Daniel's inherently futile contraptions

[DanielHall15]

Yesterday in the office, I had this moment where I suddenly thought of this game after not touching it for about four months. I forgot by the time I got home. Today, I remembered again and went through the last few months’ Friday Facts. Once home, I couldn’t be bothered to update (also 0.11 doesn’t seem to be stable yet), I wanted to jump right in. The only thing I’d be missing would be the tank, anyway. That’s a shame. But well…

Daniel sucked at this game last year, I guess he still sucks this year. And he has that urge to need to show his creations. No matter how bad.

All settings normal, except for poor enemy base richness. I have a hard enough time as it is (and had to reroll quite a few maps…)

Forgot most controls apart from WASD. Then, after 40 minutes of slooooow, the first major DUH moment:



And that is AFTER initially feeding it iron plates and copper wire. “What? It still doesn’t work!?”

Okay, we have copper cable and iron gears, so we could do … electric circuits here, and then route this there, and do that and then … then it will look ugly, but it will - … it doesn’t work? THE ****!?

Okay, Daniel, you suck. Take out your notes you made last year, because you can’t remember your ****ing name for more than five seconds.

Better, but still clueless:



Daniel, no. Just, no:



“Daniel, you DO remember you need the blue assemblers for the inserters, right?” – “Ya-ya. Wait. What?”



(roar)

Daniel sucks.

To be continued with more brain farts.

[DanielHall15]

It works! And it is ugly!

“Dan.”

And I have built it all on my own!

“Dan.”

I’m so proud of myself!

“Dan.”

(sigh) Yes?

“You gotta actually research something.”

[DanielHall15]

At 1:46, while I was just about to take care of a chocolate cookie, the screen started flashing red. Wut? A biter had crept into the (entirely defenseless) base and had started chewing on me.

Well, I always knew I was just as sweet as a chocolate cookie…

There IS a nest fairly close to the west. So while I was doing something entirely different, I now have to throw up defenses. *Luckily* I already started to mine one of the several smaller stone deposits in my starting era for wall tiles.

My real project was getting a railroad up early, because while this starting spot is swell in many aspects, foremost a RICH oil deposit of *12* wells, of which 11 have yields of 200% or more, it is very short on iron ore. There is a decently sized iron deposit about 300 to 400 tiles to the southeast. I have no solar, no oil industry, but we’re going to build trains. With that would come an entirely new smelting area, because that … THAT … up there is a mess.

But now I have to build some weaponry second, and walls and turrets first. Sigh.



Well, nest was a bit melodramatic for the one spawner that sat out west. Luckily, you can quickly shotgun up, and I got all my balls I could find, went out, and killed. Well, sort of. Killed the spawner, but there was a worm well hidden in a copper field. I couldn’t take on that beast, and couldn’t collect the artifacts.

Rather prepared for some rail adventure. Here is a side production line to get tracks and engines manufactured. Well. Supposedly. I can’t put through enough iron plates because *somebody* (won’t call names) forgot to research the better smelting things.



Ah. -.-

That’s 2:34 into the game. More fails going to come at a later point.

[DanielHall15]

Um... This was NOT there five minutes ago ...!



The plot thickens:

- I have NO blue science running, which precludes certain amenities like ... uh ... poison capsules. So I can't take them out.
- I am at max capacity with my iron plates and can't expand now
- No defense. At all.

Solutions:

- Cry.

[Hazard]

Solution: Set up a couple of turrets behind a ring of walls a bit away from the spawners, best by the boilers and the oil field as they'd be the most polluting areas and most likely targets. Biters will gather every once in a while to attack your base, but they won't be threatening enough until they get to spitters to require more than occasional restocking and repairs. You have thus handled the biter threat sufficiently until you can bring in more iron for your factory.

[DanielHall15]

Well, those biters suddenly appearing next door were just a bit too much for me. Especially being severely hamstrung with iron. They really attacked faster than I could come up with ammo and repair kits, and it made for some frantic, but desperate battling. It is a real shame because that oil field would have made for some fun chemical industry.

New attempt with a barely working factory. Those oil wells are all very meh. To the south is a big iron deposit with two nests close by. Can’t see any worms in one of them at least.



To the east are a few nests just outside of pollution range. One with one spawner (which was taken care of swiftly), one with four (for which I needed some armor, I assumed), and then Big Momma’s Nest, with about eight spawners and several worms, which I would probably never be able to take out.

So, after setting up steel production in an increasingly convoluted mess, I got some armor and then went onto a little massacre, which was princely rewarded.



In the south I cleared out four minor nests while finding something truly nasty. If eight spawners make Big Momma’s Nest, then what is THAT?



Well, for the moment I had oil to set up, no matter how limited the resources, and get iron mining done down south and build a railway. Yaay.

Right now I am getting ready for setting up the oil industry and after that the blue science production. The space on the right side between the current factory and the lakes should be plenty (but won’t be, as always). In blue: all the crates which I dump spare iron plates etc. into for personal use.





Looks better than the last one for sure.

Next: how to properly soil everything!

[Smarty]

i like reading this and your factory looks a lot like my first factory but with less belts

[DanielHall15]

Plugging along. Plugging? Ploughing?

Oil extension:



Produces batteries and advanced circuits for blue beakers. I just have to set up smart inserter production, which might be a challenge given how hamstrung I am with iron plates.

Other extension, producing ammo, belts, and other necessities, and eats up those iron plates:



So far, I feel fairly well set up, and that I just need to get some more iron linked up so that REAL smelting can begin. So it can only go horribly wrong from here.

[DanielHall15]

Problems.

Blue beaker production died because I didn’t get copper plates through to my oil industry anymore, since the blue beaker production sucked it all up. Sounds hard, but Daniel can do it. If no one can, Daniel can!

The copper belt is filled in the NW from six mines (more just won’t fit), feeding ammo production, green and red beaker production, side stash, smart inserter production, and finally advanced circuit production in the SE. The last one has run dry. No copper reaches down there anymore.



Problem -> Solution. Line up more copper. The best spot would be in the west, where there are rich iron and copper deposits that could comfortably be mined jointly. If it weren’t for a nest with five spawners. Tried to take them on, can’t. Death count: 2

Second best solution is a bit to the south, which makes for a nightmare logistical problem.

Since I tend to make things even more complicated than necessary by default, some fancy graphic.



Either that, or completely new smelting of copper right where it’s mined, with fortifications, and oh yeah, clearing hundreds and hundreds of trees.

Well, I technically *need* proper copper smelting. My thing sucks balls there.

So, I’m 6:45 into this game. I have been short on copper for two hours. And I keep fixing the small things (or make it worse) rather than go about it and mine some cheating copper. Railroad is set up. By my plans, half a standard steam engine setup will easily power six to eight copper mines, laser defense, and the inserters. The actual loading and unloading stations have yet to be built.



And then we can perhaps finally research some military tech and take out two particularly obnoxious nests. That’s Big Momma’s Nest in the east, and the 5-spawner one in the west. Big Momma’s is now getting polluted and frequently sends out parties to attack the base.

[DanielHall15]

Trains. The plan was to have an independent steam power production running at the new copper mine. But, well … there’s no coal close by. So that was another heavily miscarried brain fart. While the copper train station looks halfway decent …



… the unloading station was botched tremendously by Mr. Hall:



And now that we’re getting copper here, it might be time for some improved general purpose smelting. There’s a lot of space further to the north. I just happened to box myself in rather badly here…



But before that, I tried to take out that 5-spawner nest in the west again.

Death count: 9

[DanielHall15]

Played around after updating to 11.21, and got this map. It all LOOKED pretty neat at the beginning.



That biter nest up there in the NW? Plenty of spawners, at least one worm, and hardly accesible due to forest. Oh, and I have no defense so far anywhere.

Happy times, happy times.

[DanielHall15]

So, I am not building a big tree design. I always start small and compact and then I claim to myself that I will build a big proper factory next door once everything is up and running. I never do it.

Boxed myself in here, and now that blue beakers are up and running, the fatal flaw was uncovered: not enough gear wheels to keep the green beakers running with everything else I am branching off along the way.



Oh well, another redesign seems due.

[DanielHall15]

Tapped the second big iron deposit in the area (grey square).

Also, the nest closeby is really annoying. They are attacking every two to three minutes in a sizeable force and occasionally manage to destroy a few turrets. Paid them a little visit with my tank plaything and destroyed one spawner (red square), but there is a really dense forest between the green lines that prevents me from closing in on the main nest. Plus, three or four worms in that nest.

In between, suffered a few catastrophic power outages due to insufficient coal supply at the steam engines. Whoops.

[DanielHall15]

Silencio.



Was surprisingly easy (like taking a plate with a piece of pie from a three-year old) to take the nest out once I had bothered to manufacture explosives and grenades for the tank, and cut a gap across the forest further up north (1,000 wood - yay!).

Artefact count: 105
Death count: 0

Now, any minute I wait for the big brothers to arrive and flatten my little factory...

[DanielHall15]

Planning a smelting expansion without any actual planning or general clue how to go about it!

So, I walled in an attachment to my main base. No need for walls at the moment, since my little tank swiftly eradicated all native population in the wider vicinity and there has not been an attack since I cleared the nest to the immediate northwest. However, caution is better than regret.

So, this expansion is supposed to do several things:
• Three train lines to unload copper (north), coal (middle), iron (south). To safe space, all lines will be unloaded from only one side; common entry from the east (all ressources are in that direction), common exit to the southwest
• Smelting of the copper and iron with the coal right to the east of this area in about 10-12 furnaces per resource
• Further to the east (and tying in with the lube store visible in the screenshot) a wider area to fabricate the hard to produce processing units.



Early observation: that space will be absurdely insufficient!

Marked below: the ressources I want to tap.



We need to roll out that tank once more, and I am scared to death.

So far, so horrible, though:



So, wait. I have my copper on the northern side, and the lube as well, and … and where am I going to actually manufacture the processing units then?

So, in the middle of the project, the unloads get switched! Copper will now be unloaded in the southernmost station, iron in the northernmost, and the lube will be transferred across the whole thing to build the processing units on the southern edge of the area.



But one problem remains and it has to do with ugly biting things. That huge nest at the desired copper deposit has to go before we can do too much fancy stuff.

I leave my base with the tank in the middle of night to go down south and to some killing. Not even halfway there I suddenly come across a party of biters, far from any nest. Couldn’t even take a picture, and actually ran over most of them. Are they encroaching on me?

Have to do some woodcutting again to even get to the south. This is dicey. There might be ten spawners there, and worms. This might involve going in, dealing SOME damage, and retreating in haste to lick wounds. All this cutting of passages through the dense forest is unnerving as well. I have some 1,500 wood in the trunk of the tank (quite roomy, actually) right now.

Approaching from the west, gulping once more, and then: in!! And sing as loud as you can!

IT’S THE … EYE OF THE TIGER, IT’S THE THRILL OF THE FIGHT! RISING UP … TO THE CHALLENGE OF OUR RIVAL!!

The first attempt is unsuccessful as I try to kill them before taking out the base, but I have learned two things:
• That is one sturdy tank
• They spawn quicker than you can kill them

After one retreat and repair I go back in, and this time ignore all beasts and instead empty the cannon at the spawners and worms.

It is one beautiful massacre.



Takes me north of 100 grenades, 100 clips of piercing ammo, and 25 repair packs, and going back and forth twice more, but then The Just Work is done with appreciating results, including 104 artefacts.

Artefact count: 209
Death count: 0

To be continued soon.

[Alekthefirst]

i dont see any signals
signals or have the trains blow up as they catastrophocally crash their fully loaded metal carts into each other at 200 km/h and detonate with the power of a nuke.

also you are gonna get run over by the train
many times
many..
times...
Daniel....