproportionate. 1 uranium rod manifacturer (with 200 cells, so items to make 2 rods) can be hugged safely, while a plutoniun rods manif with 30 cells (enough for 1 rod, equivalent of 50 waste) radiates for tens of meters...

I'm getting confused with the numbers but that feels like a 4x or more increase in radioactive radius to process the same volume of radioactive stuff

[oblique hollow]

Plutonium has a half life 185,317 times shorter than utanium

So an intensity increase of just x4 is actually really mild

[thorn bane]

but the radiation ratio is 5->12 in rods but 1->240 in encased cells

hm the more i read about this the more i think they actually just messed up the number

[oblique hollow]

Mind you the rods are also steel encased

[frosty owl]

I wouldn't be complaining if the cells stacked at just 10 or something, but 30 each means the radiation extends all the way down from the third to the bottom floor just because of them (I have plutonium processing on top of 2 floors of uranium processing)

[twin cargo]

Radioactive waste should slowly decay into byproducts if you store it for long enough :p

[wind spade]

which byproduct?

[twin cargo]

:D

Thorium-234 apparently

Wait that's u238

So, uranium waste would be mostly cesium-137 and strontium-90...

Cesium decays to stable barium

[wintry aurora]

That decay moves right back up in atomic number, that seems counterintuitive to me.

[twin cargo]

That's how it works IRL. Its due to the nucleus containing too many neutrons

Making it unstable and attract another proton

You'll notice the isotope drops while the element rises

[wintry aurora]

I thought it was shedding a neutron or something, but ok.

[twin cargo]

Yeah, it sheds a neutron and gains a proton

I believe

[wispy harbor]

Thanks for the advise. My brain goes full overdrive math mode occasionally wanting to just nerd out with a balancer that is to crazy. I'll have to keep that in mind

[twin cargo]

So it looks like uranium waste (strontium-90) is likely to decay into ytrium-90

Which has a 2.6 day halflife lol

Followed by zirconium-90

[wintry aurora]

Stronitum 90 has a half life of 28.8 years though, cesium-137 is a bit longer, so, even if decay truly were calculated, the timescale would be far too long to appreciably affect gameplay.

[twin cargo]

29 years is 10585 days, which means you could expect a decay event every day with just 20 stacks of waste.

[wintry aurora]

It's not gonna suddenly drop by half one random day, I know that's not how it works.

[twin cargo]

Sure, it's random events that turn roughly half of the material into the new material over the halflife

Tons of decay events in that time, the decay process is what gives off the radiation in the first place

If it wasn't actively turning into decay byproducts, you wouldn't be getting radiation exposure from being near it :p

I'm just saying, for 20 stacks of waste, 1 waste per day should be turning into byproduct if it's sitting around :D

[tough hound]

@twin cargo Uranium occurs in several isotopes, commonly U238 which is fairly stable, U235 which is much less stable

[twin cargo]

That was the wrong chart

I actually wanted sr-90

[tough hound]

OK STRONTIUM BYE

[wintry aurora]

I just mean that the time to wait for it to get down to background levels would be so long that it wouldn't help gameplay much.

[tough hound]

I will not be anywhere near strontium please and thank you.

[twin cargo]

It's more of an annoyance to randomly clog up your nuclear waste processing lines

[wintry aurora]

Yea like, suddenly STRONITUM or something.

[twin cargo]

To be precise. The nuclear waste is strontium already

It decays into ytrium.

[wintry aurora]

I was joking because random item clogging things, well, not random.

[twin cargo]

Would be hilarious to have your lines stop due to waste waste

[tough hound]

....... So you guys got any of that Cesium-137 ?

[wintry aurora]

What about it?

Also: "Strontium-90 is classified as high-level waste. Its 29-year half-life means that it can take hundreds of years to decay to negligible levels. Exposure from contaminated water and food may increase the risk of leukemia and bone cancer.[7]"

[tough hound]

Another very nasty isotope. Responsible for the Goiania incident in Brazil back in '87

Also a 29 year half life means a LOT of decays per second, leading to a very high radioactive emissivity

U238, for comparison, has a half life of something like 5 x 10^9 years

[wintry aurora]

The point was more that it would take centuries to reach background levels.

[wicked tinsel]

imho, whole radioactive chain is just poorly designed here

[wintry aurora]

The RL one? lol?

[wicked tinsel]

at very least, recipes and radiation should be designed so that balanced factory does not produce radioactive fallout around it

[wintry aurora]

Really though, it's more like it's designed on a basic level.

[wicked tinsel]

i guess it would work bit better if item input loading worked like in factorio

but for balanced factories this isnt very relevant anyway

[heady vine]

how to maximise transfer rate of tractor(s) moving between stations?

[wind spade]

more tractors

[heady vine]

as simple as that...

[upbeat tide]

Yup

[frosty owl]

Which it doesn't... until you start filling up manufacturers with plutonium cells

[oblique hollow]

Machines should really have some shielding function

[upbeat tide]

From?

[oblique hollow]

Idk maybe the devs think of adding some fun skin for machines that coats them in the, apparently shielding, caterium

Imagine if there was a "nuclear" skin for machines tho.....

[wicked tinsel]

or just rework how radiation work

its just not fun mechanic

[frosty owl]

Tbf, when balanced most of the machines barely make any radiation (you have to "hug" them ti feel any). Only the plutonium steps start irradiating a bit around the machines (and of course... The cells just make a mess of everything )

[oblique hollow]

If radiation simply made you like... Dizzy it would be enough

[frosty owl]

As in no HP damage?

[oblique hollow]

And only above certain intensities would it start to hurt or weaken you

[frosty owl]

Well, there is a radius in which you feel radiation and don't take damage (if you exit fast enough), but that's quite small ^^

[wicked tinsel]

i guess if it only damaged you at like 50 or 75% bar it would be passable

but now it always damages you

even at 10% you receive damage from time to time, and given that we only autoheal to 3 bars, its bit annoying

[frosty owl]

I don't get what's annoying about the damage specifically... I mean, it killing you if you're too careless is the whole point, right?

[elfin portal]

i think it was intended to hurt so you dont enter certain areas before you have hazmat suit lol

[frosty owl]

Eh, one can easily tank the uranium damage, tbf... It's not as aggressive as the processed nuclear items

[wintry aurora]

The only places that seem 'gated' by radiation are a few pod locations, and some of those can just be tanked.

[vapid gorge]

Ok so are physical item buffers useful to have in between components just in case you get stuttering between factory modules?

The fluid components give me a bit of grief for the alum XD

[oblique notch]

Doesn't matter for belts

Belts are only one direction and you don't loose anything. (Well other than on very long many many segments mk5 belts - similar bug as the mk2 pipe bug)

So buffering doesn't matter other than right before vehicle stations so you don't slow down on production if you don't have enough vehicles yet, and sometimes just after if your bringing more in than you need to smooth out the flow and educe gaps/downtime

As for liquid buffers, don't put them in line. But off to the side and connect back to the main pipe, and maybe even slightly above (ie a meter or two so they only act as overflow)

Otherwise fluid storage tends to give some very difficult to balance results

[wintry aurora]

Items don’t actually disappear I think, the rate just slows down.

[wind spade]

yeah, you only lose max throughput

and as was said - buffers are pretty much pointless except for if you need more throughput on a station

[vapid gorge]

Taaaa

[vapid gorge]

Finally using that planner a bit now btw XD

Helped me pick out some efficiencies and using the visualisation to write out The floor plan and through puts for an alum factory connecting to a bunch of other secondary hubs

[oblique hollow]

Btw dont buffer gas

Its pointless

[vapid gorge]

Oh? How come?

[oblique hollow]

Another rrason why packaging gas is superior

[oblique hollow]

Since gasses have no head lift, the only thing that affects flow rate is how full their pipe is.
And since buffers are large pipes - flow rate is proportional to buffer volume

Now i ask you this: small buffer, 400/400m3.
You hook up a mk 1 pipe.
You get 300 flow
How much flow do you have once the buffer reaches 200/400m3?
150

[vapid gorge]

Interesting thanks! Gonna be piping like 5k gas shortly XD

[oblique hollow]

In short transporting gas with fluid trains or pipes with buffers is horrible

Packaging is superior in every way

Which is the prime reason i think the "All Fluids are gasses" Mod is trash

[vapid gorge]

I’ll just be doing direct pipes. They are close enough.

[oblique hollow]

Alright thats fine

[vapid gorge]

Gasses don’t slosh though right? I still haven’t managed to completely get rid of HOR stuttering in my refinery. Only pushing 400 down a mk2 pipe

[oblique hollow]

Gasses shouldnt really slosh, buuut flow can still be weird due to their desire to fill all spaces equally

So flow rate is really sluggish there in large manifolds

[vapid gorge]

So manifold loop?

[stone scarab]

well they should add that gasses while transported and stored its as a liquid and not a gas

[oblique hollow]

Compressor vessels would be fun, yea

[stone scarab]

yea

and just so you can store it in higher density

like how propane is stored as a liquid but when the pressure is released it becomes a gas

btw im new to the game

[oblique hollow]

Welcome to funni math game

[stone scarab]

yea

i barely have a production line for rotors and reinforced iron plates

mostly cause all my iron nodes are impure

cant find a normal or pure node

[oblique hollow]

Use more impure nodes with each other, get a better miner, unlock the magic of overclocking.....

[stone scarab]

yea i only have 3 nodes close by then i have to go some distance

[oblique hollow]

Find some slugs or crashed freighter ships

[stone scarab]

ive tried to find crashed freighters found 2 one i could get too and one too high up

and i have a few slugs

just not many

[oblique hollow]

Then reasearch them in the mam

The scanner upgrade is weak but it can certainly help

[vapid gorge]

The starting plains I take it? North forest start has higher value nodes close by if you start again

Or just want to run and set up a new base

[stone scarab]

yea but my time is limited too 4 hours aday so it would take multiple days to get back where i am

so il probably disassemble my factory and move it to a better spot with my tractor

[vapid gorge]

Research caterium and quartz in the MAM. You can get speedy leg enhancements

Also if you sprint slide and just you get speed boosts and you can slide upwards to a small degree.

[stone scarab]

ik i use it alot

now i just use a tractor

there faster and can carry more

[river coral]

Hey can I get a basic explanation on MWH to MW? I am a bit confused and trying to check how batteries I actually need!

[heady vine]

it's just the same as our regular eletricity
you have amount of (stored/spent) power an amount of (produced/consumed) power flow
WH == W * 3600 seconds

i have a strange question - why are batteries unlocked when you unlock third phase? what for?
coal supply should be stable at this point - why store power at all?

[twin cargo]

One MWH is one megawatt sustained over one hour

[vapid gorge]

Yeah basically a power storage unit can store 100mwh at a max output of 100mw.
That means if you’re only pulling 50mw from it it’ll last 2 hours.

[twin cargo]

So, 60MW over 1 minute, 1 megawatt over 60 minutes, 2 megawatts over 30 minutes, etc

[vapid gorge]

Power buffer to help protect against shut downs.
When your power station goes down you need power to start up miners and pumps right?
It can get hard to restart big rigs

For example my fuel power station takes 14,000 mw to run its support machinery. I have fail safes installed for easy restart though

[heady vine]

how do you prevent power from leaking right after main grid got shutdown?

[oblique hollow]

Leaking?

[oblique hollow]

You mean 6000 over one minute

The smaller the time the bigger the MW

[vapid gorge]

So you can do two things. Have a power buffer between your main grid so it can lurch on when you tip over so you know you need to change things up.
The 2nd thing is to set up a power bank that’s preferably 120% mwh of what your support machines use

Have a switch between Back up and Support machines and between Support machines and Main power

When you have a brown out cut your main grid from support, flip back up until power station is up and delink the grid

[oblique hollow]

The bigger the time the smaller the MW sustained

[twin cargo]

1MWH = 60MW over 1m

[oblique hollow]

Ok 1 MWH yeah. I always assume base 100

[twin cargo]

the M is the base

[heady vine]

this game has switches????

[oblique hollow]

Our storages have 100 MWh capacity. Thats the baseline to me

[vapid gorge]

Yup . Even before you unlock them you can make your own switch by deleting and building power line between two poles

[heady vine]

why does it have to be exactly between?

[vapid gorge]

one sec I'll share a pic

[vapid gorge]

So the Far Right switch is connected to 14GW back up power and is currently off. The one directly to it's left is water pumps, pipe pumps, Oil extractors, sulfur miner.

Becaues the bower storage is off to one side no power won't get from it to the main grid.

[vapid gorge]

If the main grid goes down I can flip every switch off then connect up back up to support. Then flip the switch on refineries once they are full, then blenders to fule the power generators. Once they are going I can reconnect the grid, charge up the back up power then split hte Back up again.

[heady vine]

isn't it all solved by buffers at inputs to whatever generator?

[vapid gorge]

Fluid buffers can be really weird? If your power goes down and you need pumps to get that buffer fluid to where it needs it won't get the the generators either right?

[heady vine]

well, generators themselves have small buffer
we add another one shared between generators and pumps
when they are off, fluid doesn't go away
so it should be ok?

assuming pumps produce enough to keep buffers loaded at operational state

[vapid gorge]

Maybe! How low were the buffers when it shut down? Will there be enough fluid i nthe buffer if you shut the grid down to power itself?

[vapid gorge]

Like... its possible that whatever the situation that happens that I won't need a back up power station.

However if it fucks up in a way that I do need it.... I'm not sure where I'd get all that power from at any speed

[vapid gorge]

Also there are variable power consumers and producers. Hooking a couple Back ups to Geothermal power stations that go up and down can balance thta.

And Partical accelerators go up and down so Back up lets you run them w/o making your max power not have to go as high as your particle accelerator needs

[heady vine]

yeah. if generators are not making enough, than batteries get to play, right?
but i want them to jsut store energy, and not use it when asked - for the purposes @vapid gorge described

[vapid gorge]

Yeah That's why you have switches and keep them sep to the grid

[heady vine]

so, how do i keep them charged without allowing to discharge by command?

[vapid gorge]

Well if you're just using them as a restart you can do like I do and have a switch between your backup and main grid

[heady vine]

so i will have to manually close the flow when they charged?

[vapid gorge]

Oh and my main power station is also variable. It goes between 143 and 148,000mw so just having some Backup attached can average it's 'output'

[heady vine]

are they leaking power jut by standing still?

(i played Oxygen not included before)

[vapid gorge]

Yup but you shouldnt be needing to be turning them off and on so not a huge deal.

No battery back up will never leak power unless it's both connected to your grid AND your grid is pulling more power than yoru generators can handle

[heady vine]

ah, so unrealistic

[vapid gorge]

It's realistic. You just assume there's a very basic computer that keeps track of power consumption and flips the Back up power on.

Which makes sense since you can click to a power pole and there's obviously a computer keeping track with those graphs

[vapid gorge]

We're getting a switch set up so our hot water only gets heated when our solar panels are getting enough power and not from the main grid for example

[heady vine]

i mean. the fact that batteries do leak stored energy even when not attached to anything

[vapid gorge]

Oh I mean sure I guess? But if they're connected to the grid they are constantly charging from excess power

[heady vine]

i liked that mechanic in OnI.
so yeah, just joking

[vapid gorge]

oh and battery back up is useful mid game as well when you might be doing some high power short runs of things on manufacturers or blenders but running tight on your power budget

[oblique hollow]

Imagine a perfect flywheel storage

Or whatever tech the storages use