math-and-meta

[tropic hawk]

Yep. Kinda wish the radiation calculator had the plutonium products listed

[wind spade]

even the uranium ones have different values now, so it's not accurate 🤔

plan is to bring both tools to new site eventually

but these CSS developers keep releasing new updates

[frosty owl]

The competition grows fiercer

Who will be able to update their stuff first?!
Taking all bets

[limber cradle]

what the hell are those crackhead ratios

[still edge]

that is.. awful

[limber cradle]

what is the point of designing a recipe that gives you a stroke at 100% speed

[still edge]

as long as it's satisfactory

[limber cradle]

ooh and if anyone is curious (not a single soul is) I did manage to fit it all nicely after removing the foundries and refineries from the rectangle

[vapid estuary]

It looks like that machine is not clocked 100%

[limber cradle]

it is clocked 100

you can check it on the wiki

[magic egret]

its because the recipe takes 64 seconds, not 60

though it could still be more convenient i suppose but then itd be too easy

[limber cradle]

[median heath]

HEALTH REGEN INFO:

• Still impossible to die from a fall when at max hp.
• Takes a combined 20s to regen all 3 of the critical health boxes.
• Takes 40s each to regen any health box above critical.

[wind spade]

normal ratios 🤷‍♂️

[median heath]

Who cares about ratios?
You're not actually making just 2.8125 HMFs.
Pick how many you are actually going to make and then look at how much of the ingredients you need.

[limber cradle]

i care because it makes every other ratio shit itself

and I end up with silly numbers like 290.91 iron per minute

[median heath]

Why are you doing ratios instead of just amounts?

[limber cradle]

I am doing amounts but because of the ratio i end up wasting resources

[median heath]

It's nigh impossible to do everything perfect because of the way the game is setup. So I would pick your threshold of where you care and where you don't.
For me it is primarily ore. If I have like +1-3 extra ore per minute from a miner I can live with that.
Secondary threshold for when I have to cross oil products with ore products because of how the 45-81 rule works.

[vapid estuary]

If you overclocking it 3/2.2813 = ~ 107% things get a little closer to normal

./

[wind spade]

why do you need that tho

just build X machines and underclock the last to whatever your required amount is

[median heath]

It is 2.8125 though...

[vapid estuary]

I don’t

[wind spade]

you don't care about per machine output

it's irrelevant

[vapid estuary]

Ya, I meant 3/2.8125 = 106.666%

[glad vigil]

You can make everything even tighter

By shortening belts feeding assemblers, constructors and so on

And using conveyor lifts for second input instead of regular conveyor

I find it also very useful to build buildings on different floors to save horizontal space

[frank mesa]

Just did a 32/min Heavy modular frame factory using separate logistics floors, that does work out really nice actually.

Also took the pipes up 2m, or even 4m on a revised doctrine, for the refineries, using downpipes to feed from a ring manifold

[limber cradle]

i know, but I didn't plan anything out so I just got less and less compact as I saw how much space I have left

also it's fucking awful because someone bragged how a single conveyor and smart splitters is good so I gave it a go

and this shit just keeps on clogging

[wary tulip]

You’ve got to have perfect balance or overflow controls if you are single belting multiple items.

[median heath]

What are the settings on the last splitter on the line?

(Person who bragged was me. Because sushi manifolds are amazing and are incapable of clogging or failure. Which means you did something incorrectly if it is clogging.)

[tawny chasm]

what is the 45-81 rule mate?

[oblique hollow]

most things yield nice machine numbers if you produce 45 or 81 per minute of somethinf

[tawny chasm]

lol wut

is that deliberate

[oblique hollow]

maybe

[median heath]

45 for non-oil
81 for Plastic/Rubber when using Recycled.

And those are just the whole numbers.
Doing non-oil in terms of 45, 22.5, 10.25, 5.125
10.25 is the safest low number, some things work fine with 5.125's.

Oil in terms of 81, 40.5, 20.25, 10.125
Again, 10.125 is fine, so if you wanted say 100 of Plastic, I would instead do 101.25 (81+20.25) because it automatically eliminates any repeating decimals from all machines in the production chain by staying within the 45-81 rule.

It makes machines cleaner, but you'll end up with +1-3 extra product when crossing oil with non-oil in later recipes. So either bleed to storage or sink excess /shrug

[tawny chasm]

have y ou got an example diagram/setup?

super curious now

[median heath]

Um...
Go to Tools.
Enable all alts, do Rubber in any amount you like and look at the weird numbers.
Then do it in a multiple of 81 and see for yourself.

[tawny chasm]

just thought you might have a tab in tools already that you could share

i'll fiddle about with it 😄 thx

[median heath]

I'm busy with U6 and fielding multiple conversations atm, sorry 😭

[cursive garnet]

when clocked to produce 4, it actual gives really nice numbers tbh

[median heath]

Except those aren't the actual numbers.

[cursive garnet]

Considering I'm feeding in exactly 80 rubber/min and it has 0 downtime, I do believe those are the actual numbers :)

[median heath]

How long has it been running?

[cursive garnet]

For multiple hours at this point

[median heath]

Yeah it's going to take longer but it will stop eventually.

Because it doesn't need 80 Rubber/min

It needs 80.000025 Rubber/min.
Eventually that lack of 0.000025 will cause it to skip.

[cursive garnet]

Considering it'll be off by .25 (what's actually been fed in vs what it technically needs) after almost 7 days of continous running

I think I can live with it :)

[burnt wraith]

I think other things that happen due to lag or save/loading or whatever else is going on cause more of a problem than being off by 0.000025/min

[cursive garnet]

^^

If I cared enough, I'd be much more worried about the mod I'm using to limit throughput on belts instead of that .000025/min deficit

[tropic hawk]

Is the recipe for the new ammo on any sites yet?

[sacred orbit]

okay. so i'm going for the "3 assemblers making reinforced plates at default recipe" setup that splits 135 ingots into plate production and 45 ingots into screw production. i know the default iron plate recipe is 30/m input, so would i need 5 constructors with one underclocked?

[burnt wraith]

you need 450%, and 5 constructors with one underclocked is one way to do it

[sacred orbit]

good. and screws take 10/min input on default recipe. how should i handle inputting 45 rods/min?

another 5 with one halved?

[burnt wraith]

it's just 3 constructors

are you talking about the rod constructors or the screw constructors

[sacred orbit]

screw constructors

[burnt wraith]

it's the same as the plate constructors

[sacred orbit]

and then pile their outputs into manifolds(accounting for belt limitations)

and then divide them up amongst the assemblers

[burnt wraith]

this is a nice design for 2 assemblers #screenshots message

[sacred orbit]

said image doesn't tell you what's producing what...

[burnt wraith]

just scroll down

[sacred orbit]

though that DOES give me the idea to rework what i'm doing to have four assemblers. since the area i'm working in has eight impure nodes

and the system inputs 120 ingots?

[burnt wraith]

yeah

[sacred orbit]

how many plates/min and rods/min does the basic Modular frame recipe use?

i don't have the rotors to check

[burnt wraith]

3/12
you can also check the wiki

[sand epoch]

Or just chart in on tools..

[sacred orbit]

is there a splitter that can divide up an input of items in a gives ratio?

[burnt wraith]

it takes some trial and error to figure out the recipe on satisfactory tools but you can do it there too

[burnt wraith]

no, they just divide evenly (or at least try to)

[sacred orbit]

the programable one doesn't?

[sand epoch]

None dp

Do*

[sacred orbit]

fuck man. that'd be so useful

[sand epoch]

That why we have math... to create out own balancers..

[vapid gorge]

I thought the game rounded down at those decimal places?

[sacred orbit]

ok, but this two assembler setup says it'll produce 10 plates per minute. there's no good way to divert 3, 6, or 9 plates per minute into modular frames without making multiple setups, which i don't have the iron nodes for at this location.

[vapid gorge]

Why not change the clock speeds? make the assembler make 9 pm

[sacred orbit]

it's two of them, and that would require re-balancing the whole setup so it doesn't get backed up and cause idling.

[vapid gorge]

Wait... are you doing a step by step balance? Like you don't have a final X number of Y product in mind, you're just ... getting new items and doing balances every time?

[sacred orbit]

i'm using #screenshots message this setup

[vapid gorge]

Yes, but you didn't design the PREVIOUS machines to make the balance you wanted now?

[burnt wraith]

you're better off just making a certain amount then moving on instead of rebalancing your entire setup every time you want to make another part

just let it make extra and store some of the extra and let it go idle

or sink the extra

[vapid gorge]

Yeah, balancing looks pretty but unless you're doing it with a final product in mind where your belts and needs won't change you'll spend 95% of your time deleting and rebuilding belt systems

if your idea of fun is completely redesigning things on minute scale with every tech upgrade then go for it. But that sounds like actual hell to me

[sacred orbit]

i had the idea that, since this setup area could make 20/minute, i could split one of the outputs and divert it to the other one to make a stream of 15/min and 5/min.

[vapid gorge]

Yeah but it sounds like you're designing the balancer at each step rather than looking at the whole thing and planning it out that way

[sacred orbit]

then split the 15 and... oh my god it's brilliant. since that'd make the ratio 15/60. and rods are made 15/minute, i could bring over a line of iron rods from somewhere else that perfectly works!

[sacred orbit]

i WILL say that, for my first set of production for items, i did adjust clock speed to work with the limited input i had.

this area is going to be dedicated to these products, though.

[vapid gorge]

I mean if you want to balance a multistep factory you'll almost certainly have to tweak all the clock rates for ease of splitting

I kinda get why people might want to do load balancing at the end game point, but it baffles me why people do it at the start

[zinc eagle]

guys 9*40=360

360/12=30

360 is less than 600

so why my oil generators are not getting enough fuels?

[vapid gorge]

Almost certainly a pipe flow issue

[zinc eagle]

ive jet remade all the pipes 😭

maybe they need time

[vapid gorge]

Did you loop your manifold ? Did you flood the system with fuel before turning them all on?

[zinc eagle]

yeah

[vapid gorge]

Like, put the generators on standby, let all their storages fill completely, then turned it all on?

[zinc eagle]

welll

placed a few pumps to the right places

i guess the issue fixed

[vapid gorge]

You should only maybe need a pump right before you start splitting things in the manifold

[sacred orbit]

@burnt wraithit looks like, from the rods to the screws, the middle constructor is getting 15/min to start, then the whole thing eventually balances out. is that accurate?

[vapid gorge]

if it's flow not headlift

[zinc eagle]

no it got worse whatever i need to go work

[placid nymph]

So uh

I built a pretty big battery bank

2 GWh

But I did the math on that and it can (assuming the numbers correspond to IRL watts) power NYC for about 4 hours

[vapid gorge]

Not too surprising. Industrial power needs are greater than residential by a long shot

[placid nymph]

No that's the entire city

Or it could power almost half of Dubai for an hour

[vapid gorge]

There aren't really many metal smelters in nyc 😛

[placid nymph]

Dubai used 5.754 gigawatts constantly across 2021

Well, it used 50401 gigawatt hours in 2021

divided by one year gets 5.754 gigawatts on average

[vapid gorge]

divide that by number of hours in year

[placid nymph]

Wolfram Alpha to the rescue lol

[burnt wraith]

right

[placid nymph]

Oh my god

When the battery bank is fully charged I will be able to power North Korea for abour 1 hour and 23 minutes

Or I could power Cuba for 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds

Or Chad for almost 3.5 days

[zinc eagle]

found my probem its the raw oil input

[oblique hollow]

there you have it lol

[zinc eagle]

hate when im middle of a problem and have to go work :notlikethis

[oblique hollow]

main tip for pipe troubleshooting: literally check everything but the pipe flow first

check for shitty connections, check for pumps, check for machine numbers, etc

flow is the LAST thing you wanna check

[zinc eagle]

i made excel for machine numbahs

[oblique hollow]

oh and of course check machine inputs and outputs

those are more valuable than pipes flowing

[zinc eagle]

i have to go around the check the liter of raw input

[oblique hollow]

all machine inputs should be full (50 m3)

if not, make them

[zinc eagle]

im on that coast where there is a lot of oil but all just all over the place

[oblique hollow]

again, you only need to check the refineries first

[zinc eagle]

how much item getting consumed in a 100% atomic generator?

[oblique hollow]

0.2 rods / min

[zinc eagle]

items/min

[oblique hollow]

and 300 water / min

[zinc eagle]

ohhhhh

thanks now i calculate stuff

[glad vigil]

How did you get to nuclear power without calculating these

[limber cradle]

last one overflows steel pipes, because they are made the fastest

it is clogging because it takes a while for others parts to get made

so essentially I would need to use balancers instead of manifolders everywhere else

or wait hours until both manufacturers fill up

[frosty owl]

You're not shown those numbers until you burn your first nuclear rod

[frosty owl]

Define "clogging" please

[limber cradle]

steel pipes fill the machines and the belt

blocking the access for the rest

I've made an overflow for those, but now other parts can clog

and that I cannot overflow

because last time I tried, it overflowed other items

[frosty owl]

So, you... "can't use overflow because you can't control what will overflow"....?
Am I understanding right?

[limber cradle]

pretty much

I told it to lets say put frames on the right, unassigned to the center, and overflow to the left

and it went and overflowed stuff that should go to the center

[zinc eagle]

i havent got to nuclear power plant since a week im setting up a train system to bring everything to 1 place but im out of power

need weeks in this game to progress to atomic power if you cant play 12h a day

[frosty owl]

Was center full?

[limber cradle]

no

[frosty owl]

Then you found yourself a nice bug to report 🥳
For the sake of clarity: if you're sending "item X" to the left, "any undefined" through the middle and "overflow" to the right, if items that aren't "item X" make it to the overflow while the splitter hasn't backed up on any "any undefined" item, that is indeed a bug to be looked into (one that I never encountered in thousands of hours of testing though, so I'd be curious to see that in action as well)

[median heath]

This isn't how sushi manifolds work.
If you need Frames right, other items center, then the settings should be Frames right, OVERFLOW center.
The operate by taking the correct item off the line and sending everything else forward to the next splitter. Which in turn will take its item off the line and send everything to the next splitter.
And so on all the way to the last one in the line which will take what it needs off and send everything else onward to wherever you want the collective total overflow to be sent.

The only 2 settings on any sushi manifold splitter should be Overflow and <Insert Specific Item Here>.

[limber cradle]

but then all the other manufacturers will be dry until the first one fills up

[median heath]

That's how even normal manifolds work...
By each machine progressively filling...

[limber cradle]

no, in a normal manifold, first one does get filled first, but it doesn't suck all the items

only half of them

[median heath]

If you use a smart in a normal manifold it will suck all items per machine and it has the exact same fill time as if you used normal splitters.

[limber cradle]

why would I use smart in a normal manifold

[median heath]

So the spooling process is different, but the end result is the same.

I'm using it as an example of don't worry about how the first machine is sucking all items during spooling.
Because the final result is identical.

Yes, everything else is dry until they sequentially fill, but what you care about is what is happening after they are all done filling, no?

[limber cradle]

this is what I didn't know and prolly it caused all the problems, thanks

[median heath]

No worries. Sorry I didn't clarify it when I first introduced them to you

[frosty owl]

So... What about that bug...?

[frosty owl]

You can have that too if you use programmable splitters

[limber cradle]

idk is that even a bug, it just seems counterintuitive that it prefers overflow over all unassigned

[limber cradle]

oh yeah, mam exists

[frosty owl]

Was my explanation not clear?
If "any undefined" is not backing up with items, NONE of the "any undefined" items can go to overflow (assuming belts of the same MK of course). If they do, that's an important bug to report

[median heath]

Waiting for poggers rework to break all of your best-laid plans 😈

[frosty owl]

Waiting for you to check out such plans...

[median heath]

Fair.

[limber cradle]

I don't get this, the steel pipes are clocked perfectly so there is no extra

yet they keep overflowing

[median heath]

During spooling you will have overflow until every machine is full.

Because things come in at different rates.

So if pipes fill faster than something else, you'll have excess pipes until the other things catch up

[frosty owl]

Possibilities:

1. Something that isn't pipes is lacking, causing less pipes than expected to be consumed
2. Pipes have already filled up all buffers, so every now and then an excess one still "trickles through" the system

[median heath]

If it is 2) -- this is part of why the failsafe Sink is there. To catch game fuckups. Because you did the math right but sometimes the game just says "nope"

[limber cradle]

yeah I have sinks practically everywhere

[median heath]

In a perfect world the failsafe never activates.
In reality it catches like 2-5 items per hour that blip the system so you can have entire outposts all running to the same failsafe because the "mistakes" won't be higher than a mk5.

[frosty owl]

In a perfect world you never load your game

In other words: things can work "perfectly" as long as saving/loading isn't involved

[median heath]

This is how greeny plays.
By never loading the game 😉

[magic egret]

wasnt there an already known bug with the splitters where they overflow incorrectly if any output is backed up

[median heath]

If smarts overflowed incorrectly when an output backed up literally nothing I build would function.

[frosty owl]

I believe there's a notable issue with what many consider "incorrect" in regards to smart splitters and overflow

[sacred orbit]

so i'm deciding to use the over/underclocking mechanic to make the 10/minute rate work out for making modular frames.

[magic egret]

i thought i remembered someone mentioning something like that where it doesnt check for every possibility

but i cant remember the details rn

[median heath]

@limber cradle example of when I would use smart splitters in a normal manifold:
I needed a 25/5 split from a Smelter outputting 30. But due to how rounding works the machine that is supposed to get 5 will actually burn like 5.01
Smart allows me to send everything to the 25 first meaning only the remaining 5 will get sent to the other one. So the 5.01 burn wouldn't eventually fuck things up because it receives only 5.

[limber cradle]

makes sense

[median heath]

I also just end up having smarts hotbarred from the amount of mixed manifolds I do that I end up building dozens without thinking about it in normal manifolds and I'm too lazy to delete and remake them all at that point 😂

[glad vigil]

I have splitter oh hotbar and cycle through all versions of splitters and merger using R

[median heath]

I do to (slot 5), but like I said I eventually just change it to smarts being default because it's faster for the way I build.
And sometimes I forget I'm using smarts when building a single-item line.

[frosty owl]

Btw, didn't copy-paste for machines' recipes got improved...?

[median heath]

Yes.

Sadly no copy/paste for smarts yet 😭

[oblique hollow]

hit ctrl v while machine is highlighted

press ctrl v on another highlighted machine

boom copied

only thing that sucks is you need to be in range

[median heath]

Hoverpack range extender means I may actually use Hoverpack now... hmmm...

[oblique hollow]

huh range extender?

[median heath]

You know how you can build further and interact further while wearing the hoverpack compared to when not wearing it?

Range Extender

[frosty owl]

So you want to become a ranger?

[oblique hollow]

i didnt notice actually.... huh

[median heath]

It was one of the most praised parts of the equipment 😭

[oblique hollow]

never noticed never cared

[remote ice]

its pretty nice

[oblique hollow]

Airbuoy go brrrrrrr

[remote ice]

only works when you're actually flying though

[vapid gorge]

Neither had I XD

[honest tiger]

Maybe im dumb or something but i cant figure out the math for how many constructors i need for a certain build. I have 270 Iron on Mk. 3 and want maximum efficiency for refined plates. Can someone explain to me how they figure out exactly how many constructors they need? I've tried using the satisfactory calculator but dont really understand it

[wind spade]

what kind of efficiency?

[magic egret]

what do you not understand?

[oblique hollow]

you are planning from the wrong side

[honest tiger]

i dont know how many i would need at the end i just know how many resources i have and also it shows it to me using Mk 3 miner im using a 2

[oblique hollow]

dont try to figure out how much you can make from 270

figure out how much you NEED for X reinforced plates /min

then you can adjust that for 270

[magic egret]

what i do is set the iron input and then choose maximize to see how many i can make

without alt recipes its 22.5 per min from 270 iron

[oblique hollow]

my favourite is steel coated plate amd adhered

[honest tiger]

should i do this using the planner on satisfactory calculator

[magic egret]

greenys

its easier

[honest tiger]

whats that

[oblique hollow]

5 plastic + 15 rubber + 7,5 Steel = 15 reinforced iron plates / min

[magic egret]

satisfactorytools.com

[oblique hollow]

its the better and less cluttered production calculator

[honest tiger]

let me check it out

[magic egret]

go to input, set iron to 270, and in production choose reinforced plates and maximize

if you check alt recipes in the recipes tab itll choose the most efficient one for your input

[honest tiger]

OMG

wow this is so much easier...

thank you

when it says 4.5 or 6.75 im guessing you run one of them at 50% or 75%?

[magic egret]

4.5 means 4 with one overclocked to 150% or 5 with one underclocked to 50%

[honest tiger]

better to underclock for energy consumption right or doesnt matter?

[magic egret]

yep

underclocking usually better if you have mats to build

[honest tiger]

but also symmetry lol

[magic egret]

well for a constructor its not a big difference either way

[honest tiger]

thank you so much this website really is much better

[magic egret]

i love it

[vapid gorge]

Unless you’re quite early on overclocking a few machines generally isn’t an issue and you should just do which ever fits best.

In that example you could also have 4 machines at 1.125

Or 5 at 0.9

[honest tiger]

yeah i think im just gonna try to go for symmetry when possible so it looks cleaner and just under/over depending. Im still pretty early only have a coal power plant producing 600 MW

[vapid gorge]

That’s a decent chunk at the start , get it to 4000-6000 soonish though. Refineries will suck you dry

[wind spade]

yeah, you can also hover over it and it will tell you

[limber cradle]

does it make sense? Or should I change anything?

[wind spade]

if you have pure copper and steamed sheets, copper rotor is a no-brainer

[limber cradle]

I feel like every copper node I need is way too far away

[median heath]

The union rep for Drones wants to extend an invitation that his people will handle that issue for you.

[vapid gorge]

Plan factories for what the resources are, or change recipes to suit

[limber cradle]

It appears I have more copper than I thought, gonna go this route

[thorn bane]

why are you doing turbo electric motor?

[median heath]

Didn't even catch that.
Turbo Pressure ftw.

[thorn bane]

ye

[median heath]

Not like we have other uses for Nitrogen 🤷‍♂️

[thorn bane]

i guess this is another example of weighted resources being a not perfect metric

[limber cradle]

because it doesn't require that cooling bs

[oblique hollow]

cooling systems arent that bad

especially if you use the alt

[limber cradle]

okay, ended up with this

[plucky linden]

Is this a app? If yes what's the name of it?

[median heath]

Pins in this channel.
Literal first link.

[plucky linden]

Thanks

[vagrant kindle]

If you want symmetry then run 4 at 112.5% each. Also easier to load balance if you're into that.

[glad vigil]

The only reason why I don’t use turbo pressure motors is that it requires fused frames that are basically the successors of heavy modular frames and I’m allergic to cubes

[magic egret]

good old complex squares

[sinful rover]

#screenshots to add stuff to discussion in #satisfactory

[waxen moss]

hey so like: i am confusion

[median heath]

👀

Hi confusion, I'm Sevrahn.

[waxen moss]

I have a train going back and forth from two stations. Now, Station 1 is inputting 598, split between two carriages (300 and 298 respectively). Station 2 then unloads them to two lines that require 300 and 298 respectively. Why are my machines running out of resources if everything's a 1:1?

[median heath]

Are your stations buffered and double-belted?

[waxen moss]

yes

[median heath]

Picture of setup?

[waxen moss]

hm

[median heath]

Or just.. are all belts mk5?

[waxen moss]

It's a bit large. I don't think I can fit it into single pic

All belts are mk4. Don't have mk 5

[median heath]

Take a picture of the dropoff station where things unload.

[waxen moss]

I will once the train comes back around

[vagrant kindle]

Do the destination platforms show in their info page their throughput as 300 and 298 respectively?

[median heath]

That would matter if that info page was accurate..

[waxen moss]

this is input

output is a mirror

[median heath]

How long is the route?

[waxen moss]

7.25 minutes

I did the math, its well below the total throughput of two carriages

[median heath]

What item are you moving?

[waxen moss]

It comes out to 1.36 carriages

Caterium ingots

[median heath]

None of the math I wrote for throughput has an answer done in terms of carriages 😂

[vagrant kindle]

Do your trains not use carriages?

[median heath]

?

The math is for calculating throughput of a carriage. So the answers are in terms of items/min.

[waxen moss]

also

[median heath]

@waxen moss are you not getting anywhere close to 300 at dropoff or is it just barely not staying at 100% eff?

[waxen moss]

Anyone mind explaining to me why the 298 pm platform is filling up quicker than the 300 pm platform

[waxen moss]

Barely not staying at 100%

[median heath]

Small chance the one you think is 298 is actually the 300 one then.

But if you can guarantee it is 298 then the other one isn't actually getting 300 because that's the only way it would fill slower.
So check the production machines because it may not be a train issue.

But rather a production one.

[vagrant kindle]

Easy way to check - split the input belt into three - 1x Mk 1 and 2x Mk 2 (and then merge them) - those belts should be always completely full

[waxen moss]

ah

I see, I think. I think I may have forgotten a splitter

does this make sense?

(this is after adding the missing splitter)

As for my production. It is at 100%

Now the platforms are filling up at the correct rate (300 was filling at 295, and 298 was filling at 303). Let's see if that fixed it

Looking like that didn't fix it

[waxen moss]

Could it be the manifolds at the output station haven't been saturated?

[median heath]

Quite possible.

If you're sending exact amounts you need to prefeed them a bit so you're not filling, but instead refilling

[waxen moss]

get to the breaker!

[vapid gorge]

It is interesting seeing people actively participating in their torture with load balancing

[fierce ruin]

I joined the server to ask almost this exact question, since I've not touched trains yet. I was planning to produce compacted coal at two remote sites, then deposit it at a third. The combined output of those two sites is 360, but is getting 360 to always be available via rail just a matter of pre-loading enough to start or do I need to make more than that to compensate for travel time somehow?

[median heath]

Honestly that sounds like you're using a train to do a truck's job.

[vapid gorge]

Just have a container full of resources before you start whatever is using it, you should be fine

[fierce ruin]

It might be... but I also hadn't touched trucks yet so I had the same question there too hahaha

[median heath]

Travel time doesn't matter because after 2 trips it becomes consistent throughput.

[vapid gorge]

Trucks are the devil. Don't listen to Sev and his lies.

[median heath]

Getting to trains without touching trucks is... odd.

Cobalt stop trolling 😭

[vapid gorge]

You can 10000% never touch trucks. Don't do it

[median heath]

This isn't U2 anymore trucks work fine.

[vapid gorge]

They are clunky and can still collide and interfere in paaaathing.

[median heath]

By trucks I do mean Explorers btw.

[vapid gorge]

and take up huge turning spaces. Bleh. Death to trucks

[fierce ruin]

I just sorta stayed in the same starting location, I suppose? Mostly just unlocked a handful of the things by crafting some stuff by hand when I realized that upscaling my mess of a factory was gonna be harder than scorched earth rebuilding it

So now I'm doing that

[vapid gorge]

That's usually the way

[fierce ruin]

Also, trains look cool

[vapid gorge]

patch jobs to kinda keep up with new tech just makes it messier and messier

[median heath]

Explorers don't take up huge turning spaces. Also today I learned that if you do the parking node right they will fully execute a Y turn to get back on the path with zero issues.

[vapid gorge]

Or, and here me out, you use a train. On a rail.

That are pretty.

[median heath]

I saw it happen and was like WAAAAAAA. They are smart enough to do that?

[median heath]

If aesthetics is all that matters then you do you.
Optimal logistics is using trucks, trains, and drones in concert and that is intended design 🤷‍♂️

[vapid gorge]

Lies! Just run belt buses under your train lines and forget the trucks

God I hate trucks

[fierce ruin]

I was hoping to make a train work mostly because I could then use the same train to also load up ores and such to take to a main production factory further down the line

[median heath]

Certain things trains shine at, others they suck at.
Certain things trucks are king at.
Certain things drones are uncontested for.

[fierce ruin]

Having a truck handle bringing the compacted coal from the more remote site and then deposit it where the first is, but then use the train to pick it up there and carry on?

This feels like so many moving parts

[vapid gorge]

That is a million times the effort I would put in for anything involving compacted coal. What are you doing with it?

I also dislike compacted coal recipes XD

[fierce ruin]

Nonsense Turbofuel

[vapid gorge]

Ah right. I just wait for the turbo blend fuel and ignore the coal

[fierce ruin]

I haven't even played that far yet. Same first save mostly blind until I realized just how lost I was.

And here we are

[vapid gorge]

Ahhh ok are you doing packaged diluted fuel?

[fierce ruin]

I was going to use turbo heavy fuel

I don't even have the packager yet, come to think of it

[vapid gorge]

ok, so between Compacted Coal and Trucks, Turbo Heavy fuel is the real devil.

If you don't want to wait until blenders for fuel power I very much recommend getting to packagers and finding the packaged dilute fuel recipe. Much simpler.

Heavy fuel is the worst of the 3 TF recipes.

[fierce ruin]

I kind of figured. Does making dilute packaged fuel then unpackaging lead to more fuel than just making it straight into fuel?

[vapid gorge]

Much

Especially if you first get the HOR alt

[fierce ruin]

Just looked it up and good lord I see what you mean

[vapid gorge]

So oil -> HOR -> D fuel

[fierce ruin]

Yes, was planning on using that (originally I guess) to make petroleum coke for the alt for steel and just making the rest straight into tfuel

[vapid gorge]

Depending on your location coke steel might be convenient? I've never found a time where it wasn't simpler to just find a place with iron and coal and make it there

My preferred steel recipe

[fierce ruin]

Oh it would definitely be simpler. Can't argue that

[vapid gorge]

I've never actually done the Packaged Dilute fuel myself mind you, in my games I've usually just made about 6,000mw of coal power and waiting until blenders came into play for fuel

[fierce ruin]

My current disaster of a setup is at ~1,300mw on coal

[vapid gorge]

You could just find yourself 4 nodes of coal near water and make a monster power station? I really don't like having to worry about going over my power production so I like making a big station and then forget about it for ages

[waxen moss]

Using this right now. It's a beautiful recipe

[vapid gorge]

A tiny increase of power usage and a simple extra step. If you need more than standard recipe coal in a spot it's basically a no brainer

[fierce ruin]

The blenders for turbofuel are that effective?

[vapid gorge]

It's more that blended turbo fuel only uses sulfur and oil, no coal, so logistics is easier

But if you just want to do diluted fuel packaged diluted fuel is pretty solid. I think it's only a bit less power efficient

[waxen moss]

So, it looks like my throughput issue is not fixed

[vapid gorge]

And there IS an argument that Turbofuel is unnecessary .

[waxen moss]

However, I am observing a diminishing delta with each trip

[vapid gorge]

Was this with your self torturing balancer?

[waxen moss]

So maybe, it will balance out

[waxen moss]

The balancer is part of the equation, but I do not believe it is a problem anymore

[vapid gorge]

I mean, balancers are custom jobs for the situation you have presented to them to Balance.

So you've probably not made it to balance what you are throwing at it

[waxen moss]

Everything is in a 1:1 ratio at the moment

300 and 298 in, 300 and 298 out

[vapid gorge]

Might want to wait for some of the balancing wizards to be around :\ The closest I do is mixed belts.

[fierce ruin]

How dumb would it be to make just steel ingots, then everythig iron can do from the alts?

I won't even lie, that's how the whole rabbit hole started

Is it more efficient ultimately to skip the step of making iron, does it end up taking more? I guess I have more research to do.

[vapid gorge]

That's an interesting concept tbh? It sounds completely feasible.

You're on your first play through right?

[fierce ruin]

That was the start of it. Use petroleum coke to make a mountain of steel as quick as possible, then bypass making iron entirely. Since you'd have to make a lot of heavy oil, turn the rest into turbofuel for power from the same resource.

[fierce ruin]

Yes, first time playing through. Steam says 214 hours but the number of times I've fallen asleep with the game running is more than once

[vapid gorge]

Ok so I want to ask you a question. Of these thigns which do you think interests you?
Learning deep logistics and planning
Making aesthetic and well planned bases
Developing a huge production chain
Weird and interesting builds

They don't have to be a 'I want to do them right now' but in the future is fine too

[fierce ruin]

It would bother me if I knew what I had made could be more efficient in some way, but not if it was done in an interesting way. I like making things look nice but it's not a priority and I'm no artist or architect. I like trying to take a weird concept and make it work.

Equally the first and last, as an actual answer

[vapid gorge]

So setting yourself a challenge or concept based on your goals is what's interesting you quite a bit then? And you'll probably want to be at this game for a while?

[fierce ruin]

I'm fine with working on it a little bit at a time, but I'd like to also know it works at all before I take that time to do it y'know?

Being able to self pace the challenges in this game is I think what's sucked me in the most so far

[vapid gorge]

Oh that's fair, and almost any idea you come up with will work

as long as the recipes exist it might just involve more convoluted logistics to do it

But like you said you don't care if its not he most efficient

[fierce ruin]

I want to try to do the unorthodox, but still as efficiently as possible. Signing myself up for my own headaches, I'm sure, but I enjoy it.

[vapid gorge]

Someone after my own heart.
May I make a recommendation then?

[fierce ruin]

By all means

[vapid gorge]

So this is my experience and I think it's helped me do things similar to what you may want

Do a few run through of the tiers up to 7 and restart maps.

I've found starting from scratch really helps you get techniques on space and logistics down pat

There are concepts and methods of building and moving that are.. .hard to explain the fine points and most easily acquired through trial and error. Looking back on an old base for example and going 'my god what I built is trash, I can do this better now that I know my mistakes'

Spacing out areas for belting and piping is really only learned by hands on experience

[fierce ruin]

I'm honesty already about 30 minutes away from tearing down everything I've already got and starting it from the ground up

"Wow, what was I thinking" in spades lol

[vapid gorge]

look, go as far as you can. If you're not happy with a thing, just use it to hop to the next tier and fiddle with that

From the sounds of it you've only just stepped onto the nightmare of pipes XD

[fierce ruin]

A bit, other than piping water over to coal gens that's about it

[vapid gorge]

It gets bad and you'll want to master it if you want to do convoluted ideas 🙂

[fierce ruin]

Can't wait to see the absolute horror of what I've made for fuel when I actually understand it later

[vapid gorge]

And you don't HAVE to start with a clean save but I've found having to tech up really reinforces stuff

[fierce ruin]

The thing that really took the longest to sink in for me so far is the scale you'd be expected to work in, and how it's always juuuust a bit larger than whatever you'd just made. If I did it again, I think I'd put a lot more into making whatever I'd laid out easier to expand on

[vapid gorge]

That's an excellent lesson 🙂

Would building things vertically be an interesting challenge to you do you think?

[fierce ruin]

I'm not sure how much I'd do it. Currently I have a few things built with two floors maximum. Actually, a production line that has resources start at the top and fall down gradually would probably look really cool.

split things off and use a floor for making just that, then that gets added on and continues down

Something like that

[vapid gorge]

Well if you do want a restart a game, if you choose the Northern Forest location and go west there's a valley and cliff spot that has a ton of pure nodes VERY close to each other

In fact you could have every resource you need within 500m until like tier 6 or 7

The challenge is you've got cliff faces and very little flat space, so towers are your friends

I find that that start is very good for learning how to properly belt and pipe your factories and not have to worry about long logistics

The grassy fields is excellent for the basics as it's moderately flat, it's fairly calm and you can just spread and do things and learn.

[fierce ruin]

That's where I currently am. Actually, I ended up on the very corner of the map and just kind of stuck myself there up until now.

[vapid gorge]

It's a good basics spot 😄

But yeah - what I recommended is just based on my experience, everyone learns differently. I think it's just a good idea to really master the basics before setting up for convoluted challenges. For example I made a giant factory that made something like 20k plastic/rubber/alum ingots per minute.

And it was hideous. Spacing for logistics just made it a nightmare. It was a mess.

tore it down

Learned a lot though.

I do really like your idea about making it all steel though. Sounds fun 🙂
At some point in the distant future I kinda want to make a giant production line but basically only use drones to move things. So hyper localised.

[fierce ruin]

I can't even really wrap my head around the trains thing, couldn't imagine doing it with just drones.

It sounds really cool though and I'd love to see it

[vapid gorge]

Drones are... kinda simpler? They are just low volume

and require alluminium infrastructure to exist

[fierce ruin]

Ah, I guess it would be just "Go here, go back"

[vapid gorge]

Just about? There's details on how you set up other drones to refuel their batteries but it's pretty straight forward

[fierce ruin]

What would you make, then? A floating fortress that flies all the supplies in from across the world?

[vapid gorge]

Nah, central processing hubs are NIGHTMARES.

Probably just pick a LARGE amount of 1 or 2 high tier end products and make hubs that make things on location as high up as possible based on nearby resources

then fly drones back and forth between them

What I'm currently doing for example includes a plan to make 300 heavy modular frames and I have to import very little coal into the dune desert for it

I'm already doing a very localised build but I'm including trains

[fierce ruin]

I was thinking of what a hassle a new save would be but then I remembered I played through most of my time forgetting entirely to use the MAM

So I never had anything to make getting around faster

No wonder I huddled myself in the corner

[fierce ruin]

That's.... a lot of heavy modular frames

[vapid gorge]

It is XD Hey, mind if I DM you a link to a page that has some good tips to keep in mind?

[fierce ruin]

Sure! By all means

[median heath]

Me... over here making 135/min...

[fierce ruin]

I'm making 0/min at the moment

[median heath]

On my current run for U6 same, because Hub0 reset.
But previous runs I make between 118-135. We shall see what it is this time when I get to them.

[fierce ruin]

Oh that's true, update 6 is soon

[vapid gorge]

Hey, my factory is still in the design stage, you're still beating me

[fierce ruin]

Would be a great time to make a fresh start!

[remote ice]

so radar towers no longer need to be really high up to reveal their max radius, right? It's a fixed area now?

i just want to make sure this change is intended before i go peppering the map with them

would suck if i had to go back and put all of them on a skybox pillar

[fierce cypress]

wiki hasn't been updated yet, but i think it is just a set radius now

[limber cradle]

would you guys overclock one of them to 102% or build a third one

I hate overclocking regular machines

but its so stupid to have one running at 2%

[magic egret]

for such a small percentage i usually overclock

[median heath]

Yes. (Sorry for late reply)

[median heath]

For symmetry: 4 machines running at 50.425%

[remote ice]

NP, thanks for clarifying it

[limber cradle]

👀

thats a new one

[thorn bane]

overclock to 250%
yellow light gang

[mint cliff]

^ eyo

[limber cradle]

I don't think I have a single overclocked machine in my world that isn't a miner/oil pump/fracking thingy

[stray pagoda]

What is your guys avg input/min using trucks? Ik it's dependent on distance, but on a short/med distance avg?

[remote ice]

for short/medium distance you probably cap out the truck stop's one input/output

so its equal to whatever belt you're using

[oblique hollow]

a truck can easily transport any belt for up to 750 m

maybe even more

[glad vigil]

It also depends on stack size

[median heath]

Truck station input/output will equal exactly what the belt input/output is.
If it isn't add +1 vehicle because the route is too long.
You'll run into more problems by having too many trucks on the same route though, so always start by just putting 1 vehicle per route and adjust as necessary.

[sterile shard]

what about you make a full mk3 belt, and you add a half mk1 belt, so 270+30=300

idk like this ?

[flat vortex]

Is there a program you use to make these schemes?

[waxen moss]

What's the smart splitter set to? Overflow to the 114?

[wind spade]

or you just build two manifolds 🤷‍♂️

[waxen moss]

Manifold won't work here. It would never saturate because the nature of trains

[waxen moss]

Looks like draw.io to me

[wind spade]

wdym? what's the goal of this weird balancer anyway?

[waxen moss]

Establish a 1:1 ratio. There are two lines feeding from two separate platforms, 300 and 298 respectively

[wind spade]

(also manifold will work in any condition, same as balancer)

[wind spade]

yeah, but... why do you need that 1:1 ratio if you can build two manifolds that each uses exactly the amount that's on the belt?

[waxen moss]

You're talking at the output?

[wind spade]

yeah

[waxen moss]

I believe I originally had that, actually

[wind spade]

basically there's never need to adjust amount on a belt to "nice" number, since you can always build with the original number in mind

(ofc you can do whatever you want, I'm just offering an easier alternative)

[waxen moss]

Oh, right, I remember what was going on. For some reason, the manifold was backing up the production line.

[wind spade]

that means you have more production than consumption

[waxen moss]

To an empty container?

[wind spade]

no I mean... if a manifold is backed up completely, then the production in the manifold is not enough

if the red belt is backed up, then the blue machines are not fast enough to consume all from the red belt

[waxen moss]

That's impossible.

1. Producing 598, consuming 598.
2. The manifold in question was for input. It was feeding into a container buffer, but it was clogging the output on the refineries behind it

[wind spade]

well it may be possible because of a wrong mk of belt or something 🤷‍♂️

also idk what you mean by "manifold for input" 🤔

[waxen moss]

Guess "load balancer" would be more appropriate.

Essentially it combined the the two belts to fill a mk4 then overflow was sent to a mk3

[fringe pawn]

Switching from a manifold to balancer or vice versa is never going to alleviate an underlying production problem.

Assuming both are built correctly

[waxen moss]

The production is fine tho

I've quadruple checked

[soft scarab]

The manifold was taking all of the output of a set of refineries and feeding into a container and the refineries were getting backed up?

[sterile shard]

it's diagramme.net , and the smart is set to overflow so the mk3 belt limit the troughput

[waxen moss]

this was the original arrangement

the 384 belt was backing up

[sterile shard]

what about a classical 1:1 ratio balencer ?

[waxen moss]

That was my solution

[waxen moss]

The side going to the mk3 is set to overflow?

[sterile shard]

no the 114 is the overflow

[waxen moss]

That brings it to 299 per belt

Could work

[sterile shard]

yep and there is a probleme ?

[waxen moss]

No, not at all

Im just like why the hell didn't I think of this

[sterile shard]

because this is a bit overengineered

[waxen moss]

Overengineered? Pff. I have no idea what you mean. None at all. Zero clue.

[sterile shard]

https://tenor.com/view/jdg-joueur-du-grenier-seb-oh-pff-no-excuse-gif-25712622

[wind spade]

and from that it's just one step to not using balancers at all 😛

[waxen moss]

I typically am a manifold type of pioneer. Everything is manifolds. My dog is a manifold

[wind spade]

then why bothering with balancers 😛

[waxen moss]

Specialized problem and decided to mix it up a bit

[sterile shard]

i'm myself a manifold engeneer but i trie to use more and more balancer, it's less messy in my sandwich layer

[waxen moss]

Sandwich layer? Like a logistical floor?

[sterile shard]

kinda

(just wait 2h the time that my laptop start the game and I will show you)

i think we need to rename this so the pionner that want help about alternated recipe come here and not in #screenshots

[waxen moss]

also draw.io and diagrams.net are the same thing

[vapid gorge]

if you're sure all your numbers are fine, and you hvaen't forgotten a belt, and there isn't a lower tier belt hidden somewhere, AND that the items after being consumed aren't backing up I don't know whta to tell you

[sterile shard]

this part here

and if i need more space, i just do more layer

[waxen moss]

this was the goal with the Load balancer

[vapid gorge]

Why not make lines of refineries and clock it so you have a section making 298 and another 300?

[waxen moss]

Because I didn't plan that far ahead

Well well well. If it isn't the consequences of my own actions

[vapid gorge]

changing clocks now is pretty straight forward and if you want to load balance things you have to plan very far ahead

You choose load balancing when you feel like you deserve pain

[waxen moss]

hang on

WHAT IS THAT

YOU

[vapid gorge]

It's also not reasonable to load balance pre train. You want a buffer because unless it's the ONLY train on the line train deliveries won't be exactly the same

[forest blade]

load balancing isnt ideal for scalability or human error

[vapid gorge]

It's in fact the exact worse thing for scalability and human error

other than setting fire to yourself

[forest blade]

i was trying to not discourage the person from playing how they wanted but you did it for me

[vapid gorge]

And why can't you just have one line of 598 ingots?

[vapid gorge]

Too many people drive themselves mad with load balancing.

I wonder how many burn out because of it

[forest blade]

if that's the way they wanna play and they find enjoyment, not my place to tell them not to

but yes i can see that happening

[vapid gorge]

I mean sure, but the number of people I see deeply unhappy about what they are doing to themselves

[forest blade]

"load balancing burnout"

they have to come to terms with 1. deleting what they built or 2. seeing their project through 🙂

[waxen moss]

Oh, please do not misunderstand me. I am a masochist having a blast

[vapid gorge]

Or exploding.

[forest blade]

imagine if they had your circular builds AND doing load balancing @vapid gorge

i shudder at the thought

[glad vigil]

Load balancing is necessary if you want to use trains as efficiently as possible

[wind spade]

not true

[glad vigil]

Why

[forest blade]

that is a storage container solution

[wind spade]

why would you need to use load balancing for trains? just put X/min into the platform and get X/min on the other side when you unload. It's no different than a belt

[glad vigil]

You balance the input into station in a way that all carts receive equal amount of same item per minute, then set the train to leave the station as soon as one of the carts is full. This makes train leave with all carts full and not carry half-empty carts all the way to destination

Plus it will ride less frequently which is good for your railway network and power consumption

[wind spade]

or you just let the train run without waiting and you have pretty much guaranteed X/min and don't have to balance

[forest blade]

or put storage containers near each freight to collect and satisfy those conditions

[wind spade]

and I'm gonna quote Sev here - if power is a factor in your decision making, you're doing power wrong

[glad vigil]

With manifold train will leave with first cart being full, second half-full, 3rd 25% full and so on

[wind spade]

you're not manifolding the platforms...

you're putting one belt into each platform

and getting the same X/min on the other end

[glad vigil]

As long as the 1 cart throughout allows you to do this

[wind spade]

which it should, in most cases

[forest blade]

wait are you using 1 mine to fill out 3 freight?

[wind spade]

(and you can always get more trains if it doesn't)

[glad vigil]

1 longer train is more efficient though

[forest blade]

or i guess you are doing this to have 1 mine have 3 freight to empty at different places

[wind spade]

no, it has the same efficiency 🤷‍♂️

unless you mean power efficiency, then yes, but that's coming back to Sev quote

also thinking about it now - I'm not actually sure about what you said... extra platforms eat extra power and longer train needs more engines

[vapid gorge]

Shhh you give him power by doing that

But yes, I have never come across any mechanical condition that requires load balancing. Only self imposed restrictions

[glad vigil]

Power = oil/coal/sulfur that could’ve been used for something else

Unless your entire factory runs on geothermal generators

[vapid gorge]

There is more power on the map than you will ever use if you really want to process every resource on the map

[waxen moss]

This stupid?

[vapid gorge]

Thanks, I hate it.

[wind spade]

with nuclear you use like very minimal amount of resources to generate more power than you realistically can use

[quartz violet]

I did the math and you can make 46920 iron plates a minute if you use every single iron node and the default recipe

[vapid gorge]

sounds about right

[quartz violet]

so close yet so far

[wind spade]

indeed https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=KVzDU5D6Op2ZWTWdQ0wY

[glad vigil]

If you want to process every resource on the map in the most efficient way, you’ll end up converting all oil into either 3x plastic/rubber or coke to refine bauxite

[wind spade]

with diluted fuel you generate tons of power and oil isn't really a blocker for anything

[quartz violet]

oh i manually did the math

[vapid gorge]

... sure? And use nuclear to power it

[forest blade]

you're gonna be in excess anyways and your factories arent going to be at 100% if the long train is delayed due to waiting until full

[glad vigil]

Why won’t it be going at 100%?

[wind spade]

well there's just one tiny detail... you can't realistically use 100% of the map 😛

[glad vigil]

But why do literally everyone here care about efficiency in this game more than everything else?

[waxen moss]

samtisfactormy

[vapid gorge]

I'm not arguing for it. You're the one going 'but it uses more power!'. When that doesn't really matter

[glad vigil]

But you could have used less

[forest blade]

depends on how long it takes train to travel, load, return, and unload. if train travels too long or has to wait too long, your factories will consume the resources needed before it returns

[wind spade]

I do care about resource efficiency, as that's the only real blocker in satisfactory (well, that and fps)

[vapid gorge]

So why are YOU caring about efficiency XD

[glad vigil]

Because I want to

[glad vigil]

Energy is resource

[vapid gorge]

But it isn't a bottle neck.

[wind spade]

nuclear uses like 0 resources you need for most productions

that's max nuclear (without waste processing)

[vapid gorge]

pretty freakoing cheap

[wind spade]

since I'm not realistically able to use these resources in other productions because I'll run out of fps by that point, I don't care if they are being used

[glad vigil]

16% of all caterium on the map

[wind spade]

recipes can be changed 🤷‍♂️

[glad vigil]

11% of all raw quartz limit

[vapid gorge]

Yeah but if you're at a point where you're using ALL the caterium or all of something else you're going to need every gigawatt you can make ... with nuclear power

[glad vigil]

1/3 of all sulfur

[vapid gorge]

sulfur is pretty garbage

and not a bottle neck

[forest blade]

well that depends on what power source you are relying on

[vapid gorge]

If you're going for huge power doing full TF isn't the way though

huge power + most resources on map anyway

[forest blade]

heh 1.7k hrs and havent done nuclear 🙂

[waxen moss]

Is there a better way to do this?

[wind spade]

you're not able to use the extra resources anyway

[vapid gorge]

I'm only a bit through the uranium rod factory now myself XD

[glad vigil]

What are you trying to split?

[thorn bane]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_rXrJ8CWyjNExcayArby3HjRpDUXV5sd8QvFrdNZxBc/edit

[waxen moss]

These are resource belts into rows of refineries

[glad vigil]

Bruh, It doesn’t really matter how you split resources going to refineries, they’ll eventually fill up and work 100% efficiently

[forest blade]

only limited by belt throughput

[glad vigil]

Yes

[thorn bane]

problem is he has more throughput than belt limit

[forest blade]

double decker storage output each moves 780

[wind spade]

4 manifolds

[waxen moss]

I know, i was just wondering if there was a less messy way of doing this

[glad vigil]

Make 2 belts and connect them with 2:2 balancer

[thorn bane]

balancers yikes

[wind spade]

see my answer - 4 manifolds 😛

[glad vigil]

2:2 is just 2 splitters and 2 mergers

It isn’t that scary

[forest blade]

overflow will be your friend

[thorn bane]

problem with balancers is that they dont scale (its n²)
where the belt compressor setup scales with n
and since wee do havee smart splitters there is no reason not to use them

[thorn bane]

what belt limit do you have? 480 or 780?

[waxen moss]

480

[forest blade]

you are moving 1346 mats if i read your numbers right correct?

[waxen moss]

1196

[forest blade]

oof read that 3 as a 5

[wind spade]

just do this 🤷‍♂️ and build enough machines in each manifold to handle the amount you have on a belt

[waxen moss]

Thank you! I ended up doing it the ugly way because it wasn't that bad actually. However, I will implement the BCUs in my larger designs

[thorn bane]

if youve played factorio, its just a splitter with output priority

[waxen moss]

I've not played factorio--or rather I only have like 20 hours in factorio

[wind spade]

I'd still consider building separate belts 🤷‍♂️

[waxen moss]

I mean, I have them. The issue was just allocating the correct amount of resources to each manifold while limited by belt throughput

[wind spade]

in my suggestion you just use as many resources as you have on the belt

so if you have e.g. 116/min belt, you build enough buildings to consume 116/min

[waxen moss]

That's how I've been planning my newer factories. However, this one was already up and I did not want to rerun pipe

[wind spade]

yeah that's fair

[waxen moss]

also relay conveyor floor holes

[glad vigil]

Misplaced floor hole almost ruined my nuke

[waxen moss]

My save has 2,000 floor holes atm

[versed violet]

Do we have any gossip if U6 (spire coast) adds any new bauxite nodes? Currently expanding my alu factory and would love to know that.

[soft scarab]

I think they will be adding nodes in spire coast in a future patch, but haven’t specified what exactly

[versed violet]

but no word on what kind of nodes?

[waxen moss]

Heyo, for these BCUs, do they just all use your highest mk belt

[thorn bane]

yep

[lime gulch]

I'm planning to make a computer factory and I'm curious what alternate recipes everyone uses in theirs

[thorn bane]

silicon circuit + caterium computer

[versed violet]

I'm starting to wonder if cyan belt highway should have been a train instead.
6 belts now, maybe 7th later. There is quite a height difference (red forest plateau)

[waxen moss]

Okay these things are rad af

[versed violet]

Patch notes from half hour ago say "Recalculated sink values". Does that apply only to the new parts, or something could have changed in old parts as well?

[oblique hollow]

unknown

[waxen moss]

I finished the calculations for my next factory, it will be 690,956.94 square feet

That's 900 foundations!!

[soft scarab]

That’s it? Only 30x30?

Not that that isn’t a big factory, I just never thought to convert to square feet

[waxen moss]

Well its actually...not a cube

It's 43 long in one place, 35 in another, 50 meters tall on one end, 29 on the other

[worldly vector]

I´m now rebuilding my steel factory, so that it (hopefully) makes about 9 Heavy frames a minute. Its not much but its something

ahh this might not even work

well actually it will
i thankfully have a lot of limestone nearby

great, I cant support that much steel production, I´m like 210 Steel/m short

[worldly vector]

so i think about the max i can supply is 4.5 heavy frames a minute. I need some overflow on the beams, pipes and encased beams for builing etc, so this should work

time for more calculations....

[wind spade]

why would you calculate with square feet though 🤔

[worldly vector]

i could push it up to like 5.1 frames a minute but that would use like all my steel, 479.4 and i have 480 available

so 4.5 a minute it is, with all the overflow i need

so how do y´all even manage large factories then?
would you (for example) just deliver more coal by train to a central steel place?

I could do that here too, but that would take way too long because the only rail network i have is a dumb little rollercoaster at my hub lmao

[worldly vector]

hell yes it works

and I still have 30 steel to spare, gonna use that for beams

[waxen moss]

to explain size to someone who does not play vibeo gaem

and american

I did all math in meters, just converted at the end

[still trout]

but, you posted your findings in a server filled with people who play the video game

[pulsar stratus]

Some like modular frame, fireworks, then mostly ammo related stuff

[oblique hollow]

modular frames got their points adjusted?

[pulsar stratus]

radio control unit

my bad 😄 internal names 😄

[oblique hollow]

aha.... from - to?

[pulsar stratus]

32908 ==> 19600

[oblique hollow]

wow theyve been weakened

[static relic]

Hey all, I've typed out a colloasus of an Essay to give to CSS about the state of the pwoer formula they're using. TYhis is the bottom line. How dfo you folks feel aboutt his?:

Underclocking and overclocking would look like this for a constructor:
25% = 1MW (as opposed to current .44MW)
50% = 2MW (as opposed to current 1.32MW)
75% = 3MW (as opposed to current 2.52MW)
100% = 4MW

150% = 7.5MW (as opposed to current 7.65MW)
200% = 12.64MW (as opposed to current 12.13MW)
250% = 20.8MW (as opposed to current 17.33 MW)* In addition to the Side note being applied.

In the late game, on a Manufacturer, this is represented like this:

25% = 13.75MW (as opposed to current 5.99W)
50% = 27.5MW (as opposed to current 18.14MW)
75% = 41.25MW (as opposed to current 34.71MW)
100% = 55MW

150% = 103.125MW (as opposed to current 105.22MW)
200% = 173.8MW (as opposed to current 166.73MW)
250% = 286MW (as opposed to current 238.27MW)* In addition to the Side note being applied.

[pulsar stratus]

?

[soft scarab]

Are you just saying you want linear power scaling for underclocking and even more aggressive exponential growth for overclocking?

[hazy saffron]

Having different formulas based on what machine is overclocked is terrible from an end-user perspective

They are also considering rebalancing overclocking to be linear for all production machines

[static relic]

For production buildings, yes. For power generators, linear all the way

[static relic]

Same formula for every machine. The difference comes from HOW OVERCLOCKED it is. Like, 101->150 is different to 151-200 is different to 201-250

[hazy saffron]

🤔

So you want to make it pointlessly difficult for new players to understand

The reason they're looking to change it right now is because not having a linear scale is to make it easier for new players to figure out and for experienced players to have an easier time using it.

Any change in formula based off oc level is counterproductive to any idea of "good user experience"

[remote ice]

why are we expecting new players to understand the overclocking formula

We have a HUD. You drag the bar to a location, and it tells you outright how much power it uses.

[hazy saffron]

Because it's a game about doing math

[remote ice]

The hud is pretty much enough, even if you had to do 6-dimensional matrix multiplication to calculate the power consumption without the HUD.

Anyone doing it ingame will look at the hud. Anyone putting it in a calc just has to write the formula down once.

[hazy saffron]

At first glance you're going to expect 150% increase in production to lead to a 150% increase in power requirement. The actual formula doesn't do that. You have extra considerations when determining if your power production can meet demand of the factory you're building.

[remote ice]

i sure don't think "alright i need to overclock this machine to 175%. Lemme just solve for c"

[hazy saffron]

The proposal above is linear below 100% and exponential above 100%

[remote ice]

i use a calculator, because even if i understand the formula just fine i can't be assed to work with anything that uses 2^-13/3

[hazy saffron]

Congrats on using a calculator

[brittle flint]

bigger number equals more power 😎

[remote ice]

yes, and the suggestion the person is making doesn't change that. It just removes "underclocking uses exponentially less power" aspect, which is a negative gameplay aspect - it encourages making absurdly large factories for minimum power consumption, a very tedious task

[hazy saffron]

"it encourages wasting your time for minimal gain" is a garbage argument

[remote ice]

"it encourages wasting your time for minimal gain" is a garbage argument is a garbage argument.

[hazy saffron]

Something completely optional is not a negative gameplay aspect in the grand scheme of things; you're not required to optimize for power efficiency. Doing so is entirely your own choice.

The problem with the proposal is it takes something that's reasonable enough to figure out and adds an extra, pointless layer of complexity on top of it that has realistically zero benefit.

[stark bronze]

I wish people actually think this way about gain and time investment and don't actually just overclock everything just to build less stuff because boo hoo computer can't handle things that doesn't actually effect performance that much when they finally decided to linear power without moving infinite slug generation

[remote ice]

you can't dismiss it as completely optional - after the last elevator milestone, the game has no set objectives. The objective of "maximize awesome sink points" is as valid as any other goal, and it (and other goals) are substantially hurt by the fact that doing so requires you to push a factory to absurd scales that no computer can handle.

And the devs see some merit in overclocking taking exponentially more power, since that's the current state and they are debating a change to it (as opposed to "immediately changing it because they think it's obviously better"). Keeping the exponential scaling but removing the harmful underclocking gameplay incentives is, by some viewpoints, the best of both worlds.

[hazy saffron]

Maximizing awesome sink points is an optional objective; not something the player is required to do. Your argument there just added on another layer of optionality.

[remote ice]

playing the game is a optional objective

and arguably, every goal in the game is optional. There's a order of progression in the game, but nothing says you can't just run off and explore instead of ever building a factory

[hazy saffron]

congratulations; you just figured out the concept of a sandbox

[bleak pulsar]

I like to go around shooting cause i cant understand math lol

[hazy saffron]

Update 6 must have you hyped then

[remote ice]

great, glad we've clarified that the game is a sandbox game. Now please stop justifying a highly negative gameplay incentive on the basis of "it's a sandbox game so you don't have to use it"

Or, if you want to look at it another way: It's not enough for a aspect of gameplay to merely exist. Any part of the game must justify it's existence. It must positively contribute to the game. If it doesn't, it's, at best, meaningless bloat.

[hazy saffron]

It does positively contribute to the game; it allows the player the option to go and optimize for power efficiency if that's what they desire

it gives ✨ options ✨

[remote ice]

no. That comes at a cost of tedium, extreme tedium. If a player seriously attempts that, it's only because they didn't realize the consequences of building so many more buildings

the lack of blueprint, area copy-paste, etc is this games biggest flaw, and it's only barely justified by the relatively limited scope, and the satisfaction (pun) of the effort required to place so many machines by hand

[hazy saffron]

god forbid the player optimizing for power efficiency enjoys building a factory in a factory-building game

Sure, you might find it a tedious annoying mess to optimize for power efficiency just as I find it a tedious annoying mess grinding literally anything in Runescape but my roommate loves that shit

[remote ice]

there is a vast difference between building a factory and hand-placing 3,000 belts. Design is the interesting part. Monotonous repetition is what you get when you scale up so much.

[hazy saffron]

making it just linear under 100% or linear entirely removes the option to optimize for power efficiency

your argument boils down to "i don't like this therefore it shouldn't exist"

[remote ice]

if players really want to do so, then they're free to just make a larger factory (since the limit set by resource availability is quite large and probably approaches the limit of what most pcs can comfortably handle)

But the game should not encourage it. At all. Not discouraging it, fine. But there should be exactly zero incentive to literally build 100x more machines than the game is balanced around.

[hazy saffron]

if you're building 100x more constructors than you'd typically need for anything may god have mercy on your soul

actually, manufacturers would be worse lmao

[remote ice]

well, that's what 1% overclocking does...

[hazy saffron]

and you don't need to go to that extreme

[remote ice]

well that's what the game is telling me to do

[vapid gorge]

https://tenor.com/view/eating-popcorn-im-watching-interested-gif-14656217

[remote ice]

because that's the best power savings right there.

[hazy saffron]

the further down you go the less return you get in power savings

[thorn bane]

huh?

no its the opposite

[remote ice]

yeah the curve gets way steeper the lower you go

[hazy saffron]

yeah, my brain went full dumb there

it's 6 AM lmao

meant power savings:space taken

[remote ice]

the game is pretty ample with space, though. You're unlikely to be able to run out if you're building 3 dimensionally

[hazy saffron]

but, as I said you're not required to do that.

[tender kernel]

It's also power saving vs effort put in.

[remote ice]

it's a sandbox game. The entire premise of what you do in a sandbox game is not requirements, it's incentives. Areas of the game that are meant to be explored, encourage the user to explore them by rewarding the player.

encouragement exists for underclocking, so players are meant to explore it. Maximum encouragement occurs at the point where underclocking is massively unfun and detrimental to game performance

[tender kernel]

Who here is for linear power and who here is against linear power? xD can't tell
@remote ice @hazy saffron

[hazy saffron]

you don't have to go full 100x as many machines; if you think the game is telling you to do so then you're misreading something somewhere.

You're not required to maintain speed at 800 RPM going down the highway to save fuel, if you really want to you can sit there at 4000 RPM wasting as much gas as possible. You simply have the option to reduce fuel burn.

[thorn bane]

that function has a maximum at 32/(5*5^2/3) ~ 2.18 buildings)
woah

[hazy saffron]

I'm against the proposal above that has overclocking power consumption be linear below 100% and not linear above 100%

[vapid gorge]

One is for a MORE complicated than current system I think and one is neutral?

[remote ice]

i'm indifferent for anything above 100%, and strongly against reduced power consumption per item below 100% because it forces any attempt at "maximum sink income" factories to be arbitrarily massive. It becomes a contest of "who has the largest PC and the most time to waste/most willingness to use blueprint mods".

[hazy saffron]

it removes an optional gameplay element and adds additional complexity to a system that new players might find confusing to begin with

[vapid gorge]

.... no one is going to care about this.

[remote ice]

i'm also against people dismissing suggestions because its "too complicated" when the current formula is already so complicated that players are obligated to use a calculator. It changes nothing if the formula still requires a calculator afterwards.

[thorn bane]

i dont think its additional complexity btw
i feeel like its eeasier to understand

[vapid gorge]

if you're doing massive set ups you want to overclock everything anyway

[remote ice]

find me one person who actually tries to multiply something to the power of 1.6 in their head.

[tender kernel]

What if going below 100% does not reduce speed? But increase resources spent?

[vapid gorge]

https://tenor.com/view/data-star-trek-intensifies-hmm-enterprise-gif-13654978

[bleak pulsar]

Ok this subject is too complex for me newbie,im just on phase 3

[vapid gorge]

It's also semi pointless. Don't worry about it XD

[hazy saffron]

you'll get there eventually

[thorn bane]

you just put 1.6 in the machine

[vapid gorge]

https://tenor.com/view/shia-la-beouf-bravo-clap-great-gif-13764127

[remote ice]

you jest, but using the UI to find power consumption like that? That's exactly how you're intended to do it. Newbies don't need to know the formula, they just gotta look at the numbers the game calculates for thme.

[thorn bane]

also why would you ever have the challenge of requiring a machine to use an exact amount of power
like hm i only have 7 MW that means i can overclock my constructor to 141%
thats not how the game is played

[vapid gorge]

I think the argument for 'linear below 100%' is pretty silly, it's not going to be some battle between 'biggest computer to spam a billion machines at 0.00000001%'

[hazy saffron]

it's less that and more "I can place twice the buildings to consume less power than I would if I placed the normal amount of buildings"

[vapid gorge]

And that CAN be a useful thing to do, give some benefit of spreading it among more machines

[thorn bane]

just because you dont do it doesnt mean that its bad for the game
i just hate not being optimal for example

also some people might feel forced into doing something they dont like because its better

[vapid gorge]

Not optimal in what way? You mean in this case 'better because it saves power' ?

[thorn bane]

yes

and power is resources

[remote ice]

from the wiki: The theoretical maximum if additionally allowing for underclocking of unlimited buildings (Water Extractors and all processing buildings) down to 1% clock speed is 189,873,115.77 points per minute. In this configuration, fewer Plutonium Fuel Rods are sunk, instead some Concrete and raw Uranium are sunk as well. Even under these generous power conditions, the map's Limestone and Nitrogen Gas resources aren't fully utilized in the optimal configuration. Note this configuration is practically infeasible since it requires building around 3,274,000 buildings.

i am not the first person to consider it

[hazy saffron]

of course

[remote ice]

3 million. Two hundred. And seventy four. thousand. buildings.

[vapid gorge]

You've forced me to do it. You utter bastard.

'if you're building to power you're doing power wrong'

How dare you make me quote @median heath

[remote ice]

it is absurd that i even have to consider that in the process of trying to make a on-par factory

[thorn bane]

i feel like you just shouldnt have the option because of "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game."

[remote ice]

exactly

[hazy saffron]

I feel like that statement was sarcasm

[median heath]

"If power is a factor in your decision-making, you're building power wrong."

[thorn bane]

its not though

[vapid gorge]

If given the chance to slightly misrepresent you I will 😛

[hazy saffron]

If players want to optimize the fun out of the game that's solely their choice

[median heath]

Optimizing the fun out of a game based on optimization though..

[vapid gorge]

Yeah let people spam a billion machines and burn their computers out.

[thorn bane]

idk its 9.63% more points #math-and-meta message
thats not nothing

[vapid gorge]

If thats what turns your crank shrug

[hazy saffron]

removing an element that others enjoy because you don't like it is unfair to those that enjoy optimizing the hell out of everything

[thorn bane]

problem is the people that enjoy it are 0.1% of the playerbase

[remote ice]

except i'm not saying remove it because i dislike it, i'm saying remove it because it directly encourages negative gameplay aspects, and anyone who enjoys repetitive tasks still has things to do in the form of making a normal-clock factory which is large.

[hazy saffron]

you don't need to use that element, you can straight up just ignore it if you want to.
I do agree the formula needs re-worked; there's should be diminishing returns on both ends of the scale

[thorn bane]

• its actually bad for fps

[vapid gorge]

the other not 0.1% don't have to do it though?

[hazy saffron]

yes, and open air factories are bad for FPS as well, or putting all your factories in one area, or a billion of other things

Playing satisfactory in general is bad for your FPS

[remote ice]

it's pretty much saying "hey, you want to optimize this thing? Alright, if you want to do it best, you have to break you computer and completely violate the careful balance of gameplay we've made."

[thorn bane]

well that was their reasoning against blueprints

[jagged warren]

Satis is a difficult game fps wise on its own, why complain about it

[vapid gorge]

I had to upgrade my computer because of this bastard game. Every other game was fine on max quality. Except this monster.

[jagged warren]

No one forces u to OC stuff or whatever, its a sandbox, you do you

[hazy saffron]

alt recipes encourage optimizing your factory

they must be removed

[jagged warren]

True

[thorn bane]

have you guys every played any arpg or mmo or any other game?
people chose optimal characters/strategies over fun ones
thats just how games work in 2022

[jagged warren]

Im only at T4 rn but man my 5.625 reinforced plates are funny

[hazy saffron]

the meta is op

[earnest glen]

lets hope they keep going with optimization

[jagged warren]

Altho i wish you could use splitters to split in fractions

[remote ice]

gameplay incentives in sandbox games exist to encourage players to do things even if they're not immediately inclined to. A gameplay incentive should not exist that deliberately points players towards self-destructive paths.

[vapid gorge]

seems better every update?

[hazy saffron]

this is an excellent argument against microtransactions

[remote ice]

about half of all mobile games should be illegal.

[vapid gorge]

Nah, that's another thing. You're never forced to load balance. Manifold everything. Want to load balance? Learn it

[remote ice]

it's literally drugs.

[hazy saffron]

glad we agree on something lmao

[remote ice]

I'm not even exaggerating for emphasis at all, game designers go in to it thinking "how do we hook players as much as possible and make them spend fucktons of money" and they've had years to optimize on that. Literally. Drugs.

[hazy saffron]

awesome sink encourages players to dump excess material that could be used for further production of space elevator parts for pretty decorations

i'd say that's fairly self-destructive

but muh statues

[remote ice]

the psychological hooks they've invented for mobile games are astonishing

[remote ice]

arguably yes, but there's not much use for that stuff anyway because the space elevator phases take so little stuff to complete. When i finished hooking up my factory for each stage, it usually takes, like, 15 minutes to fill.

[jagged warren]

Yeah tell me that when i need to use 1/17 of my production 😩

[remote ice]

only the last stage is even slightly a challenge

[vapid gorge]

... manifold.

[jagged warren]

Or even better, smth like 7/13

[thorn bane]

wait are you saying 4000 assembly director systems etc. is "little stuff"

[hazy saffron]

so you optimize for time to meet requirements whereas I optimize for "how little effort can I put into meeting requirements"

[remote ice]

the last stage is a bit better

[thorn bane]

what kinds of factories do you build o.O

[vapid gorge]

Manifold with overflow all 13 of your 13ths....

[bleak pulsar]

Dunno if im a noob but it took longer than 15 min for me to fill

[thorn bane]

not even last one
2500 frameworks in 15min?
dayum

[remote ice]

but it's also a objectively small amount of time compared to other tasks you do in the game while your factory is producing. Finding all the power slugs on the map is a 50-100h task. Building large factory buildings, clearing large forests, etc can take a dozen hours.

If you have a reasonable factory filling the elevator, the elevator will finish before you finish doing other stuff.

[oblique hollow]

whats the discussion about again?

[remote ice]

🤷

[jagged warren]

If you want a game youve likely replayed dozens of times to be hard, youre looking at the worst genre for that

[thorn bane]

idk i feel like that depends alot on the player
imo it takees alot of time to finish the last SE phases
but maybe im just faster at building

[jagged warren]

I think this game is good like it is :)

[remote ice]

i mean, not so much a challenge as just progression that isn't so abrupt. Factorio is a lot better about it. Unlocking stuff like nukes takes a while.

[oblique hollow]

i have yet to automate any of the tier 8 and 7 parts mostly.

i have made cooling systems and turbo motors, but thats it

colling systems are really ez pz

[jagged warren]

I have made rotors 😎

[oblique hollow]

thats nice

how many

[hazy saffron]

Factorio also requires a lot more factory expansion

[jagged warren]

Like not too fast but i left it on overnight and now i have "too many"

[hazy saffron]

I haven't automated any of the last tier parts myself; I kinda just got burnt out on games tho

[thorn bane]

currently at 438/500 modular engines to unlock tier 7 in my 21h U6 playthrough

[oblique hollow]

happens

[remote ice]

Satisfactory is in a decent spot where it generally requires much smaller factory, don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily saying make all the space elevator stages harder...

But the awesome sink basically must exist as-is. If you build a substantial factory, you won't be able to run it otherwise. You'd breeze through every resource requirement in the game before you finished.

[jagged warren]

I destroyed all my automation and did a lot of calculations to automate every T4 thing

A lot i mean 3 minutes worth

[thorn bane]

i actually do agree with that
sink meta is awesome ♥️

[oblique hollow]

the sink is needed insofar as we care only about items/min, not actual items unlike factorio

and keeping item / min alive means some form of item disposal

[remote ice]

i do wish the awesome sink was replaced by the space elevator. It's kinda lame how we have this awesome gigantic building specifically for shipping stuff out, and instead we mostly use "lol just toss it in the macerator"

[jagged warren]

True, gotta get rid of junk

[thorn bane]

i mean milestones get rid of items

[remote ice]

you'll breeze through them though

[vapid gorge]

Why? How many billions of tons of materials are thrown away now?

[oblique hollow]

what i can see beeing a possibility is restricting what items can be sunk

[vapid gorge]

Damn realistic

[thorn bane]

maybe they should just increaser their cost by alot

[jagged warren]

I have 50h on my save and im T4

[oblique hollow]

so like... "uh uh buddy no ores allowed"

[vapid gorge]

Eh, they barely give points and I can see SOME universe where people are doing silly balance things and might need an overflow.

[jagged warren]

How will i get rid of my 3 containers filled with coal then 😭

[oblique hollow]

drag into trash with ctrl

[earnest glen]

that's intresting. Maybe as you go through the tiers lowers tiers item can't be sunk anymore

[jagged warren]

Ok fair

[vapid gorge]

live with the sin of someone who stores coal?

[thorn bane]

idk imo the exponential increase is enoughjjustification

[jagged warren]

Just u wait for my iron

[thorn bane]

like 1 supercomputer is 50000 iron ores

[bleak pulsar]

As a newbie i stored a lot of coal

[oblique hollow]

"FICSIT has gathered enough data of these materials and has restricted them from being allowed in the AWESOME Sink"

[remote ice]

items/min (or sometimes, /second since factorio has different item rate balancing) is important in factorio. A late game factory tends to measure effectiveness in science/minute (getting up to the thousands).

And one thing it gets very right: those resources have uses. Improving logistics capacity, reducing how often you have to set up new resource nodes, increasing the effectiveness of the tower defense aspect of the game... infinite research really breathes a lot of life into late-game

[vapid gorge]

It's SO pointless hoarding raw materials XD

[jagged warren]

No

[bleak pulsar]

I just got through phase 2 and haven set up a factory for any of the resource nor do im smart enough

[jagged warren]

Theres one super important reason, do you have like 50000 iron ore? No? Sad...

[remote ice]

there is exactly 1 resource worth hording: plutonium waste

... also collectibles i guess

[oblique hollow]

the fact that you cant sink fluids is a big benefit right now

if you like forced complexity

fluids HAVE to be dealt with

[earnest glen]

they could resolve this with some modifiers at the start of the game. Some sort of "difficulty" slider

[vapid gorge]

yeah but you can't do crazy balance things with fluids

[oblique hollow]

yea dealing with fluids is always a local issue

[earnest glen]

so casuals gonna have their game same as hardcore

[fringe pawn]

The biggest change I would make is probably moving coal power to tier 2.

[oblique hollow]

eh tier 2 is survivable with biomass

[vapid gorge]

And I think everything to coal power is a great tutorial

[earnest glen]

mostly if you get biomass from aliens

[thorn bane]

[vapid gorge]

Like, it's probably one of the best 'learn the basics' tutorials I've seen and elegantly merged into gameplay

[oblique hollow]

the worst game tutorial move irk i have is the fact that as soon as you get oil processing, you have access to the useless fuel recipe

[bleak pulsar]

Coal gen is a god send to me

I dont have to refill biomass manually anymore

[oblique hollow]

fuel shouldnt be unlocked with basic oil

[earnest glen]

i think i've stored something like 4 industrial container of solid biomass before coal, just out of aliens 😄