Gleba has killed the game for me.

[Jay_Raynor]

If you let fruits (jellynut and yumako) spoil before you process them into jelly and mash, you get no chance at a seed. You need seeds to make Gleba work. You need to use biochambers to process your fruit so that you get the 50% production bonus and thus more seeds out than fruit in. DO NOT process fruit in assemblers. If you are seed positive, you have infinite resources on Gleba. Eventually you will resort to burning seeds in heating towers to clear your systems.

I have two exceptions to this rule: your initial bioflux bootstrap assembly can benefit from a yumako processing ASM for making spoilage and a jellynut processing ASM where you make stack inserters just because a single biochamber in the middle of ASMs and EM plants is a bit annoying. Two whole ASMs out of hundreds of biochambers is pretty negligible, though.

Feeding biochambers with nutrients is the problem to solve. USE efficiency modules in EVERY biochamber. Just do. If you don't you will never get ahead of the the need to make nutrients. Biochambers need nutrients to work and biochambers are the best way to make nutrients. There are lots of belt-loops and box-loops that work. Whatever loop you use it needs to be short because nutrients spoil fast, and spoilage is fine, but a lack of nutrients isn't fine.

I use prod-1s which give me slightly better per-minute product numbers. I do just fine with local belt-loop nutrients. Bioflux nutrients are the bread and butter.

In your gardens, you want to prevent harvesting when you can't process the fruit. A living plant is storage for fruit. Use a circuit to turn off the tower when you have enough fruit in your network or on the belt to the fruit processors. Don't turn off the inserters, turn off the tower. You don't want harvested fruit spoiling in the tower. Again, you don't ever want to let fruit spoil because that is letting the chance at a seed rot. If the mash or jelly rots after you obtain the seed, that is fine. So, if you pick fruit, you must process fruit. Seeds are success on Gleba.

Oooooor... hear me out... Always process fruit regardless. You can burn mash and jelly in heating towers. Bioflux will need converted to nutrients and then spoilage. This part is where belts are much easier than bots. You build enough processing and destruction capacity at the factory's logical end to handle the maximum possible rate of fruit. Doing it this way ensures maximal freshness for the big product, ag science.

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Another point not listed: you can do quite a bit with direct insert if you belt in the right ingredients. Plastic? Bring in yumako fruit (not mash) and bioflux, insert mash direct from processing to bioplastic. Does a great job simplifying transit/belts as far as I can tell. A Gleba bus is just two types of fruit, bioflux, and spoilage.

[jamiechi1]

What I don't understand, is why spoilage on Gleba also causes spoilage of the fish on Nauvis. I have not launched a rocket yet in 2.0, so this makes No sense to me.

[meganothing]

What I don't understand, is why spoilage on Gleba also causes spoilage of the fish on Nauvis. I have not launched a rocket yet in 2.0, so this makes No sense to me.

In the space age mod everything biological rots as it would do in reality. It isn't some effect imported from Gleba.

In vanilla 2.0 this (probably) doesn't happen because the fish would be the only biological thing at all, without any accompanying features and techs to make something out of it. So it stays compatible to the old vanilla. At least this is my guess.

[Cwythevere]

I'm still in the middle of the early Gleba nightmare. And while I can see some possibilities for viable factories, I'm having a hard time feeling excited and motivated about them. I'm more of a casual player. For example, I like to turn the evolution rates down a bit during setup so it's a little more chill. I'm adoring the space platform stuff and Vulcanus was fun but Gleba is close to ruining the whole game for me. I honestly don't mind the spoilage mechanic and the pentapods are really cool but I wish it was toned down some. It's like I'm suddenly playing on a harder setting and on top of that I have to set up my whole base before I even start piping resources in, because they can't just sit around while I figure everything out. I'm sure it's a fun challenge for some people but the fact that it's so massively different and more difficult than the other planets seems like a balance issue. I play this game for fun and I'm not having fun with this sudden difficulty spike.

Honestly though, even if they didn't change anything else about Gleba, I just wish the science packs didn't spoil. I could handle literally everything else but the idea of having a time limit to constantly ship packs back and forth between planets before they go bad is so stressful it outweighs my enjoyment of the game, which is saying something because I LOVE Factorio.

[YadanHubclan]

<- newbie player with only 8000 hours on factorio. Gleba was for me indeed hard, mostly because I like to build huge factories. Here, I had to revert this and build a lot of small, dedicated "units" for specific task, each with their nutrient production and "kidneys" to clean belts from spoil.
What's good is the infinite iron and cooper you can get.
The biggest grip I have with it is the reward. The biological chamber is quite weak and mostly useless outside of this moist planet.

My biggest grip about Space Age, and that was already mentionned, is the lack of "stage 2"of the planets. Only on Vulcanus I explored a bit, but it's pretty pointless. I wish we had to go out of our small landing zone and go get rare plants for improved science flask on gleba, ancient artifacts on Fulgora, etc.

[J-H]

The biggest grip I have with it is the reward. The biological chamber is quite weak and mostly useless outside of this moist planet.

The biochamber isn't the big reward from Gleba. You're overlooking the Stack Inserter, which enables a huge throughput improvement across your entire factory, especially for things like copper wire and green circuits.

[The Phoenixian]

The biggest grip I have with it is the reward. The biological chamber is quite weak and mostly useless outside of this moist planet.

The biochamber isn't the big reward from Gleba. You're overlooking the Stack Inserter, which enables a huge throughput improvement across your entire factory, especially for things like copper wire and green circuits.

Eh, That one is mischaracterizing the nature of the rewards, I feel. The planets definitely slot themselves into formulaic rewards. A logistical tool, A turret, A tier 3 module. One production building for input resources and another for crafting. There are breaks from that formula, especially on Aquilo, but it's a solid pattern, and the single most consistent piece is the crafting building unlocked to make the planetary science pack.

The biochamber looks, feels, and acts like it belongs to that formula. It's role as what might be characterized as a souped-up burner assembler gives it a different character and it's ties to interplanetary logistics are quite neat. The only way it could be more tied to the formula is if it had the ability to ability to craft inserters to match the foundry's belt & pipe crafts and the EM plant's power poles.

Unfortunately, it's also hyper focused in a way that makes for very limited reasons to use it off Gleba. You can use it for oil cracking and rocket fuel, sure, but you're not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.

It very much feels like the so many other rewards were stacked on Gleba in part because that lack was recognized, but while the biolabs are nice and the stack inserter is the most potent logistical reward by far, compared to infinite bot research and green belts, (and the elevated rails unlock disqualified by being kept on Nauvis) they don't scratch the same itch.

[meganothing]

I'm still in the middle of the early Gleba nightmare. And while I can see some possibilities for viable factories, I'm having a hard time feeling excited and motivated about them. I'm more of a casual player. For example, I like to turn the evolution rates down a bit during setup so it's a little more chill. I'm adoring the space platform stuff and Vulcanus was fun but Gleba is close to ruining the whole game for me. I honestly don't mind the spoilage mechanic and the pentapods are really cool but I wish it was toned down some. It's like I'm suddenly playing on a harder setting and on top of that I have to set up my whole base before I even start piping resources in, because they can't just sit around while I figure everything out. I'm sure it's a fun challenge for some people but the fact that it's so massively different and more difficult than the other planets seems like a balance issue. I play this game for fun and I'm not having fun with this sudden difficulty spike.

Honestly though, even if they didn't change anything else about Gleba, I just wish the science packs didn't spoil. I could handle literally everything else but the idea of having a time limit to constantly ship packs back and forth between planets before they go bad is so stressful it outweighs my enjoyment of the game, which is saying something because I LOVE Factorio.

While I have fun on gleba, I also noticed that I tended to stop my factory for extended times because I feared the enemies would outpace me while I build the factory. Just noticed in the last experimental patch that spore distribution was nerfed so I (and you) may have much less to fear.

Apart from too many enemies too early (which is probably alleviated/fixed by the patch) there is no downside to running a small factory part that produces bioflux and nutrients and let them rot and recycle them to nutrients when the chests overflow.

If you can get such a factory part running without lockup (i.e. you made sure spoilage is removed everywhere and too much spoilage is always turned to nutrient again or burned) you can chill and build the rest of the factory at your own pace with bioflux/nutrient input from this. And you can copy this part whenever you need more bioflux.
There are no resource patches that will ever get empty. Lockups can happen but if your small factory part is reasonably separated from later parts (i.e. no spoilage from later factory parts backs up into it) you can always be sure it will continue running and you can restart easily from this part forward. The only thing to be careful about later are the eggs, so first get lots of turrets and ammo around your egg production, then start continuous egg production

Science packs may give you the idea you have to fight for every second of freshness, but actually the timer is very relaxed. Do not let yourself be concerned how fresh they are or how fast you deliver them, just deliver them to nauvis and ignore freshness. Even if the bottles on nauvis are not the freshest anymore, they still will give you science. **Then** you can look for ways to speed it up. Nowhere in this is any resource that could go empty while you solve problems at your own pace.

[J-H]

You can use it for oil cracking and rocket fuel, sure, but you're not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.

Wait, what?

That explains why oil processing never got a building upgrade!
And that explains the fish growing tech for Nauvis...to make nutrients for more efficient petroleum cracking!

I'm at least 150 hours into Space Age and didn't realize that.

[The Phoenixian]

You can use it for oil cracking and rocket fuel, sure, but you're not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.

Wait, what?

That explains why oil processing never got a building upgrade!
And that explains the fish growing tech for Nauvis...to make nutrients for more efficient petroleum cracking!

I'm at least 150 hours into Space Age and didn't realize that.

Oh, no. Fish breeding on Nauvis is likely just for legendary fish. It's nutrient negative even with biochambers and can't use productivity modules. The real way to get fresh nutrients on Nauvis is biter eggs. For which the recipe is ludicrously efficient.

... At some point, I still what to write up a forum thread for a ...Modest Proposal on some of the theoretically plausible tech I mathed out on that one. There's a sulfur-catalyzed craft chain that uses spoilage to make oil, and biter nests turn can bioflux into ludicrous quantities of nutrients that can be recycled into absurd quantities of spoilage.

1 Bioflux per minute becomes 30 biter eggs, which can be bioprocessed into 900 nutrients, which can be recycled into 2250 spoilage(!), which can be bioprocessed into 562.5 Carbon, which can be synthesized into 112.5 Coal. Per captive spawner, per minute, forever.

As long as the process uses biochambers for cracking, coal liquifaction into the sulfur needed to synthesize coal into needs >16% productivity from modules across across the whole chain, IIRC, to break even. Pretty reasonable, even without quality, and very reasonable with it.

Is it remotely necessary? Absolutely not. But it is hilariously villainous and I really wanted to sign off a post as Jonathan Swift when I first found it. Removing coal and oil from the factory to "go green" in a way that is, if anything, infinitely worse.

[YadanHubclan]

The biggest grip I have with it is the reward. The biological chamber is quite weak and mostly useless outside of this moist planet.

The biochamber isn't the big reward from Gleba. You're overlooking the Stack Inserter, which enables a huge throughput improvement across your entire factory, especially for things like copper wire and green circuits.

That is correct and I did overlook it, however the stack inserter doesn't work very well with my quality setup so I went with legendary bulk inserters in most case.
As The Phoenixian wrote, we get one production building per planet, and while we get one on Gleba, you can only use it on Gleba and Nauvis (no food on the other planets). Underwhelming

[J-H]

You can use it for oil cracking and rocket fuel, sure, but you're not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.

Wait, what?

That explains why oil processing never got a building upgrade!
And that explains the fish growing tech for Nauvis...to make nutrients for more efficient petroleum cracking!

I'm at least 150 hours into Space Age and didn't realize that.

Oh, no. Fish breeding on Nauvis is likely just for legendary fish. It's nutrient negative even with biochambers and can't use productivity modules. The real way to get fresh nutrients on Nauvis is biter eggs. For which the recipe is ludicrously efficient.

... At some point, I still what to write up a forum thread for a ...Modest Proposal on some of the theoretically plausible tech I mathed out on that one. There's a sulfur-catalyzed craft chain that uses spoilage to make oil, and biter nests turn can bioflux into ludicrous quantities of nutrients that can be recycled into absurd quantities of spoilage.

1 Bioflux per minute becomes 30 biter eggs, which can be bioprocessed into 900 nutrients, which can be recycled into 2250 spoilage(!), which can be bioprocessed into 562.5 Carbon, which can be synthesized into 112.5 Coal. Per captive spawner, per minute, forever.

As long as the process uses biochambers for cracking, coal liquifaction into the sulfur needed to synthesize coal into needs >16% productivity from modules across across the whole chain, IIRC, to break even. Pretty reasonable, even without quality, and very reasonable with it.

Is it remotely necessary? Absolutely not. But it is hilariously villainous and I really wanted to sign off a post as Jonathan Swift when I first found it. Removing coal and oil from the factory to "go green" in a way that is, if anything, infinitely worse.

Does this work on Vulcanus? Because one of my big worries there has been running out of coal. If all I have to do is import biter eggs, that's not too bad to do.

[vark111]

Does this work on Vulcanus? Because one of my big worries there has been running out of coal. If all I have to do is import biter eggs, that's not too bad to do.

Captive Spawners can only be built on Nauvis.

[The Phoenixian]

You can use it for oil cracking and rocket fuel, sure, but you're not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.

Wait, what?

That explains why oil processing never got a building upgrade!
And that explains the fish growing tech for Nauvis...to make nutrients for more efficient petroleum cracking!

I'm at least 150 hours into Space Age and didn't realize that.

Oh, no. Fish breeding on Nauvis is likely just for legendary fish. It's nutrient negative even with biochambers and can't use productivity modules. The real way to get fresh nutrients on Nauvis is biter eggs. For which the recipe is ludicrously efficient.

... At some point, I still what to write up a forum thread for a ...Modest Proposal on some of the theoretically plausible tech I mathed out on that one. There's a sulfur-catalyzed craft chain that uses spoilage to make oil, and biter nests turn can bioflux into ludicrous quantities of nutrients that can be recycled into absurd quantities of spoilage.

1 Bioflux per minute becomes 30 biter eggs, which can be bioprocessed into 900 nutrients, which can be recycled into 2250 spoilage(!), which can be bioprocessed into 562.5 Carbon, which can be synthesized into 112.5 Coal. Per captive spawner, per minute, forever.

As long as the process uses biochambers for cracking, coal liquifaction into the sulfur needed to synthesize coal into needs >16% productivity from modules across across the whole chain, IIRC, to break even. Pretty reasonable, even without quality, and very reasonable with it.

Is it remotely necessary? Absolutely not. But it is hilariously villainous and I really wanted to sign off a post as Jonathan Swift when I first found it. Removing coal and oil from the factory to "go green" in a way that is, if anything, infinitely worse.

Does this work on Vulcanus? Because one of my big worries there has been running out of coal. If all I have to do is import biter eggs, that's not too bad to do.

I'm, not sure what you're asking.

Assuming you mean powering biochambers to get extra bang for your mines' buck, it's probably simpler to just ship in bioflux, since the biggest (conventional) advantage of biter eggs for nutrients on Nauvis is that they refresh the timer and don't spoil until harvested.

Assuming you mean the whole biocoal setup...

In theory you could ship biter eggs to run the process on Vulcanus, but this concept is far more for fun, the joy of absurdity, and working out the limits of what's possible than sensibility. Looking over the machines required, it would be 41-42 biochambers per each 1 oil refinery running coal liquifaction (absent quality machines, beacons, or speed modules) and you'd likely want efficiency modules in the biochambers to avoid running into a version of the rocket equation/wagon equation where there's so many biochambers processing the middle steps eat half the supply.

Effectively, you'd be saving rocket launches (by about a third, absent efficiency losses?) instead of shipping in coal from offworld, but building a giant mess to do it. I've done math to figure that the production chain is possible, but the actual designs are another matter.