PyBlock (alpha)

[BlueTemplar]

I've played around a bit in helmod to figure out the best way to make plates with the limited techs I have. With just hot air I found this:

iron-copper-plates.png

So for a huge increase in energy (~30 times more, shouldn't the iron simply evaporate) I get ~6 times more iron plates from iron ore than copper plates from copper ore. That seems off.

If it weren't for steel needing such huge amounts of iron plates I would have a serious problem making copper. You already get nearly twice the iron ore than copper ore from tar. So overall it's roughly 10 iron plates to 1 copper plate from tar.

Intentional?

Did you miss how I made iron plates from hot air ?
viewtopic.php?p=441023#p441023

[otakushowboat]

As pointed out by BlueTemplar, the advanced foundry has a very early hot air recipe to smelt iron ore into wrought iron plates, then a recipe with hot air for wrought iron plates to standard iron plates. This process is EXTREMELY efficient for ore:plate ratio at this phase of the game. This, of course, as the objectively best process for processing iron ore at this point, leads to an abundance of iron versus copper plates.

Even without doing this, though, I do find myself lacking for copper in the early game, particularly for circuits for buildings. Even in the "best case" of doing hot air copper smelting and stone furnace iron smelting, the copper still seems to be a bottleneck for me.

[mrvn]

I stopped handcrafting circuit boards and buildings by hand. Now I'm seriously strapped for copper.

I looked into improving the recipe for copper plates but I'm not finding much. There is a minor improvement if I crush copper ore but very minor. Also looks slower so I need more buildings. So extra space and expensive buildings for <8% improvement in yield. Space better invested in simply producing twice the ore?

To get somewhere that matters it looks like I need molten copper. But that looks like it needs several researches of the next tire and involves an ~20 step process. Given the huge complexity I'm not even sure if simply producing ore and smelting the trivial way isn't more efficient. Note: Can't build it yet due to tech requirements so I don't know how big it's going to be.

Am I missing something ore are there really just those 4 steps for copper:

1) ore -> plate
2) ore + hotair -> plate (+pump, heat exchanger, hot-stones - fuel)
3) crushed -> plate (slow, <8% increase, 3 expensive buildings) [+ myosomething ore that I can't process yet]
4) molten copper (~20 step process, tons of buildings, blue science, 400% (?) increase to 2)

Molten copper seems to have some variations as to which of those copper cubes I use affecting efficiency. But thats the difference between 19 and 20 steps. Getting any molten copper at all seems to be a horribly complex process already.

[mrvn]

Anyone else finds that producing the yellow engines is awfully slow? I have 3 assemblers set to yellow engines feeding one assembler producing centrifuges. Takes over 16 minutes for one centrifuge.

Or is that just because I use the basic recipe and not the one using belts?

[otakushowboat]

I stopped handcrafting circuit boards and buildings by hand. Now I'm seriously strapped for copper.

I looked into improving the recipe for copper plates but I'm not finding much. There is a minor improvement if I crush copper ore but very minor. Also looks slower so I need more buildings. So extra space and expensive buildings for <8% improvement in yield. Space better invested in simply producing twice the ore?

To get somewhere that matters it looks like I need molten copper. But that looks like it needs several researches of the next tire and involves an ~20 step process. Given the huge complexity I'm not even sure if simply producing ore and smelting the trivial way isn't more efficient. Note: Can't build it yet due to tech requirements so I don't know how big it's going to be.

Am I missing something ore are there really just those 4 steps for copper:

1) ore -> plate
2) ore + hotair -> plate (+pump, heat exchanger, hot-stones - fuel)
3) crushed -> plate (slow, <8% increase, 3 expensive buildings) [+ myosomething ore that I can't process yet]
4) molten copper (~20 step process, tons of buildings, blue science, 400% (?) increase to 2)

Molten copper seems to have some variations as to which of those copper cubes I use affecting efficiency. But thats the difference between 19 and 20 steps. Getting any molten copper at all seems to be a horribly complex process already.

Molten copper is available at green science and is a 10 step process.

Ore-> G1 + G2
G1 -> G2
G2 -> G3 + rejects
rejects -> G3
G3 -> G4 + Low Grade Rejects

Both of these give copper plates via different routes:

Low Grade Rejects -> Copper Low Dust
Copper Low Dust -> Low Grade Copper
Low Grade Copper -> Copper Plates (Hot air recipe in Advanced Foundry)

G4 -> Molten Copper
Molten Copper -> Plates (in casting unit)

Anyone else finds that producing the yellow engines is awfully slow? I have 3 assemblers set to yellow engines feeding one assembler producing centrifuges. Takes over 16 minutes for one centrifuge.

Or is that just because I use the basic recipe and not the one using belts?

The rubber belt recipe is more efficient in material costs. However, engines are a slow recipe. I tend to use as many assemblers as can consume the full output of the assembler making the pipes, but I'd say to limit the production to whatever the bottleneck is at the time.

[Blokus]

Anyone else finds that producing the yellow engines is awfully slow? I have 3 assemblers set to yellow engines feeding one assembler producing centrifuges. Takes over 16 minutes for one centrifuge.

Or is that just because I use the basic recipe and not the one using belts?

I'm pretty sure that the "vanilla" engine recipe is made slower by PH, to encourage you to use the one that takes belts. And it was a slow recipe in vanilla anyway.

[mrvn]

Anyone else finds that producing the yellow engines is awfully slow? I have 3 assemblers set to yellow engines feeding one assembler producing centrifuges. Takes over 16 minutes for one centrifuge.

Or is that just because I use the basic recipe and not the one using belts?

I'm pretty sure that the "vanilla" engine recipe is made slower by PH, to encourage you to use the one that takes belts. And it was a slow recipe in vanilla anyway.

Looks like it. And in vanilla you have pumps and locomotives that need engines (centrifuge?). Now there are several other buildings needing quite a large number of engines too. I've seriously underestimated the demand for them.

[mrvn]

I stopped handcrafting circuit boards and buildings by hand. Now I'm seriously strapped for copper.

I looked into improving the recipe for copper plates but I'm not finding much. There is a minor improvement if I crush copper ore but very minor. Also looks slower so I need more buildings. So extra space and expensive buildings for <8% improvement in yield. Space better invested in simply producing twice the ore?

To get somewhere that matters it looks like I need molten copper. But that looks like it needs several researches of the next tire and involves an ~20 step process. Given the huge complexity I'm not even sure if simply producing ore and smelting the trivial way isn't more efficient. Note: Can't build it yet due to tech requirements so I don't know how big it's going to be.

Am I missing something ore are there really just those 4 steps for copper:

1) ore -> plate
2) ore + hotair -> plate (+pump, heat exchanger, hot-stones - fuel)
3) crushed -> plate (slow, <8% increase, 3 expensive buildings) [+ myosomething ore that I can't process yet]
4) molten copper (~20 step process, tons of buildings, blue science, 400% (?) increase to 2)

Molten copper seems to have some variations as to which of those copper cubes I use affecting efficiency. But thats the difference between 19 and 20 steps. Getting any molten copper at all seems to be a horribly complex process already.

Molten copper is available at green science and is a 10 step process.

Ore-> G1 + G2
G1 -> G2
G2 -> G3 + rejects
rejects -> G3
G3 -> G4 + Low Grade Rejects

Both of these give copper plates via different routes:

Low Grade Rejects -> Copper Low Dust
Copper Low Dust -> Low Grade Copper
Low Grade Copper -> Copper Plates (Hot air recipe in Advanced Foundry)

G4 -> Molten Copper
Molten Copper -> Plates (in casting unit)

I finally finished building this. Didn't see the "G4 -> Molten Copper" recipe at first. Still awfully complex. It did run for a while but now it's blocked. Not listed is that you also need sand castings and borax and you get molyb-something ore that you have to get rid of. Raw borax also comes with niobium ore. Making niobium plates is my next big project but at the moment that blocks production.

As much as I hate it I think I have to ship some of the ores to my trash burning station. Hopefully I need to burn less of these new ores than the reduction in iron ore burning to get enough copper. I'm burning tin too to get enough aluminium. Not the cleanest way to balance consumption.

The ground boring recipes look like a way to balance stuff but the math didn't hold up. It's more efficient to produce iron+copper from tar and burn the iron than to use ground boring for copper.

Maybe that needs to be balanced differently (use less liquids to bore? Maybe add a 90% chance of the bore head surviving?). Or different recipes to make specific ores that are only slightly less efficient than the dual-ore recipes.

Speaking of recipes. What is it with the odd recipes requiring lamps? How does a lamp make hydrogen-chloride? Where does the lamp go in that process?

There also seem to be a lot of recipes being unlocked by techs that are unusable without other techs first. Even techs of a higher tire. Anyone interested in those to fix them?

[otakushowboat]

I finally finished building this. Didn't see the "G4 -> Molten Copper" recipe at first. Still awfully complex. It did run for a while but now it's blocked. Not listed is that you also need sand castings and borax and you get molyb-something ore that you have to get rid of. Raw borax also comes with niobium ore. Making niobium plates is my next big project but at the moment that blocks production.

As much as I hate it I think I have to ship some of the ores to my trash burning station. Hopefully I need to burn less of these new ores than the reduction in iron ore burning to get enough copper. I'm burning tin too to get enough aluminium. Not the cleanest way to balance consumption.

The ground boring recipes look like a way to balance stuff but the math didn't hold up. It's more efficient to produce iron+copper from tar and burn the iron than to use ground boring for copper.

Maybe that needs to be balanced differently (use less liquids to bore? Maybe add a 90% chance of the bore head surviving?). Or different recipes to make specific ores that are only slightly less efficient than the dual-ore recipes.

Speaking of recipes. What is it with the odd recipes requiring lamps? How does a lamp make hydrogen-chloride? Where does the lamp go in that process?

There also seem to be a lot of recipes being unlocked by techs that are unusable without other techs first. Even techs of a higher tire. Anyone interested in those to fix them?

Welcome to Pyanodon's mods. You have to deal with unwanted byproducts on every ore processing chain (and many non-ore chains). That's just the nature of the beast in both standard pY and PyBlock. Moly ore is quite valuable and you may want to set up a warehouse or two to store it for now, especially since that chain to make plates is 15/s ore in and 0.5/s plates out (at least normally, not sure if it's been modified for PyBlock). Note that the copper chain giving Moly ore is a PyBlock thing. It's stone and gravel in standard pY.

You will need borax and sand castings for essentially every molten and molten casting recipe.

If you happen to find a small oil patch, tap it, steam crack for heavy oil, and make lubricant from the heavy oil. Saves a ton of space versus the tar to lubricant chain and aids with ground boring. Ground boring is part of standard pY and probably hasn't been adjusted much for PyBlock outside of unlocking a bunch of the ore recipes earlier (at green science versus blue for things like chromium). They probably should be adjusted for PyBlock compared with the dual ore output recipes in quenching towers.

Lamps, I believe, are used as abstractions for generic "light + heat" required for certain chemical reactions and plant growth. This is part of standard pY and it gives uses for an otherwise unused, largely cosmetic item. I suppose the lamps are fragile and burn out quickly.

In my own streamed playthrough of the standard pY suite, I have pointed out as many inconsistencies in the tech tree as I can as I come across them, and pyanodon has fixed many of them. I have also complained about some green techs (such as modular armor and stuff for it) being blocked by blue science tech (advanced electronics) for a while. Pyanodon has not changed it, so it appears to be intentional at this point. Take it up with pyanodon.

[BlueTemplar]

IMHO, (and as I already pointed out), it's going to be much easier to re-balance the tar => ore recipes than every. single. other. recipe from Py!
(See also my remarks about tar => advanced ores not requiring the various fluids, unlike normal mining in Py, making Pyblock easier than Py, and messing up recipe balance in general...)

[mrvn]

I finally finished building this. Didn't see the "G4 -> Molten Copper" recipe at first. Still awfully complex. It did run for a while but now it's blocked. Not listed is that you also need sand castings and borax and you get molyb-something ore that you have to get rid of. Raw borax also comes with niobium ore. Making niobium plates is my next big project but at the moment that blocks production.

As much as I hate it I think I have to ship some of the ores to my trash burning station. Hopefully I need to burn less of these new ores than the reduction in iron ore burning to get enough copper. I'm burning tin too to get enough aluminium. Not the cleanest way to balance consumption.

The ground boring recipes look like a way to balance stuff but the math didn't hold up. It's more efficient to produce iron+copper from tar and burn the iron than to use ground boring for copper.

Maybe that needs to be balanced differently (use less liquids to bore? Maybe add a 90% chance of the bore head surviving?). Or different recipes to make specific ores that are only slightly less efficient than the dual-ore recipes.

Speaking of recipes. What is it with the odd recipes requiring lamps? How does a lamp make hydrogen-chloride? Where does the lamp go in that process?

There also seem to be a lot of recipes being unlocked by techs that are unusable without other techs first. Even techs of a higher tire. Anyone interested in those to fix them?

Welcome to Pyanodon's mods. You have to deal with unwanted byproducts on every ore processing chain (and many non-ore chains). That's just the nature of the beast in both standard pY and PyBlock. Moly ore is quite valuable and you may want to set up a warehouse or two to store it for now, especially since that chain to make plates is 15/s ore in and 0.5/s plates out (at least normally, not sure if it's been modified for PyBlock). Note that the copper chain giving Moly ore is a PyBlock thing. It's stone and gravel in standard pY.

You will need borax and sand castings for essentially every molten and molten casting recipe.

If you happen to find a small oil patch, tap it, steam crack for heavy oil, and make lubricant from the heavy oil. Saves a ton of space versus the tar to lubricant chain and aids with ground boring. Ground boring is part of standard pY and probably hasn't been adjusted much for PyBlock outside of unlocking a bunch of the ore recipes earlier (at green science versus blue for things like chromium). They probably should be adjusted for PyBlock compared with the dual ore output recipes in quenching towers.

Lamps, I believe, are used as abstractions for generic "light + heat" required for certain chemical reactions and plant growth. This is part of standard pY and it gives uses for an otherwise unused, largely cosmetic item. I suppose the lamps are fragile and burn out quickly.

Byproducts I get. But usually it is something generic like gravel or stone (and you do get them too from the copper melting chain). Those you can use in other recipes to close the loop. But having an advanced ore type as byproduct is odd. (Actually is there even any other way to get moly ore? I don't think I have a ground boring recipe for it.) There isn't anything to use as a sink for (just) moly ore. Same as there isn't a sink for just iron ore or just tin ore.

It's a problem of PyBlock that ores seem to come in pairs or have some odd ways to produce them (like moly ore) I think. And maybe burning ores in the burner is the intended solution. I just hate what it does to the pollution. I'm still afraid of it from normal games. But I guess in PyBlock pollution is a non issue so BURN BABY, BURN.

I noticed there are recipes to turn iron rods into sand, gravel, stone, ... but that's blue science. I could really use those at green science levels given how much less iron ore you need than copper ore (with the ore -> wrought iron plate -> iron plate method).

In my own streamed playthrough of the standard pY suite, I have pointed out as many inconsistencies in the tech tree as I can as I come across them, and pyanodon has fixed many of them. I have also complained about some green techs (such as modular armor and stuff for it) being blocked by blue science tech (advanced electronics) for a while. Pyanodon has not changed it, so it appears to be intentional at this point. Take it up with pyanodon.

This is actually something the computer could check out. Checking every tech and recipe recursively and flagging every case where a recipe needs an ingredient that can't be produced from what the tech depends on. Or if the building required to produce it isn't covered by the techs it depends on and so on. I might give that a shot on a rainy day.

Fixing it might be harder. Algorithmically you could split off everything that lacks a prerequisite and add a new tech with the prerequisite and unlocking the recipe or entity. But what would you use as cost for the new dummy techs? And sometimes it might make more sense to add a prerequisite to the original tech even if it has items that don't require it. E.g. every time where the result of a recipe has no use without the other recipe that has more prerequisites.

That's actually another thing that bothers me with Py. There are tons of recipes and buildings being unlocked by research that I haven't needed at all. I wanted trains so I had to research a bunch of stuff. But only 5% (or less) of the unlocked stuff is needed to build a train. The other 95% have no use yet. I'm snowed under by buildings and recipes I can't make use of yet and missing stuff that I need (like the green tire molten copper recipe). Maybe buildings should be introduced at a slower rate and only when needed even if that means splitting techs into multiple sub-techs. Or is that just me?

[BlueTemplar]

Note that Sea Block also has its early (red science) recipe for its basic (Angel) ores where it gives them both at a fixed ratio. (And later, in green(?) science, direct crystallization of Fluor+Uranium.)

[Pridesfall]

That's actually another thing that bothers me with Py. There are tons of recipes and buildings being unlocked by research that I haven't needed at all. I wanted trains so I had to research a bunch of stuff. But only 5% (or less) of the unlocked stuff is needed to build a train. The other 95% have no use yet. I'm snowed under by buildings and recipes I can't make use of yet and missing stuff that I need (like the green tire molten copper recipe). Maybe buildings should be introduced at a slower rate and only when needed even if that means splitting techs into multiple sub-techs. Or is that just me?

What's cool about the Py mods is that he gives us many different ways to get to the same goal. That's why you feel there are extra recipes and buildings. It's completely opposite to vanilla where they make everything have a purpose. I've played a lot with his mods and last night I found a building or two I had never seen before.

I don't think we need things introduced at a slower rate but it would be cool if someone made a sort of scenario or quest system that guided you down the production chain to show you what to build next. It would be the longest quest chain ever.

[BlueTemplar]

Like Sea Block's tutorial ?

[Pridesfall]

Errr.... I haven't played PyBlock yet so sorry. I guess I should play PyBlock before commenting on this thread again.

[mrvn]

That's actually another thing that bothers me with Py. There are tons of recipes and buildings being unlocked by research that I haven't needed at all. I wanted trains so I had to research a bunch of stuff. But only 5% (or less) of the unlocked stuff is needed to build a train. The other 95% have no use yet. I'm snowed under by buildings and recipes I can't make use of yet and missing stuff that I need (like the green tire molten copper recipe). Maybe buildings should be introduced at a slower rate and only when needed even if that means splitting techs into multiple sub-techs. Or is that just me?

What's cool about the Py mods is that he gives us many different ways to get to the same goal. That's why you feel there are extra recipes and buildings. It's completely opposite to vanilla where they make everything have a purpose. I've played a lot with his mods and last night I found a building or two I had never seen before.

I don't think we need things introduced at a slower rate but it would be cool if someone made a sort of scenario or quest system that guided you down the production chain to show you what to build next. It would be the longest quest chain ever.

See, you researched some tech to do X but that unlocked building Y that you never ever used at all. So why was it unlocked by the same tech as X? Later you might have another tech with a recipe that needs something Y produces, why not unlock it then? But you get Y thrown in somewhere where it has no use.

[pyanodon]

Speaking of recipes. What is it with the odd recipes requiring lamps? How does a lamp make hydrogen-chloride? Where does the lamp go in that process?

HCl made from hydrogen and chlorine gas only reacts under UV light. For crops and other plants, its to keep producing even during night.

[Blokus]

Speaking of recipes. What is it with the odd recipes requiring lamps? How does a lamp make hydrogen-chloride? Where does the lamp go in that process?

HCl made from hydrogen and chlorine gas only reacts under UV light. For crops and other plants, its to keep producing even during night.

Though you could argue that the lamp should then be baked into the structure, so for example HCl wouldn't directly consume lamps but rather be done in an "optical chemical plant" or something. Or it could usually return the lamp (e.g. consume 1 lamp, return 0.95 lamps), which is something Angel does in several places.

[pyanodon]

Though you could argue that the lamp should then be baked into the structure, so for example HCl wouldn't directly consume lamps but rather be done in an "optical chemical plant" or something. Or it could usually return the lamp (e.g. consume 1 lamp, return 0.95 lamps), which is something Angel does in several places.

For now, the last of my priorities is make another building just to craft HCl. But i will write it here.

[mrvn]

It really makes no sense for a lamp to burn out in the process.

Should be something that screams one time use like a flare. Is there any magnesium in Py? Although that would make it a more advanced thing than lamps. Or maybe make a fluid for a light source. Bioluminal fluid.

As alternative to returning a lamp 95% of the time the lamp could be a special fuel. So producing HCl would require lamps as fuel for the building. A building can require fuel for just some recipes, right?