Gleba has killed the game for me.

[NineNine]

Binary hard, do it right or we wil instantly punish you without any usable feedback other than FAIL.

it's not like that though, there's all kinds of ways to set things up. there's so much flexibility actually, I'm not even sure what the best options out of all the many options are. I'm no expert either and it was challenging but not impossible. challenge is good, challenge is what SA needs _more_ of, not less. this is supposed to be an expansion... it's post-rocket content. it's _supposed_ to be especially challenging...

I agree 100%. SA should not be easy! (Personally, I think that Vulcanus is too easy).

[FasterJump]

Let me add my 2 cents in this topics by sharing my story.

I solved Gleba... without using the heating tower. Yep, I just forgot about it. I was burning carbon from space to make energy in the early game turbines (and burning some biofuel). I was trying to keep all my nutrients/spoilage in a sushi belt. It was hard, but I solved it at the end, by finding the right ratios of building and tuning it with modules.

Then I realized the usefulness of the heating tower. I replaced my closed loop with a slithering lane ending up in the burning sink. It made it much easier to scale up.

I let my base run idle (no cold-start setup); the evolution factor is increasing even though I am not exporting anything. Given that I unlocked Gleba last, I think that it is manageable. I've setup a large defense perimeter (20 x 20 chunks) beyond my pollution cloud, so far it rarely got attacked by nesting parties. Although when big stompers shows up, I may need to upgrade my defenses.

Setting up a Novis-like wall was somewhat boring. I think it would be cool if stompers attack parties could avoid pathfinding through regular bases, unless when already engaged in combat.

Regarding the other planets:
-Fulgora was interesting, because to make the most out of it, you're supposed to upcycle quality.
-Aquilo is great.
-Vulcanus feels relaxing, because the mechanics are easy. And it's good that at least one planet doesn't try to overpower you with enemies / cold brownout / scrap recycling product overflow or back-up (which are all cool mechanics with cool solutions but puts some pressure on the player)

EDIT: fixed typos and combined some paragraphs.

[coffee-factorio]

Let me add my 2 cents in this topics by sharing my story.

I solved Gleba... without using the heating tower. Yep, I just forgot about it. I was burning carbon from space to make energy in the early game turbines (and burning some buofuel). I was trying to keep all my nutrients/spoilage in a sushi belt. It was hard, but I solved it at the end, by finding the right ratios of building and tuning it with modules.

Then I realized the usefullness of the heating tower. I replaced my closed loop with a serpenting lane ending up in the burning sink. It made it much easier to scale up.

I've setup a big perimeter (20 x 20 chunks) but it only rarely got attacked by nesting parties.

I've let my base run idle (no cold-start setup). When big stompers shows up it might push me to upgrade my defenses.

Setting up a Novis-like wall was somewhat boring. I thknk it wiuld be cool if stompers doesn't accidentally pathfind through the base. It would be cool if attack parties could avoid pathfinding through regular bases, unless when already engaged in combat.

Fulgora was interesting because to make the most out of it your're supposed to upcycle quality.

Aquilo is good.

Vulcanus feels relaxing, because the mechanics are easy. And it's good that at least one planet doesn't try to overpower you with ennemies / cold brownout / scrap recycling product overflow or back-up (which are all cool mechanics with cool solutions but puts some pressure on the player)

That's... great to hear actually.

This is kind of my question mark. Because Pentapods hate highland terrain. They won't spawn on landfill but that can put you in a bad situation because the landfill incorrectly says it is absorbing pollution (from it's perspective it might be) when it does 0 for spores. And they hate water. But the pathfinding thing you're suggesting is kind of like a black box you have to reverse engineer You don't know if a stomper will go "this is the only clear place in kilometers from my perspective".

But that's what HE rockets are for I guess \o/

[fredthedeadhead]

Waiting is an inneficent use of time and should be avoided imo. With the remote view there's always something you can do anywhere now to fasten the arrival of the moment that you would have been waiting for otherwise.

No, there was nothing else I could have done. When I was struggling with Gleba I had already completed the other planets to a satisfactory level. I wanted to play on Gleba, but this wasn't possible because the game didn't provide me with enough of the basic starting resources to play the factory building game.

The very lenghty text repeating all over again the same arguments does gives the impression that you are pro-actively rejecting altogether the tools available and the challenges though.

That's a very uncharitable characterisation. While you might not agree with what I'm writing, I am providing constructive feedback. You are not obligated to respond.

[fredthedeadhead]

I want the author of this recepie book to write a new recepiebook takeing only my sudgestions in to consideration. I don't want to hear any one elses opinion on this recepie.

Ok, got it.

Haha, if I didn't want to engage with others do you think I'd be posting on a public forum? In no way would I ever suggest that I want to ignore input from others, and to suggest otherwise is just argumentative.

There's a specific reason I am sharing my suggestions: because I am not an expert, and I am genuinely curious if others find flaws or benefits in them. If you personally don't want to engage, then please don't feel obligated to read or react to my messages.

[fredthedeadhead]

Open tech tree starting from Gleba discovery.
First two entries after it require gathering both kind of stromatolites.
Right one open heating tower and leads directly to Aquilo discovery hinting that it is optional on Gleba.

I think it's unusual if it's expected that players should open the tech tree to find out about gameplay mechanics. Usually the tech tree is only used for selecting the next tech, and not as a source of information for how to tackle planets.

I can't see any hint that the heating tower is optional on Gleba?

Also, I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting I should open the _Aqulio_ entry to get help on how to tackle _Gleba_? That sounds confusing to me.

After agriculture you can see two more entries, one for each fruit. You can alt click on them to open factoriopedia to see what they look like. Also 'growth time' and 'harvest' hint you renewable nature of these resources. If you pay attention to numbers you can notice short spoil time of jelly/mash and lack of surplus for seeds. Time to think about short production cycles for jelly/yumako and productivity for seeds.

I don't find this information at all obvious. It's very unlike how the rest of the game is made. I didn't need to closely inspect production numbers on other planets to get started.

First thing to notice is 50% builtin productivity which answer seeds question.

It was not clear to my why productivity would change the amount of seeds.

Further more, it is not clear that the seeds are a luck-based item. The recipe says 2%, but this does not indicate that it's a random chance. A percentage simply indicates a proportion, and it's ambiguous whether this is a proportion of the output, or a proportion of chance.

Next two entries are artifical soil and biochambers. First one just add ability to increase planting territory and 500 nutrients for discovery hints that you do not need it until your factory will grow. But biochamber require only 10 nutrients and give you main planet specific production building. It is in the same category as electromagnetic plant and foundry. And of course it is supposed that player will use this building. So you should read its description attentively. First thing to notice is 50% builtin productivity which answer seeds question. Next you should see what it requires for crafting. It is nice have necessary materials when you will need them. You can craft landfill, green circuits, iron plates beforehand but what about eggs and nutrients? At this time you should probably notice that nutrients from spoilage recipe is very ineffective and in the same science entry you get new recipe - nutrients from yumako mash, which can be done only in biochamber. Same for eggs. Alt click on them give you information about ability to get from enemies but it is not something that can be automated. For automation same science entry give you recipe for eggs in kovarex style and also in biochamber only. Now you should plan how to effectively craft 30-50 biochambers from a few eggs you will get from nearest enemy nest.
After you have got dozens biochambers it is time to return to science tree and discover what they can be used for. Bioflux entry should already be open as it has requirement of biochamber crafting. And after you start crafting bioflux it will sequentially open science entries with recipes for almost all raw materials you will need on Gleba. First one will give you iron and copper for base production, so you can have enough of them to craft belts, inserters and other logistic. Second will give oil materials for advanced products to make rocket parts. And third one give you new science pack to export via rockets. Now you have everything you need to create small factory producing and exporting around 100SPM.

Unfortunately I didn't have the same experience. I found the game didn't provide enough seeds, nor effective feedback as to why this was the case.

Overall, I find it difficult to see this as a 'clear path to success'. There are many foot-guns, missing info, poor UX, and dead ends that make the experience poor. Not insurmountable, as you and many have demonstrated, but certainly poor.

Now, clearly many people really enjoyed the challenges on Gleba, and I'm here because I want to enjoy it too. Don't you want to try and find ways to make that happen?

But Vulcanus requires much more rock mining and you do not compel about it.

No, it doesn't, because Vulcanus provides infinite rock from lava.

Lol. You do not need stone from these rocks. You will have more of it than you need. Main reason for rock mining is iron, copper and tungsten ores. You will need a lot of them before you can craft you first foundries to start getting iron/copper from lava. And vulcanus' rocks are harder to mine and have much less ore than gleba's. Starting barehanded on Vulcanus is more long-winded than on Gleba. And if you can't kill demolisher from start then then you will need much more rock mining for tungsten ore.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what your point is. I didn't have problems starting on Vulcanus, so I don't see why I would complain about it, especially since this thread is about the issues with Gleba. If you had problems then maybe they were similar with the problems on Gleba and could be combined?

[mmmPI]

Waiting is an inneficent use of time and should be avoided imo. With the remote view there's always something you can do anywhere now to fasten the arrival of the moment that you would have been waiting for otherwise.

No, there was nothing else I could have done. When I was struggling with Gleba I had already completed the other planets to a satisfactory level. I wanted to play on Gleba, but this wasn't possible because the game didn't provide me with enough of the basic starting resources to play the factory building game.

This is making no sense to me, because you can't "complete" the other planet before going to Gleba. And unless you did a mistake or you forced yourself not to for arbitrary reasons, it's very easy to use the ship that brought you in Gleba to bring supply, if you happen to not have the patience or skill or desire to actually play Gleba without any input ressources. That's like 100% consequences of your playstyle.

The very lenghty text repeating all over again the same arguments does gives the impression that you are pro-actively rejecting altogether the tools available and the challenges though.

That's a very uncharitable characterisation. While you might not agree with what I'm writing, I am providing constructive feedback. You are not obligated to respond.

That's my opinon, i am giving constructive feedback, i feel like you are repeating the same things all over again and it's not constructive, you don't have to critcize every person that disagree without you. People are allowed to disagree and say it out loud.

[coffee-factorio]

Haha, if I didn't want to engage with others do you think I'd be posting on a public forum? In no way would I ever suggest that I want to ignore input from others, and to suggest otherwise is just argumentative.

There's a specific reason I am sharing my suggestions: because I am not an expert, and I am genuinely curious if others find flaws or benefits in them. If you personally don't want to engage, then please don't feel obligated to read or react to my messages.

You're in a tricky spot. Because you're mad. And you're right to be mad. These are problems that make real people absolutely upset. But you have to realize, after you repeat it then it's venting. And you should vent. If you want to hear if people have gone through the same thing you also are going to have to listen to people who might have just gotten lucky and used a different strategy. Or where on a multiplayer server, so they have tank driver that can solve that problem.

Because man, the first thing I read the recipe on Yumako I went "Someone's not going to realize that a perfect 1 in 50 chance means that their orchards will die without using a productivity bonus."

And I built productivity modules because what's a biochamber?

[angramania]

I think it's unusual if it's expected that players should open the tech tree to find out about gameplay mechanics.
I can't see any hint that the heating tower is optional on Gleba?
I don't find this information at all obvious.
It was not clear to my why productivity would change the amount of seeds.
Further more, it is not clear that the seeds are a luck-based item.
Overall, I find it difficult to see this as a 'clear path to success'.

You can lead a horse to the water but you can not make him drink. The path is there but if you are unable or unwilling to read and think - bad for you and don't blame the game.

[kdmorse]

I think it's unusual if it's expected that players should open the tech tree to find out about gameplay mechanics. Usually the tech tree is only used for selecting the next tech, and not as a source of information for how to tackle planets.

The tech tree has always been a general guide as to what to do next (to win the game). Not literally a guide, it's not an objective list, or a mission list, but at some point you build the next something to get to the next something on the tech tree. And it's indented to point players in the right direction (and we're all new players the first time we land on Gleba)

But for new planets in SA, they placed the first few techs as trigger unlocks kinda to guide you to doing certain things, as a suggested objective list, that works automatically IF you are not researching something else at the time, and you pay attention to it. The _intent_ was for it to be a guide to the planet, and you'd take your hints from it because you cannot progress the reset of the tree until you do. Everything else on Gleba is locked behind:

First, it will tell you to mine a rock. Ding, blink blink blink - you click on it, and it tells you:
Second, go mine a different rock. Ok... Ding, etc...
<you now have iron and copper>
Thrid, go chop down a Jelly tree. Ok... Ding, etc...
Fourth, go chop down a Yumako tree. Ok... Ding, etc...
<you now have at least some wood, some stone, and Jellynuts and Yumako fruits that are going to spoil.
Fifth, go craft 10 Nutrients...
... Ok, Nutrients at this step only come from spoilage. If you've chopped anything down, you'll notice that spoilage comes free from most plant life. Chop a little more down. Craft 10 Nutrients, and Ding, at this point you're rewarded with Biochamber technology.
Now you can craft 500 nutrients for artificial soil, or work on making a Biochamber.

Making one biochamber is required to open up the rest of the tech tree. And yes, while sitting around wondering what to do with that information, your first tree harvests will have spoiled in your inventory teaching you about spoilage. If you look at biochambers when unlocked, you'll notice they're amazing (+50% Prod). (And yes, you have to go snag a pentapod egg, You've been shown how to get iron and copper, so you can arm up as you see fit)

So by the time you get to start working on anything with a purpose, you've been guided through the basics of everything discussed here, and forced to explore a bit. You then scrape just enough together to get biochambers, handfeeding if necessary, so you can build a base and progress. It's /why/ the rest of Gleba is locked behind biochambers.

Even on a "bring nothing" run, you can start handcrafting biochambers in about 5 minutes if you want to (only requires a handcrafted furnace to smelt the plates - and then a heating tower only requires a handcrafted Assembler 2, and offshore pump)

That's the /intent/. That's the stick to poke new players along. It makes the assumption that either the player is going to be tech idle when they head for Gleba, or that the player is going to have something they want on Gleba (Ag Science), and checks the tech tree to see what is required to get there. But you're correct that it's not cohesive, nor mandatory. If you've queued up infinite science before leaving <previous plant>, you may never see it. And it's spread across the tech tree, and two sections of Tips (Gleba, and Spoilage is it's own section).

And, if a player lands with the idea of building a factory first, with the goal of building a classic factory, starting with belts of iron, etc... Before doing those things, learning those lessons, it's going to be rough. Building up on Gleba without Biochambers is like trying to build a large base on Nauvis completely ignoring electricity, burners all the way - it can be done, but nobody is claiming it's fun.

I do believe an "objective list" might smooth this out for new players who don't notice the tech tree is trying to serve as a guide.

(Half of this post is directly a reply to your post that the tech tree isn't a guide through the game. The other half is pent up based on someone (And I don't know if it was you) stating that biochambers were "midgame" tech, and that the goal was to build a big base without them. I just loaded my pre-gleba save, landed with nothing but the armor on my back (and it is nice armor), sent nothing else down, let the tech tree lead me around, and had 17 biochambers in my pocket in 10 minutes...)

[Mskvaer]

(Replying mostly to the heading, and after skimming about 20 posts randomliy in this ling thread)

Hey, it's not all bad. In fact it is a NEW challenge. After playing Factorio for several years without any changes, one becomes settled. You know all the facts by heart, and for me at least just enjoying twiddling different strategies.

Then it is ALL NEW. You have NEW challenges. not just the same-same with new graphics. "Who moved my cheese"?

Yes, I am finding Gleba a pain, too, can't wait to get off it. I can't just ship all the rocket material from my Navuis base, 'cause it wasn't engineered properly to run unattended (mostly the outposts limited in defense materials).

Overcoming each challenge on Gleba gives me lots of headscratching and outright curses, but I will come back for more 'cause it is fun in a masochistic way - Fctorio in a nutshell, isn't it?

[2k_hours]

I've trying playing SA and Gleba just isn't fun. I have over 2500 hours in Factorio, I want to enjoy it but the constant attacks, maintenance, the constant time pressure, the lack of coal, the inability to make a clean factory, the continual need for filtering/circuiting everything.





Gleba you've won. I'm done.

[jaylawl]

I was initally heavily frustrated by Gleba due to the combination of radically different mechanics and extreme pressure from the pentapods. Both was just too much, but i also felt like i did something wrong in regards to the pentapods. For the longest time i did not have artillery, rocket turrets, nor tesla turrets on Gleba. My Gleba factory was just shut down unless i was there with the engineer and got needed science packs "manually".

The required defense perimeter setup of rocket and tesla turrets feels weird - as if i was defending from overpowered enemies added by an unbalanced mod, even with high level weapon damage research.

However, now that the critter situation on Gleba is under control, i absolutely love having any reason to go back there. My Gleba factory is finely tuned clockwork at this point. I love being given reasons to implement circuitry and be rewarded for it. Every little step has a reward in it and it has all moved on from having problems on an hourly basis to running for a week without problems.