Excess materials

[NameLips]

I am ending up with tons of excess resources. I am running a full refining process (only sorting purified ores) on all my ores. I assumed that, late-game, there would be ways to get rid of all of these things.

But, for instance, I have way, way, way too much Zinc ore. I don't know what to do with it. Pretty much the only thing it's used for are silver zinc batteries, which are needed in high-mark lasers and accumulators, but I have so much zinc... those things aren't enough. Even if I only defend my base with high-end laser turrets, zinc will continue to pile up.

I'm having a similar problem many other ores. The only perpetual "exit" for products in the factorio economy is stuff needed for research (since we have infinite research now) and rockets. Many of these products aren't used in either of those. So no matter how much of my buildings I upgrade to the highest Mark version, they will eventually, inevitably, start filling up my warehouses.

I'm having the same problem with sulfur and geodes. At some point, they just stop being consumed and start piling up.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the bob/angel combo just not balanced for equal resource consumption?

[BlakeMW]

Am I doing something wrong, or is the bob/angel combo just not balanced for equal resource consumption?

Yes and yes.

Angels is not balanced to automatically produce ideal ratios of output metals, rather you have to choose the sorting recipes which provide the ores you need. It is a misconception to think that the higher tier recipes are better, in fact the produce less of the important ores like iron and copper than the lower tier recipes.

It is fairly typical to use 1 or 2 "broad spectrum" sorting chains (I'm fond of bobmonium and/or rubyte) and then use more specialized recipes (either crushing+sorting, or slagless combining recipes) to get specific ores in bulk quantity, especially iron, copper and tin. Crystallizing can be useful to get ores required only in small amounts.

If you are using Angel's smelting you can dump surplus silicon, nickel and cobalt into iron production, and tungsten into steel production. But there are some ores that are hard to get rid of, especially aluminium, titanium, zinc and silver since they are not used much in research - you can get rid of a little bit of titanium and aluminium making express inserters for logistic science packs. Zinc and Silver can be made into solder, but then you'll probably just build up a surplus of lead instead. It is best to avoid relying on sorting recipes that produce large amounts of these less-dumpable ores as byproducts.

[mrvn]

I'm playing in marathon mode with Angels, Bobs and AAI mods and I have a problem with excess materials too.

I have only the first level of ore sorting researched so far. I'm only crushing Sapharite ore so far because that already produces more copper as by product than I need. I get a ton of slag, which I can crush into crushed stone. I also get tons of crushed stone from crushing the Saphirite ore. I can make stone out of crushed stone and then stone bricks. Which I need some of but not that much. So what to do with the remaining crushed stone and slag? Even copper is a problem at the moment. I need way more than 2 iron plates per copper plate so they pile up too.

What is the solution to this early in the game? Do you stick with the straight Saphirite ore -> iron plate smelting for the most part and only switch copper plate production to crushed ore? Do you just keep building chests and stuffing all the excess materials in it for later use? Should one race on to towards the more advanced sorting and smelting recepies as fast as possible so one can balance the output ratios?

[Anachrony]

I am ending up with tons of excess resources.

Managing them is a big part of the challenge of these mods. It's possible, but it requires some planning.

I am running a full refining process (only sorting purified ores) on all my ores. I assumed that, late-game, there would be ways to get rid of all of these things.

But, for instance, I have way, way, way too much Zinc ore. I don't know what to do with it. Pretty much the only thing it's used for are silver zinc batteries, which are needed in high-mark lasers and accumulators, but I have so much zinc... those things aren't enough. Even if I only defend my base with high-end laser turrets, zinc will continue to pile up.

There are alternative recipes for a lot of the molten metals. You can choose a different one to tweak how much of different ores you use. Some brass recipes use more zinc and less copper, for instance, and you can optionally use zinc in solder, which go into circuits that you need for everything. However, you will need so much iron, that you will probably get too much of the other ores using only full refinining, no matter how much zinc you use.

I would suggest you use more than one sorting method. Use the full refining, but then supplement that with the recipes to sort into a single ore, like crushed saphirite and jivolite equals iron ore only. Those recipes allow you to supplement the full refining to get precisely the amount of each ore that you need. When you use only the recipes with multiple outputs, you can't expect that you'll always use both in the correct ratios, so the single output recipes fill an important role even if in some ways they could work out to be less ideal due to requiring catalyst.

I'm having the same problem with sulfur and geodes. At some point, they just stop being consumed and start piling up.

There's no reason for geodes to ever pile up. You don't need that many gems, but you can turn most of them into mineral sludge, which you use to make anything.

Sulfur mostly comes from sulfuric waste water, which you can easily void instead of converting into sulfur. Your sulfuric waste processing system should have an overflow valve or circuit condition so that you void the waste water if you get backed up on your sulfur needs. Once you turn it from a liquid to a solid it becomes a little harder to get rid of the excess, so you shouldn't count on turning it all into sulfur.

I have only the first level of ore sorting researched so far. I'm only crushing Sapharite ore so far because that already produces more copper as by product than I need. I get a ton of slag, which I can crush into crushed stone. I also get tons of crushed stone from crushing the Saphirite ore. I can make stone out of crushed stone and then stone bricks. Which I need some of but not that much. So what to do with the remaining crushed stone and slag? Even copper is a problem at the moment. I need way more than 2 iron plates per copper plate so they pile up too.

What is the solution to this early in the game? Do you stick with the straight Saphirite ore -> iron plate smelting for the most part and only switch copper plate production to crushed ore? Do you just keep building chests and stuffing all the excess materials in it for later use? Should one race on to towards the more advanced sorting and smelting recepies as fast as possible so one can balance the output ratios?

slag and excess crushed stone are converted into mineral sludge, which is very useful and can be converted into any type of ore that you need. Slag is particularly good for this. It doesn't require a lot of technology to be able to do this, as long as you know about it and find the technology you need to do it so you can research it pretty early. You should be able to manage your excess stone and slag before your factory gets very advanced and is churning out larger amounts of those things.

In the very, very early game, before you have green flask technology, then yes, just shove stone in a chest at first. At such early stages you shouldn't be able to produce as much of it yet anyway, so it won't take that many chests. And yes, compacting it down into stone blocks to take up less space is good. Landfill or walls also work. You may not need them immediately, but you'll need plenty later, and soon enough you'll have researched better long term solutions than storage.

In the very early game, just smelting plain crushed saphirite is a perfectly reasonable way to get the iron you need. You can work out better methods but you don't need to race for it before you figure out how to deal with stone and slag. And don't assume that only one ore sorting process will do everything you need. You'll need to mix different methods to get the right ratios while maintaining reasonable efficiency.

[mrvn]

slag and excess crushed stone are converted into mineral sludge, which is very useful and can be converted into any type of ore that you need. Slag is particularly good for this. It doesn't require a lot of technology to be able to do this, as long as you know about it and find the technology you need to do it so you can research it pretty early. You should be able to manage your excess stone and slag before your factory gets very advanced and is churning out larger amounts of those things.

I researched slag processing but that needs sulfuric acid. I don't see any sulfur ore fields or some sorting recepie that produces sulfur. Is multiphased oil the best source for it early in the game?

[Anachrony]

I researched slag processing but that needs sulfuric acid. I don't see any sulfur ore fields or some sorting recepie that produces sulfur. Is multiphased oil the best source for it early in the game?

There are a few paths that you can unlock pretty cheaply that produce sulfuric waste water. Though most of them you won't need all the byproducts they produce instantly, so you'll be shifting your waste products from stone/slag to something else. But excesss fluids and gasses are easier to void.

Multiphase oil is definitely one option, and you're going to want it for plastic soon anyway. This will produce some stuff that you don't need for plastic or acid that you'll probably end up voiding until you have better technology to exploit it all, but it's worth it to bootstrap these early technologies.

Coal Processing 2 is a very cheap green flask technology that produces sulfuric waste water, and you'll need coke for making carbon (just not as much of it as you'll make if it's your sole source of sulfuric). Coke pellets also make a better early game fuel for boilers, trains, or other burners than raw coal. If you burn coke pellets for electricity you might actually end up with an excess of sulfuric waste water by using that method, but you'll want to be careful about not running out of coal in your starting area until you're ready to expand.

Once you start hydro refining some of your saphirite/stiratite/bobmonium, you'll have all the sulfuric waste water you need. You don't need to race all the way up the tech tree to thermal refining for that. The single ore sorting recipes that use chunks will give you aluminum, silicon, and zinc, which when combined with the single ore sorting recipes for crushed ore will give you pretty much all the ores you need to get deep into blue flask technologies. If you rely on this method, you'll end up with a surplus of geodes for a while, but at least you'll have fewer of them to stockpile than crushed stone, and it should buy you a lot of time before it gets to be a problem. In the longer run you'll get technology to turn it into mineral slurry just like stone, but it's not as high of a short term priority to research since it won't fill up your storage as quickly.

Also, slag processing returns a decent percentage of the acid as waste water back into your system, so you don't need a huge amount of it.

[Termak]

I researched slag processing but that needs sulfuric acid. I don't see any sulfur ore fields or some sorting recepie that produces sulfur. Is multiphased oil the best source for it early in the game?

I kickstarted my slag processing with coke cleaning, and keep it running to keep the sulphur levels up. Im always moving from coal to coke and later to coke pellets for boilers since the energy gains. I havent started with petrochem yet in the current game, running expensive recipes with the omniscience multiplier so stuff takes a lot of bottles to research. Last night i found out i live on huge peninsula so i just cleared all the biters from my backyard and now i can focus on expanding safely.

I generally avoid voiding petroleumproducts, just make couple tanks or use the nice pressure tanks, nitrogen and excess water i do get rid if not needed.
This game i might end up having to flare some butane but will see how it goes.