math-and-meta

[median heath]

If Flexible used less Screws and more Rubber I'd give it more thought tbh.
But the amount of Screws it needs makes it untenable.

[bleak slate]

104 freakin screws

i cant even imagine how that many screws would fit into that thing

[median heath]

Production Speed isn't measured by time though.
If you want 135/min you can always get it. It's just a matter of how many buildings it takes to achieve that.

Hence, whenever people think about "faster" what they actually mean is "saves space"

[bleak slate]

that depends on what you're talking about

overall production or comparing recipes

[sacred orbit]

how does one get rid of nuclear waste?

[median heath]

I just explained exactly what I'm talking about 🤷‍♂️

[median heath]

Plutonium Rods.

[bleak slate]

ik

im just talking semantics lol

[median heath]

I'm not being semantic when I said "speed" is the dumbest way people try to compare things.
I'm being literal.

[bleak slate]

im saying i was being semantic

[median heath]

Fair.

[bleak slate]

lmao

idk if i have the motivation to finish rebuilding this factory ngl

[sacred orbit]

dont they also produce waste?

[bleak slate]

time to not play for like 3 months then come back and no-life it

[median heath]

Does the AWESOME Sink have an output?

[sacred orbit]

so plutonium is waste-free?

[old bolt]

Just throw them in the sink.

[bleak slate]

you can sink plutonium rods

[median heath]

Sinking a Plutonium Rod gives you no waste.
Burning a Plutonium Rod gives you waste.

[sacred orbit]

can't they also be used for energy?

god i type slow

[bleak slate]

yes but it makes waste

[median heath]

Uranium Rods can be made waste-free by sinking Plutonium Rods.

Plutonium Rods are not waste-free if you burn them.

[sacred orbit]

that can make rods

[bleak slate]

like sevrahn said

[median heath]

Which is why most people don't burn Plutonium Rods, they sink them.

[sacred orbit]

plutonium waste can make more rods?

[median heath]

No

[old bolt]

Nope

You must store it somewhere forever.

[sacred orbit]

no? or not yet?

[median heath]

No.

[sacred orbit]

devs said no?

[median heath]

Yes.

That's the trade.
You double your MJ per rod, but have to deal with waste.

So if you want no waste you convert Uranium Waste into Plutonium Rods and sink them.

[sacred orbit]

so the whole "FICSIT does not waste" thing is bs?

[median heath]

You're being thick for an unknown reason.

[stuck stratus]

that's been a tongue in cheek motto since at least the awesome shop's introduction

[old bolt]

Its not waste if its stored.

[median heath]

600 GW of waste-free power isn't enough for you?

[sacred orbit]

no.

never enough

[median heath]

Now you're just trolling. Goodbye.

[sacred orbit]

yes.

[worthy island]

My modular frame factory consumes ~1k steel ingots delivered by train over 4 platforms. I've gone over the belts and checked the maths so many times - they should be balanced but two of the platforms unload so much faster. The train sits there waiting for the slow platforms, meanwhile the fast platforms starve. Each platform says it is unloading at the same rate in the platform UI. I feel like I'm missing something obvious and can't figure out how to fix it.

I got this to work on my HMF factory which is similar but has 3k+ ingots. So I know I can make this work but I've got no idea what's going on.

[median heath]

Are the platforms buffered and double-belted?

[worthy island]

single belt but they are buffered. the problem seems to be happening further up the line but every machine is full, no outputs are clogged. it's odd.

tbh, i think some of my factories are just haunted

[median heath]

Always double-belt your buffers...

[worthy island]

I'll try that. Thanks! This is the only station that uses regular storage rather than ISC because I could fit them under the floor.

If this works, I'm very appreciative. I feel like most of the stuff that goes wrong for me now is weird meta stuff that I can't figure out on my own. I love this discord.

[bright sentinel]

what does this mean?

[median heath]

Train Platform to ISC should use 2 belts regardless of if you think 1 is fine or not.

[worthy island]

I wonder if 2 x regular storage would work

[median heath]

Yes.

The point is getting everything into or out of the platform as fast as possible.
So you double-belt.

[worthy island]

Perfect. Because otherwise I have to get rid of the car park.

[bright sentinel]

Okay thanks, I just got to trains

[worthy island]

Congrats. Trains is when the addiction really starts, imo

[median heath]

Keep using trucks where applicable.

[bright sentinel]

I like the trucks to gather resources into dense product and transfer short distances

[median heath]

That's a good use for them.

[native karma]

Iron wire right?

[worthy island]

Trucks are great. Fun watching crash and fly across the map.. i mean drive around doing important work

[median heath]

Up to you 🤷‍♂️
2 is a great option

[worthy island]

2 or 3

[median heath]

This is U6, not U2

[native karma]

Ok btw I just unlocked basic steel and it’s my first play through so very new

[median heath]

Can I give you my new player advice?

[native karma]

Ofc

[median heath]

Drop this Discord, entirely (for now).
Play the game by yourself without any guides, hints, wikis, or help all the way to T7.
Experience the game for yourself, meet the challenges and solve the problems yourself so you learn how to think about the game.
Get your own perspective on how things work. Once you're at T7 then come back and you'll be in a much better spot to compare your experience with others instead of just having information handed to you.

You lose so much of the journey if you are just gifted answers.

[loud shell]

^

[native karma]

Thanks I’ve been doing a lot of planning on paper but I got annoyed by pipes and looked up some

Thanks though I’ll do that

[median heath]

If you start getting burned out (not "I can't solve this", if you get full "I have no desire to continue") feel free to come back and describe where you got to if you want to know how we kept motivated in that part.

[native karma]

1-2 hours every day except two days where i play as much as I want

[median heath]

May change when you do your first build that has multiple hundreds of buildings in one factory 😉

[native karma]

lol Probably right.

[worthy island]

Pls tell my trucks that

[median heath]

Drive better. They do what you show them to do.

Also drive on the dirt like a normal person.

[worthy island]

I do! I've only really got one problem truck. It's super noticeable because it does a barrel roll down the hill towards my central storage so I get to watch my learner driver failures all the time

[median heath]

Is it a truck-truck?

Or like a tractor?

[worthy island]

Yah, truck truck. It's ok, they're doing their best

[median heath]

Your fault for not using Explorers 🙃

[cinder silo]

Welp, after all that construction, my refinery doesn't work properly quite likely caused by my shitty oil feed design.

[worthy island]

I gotta head out but if you post some screenshots I'd love to help diagnose the problem. I feel like I finally understand pipes now.

[cinder silo]

I have a rough idea of the cause, I tried to build the oil feed around the hor output, I'm rerouting the hor out 2 metres upwards and changing the oil in in to connected loops.

[worthy island]

Loops were the pipe game changer for me. They look cool too.

[cinder silo]

1 set of hor outputs per floor won't need the U bend I'm adding, but I'm doing it anyway for consistency.

Now to repeat this with all HOR outputs, that way I can have all my oil feeds level.

[pulsar gale]

Do injection manifolds have to be in the middle of the splitter manifold?

[median heath]

Not in the exact middle.
You can inject whereever.

You can inject multiple times too if needed.

[pulsar gale]

So that overflow from the top you were on about earlier I can just inject into the bottom conveyor before it gets split again in the manifold for the constructors?

[median heath]

If you want, yes.

[pulsar gale]

Alrighty!

Cheers again 🍻

Sorry for another question but where on the conveyor do I split the top overflow to send to the bottom?

Do I need to do it before or after the next manifold and do I need to use a smart splitter?

Or do I even need to use a splitter at all. Do I just need to direct the top conveyor at the next manifold to merge in the bottom conveyor?

[median heath]

Split it anywhere you want.
Merge it onto the line below.

Smart splitter recommended on the bottom line for the machine immediately prior to the injection point to make sure it fills and only overflow is sent on.

Ignore the sushi, but this is an example of injection.

[native karma]

how much would I have to overclock a foundry to use 60 iron and coal a minute to make steel?

[median heath]

Which recipe?

@native karma

[native karma]

default recipe

[median heath]

How much iron does that recipe take?

[thorn bane]

just put 60 in the parts per minute box

[pulsar gale]

If you merge before any of the machines do you not need to use a smart splitter?

[median heath]

(I know the answer, I'm teaching...)

Or ZyRa can just do that....

🙄

[median heath]

Draw this in MS paint so I understand the question.

[native karma]

Thanks for the help

[median heath]

@native karma
Your question: what to clock for using 60

What recipe? Base
How much does base use? 45
What is 60/45?
Answer to clock speed.

[pulsar gale]

"Smart splitter recommended on the bottom line for the machine immediately prior to the injection point to make sure it fills and only overflow is sent on."

It is referencing that.

[native karma]

oh ok thanks

[thorn bane]

yoooo where is that from?

[median heath]

I know what I meant when I wrote that.
I still don't get your question.

[median heath]

Me?

[thorn bane]

nvm

[pulsar gale]

I'll rephrase cause I'm bloody rubbish at explaining things.

Basically. You say that a smart splitter is recommended on the bottom line for the machine prior to the injection. So say if there is no machine prior and I do the injection at the beginning of the manifold, would I still need to use a smart splitter?

[thorn bane]

so the first machine?
then no only before the injection

[pulsar gale]

Yes.

Right gotcha.

[median heath]

No. Because that's not really an "injection" point.

[pulsar gale]

Ah so I think I kinda get how it works now. I'm guessing the injection can be anywhere in between the manifold. So the overflow from the top merges into the bottom?

Or am I stupid

[median heath]

Not exactly "overflow" from top.
You know how much you have on top and how much the bottom belt can actually hold.
So you're injecting specific amounts when the bottom belt can handle more and you keep doing it until you no longer need a top belt.

The smart splitter before injection makes sure the machine prior doesn't starve.

I.E. if you were sending 120 down the line and the final machine needed 15 but there's 20 going into the splitter, it would only ever get 10 because that splitter would continue down the line and never fill the machine.
So the smart forces the final machine prior to injection to get what it needs.

[pulsar gale]

Ahhhhh

That actually makes sense.

[median heath]

💡

[median heath]

I try to make sense 😭

[pulsar gale]

I mean once I get it at least I then get it,

That is why I like this game.

I learn things.

[median heath]

Next we will teach you sushi

[pulsar gale]

sushi?

[cinder silo]

That's the refineries re piped, I hope the yellow light spam is greatly reduced.

[snow dove]

standard manifold, yes?

[median heath]

Mixed item belts

[median heath]

Those are Foundries.
So it's a sushi manifold

[pulsar gale]

Oh my lord that is quite interesting.

[snow dove]

wait, what’s the difference?

i thought sushi had to be mixed items

[pulsar gale]

When I get to reworking my Steel factory I will make sure to ask you to teach me.

[median heath]

Standard manifold is 1 item per belt.
Foundries have 2 inputs. So there are 2 items on that belt.

[thorn bane]

thats baby sushi

[cinder silo]

Anything with low to moderate throughput is easily eligible for sushi running, simpler built to boot. (edit, moderate not modest)

[snow dove]

oh, i’m blind

[thorn bane]

THIS is sushi

[median heath]

Made for example purposes 😭

Balancer Sushi vs. Manifold Sushi

[snow dove]

both are heretic in my eyes but i digress

[median heath]

High throughput works great with injection manifolds.

[cinder silo]

True, personally I dislike injection manifolds, primarily because I've stuffed them up more than other builds.

[snow dove]

so to do a sushi manifold

say it’s running 4 manufacturers

you quadruple every item required for the recipe on the input line

[median heath]

Or 10...

[snow dove]

then for each smart splitter you just set one of the items on both sides

[cinder silo]

Ffs, still getting refineries going on and offline.

[median heath]

If you do a double-sided manifold, yes.
Middle to Overflow.

[thorn bane]

do you inject with raw lines or sushi lines?

sushi injected with sushi sounds scary

[median heath]

Raw.
It's almost always just 1 item that need to be injected, like QW.

[thorn bane]

ye true

[snow dove]

so you just set the items where like:
yellow: item A
green: item B
red: item C
blue: Item D

then the items just overflow and eventually work themselves out

[median heath]

Yes

[snow dove]

ok i might try it

i’ll mess around with it when i get back to my PC

[pulsar gale]

@median heath What do I set my smart splitter to on the injection?

I think it is overflow so Ima go with that

[median heath]

Side = Item
Middle = Overflow

[snow dove]

just found the pipeline guide, and this thing is great

hats off to the guy that made it

[pulsar gale]

Do you have another example you could show me?

Its alr if not

[snow dove]

this

[cinder silo]

The first pipe layout definitely didn't work, trouble is the redesigned loop is still giving off yellow lights, large scale refining is driving me nuts.

[thorn bane]

ive never liked the loop thingy idk
just use 480 pipes and youre fine
also dont mix pipes

[cinder silo]

Each input, 2 per floor only carries 450 each, the total 900 should be enough for all 30 refineries, apparently it isn't

The layout shown in the top image failed spectacularly, with half of the refineries always being off.

[unborn ermine]

I found with a simple setup for recycling when I started this playthrough, I wanted to back up products completely THEN purge one pipe section over and over until that section was behaving.

I realised my grammar mistake

[cinder silo]

I could cut the belts and try to ensure the entire input is full before getting it going again, I really don't need to be ripping out and redesigning four floors of that mess over and over.

Belts are cut, I'm leaving the refineries producing until they choke on finished product, by all rights the oil inputs should be maxed, after that I'm going to purge the hor & fuel, take all the product out and try to turn it all back on.

[cinder silo]

Looks like I need to build a distribution & overflow sink building for the refinery because if it backs up the entire thing folds.

[unborn ermine]

Thats not very satisfactory

[cinder silo]

Guess not but who knew a large refinery could be so touchy.

[unborn ermine]

I can imagine, One damn pipe and extractor gave me so much grief the other day.

Bright side though, that I do have a factory using the two quartz nodes (pure quartz) and steamed sheets running off of that one extractor now.

[cinder silo]

I'm dreading powering the refinery up again, I had to purge the whole thing, that's why a smart sorting & sink annex is being built next door.

[unborn ermine]

Im lucky I havent went super huge yet so far with oil, most I did was doing the OLD diluted fuel and making turbo.
(that was when refineries did packaging) ... o O ( )

[cinder silo]

This is the refinery in question, lower left is the partially completed annex that is responsible for sorting and smart sinking overflow of the output, it's a kind of relief valve for the eight outputs of the main refinery, it will prevent the refinery from screwing up as I set belts to various buildings that need rubber & plastic.

Old diluted for turbo fuel was another pain, here's a video of that build https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvTc93T8-G4 , It has since been demolished, updated & moved.

[sand epoch]

Fun is being had

[cinder silo]

Taking me some time to build, once the annex is working I can dare to draw plastic/rubber without fear of the whole thing seizing like it has been doing all day due to imbalanced production at various stages due to me building it while it was on.

[sand epoch]

Heathen.. lol. Runing it while you build? Ur supposed to spend 50hrs building it all then tirn it on. :)

[unborn ermine]

Thats the worst part about builds, you want to get it going 100% perfect from the start, but you know something is definitely not be right or forgotten

[cinder silo]

The good news is I have rubber & plastic to spare, during it's screwed up operation I pulled 4 cans of each to replenish my near depleted supply since the old refinery was taken down.

[unborn ermine]

I should be doing my steel tomorrow, I found that Planner has one build chain I like for HMF... but the numbers are gunna be edited.

[sand epoch]

If it didnt screw with my drones batteries.. id use the nocost toggle to build big.. lol

[cinder silo]

I need to get iron and steel going again, my rods frames heavy frames sheets and such are getting dangerously low, I didn't anticipate being without a main factory for so long.

Hmm, is there a way to make plates with steel or do I still need an ironworks not just a foundry.

[sand epoch]

I wanna say yes.. but dont rly rem

[cinder silo]

Wtf is it with these damned Haboob? , third time now I can't see anything in front of me in the desert.

Had to suspend construction! 😡

[sand epoch]

Haboob?

[unborn ermine]

Whats nice is seeing how steel rods and steel screws works with a 900/min chunk of steel
Legit one foundry for steel beams and rods using solid steel, and you get relatively "normal" numbers with the HMF output and a few other alts.
Gunna be like 14.4/min ish

[cinder silo]

Looks like this!

[sand epoch]

Turn fog off?

[cinder silo]

Yup that fixed it, like wtf.

[unborn ermine]

Luckily I havent seen that yet living in the desert.

[cinder silo]

I don't mind clouds/fog but being utterly blinded like that is mental, It reminds me of my first aluminium refinery north of the oil islands back in update 3, so frequently blinded by bright purple fog it was insane.

This is the annex, it's job is to collect rubber/plastic, sink overflow, and widen the densely packed output belts from the nearby refinery because those belts are too close together to allow easy distribution.

Seems mad but having the nearby refinery backup will make it go south again so this building is kind-of a check valve against that.

It's also one of my few buildings that won't have an off switch 😄

[unborn ermine]

Thats the best kind of factory, set it and forget it.
Stealing what you need.

[cinder silo]

Each output belt has one industrial can that will catch everything, if it overflows the nearby sinks take it, the outputs at the bottom of the building can just be taken to whatever factory needs 600ppm or more without worrying about the refinery while I build.

In the end it will only be redundant when I fully take up the entire refinery output.

[unborn ermine]

While I was getting my computer factory built I was legit sinking 350+ silica and crystals while getting everything sorted

[cinder silo]

Overflow sink seems to be the cleanest way to keep things rolling because you don't mess anything up when you connect it all.

For less sensitive machines though I won't bother with sinks, the refinery here is the sole exception as it breaks down easily.

[unborn ermine]

Yeah I managed to get all of the machines to somehow play nice and products to route into containers AND overflow into the two sinks beside them
This aerial mess of belts
Looks worse than it is

I just realised it doesnt take height into consideration for belt/machine overlap.
So its 100x worse than it looks

Would have liked to take a screeny myself in game, but I need to sleep

happy plumbing

[cinder silo]

I'll figure it 🙂 , have a good one 🍺

[cinder silo]

Grrrr! the fucking refinery is still screwing up 😡 , looks like I have to change the feed again.

[finite sun]

people not reading guides and then complaining about pipes as usual

[cinder silo]

Don't bother.

[tender thorn]

hey guys, can someone help me about automating computers

I got all of the alternate computer recipes

[vocal steeple]

Link, please?

[fierce cypress]

pinned message

[haughty spindle]

how to fix this?

[bright sentinel]

I just looked at the numbers......Can I really make rubber and turn the heavy oil residue into petroleum coke and burn it in a coal generator to get more power out of my oil then if I burned the oil as fuel?

[muted goblet]

Isnt HOR to Fuel even more Power?

[bright sentinel]

HOR?

[muted goblet]

Heavy Oil Residie

[bright sentinel]

let me check

[muted goblet]

Think the Petroleum Coke is the "Bad" coal, so a gen needs like 25/min for 75MW where a Fuel Gen needs 12 Fuel/min for 150MW

[bright sentinel]

its actually 480 mw(oil energy) vs 360mw(petroleum coke) still thats pretty cool

I wonder if I would get more rubber that way maybe

[median heath]

Coke from HOR is actually more MW than burning Coal just because of the sheer volume of Coke you get.

[quasi surge]

Geo FTW. 21 nodes minimum output is around 4100 MW. So far its looking like I will be able to run everything my Fuel Factory needs to produce 15000MW. Then im hoping that will be enough to supply power to produce things for nuclear. But ive never fone Nuclear so i have no idea lolol

[median heath]

Geo used to be better 😭

[quasi surge]

This is my first time utilizing Geo so IDK what it used to be, but thats still a lot of coal i dont have to burn now lmao. Any free power is good power

[median heath]

It used to be synced so the wave was larger and we actually had a reason to use Power Storages.

They desynced it so now when you have all of them connected the variance is like... 1.5 GW.
Which is meh.

[quasi surge]

I mean, I never planned to use Geo for anything else. So after fuel is done ill likely never even think about it again lol.

[median heath]

That's its purpose.

Hydro will be similar if they ever add it.

[cinder silo]

In the end I only have a large amount of power stores for the coolness, I doubt I'll ever need to throw the magic button at the bottom of my base to actually use the reserve 720,000Mw of power.

[cinder silo]

Before I go for another futile rework trying to feed my refineries, is this layout even viable when feeding from above, it's been a complete disaster trying to run from below.

[brave burrow]

Might need to create more robust manifold for the water.

[native karma]

Whats faster running to a location with blade runners or hyper tube with one entrance

[median heath]

Runners.

Tube means you can take you're hands off the keyboard though.

[native karma]

uugh ok thank

thanks

[patent briar]

Depends on vertical height

[native karma]

yeah where im going it isnt really a factor

[patent briar]

I think hypertubes will be faster if you boost yourself at start

Hypertube boosters also apply to Hypertubes themselves, not just launching. You can mini boost your start to go real fast in the tube

[lone gazelle]

does anyone have values for maximum possible extraction rate of materials on the whole map without overclock?

[cinder silo]

My water is the only system that is behaving, oil in, Hor transfer and even fuel for recyc seem to randomly screw up then the entire refinery is paralysed.

[south walrus]

Alright Discord, do your thing.

[wind spade]

pick one that is good for you, not for other people 😉

[unborn ermine]

When picking things I choose the worst first and go from there.

worst being "what works for me" most of the time vs effort

[slim bough]

The middle because the outer two are not the best and reinforce iron plates need better things

[median heath]

3 should never be used.
2 is great.
1 is decent.

[muted goblet]

I'll soon get to a point, where i just need more of everything to make higher tier items. I saw a few videos and am thinking i might build a few factories that specialize on a few things, like a factory that only makes ingots to transport them where needed. How are u guys actually running factories? Im quite sure my PC just smelt if im building a megafactory and i kinda like the idea of using big parts of the map and having to sort out transports

[median heath]

Don't transport ingots.

Plz

[gilded pond]

i personally make separate mini bases wherever resource is convenient and have transit between them

[median heath]

And I run my factories by building them for exactly what they need to do. 🤷‍♂️

[unborn ermine]

The only ingots you should be transporting, are ingots to a nearby facility via belts from the node processing facility

[finite sun]

depends on ingots
transporting catherium in ingots is actually preferable

[median heath]

Genuine question:
Where is the "h" coming from? Because you're not the only person I've seen spell it that way.

[finite sun]

dunno
I'm bad with words that aren't real

[median heath]

🤷‍♂️

[unborn ermine]

honestly dont worry about spelling/grammar.
the fact that some people dont speak english and have to accommodate to deal with the discord probably adds to small and easy mistakes.

That in itself is a point of contention, but its defo not a "invalid" argument completely when reading questions from new players.

[median heath]

Was genuine question. Thought maybe in one of the other languages in the game it is spelled that way. 🤷‍♂️

[unborn ermine]

Some people spell via pronunciation when they cant recall.

Cant (from an extremely new and computer illiterate standpoint) just add caterium to the spellchecker

[cinder silo]

Erk, I ended up doing exactly that with aluminium with a train because my bauxite refinery is in a stupid place.

[median heath]

At least you didn't transport Scrap 😂

[unborn ermine]

I think that is like the alt recipes greeny defends, a bleeding edge case

[cinder silo]

True, scrap merely goes upstairs to be made in to ingots 🙂

[median heath]

I like the model for Scrap tbh

So props to that artist 👍

[finite sun]

technically, it's easiest to transport just bauxite
smallest footprint and least slots

[median heath]

Not Alumina Solution?

[finite sun]

well, only if you pack it

which adds extra clutter but at least it's the fastest packing recipe

[median heath]

Why only if packed?

If you're recycling canisters, fluid train has the same efficiency as freight train

[finite sun]

a single car handles only 1600m3

vs 32 stacks

[median heath]

32 stack but you need a second car to recycle empty cans.
2 cars = 3200 freight
2 cars = 3200 fluid

[finite sun]

or
2 cars = 6400 bauxite

[median heath]

Only way freight wins is if you're not recycling cans or if you send them back via drone/truck

[finite sun]

actually, transporting scrap isn't that bad too
but I guess even 2 mk5s might easily choke on scrap volume

[median heath]

Transporting things that stack to 500 is generally not recommended.

[finite sun]

yep

scrap is the most space-efficient, but still it means your belts will have to handle x5 throughput (vs bauxite and such) for only x2.5 increase in space efficiency

[vapid gorge]

I technically do. Might not be in a format thats useful to you

actually scratch that.

It'd be as much work converting it as it would just looking at the wiki and doing some basic math sfrom there

[pulsar gale]

Can someone send a picture example of an injection manifold. Still struggling to get one to work.

[vapid gorge]

Are you using smart splitters set to overflow at every junction?
I'm not sure why people use injection manifolds tbh.

The only benefit I can think of is if you're overclocking everything to 250% and don't want 1 machine on a manifold not working at max

[pulsar gale]

I'm using it cause I need to shift 300 or so plates and I only have Mk3 belts.

[vapid gorge]

you can just have 2 manifolds at the end. You need 2 belts anyway right?

Injected manifolds are still multiple manifolds, they are just linked and are more trouble than they are worth

[pulsar gale]

That is what I am dealing with.

[median heath]

How are they more trouble?

Like at all?

In what possible way?

[vapid gorge]

People get into them not knowing what they are doing and have issues XD

And the people I've helped always have issues with where and how to link. Like not having overflows set so belts get overcrowded and clogged

[median heath]

People not knowing how to build them doesn't make them more trouble than they are worth...

[lone gazelle]

yea i already calculated it

[median heath]

Just means there is a barrier to entry.

[vapid gorge]

They don't really provide any benefit though so any trouble is not worth it XD

[median heath]

Saving space is not a benefit?

[pulsar gale]

I think if I can just see an image example of one that clearly shows how I should do it I could definitely get the jist of it.

[median heath]

Show me an image of how you're trying to inject 🤷‍♂️

[vapid gorge]

if you really really want to do injection rather than just 2 lines of reinforced plate

-smart splitter feeding machines with the exit set to overflow only

-join the injection where the total at the end of the first belt + new belt = less than max throughput

2nd option feed the 2nd belt from the opposite end of the line of assemblers so the 2 belts meet in the middle

[pulsar gale]

I'm making normal iron plates not RIP.

[median heath]

Picture of injection point and I can tell you how to fix it.

[vapid gorge]

That's fine this works for injecting any 2 belts like that

[pulsar gale]

I'll try get one for you now.

For example

[median heath]

Ok. But like. Picture of how you actually built that so I can tell you what you did wrong.

[vapid gorge]

is that going left to right?

items being fed I mean

[pulsar gale]

Yes.

[vapid gorge]

for rods?

ah no the plates

[pulsar gale]

Can't get on satisfactory right now so its a little hard. MS paint all I have.

[pulsar gale]

Yes just good old plates.

[vapid gorge]

is the point on the far left from ONE belt?

[pulsar gale]

The one that leads to nowhere?

[vapid gorge]

that looks like 1 belt split then merged again

[pulsar gale]

Yes that is one belt from my smelters.

Yeah...

[vapid gorge]

so that initial belt of 300 plates... how is it carrying that much being a mk3?

[pulsar gale]

I honestly am confused on how I make this

[pulsar gale]

It can't

Because Mk3s only carry 270

[vapid gorge]

so you have to have 2 lines right?

that seems to be your first problem

[pulsar gale]

If I do 2 lines I won't even need to inject then will I

[vapid gorge]

you still technically can. That's what I was trying to get at

you still have as many lines and an injected manifold is still... pretty much... two manifolds linked. It's just messier

[pulsar gale]

So

[vapid gorge]

If you do want to have an injected manifold her ethoug hyou'll need at least 2 belts for the ingots yes

[pulsar gale]

For this I'd need to do 2 lines its just the amount of smelters I need to use to make these two lines to get exactly that amount of Iron ingots to the constructors but also making sure that the other line for the Rods is still enough to make them

My problem is just the amount of Iron ingots

Cause Mk3s are annoying.

[vapid gorge]

there's a few ways of fixing this

You can do 2 manifolds total still and have one manifold do just plates and the other do rods AND plates?

[pulsar gale]

So thats 1 line of 270 using 9 of the smelters for the plates. But then that other manifold for the rods and plates then has to carry more than 270 which the MK3 can't handle.

Wait.

No

[vapid gorge]

You can completely control the outputs remember?

The plates from Manifold 2 can be linked to the output from Plates from Manifold 1

[pulsar gale]

Line 2 would have 270 its just getting that extra iron ingots to the plates constructors

[vapid gorge]

You can also split the ingots evenly by controlling how fast each machine makes them?

[pulsar gale]

Wait so say Line one that makes the plates holds 270 Ingots from 9 of the smelters. Then line 2 uses 9 smelters for another 270 and I manifold that to the Rods and then the output from the spliter of the last constructor I can inject that into the first line?

[pulsar gale]

I need to make a specific amount of Modular frames so changing how fast each machine is not an option I would like to take rn

[vapid gorge]

Sure? That feels messier but sounds workable

[vapid gorge]

Nah by 'changing the clock' of the ingots you still get the same total you just make a specific amount that gets set out.

It's a way to deliver exact numbers down a belt w/o Load Balancing

[pulsar gale]

Ahh.

Would that messier method work?

I'm not bothered just as long as it works.

[vapid gorge]

one sec drawing a sketch

[vapid gorge]

So this is BASICALLY what you were saying w/o injecting.

Instead of injecting theres a plate machine (or 2) on the rod that line will feed into the line with plates being made next door

Same result but less complicated and much less likely to cause issues

[pulsar gale]

That actually is quite a cool method to my problem. Didn't even think of that.

[vapid gorge]

Everyone's brains think differently 🙂

[vapid gorge]

Btw, have you considered NOT caring about making specific numbers of parts ? Or does that mess with your brain?

[median heath]

What the fuck?????

[vapid gorge]

shhhh only for teching up 😛

[median heath]

Why would you ever do things in random, unknown numbers???

[vapid gorge]

shhhuuush some people find it useful early on stop method blocking me

[pulsar gale]

Makes much more sense to do them plate constructors in the rod line and then merge into my overall plate line.

For some reason my brain hates it when I am wasting. So I have to utilize all of the available iron ore I am using and make a factory out of it not wasting a single bit

[median heath]

WHAT PEOPLE?!?!

[pulsar gale]

So thats why I get crazy numbers.

[vapid gorge]

Ok so you probably won't like this idea but I'll lay it out anyway

When I'm in a fresh map I find it easier to NOT design for make X part per minute of things because needs are always changing

[median heath]

Good God I'd rather hear about how many mods you install....

[vapid gorge]

So what I do is use either 2 normal or 1 pure node to make each type of basic part.

Leave enough space to expand floors and upgrade belts.

Then you make feeder belts to higher tier machines. More than you can properly feed. What happens though is you set buffers along the lines and everything fills up.

This way your factory will shut down when full but will always have buffers filled to make new lines of product

[vapid gorge]

I'll take you through a tour of my starter base at somepoint before the demolishing of it. It's neatly laid out. It's just a 'feed as needed' system.

[median heath]

No

Intentional yellow lights.

🤮

[vapid gorge]

lol. The only down side is if you want ot sink tons of stuff you have to probably do it at the end of hte line point

@pulsar gale so what I've basically gone over is an extremely flexible factory solution I've come up with to deal with having to change tech and item needs constantly while learning and not having to slog through changes all the time.

It may not be for everyone but I find it's quick and easy and you can still make it neat and tidy

It is the complete opposite to what I'm doing now though

[pulsar gale]

To be honest I like tearing the old world down and building it back up better. Time consuming and a waste of my time yes. But entertaining...yes

Sometimes...Its nice to watch the world burn.

[vapid gorge]

depending how you go there's still the option for that. I think it's more that by the time I got to my 3-4th tech up on fresh maps I was laying out factories with enough space to expand by default. So very little tearing up.

[pulsar gale]

I've built a big factory building with loads of space to expand and improve with new tech so I think it will be alr

[vapid gorge]

This was my starter base for example. Made a bit of everything except nuclear up to tier 7

The top floors got messier because the final steps being messy wouldn't impact further floors. Since thye were the last floors

[pulsar gale]

Looks crazy

[vapid gorge]

Hmmm actually a bad image of it. It's much tidier on the inside

bad representation I should say

[thorn bane]

you should get alt recipes

[vapid gorge]

ah well don't have an internal pic on hand. This factory only exists in defunct saves now. It's demolished

[pulsar gale]

Oh I know. I'm gonna do that soon

[vapid gorge]

Alt recipes are the other reasons I keep things flexible early on

my current factories are impossibly rigid now though XD

[pulsar gale]

Ha I'll get looking for hardrives

Is there a place which tells you the best recipes?

[thorn bane]

yes #old-questions-and-help xD

https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/mnwugx/update_4_alternate_recipe_indepth_analysis/

[vapid gorge]

Greeny will tell you all recipes are good and are just situational. Which is technically correct. But I think a more correct thing to say is that some alts are far more likely to be situationally useful and thus better 😛

[thorn bane]

or the wiki page of each item

[vapid gorge]

Yeah I'd look at the wiki page rather than the reddit. I'm not sure the analysis is useful for starting a new map and teching up. More for end of game efficiency

[median heath]

Best is subjective.
There are 2 that are objectively better, there are a few that are objectively shit.

Everything else is situational depending on what matters to you. Any list you see comparing them is purely that person's opinion.

[pulsar gale]

Gotcha

[vapid gorge]

ooooh which 2 do you think are objectively?

[median heath]

Encased Pipe and HOR are objectively best.

[thorn bane]

wat

pipe uses more buildings than default
HOR is shit without other alts

[vapid gorge]

Ok so if you're going down that line I think you'd have to agree Solid Steel is straight up better than basic

[median heath]

HOR is broken and needs a nerf.

[thorn bane]

nice subjective opinion

[median heath]

All 3 Steel alts are better than base.
But there is not an objectively "best" Steel alt.

[vapid gorge]

So welcome to the religious war on alt recipes that happens every 18~ hrs

[pulsar gale]

Mint

[median heath]

Some people think that having a single best way to do oil is a subjective opinion 🤷‍♂️

Other people understand that given what HOR enables, you're choosing to be less efficient if you do oil any other way 🤷‍♂️

[thorn bane]

if youre never getting any more hard drives picking HOR is objectively the wrong choice
if you only care about small building size picking encased pipe is objectively the wrong choice

[median heath]

Sure 👍

[vapid gorge]

early on though for alt recipes

• cast screws are a good for simplifying your set up as it skips a step
• Iron wire isn't a bad choice early means less reliant on copper nodes
• Solid Steel is a must grab early +50% more steel for very little cost

[thorn bane]

cause they are subjective
all alts are

[median heath]

<Any Steel Alt> but otherwise I agree.

[vapid gorge]

early on won't have access to coke

[median heath]

Depends on where you draw the line for early 😉

[vapid gorge]

:p

[median heath]

But also you'd have access to Compacted prior to Coke.

[vapid gorge]

I'd probably try to grab solid steel as soon as I unlock steel

[median heath]

And Compacted is a solid option 😉

[vapid gorge]

There is big value in keeping things simple and it's not nearly as situationally useful 😛

You and your deep need to throw sulfur everywhere

[median heath]

Compacted has really good return on production 🤷‍♂️

Highly underrated recipe.

[vapid gorge]

true but sulfur is rare. While Solid steel only requires a tiny bit of power and space extra to base

no further logistics is golden

[thorn bane]

37.5/min AND extra production step though yikes

[median heath]

At the time in game you're talking, Sulfur isn't rare because you're not using it 🤷‍♂️

[vapid gorge]

locationally rare.

[median heath]

🤷‍♂️

Depends on where you set up.

[thorn bane]

finding coal and iron together is alreeady hard

[vapid gorge]

Exactly. Far more restricting in distances. Which is important early

[median heath]

Both Coal Lakes and the Crater Lakes have Sulfur next to Coal.

[vapid gorge]

I'm not saying there aren't spots for it, like instant scrap, but it's not as easily made useful

[median heath]

Dune Desert has Coal + Sulfur + Iron on both sides.

[thorn bane]

huh?

[vapid gorge]

Sure, the big benefit of solid over it is that it doesn't put in any further restrictions to the base

Also shower now. Enough with your sulfur 😛

[wind spade]

I totally agree that some recipes are used way more and could therefore be considered better. However there are a few problems I have with calling a recipe better, main one being that 95% of people just start blindly using a recipe that someone else says is "better" without knowing why is it better or if there's even better recipe for their situation.

[wind spade]

Objective better and objective shit only if you're looking at them in terms of resource efficiency

[wind spade]

For the above reason I don't like seeing this posted xD

[vapid gorge]

That's fair. Though I think part of that might just be a gap in the communication? I generally assume the 'better' comes with 'find it easier to use in more situations'

Flexibility of use is hard to quantify in a lot of cases

Except for Instant scrap @ mcgal, sev 😛

[wind spade]

Which is already questionable imo. Is a recipe easier to use for new players, if it increases complexity and space requirements?

Example would be steel rotor. The recipe is crap in terms of resource efficiency and yet it's still used a ton because it's somehow "simpler" (though I don't agree with that)

[vapid gorge]

apparent simplicity is valuable

Isn't steel rotor one of the recipes that cuts copper?

[wind spade]

Another thing I don't like about this whole "best recipe" thingy is that recipes on their own are super hard to compare properly. Much better is to compare certain paths to desired products.

[vapid gorge]

True. I mostly stan recipes that are easier on logistics, path, resources on early situations for people.

Later on? That's a dif can of worms

It's hard to be objective of course even with that but I think it's fine to be a bit wibbly wobbly

[wind spade]

Steel rotor is the screwless rotor and also has same ingredients as vanilla stator so makes the production lines somehow simpler. But it costs more steel than normal rotor with steel screws and even more than copper rotor. With pure copper and steamed sheets, it's 8 copper ore for 10 copper rotors, which is a steal (ofc the screws need to be added as well, but it's not much)

[vapid gorge]

ahh yeah, the reason I use it is it also cuts out copper with iron wire

(was just looking it up)

[wind spade]

I would personally just use vanilla rotor at that point

[vapid gorge]

with steel rods?

[wind spade]

Better on resource efficiency and can make it just from iron

Or with steel rods yeah

[vapid gorge]

I guess if there's coal nearby for it

I think I also get cleaner builds with Steel. Which has value to me

Plus you can cut rods entirely from the world if you want. So if you're making pipes for something else makes it a bit neater

but these are wobbly values for peeps XD

Getting very objective values at this point though

subjective*

[wind spade]

Yeah, hence the example. Recipes can have value for people outside of what pure math can define. Which circles back to "everything is subjective" and why I'd prefer everyone to make their own research on alt recipes rather than "which do I pick"

It's fine to ask, but question should be "what do these give me" and then the person should make their own decision based on gathered info

[vapid gorge]

True - though I still feel there's an argument for the 'these are earlyish recipes that commonly find good use, more so than some other maybe'

Like suggesting to avoid Iron Alloy over other things early is probably good advice

[wind spade]

Sure. But it should come with an explanation. Not just a list of recipes 😉

[vapid gorge]

Yeah I try to add some point form to mine XD I know not everyone doesn't. A lot of labour.

Maybe I should write a 'Wibbly Wobbly Value Rating List of Alt' XD

X is good for these situations over other things while worse for such and such

[wind spade]

Yeah i don't like any ratings or anything, people take those too seriously. I'd rather like to see a nice semi-objective descriptions of alt recipes, which could be referenced when wanting to know what a recipe does

[vapid gorge]

That's basically what I'm thinking? Short blurbs of each with some numbering theory but also the more wishy washy ones

[wind spade]

I've been in so many situations where I talked with person that had some issues and evetually it circled to "I used recipe X because Y said it was good", when the recipe was a complete bs for their case

[vapid gorge]

Yeah I when it comes down to that sort of thing where it's in deep in a line of production I try to get an idea of everythign else they are doing and where they are doing it

One of the reasons I don't do that often as that's a lot of work

[wind spade]

I guess I saw the word "rating" 😛 I'd rather call it like "alt recipe compendium" or something

[vapid gorge]

Constructive criticism taken on board!

[wind spade]

But yeah, as soon as you include rating, it becomes just "this recipe is S tier, I'm gonna pick it and use it" for 95% of people, without considering anything else written around it

[thorn bane]

theres 89 alt recipes you cant expect every player to understand all the pros and cons of all of them
people want a simplification until they get better at the game
thats why a rating system is good

[vapid gorge]

I'll have a hard time being unbias to basic Circuit Board recipe but I'll give it my all

[vapid gorge]

Hence a short paragraph including location copmlexicity ect ect

[wind spade]

Hence why the "compendium" suggestion

[thorn bane]

yes thats why my first suggeestion was #old-questions-and-help

also the reddit link i gave DOES explain thee pros and cons of every rating

[vapid gorge]

I don't think I've seen anything with complexity or locality involved in those ones?

[thorn bane]

"Adhered Iron Plate is ranked high as well, but many may still prefer to use this one. It will reduce some items, buildings, and power use overall from the original recipe. The Copper use is pretty tough to swallow, but any min-maxer is using Iron Wire anyway. Just like Adhered, this one can be used to cut Screws from the production chain."

but apparently you guys just see the "A Tier" part

[vapid gorge]

Ok it doesn't really give a good idea on logistic complexity or flexibility on position , or how it might work with other recipes

Like I find electrode CB really niche since where you need to use them you tend to need a bunch of other resources ect ect

[wind spade]

If I had time and energy to work on such a compendium, I'd make it like this:

• each recipe has it's own paragraph about what it does and what it does when paired with given other recipes. This would include objective and semi-objective parameters
• each major production would also have their own section about different paths to produce given item (e.g. steel, aluminum, etc.)
• there would be sections for early/mid/late game info in everything mentioned above

[wind spade]

f.e. this doesn't say why would you want to cut screws from production lines 😉

[vapid gorge]

irrational hatred from early game trauma has value 😛

also that's a good template I might use as a base

[wind spade]

I'd be fine with just the textual descriptions without the ranking itself

[thorn bane]

but thats the point people dont want an in depth 200 words parapgraph of 89 recipes

they want a simplification

[wind spade]

They won't read it all. They would read just the 3 they got

[vapid gorge]

Yeah don't need to go into hard numbers. Good reference and to let them think on their needs

[thorn bane]

thats why i named 3 things
the list for the simple stuff and a quick overview
the wiki for a more in depth hard numbers look at recipes
and questions-and-help for the hard choices that are purely player choice

[wind spade]

Also the important stuff would be mentioned from the start, one or two sentences of what the recipe gives. From my experience that's usually enough for most players to make a decision themselves (and those who seek more info would keep reading)

[wind spade]

That's 3 things out of which 2 are very subjective (and also 3 different places to look at)

[thorn bane]

you make it sound like subjective is bad..............

in the end they have to make their subjective choice

[wind spade]

indeed, but ideally they should make it from mostly objective info

which at this point in time is basically just wiki (and even that is... not ideal)

[thorn bane]

or just find someone that playes the game like them and copy their choices 🤷

[wind spade]

which is impossible to do when posting 3 alts into #screenshots and picking one with most reactions 😛

[thorn bane]

idk i feel like 95% of players make the same decision for 95% of the alt recipes

i feel like the subjective part is way too overstated
most recipes that are "good" are good for most people in most situations

[wind spade]

here's where we disagree. imo majority of the "recipe X is good" comes from "recipe X is good when combined with Y and Z"

some people just have two or three drives and want to take a recipe that is good for them immediately

and yet I still see people posting like "first drive, ideas?" and everyone recommending e.g. recycled plastic

which isn't really great unless you have 3 more recipes

also there's tons of people who prefer e.g. power savings or reduced complexity over resource efficiency (I know, Sev quote #3) 🤷‍♂️

[worthy island]

This is really easy. If the recipe doesn't require refineries it is S tier.

[wind spade]

it's probably a joke, but in case you're serious (it's internet, you never know), then I disagree 😛

[vapid gorge]

He makes a strong argument XD

there's too much refinery in this refinery simulator XD

[worthy island]

Where my Copper Alloy homies at

[thorn bane]

ayyyyyyyyyy

[vapid gorge]

Every single one of my copper ore. Straight through a refinery

soz

I hate it. but here we are

[wind spade]

I mean yeah... but then the question is whether diversity of buildings has more value to you than saving of [power / resources / whatever the alt does]

[vapid gorge]

Not dealing with more fluids and a million ugly refineries is very valuable. But I need my copper

And copper alloy just doesn't cut it

[thorn bane]

have you heard about
just getting more copper nodes

[vapid gorge]

I have none to spare XD And as an example, having Pure Copper at my Ur Rod factory means I don't have to import any

just

And that's with me using both fused Qw and regular to stretch it out

[wind spade]

just another point against single "rating" value for alts 😛 everyone has different parameters to go by 😛

[vapid gorge]

Locally Produced Artisanal Uranium Rods

[thorn bane]

once youre at the point where you use all the copper nodes in the game sure
but youre probably not a new player anymore at that point xD

[vapid gorge]

No but it doesn't make me not hate refineries XD

[fringe pawn]

I feel like with U6 a strategy to unlock the second inventory as fast as possible would be worth including. Compacted coal and its related recipes being out of the pool make getting it soon much easier. When you see biocoal, charcoal, and the inventory expansion, stop scanning HDDs.

And then never unlock compacted coal anyway. This keeps the HDD pool lean to get diluted fuel, heavy encased frame, and so forth sooner.

[worthy island]

If I run out of copper I will simply play another game before I use Pure. This is an extremely petty hill for me to die on, I know.

[topaz hedge]

overclock the pure copper refineries 😄

[worthy island]

Let me do pure in blenders and we can talk.

[topaz hedge]

yuck. no

[vapid gorge]

I mean if each blender could do 4x what a ref could do?

[topaz hedge]

at 200% pure copper refineries produce 75/min. it's not a multiple of 60, but it's not bad.

[worthy island]

I'm just talking shit but that's actually an interesting idea. Imagine if you could do refinery recipes in blenders (or constructors in assemblers) and they were naturally overclocked

[vapid gorge]

all my PC are basically at 250%. Just so many

[topaz hedge]

it is a lot yeah. but if blenders got a speed boost vs refinery.. that wouldn't be too bad.

[vapid gorge]

I'm not sure you could make an in game rationale for blenders being able to separate copper though

[ashen aurora]

Obviously incompatible recipes will not convert

And also, the speed boosts should be linear

[vapid gorge]

they should be exponential. I will die on this pointless hill

[ashen aurora]

Exponential overclocking is already a pain plus you can could the next tier of building as "more efficient"

[vapid gorge]

Linear to power use I guess you mean then?

[ashen aurora]

And therefore linear in a way

[ashen aurora]

Yes and speed boost

[vapid gorge]

Can't recall what the power dif between blenders and refs are

I don't have any particular problems with your proposition - but I will still die on my exponential hill as I'm feeling contrary

[ashen aurora]

Only problem with that is that even though manufacturers will have, idk, 8x boost, they're massive

So really each type of building should be variable in that it deviates from the linear speed boost depending on its size compared to the tier one building

So manufacturer would be 16x instead of linear 8x

Smth like that but still modular so we don't have to deal with 9.12423x

[unborn ermine]

Imagine ore slurries in the blender using sulphuric acid injecting in, lets say, a mk4 miner to actually get the ore slurry.

[wind spade]

oc exponential ftw

[restive vessel]

i currently have enabled the path to tier 7&8, but before doing alu, i need to start bigger oil production and more power generation (still using a coal plant and 2 thermals for a total of only ONE GW)
i also was too annoyed to once again do a harddisk hunt and thus am working with vanila recipes, and the two alts from the MAM (compacted&turbo, with 2 harddisks that were "under my factory")
now i am trying to see what method of power generation is "best" (LOL) or easiest for me, and came up with the following.

1. based on 240 oil, and a desire for 80 plastic and 80 rubber (or multiples of 240/80/80) i "automatically" get 80 fuel for 1000 MW in 7 fuel generators (not much, but easy and small)
2. in 4 coal generators i could turn 53 coal into 256 MW, or 53 compacted into 550 MW (-30 MW for those 2+ assemblers)
3. simply adding up these two powerplants (that are at different locations), i would get 1520 MW
4. combining those two separate powerplants (via long transport routes) i could make 66 turbofuel (-100 MW for those 4 refineries) and get 2200-130=2070 MW
   total size of this last combination (4) would roughly be the same as two copies of using fuel directly (1), and save me from the long transports.
5. not making plastic/rubber directly, but fuel&resin instead, would double the fuel (for 2000 MW power), and still allow to get 40 plastic or 60 rubber from the resin.

does anyone have any corrections to these calculations, or suggestions or hints (besides "get more HDD/alts", and no mods or editing anyway).
i might do 3 copies of the above (3x240 oil) to have enough power for starting trains/drones, alu and nuclear but which of the variants ?
and then (with nuclear) won't need a lot of fuel/turbofuel anyway ?

(btw: i have some power buffered for temporary complete destuction and rebuilding my power generation, 51.2 GWh :-)

[wind spade]

do you know that you'll need equal amount of rubber and plastic? or this is just to storage?

[finite sun]

using turbofuel only makes sense in the "spend the least amount of oil" approach

[restive vessel]

i have no idea for the ratio that i need, maybe lots of plastic at first, but lots of rubber later ?
in U5 i "finished" the game once by getting the golden cart :-) but almost did no nuclear besides some experiments.

[finite sun]

otherwise, just burn fuel

[wind spade]

then why not build it over time as you need more plastic/rubber? 😛

pre-building like this seems weird

[restive vessel]

that would mean doing a few copies of version 1 ? (later adjusting ratios of plastic and rubber; too bad that "the loop" requires alt recipes)

[finite sun]

later you switch to diluted fuel for power plants

[restive vessel]

my current factory is a giant 🍝 +🍜 mess :-)
thus i need to establish transports (trains/drones), start alu, start nuclear, and cleanup all the rest that i have done until now.

[finite sun]

also, as greeny said, just making plastic and rubber because you "probably" need them in future is not particularly prudent

you'd do better when you have clear goal in mind (as in how much you'd need and in what amounts)

even 30/m plastic and rubber is more than enough to push through tiers and unlocks, and for automating things like computers you'd need quite different amounts (and not just "both of it")

[restive vessel]

i know that i need "some" plastic and rubber anyway, and start building some oil facilities in the new U6 oil swamps.
and i don't want to rebuild that often when i advance into nuclear, rather have the refineries and only need to change them from plastic to rubber or rubber to plastic.

[finite sun]

if you need "some" for tiers, unlocks, and maybe a bit of manual crafting, but you primary goal is power generation - just burn fuel and make "some" plastic/rubber out of polymer resin byproduct

[fringe pawn]

Eh. If you max out gold coast because you unlocked diluted, HOR, and recycled alts right away, arbitrarily building 500/500 rubber and plastic to get you through phase 4 can work. It's not going to be ideal necessarily, but it's not a terrible corner to paint yourself into.

[finite sun]

you mean, phase 3

phase 4 is a very different beast

[restive vessel]

@fringe pawn no alt recipes, at least none that i can rely on, but only an occasional harddisk that i accidentally stunble upon :-)

[finite sun]

well, you actually should go for them
refineries with alts and without alts must be built very differently for the most cases
unless you like rebuilding lots of pipes, ofc

unlocking T5/6 milestones is actually the very first point where I consider going for alts really important

[fringe pawn]

No, I meant phase 4

[restive vessel]

yes ... in my old U5 game, i had done a real harddisk hunt for a few days and covered the entire map with a network of powerlines (i was flying with the hoverpack instead of the jetpack).
thus this time i decided to not hunt for them, and with only few random recipes i would have to rebuild often. therefore i wanted to try it with vanilla recipes this time.

[finite sun]

eh
automating supercomputers from "arbitrary" no alts refinery output is sure fun

[restive vessel]

i am completely through tier 5&6 and through all of the mam

[finite sun]

I guess it will carry you through phase 4 eventually, but point being - why rush it

it's not like completing phase 4 is important by itself

[fringe pawn]

The coffee tastes better in the gold cup. This is important. 🦖

[finite sun]

having an old no alts refinery in your world is a constant source of shame and pain which counteracts it

[fringe pawn]

Where did I say anything about no alts?

[finite sun]

well, if you have alts, then throwing something like 500/500 output is even more pointless

[restive vessel]

maybe i would like to drive in a golden cart, but when i see metal cups instead of china or enamel, the coffee starts tasting really bad :-) :-(

[restive vessel]

YOU didn't, but i did in my first post

[fringe pawn]

Right, at first I couldn't tell who the replies were directed to

[finite sun]

unfortunately, vanilla recipes for refineries are always like "do X, burn byproduct" or "burn fuel, do X with byproduct" and not anything else

[sullen cloud]

Seems like a decent plan. 2-6GW should give you enough power for expanding some time and setting up nuclear. Not sure tho, if you need up to 240 plastic/rubber in this phase. but you could gain regular sink points by sinking overflow

[restive vessel]

i already have all important recipes from the shop (all except statues old railings, stairs, and a few patterns), and no need for many more coupons

[fringe pawn]

If you don't care about the statues in the shop you could just rush the milestones by buying parts which aren't automated yet.

[sullen cloud]

Sure. But no matter how you plan things. Every storage is full at some point. That’s for sure.

[restive vessel]

yes, it seems there are only two pathes ... one is to make rubber and plastic, and then fuel and power from HOR, and the other is to make fuel and resin and then few rubber/plastic from resin !?
thus i had planned the path that would give more than only 20 or 40 rubber/plastic which is not enough if i remember the advanced frames correctly and all that stuff

[restive vessel]

exactly what i had planned ... until i enabled the first alu tier :-(
there are no alu ingots in the shop, and no casings, thus all the plan stalled :-(

[finite sun]

it's not enough to automate production, sure
but it's enough to get to T7&8

but that again depends on alts
vanilla computer recipe is pretty facepalmy

and alts can get you to computers even without oil whatsoever (although you'll be burning through quartz)

[fringe pawn]

Heh heh, I built a 5/min comp factory with all default recipes except copper alloy. Never again.

It wasn't unbearable, but alts are so much better.

[restive vessel]

they seem to have a stop on purpose, where you can't advance any tier 7 or 8 without alu.
without alu ingots and alu casings in the shop, you are stuck in building alu production first

i have several ideas for building lots of smaller factories and connecting them, but those ideas include drones which require alu ingots and casings ...
maybe i will empty my inventory, go straight for bauxite with a handfull of portable miners, and do some minimal alu production near my chaos factory in the north, just for ingots and casings !?

[fringe pawn]

Even something meager gets you unlimited Mk5 belts

[restive vessel]

this game is just the opposite of start rek movies :-)
for startrek parts 1,3,5,7 were the bad ones while in satisfactory i skip 2 and 4 and use only 1,3,5 :-)

[topaz hedge]

well, I prebuilt my rubber setup.. and then you saw the performance issues I posted in ex eariler today/yesterday (:

[cinder silo]

Performance issues? just how big did you go.

[topaz hedge]

big enough that the difference between these two screenshots is a upgraded cpu lol.

[cinder silo]

Bloody hell.

[topaz hedge]

I realize it looks like someone with coal power issues..

but look at the consumption.. that's 50GW of factory shutting down.. that doesn't happen

[cinder silo]

What did you upgrade from.

[frosty owl]

Did I miss some news on performance issues?

[cinder silo]

He upgraded his machine and the performance issues cleared as far as I can tell.

[frosty owl]

I feel like I'm lacking critical information

[topaz hedge]

tldr: When I would walk around/turn my camera my machines would die. I upgraded my cpu and the issue is resolved.

[cinder silo]

I'll get back to fixing my refinery, the mistake I made with it was hilariously basic, but it caused me two days of grief.

[frosty owl]

That sounds like an issue I never heard before...
Could you add more details, please? (Or link me to relevant convo)

[topaz hedge]

You've never heard of issues when fps gets really low? o.O

[unborn ermine]

I was just messing around with some iron plate building thoughts.
Apparently with floor holes and "legal" clipping with lifts, you can squeeze a splitter and two smelters OR constructors into a 3 foundation wide structure.
You can even wall it up and nothing looks amiss.
This is like one of my new favourite things now

[frosty owl]

Not if the only symtons are "machines dying"

[deft lichen]

that's a very pretty color, do you mind sharing?

[frosty owl]

||Don't, Wi-Fi sharing is already dangerous enough ||

[unborn ermine]

#00A69E
Its dune desert so it might look odd in places

[deft lichen]

👍 thanks!

[unborn ermine]

Im an idiot

[cinder silo]

I felt that after I found the problem with my refinery 😄

[unborn ermine]

@deft lichen i had to fix it I had two similar colours

[frosty owl]

I felt that after I learned about duplication...

[deft lichen]

are you using custom swatches? I'm afraid to use them for that reason lol

[unborn ermine]

Thats my main factory swatch

[frosty owl]

"Just" save all the colours as presets too?

[unborn ermine]

I tested like 2? and they are similar

[deft lichen]

there are only 15 or no?

[unborn ermine]

15 yeah and your main one

[frosty owl]

No, one can save however many colour presets they want

Colour preset =! Colour Swatch

Eg: you can load 2 presets to make a Swatch

[unborn ermine]

I will say though, getting the constructors done up like this looks sketchy as hell as you go, but they look great.

[cinder silo]

Three more floors of these and my refinery will be balanced again.

[unborn ermine]

Image is trying to upload and failing

This is what I meant by "legal clipping" btw

Game says its fine

[frosty owl]

I disagree with the game

[unborn ermine]

The smelter version is much cleaner.
I think its a bonus that they arent even tight enough to their belts (splitter) that you can upgrade them if needed still.

That was the main drawback of cramped builds

[sullen cloud]

What CPU have you had before when FPS became an issue?

[restive vessel]

this was my solution to a compact smelter build (input and output from a 4m layer below them)

when building the lifts from smelters to bottom layer, there is even 1m space between mergers/splitters to easily walk between them

[unborn ermine]

I snuck another screenie of the same build into #design-and-architecture
That is the plates coming from the room above, love how tight you can get things now.

[median heath]

Biocoal and Charcoal are shit and should be removed from the game. 🙃

[fringe pawn]

I would probably also remove fine black powder and seismic nobelisk at this point. Automated miner remains in this category too until portable miners are allowed to stack.

[median heath]

Fine was good until the buffed base.
So either revert that or buff Fine to be relevant again.

[fringe pawn]

There are a few recipes like compacted coal derivatives that could probably use a tweak, too.

[finite sun]

fuels need a good look, yeah

currently any nonstandard fuels are basically never worth it

[fringe pawn]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about compacted steel ingot being relevant except when joking about a maximum screws factory

[finite sun]

turbofuel is not good enough to justify blowing sulfur on it

certainly not if you're planning to use drones

biofuel suffers from having no real place in the game past burners

[fringe pawn]

I can see an argument for the base turbofuel recipe if you've otherwise maxed out oil on the gold coast and don't want to address a new oil source. Just funnel all your diluted fuel into another refinery step and suddenly you can support more fuel generators. Not something that'll be useful to everyone, but I respect the existence of the option more than stuff like fine concrete.

[unborn ermine]

And even then thats a stretch and a half

[fringe pawn]

Even turbo heavy has some consideration if you don't like hunting HDDs, and you don't end up with diluted fuel.

[finite sun]

well sure, it has uses
like ammo in U6, etc
but never enough uses

[median heath]

Turbo will have more use when we can put it in a jetpack

Which will matter until you can put plutonium rods in your jetpack.

[finite sun]

only if it'll cause it to operate at 200% thrust

otherwise no

[fringe pawn]

For all we know they'll add a battery powered exoskeleton (hoverpack that consumes batteries) that obsoletes the jetpack and blade runners 😛

[median heath]

The sound of it is it will cause normal thrust, where normal fuel will be nerfed to like 70% thrust.

[median heath]

Please. Fuck no.

[finite sun]

ew

it's not like the normal thrust is overpowered in any way

[fringe pawn]

I agree, but wandering around the map I can see they take run/jump puzzles very seriously despite the fact that you can build concrete ramps immediately.

[unborn ermine]

Its the fuel consumption they would need to tweak, not the thrust imho.

and I mean like nurfing

[queen stirrup]

Why would it matter? You can setup a small oil refinery and have virtually infinite fuel at all times.

[sullen cloud]

Jetpack got very old with additions of other transport options. Not sure if a turbo fuel option could revive it.

[median heath]

?

Jetpack? My most-used piece of equipment.
Yes... so old it needs revival...

[median heath]

Think he means how long a burst you can do. Thrust amount staying the same but being able to hold the button longer with Turbo.

[quasi surge]

Anyone able to tell me how much Fuel/m Trucks consume? Or like. An average, since im sure it varies

[median heath]

!wikisearch Fuel

[shadow prairie]

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

[median heath]

They have an assigned MJ value per fuel type.
If it's about truck routes, once you've saved it the route information will tell you how much fuel it takes.

[north echo]

I finally upgraded my coal generator, I now have 16 coal generator that are getting refueled by 2 Mk2 coal miner and a total of 8 water pump (2 for each section of 4 generator) that produce a nice 1200MW, which is 3 times more than what I was getting before because i built it really wrong.
I got one normal coal vein next to the generator, would you recommend to keep it for later to fuel more generator or i should use it to make a factory of steel pipe and beam to make Versatile Framework and Stator?

And also i'm planning to build a huge amount of power storage (100) in a big building, do you think this is usefull or not at all?

[median heath]

Power Storage is mainly just aesthetic tbh

Doesn't have a practical use because if it engages it means you built power wrong.

[north echo]

I was using it because i was producing like 450 MW and I was consuming between 440 and 460 so it allow my power to not shut out

But does later in the game there is a better king of power storage?

[median heath]

So you're building power wrong.

[north echo]

Yes clearly it was a big mess

that's why i upgraded it to 1200

[median heath]

If you're making 450 MW you shouldn't be touching 450 MW in consumption.
If you need more, build more POWER FIRST then expand your factory

Stay within your power budget.
That's what makes Storages aesthetic.

[north echo]

Yes i planned for a long time to upgraded my power but i waited until the last moment, now my next goal are to farm quartz, caterium

and also sulfur to test it on my coal generator

[median heath]

Don't burn Compacted in generators.. plz

There is no reason to.

It works, but like... why...

[north echo]

It's not worth it?

[obtuse elm]

to be a little less dismissive:

Power storage only has two uses that I've figured out so far - to buffer you in case you make a mistake and build past your production, and to smooth curves from inconsistent generation or consumption. AFAIK, the only two things covered by that last point are really geothermal power plants (production) and particle accelerators (consumption)

[north echo]

idk i just seen you could do compacted coal so i thought it would be way better than regular coal it seemed logic to me

[median heath]

It's better but not way better.

[obtuse elm]

Sev has Opinions. Don't feel like you have to do what they tell you to without doing some experimentation yourself or considering your particular situation

[median heath]

You're missing all vehicular logistics as well, because those have variable draw.

[obtuse elm]

ah, yeah. Haven't done a ton with trains yet

[median heath]

I'm happy my opinions rate a capital O though. That gives me the warm and fuzzies.

[median heath]

Trucks, Trains, Drones.
All variable.

[obtuse elm]

also relevant to my perspective is that I tend to build small, slow-burn factories, so not a ton of infrastructure or active logistics compared to a lot of people around here

[north echo]

Compacted coal are worth twice more energy so i think It can be really good for coal generator

or at least automating my tractor fuel, i'm currently using color cartridge and solid biofuel as I have literraly tens of thousand of them but i have to manually make them

[wind spade]

did you subtract all the energy required to make it?

[north echo]

No but that's a good idea i will do it when i will try it

but i really think it could make me produce more energy, if compacted coal produce twice more energy It could bring me up to 2400 MW instead of 1200

[wind spade]

yes, it's still net positive

though usually easier is just to tap another coal node

[north echo]

The probleme is I don't have many coal node (4 and i'm already using one to make steel) i'm using two for my coal factory and i would rather use the last one to make other parts that require steel

because my other coal nodes are literally thousands meter away

[wind spade]

for generators it doesn't matter where the nodes are (as long as there's a water nearby). Just build the generators near water and near the nodes, bring back just power line

[median heath]

Map big. You're going to need to start interacting with things thousands of meters away.
That's why you have truck stops.

[north echo]

Yeah I know but I would rather build my generator near my main base at the moment

[north echo]

Yeah I know, i currently have a truck that have a route of like 3000m and stop at multiple station

[wind spade]

has pretty much no advantage to have them close 🤷‍♂️

also game heavily pushes you towards expansion 🤷‍♂️

[median heath]

I want my nuke plant in my main base so I can taste the radiation.

[north echo]

yummy yummy nice radioactive

[wind spade]

imagine having a main base

[north echo]

And also, i'm currently using hypertube to transport me across the map, do u recomand it or not? Because i'm literraly putting hypertubes everywhere now that i unlocked them

[north echo]

bro im at the start of the game T-T

[median heath]

+4 to friendship

[wind spade]

it's up to you really. any transportation method that accomplishes what you want is ok 🙂

[wind spade]

then it's your temporary base which would be discontinued later 😛

[median heath]

Temporary HUB
Have it in the beginning before you make your Permanent HUB.

Deleted your T-HUB when you get to P-HUB.

😉

[north echo]

Okay thank you guys

[muted goblet]

And then u build the real Hub because u got new plans

for real this time

[unborn ermine]

I would say with the compacted coal/coal gen talk.
In the end it does a couple of things for you.
Net positive power from the compact coal.
Gets you moving the sulphur from the node and providing infrastructure.

This one is kind of up for debate because recipes will need some love,
Having the compact coal ready to be used once you upgrade power/machines/miners later, having materials available for alt recipes.

[median heath]

What are you using Compacted for?

Like, having it ready for what?

[unborn ermine]

For example, I have a setup with the two impure coal nodes in Dune Desert mesas.
If I choose to later, I can purge that and redistribute with little effort for ammo/oil and have lines to do other stuff with sulphur.

One can hope the fine black powder gets a bit of love, and if not, potentially some other compact alts.

[median heath]

Fine Powder either needs a buff or they need to revert the buff to base Black Powder.

😭

[unborn ermine]

With either I am good, have blackpowder being made there as well as filters for later from my basic as hell oil setup nearby.

[magic island]

The most valuable thing you can do with an area where you've brought coal/sulfur/water together is delete the Compacted Coal Power Plant, bring in some bauxite, and make a battery factory instead

[north echo]

After 3 hours of construction i finally finished my big factory that produce 15.5 smart plating /min, it use 3 normal node of iron!

Here are the 4 floors composing the building

The outside is terribly horrible but the inside works perfectly well

I used this to make the factory

[quartz violet]

nice

[north echo]

Yup, but it was a horrible pain to build

[quartz violet]

oof

what was the worst part

troubleshooting why it isnt getting enough screws?

worst part of anything for me

[north echo]

Yeah i really struggle with the part that required like 14 Constructor this was a mess to separate every thing perfectly on the same quantity

And I Had to pre-load some of the constructor because otherwise It would have take decade to reach 100% efficacity

[quartz violet]

did you just have a single manifold for 14 machines?

[north echo]

Yup

[quartz violet]

dang

[north echo]

It was the most simple to do

[quartz violet]

you've got some serious confidence

[north echo]

Yup

[quartz violet]

I always use semi load balance setups if there are more than 4 machines

[north echo]

I checked when everything was finished i waited like 20 or 30 minutes and it was working well so

But what I did is not perfect at all I could have saved so much place and make it a bit less messy

but that will be for the next factory i guess

Because i'm clearly not doing again this one

[median heath]

?

18 per row.
Works perfectly.

[quartz violet]

wow

how long does it take to start lol

[median heath]

16 Assemblers on 1 belt 😉

[median heath]

Starts immediately.

Prefeed your manifolds. Zero startup time.

[quartz violet]

yeah

but how long does it take to cold start it without prefeeding

[median heath]

I don't know because I always prefeed.

[quartz violet]

how do you even prefeed it. machines dont take in their items when they dont need them

do they start producing but take in items when they are on standby?

oh wait just underclock them to 0

[median heath]

None of the above.

Click on machine. Put stack into machine.

Prefeed.

[quartz violet]

oh

but you can't just be lazy

[median heath]

Not if you want immediate startup.

[quartz violet]

actually now that I think of it, you could use overflow splitters on the output to permanently have immediate startup

it would take a bit to set up what the heck I am talking about since I have no save with god mode

[worthy island]

I stumbled on this rule of 45 last night.

45 smelters doing pure aluminium. Had the choice between 5 X 9 floors or 3 X 15. Went with 5 X 9 for the cool factor.

Now that I'm belting it all up, realise that 3 X 15 is perfectly split for the next stages down the line, without balancers or manifolds.

Instead of 450 belts, I've now got 270 belts and it sucks

Maths has betrayed me, once again

[median heath]

Not really the 45-81 rule, but happy for your revelation.

[quartz violet]

okay the way i was thinking of doing that didnt work but I'm going to keep trying to see if I can do somethign

just had a stupid idea...
what if I use packagers and unpackagers making canisters and full canisters to stop the flow of belts in a really specific way I havent completely figured out

why the hell does this pop into my head.. just load balancing would be easier lol

[median heath]

Just use a truck stop if you're wanting a way to turn a belt on/off.

[quartz violet]

truck stop takes up a ton of space and wouldnt be reliable enough in addition to needing fuel unless I use factory carts

[median heath]

Um, 1 they are smol
2 you're not thinking about it correctly

Put the belt going into it and immediately coming out.

When powered: items flow.
Can literally "turn the belt off" with a switch.

[quartz violet]

I'm thinking automatic

[median heath]

Automatic happens when machine backs up 🤷‍♂️

Or container

[quartz violet]

my idea is keeping machines from ouputting until they are full of materials so there is always a stock of materials without using a storage bin for every single machine

[median heath]

Not sure why you'd ever need that, but you do you.

[quartz violet]

I'm just curious if it would be able to work

basically I need to minimize the amount of items that go into a machine before it overflows to the next one

[north echo]

Just prefeed all your machine amigo

[quartz violet]

I'm just messing around to see what would be possible

[north echo]

I dont think this is possible

[quartz violet]

yeah I'm not too sure how I would do it

I just divide the amount of machines in manifolds by 4 personally

I divide my machines into 2 rows with the outputs facing inwards then group the machines in each row into 2s and manifold those together

[north echo]

I think you should try to do one manifold for all ur machine
I was sceptic at first but i did multiple build and had no problems

[quartz violet]

if looks and less effort are the priority then that's fine for me

but I do the dividing thing in any other situation

for power plants and things I group them to the point of almost being load balancing

[north echo]

For me the priority is to not build your factory in a mess, the most important is that you can easily understand what is going on just by looking at it

But if you can easily understand your spaghetti factory there is no need to clean it out

[quartz violet]

I just have spaghetti hidden beneath my floors where it doesn't really matter if I understand

well not totally spaghetti I try to keep it somewhat organized

enough that I could put glass floors above it

I've been trying to keep things really compact

I try to do things like this if I can

basic resources coming in through the floor, distributing on top, then using super slim clipped conveyor lifts to put things back under the floor to merge them together

[unborn ermine]

Oh yeah mini designs are great, floor holes help a ton with finicky heights and snap points.

Part of what I had going on for one of my factories, had 540 ore going to be iron ingots, the other 60 I split off by my little base hub.
Ended up using that in a 5x5 setup to make plates, rods, wire, and cable passively and sink.

All within the same height of the constructor and a bit for headroom.

[cinder silo]

I finally re-crunched my computer/super computer factory, and all this lot on one belt is only 301.25 parts per minute.

[glacial summit]

How many super computers do you make per minute

Also why your message is sent after 2 minutes

Nvm I'm blind

[cinder silo]

Only 3.75, and what do you mean message sent after 2 minutes?

[glacial summit]

Don't pay attention

[cinder silo]

Right now with how hot it is here, I'd need a loan to pay attention 🙂

[unborn ermine]

I dont feel so bad now, going to have 3/minute (super computers) once I get my ADHD ass back on track.
I would just need to finish running a belt and build 2 manufacturers.
I still gotta actually sit down and look at the logic for sushi. (thats a later thing not an invitation )

[cinder silo]

I didn't feel the need for more super computers tbh, It's only two manufacturers and over time the warehouse cans will still end up full.

[unborn ermine]

Oh yeah

I have 12/min computers from my one silica computer factory, and 10/min highspeed connectors being made there as well.

6 for super computers and 5 for space elevator, 1/min storage/sink

[cinder silo]

Don't sweat sushi either, It took me ages to mess with that and my computer/super computer/rcu plant is my pioneer attempt,

[unborn ermine]

Well thankfully enough I have all that I need at the location, BUT, I am sending like 30 some AI limiters/min down the belt and wouldnt like to just sink them.
So I would have to work around that for instance, and yeah a later thing

[median heath]

Rookie numbers 😉😉😉😉

[unborn ermine]

Legit rookie numbers

its my first factory of the save

[median heath]

Double-digit Supers is a channel requirement

[wind spade]

oh crap

[median heath]

Rules don't apply to blue-names.

[wind spade]

my name is greeny tho

[median heath]

🤦‍♂️

[thorny heron]

very much thank you

[wind spade]

well... what do you expect it to show if you input item and want to produce that item? 🤔

[thorny heron]

._.

but still

it isnt giving me a result on how to make 3.75/min

[wind spade]

remove the input then?

[thorny heron]

i forgot i had reinforced iron plates as input..

[frosty owl]

Did you forget to take away the April Fool's patch, greeny?
Tool be like: If you have Iron Plates, you have Iron Plates

[thorny heron]

indeed

[wind spade]

I actually forgot to take away april fool's patch this april 🤔

I was like "idk what I'll do for april... let's just not do anything I guess" and then I got a few reports on the website being weird bcs I forgot to disable the april patch from 2021

[frosty owl]

Automated trolling

[wind spade]

I forgot what it was... probably Snuttisfactory tools

yeah it was indeed

and I remember that one person came to me and very angrily wrote a few paragraphs about how bad that is as april fools joke and how everyone else did better april fools and how I suck and shouldn't put that on the website in the first place and stuff like that... and I was just sitting there reading it like... what?

[signal nimbus]

When you're so good at April fools jokes... you get yourself.

[frosty owl]

I think not... Do you have a link to this fun read rude madness?

[wind spade]

(and that was also the first person to write anything about it, at the time when I still thought there are no april fools on the website)

[wind spade]

umm, pretty sure it was on tool's discord, let me see if I can find it

hmmm, it was probably deleted either by me or mods or that person themselves 🤔 found only this:

not sure if it's the same person or a different one 😄

[frosty owl]

Meh, that's not enough to satisfy dramameter

Thanks for searching <3

[wind spade]

I know there's tons of very cool drama discussions that could satisfy a lot (and provide you with hours of reading), but I have no idea when those were and how would I search for them 🙂

between 22.5k messages in Tools discord and 61.8k messages in this one, there's a lot to go through to search what I'm looking for

[wary plaza]

Hey folks, I wanna do the impossible: build 10 HMF per minute. I created this diagram for 2/min but I will just duplicate this 5x for 10 (I know it's not 100% efficient that way but I don't mind). I just want to know if the math works out or did I mess up somewhere? Can someone look over this and even give me some tips how to optimize it?

I didn't include things like splitters because this is freestyle for me 😄. I also forgot 3 arrows for the iron rods for the modular frames but this is just for some overview.

Thanks a lot 😁

[sullen cloud]

I suggest to double check your math with this awesome tool. #math-and-meta message

The first one mentioned

[wary plaza]

I did use that tool in the beginning because I didn't want to do a diagram by hand, but for 10HMF it gets messy in the "realistic view mode" or how it's called. But the math worked out

[snow dove]

use scim

to double check math

[wary plaza]

Yeah I did

And it should be fine

[sullen cloud]

Not scim, that’s a weird calculator

satisfactorytools

[wary plaza]

I used both, both gave the same results so I think it doesn't matter

And the diagram tool is useless for that kind of work

[sullen cloud]

scim has a weird optimization algorithm, I don’t trust its results. However, the map tool is wonderful

[wind spade]

satisfactory tools would've given you much cleaner diagram than scim in realistic mode

[wary plaza]

Yeah... But 10 Heavy Modular Frames

It looked awful tbh

But for everything else sure

[wind spade]

what do you find awful about this? genuine interest, I made the tool

[sullen cloud]

satisfactorytools is very handy to check your math in a quick way. Never let me down.

[wary plaza]

I meant scim

[wary plaza]

This actually looks usable

Sorry if I misunderstood

[wind spade]

yeah, it's from "satisfactory tools" website, the "second one" people have been recommending

I guess the confusion was from your "I used both" message

[wary plaza]

Yeah, I used both for the math, but only looked at the "scim diagram tool" and then decided I'll do my own diagram

[wind spade]

yeah feel free to give me feedback for tools if you find something you don't like

fyi here's a link for your 10 HMF/min https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=jRN8dbLMhmwbmagM3PCM

it's all vanilla recipes and stuff, so feel free to modify

[wary plaza]

Thank you for the help

Creating diagrams by hand is really time consuming and this tool is actually really useful (not just for the math but also usable diagrams)

[wind spade]

you can also drag'n'drop the diagram nodes (though the locations don't save if you reload browser, so I recommend screenshotting or something)

[wary plaza]

Snipping tool will do 😄

[wind spade]

yeah (though you lose some of the info that you can see when you hover over things) 🙂

[wary plaza]

Yeah, but there's no other option (yet?) so I guess we have to accept that

[wind spade]

plan is to have it save positions, but I'm super busy nowdays 😦

[wary plaza]

Sound really stressful, but a save function is the least important thing rn I guess

[wind spade]

well there's also a beta version of the tool with tons of new features that are being worked an

[muted goblet]

Holy.. i got diluted fuel and simulated it into the power one pure node will give you.. that makes a huge difference combined with turbofuel

[wary plaza]

So the "old" tool will get abandoned or will you keep it alive?

[wind spade]

it's just a big update. If you join the tool's discord, you can get a tester role and get access to it

[wary plaza]

Ah ok, I'd love to be a beta tester!

[wind spade]

e.g.

it's currently a bit broken in some cases and there are bugs that need to be fixed, but it's what I've been working on when I have time

[wary plaza]

But it shouldn't take long? Right? I personally don't know a lot about (web) development (did some HTML and CSS bc it was fun but no js) but my friend who does these things full time says bug fixes are annoying

[wind spade]

currently the biggest problem is free time

it's holiday season and people go on vacation so there's more work to do sometimes (and sometimes I go on a vacation), and I also have one extra project for a friend that is due next week. So until then I basically have 0 free time for projects like SFTools. In August I may be able to get back to doing some work on the tools at least every second day

there's a lot of bugs currently related to new calculation algorithm, which is like hardest thing to debug on the whole project

as it's essentially black magic even for me - it uses something called linear programming (optimisation of set of inequalities towards a given target function)

so sometimes finding and fixing those bugs takes ages

[wary plaza]

It sounds like 2 full time jobs

[wind spade]

I never considered SFTools a job. I don't get paid for it (except for very generous people on Patreon and some Paypal donations, but those are usually not enough to even cover the server costs) and I do it because I like working on tools and making something for the community. Best reward is the appreciation from people 🙂

[wary plaza]

It really sounds just as stressful as a job

[wind spade]

I don't even run any ads, even though I could

it's not really stressful. There aren't any deadlines (except for those I impose on myself) and even though some persisting bugs sometimes make me quit programming for the day, it's not really stressful 😄

[wary plaza]

But it's a good thing that you don't have deadlines because if there are none you can't miss them 😆

You can decide what you do in your free time (kinda) (and if there's any) and I would consider this a good thing

I thank you for the nice conversation but I think I will go to sleep now 😂 it's like 1 am here in Germany

[wind spade]

same timezone, but I won't be sleeping in the following 4 hours at least 😄 too much work

[wary plaza]

Even though I'm on holiday until the end of August I want to keep my sleep schedule as good as possible, because waking up early when I have to will be hell if I don't even try keeping it scheduled 😄

And it will be even harder because now I am the person deciding if I want to go to school any longer or just sleep more 😂 jk I won't sleep that much

[serene burrow]

admit it though - it's coding the calculator is more fun than playing the game 🙂

[wind spade]

can't tell, haven't played the game since 2019

[serene burrow]

honestly, making factories is so similar to coding in some ways, and I really enjoy the planning and automation there off.

[rain swift]

Question: What criteria does SFTools use to determine which alternate recipe to use? I just noticed it taking the default Alumina Solution recipe when it could have taken Sloppy Alumina, which I think is superior in every way??

[wind spade]

least resource usage

resources have weighted value based on their relative appearance in the world

e.g. if there's 3 times as much iron as copper, then using 2.5 iron is better than using 1 copper