Gleba is a problem

[pseudo3d]

I ruined my save file on Space Age because I got stuck in Gleba. Basically...
- Nauvis was not fully equipped to be left alone, as a result fuel for trains ran out, causing a chain reaction to kill the entire power
- Roboports were not adequately built out to supply remotely
- Almost nothing was packed for the trip save for a few inserters and belts

As a result, I was stuck on Gleba with no way of progression. I realized I could manually collect both plants and get the process started for bioflux, but without belts would be a cumbersome process, and the agricultural tower wasn't set up to sustainably harvest plants. Seeds would have to be manually sent over. Because the two were on the opposite sides of the map, it meant manually delivering seeds, and because the ground was so swampy, extensive landfill would have to be built. There are stone mines for that, but they need power, and the high cost of landfill means bulk mining, and you need fuel. Until you have a system completely set up to take the spoilage generated by your machines and feed them as fuel, there's no way to easily get set up.

It is possible to work your way out of it but it's also possible to ruin an entire "plantation" of plants by cutting them down and having them all spoil. Either way, it grinds down the game's pace as you struggle for hours just to get something that works. Within half an hour, a beginner could set up something basic and workable on Gleba, half an hour on Gleba and you'll still be carrying spoilage to feed stone burners. Very bad.

I don't know how this can be fixed but it does need to be.

[Stargateur]

it's possible to get started from zero on gleba, but yes the start of gleba is very very hard I didn't go on vulcanus yet but fulgora was by far more easy than gleba.

As for balancing, I feel you should just prepare better also your space platform can be a good passive support early.

[aka13]

Vulcanus from scratch is doable, but very tedious. You will have to mine a lot of rocks to kickstart everything.

[DragoonGXG]

Yeah, this rougelite is very brutal to newer players. Without prior knowledge, expect to restart a few times (previous saves hopefully).
For instance when I first left Nauvis I only had laser turrets...big mistake.
Upon arriving at my first planet Vulcanus, I managed to just barely jettison from my space platform before it was destroyed, stranding me.
Like you, I didn't setup the proper infrastructure to support remote operations.
With no way to get starting materials or the ability to kill the giant worms I had to restart.

Back to your point on Gleba, managing all of the new information (spoil system) was a big headache.
Personally, everything seems to spoil to quickly and the map that got generated for me left little room to get farming started.
Initially when I went there I didn't bring stone and still haven't found any resources sites of it on the planet, preventing me from making sufficient landfill to make a base of operation.
IF you want to share some Space Age tips and tricks, try checking out viewtopic.php?f=18&t=117167

[pseudo3d]

I will say Fulgora is much better; even if you forgot to pack adequately, scrap will provide you everything you need and once you get a few accumulators, power poles, lightning rods, and your first recycler you'll start seeing progress immediately.

[sarge945]

When you flew there, did your ship harvest space rocks to make ammo?

I set up a circuit on my ship to stop producing bullets when above 500 in storage, with any excess iron being sent down to the planet. While flying we need everything we can get, but in orbit you should need far more bullets than your iron can support, even with only 1 furnace. So you can limit your bullet production and send any produced iron down to the planet.

It's only a trickle but it helps a lot when bootstrapping a base.

[DarkShadow44]

I went to Gleba first, bringing nothing except for 20 construction bots (after I realized after a few hours how to get them down from orbit, lol).
I admit it's difficult to get started, took me quite a few hours. Although I cleared all nests in my pollution zone in Nauvis first, so I had as much time as I needed. Nauvis wasn't really my problem, the bigger issue was realizing that asteroids in Gleba orbit are not harmless like in Nauvis orbit...

I built my base on solid ground next to one wetland, then have a simple bidirectional train to solid ground next to another wetland, in hindsight it's pretty doable. I only needed a handful of landfill, and the entire game unlocked once I learned that bio-rocketfuel is the way to go here. Having plants spoil was never an issue for me, there is plenty more fruits to harvest on the map.

[vopo]

Yeah I'm over here just fighting for my life while my friend has breeze on all the other worlds lmao. I was hoping to not be bailed out but yeah it feels like a notable difficulty spike. I love the spoiling mechanics, don't love getting stomped and my base crushed while 5 turrets pump lead into the smallest stomper because I dared to turn on a single ag tower. Definitely feels like I'm missing something obvious, I was not expecting the land of fruit and nuts to be exponentially harder than the place where everything is on fire. Maybe I should be hand gathering fruits by hand to try and get rocket launchers online?

[smileynator]

Vulcanus from scratch is doable, but very tedious. You will have to mine a lot of rocks to kickstart everything.

I did this, it was more than fine enough, early iron from my space platform and a few belts was all i had because i also rushed into it, took a while to get going but nothing i didn't enjoy. I got home before christmas, eggman would be proud.

[Stargateur]

I will use this thread as a complain about biochamber, about all new OP building its the baddest by far. you can't use it on other planet except nauvis. It add complexity to all chemical recipe. I have hard time to justify the complexity just to have few more plastic or rocket fuel, when I have already tons of it with infinite research.

I feel it should not require nutriment for oil cracking and normal recipe rocket fuel. And biolab should require nutriment