math-and-meta

[vapid estuary]

smallest ratio meaning what? and what alts?

[sacred orbit]

One Normal iron node can fully supply four iron rod constructors.

[vapid estuary]

for instance if you can get Bolted Iron Plate this is 18 plates + 50 screws = 3 plates, 15 a minute

[sacred orbit]

That covers six screw constructors

[vapid estuary]

and screws from steel screw come out 240/min from one machien

er, 260

[sacred orbit]

The default recipe for reinforced plates has an input of screws at 60/minute.

[vapid estuary]

the bolted plate recipe is 3x faster in terms of number of plates

[wind spade]

but uses more iron

[remote ice]

are you talking about the smallest number of producers where every production need is exactly met?

For instance, with the default recipe, the smallest number of assembers making reinforced plates, constructors making screws, etc so that the assembler screw requirements are exactly the same as the constructor screw production?

[wind spade]

basically there's no "optimal" production, you choose recipes based on their advantages and disadvantages 🙂

[sacred orbit]

YES

[remote ice]

alright so, this is fairly easy to calculate but alt recipes make it more complicated. There's different ways to make reinforced plates, and different ways to make screws for those reinforced plates, and different ways to make iron rods for those screws (if you even use iron rods for screws)...

[magic egret]

with 120 iron you meet exactly what you need for 10 reinforced plates per minute with 4 smelters, 8 constructors and 2 assemblers

without overclocking

and a mine

[sacred orbit]

I THINK I GOT IT. Three screw constructors output 120/min, which can feed two assemblers.

[remote ice]

are you using all default recipes?

[sacred orbit]

Yes

[remote ice]

alright then what HB said is probably right, though i haven't double checked

actually wait no, he's balancing for a specific iron production

lemme see then

[magic egret]

one pure node at mk1

you can multiply it

with 240 iron you just double everything

etc

[sacred orbit]

Right. This has been helpful.

[wind spade]

you can also use online tools to calculate stuff for you

[vapid estuary]

i like the 3x assembler because construction is easy

[sacred orbit]

Ok, but how do you divide the ingot output unevenly?

[wind spade]

you can just do manifold

[sacred orbit]

Huh?

[wind spade]

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

S = splitter
X = any machine

[vapid estuary]

with a smart splitter, you can send the extra iron ore elsewhere

[wind spade]

with any splitter*

[vapid estuary]

ye

[sacred orbit]

Ok, but the manifold still divides the iron evenly, right?

[wind spade]

it divides it as machines need

[sacred orbit]

It just seems inaccurate

[oblique hollow]

it relies on overflow. and it divides it even or unevenly or whatever

[vapid estuary]

i didn't notice what your mining rigs were

[oblique hollow]

we wouldnt recommend it if we didnt use it for 500 hours already

well.... everyone but greeny xd

[wind spade]

I've been recommending it for 3 years already 😛

[sacred orbit]

Yeah, I mean, I understand using it for overflow scenarios.

I think I have an idea, though.

[oblique hollow]

its not overflow scenarios

you just shove material in, the machine gets full, the rest moves on

these are normal splitters

[sacred orbit]

We all know that pit of like, eight impure iron nodes in the grass plains, yeah?

[wind spade]

it'll work after some time. usually a few minutes

[oblique hollow]

basically all of grass plains

[remote ice]

60/min screws
30/min iron plates


1.5 constructors making screws
15/min iron rods

1 constructors making iron rods
15/min iron ingot

0.5 smelters making iron ingots
15/min iron ore



1.5 constructors making iron plates
45/min iron ingot

1.5 smelters making iron ingots
45/min iron ore


total:
1 assembler
1.5 constructors (screws)
1 constructors (iron rods)
1.5 constructors (iron plates)
0.5 + 1.5 = 2 smelters making iron ingots
60/min iron ore

smallest multiple to create whole numbers of each: 2

2 assembler
3 constructors (screws)
2 constructors (iron rods)
3 constructors (iron plates)
4 smelters making iron ingots
120/min iron ore

[vapid estuary]

i don't get the issue really. personally i smelt everything i can as fast as i can and jam all the ingots into a container. this provides a buffer to dump lots of material into big projects

[sacred orbit]

I’m trying to be maximum efficient.

[wind spade]

what kind of efficiency though?

machine efficiency? space? power? resources?

[remote ice]

ah fuck, i messed up my math

hold on a second i'll fix it

[vapid estuary]

with respect to what, is the eternal question that I still don't get

[oblique hollow]

that being?

[wind spade]

I don't like the approach of "let's make stuff in advance and hope it's in correct ratio and will be used"

[sacred orbit]

Idk either… I don’t know how to word what I’m thinking

[oblique hollow]

you wanna see the funny items move continuously

thats it, isnt it?

[vapid estuary]

personally i don't like laying down mountains of buildings, i find belt work makes me want to die and I won't use the build style that Smart uses. so i minimize how much time i have to spend building

[sacred orbit]

Basically

I don’t like machines idling

[oblique hollow]

manifolds dont cause idle machines

shitty input rates cause idle machines

manifold, like balancers, are 100% efficient with dividing up input

[vapid estuary]

so in the picture i drew, the only machine that will idle sometimes is the miner

[remote ice]

okay i fixed the math, check again

[vapid estuary]

until you find something to do with the iron

[remote ice]

its actually a much smaller ratio

[sacred orbit]

Manifolds cause idle producers. Too many items on the manifold causes whatever’s INPUTTING those items to stall occasionally

[oblique hollow]

and you think flooding a balancer wouldnt cause that?

[wary tulip]

Not if you put an overflow on the main input 😉

[sacred orbit]

Balancer?

[magic egret]

you can put an overflow splitter on a manifold too

[oblique hollow]

theres 2 things: manifold (series of splitters)
or perfect division splitter arangements

[vapid estuary]

not enough materials or excessive demand causes idle producers

[oblique hollow]

aka balancer

[wind spade]

if you produce more than you consume, that will happen no matter what

[sacred orbit]

I haven’t gotten to smart splitters yet

[vapid estuary]

or not enough buffers 😉

[oblique hollow]

you dont NEED smart splitters

[vapid estuary]

you will in really not all that long

[wind spade]

buffers don't solve any issues, they just postpone them

[vapid estuary]

time to fix the problem imo

[magic egret]

just fill the whole map with storage

[wary tulip]

Well, then you need to mess with underclocking some producers to achieve the balance you want.

[wind spade]

if you build stuff in correct ratio (e.g. based on the calculator that was shared), then you won't have too many or too little items.

[sacred orbit]

I’m going to go take a look at my coal power plant and check that logic, because I used a manifold system for the coal input there.

[oblique hollow]

if your belts are too slow, then that causes it to back up

naturally

[remote ice]

manifolds only have even distribution after the machine inputs have saturated enough. In some situations this can take a extremely long time

[sacred orbit]

Belts are proper speed

[remote ice]

so i can understand why you'd want to avoid them

[oblique hollow]

right, then there should be no issues if the math is right

[wind spade]

manifold is in no way different to any other beltwork system, except for:

• manifold needs some time to start up

[oblique hollow]

eg: 8 gens need 120 coal, thats a mk 2 belt input

[sacred orbit]

That’s taken care of

[remote ice]

"some time", with my blue crater setup, as a off the cuff estimate, i'd be having small power fluctuations for days of RL time if i didn't manually force the system to back up

[oblique hollow]

example: my coal gens

[sacred orbit]

Is this the name of the Grass plains coal power area?

[magic egret]

yeah its a bit annoying with early coal, i think its better to divide it into smaller manifolds

[wind spade]

yeah, you can pre-fill the manifold to get rid of that. But most manifolds fill in minutes to hours. Days is very extreme case and may mean that there's something wrong with your setup

[oblique hollow]

no, blue crater is the east lake area with oil

[vapid estuary]

you can really speed up the start of a manifold by turning off the front half

then turning it on after the back half has started

[wind spade]

usually if you let the manifold fill while you're building next part of the factory it'll be full before you finish building the next part

[sacred orbit]

East…? Only oil location I know of is west, along the beaches…

[oblique hollow]

theres another east

its a giant blue colored lake area

[sacred orbit]

How Far East?

[oblique hollow]

hence blue crater

[remote ice]

no, this:

[oblique hollow]

edge-of-the-map east

[sacred orbit]

Oh god

And grass plains is more west…

[oblique hollow]

its roughly equidistant from middle of grass hills to west coast tho

2 km vs 2km or so

[wary tulip]

There’s also oil north.

[sacred orbit]

Id probably use Railgun Transport to get there.

[oblique hollow]

yep. 2.5 km vs 2.5 km

so west coast and east crater are roughly the same distance from grass

[wary tulip]

Yup. There are far less baddies to the west though….

[oblique hollow]

eh, preference

[vapid estuary]

to get to the west coast, it's easy to build a road on the water

[oblique hollow]

the west has just about as many nasties

[vapid estuary]

and skip all dat

[oblique hollow]

gas flowers, alpha spitters

FLYING CRABS

[sacred orbit]

What do you guys typically do with salvage from wrecked pods? Do you scrap it for points early game or do you save it for MAM research and further pod keys?

[magic egret]

yeah in my last game i just built a highway over the hole west of the grassy plains and the waterfalls up to the islands

[oblique hollow]

i save it for the other pods

[sacred orbit]

Same

[oblique hollow]

very useful once you go on a hunt

since you can chain most of them or simply craft the needed components from the loot

[magic egret]

i sink them usually but its probably better to keep them until you can make them

[sacred orbit]

The one guy I was watching, BrettUltimus, says he sinks them early game

[wind spade]

which is a completely fine and subjective solution 🤷‍♂️

[magic egret]

i just wanna unlock all the cool architecture faster lol

[wicked musk]

how the hell do the rail signs work?

[soft scarab]

Go to #old-questions-and-help and check the pins

[remote ice]

it's a matter of exponentials; the fuel gens have to fill their buffers first before flow moves on to other ones properly. But they don't necessarily fill in order; in the absolute worst case, all of them except one get enough fuel to run but not to fill their buffers any, and so the remaining excess fuel production must fill every buffer before the last generator will get consistent flow.

This would take, with 94 overclocked fuel gens (89 at 250% and 5 at 200%) and a capacity for 93.355 at 250%... excess flow is about 8.6 cubic meters per minute, with a total to fill of 94*100 m^3, that's over 18 hours.

That's a worst case, the first ones were generally filled first, but i still had to change around the setup to increase the excess because they just were not filling.

[wind spade]

oh, pipe manifolds are something else. Because weird fluid mechanics

we were talking about belt manifolds

[remote ice]

fair

[wind spade]

pipe manifolds are decent though from what I've heard if you don't feed from below and loop the pipe

(also pipes had fluid load loss bug which was fixed recently)

[oblique hollow]

praise G2

[remote ice]

i wanted to balance the fluid coming in, but i couldn't really get it working properly and apparently those have issues, so i sorta just went with

[wind spade]

oh yeah this just screams "issues"

[remote ice]

the pipes are also connected at the far end. Even distribution with such a odd number of fuel gens is a tricky thing

[oblique hollow]

balancing fluids lmao

[remote ice]

oh the pipes coming in are balanced. The consumers are not

[oblique hollow]

pressure equalizes in the pipes anyway

[wind spade]

pipes work best if they are simple

the more junctions and weird balancing you do the worse for you

just hook each pipe to X consumers (with a loop), feed from above and 99% of time you won't have any issues

[wicked musk]

i read it and i still dont know but i have a better question now how do i stop a segment at a given point (A Path Block is defined as the segment of rail between a path signal and the next signal of either type.)

[remote ice]

well i was trying to split from four pipes to 93.355299286106534870950027457441 fuel plants, which i rounded down to 93 for a slight excess. That doesn't split very well

eventually i settled for 94 and underclocking some of them slightly

[wind spade]

23.25 fuel gens - 23+1 underclocked per pipe

[remote ice]

no they're all overclocked

for me "underclocking" means putting less than 3 shards in

so i hit the max on a pipe pretty quickly, i can't just stick them all on one pipe

[wind spade]

no, you stick 1/4th of them on one pipe

[wicked musk]

i figured it out i cant use signs because everything is a giant loop so im going to have to put signs on all of the turns and straight sections

this will be pain

[remote ice]

it's a complicated thing - i have 4 pipes of 566.6_ m^3/min. I'm divvying that up to consumers taking 24.28 each, and due to space constraints (since the world border is so close), symmetry, entity count, etc i want each pipe to be on a row of 2.

So i can get 11 rows of 2 on each side, leaving 1.3388 to stick somewhere. I can't just stick a final one on the end, that leaves a third of a plant excess. Running pipes to merge the last few drops and stick a generator somewhere else would be ugly and very hard to get neat and symmetrical. I settled on re-merging the pipes and putting generators on the end, facing out, but i still have 5.3553 gens excess - i can't symmetrically fit 5 generators onto rows of six. I could do four, i could do eight, or four, but not 5.

So i ended up doing this:

5 of the generators on the end are overclocked to 200%, and one is at 250%. That's pretty much the best i could figure out.

[wind spade]

based on those constraints I'd probably do two rows of 12 and "underclock" last two

[remote ice]

i guess since i have a better understanding of the space constraints and i know i have a bit of room to spare, i could move things around, make a separate row on the end that doesn't align with the rest but is still symmetrical. But i guess this works

[remote ice]

hmm, i could put 2 at 150% and have only 0.35 fuel gens excess per row. But that'd still be over a whole fuel gen in excess at total. I'd have to start overclocking at partial percentages to get it less without a deficit anywhere. And this also raises the entity count... but only by 2 fuel gens compared to what i settled with. I'll have to think about this

[sacred orbit]

So, the typical 3-8 coal power setup should have the water extractors pumping downwards into the water feed pipe instead of parallel in?

[sacred orbit]

If we label this grid like a map, the square of B2 is where Spire Coast is, right?

[wicked musk]

mid top yes

[sacred orbit]

Yeah

Is there an image of the map pinned in any channel?

[wicked musk]

idk

[small kayak]

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

Idk if a link to the wiki needs to be pinned, but probably will not hurt either

[sacred orbit]

Pinning the link is probably better.

[frosty pawn]

if you have a few fuel generators using up that little rounding error of fuel remaining at the end of your power station, you can put some 1m foundations under them to raise them a little higher than the rest of the manifold to make sure they dont steal fuel from the others

[vapid gorge]

the odd number of gens shouldn't be an issue tbh

[vapid gorge]

oh, is this diagram still how you're doing it?

[remote ice]

yes. I could go back and redo it for better symmetry but i'm moving on to Maximum Pollution Nuclear anyway

not quite sure how to do that. I'm half tempted to put the reactors underwater though, just because it'd be funny

i think i might need to wait for update 6 and make sure the spire coast changes don't eat in to the ocean real-estate i'm using, though

[crude coyote]

if you build the nuclear plants deep underwater (I've done this with fuel gens before) you don't have to worry about headlift from your water extractors 😄

[remote ice]

that's the best part about the ocean. A huge, flat plain where i can put refineries without having to place a single pump

[crude coyote]

no doubt that comment's going to get it nerfed 😛

[frosty owl]

Balance your radioactive inputs and you'll barely need a Hazmat Suit

(Leftmost, Rods manuf; to the right, Cells manuf)

[crude coyote]

If Vencam says that then I think I am slightly less nervous about splitter duplication heh

I threw away my balanced design and started on a full manifold design after reading your Reddit post

😅

[remote ice]

I'm not sure how useful reducing the radioactive excess would be, considering the 236 plutonium waste/minute

still good point, i never thought about how item duplication could get really problematic for such a finely balanced production chain

[frosty owl]

Tbh, the only time I actually noticed on my own was: ~10 different splitters involved leading up to a single NPP (out of 36) having 1 rod inside despite having just started a production cycle (the new rod should come by the end of the cycle). That's after ~10 loads or something

[frosty owl]

Unsinkable items can be dangerous if they pile up...
Depending on how often you plan on loading your save, I would suggest keeping some overproduction for plutonium-related items

[remote ice]

err, how dangerous? I was just going to stick them in 50 ISCs and then come by and compact them into a deconstruction box every few days. Will a bunch of item stacks like that severely impact load times? It shouldn't, not if they have a sane data structure

[frosty owl]

Oh no, the waste was the only one that wouldn't be an issue ahahah (well, not one you haven't thought of already)
What I'm referring to is having more Plu. Pellets/cells than you accounted for, slowly piling up until the fill machines' inventory and jam conveyors up to machines' output inventories
Dangerous items: Uranium Waste, Non-fissile Uranium, Plutonium pellets, Plutonium Cells.
Plut. Waste you can just store everything and forget about it

[glad vigil]

Me after 100000 save reloads coming back to see my industrial cargo container half-full with duped unsinkable items

[remote ice]

well, normally my design isn't perfect ratio, it's convenience. I haven't laid out the final production yet, i'm not sure if i want to have the entire chain self-contained and get ore via belt rather than piggybacking off of the (potentially fallable) train network. But whatever i do, there's decent odds that production ratios end up imperfect, so there's a slight deficit or excess. Since it's all radioactive, might go for deficit.

also splitters/mergers with unused outputs/inputs annoy me so that helps with duping

[frosty owl]

Good thinking. Just make sure the non-radioactive items aren't lacking either

[proven prawn]

item duplicate can be safely handled with sushi manifolds for instance and overflow protection, thats how I handle it, then its practically impossible for any issues to arise, it can also be implemented with a balanced sushi chains though you have to setup overflow protection a little differently.

[frosty owl]

(Nerdy funfact)
I was once trying to make a relatively big similar system, based on the fluid load loss...
Eg: in my nuclear factory all production-fluids (eg: HOR, acids..., NOT water or oil...) are overproduce (to refill losses), packaged and sent to a drone. Ideally I wanted this drone to collect overflow from ALL factories and send it to a final production line. That one production line should have gone offline shortly after loading the game due to the fluid loss causing all overflows to stop for a moment...

[proven prawn]

duplicating plutonium waste

[vapid gorge]

And those multi junctions in the pipes don't cause stuttering? Interesting.

As for max uranium... there's no one way. It's multi step. I like making the rods in one place and shipping them off. Just make sure you have enough water nearby. Easiest I think is to have a floor of water extractors (prob overclocked) and build the power station above it

[frosty owl]

I'm not against making all nuclear in one place/factory...
Can make for cool layouts

[remote ice]

honestly they might, i haven't checked recently to see if it finally stabilized or not

[vapid gorge]

It just looks like on the left that you’ve got multiple junctions of fuel merging and heading out, then all connected again at the right.

Fuel generators being what they are it’s less of an issue if you’ve got some stuttering because all that means is you’ll not get max mw out of it.

In general though with other pipping you want want to absolutely avoid doing mergers like this

[remote ice]

that's correct; the 4 pipes first go into a balancer (because technically, on the far end, the consumption isn't balanced and i struggled to find a way to do so). Originally i was going to go in-depth and try and balance it properly, but after consulting some graphs of 4-4 balancers i realized it would be really big and involved so i decided to just get something vaguely close.

and then at the far end, they're all connected to feed the last few generators. Probably not ideal yeah, the nuances of fluid flow are tricky

[vapid gorge]

Because pipes are bi directional unless you’re doing very tiny manifolds or building absolute madness you’ll never really get it balanced.

Optimally? You make a line of machines producing X volume of liquid, keep it in one pipe, then make a single looped pipe manifold to the machines that use it.

Now I am saying this with the idea that you care about having efficiency. If you don’t care about stuttering machines dw bout it

[remote ice]

stuttering machines isn't a huge deal, but it is a little annoying with power setups

makes the graph look even funkier than the geothermal makes it

[wind spade]

flat graph is pointless to pursue anyway

[vapid gorge]

Ok well not a huge deal then.
As for power, practicality, as long as your lower power efficiency isn’t huge or threaten a brown out it’s not a huge issue?

For me, as an example, I’m trying to have zero stuttering machines (outside power). Which can be tricky

[remote ice]

oh yeah blow out isn't going to happen, that block to the east is 200 power storages

i paired my first coal power plant with a hundred, so blowouts aren't likely until i get into proper megafactories and i can't reasonably build power storage arrays that could support the overall demand for long

[vapid gorge]

Yeah like I’ve accepted that my power station is 5% below max output because of a small link that sometimes does a stutter.
It’s pretty though and I’m not pulling it apart

[frosty owl]

Flat is justice!!!

There's also plenty of reasons why having a flat graph can be convenient. All completely objectively good reason, ofc

[crude coyote]

I built my power to have super stable power at all times (my geothermals are my core layer, feeding a diluted fuel production layer which in turn feeds the next diluted fuel production layer which then feeds nuclear)

So my production line is a flat line, very nice

[frosty owl]

I try to build my factories so their power draw is flat (if not, they go on the geo-grid). This way anytime I see a fluctuation I know I can go hunt for inefficiencies

[crude coyote]

I'm still in the process of dismantling some of my early factories so my actual consumption still fluctuates a lot

[brittle flint]

my power goes in huge jumps from 10000 megawatts to 7000

[vapid gorge]

usage or production?

[brittle flint]

production 😎

[vapid gorge]

You've got a serious stutter in your production then.

fuel? Big flow issues

[brittle flint]

im kinda a pro gaming guy dont worry about it

my factory is doing magic right now

im a whole 7 thousand watts under the max consumption at the high point 😎

[wind spade]

that's... super super close

heavily recommended to expand power immediately

[boreal cypress]

how is it possible to be under 7kW under max consumption? Game only have MW+

[wind spade]

game actually counts with decimals though

[boreal cypress]

oh I forgot

[remote ice]

iirc buildings take, what was it, 10kW while idle?

ah no, it's 100kW my bad

[boreal cypress]

since when do they consume power when idle o.0

[wind spade]

always

[crude coyote]

^

[remote ice]

this means if you're running a extremely underclocked base, machines actually use less power while running

[glad vigil]

Linear overclocking would fix that

[wicked musk]

ngl they should make an end of block signal

or end of signal signal

[fierce ruin]

CAN SOMUNE HOP IN MY CALL AND HELP MY MY FACTORY IS COMPLETLY FUCKED UP

[wicked musk]

ok

[oblique hollow]

and at that point its basically "yo good luck avoiding crashes"

[ornate rapids]

math and metaverse

[fierce ruin]

i finally managed to create a decent assembly line

and its not spaghetti

this is how it works (not accurate to layout, and miner should be smelter)

[vapid gorge]

What tier are yo uat?

[fierce ruin]

This is gonna be a bit of an explanation, so hold on

[vapid gorge]

XD short version XD

[fierce ruin]

my old factory was an abomination, so i started a new save, and skipping tiers 1-3, so im working on 4

[vapid gorge]

and you're skipping tiers by using unlocks from a save editor?

[fierce ruin]

yes

[vapid gorge]

have you looked up any tutorials about manifolds?

[fierce ruin]

no lmao

also this is the second floor configuration

ill send screenshots of the actual setup

[vapid gorge]

Check out totalxclipse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwguwhizdlE

[vapid gorge]

and just as a thing if you do restarts because you feel the need for a fresh map, starting from tier 1 again is really helpful in mastering the basics

[fierce ruin]

this is the smelter to constructor setup

[vapid gorge]

Depending on what you're doing you might find it easier to manage using a single node for one part, that way you have more straight forward manifolds

at least early on

[fierce ruin]

i produce iron plates 2x as much because of what the second floor does

this is the constructor to storage, i will explain the lifts, they're terribly placed due to space limitation and partially laziness

[vapid gorge]

Yeah, I basically just made entire floors of each part and funneled off the excess to the side too

[fierce ruin]

i tried to make it so the conveyers be neater and wont overlap, but the conveyers wouldnt comply due to steepness limitations so it turned into this

at least the output is somewhat nice (thanks conveniently placed smelters)

ill add a door when i unlock it in the awesome shop

the game also broke and now i have hub parts when i shouldnt

i just threw it in the resource sink

it wont let me

i thought this building was not going to be so big

[fierce ruin]

hi m8 - That' not big. Wait until you have to build a building to house 500 - 600 machines !!

[oblique hollow]

alright so slight pipe meta time

the reason mk 2 pipes are so finnicky is because they have the same volume as mk 1 pipes

pipe pressure (and thus flow) depends on volume

so a change in volume affects flow in mk 2 pipes twice as much amd as fast as a mk 1 pipe

[remote ice]

so that should mean it only causes issues when you connect MK1 and MK2 pipes, right?

or is it something to do with the relative tick rate of the fluid simulation, and MK2 is fast enough to run into issues but MK1 isn't?

[oblique hollow]

1. mk 1 to mk 2 has some funny ratio interaction, but thats a different thing

2. yes, the relatively large delta changes that occur in mk 2 pipes are a unique issue to them

a mk 2 pipe can be at 300 flow if it is half full

thats double the flow rate change per volume

mk 1 pipe can only be at 300 if at full pressure

so a slight change in volume there doesnt decrease flow as hard

in general, this is why mk 2 pipes fluctuate a lot easier than mk 1

[wind spade]

do you think that doubling mk2 pipe's voulme would resolve a lot of their issues?

[oblique hollow]

it would possibly make them less prone to jump up and down

but it also means they take twice as long to fill

[remote ice]

that's not so bad since the flow rate matches. I guess it might be a issue when you use them for low-flow situations

[oblique hollow]

low flow would be really bad with mk 2

but that also means you shouldnt use them for low flow

honestly, intermediate pipe tiers would be interesting

so you need to pick whatever mk is best for a given flow rate

i think a small though experiment might be suitable.

imagine a pipe that has a flow limit of 1200m3/min

lets imagine this pipe has a volume of not 1.327 m3/m, but 0.6635 m3/m

a 20 m long "Mk 3" pipe like this would have a volume of 13.27 m3

that means that for each cubic meter of volume, you get around 90.43 m3/min flow change.

For a 20 m long normal mk 2, this flow/volume is 22.6, for a mk 1 its 11.30

so if you disrupt a hypthetical 20 m long mk 3 and its input flow drops, it would empty itself in around 0.66 seconds (probably longer due to the relation of volume to flow)

[vapid gorge]

That's really interesting.

And an entertaining thought that the devs might just look at pipes. Alter a couple metrics. And then proceed to cry as that fixes huge issues.

[oblique hollow]

im tempted to try and mod the mk 2 pipe and see if that fixes something

[wind spade]

inb4 Sev's "Mods 🤢"

[oblique hollow]

If Sev was here thered be one of 2 outcomes

1. mods 🤢
2. im trying to fix a bug and he said that kind of modding is ok with him

[magic egret]

i think the problem is that both kind of pipes are the same size and have the same volume and flow capacity but mk2 somehow has to fit twice as much

[oblique hollow]

its what i just said above

mk 2 has to move twice as much for the same volume

meaning pressure changes twice as fast in relation to a fill volume change

[magic egret]

i think you cant really solve that with anything resembling real physics

[oblique hollow]

i tried and tested a lot

after like 900 hours, this is a deduction from my side

mk 2 is too small for its own good

[magic egret]

yeah

but if you make it bigger it wont fit on the connectors anymore

so its tricky

[oblique hollow]

i mean changing a variable

[magic egret]

maybe the best solution is to either remove mk2 and make mk1 carry 600, or make mk1 like a mk2 but with a limit

[oblique hollow]

not actually making it bigger lol

just change the volume variable to be twice as big

it will still be the same on the outside

just "bigger on the inside"

we dont have to adhere to physics here

[magic egret]

yeah

[wind spade]

lol

"chonky mk2 pipes" - new mod by McGalleon coming soon

[oblique hollow]

"Mk 2: Electric Boogaloo"

[wind spade]

extra bonus - pipe models are now twice as big so they look funny

[oblique hollow]

twice as big but still connects to everything xd

[wind spade]

yeah

[magic egret]

have an adapter for the small connections at the end

[oblique hollow]

oh yea fun fact, you wouldnt have to make the pipe that much bigger from the outside

since volume of pipe scalesnwith the square of the radius

[wind spade]

I don't care, make the radius twice as big for extra memes 😛

[oblique hollow]

only needs to be 41. 5% bigger

[magic egret]

maybe they should add more real world problems to the pipes so we can be busy dealing with that lol

[oblique hollow]

ugh, imagine friction

[magic egret]

or pressure drops from bends

[oblique hollow]

bleh

[magic egret]

pipes suddenly exploding when you close the wrong valve lol

[wind spade]

just remove pipes, we were fine without them

[oblique hollow]

[wind spade]

good old oil extractor mining full barrels of oil

[magic egret]

i want to be able to have open pipes to build waterfalls

[remote ice]

ok but on the plus side, head lift on pumps would stack. And then you put 5 in a row and the pipe explodes

[magic egret]

or the machine

[remote ice]

also fun fact, pumping shit is actually really annoying and complicated

[magic egret]

yeah it is

[remote ice]

pumps have whole fucking charts for how much pressure and flow you get in different situations

you need different types of pumps for different fluids or stuff like slurries

different types of pumps have all sorts of limitations - you can't run some dry, you can't run positive displacement pumps without a pressure release or something fucking explodes, some don't even run on electricity...

thank fuck we just have magic always work pump

imagine if there was a entire unique type of pump, and piping, just for moving Nitric Acid. That's basically how it is irl

[wind spade]

nah you're lying copper sheet pipes are great for everything even moving molten metal wdym

[magic egret]

oh yeah pipe corrosion

and clogging

[remote ice]

ok our pipes would probably never clog realistically speaking. Not unless we're pumping something that solidifies inside it

they're fucking gigantic

honestly they might even be excessively large for a flowrate measured in cubic meters per second

[magic egret]

eh even with the water deposits might form over time

limescale and such

[remote ice]

yeah water is funny

those floating intakes should probably clog, or something

there's no way they're filtering all the water enough for most industrial processes

[magic egret]

yeah lol

we should probably have a distiller machine or something

produces distilled water and limestone

[remote ice]

though, interestingly, the pump on the water extractor is pretty realistic

... possibly comically large, i admit i've never even seen a centrifugal pump that can handle 5,000 liters per second

[magic egret]

it looks like a kind of centrifugal or turbine pump yeah

[remote ice]

but they're well done except for the fact that the inlet pipe goes in the center, not the back

also that thing should totally have more than 10 meters of head lift

10 meters of head lift is so short it barely reaches above the top of the pump

instead it should have the...

[vapid gorge]

Turbofuel

[remote ice]

pain chart

[glad vigil]

Imagine all machines breaking or malfunctioning over time

[magic egret]

delete and rebuild your factories periodically due to material degradation

[glad vigil]

Resource nodes depleting over time

Foundations and factories having physics and breaking

[magic egret]

realistic hand crafting

[glad vigil]

Byproducts of all resource refining processes

[magic egret]

pollution

[glad vigil]

The need to reject broken parts that may appear at any stage of production

[glad vigil]

Factorio styled pollution that causes local wildlife to destroy your base

[crude coyote]

manta moth poops on your factory and the giant tick whale thing kicks everything over

[magic egret]

hog bites you you bleed to death and save is deleted

you pet the lizard doggo and it gives you a deadly alien disease

[timber flare]

Subnautica style

[glad vigil]

Radiation not killing you, but it will cause cancer after few years of real time played that can’t be dealt with

Lizard doggo rabies

[magic egret]

take off helmet to drink coffee and die from poisononous atmosphere

[glad vigil]

Exposure to alien artifacts causes schizophrenia and hallucinations

[magic egret]

comply

i wonder whats actually at the bottom of those void holes

[fierce cypress]

only one way to find out

[magic egret]

so youd think

but no you just die

[wide roost]

I'm a bit lost on this. I'm trying to engineer 300/min throughput (to manage train usage for a factory). Two 480 belts are coming out of the container, passes into the merger (which does not back up on the slow side), goes into a splitter with a 120 and 60 out, the 60 is split and half goes "forward" and half goes back to the start. My math says this should be 150 on the output after the merger and with being two of these that should total 300, but the efficiency checker mod says 180 (360 total), am i right?

[wind spade]

balancing 🤢

[wide roost]

it's all gonna be ripped out when the factory is finished, simply testing for train throughput to see if one train is enough

[wind spade]

for that it's just enough to see if the count in platform goes up or down as train arrives 🤔

[magic egret]

if you loop the 30 back to the start doesnt the input just become 990 instead of 960

as far as the splitters are concerned

[frosty owl]

Short answer: eff. checker is near useless when balancing or belt-mixing is involved. It does little more than adding and subtracting all inputs connected, great for machines, not so for balancing

[magic egret]

theres a throughput counter, you could try that

[frosty owl]

Also, there's no long answer, that was it

[frosty owl]

Your math is right, output is 150x2
If you got extra 60s, check out this for possible nuances in merging full belts when balancing
#math-and-meta message

[wide roost]

cheers guys

[zinc eagle]

how much uranium fuel does an atom generator uses/minute?

[oblique hollow]

0.2

[worldly vector]

should I use the excess oil residue for fuel? sounds the best to me.

[oblique hollow]

why arent you making coke yet?

[worldly vector]

i am.

[oblique hollow]

more xd

[oblique hollow]

more

[worldly vector]

i could use some fuel tho

[oblique hollow]

well if you have fuel gens you can replace all those with them

[worldly vector]

thats what I´m planning to do

I´m currently working on unlocking them, only need some computers. I´m crafting these by hand/semi manually with assemblers, because I will use MK4 belts for new factories after that. I will also need to upgrade my steel and Iron factories, so I can get more

more of everything that is.

I just realised that optimising production will mean that I will have to tear most my factories down to rebuild them

https://tenor.com/view/pedro-pascal-mandalorian-laugh-cry-gif-21495683

[uncut sigil]

And the factories you tear down get bigger and bigger....

[glass mulch]

Help: I wanted to build a bus system (like you would do in factorio), but I just don't find a viable way to fill the lines again.
In factorio you would just build a chain of prioritized splitters, but that doesn't work here because splitters and mergers are different things here.

Has somebody done this before and could give me an idea?

[worldly vector]

If i dont have the space for sideways expansion imma go up.

there will always be space, you just gotta find it

[uncut sigil]

The usual response is 'don't bother'. This isn't factorio, and it's probably better in the long run to learn how this game plays.

[worldly vector]

so you have a bunch of belts that need to feed in a factory?

[glass mulch]

I build many modular bases by now, but I found the idea of a mega bus base interesting.

Yeah a bunch of belts and I want to take from the lowest one and then feed the upper ones into the lower ones.
But with a overflow system, so only as much feeds into the lowers once as needed

[worldly vector]

interesting

[glass mulch]

Problem is mergers and splitters arent able to connect to each other directly, so you need a belt in between, but when filling mats from one belt to the other you would shortly have more materials, which in case don't fit on the belt

[worldly vector]

I´m also making modular factories, and i havent solved that "Main Base" problem. My solution would be to use trains (once i have them) and get the into a base. Belts seem like a lot of work

[worldly vector]

i think i have an idea for that

this.

extend a belt, place a splitter or merger on that and you have them really close with clipping

basically direct isnt it

lemme test if it even works

[glass mulch]

basically direct, but still a belt with limited flow as connector

[worldly vector]

well it doesnt work anyway.

its too close for the game to like it

[glass mulch]

yeah, sadly 😄

[oblique hollow]

two splitters too close will not function as a balancer either

it will just merge one side to the other output and block another output

[worldly vector]

for me it didnt even convey anything

[glass mulch]

btw, how big is the inventory of splitters and mergers?

[worldly vector]

they dont have an inventory

they just send stuff right through

thats what you mean right?

[oblique hollow]

like... 10 at worst

usually they try not to store things

[worldly vector]

they can store things? like just a wee bit

[oblique hollow]

ye

[glass mulch]

yea and I think it's kind of annoying 😄
But maybe just a thing to get used to

[worldly vector]

finally finished the fuel power and mk4 belt milestone

[thorny marsh]

struggles with logistics mk2

[worldly vector]

okay so. I have 3 options now:

1. Use the excess oil and make fuel, keep coal plants
2. Convert the whole thing to fuel power, connect it to the main grid
3. go hunt for hard drives for better recipes

[oblique hollow]

residual fuel is an ok choice to make

less space needed that coal gens

[worldly vector]

i need more power anyways

note that I´m only using one of six oil nodes at my oil place

i dont want to go super size yet tho

[glass mulch]

Are there any compact Belt compressor designs for 3 or more vertical stacked belts?
(The one for 2 belts on the wiki would get way to big if extended for more belts)

[worldly vector]

how much fuel do fuel generators burn?

like how much a minute

[glass mulch]

normal fuel at normal clockspeed 12 qubic meters a minute

[worldly vector]

hm nice thanks

so. would have enough oil for 100m² fuel a minute.

enough for 8.33 generators

i could also easily expand the oil, I still have 5 unused oil nodes

https://tenor.com/view/nazare-tedesco-maths-confused-renata-sorrah-math-lady-gif-15278869

thats a lotta oil.

[maiden edge]

So whenever im building powerlines and place a power pole with it, it always places a mk. 1 power poll. Is there a way to make it place a mk.2 power poll instead without manually placing the power poll and connecting them

[worldly vector]

i dont know but that would be my question too. kinda annoying

like place mk2, connect, repeat

[glass mulch]

Hold the quick switch button

Oh, nvm. It switches to the power pole completely

[glad vigil]

You can place mk1 powerpole first, then upgrade it to mk2

[worldly vector]

i guess

so, the oil residue now will go into these refineries, then into 3 generators. the fuel i make could supply 8 fuel gens

excess fuel would be pumped upwards in some silos, that i will build later

will use one of these for that. will only go upwards if all bottom pipes are filled

yes i am actually learning things

[worldly vector]

why is it not cantered. why.

is there a way to get this straight? i´m having trouble with this

[glass mulch]

Shouldn't you just be able to scroll to rotate it straight?

[wicked tinsel]

vertical pipes often fail like this

[worldly vector]

nope.

[wicked tinsel]

especially if you connect two vertical connectors

[worldly vector]

apparently they allign to north east etc

i managed to do it tho, its in #old-questions-and-help

[wicked tinsel]

make the horizontal pipe, put connector on it, connect vertical pipes, scrap horizontal parts

[vapid gorge]

if you're going fuel to power you for a while you might as well hunt for diluted fuel then set up a couple dozen GW of fuel power somewhere.

[worldly vector]

thats kinda the plan

the current setup wont be final

i will take the better recipes later

[vapid gorge]

To hunting!

[worldly vector]

will do that

[unkempt acorn]

So quick question here... but im nearly done with my fuel set up. Each floor has 136 Fuel Gens. The original Idea was to allocate one pipe of 400 to each set of 34 fuel gens. but im wondering if this new idea is any good? merge 2 pipes of 400 at opposite ends that feeds 68?

[worldly vector]

this is how my stuff turned out

[versed violet]

Finally, after hours and hours of playing, my cleanup facility managed to process over quarter of my Uranium Waste backlog.
Started with 4M+, and here is today state:

The nuclear exclusion zone still looks like this 😊

[remote ice]

ah, yes.

Chernobyl.

[dense cave]

jesus bro

IEA is going to come for your ass for improper storage of nuclear material

[ivory bison]

It will always consider pure overflow/manifold. It will not work properly for load ballancers, it will not just "split the input in two or three" for the outputs from a splitter

[frosty owl]

@brittle saffron Sorry for late, a night has passed 😅
I counted between 1 and 2 belt segments per belt. 1 segment is a straight belt (maybe starting/ending) with a turn), 2 segments are needed to make a proper 90 degree belt.
In other words, I'm counting 1 object per item the dismantle tool could detect

I realize it's still hard to make clear comparisons with the example I gave, so I'll try to give a different example that, while more "extreme" in its numbers, should be closer to your design choices (having the inputs for the manufacturers being made in a different building/location)

The setting: you're making a facility to process all Uranium (2100/min) into Uranium Fuel Rods (50.4/min). This requires 84 manufacturers to process the Uranium into the 2100 Uranium Cells/min needed. The cells are then fed 1:1 to just as many manufacturers making the Uranium Fuel Rods. I'd like to focus on the remaining 3 input items needed by the manufacturers making UFRs, which are:
Electromagnetic Control Rods 168/min Beacons 100.8/min
Crystal Oscillators 50.4/min

Now, I see 3 ways to use as little belts as possible to feed the manufacturers in this scenario. In order of belts/splitters needed:

1. one manifold per input item (3 splitters per machine + 3 belts, ||assuming manifold feeding to only 1 side since the Cells' manufacturers would be on the other side|| totaling 83x3 splitters + their 3 connecting belts)
2. one sushifold for all the items (1 splitter per machine, totaling 83 smart splitters and one connecting belt)
3. one sushi balancer for all the items (Splitting one input in 84 parts requires a 1:7 split followed by a 1:12, for a total of 53 programmable splitters and connecting belts. The final splitters each need only one belt to feed the manufacturers connected to it)

[mystic flower]

Ok is this bug, or I understand this in a wrong way? I have four rafineries for bauxite, which each consumes 180m cubic of water.... which is in total 720 cubic meters of water....

Then I have connected these 4 rafineries to two another rafineries, which process the alluminum scrap, which produces each 120 cubic meters of water.... (240 in total)

So I have 4 water pumps (4x120 = 480)

So in the pipes system should be enough water....

But problem is that these rafineries stops, becuase water system has too much water.... but why?

[fierce ruin]

are mergers more efficient in a 2 to 1 setup or no difference?

[maiden edge]

Have you tried attaching a buffer to see if that helps

[mystic flower]

I do not use liquid buffers - as each input and ouput has its own right?

[magic egret]

its because the way you built your pipes, the water from the extractors blocks the backflow from the refineries so they get stuck

at least thats what usually happens

you need a variable priority junction as explained in the pipeline manual on page 14

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/satisfactory_gamepedia_en/images/3/39/Pipeline_Manual.pdf

that way you can safely feed the water byproduct back into the refineries

[oblique hollow]

make all the pipes into a loop, a big circle

so it can flow both ways

[woeful moth]

Hi, I have a problem I am new to satisfactory and I want everything to be perfect but I don't understand how to do all math and percentages. Can somebody help me with it?

[prime night]

they pinned a calculator, but i too would like to know the math formula's so i can get some practice in

though i'm not playing atm, but was hoping they'd pin a cheatsheet

[versed violet]

Nope, the whole nuclear exclusion area is outside the designated Fix-It landing zone [outside map borders]. So our land is clear 😛

[remote plover]

satisfactory calculator

[woeful moth]

Thanks

[limber cradle]

I'm planning to make a supercomputer factory, are any more alternate recipes advised?

[remote plover]

quartz recipes are good

silicon circuit boards and crystal computers

[limber cradle]

I'm sick of oscillators tbh

but thanks, the rest seems really good

[wind spade]

recycled rubber, alternate HOR

fused quickwire

steamed copper sheets, steel screws

wire or cable alts as well based on your preferences

[limber cradle]

thanks

[livid raptor]

cable alt with rubber.. you already have rubber in the mix so if you can put up with assemblers instead of constructors, the throughput of cable is pretty good

[river chasm]

how would one balance 6 full mk5 belts into 4? if it's possible

[wind spade]

if they are full, how can you make less belts out of more?

also, why do you need to balance them?

[cinder silo]

Maybe he just wants 4 belts of 1170

[river chasm]

*she

I guess I could work with a 6 to 8 balancer

[river chasm]

I use a hybrid of a manifold and a balancer, idk the term for it

[wind spade]

huh

[livid raptor]

I call it a malancer.. I totally made the name up because I didn't know what to call it either lol

I use it for my modular factories.. so each floor is balanced but the building's floors are filled with a smart manifold

this way only the first floor is running until the input products start to backup, then they overflow and kickstart the second floor.. and so on

[remote ice]

question

am i the only one who builds balancers out of industrial storage containers

since they have 2 belts in and 2 belts out, and output evenly so long as input is greater than o utput

[ashen furnace]

192 on 1xMk2 miner overclocking.
Spread for splitters to calculate correct volumes of ingots to each crafter.

This is all for 1x assembler of modular frames. Reinforced plates and rotors.

Including some for the tickets

[limber cradle]

wiki says they don't output evenly?

gonna test it out

[livid raptor]

no, I use them to balance water packaging and unpackaging.. since 16 coal generators need 720 water per minute.. and a setup of 64 (4 batteries of generators).. so I have to balance all the water coming by train from every where else

[vapid gorge]

The answer is don’t. Just make a seperate manifold for each of the 4 belts and clock your machines

[livid raptor]

this assumes you have the input to be able to clock them properly

[vapid gorge]

Well this makes the input less rather than merging them so should be fine?

[river chasm]

all my machines are fully overclocked, always

[vapid gorge]

Why do you enjoy pain. XD

[river chasm]

im a masochist /hj

[livid raptor]

i do it for higher tier factories

[river chasm]

also, I'm being conscious of the object limit

and hooking up machines is less painful

[vapid gorge]

You’re also making the whole thing have multiple dependencies with the other merged belt. Much harder to trouble shoot, messier to set up

[river chasm]

I found a better way to divide the belts

[vapid gorge]

It’s possible the complicated merger system will have more objects :/

[river chasm]

this makes it worth it

[limber cradle]

idk why i even tested it, I'm barely thinking atm

but generally that would require you to waste some resources to make sure you are making more than you are outputting

just so it balances

[remote ice]

or split into multiple, slower belts, balance, and remerge back into better belts

though i don't do that since i mainly used it as a imperfect balancer to even out resource input from multiple nodes that i didn't keep track of the purities of

far from perfect, but a 4x4 ISC balancer is a lot simpler than doing it with belts

and also has no clipping

[limber cradle]

is it still satisfactory

without any clipping

[cursive garnet]

Curious for your guy's opinion on this: I have a factory making 1080 steel/min and I'm wondering how I should divide that up between steel beams and steel pipes?

[livid raptor]

probably more pipe than beam.. alt recipe for rotors out of pipes and wire.. so motors purely from pipes and wire..

[burnt wraith]

the only thing I have that uses beams is versatile framework

[livid raptor]

heavy frames?

[burnt wraith]

pipe

[livid raptor]

and encased beams.. which need beams

[cursive garnet]

I have the alt recipe for steel screws but that doesn't require much in terms of steel beams

[burnt wraith]

encased beam: pipe

[livid raptor]

touche.. forgot about that alt

[cursive garnet]

The alt for encased beams is a 2/min slower though (albeit much more efficient)

Okay I'm just gonna go with 480/min pipes and 90/min beams considering I already have infrastructure in place to support exactly that amount of pipe throughput

[livid raptor]

this makes me rethink my steel train station now.. I have producing encased beams and stators.. steel split in half and using the copper and concrete that was next to it.. would it be better to convert it all to pipe? I have beams coming from a different factory, this was dedicated to encased beams

[crude coyote]

I make a small amount of steel beams but most of my steel goes to pipes (encased industrial pipe, heavy encased frame etc)

[cursive garnet]

I realized like an hour after I set everything up I could have done 540 pipes and 60 beams but oh well

not going back and redoing it for the 3rd time

[crude coyote]

doesn't really matter tbh, just put up a new steel factory

[remote plover]

I think it kind of balances out over time

[remote ice]

no, that is correct. It's impossible for a train station to output 2 full belts

[maiden edge]

why does flow rate in pipes fluxuate so much

like i should have a constant flow of around 500 but it dips down to nothing at times

[remote ice]

the output of machines isn't constant, it fluctuates. So flow all along the pipe will fluctuate too

you can reduce or eliminate this with buffering, but it's not strictly necessary

[still trout]

since you should be getting 500, it's completly fine

[limber cradle]

do I need to add a pump on every split

or is one before it splits enough?

[crude coyote]

welcome to "let's trigger all the perfectionist/anal-retentive people with an innocuous screenshot" TV show

one before it splits is enough, assuming all else is adequate (e.g. flow, etc)

[limber cradle]

thanks

It looked obvious at first but then I realised I've never split a pipe before getting it to adequate height

[crude coyote]

headlift from a pump will apply downstream to all splits, unless it gets reset by something e.g. an unpowered pump

[oblique hollow]

in your case, yes, a pump on each one would be safer

while normal pipe mechanics should make this work, its not reliable actually

so pumps are needed

[limber cradle]

[oblique hollow]

your piping here is unfortunately the worst way possible

[limber cradle]

now it is even more uneven

[median heath]

Oh you don't need pumps, you need valves for that system.

1 pump at the start will headlift the entire line, but valves are key for vertical pipe manifolds.

[oblique hollow]

why would valves help

[median heath]

Flow limit.

[sacred shore]

Yes this

[median heath]

Force X amount to stay in a pipe.
My entire coal setup in my U5 run is a vertical pipe manifold (thought I explained this to you at one point).

Valves keep the amount needed in each section so the fluid actually goes up reliably.
*ofc requires full pipes for consistency.

You valve the horizontal sections of the pipes.

[glad vigil]

Pumps are like valves, but they can also be turned off

[median heath]

Pumps are not like valves because they don't have a flow limit setting and they also don't allow backpressure.

[supple belfry]

Question in this vein: do valves actually work? I recall trying to use them on my first aluminum setup and feeling like they were totally ineffective, and seem to remember hearing several people on the subreddit affirm as much.

[median heath]

Yes but they are not precise.
They also allow for back pressure, which a lot of people don't take into consideration.

If you set one to say 250, you'll be getting like 240-260 through depending. It's not a hard-stop at 250.

Idk if anyone has tested exactly how imprecise valves are, but I could try some things in my fluid dynamics room 🤷‍♂️

[oblique hollow]

it does not allow 260 at limit 250

thats nonsense

at best its something like 251.2 or whatever

[median heath]

I apologize for exaggerating.
Like I said idk if anyone has testing how imprecise they are so my ability to give an accurate range is lacking. 🤷‍♂️

[oblique hollow]

ive used them often enough and the inaccuracy seems more like a display issue

seems concistent enough. 0.5% Error
this is a consistency test at Mach 15

and mk 2 pipe perfomance seems consistent too

game has troubles calculating efficiency at this speed but......

[median heath]

Less than a percent of bleed is completely acceptable tbh.

If error and there is no bleed, great, but if accurate and it's that low, perfectly fine.

[oblique hollow]

in most cases the inaccuracy is negligible. it does it accurate enough for the machines

and it always seems to be less than 1%

in my case, its a refinery set to 600m³/min alumina solution, split into 5 refineries

and i have a valve set to 480/min

it shows as 482 (481.9 in the valve)
but the first refinery still isnt starving

i could probably let this run at mach 30 for hours before anything shows up

if even

[crude coyote]

main issue with valves is the need for full pipes before the valve to actually get the valve throughput

but that is easily solvable and even more so now that saveload loss is no longer a thing

[oblique hollow]

yep

it seems to me though that water extractors have a bigger inaccuracy

[cursive garnet]

I have a factory making 1920 iron ore/min and idk how to divide it up between the various parts that need to be automated

[oblique hollow]

dont ask yourself "i have this much input, how much can i make"
ask yourself "i want this much output, how much does it need"

[median heath]

^

[oblique hollow]

pick a random amount of output if you dont know how much you want to make

thats the best way to go about it

[median heath]

People keep trying to solve forwarda and I don't understand it. 🤷‍♂️

[cursive garnet]

Currently what I'm doing, but I'm trying to plan for end game as well (currently working on tier 5 and 6) and trying to plan to have enough output

[median heath]

You can't plan for endgame until you know what you want to do for endgame.

[oblique hollow]

there is no "best amount needed" for the endgame

[cursive garnet]

I have a general idea, and I know it involves lots of stuff I currently need to automate

[oblique hollow]

it all comes dont to much much you are willing to build

[median heath]

This is why I am not memeing with how I label tiers.
Game does not start until you unlock mk5's.

T0-2 = Onboarding
T3-4 = Prologue
T5-6 = Tutorial
T7-8 = Game Starts

[oblique hollow]

you cannot preplan best dedication of inputs without knowing outputs

so now you just pick at random

and if its not enough anymore in the future (which it WILL at some point), you build more

thats the game loop

dont try to solve it all from the start

you solve it as you go along

[frosty owl]

I always make use of this fact with ISCs in unloading stations

[remote flame]

The way I always playthrough satisfactory is minimalistic. Until I have sufficient aluminium production and the materials to make MK3 miners, I don't look at 'what are my inputs', I look at 'if I build non stop a major facility, how much of each resource am I expecting to use per minute so supply meets demand'. Sevrahns way of looking at it is completely right, the game truly starts right there at tier 7-8 because you can build anything you want from that moment forward, knowing it can not be pushed further beyond the Mk3 miner extraction rates and MK5 belt limitations. And with alt recipes.. no need to look at inputs anymore lol

But anyway to roughly answer the question...
Iron rods and plates, I on average burn 60 rods a minute, 80 plates a minute over a whole factory build. So you could try those numbers.
I burn 30ish rein. Plate and 20 modular frames a minute similarly.
Screws.. you don't need it late game, 40 a minute is overkill. Rotors.. 30 a minute.
I guess I'd design the factory (if I was you) to be a supply hub, it serves no purpose other than fuelling the future projects

[cinder silo]

My aluminium production went to crap after I demolished the plates/casing plant that I was unhappy with so now there are just 144 smelters sending ingots in to a sink again 😡

[median heath]

Don't let it go to crap, let it go to SCRAP!

[cinder silo]

🤣

[tawny chasm]

also, the game starts when it starts

you're just talking about when you can start building endgame, with max logistics possible, etc

like without any planning for 'i can expand this way when i get faster belts' or whatever

[wind spade]

You can also just build stuff as you need.

[cursive garnet]

I have a list of 4 things that I want to automate, with each item requiring its own set of supplies, it's just figuring out how much I want to make and the best way to go about it

[median heath]

QW Stator using Fused QW
2 Stators = 1.25 Ct Ingot, 6.25 Cu Ingot

Base Stator using Fused Wire
2 Stators = 0.5333 Ct Ingot, 2.1333 Cu Ingot

Base Stator using Iron Wire
2 Stators = 8.888 Fe Ingot

@tropic hawk not entirely sure why my brain chose this comparison... but it started to change my mind on Fused Wire until I just changed it to Iron Wire... and this is why I don't used Fused 🤷‍♂️

(Also has me questioning what the purpose of the QW Stator alt is? Would it just be saving space at the cost of higher resource requirement?)

[mint sedge]

It does seem poorly balanced when compared to using fused wire

[winter obsidian]

Not only should you look at the input, but the QW version does 8/min where just using wire is 5/min. If you are also have power concerns, QW is is 112.5MJ per item where Wire is 180MJ per item.

[median heath]

Um...
The x/min value will be whatever I set it to. So that's not really an accurate comparison. (per minute per machine matters as that tells you what the space factor is)

Game doesn't do anything in MJ except vehicle fuels.

[wind spade]

And generator fuels 🤷

[median heath]

Generators do things in static MW.

Best example of this is Compacted Coal.
If you look at it in terms of MJ, you should never burn it because it is a net MJ loss considering the production chain.
But because the game doesn't do power in terms of MJ, and cares only about static MW - burning it is a gain by the game's standards compared to just regular Coal.

[wind spade]

Game calculates stuff from fuel MJ 🤷

[median heath]

Can you say that with more words?

Because I am unclear on your meaning.

Game does things in MW. Something either is on or off.
If on, requires MW.

[wind spade]

I'm still talking about generators

[median heath]

I'm still unclear to your meaning.

[wind spade]

game knows

• generator output in MW
• fuel's MJ

everything else is a calculated value displayed to user

when gen is burning fuel, the game is reducing item's MJ to produce MW, hence calculating with MJ

[median heath]

So you're saying the game stores a fuel's MJ value and converts that into a burn time instead of just storing a burn time value?

[wind spade]

I'm pretty sure it is that way

[median heath]

"Pretty sure" unfortunately doesn't cut it for me on this particular thing.

Because if you're right... I'm confused because why make the game constantly convert one value into another when you could just have it using the other value with no conversion runtime required?

[wind spade]

Caculations are then just every tick: current fuel mj -= gen mw * delta

[median heath]

I don't think they did anything that special with generators, but I could be wrong.
My perception of how they operate is nearly identical framework to every other machine in the game. Input and Cycle Time. Just they have no output.

[oblique hollow]

thats a lie

its not energy negative

sulfur has no inherent power value

so best you can assume is all the miner power and assembler power

[median heath]

Yes...

That is what the whole MJ thing was...

[wind spade]

remember when gens scaled their power?

(and some of them still do)

[median heath]

MJ spent running all Miners and Assemblers over time, converted in to MJ...
@oblique hollow I know you were around when that was all presented...

[median heath]

Yes.

[oblique hollow]

Uh yeah but again, assigning items that dont have a power value power is meaningless

in the game code, fuel items store their energy as a number

and yes, it technically is the MJ value

but MJ is useless for all other items

because we dont care about the power spent on a single item

[median heath]

That's why it got debunked.

So step back with the whole "you lied" bit.

[wind spade]

for those purposes, burn time is irrelevant, you need to calculate with MJ

[median heath]

So it's carryover from the old system. 👍

Which means MJ matters for... Bioburners 😂
And everything else can just be simplified to burn time.

[wind spade]

can be but isn't

[oblique hollow]

even with assemblers MJ math for comp. should not be negative

i dont get where the hell that came from

[wind spade]

burn time is a thing that changes based on clock speed, MJ stays fixed no matter what

[oblique hollow]

5 coal + 5 Sulfur = 5 compacted.

15 MW assembler + some MW from miners and then water extractors

[median heath]

It was because the conclusion was about how it is only worth it if you underclock the Compacted Assemblers below X%.

[oblique hollow]

even then, makes no sense

[wind spade]

looking at it from developer's point of view:

• the less calculations with decimals you make, the more accurate will the calculations be

so, for your's burn time approach:

• calculate burn time
• calculate production
  -> results in two calculations

while when using MJ:

• calcualte production
  -> only one calculation, imo better

[oblique hollow]

2 assemblers take 30 MW and make 525 MW of power in the end

[median heath]

You're arguing that I lied about how it is worth it in terms of MW but not MJ by explaining how it is worth it in terms of MW without mentioning MJ...

Give me a minute to do the bad math and refresh your memory.

Using miner mk1's:

Coal costs 5MJ to make and gives you 300, so it is a net 295 MJ per unit.

Compacted costs 5 MJ per both Coal and Sulfur, and an additional 36 MJ per unit from running the Assembler (15*12/5). Gives you 630 so that is a net of 584.

The BAD argument was that 2 Coal nets you 590 MJ where 1 Coal + 1 Sulfur nets you 584.
Which is stupidity because the way power works now is just static MW.
Where it takes 15 static MW to run the Assembler, but Compacted can run 2.1 generators compared to Coal's 1. Which is 157.5 MW vs just 75 MW.
Take out the 75 and the 15 and it is still a net gain of 67.5 MW to your power grid per item.

@oblique hollow

[wind spade]

The BAD argument was that 2 Coal nets you 590 MJ where 1 Coal + 1 Sulfur nets you 584.
that's actually correct argument, but it implies we're comparing 2 coal vs 1 coal + 1 sulfur. Which in most people heads we don't, because when they are comparing coal vs compacted, they compare 1 coal vs 1 compacted.

for math people, the way you shared is a legit way to compare them, expect it implies 1 coal has same weight as 1 sulfur, which it rarely does.

number of generators it can run is only relevant for calculating water intake (which also reduces the total MJ/MW)

[median heath]

It's no longer a legit way to compare them because power is static now outside of biogens.

[wind spade]

that isn't relevant at all, unless I don't understand what you mean

net MJ can be easily converted to net MW 🤷‍♂️

[median heath]

Put equal weight on sulfur.
The fact it is 6 MJ less by comparison isn't relevant because the way your power grid works is static amount of MW all the time and the static MW output is a net positive even if the MJ is a net negative.

(MW net is +45.5 per unit if you account for the extra Water Extractor)

[wind spade]

the problem isn't MJ or static MW. It's that you're calculating with items, not items/min

[median heath]

Multiply every number above by 60 and boom, items per minute...

[wind spade]

which will get you MJ/min -> convert to MW 🤷‍♂️

[median heath]

...

[oblique hollow]

If i run the math:

3.75 MJ per coal
3.75 MJ per sulfur
36 MJ for assembling
630 - (7.5 + 36) = 586.25 MJ net

1 Coal = 300 - 3.75 = 296.25MJ

im ignoring water extractors since those are a static thing for coal power

[median heath]

3.75 MJ per Coal is gotten.. how?
When a mk1 miner costs 5 MW to run?

[oblique hollow]

i assumed mk 3 lol

480/min, 30 MW

[median heath]

Even with this, 2 Coal = 592.5 > 586.25

[remote ice]

is it even the right idea to compare just the power output? That's hardly the sole factor for how good it is in practice; complexity, time to set up, etc are also important

[oblique hollow]

and?
if you double coal, you also need to double compacted

[wind spade]

ignoring the extractors (they are almost equal) and miners (they are equal assuming equal purity):

• 50/min coal produces 250 MW
• 25/min coal + 25/min sulfur with one assembler produces 262.5 MW - 15 MW for assembler = 247.5 MW (and needs slightly more water)

I calculated with MW and still got result that coal is better, your math must have some issue in it

[oblique hollow]

saying "i just need to double coal" is not a valid comparison

[median heath]

You're explaining to me how the bad argument is bad and I don't get it...

[oblique hollow]

its not an equivalent transform

[median heath]

The premise is that this was bad...

[oblique hollow]

i thought the premise was we tried to disprove the old argument of "compacted is power negative"

[wind spade]

but coal is still better 😛 the argument isn't bad (or rather it may be bad, but it gives correct results)

[oblique hollow]

via MJ in this case

[wind spade]

compacted coal is worse, no matter if you calculate with MJ or MW (worse = comparing X coal vs X/2 coal + sulfur)

[oblique hollow]

"If you look at it in terms of MJ"

that was my assumption.

was this serious or a bad shit-posty quote?

because at this point im confused

[oblique hollow]

no its not

[wind spade]

@oblique hollow then what did I do wrong here?

[oblique hollow]

why the hell would you half the compacted when comparing it to coal power

sulfur has no burn value

[remote ice]

wait, is this on the metric of adjusted resource value?

because if so then yes, i think compacted comes out behind

[wind spade]

• yes, adding extra sulfur to existing coal means you get more power
• no, replacing half coal with sulfur doesn't result in more power

[remote ice]

if we're mixing up the MJ value with the WP value this makes sense

[oblique hollow]

who cares bout WP

[remote ice]

because sulfur is roughly 5 times less abundant than coal

[wind spade]

WP is irrelevant here

[remote ice]

but i'm saying if someone is confusing MJ with WP, it makes sense

so maybe that's whats happening

[wind spade]

we're just talking about if compacted is better than coal and in which conditions.

result is

• yes, adding extra sulfur to existing coal means you get more power
• no, replacing half coal with sulfur doesn't result in more power

[median heath]

~~Coal 50/min = 3.3333 Gens, 250 MW
Compacted 50/min = 7 Gens, 525 MW, -2 Assemblers = 495 MW,

Accounting for Water: (let's be nice and say OC is linear)
Coal 50/min = 225 MW
Compacted 50/min = 442.5 MW~~

[oblique hollow]

exchanging sulfur for coal in compacted is a non-uniform exchange.
before, it was 300 MJ + some MJ for extracting = 630 MJ

with double coal its 300 + 300 + some for extracting = 600

[wind spade]

in your MJ example you stated 2 coal vs 1 coal + 1 sulfur, I thought we're comparing that 🤷‍♂️

[median heath]

Sec.

[oblique hollow]

why would we compare 2 coal

[wind spade]

The BAD argument was that 2 Coal nets you 590 MJ where 1 Coal + 1 Sulfur nets you 584.

• from Sev's MJ example

[median heath]

Ok so fuck...

Now I am back to "why would you ever burn Compacted...?" And why the hell would they make it worse?

[oblique hollow]

its not worse because comparing 2 coal to 1 compacted is not the same.
if i compare 10 generators vs 5, guess which power plant comes out on top?

[median heath]

6.666 is beating 7 though.

[oblique hollow]

120 coal makes 8 gens
50 compacted makes 7

assume 8 gens for both and then calculate MJ

[median heath]

100 makes 6.666

Less than 7 shouldn't beat 7.

[oblique hollow]

feed 8 gens with compacted and tell me the MJ you need.

[median heath]

You're forcing it to your comparison.

[wind spade]

calculating based on gens needed is weird tbh. you can always build more.

[remote ice]

okay but here's a question: when would you ever have the choice between 2 coal or 1 coal+1 sulfur

[oblique hollow]

of course you can always build more. and of course you can always just double the amount of coal to feed into your power plant so what is the damn point

[wind spade]

point is, you need to decide what you want to compare:

• fixed amount of resources coming in
  or
• add sulfur vs not add sulfur

[median heath]

100 mined units of coal nets 450 MW
100 mined units split between coal and sulfur nets 442.5 MW

[wind spade]

you can't always double amount of coal, there's resource limits, either local or global

[remote ice]

yes but the entire premise is that you can double the amount of coal, because the entire choice we're talking about is "do i pick 2 coal, or 1 coal and 1 sulfur"

if you can only pick 1 coal and 1 sulfur, then you go with that and it's unambiguously a upgrade over just 1 coal

even if 1 coal 1 sulfur was a slight downgrade compared to 2 coal, there should be virtually no situation where it matters because no one will be presented with that choice

[median heath]

I know in the grand scheme it doesn't matter because you always switch to nuclear or turbo...
But like.. this shouldn't even be a debate. Compacted should blow normal Coal out of the fucking water and I don't understand why it doesn't...

[remote ice]

it does, kinda

incorporating sulfur into the chain effectively turns it into coal

so long as you have enough coal in the first place, which you should, because there's way more coal around

[oblique hollow]

assume compacted wasnt made with sulfur but water

[remote ice]

1 coal gets you about 300mj, 1 coal + 1 sulfur gets you about 600mj. So in practice, incorporating sulfur into the process basically lets you convert 1 sulfur into 1 coal.

granted if you ask me, this still kinda sucks because sulfur is five times less common than coal, but sulfur is also kinda useless till tier 7-8 and coal is useful for steel so...

[median heath]

1 unit gets 300, 2 units gets 600
or
2 units gets 630, but subtract everything needed to combine those 2 units.

[remote ice]

yes, so basically you're supplementing your coal production with sulfur

[median heath]

Increase burn time to 9s and you're solid. But right now I am back to the position it should never be burned.

[oblique hollow]

ok, other argument.

assume it was made with 1 coal and one coke. both have a MJ value, so you wouldnt swap out the coke with coal due to MJ conversion

[remote ice]

why? sulfur is virtually useless before you get to batteries and stuff. Might as well burn it

unless you have more coal than you need, it's useful

[median heath]

Until I get to Aluminium I always have metric fucktons more Coal than I need.

[remote ice]

i ran out of coal on my tier 4 factory and my steel production suffered for it

granted i didn't have much of any sulfur either so it didn't help, but still

[median heath]

This sounds like you're doing massive builds during the prologue and tutorial... for... reasons?

[oblique hollow]

compacted is effectively diluted coal

[remote ice]

it was only like... 200-300 buildings? not sure

[median heath]

So yes.

[remote ice]

that's not massive

its a middling factory

[median heath]

Why are you building 300 machines during the prologue/tutorial?

[remote ice]

it was hardly the tutorial, it was tier 4

[median heath]

That's prologue.

Not even tutorial yet.

[remote ice]

and because i wanted to get a good factory layout that would last me for a while, reorganization is always more of a pain than just planning big from the start

[median heath]

I truly don't understand how your mind works 🤷‍♂️

[remote ice]

well i could just take that amble production and feed it in to supercomputers and cooling units and stuff

[median heath]

You have neither of those at T4

[remote ice]

yeah but i was going to make them, so why wouldn't i put down the foundations for that

[wind spade]

why wouldn't you build a factory for an item tho 🤔

[median heath]

If you know exactly where you're putting them and how many you're going to make... sure?
But that doesn't mean connect the lines to suck resources.

[remote ice]

honestly i was just glad to get away from biomass burners there, running two dozen biomass burners takes aaages

[median heath]

How did you need 24 bioburners???

[remote ice]

well i started this before i got to coal power

[median heath]

Ok but... how did you need 24 bioburners???

[remote ice]

to stop the fuses from breaking

[median heath]

Why are you building that big before you even get to the prologue?

[remote ice]

why wouldn't it? It's not like building gets easier, later on. This isn't factorio; placing buildings by hand is basically the same whether your in tier 2 or 8

the only thing you ever get to help with that is the hoverpack

so if i'm going to place the buildings, might as well start then. And i could use them anyway

[median heath]

Ok there is building... and then there is CONNECTING THE BUILDINGS.

Reroute back to "I truly don't understand how your mind works. 🤷‍♂️"

[remote ice]

well of course i didn't connect them until i finished the module

[wind spade]

I still don't understand the "don't build stuff until P5" or whatever Sev is saying. Like I need to automate stuff, it's a game about automation, so why wouldn't I automate stuff 🤔

[remote ice]

trying to work with smelters would suck if i realized i had to tear up half the belts that now have ore on them

but why wouldn't i plug in the buildings

[median heath]

I automate everything.
I just dont do large builds until the game actually starts.

[remote ice]

i mean, i have to feed the space elevator and stuff

[wind spade]

what do you define as a large build?

[median heath]

More than 12 of something prior to unlocking mk5s is insanity to me.

[oblique hollow]

the base assumption is "if i take the same amount of units but use a different approach i would get more power"

well yeah if you take 1 sulfur and 1 crude oil you get 1.333 turbofuel which is like 2666 MJ 😂

[wind spade]

essentially all you're producing goes either to sink or to storage with overflow to sink.
I'd build everything I need in storage in amounts enough so that I won't run out if I'm building new stuff, if I wanted points, I'd build something for sinking 🤷‍♂️ but I wouldn't limit it to X per minute just because reasons

[median heath]

I will get to your Coke thing when I actually get up. It's 0426 and I need to be at my computer for a comprehensive reply.

[oblique hollow]

aight get some sleep

[remote ice]

see here's the thing. What i do is build it all, and then plug it in

so if i plug in 2 buildings to make the whatever part for the elevator, do you know what i do then?

i sit on my ass and wait for 5 hours, which sucks.

[median heath]

Storage. Then deletion and remade into next items needed.
Then storage of those.
Repeat until mk5s.

[remote ice]

so instead i build for 5 hours, and then wait for 5 minutes. Much nicer.

[median heath]

Go get hard drives while waiting.

[remote ice]

got them all, and all the slugs

that was a step for building the buildings, since i ran out of slugs for overclocking early on

[median heath]

You got every slug in the game prior to T5?

[remote ice]

yes

t5 is gas mask and stuff right? i kinda forgot

if so, yes

i was going to do it earlier but sprint speed without the legs sucks

[median heath]

Sounds like we do time management different. 🤷‍♂️
Because I've never sat around waiting for hours.

[wind spade]

deletion?

[remote ice]

neither did i, but that's because i built big first

[median heath]

But I also never automate Project Parts.

[remote ice]

i mean sure everything was idling during the time i searched for slugs, but it was also idling during normal construction and finding the slugs was a mandatory part of the construction process

[median heath]

T0-T6 is all done on like a 10x10 grid that makes what is needed for that phase and excess storage in prep for future ones.
After that it gets wiped and remade to meet the needs of the new phase.
I do not make my first permanent outpost until the game actually starts.

[median heath]

I will uninstall before I intentionally have a yellow light on a production machine.

[remote ice]

lemme try and find what i had build back when i was on biomass

[wind spade]

I would do modular system - each factory could be rebuilt if I needed more of that, but there's no reason to delete existing factories that are working (even if they don't use the most optimal recipes)

[median heath]

I get to Coal on 6 burners so I am sure I will hate it 😂

[median heath]

The parenthesis counters the "no reason" suggestion.

[wind spade]

they do not. You can just build new factory that uses those most efficient recipes 🤷‍♂️

[remote ice]

ah here it is

[wind spade]

unless your reason is "just because"

[median heath]

My reason is they aren't optimal.
ADA demands Efficiency First so sub-optimal outposts cannot be tolerated.

[median heath]

Reroute back to "I truly don't understand how your mind works. man_shrugging"

[remote ice]

and this is from right before i completed t4, right after i finished nabbing the slugs and all obtainable harddrives (about 80 hours later iirc)

[wind spade]

but ada doesn't say what efficiency

[median heath]

Unless you're building it in the exact layout to where all you need to do is upgrade to mk5s.. I don't get it. 🤷‍♂️

[magic egret]

meanwhile i built a factory for 10 versatile frames per minute in tier 4

[median heath]

Imagine automating Project Parts...

[magic egret]

i will need thousands of them, better to start early

[remote ice]

well this is what it looks like right now, in t8. Notice how i haven't had to add much of anything, or even touch the old production i already set up? I only added buildings to make the stuff i unlocked past t4, and upgraded to oil power.

[median heath]

By that logic, start stockpiling the fuck out of Cable.

As it stands now the total amount of the base Project Assembly parts you need to complete the game are:

Smart Plating: 6,550
Versatile Framework: 13,000
Automated Wiring: 60,850

[median heath]

You're also a megabase person, I see..

[magic egret]

i am, and everything else as well

[median heath]

Hopefully not everything.

[magic egret]

well the 33 items worth storing at least

[median heath]

Good man/woman 👍

[oblique hollow]

aight so i did the math if compacted took coal and coke instead of sulfur

youd get like 412 MW from it

for 50 coal and 12.5 crude oil

if you took 2 coal instead, youd get around 445 MW again

just coke, youd get roughly 246 MW

if you consider coke alone, it would be like upgrading coke

but for some reason compacted with sulfur gets a different treatment

Compacted to Coal is like Apple Juice to Multifruit juice.

I take 5 oranges and 5 apples and make a juice, that sells quite well for what i invested into it.

"But ooooh if you instead took 10 apples and made apple juice you'd get more money"

Its literally apples and oranges

[median heath]

It's not even 6 yet and I can assure you my reply is going far more in depth than that because in my head it leads to me solving other things that will be interesting but irrelevant.

[oblique hollow]

Honestly, the apple and orange juice analogy works well

considering the oranges cannot be sold on their own

[vapid gorge]

I don’t have to, it’s real

[remote flame]

If I grab my current little world I'm here and there on, it's the same thing, all the way to T8 in the same location, haven't even been to the south of the map yet

[toxic inlet]

thanks

i needed this

[median heath]

Still doing MJ stuff but here are some interesting lines:

Coal is 300 MJ Base - 3.75 (Miner) - 30 (Water) = 266.25 MJ Net
Compacted is 630 MJ Base - 3.75 - 3.75 (Miners) - 36 (Assembler) - 63 (Water) = 523.5 MJ Net

Coke is 180 MJ Base - 5 (Oil) - 15 (HOR Ref) - 15 (Coke Ref) = 145 MJ Net
Note: HOR valued at 400 MJ (325 Net), but makes 435 by being changed to Coke.

(Diluted) Fuel is 750 MJ Base - 15 (Oil) - 22.5 (HOR) - 45 (Blender) - 10 (Water) = 657.5 MJ Net
Turbo (Blend) is 2000 MJ Base - 100 (Blender) - 219.17* (Fuel) - 72.5 (Coke) - 1.875 (Miner) - 30 (HOR) = 1576.455* MJ Net

Fun Fact: When you use Coke in Coal gens, the most accurate comparison is 1 Coal = 266.25 MJ Net, 1 Compacted = 532.5 MJ Net, and 1 Oil = 580 MJ Net.

[oblique hollow]

sulfur cannot be burned on its own

i thinks thats the crucial point

exchanging something useless for something useful isnt the same

2 coal vs 1 coal and 1 sulfur ignores the exchange of "i cant burn sulfur" to "i can burn coal"

if you ignore the 1 coal on both sides, what do you get?
1 coal for 300 MJ vs 1 sulfur for 0 MJ

[wind spade]

sulfur can be used in other ways tho

[still cedar]

with 240 copper / minute how many constructors would i need to get the most out of the copper (without any boosters) to make wire

[magic egret]

to make what

[still cedar]

sorry forgot to add what

Wire

[magic egret]

16 constructors

[still cedar]

oh yeah, im just dumb, my apologies, have a good one o/

[magic egret]

np

[limber cradle]

can all this fit in a civilized manner in the pink rectangle

or should I find a place somewhere else to put it?

[empty glade]

🤔 4 blenders, manufacturers, refineries... could be tough

[limber cradle]

alright

I'll make concrete, steel and iron outside of it

[wind spade]

Or just use verticality 😉

[empty glade]

Is that civilized?

[limber cradle]

verticality comes after I use this floor

[median heath]

2D designs in a 3D game.
Devs have so much of their effort wasted on so many players... 😭

[obtuse elm]

Make some sweet videos to help those of us that struggle to get our heads around the idea 😛

[limber cradle]

I am terrible at designing, making stuff 2D is the only way for it not to look like shit and actually align

• whats the point of making nice factories if you end up putting them in a box

[oblique hollow]

personal satisfaction in your satisfactory

[median heath]

Videos no, but I'll be screenshotting all my builds in my new run when U6 drops.

[obtuse elm]

I am legitimately interested in the idea, so if you plan on setting up something more accessible than the SS channel to show them off, I'd love to be able to find them 😛

[median heath]

I mean, you can go on reddit and look up Outpost One: Steel to see what I did with Coal Lake West in my last run 🤷‍♂️

I also will be posting in #design-and-architecture

[uncut sigil]

For the most part you're just stacking 2D planes anyway.

[magic egret]

they should let us build machines on walls

[uncut sigil]

U7: the Escher update

[static drift]

Honestly I just want to put conveyor holes in the wall where I want and I'd be happy.

[gentle berry]

Yeah, it’d be cool to see a conveyor running into pitch black darkness

[vapid gorge]

@turbid otter this is the sequence I'm working on. https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=VP5WWowRrWCsSnJoL3Zr Cat isn't my limiting resource still

ooooh this is VERY convenient but you have to find the right spot for it

In fact I built it for convenience

That's fair 🙂
I made this production line in regards to the spot between the dune desert and the swamp. All the components are very close at hand for the most part even in those quantities.

I don't think it would be convenient to do this line anywhere else though

[dim comet]

@vapid gorge So I'm still fairly new. Wait, you're going to build 1626 refineries? 😮

I thought my 10 was a lot 😄

[vapid gorge]

That's ok! And that's just super computers. I'm going to overclock everything though so it'll be more like 700 refineries for that area

[glad vigil]

I am scared of your pc

If it has ability to run that with reliable frame rate, it will probably develop self-consciousness soon

[stable carbon]

who says it hasnt already?

[thorn bane]

can it though?

[wind spade]

batteries 🤷‍♂️

[thorn bane]

but you dont need much sulfur to get all the batteries you could want

batteries are way more capped by other resources

and all the other uses of sulfur are power

[wind spade]

except batteries are literally capped by sulfur

[thorn bane]

well you need bauxite for other things so youre capped by bauxite

unless youre doing only batteries without any anything else

[wind spade]

there's also this thing called local resource limits 🤷‍♂️

[thorn bane]

sure but by that logic if you have sulfur next your oil theres no reason not to use it for turbofuel

my point is that if you use normal recipes doing normal game progression sulfur is rarely used and free to use for power

which most people do use for power btw once they do nuclear

[wind spade]

I'm just saying that everyone weights resources differently 🤷‍♂️

[thorn bane]

well i have yet to see a single person that uses no sulfur for power and doesnt weight sulfur as abundant

[median heath]

I sink it. 😉

[oblique hollow]

imagine maximizing batteries

[thorn bane]

tbf some people do just use drones for everything
like delivering ore from miner to smelter

[vapid estuary]

@wind spade I want you to know how much the work you do on your site is appreciated. Is u6 going to be a big lift for you? And did you get access early 😉

[wind spade]

no and no

well, we'll see 🙂

I have a script that updates everything I need automatically

however if U6 introduces some big changes in the data files, it may take me a few hours to make the update work

[vapid estuary]

Spiffy

[magic egret]

i just found the manifold tool

neato

[median heath]

Maximizing Alien Protein 👀

[vapid gorge]

manifold tool?

[magic egret]

on greenys old site

pretty handy

[median heath]

Radar Towers now immediately reveal a set radius around them.
Thank you ADA 🙇‍♂️