Well, Fulgora sucks [Spoilers]

[IsaacOscar]

You don't need tungsten for metals. But you don't even need metal for the science pack on vulkanus. The only reason to bother with metals at all is to build the rocket to lift the science packs to orbit.

You need both molten copper (directly) and molten iron (for the tungsten plate) for the metallargic science pack.

Also, tungsten is a metal....

[mrvn]

You don't need tungsten for metals. But you don't even need metal for the science pack on vulkanus. The only reason to bother with metals at all is to build the rocket to lift the science packs to orbit.

You need both molten copper (directly) and molten iron (for the tungsten plate) for the metallargic science pack.

What I ment was you don't need the metal from lava stuff on Vulcanus, sorry, badly worded. Both are things you get through Advanced asteroid processing after you visited Gleba. It's a lot easier from lava though, throughput wise. Or if you go to Vulkanus before Gleba as is I think intended.

[BraveCaperCat]

6 buildings on Vulcanus. And that includes the silo and landing pad.

That's only if you want minimum scaling for science. You only need 6 buildings to produce and ship out science packs, but preferably you'd want more than that to get a reasonable amount of science per minute.

[BlueTemplar]

I guess yes, even on Fulgora, while the rocket parts are very easy to make, you still need to set up the electric engine production to make a silo (and bots !), so overall, it's harder to make than Fulgoran science (at least on the second time around, when Fulgoran recipes aren't completely new to you).

[BraveCaperCat]

I guess yes, even on Fulgora, while the rocket parts are very easy to make, you still need to set up the electric engine production to make a silo (and bots !), so overall, it's harder to make than Fulgoran science (at least on the second time around, when Fulgoran recipes aren't completely new to you).

Fulgoran recipes were never new to me...
...because I read the FFFs!

[BlueTemplar]

Did the FFFs really describe all of them ?

Anyway, this is more about the metis of setting up the production chains yourself than the episteme of reading it on the FFFs.

[mrvn]

I guess yes, even on Fulgora, while the rocket parts are very easy to make, you still need to set up the electric engine production to make a silo (and bots !), so overall, it's harder to make than Fulgoran science (at least on the second time around, when Fulgoran recipes aren't completely new to you).

I just brought the stuff along from Nauvis so I could always leave not knowing what I would find. I even brought rocket fuel to Fulgora which is trivial to produce there, even without the solid fuel from recyclers. Won't waste space for that again. Second time around you know better what to bring. Like e.g. bring plastic so you don't have to wait for recycles for low density strcutures or advanced circuit boards and for that to pile up to be recycled.

Having played the Space Exploration mods before I knew to bring bots. When starting a new surface you always need bots, lots of bots, or you have to run around all the time.

[IsaacOscar]

I guess yes, even on Fulgora, while the rocket parts are very easy to make, you still need to set up the electric engine production to make a silo (and bots !), so overall, it's harder to make than Fulgoran science (at least on the second time around, when Fulgoran recipes aren't completely new to you).

I just brought the stuff along from Nauvis so I could always leave not knowing what I would find. I even brought rocket fuel to Fulgora which is trivial to produce there, even without the solid fuel from recyclers. Won't waste space for that again. Second time around you know better what to bring. Like e.g. bring plastic so you don't have to wait for recycles for low density strcutures or advanced circuit boards and for that to pile up to be recycled.

Having played the Space Exploration mods before I knew to bring bots. When starting a new surface you always need bots, lots of bots, or you have to run around all the time.

I find it more fun though to start with nothing (except some exoskeletons), so I get to experience the planets resources properly. I only import stuff from other planets once I've built my silos and can leave.

[mrvn]

I guess yes, even on Fulgora, while the rocket parts are very easy to make, you still need to set up the electric engine production to make a silo (and bots !), so overall, it's harder to make than Fulgoran science (at least on the second time around, when Fulgoran recipes aren't completely new to you).

I just brought the stuff along from Nauvis so I could always leave not knowing what I would find. I even brought rocket fuel to Fulgora which is trivial to produce there, even without the solid fuel from recyclers. Won't waste space for that again. Second time around you know better what to bring. Like e.g. bring plastic so you don't have to wait for recycles for low density strcutures or advanced circuit boards and for that to pile up to be recycled.

Having played the Space Exploration mods before I knew to bring bots. When starting a new surface you always need bots, lots of bots, or you have to run around all the time.

I find it more fun though to start with nothing (except some exoskeletons), so I get to experience the planets resources properly. I only import stuff from other planets once I've built my silos and can leave.

Good luck with that on Aquilo. It's actually a bit disappointing that all but Aquilo are self sustaining planets. Would have been nice for trade to be featured more.

[IsaacOscar]

Good luck with that on Aquilo.

If I have to, obviously I will import stuff, but only stuff I can't make on planet.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, right, in fact now I remember that I took care to always have 250 electric engine units dropping with me.

But in the end, I still always ended up setting up electric engine production before leaving, on all of the planets, because I wanted to have sustainable bot production for remote work.

[IsaacOscar]

Yeah, right, in fact now I remember that I took care to always have 250 electric engine units dropping with me.

But in the end, I still always ended up setting up electric engine production before leaving, on all of the planets, because I wanted to have sustainable bot production for remote work.

Interesting, I only bother with that if my bots keep getting destroyed (e.g. on nauvis I have a circuit system setup to automatically make more bots when the bitters inevitably destroy a few).

[BlueTemplar]

So what do you do to expand conbots/logibots ? Ship them / frames / electric engines from Nauvis ?

[IsaacOscar]

So what do you do to expand conbots/logibots ? Ship them / frames / electric engines from Nauvis ?

Well I haven't needed to do that yet....,
but I can always remotely build an assembly line, or visit in person.
I just don't like keeping unused machines around as they take up space.

[MisterDoctor]

Hey it's me (not OP) from the future.

I am on my second playthrough (hopefully successful this time) and just wanted to say that I "get" Fulgora now. I think I like it almost as much as Gleba. (Vulcanus is then left being the least interesting planet before Aquilo).

what I did was go there first this time, instead of last. I greatly enjoyed the atmosphere, and had a way better base and way better approach than before. checking my base from last time, it is pathetic. (partly because I was demotivated.)

It's not just the lack of enemies but that is a part of it. No enemies means no real incentive to "conquer" the planet.

sure but it's just different. it's a desolate wasteland so devoid of anything that there is not even dangerous lifeforms. also, you are not really there to "conquer" the planet, you are there to get certain special resources and then leave.

But also, the scrap and oil are too plentiful and you have almost all resources right away, including end products. You immediately are overflowing with blue circuits and L.D.S. and can easily make rocket fuel. There is little to no challenge there, no reason to explore or expand, there is so little going on at all.

sure, but it's just different. "immediately" is an exaggeration. there is a lot of work to be done to get up and running.

The lightning mechanic is not particularly interesting either; you just put up some lightning rods and are given free power, nothing to really think about.

there is some thinking but not tons. you can't just build willy-nilly, you need to "defend" areas before building on them. and also there is the whole power-grid part of it.

With Gleba I had to read and understand each of 20+ recipes to really get a feel for the overall system and slowly build a up a complex base that slowly became more and more self-sufficient while dealing with the wildlife and wondering if I could even survive. That was a great experience.

yes, Gleba is hard-mode and Fulgora is easy-mode, but that's ok.

With Fulgora... there is so little going on at all. I sort some scrap, build the rocket, so I am never stranded.

the frustration of being stranded on Vulcanus and Gleba is actually something I don't really like. it doesn't really add anything except needless pressure and frustration.

There is 10s of millions of scrap right away so you never have to explore or expand.

this is only partially true and it depends on the map generator. the large islands have only smallish patches, and there are other tiny islands that have the 20+million patches. the idea is that you can ship the large-patches-on-small-islands to the large islands later. and this is not so easy to do because you cannot (depending on map) get power and logistics across the ocean, so islands have to be independent. (maybe until much later when you can build more from techs.)

There is infinite heavy oil literally everywhere. And there are only like 5 recipes that do nothing but create a random intermediate product for the next recipe. It is IMO very unfinished.

the approach i used the first time

bus

led to this frustration. if you approach Fulgora the "right" way

bots

it is not so frustrating. it's also not meant to be the super hardest thing in the world to accomplish.

scrap and heavy oil should not be so plentiful. There needs to be a reason to explore and to find things that I need and want.

more exploring would be an improvement, yes, but all of the planets have this issue. Fulgora is meant to be dead planet with nothing to find. it is not intended to be there to explore a vast world (as interesting as that could be). it is just intended for you to go there to build a base that generates some unique resources, and then leave to do it again somewhere else.

(I do find it frustrating how IRL if you were there, it would be an archeological mega-trove. a planet-sized archeological site. there could be something of supreme importance to find almost anywhere. but in game terms no, there is nothing to find, anywhere, of any real value, ever, no matter how wide and far you search.)

Lightning should be a little more dangerous somehow but not sure how. Maybe lightning rods should not be 100% effective or something. Maybe if there were enemies, they don't directly attack you but rather interfere with your lightning rods somehow.

I do kind of agree that lightning could be more dangerous, but it's not that important.

Possibly there should be more than one kind of scrap (metallic scrap, rocky scrap, plastic scrap? electronics scrap?). Possibly it should not be possible to get all products from scrap right away but rather you have to research scrap extraction techs or something so that you have to progress in your ability to process scrap.

maybe, but it is also ok the way it is. it is meant to be a smaller-scale expedition.

(Strangely they seem to have forgone the Factorio 'formula' in general. All of the new planets have at their core a similar theme of: what if we made it really hard for the player to build, and what if we gave them nearly infinite resources of limited type?

I think a misconception that I had (that maybe was slightly caused by going to Gleba first) is that the planets are not really intended to be separate "games" (Gleba almost being the exception). each planet is a pit-stop, not a whole game by itself. you are meant to go there, build a working base, and leave. you are not meant to go there and stay there (unless you want to, but it is not really designed for that).

On Fulgora... you just have infinite resources with almost no processing. There is the odd thing that is hard to get like coal. It being hard to build yet again is just frustrating but not really challenging in a good way. Maybe the islandy nature of the map needs to be amplified a bit more. I had nearly a continent-sized island right next to my starting island so space was not an issue. But making it hard to build is not a great mechanic anyway. There should be resources on the planet to discover and we should have to go looking for them and bring them back to our base, which is the Factorio concept, isn't it? Why is there infinite resources everywhere??? Who thinks "infinite resources everywhere" is a good mechanic?)

it's not quite infinite resources everywhere, there is still work to be done. to the degree that it is infinite, it's because you are meant to go there and leave, not stay there and fight. once you are established, you leave and go somewhere else. it's part of a larger experience. it might be the smaller easier part, but that's ok.