Gleba has killed the game for me.

[Nemoricus]

12-04-2024, 07-48-31.png (2.22 MiB) Viewed 1161 times

Code: Select all

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

Here's the blueprint string for a portion of my powerplant. As you can see from the screenshot, that one assembler has produced close to ten times as much as your biochamber, and it has been working without fault the entire time.

While the turbo belts and speed module 3 are Vulcanus tech, they aren't necessary. They just let me build a more compact design than I could otherwise.

[Muche]

AM3 branch: out of input 50 fruits it's producing 1 seed and 100 mash -> 1 seed and 10 nutrients.
Biochamber branch: it has nutrients for about 80 crafts, that's 80 input fruits and 2.4 output seeds, half of that returns to agri tower.
Summary: for input of 160 fruits (3.2 seeds), 2.2 of output seeds returns to agri tower, which is less than 2.2.
Giving output priority for the seed splitter should improve it to 3.4 seeds, i.e. about +%6.

[SirSmuggler]

I tried the suggestion of processing fruits into mash/seeds inefficiently and then the result to power the more efficient biochamber. I was impressed at first, and I thought this was a sustainable solution, and it was over producing seeds. Unfortunately after several hours and 60k generated products, it seems to have died. So, my impression is there's no way of reliably producing seeds.

I'll have to guess and make some assumptions, but from the screen shoot my take would be:
1. The fruit is priority split to the biochamber (or the box that feeds it), but if the processing can't keep up with the amount of incoming fruit, the fruit goes of the the right to some unknow destiny. This could lead to seed loss.
2. I don't see any measure to stop the agritower from producing fruit if the chest is full. Probobly som fruit will spoil in the chest due to the biochamber not keeping up with the amount of fruit. Again, seed loss.
3. I'm not sure the nutrien production can keep up. This would halt the biochambers operation and exaberate point 2 above.

TLDR, it looks like you still have room for fruit to spoil/get lost without processing it. This will allways come with a loss of seed chanses.


I think it will be very dificult to set up something that can be sustainably left to its own devices for hours on end with out atleast a minimum of ciruit network stuff. But the good news is that it's very simple circuit stuff. Just put a wire on the chest and read it's content and relay that signal to the agritower and stop it from working if the chest allrady has X number of fruits in it.

[BlueTemplar]

I think it will be very dificult to set up something that can be sustainably left to its own devices for hours on end with out atleast a minimum of ciruit network stuff.

If we're talking about specifically this issue, then it really isn't :
- just don't overproduce raw fruit
(not using a box to store raw fruit would probably help — but of course you don't let fruit become anything else, like burning it or deliberately turning it into spoilage, so that splitter and lack of other kind of nutriment production is somewhat concerning)
- be sure that fruit processing cannot stall / back up
(which is easier if you don't overproduce raw fruit)
(and, of course, has enough productivity)

this is probably going to be hard to achieve if, like in this setup, you either only use assemblers without productivity for fruit processing and/or rely on spoilage from raw fruit for biochamber's nutrients, since in both cases you're losing a lot of potential seeds

No need of logical wires for this, though they can become helpful for when you have mastered Gleba and are trying your hand at optimizing it.

[fredthedeadhead]

A bunch of Gleba's 'trees' already give spoilage when harvested.

How can these be harvested automatically?

Sure, and you won't make the same mistake twice. Just like you won't make the mistake twice of making a huge unprotected mining outpost on Nauvis.

That's a very reductive comparison. A destroyed mining post will still have produced a significant amount of resources before it attracts biters. Meanwhile, on Gleba, the meagre amount of trees are permanently gone, forcing me to waste even more time next time something mysteriously goes wrong and I have to waste my time by travelling even further away from my base to manually harvest more trees. It's just boring busy work, and if it goes wrong, I still have a deficit of resources.

Do you not realize how these two are related ?

No.

[...] Gleba fails because it dumps too many concepts at once, requires a lot of sitting around and waiting, adds unnecessary time pressure, punishes mistakes, and does not provide an incremental way of learning, improving, and adapting. You have to get the factory right first time (either by somehow knowing external equipment is required), or be reset to zero.

You could say all of these about Nauvis too, and in fact new players have said these about pre-SA Factorio.

Haha, I'm sure people have said it, but the initial Gleba is not even close to Nauvis in it's tedium or punishments.

- Initially, Gleba has no way to automate power. Nauvis quickly provides coal-based power.
- Nauvis has no time pressure.
- Mistakes in Gleba force players to manually restart. Resources are lost, and they are extremely slow to regain. On Nauvis, mistakes might result in having to rebuild parts of a factory, but there is enough time and space to be able to experiment.
- On Nauvis the progression is very simple: first hand mine resources, then automate mining, then automate assembling, then automate insertion. Automating the most basic resource on Gleba requires multiple techniques are applied simultaneously, without any in-game tips or guidance.

[fredthedeadhead]

General rule of Factorio - if you had to wait then you do something very very wrong. There are always tasks to do.

Nah, I had nothing else to do. I'd finished the other planets, 500+ SPM. I needed to automate seeds, but there's no way to get enough seeds.

I do not understand why people bother buying expansion if they do NOT want to discover new ways.

Yeah, that'd be unusual. But I'm not sure why that's relevant to this thread?

It requires a lot of running from start, not waiting. It provides incremental way of learning but can do nothing if player stubbornly reject it. Reseting to zero is not problem at all - just stop waiting and harvest more trees, Gleba have unlimited number of them.

That wasn't my experience. I found that it's impossible to automate getting more seeds, so it's very slow and boring, and the game doesn't give any information.

Actually Nauvis is more punishing - additional resource patches are guarded by enemies. If you have wasted starting iron and do not have enough equipment/ammunition to clear nests - you are stuck.

I didn't know it was possible to waste the entire patch of starting iron. What did you waste it on? Or are you talking about a theoretical situation? But that would be strange, because I'm demonstrating something that is currently happening, so I'm not sure why a hypothetical situation would be relevant.

On Gleba you have unlimited iron/copper/plastic from starting territory.

Right, that's true, but only later on in the game. It's specifically a problem early in the game when there's no way to automate getting more seeds. I want to play the factory building game, not the boring chop-down-trees game.

[fredthedeadhead]

There's two ways to improve this:

1. If you put productivity modules in the assembler, it would be able to sustain seeds on its own.

2. If it was laid out so that the assembler only processed fruits if the biochamber wasn't running, the biochamber's innate productivity bonus would have supported sustainable seed production.

That productivity bonus is *critical* for ensuring that the seed supply doesn't decrease over time. It can come from modules or the biochamber's innate bonus but it needs to be there.

Sorry, I should have clarified why I shared that example.

From a "can this equation be solved" view, I'm sure that yes, there is some solution. Thank you for the suggestion.

From an "is this a good mechanic" view, I believe this demonstrates that something is really wrong. The game doesn't explain any of this. None of the other planets require advanced tech to get the basic resource, or randomly run out of basic resources because something is subtly misconfigured, or require intensely studying percentages and numbers just to get the core resource. The other planets don't have such harsh punishments. And I'm not just talking about dying in game, it's also a waste of my time. It will take HOURS to get this tree farm overproducing seeds again, and if I was just starting out my entire factory would be locked.

It's like if there's a recipe book and one of the recipes is missing a step, and that step requires a blender. Saying "just buy a blender" is right, but I'd like to talk about fixing the recipe book!

I see two solutions, but maybe there are more.

1. Adjust the gameplay so it's more like the other planets. For example, tweak the seed spawn rates so productivity isn't *required*, and add more reliable power generation.
2. Add documentation that says "unless you want to be bored, Gleba requires X, Y, Z equipment."

[Nemoricus]

1. Adjust the gameplay so it's more like the other planets. For example, tweak the seed spawn rates so productivity isn't *required*, and add more reliable power generation.
2. Add documentation that says "unless you want to be bored, Gleba requires X, Y, Z equipment."

See viewtopic.php?f=16&t=118470

[Muche]

From an "is this a good mechanic" view, I believe this demonstrates that something is really wrong. The game doesn't explain any of this. None of the other planets require advanced tech to get the basic resource, or randomly run out of basic resources because something is subtly misconfigured, or require intensely studying percentages and numbers just to get the core resource. The other planets don't have such harsh punishments. And I'm not just talking about dying in game, it's also a waste of my time. It will take HOURS to get this tree farm overproducing seeds again, and if I was just starting out my entire factory would be locked.

Gleba's mechanics are based on loops.
You start with a tree. You harvest it, get some number of fruits, process them, get seeds, plant them, trees grow and can be harvested again.
In many steps of this loop you can experience loss - prematurely harvested tree produces less fruit, fruit spoils, processing is based on random chance. Only 100% performed loop is self-sustaining. Any loss is unsustainable in the long run.
Adding productivity (either via modules, or Biochamber's innate bonus) creates a leeway for some mistakes and/or a surplus of products to improve the factory.

Compare that to earlier game loops:
Kovarex enrichment - input 40 uranium-235, output 41 uranium-235. The loop itself is self-sustaining, any losses happen due to mistakes in splitter/inserter priorities.
Coal liquefaction - input 25 heavy oil, output 90 heavy oil. The loop is again self-sustaining, if pumps are set up correctly.
Early game power - mine coal, feed it to boilers, get electricity to power mining drills. You'll get more power than used to mine the coal, but still blackouts can happen if coal is not prioritized to go into boilers.

All your previous screenshots show mistakes in prioritizations.
You harvest a tree, put its fruits into some machines setup you're testing, (presumably) ignore that you didn't get any seed back, yet keep trying with the same setup.
So yes, Gleba is punishing you for not learning earlier lessons.

[fredthedeadhead]

Gleba's mechanics are based on loops.

You start with a tree. You harvest it, get some number of fruits, process them, get seeds, plant them, trees grow and can be harvested again.

I think you're getting this information from somewhere out of game. It'd be great if that was explained in game, because currently it's not.

In my experience, I harvested some trees, processed the fruit, I got a tiny amount of seeds. Once planted, the game then made me wait for an absurdly long time before I could see any results. This is no bad thing, because (like the rest of the game) it encourages automation. However, the only available automation tools available do not provide a surplus of seeds. Again, this is not clearly explained, and means that all of the time spent was wasted.

Fortunately, the inability to propagate seeds at the start appears to be a simple mistake viewtopic.php?p=630844#p630844, so I'm looking forward to the fix.

Compare that to earlier game loops:
Kovarex enrichment - input 40 uranium-235, output 41 uranium-235. The loop itself is self-sustaining, any losses happen due to mistakes in splitter/inserter priorities.
Coal liquefaction - input 25 heavy oil, output 90 heavy oil. The loop is again self-sustaining, if pumps are set up correctly.

Yes, there are other chance based mechanics in Factorio, but these are late-game and optional. They fit in with the rest of the game, don't require non-obvious equipment, the game provides enough resources to be able to experiment, and can be brute forced, so I don't think they're particularly relevant to the topic at hand.

All your previous screenshots show mistakes in prioritizations.

You harvest a tree, put its fruits into some machines setup you're testing, (presumably) ignore that you didn't get any seed back, yet keep trying with the same setup.
So yes, Gleba is punishing you for not learning earlier lessons.

I know it's probably hard to understand from the screenshots, but no, they don't all show mistakes. Of course, I'm happy to make mistakes. It's what makes Factorio such a fun game to play.

There are two problems:

1. There is *no* feedback as to *what* the mistake is. Compare to your example with a coal shortage causing a powercut. It's easy to trace the production lines back to see what the problem is. On Gleba, when I find that fruit production has stopped, there's zero information as to what happened. Suddenly there's no seeds.

2. Come on, really? A game should punish mistakes by becoming unplayable? That's absurd. Again, compare with the coal power cut. Early in the game it's quite likely that biters destroyed the coal miners. So yes, there's some negative consequences for not investing in defence. It's not just Gleba that has feedback loops, all the planets do. On Nauvis, the feedback loop is much more forgiving, and self correcting. Having destroyed the miners, the pollution reduces, which placates the biters. The mined resources are still available, and the player now has a chance to regroup and rebuild, and can better action to defend the miners from biters. On Gleba, when the seeds run out... well, tough luck. You have to sit and wait, bored, while you wait for the seeds to regrow. Maybe you ask for help online and get conflicting advice, and get criticised when you follow it.

[BlueTemplar]

It will take HOURS to get this tree farm overproducing seeds again

Maybe if you use the above design you made.

A quick recap of this sub-discussion :
you : «I'm running out of seeds»
us : «try to not waste seeds (and use productivity)»
you : makes a design that can only work by wasting seeds (or doesn't but then is neutral at best)
you : «I'm still running out of seeds»

A significant fraction of learning in Factorio happens via the tech tree itself : order of techs and what each tech unlocks.
In particular here, crafting 10 nutrients (from 100 spoilage) unlocks the Biochamber and the nutrients from Yumako Mash recipe.

And yeah, it's easier if you're the kind of person that can just look at the seeds recipe and how much fruit each tree makes, and deduce that if you have no productivity bonus your treefarm will probably eventually stop after a string of bad luck (worse if you waste seeds).

But don't you think that if you tried to experiment with the new recipes that the game gave you (recipes for crafting nutrients, unlocked with a tech that required crafting nutrients), you couldn't have stumbled on the solution without doing any math ?

(I actually agree that the game might be a tad too harsh on the players here, that's why I suggested to insist on Biochamber's productivity bonus in tips and tricks in the other thread.
And you're the first player I'm aware of / remember / notice that has failed to notice the mash into nutrients recipe.)

[Khazul]

Fortunately, the inability to propagate seeds at the start appears to be a simple mistake viewtopic.php?p=630844#p630844, so I'm looking forward to the fix.

I'm surprised this is an issue, just assumed working as intended. I never really had a problem with it once I got the basic mechanics down.

My self sustaining initial loop consist of 1 or more biochambers processing a biome fruit. Another doing spoilage to nutrient. Another doing spoilage to carbon (marginally better fuel that seem to help balance stuff out and consume spoilage, but is probably optional), an agri-tower, a heater + steam tank + heat exchanger and a turbine and a wall + gatling turrets + a box of ammo. I have a sushi belt around the 3 machines to deal with nutrients and spoilage. jelly/mash and some spoilage goes into the heater when there isnt carbon. Seed slowly accumulate in a box that serves as a buffer to the agri-tower. Some circuits to manage fuel and steam levels to keep the power side efficient and a circuit to disable the tower when I have too many fruit.

Plant it down, come back many hours later and have a box of seeds. It could probably support more fruit processing but never bothered as I made all this then thought sod it and went to Fulgora instead. When I eventually came back ages later - had a mostly full box of seeds in each biome and it was still running

I think I also had a 2x efficiency in a beacon covering all 3 biochambers, and I think 2x2* efficiency + 2x2* productivity in the spoilage and carbon recipes and 4x2* productivity in the fruit biochambers. Long since deleted these and done proper production, so not 100% sure of the modules. No sure how long it was left for on a server set to run continuously, but was sometime next day when I check them and was surprised it was still running and had a box of seeds. No logistics, just low power belted+boxes - ie primitive. I guess I should redo these neatly as starter blueprints for gleba for a future play-through as they seemed to work well enough.

Seems to end up a bit like the initial kovarex enrichment seeding, Ie build something small and primitive and leave it overnight.

Either way, I never had to worry about seeds again.

[fredthedeadhead]

A quick recap of this sub-discussion :
you : «I'm running out of seeds»
us : «try to not waste seeds (and use productivity)»
you : makes a design that can only work by wasting seeds (or doesn't but then is neutral at best)
you : «I'm still running out of seeds»

Haha no, funny, but that's not how I see it. Here's my take:

Me: I'm running out of seeds. Gleba is not fun.
Forumites: That's impossible. Just use a biochamber.
Me: But that's a mid-game tech, I'm at the beginning.
Forumites: Just do what we tell you.
Me: Fine, I'll use a biochamber.
HOURS LATER
Me: Whaddya know, I'm still running out of seeds.
Forumites: What are you using biochambers for? You have to do $someOtherThing.
Me: Again, that's mid-game tech/non-obvious/conflicting with other advice. I'm just starting out. The planets are described as independent. It's boring to have to wait again. The game gives poor feedback and the behaviour is entirely non-obvious, and not explained, nor easy to determine. The game should be fun.
Forumites: Just do what we tell you.
HOURS LATER
Me: I tried it, and it still doesn't work. It's still not obvious, nor easy to determine, nor similar to the rest of the gameplay.
Forumites: Just do what we tell you.

But don't you think that if you tried to experiment with the new recipes that the game gave you (recipes for crafting nutrients, unlocked with a tech that required crafting nutrients), you couldn't have stumbled on the solution without doing any math ?

Nope. It's not necessary for the rest of the game, so it's unexpected that it crops up now. The feedback time is also too slow and indirect to be able to identify the problem. Unlike other parts of Factorio, I'm blocked unless I solve this perfectly.

And you're the first player I'm aware of / remember / notice that has failed to notice the mash into nutrients recipe.)

I apologise if I've misread the tone, but this comes off as patronising, which I don't appreciate. Of course I saw the recipe, but I don't see the utility here. I'm not short on nutrients, I'm short on seeds. Mash-to-nutrients requires nutrients, but I don't have enough nutrients because I don't have enough fruit, and I don't have enough fruit because I don't have enough seeds. Maybe there's a way of making it work, but at the start I didn't have enough resources to experiment.

[adam_bise]

I wonder if separate tutorials for each planet would help people who are having a hard time starting out. The existing tutorial doesn't really cover the other planets. Personally I like not knowing WTF to do and having to figure it out, but extra planet-specific optional tutorials wouldn't hurt anyone.

[Muche]

Nope. It's not necessary for the rest of the game, so it's unexpected that it crops up now. The feedback time is also too slow and indirect to be able to identify the problem. Unlike other parts of Factorio, I'm blocked unless I solve this perfectly.

What you seem to be saying is that because Nauvis doesn't have any loops, Gleba shouldn't have them either, i.e. Gleba should be the same as the rest of the game and should not bring anything new.
The feedback for processing fruits: I manually process 50 fruits, get 1 seed. Immediate feedback that seeds may be scarce. I try it with manually fed assembler, same result. I read the recipe more carefully, find out math is correct and I should use prod modules.

I'm afraid you'll be remain blocked, as you insist on using spoilage->nutrients recipe as main kind of production, not a failsafe/bootstrap it's meant to be.
Which reminds me of old version of Basic oil processing, which produced all three products (Heavy oil, Light oil, and Petroleum gas). It was meant to bootstrap the production of blue science, research cracking and crack (temporarily) stored oils.
Using your way, you'll be stuck with ever-increasing tanks of oils, refusing to research/utilize cracking, because you "haven't solved it perfectly" at this stage of research.

[MisterDoctor]

The game doesn't explain any of this.

well, it sort of does, but it's easy to miss. (if you mean it doesn't popup a message or something, ok fine, but the information is there to see.) for me, I missed other things.

1) I saw that seeds at 2% chance from 50 fruit would net to zero over time, and I wondered how that could lead to a sustainable base. but I later learned the answer is that biochambers have 50% productivity, which effectively turns the 50 fruit into... more than 50 (not sure if would be literally +50% or not, if it is it would be 75). so then, yeah, on average, with productivity, you get >1 seed/seed, at least before spoilage. (it took me a while to realize what 50% productivity on all these buildings meant or why it had the purple bar; I should have understood that a lot faster. and I should have also realized that that is what can bring you above net zero seeds.)

2) TBH I did not even know up to right now that you could run fruit recipes in anything BUT a biochamber, so I just never had this issue of processing fruit without any productivity. 100% of my fruit processing was biochambers from the start.

3) I had completely ignored the heat furnace since it didn't sound like something I needed (I think it mentions heating frozen stuff on the description which I figured I would need later but obviously not right now). meanwhile for the first half of setting up my base all I could think was "they really should give us a way to dispose of spoilage, like burning it or something". eventually when I started to have things working I went back and looked at each recipe individually and I came across heat furnace and had a big "ohhhhhhhh..." moment.

another thing I should mention is, like some others I was completely stumped by Gleba at first. I set up minor copper bacteria to start to make copper and it was terrible. all the nutrients would spoil and I'd be stuck; or I would not use the copper enough and so everything would stall. so I'd clean it all out and then it'd all spoil again. eventually I had like 25+ chests completely full of spoilage, with like 2 chests full of copper plates and was getting nowhere fast, since I had zero iron production and could not get copper production stabilized. meanwhile I had small and very soon medium stompers wiping out half my base every 15 minutes, and had to leapfrog roboports back on my Nauvis base to repair my walls properly (I did not know yet that you could remote control the tank).

so yeah, it was not easy, it was a huge learning curve, but for me that's what makes it great. going from "what the heck do I do!? how do I survive?!!? am I completely ****ed?!" to eventually having more or less mastered the planet, that is the whole point of this kind of game for me: mastering the planet having started out as a pathetic weakling.

this is captured perfectly in a Penny Arcade Minecraft comic:

20100920-E11OYovT.jpg (155.47 KiB) Viewed 899 times

[SirSmuggler]

A quick recap of this sub-discussion :
you : «I'm running out of seeds»
us : «try to not waste seeds (and use productivity)»
you : makes a design that can only work by wasting seeds (or doesn't but then is neutral at best)
you : «I'm still running out of seeds»

Haha no, funny, but that's not how I see it. Here's my take:

Me: I'm running out of seeds. Gleba is not fun.
Forumites: That's impossible. Just use a biochamber.
Me: But that's a mid-game tech, I'm at the beginning.
Forumites: Just do what we tell you.
Me: Fine, I'll use a biochamber.
HOURS LATER
Me: Whaddya know, I'm still running out of seeds.
Forumites: What are you using biochambers for? You have to do $someOtherThing.
Me: Again, that's mid-game tech/non-obvious/conflicting with other advice. I'm just starting out. The planets are described as independent. It's boring to have to wait again. The game gives poor feedback and the behaviour is entirely non-obvious, and not explained, nor easy to determine. The game should be fun.
Forumites: Just do what we tell you.
HOURS LATER
Me: I tried it, and it still doesn't work. It's still not obvious, nor easy to determine, nor similar to the rest of the gameplay.
Forumites: Just do what we tell you.

We can all do the paraphrasing game, but is's not very constructive.

My question is at this point, do you want/need any more help with your seed situation? If so I'm happy to try and assist you with ways to handle it as the game currently is.

If you want to argue about ways the game could/should have been done differently to not have landed you in this situation to begin with, well that is entierly out of the realm of things I could help you with.

[BlueTemplar]

I wonder if separate tutorials for each planet would help people who are having a hard time starting out. The existing tutorial doesn't really cover the other planets. Personally I like not knowing WTF to do and having to figure it out, but extra planet-specific optional tutorials wouldn't hurt anyone.

We already have them (not that they can't be improved), if you didn't, that was a bug, hopefully fixed now.

----

[...]
Me: I'm running out of seeds. Gleba is not fun.
Forumites: That's impossible. Just use a biochamber.
Me: But that's a mid-game tech, I'm at the beginning.
[...]

Biochamber is unlocked by :
- harbesting both kinds of fruits
- crafting 10 nutrients from 100 spoilage
So yeah, it's not strictly at the beginning, but it's not particularly far either.
And it's very much not mid-Gleba, as you will realize later.

But don't you think that if you tried to experiment with the new recipes that the game gave you (recipes for crafting nutrients, unlocked with a tech that required crafting nutrients), you couldn't have stumbled on the solution without doing any math ?

Nope. It's not necessary for the rest of the game, so it's unexpected that it crops up now. The feedback time is also too slow and indirect to be able to identify the problem. Unlike other parts of Factorio, I'm blocked unless I solve this perfectly.

I don't know what you mean, it's exactly like how the rest of the game works : you unlock some new recipes, and you try them out.

I can agree about the feedback being kind of slow, but Gleba isn't the first planet you land on. Fulgora also has a similar issue : it might take a while

for the scrap results to back up

. On Nauvis, pollution => biters and advanced oil processing have already been mentioned (how quickly that one stalls will depend on the design), and there's Kovarex enrichment, but you can arguably say that was optional before SA.

And what is «perfectly» ? This (very bad) design can still run for a while, making processed fruit, as you noticed yourself. You can still expand (or at least in this case, keep up working) your treefarms by foraging for new trees.
An assembler with productivity modules is an alternate solution to automated tree expansion too.

[...]
I'm not short on nutrients, I'm short on seeds. Mash-to-nutrients requires nutrients, but I don't have enough nutrients because I don't have enough fruit, and I don't have enough fruit because I don't have enough seeds. Maybe there's a way of making it work, but at the start I didn't have enough resources to experiment.

If you indeed still haven't understood that raw fruits = seeds, but that you can automatically make nutrients without wasting raw fruits = seeds, I don't know what else I can say.

At the start you experiment with the fruit loop without being able to automatically expand it (short of thinking of the productivity modules trick), so you keep foraging for trees.

(Remember how on Nauvis you had to keep manually mining coal before you figured out how to use a drill, and then had to keep manually putting coal into drills (and furnaces), before you figured out how to loop a belt and use burner inserters to make a self-powering coal miner setup ?)

Shortly after that you can experiment with a Biochamber.
(Even if you only get that 100 spoilage from only raw fruit, this is only 2 trees harvested ! Exactly what you need to unlock the previous techs BTW. But hopefully you'll think of processing them first, in the hour they take to spoil. Not to mention the random spoilage you get from other vegetation.)

At the same time you also get a better nutriments recipe to run that same Biochamber.
(I don't remember exactly if one could run a Biochamber seed loop on spoiled processed fruit alone — using the older, inefficient, spoilage => nutriments recipe — IIRC that's very much possible with jelly, because you get twice the processed fruit of jellynut = jelly compared to the processed fruit of yumako = mash ?)

[coffee-factorio]

Eh, I've hit the place three times and my impression is that it's kind of like, where all the magical thinking that went into development poisons the run at once. And it's rough because that impression emotionally stains everything that follows.

I think the idea is that players will magically come to an understanding that they can just have an orchard of three or less trees and then distribute the orchards onto rocket trains. Likewise they'll magically understand that segmented enemies react differently to AOE and chain effects, so your HE rockets are like ten times as effective against them as documented. You just need chainguns in case something closes.

Hopefully, if you aren't jaded from working there, you can stop reading now and go to it. There isn't pollution mitigation at all. I learned that the hard way. Don't be creative. Just follow the above flowchart.

The issue being that if you don't, then you put up an orchard for 2-4 hours for research, 2-4 hours for carbon fiber, and come back when you've run out of interesting things to do with advanced asteroid mining and spidertrons. Which is uh... probably 200 to 1000 hours worth of content? I shouldn't be in a position to say that an early investment in the planet deprives you of what I've seen come off the back of a space platform a few hours later. Which is nearly full red belt of steel. I'm using it to have a space platform manufacture itself. And that makes me sound like I'm smart, but honestly that's small potatoes from a dinosaur who doesn't even have blue modules running 120 hours in.

[Nemoricus]

I think the idea is that players will magically come to an understanding that they can just have an orchard of three or less trees and then distribute the orchards onto rocket trains.

By three trees, do you mean three *agricultural towers*? Because I wouldn't have nearly enough fruit to maintain production at my various sites if I was only planting three trees per plantation.

Likewise they'll magically understand that segmented enemies react differently to AOE and chain effects, so your HE rockets are like ten times as effective against them as documented. You just need chainguns in case something closes.

Explosive rockets definitely would have been a good thing to bring, but standard rockets did quite well. They're also better at dealing with stompers than the explosive rockets are due to their higher single target damage.

There isn't pollution mitigation at all.

Sweeping the spore cloud works quite well of egg rafts. I was only attacked twice in my entire playthrough, and both were pretty minor.

I shouldn't be in a position to say that an early investment in the planet deprives you of what I've seen come off the back of a space platform a few hours later.

This is confusing me. Could you elaborate on what you mean? I'm especially confused about what it would be depriving you of.