Is there a way to change a planets seed or how should I play without tungsten?

[Darkestaxe]

I recently started a new playthrough and when I got to vulcanus I found out I had a terrible seed, much worse then I thought was possible. I'm 56 hours in and it's so bad I don't know if it's worth continuing this playthrough purely for this reason. It's really sad because I was just getting to the more enjoyable part of the game but the amount of time I would have to put into salvaging this playthrough without cheating looks overwhelming in a not very fun way to me right now.

Fortunately I'm not that far into vulcanus so I wouldn't really mind deleting the surface but if I just get the same seed I don't really see the point. I'm also open to other suggestions as I'm considering my options going forward. I'm playing without quality so I also can't use any legendary drill in only x tungsten tricks but I also don't need to upcycle tungsten at all.

I checked my seed in the editor, my starting tungsten patch has 186k and the first real patch (5.8m) is on the far edge of medium demolisher territory and will require killing 2x smalls + 2x meds. I could kill less worms and slightly less direct distance if I built railroads over lava but that patch is still in med territory anyway. This would be ok but there's also no junk patches before that to hold me over until I'm ready to go conquering half the planet. The other resources are worse then normal but I'm not really worried about them.

What should I do?

[Tertius]

Go on.

I wouldn't call that a "bad seed". As far as I remember previous Vulcanus layouts, there is always just one tungsten resource field with 150-250k, one coal with about 1m, one sulfuric acid field and 1 calcite with 500k-1m in the starting area. This seems the parameters of the starting area.

This tungsten field isn't too small. If you mine it with big mining drills (just 50% drain), it's actually double. You have enough time to develop until that runs out. You're able to research more mining productivity meanwhile, so it will last even longer.

And finally, fighting demolishers isn't that difficult. Load yourself with 100 gun turrets, 2000 red ammo, personal roboports and construction robots and a blueprint like this:

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

Copy blueprint

05-16-2025, 11-18-04.png (454.22 KiB) Viewed 630 times

This is no cheating, you can create such a blueprint from scratch by placing a turret ghost, then add 20 red ammo ghosts into its ammo slot. Make it outside any logistics network so everything stay as ghost. Then copy+paste the ghost to a ghost turret phalanx like the above, then blueprint all. The ammo requests will be included in the blueprint, so it will be fully built and armed by your construction robots. This thing is definitely able to destroy medium destroyers, at least if you manage it to make it approach roughly in the center and you invested in the first few levels of physical projectile damage research.

Place it, watch it being built, wait for the demolisher, watch the demolisher being destroyed. I hate fighting, but this is a fight according to my taste.

[mrkev]

I recently started a new playthrough and when I got to vulcanus I found out I had a terrible seed, much worse then I thought was possible. I'm 56 hours in and it's so bad I don't know if it's worth continuing this playthrough purely for this reason. It's really sad because I was just getting to the more enjoyable part of the game but the amount of time I would have to put into salvaging this playthrough without cheating looks overwhelming in a not very fun way to me right now.

Fortunately I'm not that far into vulcanus so I wouldn't really mind deleting the surface but if I just get the same seed I don't really see the point. I'm also open to other suggestions as I'm considering my options going forward. I'm playing without quality so I also can't use any legendary drill in only x tungsten tricks but I also don't need to upcycle tungsten at all.

I checked my seed in the editor, my starting tungsten patch has 186k and the first real patch (5.8m) is on the far edge of medium demolisher territory and will require killing 2x smalls + 2x meds. I could kill less worms and slightly less direct distance if I built railroads over lava but that patch is still in med territory anyway. This would be ok but there's also no junk patches before that to hold me over until I'm ready to go conquering half the planet. The other resources are worse then normal but I'm not really worried about them.

What should I do?

• Option 1 - Get yourself few atom bombs.
• Option 2 - Use tons of turrets
• Option 3 (what I've used in simmilar case) - Mine tungsten using few miners and solar panels, then take it out and run away when the demolisher gets near. You can get reasonable amount of tungsten this way.

[NineNine]

No need to make it difficult. You can easily kill the worms with

mines.

[mmmPI]

No need to make it difficult. You can easily kill the worms with

mines.

Tesla towers !

[NineNine]

No need to make it difficult. You can easily kill the worms with

mines.

Tesla towers !

Oh for sure, those are the "best". I was assuming this player might not have those yet.

[mmmPI]

Oh for sure, those are the "best". I was assuming this player might not have those yet.

Well things that are "the best" obviously depend on the situation

You don't need tungsten to escape Vulcanus right ? then go to "the better" planet Fulgora, then come back and solve that little worm problem !

Fortunately I'm not that far into vulcanus so I wouldn't really mind deleting the surface but if I just get the same seed I don't really see the point. I'm also open to other suggestions as I'm considering my options going forward. I'm playing without quality so I also can't use any legendary drill in only x tungsten tricks but I also don't need to upcycle tungsten at all.

If you are far enough that you can leave it, you can always come back later ! I don't recommend Gleba as 2nd or 3rd planet, but it's possible to go either to Vulcanus or Fulgora after Nauvis if you don't want to deal with the worms now.

[eugenekay]

You can kill Small and Medium demolishers with a few levels of Damage Research, and Nuclear tipped (non-explosive) tank shells. I prefer to use “Remote View” driving of the Tank to chase the worms, since they’re cheap if destroyed. Large ones take more work or atomic bombs.

You can use the Scenario Editor to make changes to the map. Under the “Surfaces Tab” there is a button for “Edit map gen settings”, which allows you to change the resource sliders, Seed value, and other per-surface Settings. This will only affect newly-generated Chunks on the map. You can use the “Delete surface” button to completely remove a planet, and then re-generate it using the new Seed.

Or you can use the Tools in the Scenario Editor to manually add a resource patch.

Good Luck!

[Darkestaxe]

Thx for all the suggestions! As I'm looking it over I think I probably should be able to take out the medium demolishers just fine when the starter patch runs dry. I'm doing rail-world on Nauvis anyway so I shouldn't mind having to string out long railroad track, I mean it's not like Vulcanus is going to run out of steel and rocks.

I was checking in the editor and while I didn't find any seeds as bad as mine, I found ~5 out of 35 looked like you probably have to deal with a medium demolisher for your second patch. The only one I checked it was a small and starter had almost 300k but clearly my seed is still well within normal bad luck and not some weird mutant seed. I'm probably underestimating just how much I can get out of 186k.

I wasn't able to get the editor to stop resetting the generations settings and seed when deleting and regenerating the surface. I don't know if you have to manually create a new surface and name it Vulcanus or how to go about doing that in the editor. I don't think I really like the idea of just drawing more resources onto the map though that is a possibility.

Thanks all for the answers! My seed is 2950506219 if anyone is interested.

[mrkev]

I was checking in the editor and while I didn't find any seeds as bad as mine, I found ~5 out of 35 looked like you probably have to deal with a medium demolisher for your second patch. The only one I checked it was a small and starter had almost 300k but clearly my seed is still well within normal bad luck and not some weird mutant seed. I'm probably underestimating just how much I can get out of 186k.

Really? Because this is my starting patch. I intentionally started with richness maxed out, so there is plenty of stuff, it's just damn hard to get it from there. I was trying to fit a railway, but at the end gave up and went for a different patch, three demolishers deep.

[pioruns]

Go on.

I wouldn't call that a "bad seed". As far as I remember previous Vulcanus layouts, there is always just one tungsten resource field with 150-250k, one coal with about 1m, one sulfuric acid field and 1 calcite with 500k-1m in the starting area. This seems the parameters of the starting area.

This tungsten field isn't too small. If you mine it with big mining drills (just 50% drain), it's actually double. You have enough time to develop until that runs out. You're able to research more mining productivity meanwhile, so it will last even longer.

And finally, fighting demolishers isn't that difficult. Load yourself with 100 gun turrets, 2000 red ammo, personal roboports and construction robots and a blueprint like this:

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

Copy blueprint
05-16-2025, 11-18-04.png
This is no cheating, you can create such a blueprint from scratch by placing a turret ghost, then add 20 red ammo ghosts into its ammo slot. Make it outside any logistics network so everything stay as ghost. Then copy+paste the ghost to a ghost turret phalanx like the above, then blueprint all. The ammo requests will be included in the blueprint, so it will be fully built and armed by your construction robots. This thing is definitely able to destroy medium destroyers, at least if you manage it to make it approach roughly in the center and you invested in the first few levels of physical projectile damage research.

Place it, watch it being built, wait for the demolisher, watch the demolisher being destroyed. I hate fighting, but this is a fight according to my taste.

Thanks for sharing this useful strategy. I was able to defeat Medium Demolisher using this blueprint. Upgraded gun turrets to Rare (that's what I had available) in BP before deploying in front of the demolisher.

[pioruns]

I recently started a new playthrough and when I got to vulcanus I found out I had a terrible seed, much worse then I thought was possible. I'm 56 hours in and it's so bad I don't know if it's worth continuing this playthrough purely for this reason. It's really sad because I was just getting to the more enjoyable part of the game but the amount of time I would have to put into salvaging this playthrough without cheating looks overwhelming in a not very fun way to me right now.

Fortunately I'm not that far into vulcanus so I wouldn't really mind deleting the surface but if I just get the same seed I don't really see the point. I'm also open to other suggestions as I'm considering my options going forward. I'm playing without quality so I also can't use any legendary drill in only x tungsten tricks but I also don't need to upcycle tungsten at all.

I checked my seed in the editor, my starting tungsten patch has 186k and the first real patch (5.8m) is on the far edge of medium demolisher territory and will require killing 2x smalls + 2x meds. I could kill less worms and slightly less direct distance if I built railroads over lava but that patch is still in med territory anyway. This would be ok but there's also no junk patches before that to hold me over until I'm ready to go conquering half the planet. The other resources are worse then normal but I'm not really worried about them.

What should I do?

Coming back to the OP’s inquiry: that 186k patch of tungsten will last you a long time, hundreds of game hours. That’s exactly what happened to me. I started by mining a small 100k patch inside a lava island using logistic bots and completely depleted it that way. By that time, it was easy to connect to a million-worth ore patch using legendary big miners, legendary productivity modules, and a proper train station.

[jdrexler75]

And finally, fighting demolishers isn't that difficult. Load yourself with 100 gun turrets, 2000 red ammo, personal roboports and construction robots and a blueprint like this:
[...]
Place it, watch it being built, wait for the demolisher, watch the demolisher being destroyed. I hate fighting, but this is a fight according to my taste.

This is my favorite way too. Even when most of them get destroyed in the process, it takes nothing but lava and a bit of calcite to replenish. No off-planet imports at all. Expand radar coverage and you can also just take care of them like this from a tank with roboport.

And yeah, 186k is plenty as long as you hold off on quality upcycling for the time being.