Factorio Forums

Over a thousand hours in the base game. Dozens of factories and dozens of build concepts.
Over 40 hours in the expansions already. Loving the space platforms, Vulcanus, Fulgora...

Then I got to Gleba. 5 hours later, I'm done. I'm just done. I f%#&ing hate spoilage. Absolutely hate it. The only thing I want to do now is bring in an armada of space ships loaded with nukes and completely glass the entire planet into extinction.

It's been a great run There are very few games over the years I've put so many hours into. Factorio has been one of the best, but Gleba completely ruined it. Best of luck to Wube.

sorry you don't like it. I had fun with it; my challenge with Gleba was getting insta-gibbed by stompers. But there are elegant ways to handle spoilage, I hope you give it another shot maybe with a different approach.

Trying to not give any spoilers but of course if you want specific solutions, they are out there.

I feel you. I've spent two days there and have basically nothing and the prospect of building a factory there turns me off. There are way too many concepts dumped on you with little explanation, and then there's the time pressure of spoilage, and evolution.

So I got there and here's the things I've had to learn:

* biomes
* new power generation
* a lot of new recipes
* spoilage
* nutrients
* soil/harvesting
* new enemies
* how do I get resources to build anything

The problem is, there's no way to really understand how things work until you have something running, but in order to get something running you need to learn a lot of new concepts, and then after you've got something running it will inevitably fail, and when it fails the whole system fails at once and you have to clean it up, and because of spoilage everything has to happen quickly. It's not enough to learn one new system at a time, you have to learn everything all at once. It's very stressful.

Normally you can just build something and then work on ratios and routing later, but on Gleba, because everything needs nutrients and an output for spoilage, it's not trivial to make adjustments, and it feels punishing to stop and think, because I'm watching everything spoil. And I'm watching the pollution/spores spread and I don't even have a base producing resources yet.

There definitely needs to be a tutorial.

Welp, I had the same issues 2 days ago. ^^

What solved it for me and actually turned it fun in the meantime... was bringing an armada of logistic bots there. That solved all the issues.

I can only recommend everyone who struggles... bring 200-300 bots there and many logistic chests & roboports.

Then either use Buffer chests/storage chests everywhere or if you use a requester chest, make sure there is also a filtered inserter capable of taking spoilage out of requester chests; either put the spoilage on a belt or into a provider chest to be taken away.


What you also definitely want is... make nutrient preferably from bioflux; the ratio is the best. Turn all spoilage into nutrient as well.

And what I also recommend... DON'T request too much stuff into chests. Let them only bring small amounts. Like 4 or 8 pieces of Nutrient at a time. Other things accordingly. That also ensures not too much is sitting in chests that would spoil.

In any case don't shy away from using circuit logic too if that helps you minimize overproducing stuff. That starts already from the agricultural tower (you should limit it if you don't need more fruit)... all the way to the consumers. As said; don't shy away from disabling requester chests by circuit logic if you have sufficient of the recipe output.

For the sake of it... put Efficiency Modules 2 in eveeery bio chamber to keep the nutrient consumption at the bare minimum. (that probably helped me the most besides bots).

That will all help minimize the amount of spoilage.

The only situation where you actually WANT stuff to spoil is when you get those bacteria for iron/copper ore. ^^

For power production use the rocket fuel recipe immediately once you have it. It is insanely efficient. I don't even need to burn any spoilage on Gleba; rocket fuel keeps the base alive (don't even need solar anymore).


Anyway don't hesitate to ship in TONS of stuff from the other planets to help you out. Because Gleba is definitely the hardest from the 3 planets you can immediately go to.


Also don't be to afraid if stuff spoils on the way to Nauvis. You won't be able to avoid it forever. I put up a heating tower in my Nuke plant to get rid of the spoiled science packs (sometimes I forget to switch researches and then stuff spoils on the belt at the labs xD)



It can be done with belts; but my attempt at it also failed initially. Next time I would likely try again with belts, now that i know how to do all the crafting chains and how to minimize delays & spoilage. My first attempt with belts definitely failed because I didn't know much about the item flow and because of it made the outpost messy.


But that said; if all fails... don't be too shy to set the spoilage time during map creation to something longer. Set it to 1000% if you hate it. Then you can sit on the stuff for hours. ^^

I landed on Gleba the other day. Already spend 10 hours on Fulgora and Vulcanus each, setting up a small base producing everything needed there.

Any holy ****, I agree with the general thing. Gleba is a huge spike in difficulty. You can clearly see the devs had fun with this one, but on Fulgora and Vulcanus I could start from scratch and build out from there. On Gleba I feel like I need to ship in many things to kickstart a basic production.

I don't think you could land there with "nothing but an unlocked tech tree" and kick things off. As you need bio reactors, while some recipes can be done in assembly machines, you need the 50% productivity bonus (which isn't obvious at all) or you won't produce a surplus of seeds. However, collecting the eggs for the reactors requires that you have combat capabilities. In my specific case, I'm running a mech suit with laser defence systems, which deal with the natives fine. But that is only because I went to Gleba last.

I still have no idea how to correctly produce power, I've been burning off spoilage in steam boilers to reduce the amount of spoilage. Because there is spoilage everywhere, and I didn't bring enough inserters and belts to setup moving the spoilage. So I manually need to pick it up everywhere and just dump it in boilers.

I don't like setting things up with logistic bots, it's not how I play factorio. So, if bots are the only way to really solve this, then I agree with the topic title.

Not sure if the map gen was a bad roll of the dice, but, I'm lacking a position where I can produce the two "tree" types close to each other. But I'm also really glad I have the mech suit here again, as navigating the swamp with all the lakes and trees that could block you feels like it would be hell.

On things spoiling, I think my way of dealing with it is just having the factory run "resource starved" so always produce a bit less then you use.

jraskell1 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 30, 2024 8:30 am

The only thing I want to do now is bring in an armada of space ships loaded with nukes and completely glass the entire planet into extinction.

It is a valid option. Gleba is the most difficult planet i think, there's nothing wrong with getting tons of supply from previous planet, like ammunition, and defense, and lasers, and turrets, and teslas and defense, nukes are a bit heavy for space, unfortunatly

Or a nuclear reactor and some turbines, to deal with power, or thousand of bots, or belts or recyclers , rockets parts, repair packs, heating tower to burn spoilage if you don't have enough biochamber to turn it into nutrient back.


5 hours is a long time for no progress and can be frustating, but it's also part of the depth of the game, the easiest approach is to source EVERYTHING from Nauvis, this can be done in 5 hours, and would yield "visible" progress but learning the more difficult things require time, and when you learn you are not making something "yet", to me that remind me of my first days of factorio, when i was trying things with train signals and i only had deadlock or problems all the time and made crappy setup that couldn't scale well. Now it feel easy to me, but i can remember the hours it took to learn. You add one tips to another and eventually you got knowledge to deal with the problems in the game. There was some mentionned already, but i have one that i think fits this situation :

Explosive rockets or artilleries are nice to blow up chest fileld with spoilage, it alleviate the problem and allow to vent, make a speaker to ring when say all the 50 chest are filled and destroyed them manually or remotely, it feel wrong only before you try it, and then you see the bots rebuild everything and leaving you again 5 hours to think of how you can deal with it in a more efficent way !

mmmPI wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 8:33 am

Explosive rockets or artilleries are nice to blow up chest fileld with spoilage, it alleviate the problem and allow to vent, make a speaker to ring when say all the 50 chest are filled and destroyed them manually or remotely, it feel wrong only before you try it, and then you see the bots rebuild everything and leaving you again 5 hours to think of how you can deal with it in a more efficent way !

Importing tungsten to get rid of surplus fuel with fuel value of poplar fluff is not wrong? Mmmkay...
Spoilage <-> nutrients conversion set up with burner inserters may or may not fix excessibe spoilage problem while doing anything useful AND not requiring costy other-planet-specific imports.
AND is expected to scale well as necessary.

One thing I've tried is just saving before I turn on the factory and see what happens, then load and fix what broke.

EustaceCS wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 10:07 am

Importing tungsten to get rid of surplus fuel with fuel value of poplar fluff is not wrong? Mmmkay...

You import artillery shell in gleba because you need them duh.

Then when you have them you can use them the way you want, there's nothing wrong with it x).

One thing i'd like to add, because i too was frustrated with gleba and regret going there first:

Recyclers are insanely useful to get rid of surplus. they're also easy to ship.

You can actually put pretty much anything in the recycler - even chemistry and smelting stuff. what happens is that 75% of it just gets deleted, the 25% you get back can be put right back in the recycler.

on my gleba setup now, i used like 10 recyclers with requests for spoilage if the logistics network contains >5000 spoilage. made short work of the 20k spoilage i had stacked up in various chests, and currently only 1 or 2 of them need to run if the entire factory is working. i suppose when the copper + iron ever get full and/or i stop the science, more of them will turn on, but it really keeps things running smoothly.

Also use them for the seeds - since your factory should produce surplus seeds, any that aren't crafted into soil can go straight into the recyclers.

Daid wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 8:30 am

I still have no idea how to correctly produce power, I've been burning off spoilage in steam boilers to reduce the amount of spoilage. Because there is spoilage everywhere, and I didn't bring enough inserters and belts to setup moving the spoilage. So I manually need to pick it up everywhere and just dump it in boilers.

Only burn off the spoilage if you don't have enough biochambers to convert it back to nutrients. Otherwise convert it to nutrients and throttle your nutrient production from bioflux (which otherwise is the most efficient way to make nutrients) to make sure that the nutrient coming fom the spoilage>nutrient recipe are always taken first so that they can never clog up. ^^

The proper way to locally produce power on Gleba (without going nuke plants or anything fancy)... is to produce Rocket Fuel from that one Gleba specific recipe. It is crazy efficient.

Then insert the rocket fuel into the heating towers with a circuit condition... like for example if they are below 550°C... to minimize the rocket fuel consumption.

Then expand as necessary.

But for all its worth I only have 3 towers currently and most of the time they are idle because I don't nearly consume as much power. They are crazy efficient as well once they are up to temperature.

The other thing I throw in there are excess seeds. But they have like no fuel value and only serves as a sink for it.

Daid wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 8:30 am

I don't like setting things up with logistic bots, it's not how I play factorio. So, if bots are the only way to really solve this, then I agree with the topic title.

It is definitely do-able with belts. But you will have to ramp up your belt game a whole lot to deal with it. Because it is unlike anything else where you can just leave stuff idle on transport belts and not care.

On Gleba you need to be able to divert spoilage at almost every step of the process. Like a splitter after any array of bio chambers; and using belt loops so things keep on moving all the time, never stopping, never backing up. Just to filter the crap out of the belt with the still good stuff.

Because nothing is worse than a blocked input because there is spoilage sitting exactly in front of the inserters. It can easily collapse the entire production chain just because one inserter is hampered from doing its work. ^^

Daid wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 8:30 am

Not sure if the map gen was a bad roll of the dice, but, I'm lacking a position where I can produce the two "tree" types close to each other. But I'm also really glad I have the mech suit here again, as navigating the swamp with all the lakes and trees that could block you feels like it would be hell.

I think that is intentional from map generation. I landed on a huge plateau where I have sooo much space to build it is insane and probably will never use it all. I don't even need to landfill anything.

But the closest green and violet biomes where the trees can grow are pretty decently far away too (at least as long as one doesn't have the ability plant elsewhere). And on the opposite sides from each other, which made it even worse. Definitely needed like 50 express underground transport belts in every direction just to get it back to my starting plateau. ^^


And yea, thank the Factorio spirits for the mech suit. It made traversing terrain so much easier everywhere now. And I can just run through the factory not caring what is in the way.

mmmPI wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 8:33 am

Or a nuclear reactor and some turbines, to deal with power, or thousand of bots, or belts or recyclers , rockets parts, repair packs, heating tower to burn spoilage if you don't have enough biochamber to turn it into nutrient back.

The nuclear plant would definitely help with the power issue in the beginning (solar panels kinda sucked for me a little at the start and I brought 50 Rare ones, but because Gleba is further out than Nauvis the efficiency is still terrible) and is likely what I would bring in preparation the next playthrough. ^^

I still ship the low density structures in too so that I can launch the science packs. I still haven't felt like producing them locally on Gleba. xD


I think the best way to deal with spoilage is using the recipe to make more nutrient from it. A little "local" loop around the biochambers making that to ensure they keep powering themselves with the nutrient they made themselves. ^^

And way to "siphone" off excess to dump it in the heating tower should it be necessary.

In any case the most important part is that the biochambers dealing with the spoilage can NEVER get stuck because the output is full. That way the system unclogs itself if you just have enough biochambers.

Because after analyzing what I did wrong... that is the issue I had the other day and why my belts kept clogging up. At the "startup" I didn't have enough biochamber dealing with spoilage; and what was worse... the output belts for the nutrients of the biochambers dealing with the spoilage was blocked too. So stuff started spoiling inside the biochambers that were supposed to deal with the spoilage until they run out of nutrients and then they stopped working and removing the spoilage from the entire system... Total disaster. ^^

MeduSalem wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 3:10 pm

I think the best way to deal with spoilage is using the recipe to make more nutrient from it. A little "local" loop around the biochambers making that to ensure they keep powering themselves with the nutrient they made themselves. ^^

i think spoilage => nutrient should be done in assembly machine at least once, to make sure you have a way to restart.

If you only do local biochambers loop, and they happen to all run out at the same time, you have no more nutrient for them to function and the spoilage can't be processed !

MeduSalem wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 3:10 pm

In any case the most important part is that the biochambers dealing with the spoilage can NEVER get stuck because the output is full. That way the system unclogs itself if you just have enough biochambers.

Well make sure it doesn't run out of nutrient either if you're not having at least 1 assembly to restart things x)

MeduSalem wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 3:10 pm

So stuff started spoiling inside the biochambers that were supposed to deal with the spoilage

That sound indeed pretty bad, and the thing to try to avoid x)

mmmPI wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 3:20 pm

i think spoilage => nutrient should be done in assembly machine at least once, to make sure you have a way to restart.

If you only do local biochambers loop, and they happen to all run out at the same time, you have no more nutrient for them to function and the spoilage can't be processed !

Yea true. One "kickstart" assembler up the start of the chain is definitely necessary. I have that as well, where I have "just in case" requester chest full of spoilage that only gets used if for some reason the "normal" nutrient flow has stopped.


Also agree with the local-biochambers loop. One definitely needs also a way to to get nutrients from elsewhere should the necessity arise. And if it is just to kickstart the process if that one stopped. ^^


The two things can easily be combined into one department. With the assembler at the start which then kickstarts the biochambers which reprocess the spoilage to nutrients more efficiently; and those then kickstarting the rest of the factory. ^^


Currently I have not run in the situation where that is necessary yet. Because currently I use up all stuff with science production; and I heavily limited the production output of the chains using circuit logic to match it so not much is overproduced. The little that sometimes spoils the couple biochambers converting it to nutrient can easily deal with. Even they idle most of the time.

I don't think it is possible for my system in its current system to grind to a halt where it would be necessary to kickstart it. Because my transport ship platform is taking it all to Nauvis asap, so the science packs cannot rot on Gleba.

And on Nauvis, just in case I forget to turn on some research requiring the Agri science pack and it rots on the belts at the labs, I have a loop there already to get the spoilage out and throw it into a heating tower I conveniently placed in my nuke plant. ^^

But normally I don't need it; there is usually 20-30 minutes on average left when the Science packs arrive on Nauvis.



Anyway, what I am currently more annoyed with is because I am somewhat production limited still I constantly have to do some "tech-juggle" where I switch back and forth between research that requires agri packs and one that doesn't to keep the research going all the time.

I wish there was a better way to automate that. :X

My biggest problem is that I don't want to experiment.

On any other planet I can build something, try it out and if it doesn't work I tear it down again.
On Gleba, I can do that and then be left with a bunch of spoil and wasted time/spores that allows the enemies to evolve.

I understand that throughput is the name of the game here but it feels like you can't slowly build your way up to it since stuff will just spoil or worse... hatch.

MeduSalem wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 31, 2024 7:22 am

Then either use Buffer chests/storage chests everywhere or if you use a requester chest, make sure there is also a filtered inserter capable of taking spoilage out of requester chests; either put the spoilage on a belt or into a provider chest to be taken away.

Requester chests and buffer chests can be taken care of just by setting the “Trash unrequested” option. Your bots will automatically remove all spoilage!

kpreid wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 01, 2024 4:41 am

Requester chests and buffer chests can be taken care of just by setting the “Trash unrequested” option. Your bots will automatically remove all spoilage!

Oh nice. I have not noticed that setting yet. Happens.

I just got to this planet and I'm done. 4 hours and I didn't even set up iron/copper production. The only reason I lasted that long was because I came with some solar panels and PA with construction bots. I would quit out of sheer frustration after an hour without those. The run is dead as I cannot leave and have no automated resupply from home. I'm not sure if I want to start another game just to get stuck on that planet.

Gleba is actually fun precisely because it breaks all previous game habits. At least it was for me.

Any other planet doesnt encourage getting smart and efficient with your factory. Got a problem? Just add more constructors/furnaces/belts/whatever else, even if that production will be idle most of the time when you dont need it.
Gleba screws with that, and its nice. I actually need to think how to make my production be smart.

Circuits and green modules are really nice here, and you need to think how every step of production work, even when it is idle. And what to do if production stops for a few minutes.

Gleba almost broke me especially setting up the iron and copper bacteria production. In the end I just said fuck it and just set up delivery from my other planets to supply the items to build the rocket parts, with just a bare bones agri science production setup on gleba.

I found solutions for Gleba, but the way there was not fun at all for me. My solution requires recyclers though, to get rid of the excess stuff. I hate the rather extreme time pressure to figure out stuff, before eggs and ingredients spoil. On top of that the bad visibility of the relevant trees. After "solving" it, I had to take a break from the game for a day, because it has been rather draining for me. I just lost motivation to go to Aquilo...

I like that Gleba is different though, and I like the spoiling mechanics for that reason. But something about the balancing of these mechanics really threw me off.