Electric deadlock (of nuclear poportions)

[xana43]

This may or may not have been answered before, or maybe I might just be a new brand of un-lucky, but I've been playing on my factory for like 2-4 months and i've built it up, and it's a massive factory powered just barely by 2 nuclear reactors. Once I realized my nuclear reactors were running out of uranium, since all the near by uranium ore was mined I aggressively expanded near the closet uranium deposit. I didn't actually get to it because it was too far away and I didn't have the laser turrets to handle defending a huge wall, so as I was waiting for more laser turrets and defending the un-defended part of the large area I made for myself, my nuclear reactors completely ran out of uranium and all my machines are dead. Now whenever I load up my save I'm greeted to an army of biters blowing everything up and me not being able to do anything about it. I'm not sure what to do because I don't have the space to build more steam engines and I can't get any uranium. If anyone knows how to help my that would be great because right now I see only two options. Either use cheats (I want achievements) or make a new save file and lose all that progress.

[Selvek]

Uh oh, sounds like you found the "lose" condition

Depending on how far into the "blowing up your base" process your earliest save is, I would try disconnecting as much of your factory as possible to minimize power draw. Direct whatever power you have from your steam engines / solar panels into making some ammo and gun turrets, and try and get a stable perimeter that doesn't depend on lasers. Flamer turrets might be helpful too, especially if you have a bunch of oil sitting in tanks.

Next step depends on whether you have a Kovarex loop. If you do, I'd run out and mine some uranium by hand until you have enough pieces to start the reactors and buy time to start making a more permanent uranium outpost.

If you don't have a kovarex loop (which I'm assuming you don't), I would focus on the stable non-laser perimeter even more. You will then need to do a non-laser expansion, adding a bit more space for extra steam engines in the process, until you can defend the uranium outpost (I would focus on defending the outpost only, not the track - you can generally get by with that).

Now, all this depends on you having at least some amount of time before the biter swarm annihilates you... you may have to sacrifice some base sections to buy time to get gun turrets up around the assets you need to build more gun turrets.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

[Jap2.0]

Uh oh, sounds like you found the "lose" condition

Depending on how far into the "blowing up your base" process your earliest save is, I would try disconnecting as much of your factory as possible to minimize power draw. Direct whatever power you have from your steam engines / solar panels into making some ammo and gun turrets, and try and get a stable perimeter that doesn't depend on lasers. Flamer turrets might be helpful too, especially if you have a bunch of oil sitting in tanks.

Next step depends on whether you have a Kovarex loop. If you do, I'd run out and mine some uranium by hand until you have enough pieces to start the reactors and buy time to start making a more permanent uranium outpost.

If you don't have a kovarex loop (which I'm assuming you don't), I would focus on the stable non-laser perimeter even more. You will then need to do a non-laser expansion, adding a bit more space for extra steam engines in the process, until you can defend the uranium outpost (I would focus on defending the outpost only, not the track - you can generally get by with that).

Now, all this depends on you having at least some amount of time before the biter swarm annihilates you... you may have to sacrifice some base sections to buy time to get gun turrets up around the assets you need to build more gun turrets.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

You can't mine uranium by hand. It requires sulphuric acid.

[Selvek]

Sorry - by "By hand", I mean "with a hacked, minimalistic setup". You will need to carry over some surfuric barrels and set up a small solar array to make it work. I meant bypassing the setup of sending a train all the way out there.

[xana43]

I don't have enough time for any of that, so I might as well start over then because my factory is way too big to go around building stuff (or maybe I could use cheats to activate peaceful mode)

[Zavian]

I'm not sure what effect peaceful mode will have on any biters that have already decided to attack your base. (I'm not saying that it won't work, just that I don't know).

Another option is using the mod creative mode. It has a accumulator shaped item that you can use to provide infinite power, whilst you get things sorted out.

[xana43]

I've managed to isolate production of solar panels and laser turrets and i've redirected power to only the defenses and it seems to be doing well