Development and Discussion

[Zyrconia]

Radars? Are you insane? Do you know how much iron you need to research and built 4 radars?

For me the problem isn't so much finding the ores. I explored far enough while searching for the new trees and gardens. Problem are the aliens that start at the same distance as the jivolite and crotinium patches. You won't get at them without a fight.

9/10 of the times you will find a large base on your Jiv .

That's why you rush them. Leave them be, and it won't be an easy fight. My next session I'm starting the fight. Without gray science of course, no iron .

[Light]

If you choose a large starting area (like I always do, should try a small one sometime) does that cause crotinium and jivolite to be further away compared to a small aread when using RSO? Or does RSO not care about the starting area size?

I'm pretty sure that RSO generates ore distance based entirely on the starting area, since patches seem further away from each other when set to large but closer when set to small. I do know that RSO will never spawn them in the starting area no matter the size, so there will almost always be aliens near the patch you want.

Personally my issue with getting those resources was the distance, so I got the junk trains mod for very early game trains. They're slow but still effective until better trains are unlocked. Getting decent armour and AP ammo before grey science usually wasn't that tricky before medium biters roam the map, but I do have a ton of biter mods so sometimes it's a bit tricky when a patch is very well defended, but it does provide a nice copper plate sink early game to balance out the iron a bit. Once they're dead, AP turrets everywhere.

[jodokus31]

All this complexity is fine, but the initial pacing of it is not. With all these changes, especially if you go into gardens, will leave you at the 20 hours mark when you can begin blue science in a well designed non-temporary fairly large base. You can probably speed run a temporary base in a lot shorter time span, but I don't do temporary.

I never reached blue science in 20 hours. But I also do it max. once in 2+ months. At the moment, I do seablock, which has just another level of "tedium" resource and power wise I really enjoy the slow pace of everything and like to find solutions for balancing in every state of the playthrough. And decide, what is the next most important step and where to spent the precious ressources. My expectations were not to have good iron in the first couple of hours or to fulfill a time schedule (this, I have it at my job). OK, maybe seablock is not comparable, because the biters cannot overrun you.
F.e. Last weekend I spent several hours on setting up a geode washing and refining module, which has a water and a seafloor pump and produces ores from mineral sludge, crystal and mineral catalyst + wood pellets and a bit of of sulfur. (I think, without seablock, you would need to feed a bit of sulfur).

[Zyrconia]

Thanks for all your tips, I appreciate your help!

Green + Sodium Hydroxide gives you boards directly

The problem with wood from Saline Water Electrolysis is that it requires Green Science to get rid of the Chlorine and Hydrogen Gas, and at that early point in the game I have no use for either. I guess I was just too overwhelmed with the content of the mods that I did not realize I could rush Green Science to unlock the Flare Stack

Ahhh, I get it. I did try out your way to see how it works, and it works, but unfortunately it has the same scope and scale problem like the iron issues I've been complaining about on this thread recently: overly complicated for no good reason and abysmal yield.

The entire setup in the screenshot produces 0.75 wooden boards/second. An electronic assembler has a speed of 1. So not even able to run one. Look at the timestamp in the picture. I am a lot slower than usual because I'm exploring 0.16 new features in Angel's, but by this time I should really have 12 circuits/second at the very least.

Is it balanced to have 0.75 board a second with this large of a setup? I could scale it up, but it will instantly eat all my crushed stone. So I'll have to support it with a decent setup of slag from electrolization.

What does Angel expect? Do we need to create a mini "megabase" somewhere near a coal patch with water and train in wooden boards to my main base for any decent yield? Do we need OP Bob's modules? Because the way things are, I need to replicate this whole setup 16 times (albeit with fewer algae farms) to bet the desired 12 circuits/second.

[jodokus31]

What about this one?`(hydrogen chloride is just a useful byproduct)

Wood from green algae and saline water

Bildschirmfoto vom 2018-02-27 21-34-17.png (1.57 MiB) Viewed 6198 times

[Zyrconia]

What about this one?`(hydrogen chloride is just a useful byproduct)

Wood from green algae and saline water

Bildschirmfoto vom 2018-02-27 21-34-17.png

Yeah, that's what I used in the past. The new one is a bit more stable since it is hard to balance both chlorine for white boards and that salt by-product for wood, but what you showed is easily scalable to near end-game.

But efficiency isn't the point of this play-though: I'm experimenting with all the new stuff in 0.16 and make newest and most "Angel" base. I still think nothing beats old-school greenhouses with fertilizer. And play-testing which recipes are good and which are bad. The one I showed is cool but low yield, so it is put under bad.

[Light]

Look at the timestamp in the picture. I am a lot slower than usual because I'm exploring 0.16 new features in Angel's, but by this time I should really have 12 circuits/second at the very least.

I envy your ability to accomplish that so quickly. You're able to build a rather sizable factory in such a short time compared to any playthrough I've gone through. Yet despite my slow pace I've found little reason to complain because rather than build large scale things from the beginning which results in starving for resources, I'll build only what I need for the moment and scale up slowly as required.

Sure the playtime is slightly longer this way, but things flow more smoothly so by the time iron becomes a problem the tech options are probably available to start working on smelting and better advanced recipes. After that's all set up, then the pace really picks up and the larger scale builds begin.

From what I've been reading of your posts you sound like you're either too well practiced with fast starts or rushing too quickly into making large scale builds which you obviously can't supply that early in the game. Sometimes you have to take it a bit easy and ramp up slowly rather than expect the sun and the moon from the start. I also had a rough adjustment getting used to catalysts for iron, but given some time it wasn't all that big of a deal when you get used to taking it a bit slower.

There are mods out there to speed things up to how you're used to and there are mods out there to slow things to a crawl so much you can watch a movie and still be waiting for one research to finish. But nothing Angel has done really felt like it shattered the pace in any seriously drastic way in my experience. Things will slow down even more if what Angel said about wanting science to be slower and thus making tech choices more meaningful comes to pass in the upcoming logistics mod. However, this is something I look forward to seeing as it means less time racing and more time working on many other aspects of the factory while enjoying a nice coffee.

[Termak]

Algae stuff is there to get by the early phases and get some use for stone maybe, later on you can get boards from synthetic wood from naptha.

[Zyrconia]

...snip...

Yeah, that is very slow for me. You should see 0.15 bases with the goal of having blue science by 6 hours: that is a constant building bonanza. I have never reached my 6 hours goal. But at the same time I think the mods should include options for fast play that don't neuter the whole point of the mod, like directly using saphirite for iron. And you should never have to put down 20+ buildings to get a quarter of a belt of something. Such scenarios I find poorly balanced for fun play.

I also build only what I need . I just need a lot. One discretionary iron dump line, 1 red +a blue + nanobots, 2 for gray science (and preferably two for gears so I can get a full gear line for red undergrounds) and some steel, at most half a belt constantly, are bare minimum stuff.

The base in the picture has only one iron line... Luckily I found Jivolite, so I can fix it.

But I agree with Angel on science: even at my fastest, I run though science in no time. Science needs to go at 25% of its current speed up to late mid game. Then it can speed up to its current levels because you don't want massive permanent nerf for SpaceX basses.

More choice is also good!

Algae stuff is there to get by the early phases and get some use for stone maybe, later on you can get boards from synthetic wood from naptha.

That is literally 15+ hours in. How am I going to create the bare minimum for sustainable solar at this stage of the game, 4k panels, in 15 hours with 0.75 circuits/second? Slowly, that's how! Last time I put down solar on a proper 0.14/0.15 map with Angel's I had 10 T3 assemblers going full pelt for solar panels and was still waiting for them. For non solar bases you need less of course, but still 10 times the yield of that setup I've shown.

I really don't get this design: replace something from Bob with good but not great yield (back in the day you did need 128 greenhouses without fertilizer) with an almost as good early game method + a really really really bad early game method + a mid game method that is probably decent if you have naptha to spare (who has, it is all going into plastic). Need 200 plastic/minute ASAP.

[Zyrconia]

I scaled up the production a bit, but as I expected I can't support it: not enough crushed stone. Saline is easy to solve.

While not fully feed, it still produces almost 2 wooden boards/second.

[foodfactorio]

Look at the timestamp in the picture. I am a lot slower than usual because I'm exploring 0.16 new features in Angel's,.

rather than build large scale things from the beginning which results in starving for resources, I'll build only what I need for the moment and scale up slowly as required.
.... while enjoying a nice coffee.

im the same as Light, with coffee and small-scale at first
btw with 2 green algae farms, (and ultimately 1 Assembler making Wooden Boards via the paper), its reaching almost 20k Production Cycles. and with each cycle making 2x wooden boards, they have made about 40k wooden boards over the course of about 6 days of game time. (currently about 15 items per minute).

(there is a feature request to have buildings remember how many production cycles they had, as currently you lose the value if you upgrade/replace them, but i only added in some speed modules recently, as the angel mark2 chem plant is quick enough with all buildings running green almost all the time). the large 2x2 wooden crate only has about 200 Green algae in case i need to jump start something later)

but now seeing your cool desert design, i might have to try upscaling likethat nearer the time, as im only on 40 plastic per minute lol.

[Zyrconia]

What are those colored icons/balls on your buildings?

Modules?

And how are you doing paper and board stuff in electronics assemblers?

[foodfactorio]

oh hehe, i was trying out the mini-machines mod (lets you research miniaturisation for some of the buildings.... i think they need less energy though dont have as much crafting speed)

the icons i think are the alt mode (i usually always have it turned on, so that i can see what item a machine is making)
but if you mean the Red, Yellow and Green dots, that is from the bottleneck mod.

(that one is pretty good, as if it shows you red, your building is usually not getting enough resources into it,
and if it is yellow, usually you are not taking things out as quick as it would like
and if green, it is always running)

[Zyrconia]

oh hehe, i was trying out the mini-machines mod (lets you research miniaturisation for some of the buildings.... i think they need less energy though dont have as much crafting speed)

the icons i think are the alt mode (i usually always have it turned on, so that i can see what item a machine is making)
but if you mean the Red, Yellow and Green dots, that is from the bottleneck mod.

(that one is pretty good, as if it shows you red, your building is usually not getting enough resources into it,
and if it is yellow, usually you are not taking things out as quick as it would like
and if green, it is always running)

No, I meant the little icons that appear under the alt-view.

There are a couple of red, purple, blue and green icons.

See your screenshot top and mine bottom.

[orzelek]

Icons you are referring to are modules in the machines - it looks like Yuoki ones I think.

[Zyrconia]

Icons you are referring to are modules in the machines - it looks like Yuoki ones I think.

Thank you!

Modules was my theory, but I've never seen those particular icons.

Yuoki eh? It is on the list. Don't know when I'll have time for that.

[mrvn]

All this complexity is fine, but the initial pacing of it is not. With all these changes, especially if you go into gardens, will leave you at the 20 hours mark when you can begin blue science in a well designed non-temporary fairly large base. You can probably speed run a temporary base in a lot shorter time span, but I don't do temporary.

I never reached blue science in 20 hours. But I also do it max. once in 2+ months. At the moment, I do seablock, which has just another level of "tedium" resource and power wise I really enjoy the slow pace of everything and like to find solutions for balancing in every state of the playthrough. And decide, what is the next most important step and where to spent the precious ressources. My expectations were not to have good iron in the first couple of hours or to fulfill a time schedule (this, I have it at my job). OK, maybe seablock is not comparable, because the biters cannot overrun you.
F.e. Last weekend I spent several hours on setting up a geode washing and refining module, which has a water and a seafloor pump and produces ores from mineral sludge, crystal and mineral catalyst + wood pellets and a bit of of sulfur. (I think, without seablock, you would need to feed a bit of sulfur).

In seablock you get sulfur from the first washing plant and you need it. The crystal crushing + crystalizing loop looses sulfur. Without that you need to use the excess sulfur from the slag slury + crystalizing loop or wash coal. Not sure what ratio of slag to crystal you need to balance the sulfur.

[ukezi]

it only looses sulfur if you use the ceramic filter. coal filter have a minimal surplus as he reduced the need of acid for liquefaction to 12.

[Arch666Angel]

I'll have to read through all the chat at the weekend, there are some lengthy posts here which demand a proper reply

For the bio processing stuff remember I put it back to alpha for two reasons:
-New Stuff getting in and stuff already there changing
-No balance yet, or waiting for feedback or a proper testplay to balance stuff out
So neither the wood nor the other production chain have seen a real balance sweep, they are set to whatever I felt right at the moment so you have to be patient with me
With that said, I have a new idea for the arboretum/wood production stuff, so expect that to change to something more drawn out than it is now.

[mexmer]

All this complexity is fine, but the initial pacing of it is not. With all these changes, especially if you go into gardens, will leave you at the 20 hours mark when you can begin blue science in a well designed non-temporary fairly large base. You can probably speed run a temporary base in a lot shorter time span, but I don't do temporary.

I never reached blue science in 20 hours. But I also do it max. once in 2+ months. At the moment, I do seablock, which has just another level of "tedium" resource and power wise I really enjoy the slow pace of everything and like to find solutions for balancing in every state of the playthrough. And decide, what is the next most important step and where to spent the precious ressources. My expectations were not to have good iron in the first couple of hours or to fulfill a time schedule (this, I have it at my job). OK, maybe seablock is not comparable, because the biters cannot overrun you.
F.e. Last weekend I spent several hours on setting up a geode washing and refining module, which has a water and a seafloor pump and produces ores from mineral sludge, crystal and mineral catalyst + wood pellets and a bit of of sulfur. (I think, without seablock, you would need to feed a bit of sulfur).

In seablock you get sulfur from the first washing plant and you need it. The crystal crushing + crystalizing loop looses sulfur. Without that you need to use the excess sulfur from the slag slury + crystalizing loop or wash coal. Not sure what ratio of slag to crystal you need to balance the sulfur.

You can always make coke from coal, to get more sulfur. That’s my setup in seablock. You need coke in angels smelting anyways.