I mean I greatly enjoyed using my imagination when I was a kid. But yes the thought of 10 year old me playing Factorio makes me a little glad it wasn't around then because I would probably never have come up for air.
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Dyson Sphere Program (Early Access): Interstellar Factorio
- Thread starter Ultron
- Start date
I mean I greatly enjoyed using my imagination when I was a kid. But yes the thought of 10 year old me playing Factorio makes me a little glad it wasn't around then because I would probably never have come up for air.
i started a new save file before coming back to this thread and it took about 3 hours to get to where i was before... my layout is "cleaner" (but in no way the most efficient) and I kind of wish I just re-constructed in my first save file. lesson learned.
There's some variation but regardless of seed these seem true:
- Mediterranean start planet with water oceans, no titanium/silicon
- Always orbiting a gas giant, Either Hydrogen/Deuterium or Hydrogen/Fireice as a rare
- Always two other planets, one with plenty of Silicon, one with plenty of Titanium
- Other planets can also be satellites of same gas giant, but this is rare
- Zero or more rare resources, but rarely more than 1. Not sure if things like tidally locked or multiple satellites weigh into this to balance 'how good' starter system is (having 100% uptime on Solar/Dyson and/or having a consistent travel time to other planets early-mid-game are both incredibly good)
I'm no expert so I may be misunderstanding what you're asking, but I think you can just place a storage (with one loader) next to the facility, and it will constantly take the finished cubes, leaving room for more to be made. This should apply to all manufacture buildings if Factorio is anything to go by.
Not sure about remote building commands, but I think you've gotta get there manually. Suppose that's part of the appeal of unlocking mobility tech for your mech, to make getting around more comfortable and efficient.
Started playing this last night after some among us and when I checked the clock it was like 2am.
Hope the translation work gets a little polish though.
Two questions I had,
1) How do I put liquids into liquid storage?
2) Is it possible to just "trash" an output? For instance, my first planet where I was learning everything I was refining oil for hydrogen to make the red cubes, and had zero use for the refined oil outside of refueling my mech every now and then. When the non liquid storage would fill up the production would stop until I deleted the excess.
Hope the translation work gets a little polish though.
Two questions I had,
1) How do I put liquids into liquid storage?
2) Is it possible to just "trash" an output? For instance, my first planet where I was learning everything I was refining oil for hydrogen to make the red cubes, and had zero use for the refined oil outside of refueling my mech every now and then. When the non liquid storage would fill up the production would stop until I deleted the excess.
My initial bus run of automation creates belts, sorters, storage crates, wind turbines, tesla towers, assemblers, smelters, miners, splitters, power plants.
Oh, good. Time to blow everything up again.
I've managed to get some automation running, but it seems slow like something is not working as it shoul-
facilities should take from the belt, not the belt going into each of them individually...
i started a new save file before coming back to this thread and it took about 3 hours to get to where i was before... my layout is "cleaner" (but in no way the most efficient) and I kind of wish I just re-constructed in my first save file. lesson learned.
facilities should take from the belt, not the belt going into each of them individually...
OP
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When you're automating your various buildings you can generally do it really quickly without worrying about production ratios, or throughput. Just get a belt for each main resource and component (in the early game getting iron ingots, copper ingots, circuit boards, stone, and magnet rings (the ones with the copper in em) are a good start) and you can set up a ton of assemblers for the basic buildings. You don't need to be producing 10 buildings a minute or whatever, they can just slowly produce as you're off doing whatever else. If you limit each storage bin to a few stacks for each building, each box will fill up quickly and free up resources for the next one.
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I'm doing the incredibly stupid thing and doing reruns through making vertical launch pads and shooting rockets up en-masse. I'm aware there's a whole scale-up metagame tagging systems after that but I'm really interested in optimizing early game just because I feel this is going to be a game where playing through runs is going to be not uncommon so getting the hang of early game while thinking about strategy is fresh seems like it's the best option.
So far I've had:
- first run just doing whatever, clocked about 40h and got up to non-optimized green cubes
- second run with a 2GW dyson sphere, 2/s captain planet cubes, 40h.
- A run with just over 4M total iron on home system (lol) and no rares, got to Interstellar in 4h45, 2/s purple in 15h and green cubes in ~22h, Vertical Launchers up but not starting Dyson
- current run where both other planets in home system are both 2.5AU away if I'm lucky and 4AU otherwise and takes ~3 minutes just to fly back and forth, dropped Interstellar in 4h20 anyway.
My takeaways, very heavily influenced by my playstyle:
- Solar panels are incredible when set up but actually terrible from a time-invested perspective. They're a very, very strong option for taking it slow and laying them down across the equator takes literal 30min while everything else chugs along so you have a bunch of tech and parts when you're done, but for runs that want speed, it's about as much wasted time as spending 1/3 of total playtime laying down a ridiculous number of belts to make a main bus work.
- Early swarm is an option if there's plenty of rocks to throw, but does slow down mid-game since it's investment into getting it up and running. Past 6k active sails power worries on all planets in home system is a nonissue. That being said teching to Hydrogen rods, Orbital Collectors and having a bunch of thermal gens burning them is more effort-efficient, saving swarm sail production for parallel with rocket production. I feel that swarms a few patches ago (30kW/sail) was underpowered at the start and OK after upgrades, and now are OK at the start and scale up to being very good. On fast runs though it's harder to justify vs beelining for sphere
- Going with integer numbers, i feel the best configuration to tech fast vs managing power consumption has been 2/s blue, to 2:2, to 2:2:1 on unlocking yellow, to 2:2:2:2 for purple, to 1:1:1:1:1 on unlocking green (disconnect half of the existing others) then slowly back up to 2:2:2:2:2 again and beyond. The run with 2/s yellow when it unlocked simply just ate too much power while also burning through Titanium too fast (spending more time going back and forth handcarrying Titanium is really not a good use of time). By the time Interstellar is set up and power is good on all planets and it's time to scale up to 2 yellow, purple is also already done anyway.
- The home system sucks. It really does. The second run (first run after scouting out tech tree) I dedicated to being 'only home system' and it really, really blew. The game definitely has an interesting balance where it really pushes you to want to move to a better system ASAP and mall up there, while turning the home system into an outpost sending materials over, which poses a quandary abandoning all the infrastructure already in the home system. The only thing good about the home system is an unlimited supply of hydrogen.
- Rares are really, really, REALLY strong. It's not just easier to set up, it's less of a power draw from the simplified production chain. Needing about 5x as many Chemical Plants to produce Graphene (which also eats into the crude oil cap for the home planet) vs lucking into Fire Ice is massive. Organic Crystals are similar. I'm ambivalent on Unipolar Magnet and Spiniform. They directly make higher-tier parts, but are less versatile than Fireice, since Graphene is used for a lot more than Particle Containers or Nanotubes.
edit: reworded time efficient to effort efficient- the bottleneck for fast runs really is how fast you can build things
So far I've had:
- first run just doing whatever, clocked about 40h and got up to non-optimized green cubes
- second run with a 2GW dyson sphere, 2/s captain planet cubes, 40h.
- A run with just over 4M total iron on home system (lol) and no rares, got to Interstellar in 4h45, 2/s purple in 15h and green cubes in ~22h, Vertical Launchers up but not starting Dyson
- current run where both other planets in home system are both 2.5AU away if I'm lucky and 4AU otherwise and takes ~3 minutes just to fly back and forth, dropped Interstellar in 4h20 anyway.
My takeaways, very heavily influenced by my playstyle:
- Solar panels are incredible when set up but actually terrible from a time-invested perspective. They're a very, very strong option for taking it slow and laying them down across the equator takes literal 30min while everything else chugs along so you have a bunch of tech and parts when you're done, but for runs that want speed, it's about as much wasted time as spending 1/3 of total playtime laying down a ridiculous number of belts to make a main bus work.
- Early swarm is an option if there's plenty of rocks to throw, but does slow down mid-game since it's investment into getting it up and running. Past 6k active sails power worries on all planets in home system is a nonissue. That being said teching to Hydrogen rods, Orbital Collectors and having a bunch of thermal gens burning them is more effort-efficient, saving swarm sail production for parallel with rocket production. I feel that swarms a few patches ago (30kW/sail) was underpowered at the start and OK after upgrades, and now are OK at the start and scale up to being very good. On fast runs though it's harder to justify vs beelining for sphere
- Going with integer numbers, i feel the best configuration to tech fast vs managing power consumption has been 2/s blue, to 2:2, to 2:2:1 on unlocking yellow, to 2:2:2:2 for purple, to 1:1:1:1:1 on unlocking green (disconnect half of the existing others) then slowly back up to 2:2:2:2:2 again and beyond. The run with 2/s yellow when it unlocked simply just ate too much power while also burning through Titanium too fast (spending more time going back and forth handcarrying Titanium is really not a good use of time). By the time Interstellar is set up and power is good on all planets and it's time to scale up to 2 yellow, purple is also already done anyway.
- The home system sucks. It really does. The second run (first run after scouting out tech tree) I dedicated to being 'only home system' and it really, really blew. The game definitely has an interesting balance where it really pushes you to want to move to a better system ASAP and mall up there, while turning the home system into an outpost sending materials over, which poses a quandary abandoning all the infrastructure already in the home system. The only thing good about the home system is an unlimited supply of hydrogen.
- Rares are really, really, REALLY strong. It's not just easier to set up, it's less of a power draw from the simplified production chain. Needing about 5x as many Chemical Plants to produce Graphene (which also eats into the crude oil cap for the home planet) vs lucking into Fire Ice is massive. Organic Crystals are similar. I'm ambivalent on Unipolar Magnet and Spiniform. They directly make higher-tier parts, but are less versatile than Fireice, since Graphene is used for a lot more than Particle Containers or Nanotubes.
edit: reworded time efficient to effort efficient- the bottleneck for fast runs really is how fast you can build things
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The issue I ran into trying to do it that way is that the belts filled up with whatever I'm overproducing and everything ground to a halt.
OP
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How are things setup that one thing backing up is stopping everything? Unless you're doing mixed belts?
Until oil everything should be separated on their own lines, so even if copper stops because you aren't consuming it, your iron should keep flowing and producing those parts. Once you get to oil that can get a little tough to balance, but all the excess there can at least be burned, so you can throw it in a power plant as a last resort to keep other part rolling.
I thought that's what you meant, with
I'd tried to do gears and circuits on one belt at one point and the gears filled it up entirely and everything stopped.
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Oh! Whoops. I meant having 1 belt for each product, with a total of 5 belts, but can totally see how it would be read that way! Ha, I just learned the lesson about never trying mixed belt lesson so long ago in Factorio that I didn't consider it could be read that way. :) Definitely always try and keep things separated on their own belt, precisely to avoid that kind of backup issue.
Falk's post on Page 2 has a nice layout example of what I'm generally thinking here: https://www.resetera.com/threads/dy...rstellar-factorio.365345/page-2#post-57187884 Was very helpful for me!
I guess that once you accept the "I get however many I get" factor, the delay from having to set up sorters across 3+ belts isn't an issue?
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Exactly! You definitely want to worry about that delay if you're setting up a main production line of stuff your base will be constantly consuming such as science cubes, or smelting or ____ and might want to try and account for it on stuff you'll be using a lot of such as belts, tesla towers, or sorters, but when you're building Miners or Assemblers just to chuck in a box for when you need them, the few percents of efficiency you lose by a sorter traveling farther isn't a big deal. Building one miner every 20 seconds, or one every 30 seconds doesn't particularly matter, because you'll only grab a stack every 30+ minutes and it'll be replenished the next time you need it.
the exception here is needing to optimize ratios for belts because you have a whole row of assemblers making belts because you use them so fast making a main bus that just wastes your time and belts
How do the Plantery Logistics Stations work? I put a ton of resources and drones in them but they don't ship resources anywhere?
EDIT: I think I figured it out, you have to have 2 stations to transport between each other? I thought one station would just transfer to a storage but apparently not?
EDIT: I think I figured it out, you have to have 2 stations to transport between each other? I thought one station would just transfer to a storage but apparently not?
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2/s purple in 10h40m now, with this terrible seed lol
It got to purple so fast that it literally backs up because i'm clearing out the backlog of yellow+red+blue research. Might consider actually starting on infrastructure first before getting Purple done in subsequent just so the Particle Broadband area isn't sitting there dumping into storage.
I think under 10hours for purple should be very very comfortable.
edit: double post, whoops
Meanwhile I am just thinking of doing a proper mall in my planet now that I reached yellow (funny thing, I just have yellow working all the time from a chest of titanium i bring every once in a while) cause I am tired of having to do a ton of stuff by hand.
I wanted to wait to make tons of Planetary centers to make compartimentalization look beautiful, but its also annoying how many resources they need if you dont automate them lol.
I am so going to copy your mall tho.
Edit: is there a real reason to build tier 2 or 3 conveyor belts? I dont see a reason for them.
I wanted to wait to make tons of Planetary centers to make compartimentalization look beautiful, but its also annoying how many resources they need if you dont automate them lol.
I am so going to copy your mall tho.
Edit: is there a real reason to build tier 2 or 3 conveyor belts? I dont see a reason for them.
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when you start using tileable layouts (by far more efficient to lay down) you appreciate the faster speed giving higher throughput lol
the biggest bottleneck in the game really is how many things you can do at once. The game seems like it's about automation, but that's actually a cause to an end- sidestepping as much manual work as possible so you can do other things, but progression speed still boils down to how efficiently you can build things.
the biggest bottleneck in the game really is how many things you can do at once. The game seems like it's about automation, but that's actually a cause to an end- sidestepping as much manual work as possible so you can do other things, but progression speed still boils down to how efficiently you can build things.
Yeah I know its about maximizing time, its just that higher speed of the conveyor belts shouldnt affect production as the cap should be in the machines, not in the space between machines (as we assume they are working 100% of the time).
Edit: oh you mean when you double factory size, as youi arent able to transport enough for all of them to work optimally. Gotcha. I was thinking on more compacts production that do not require as much.
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as a practical example this is as far as mk2 belts will go on this very-specitically-to-be-built-on-the-equator setup. (You probably could squeeze 3 vertical tiles rather than 2 before grid crush becomes a problem)- the beauty of tiled builds is repetition leads to faster APM.
granted, you could technically do this with mk1 belts if you stacked belts on top of each other, then have everything descend one level when the lowest belt hits its throughput limit, but that runs counter to having things build fast lol
Is there any way to get extra power easily? I just started automating inter planetary supply lines. Nuclear power seems way too expensive, and thermal in general is not that efficient.
I can produce sails, but at my production capacity they will only give me like 3-4MW.
I can produce sails, but at my production capacity they will only give me like 3-4MW.
Was thinking about getting this. You guys just pushed me over the edge. Lets see if I'm smart enough for this shiz.
there are two ways to do power up until a big 6-10k swarm, or skipping right to sphere
- slow but reliable- build a ring of solar panels around the equator. this can give 300MW or so. I dislike this the way i dislike main buses- it's abysmally slow for the return even if it's a very organized way to do things. (I really do have better things to do with my time, lol)
- thermal into fusion. I think people don't realize how easy it is to actually get more power. In Factorio you have to worry about layout/real estate and water pumps. In Satisfactory it's a relatively complex automation process just to get coal plants up and running. In DSP, you literally run power cables to ANY coal or oil on the map, tap it, put down a short belt and 1 thermal per 2 nodes of coal or 0.5 oil. That's literally it. Don't smelt, don't refine, just burn that shit right after extracting. You can rack up 100MW just putting 50 of these down and they don't have to be neat since this is all temporary. You're likely to have better options (next bullet point) before you use up much of the coal, and oil is infinite.
- adding on to that, the way I've done my power slingshots is using that to set up through Yellow, teching to Fractionators and Fusion plants setting up some Titanium Alloy and SM Ring automation, then running a row of 10 Fractionators into 2 mk2 assemblers making Deut rods which each feed 10 fusion plants. Double that and you have 20 fracts feeding 4 mk2 assemblers feeding 40 fusion plants, for 360MW, for the cost of 6/s Hydrogen, less than 1/s each of Titanium Alloy and SM Rings. As long as you ensure that Hydrogen supply remains steady, that's a ton of power to setup through Green and Dyson. Once that's set up you can go on a deleting spree for all the Thermal gens both to conserve Coal and also free up the Oil nodes for centralized Oil production.
timestamped here on this current run (I made the mistake of not automating the Fusion plants themselves so I'm stuck handcrafting them like an idiot, lol)
Dyson Sphere Program Early Access run - pt4
GPU: GeForce GTX 1080CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHzMemory: 24 GB RAM (23.95 GB RAM usable)Current resolution: 1920 x 1080, 60HzOperating system:
www.youtube.com
Video ends before I flesh out all 40 plants
edit: If you want the maths-
1 Deut Rod mk2 assembler makes 1/6 Rod, eating 1/6 Alloy, 5/3 Deut, 1/6 SM Rings. This spits out 10 Deut Rods a minute
Deut Rod (600MJ) burn time at full bore in Fusion gens (9MW) is 66.667 sec, or just say a minute to be on the safe side. This means 1 assembler feeds 10 plants safely
4 Deut Rod assemblers take 20/3, which actually goes back to that 6.667/s number. Since 20 Fractionators spit out ~6/s Deuterium at the cost of ~6/s Hydrogen, that extra acts as a buffer for the slightly RNG nature of production, even if at that sample size it might as well be a constant 6/s for all practical purposes. You can add 2 more for 22 if you're really, really paranoid about this.
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I am trying to do thermal to fusion but the requirements for fusion for me are too high right now. I dont have the infrastructure yet for 1/s Titanium alloy, as that is 3 furnaces directly making it, which i cant supply with my current titanium set up for now. I started using Fractionators to start collecting some deuterium, but it still waiting a bit.
Yeah, that requires Titanium to be automated at least. Just tap more Thermals for now lol
go to the other side of the planet and tap every oil node there with short belts and pretend it doesn't exist and the power magically appeared
Is there a way to get more than 10 interplanetary vessels per interplanetary logistic center? I think i solved my titanium ingot supply issue for now in the planet (so I will only need to solve the sulfur to get the titanium alloy) but the delays due to transportation might fuck me up.
To be honest, the worst part of this seed of mine was how there was a perfect titanium / silicon planet with FIRE ICE and I only realized till i came there that it was a planet with no wind, and whose orbit made it so that it had 10 minute long day / night cycles. Had to reload on that moment. I was lucky the other planet had a single vein of silicon i have been tapping till i get a decent supply of interstellar stuff to be able to power everything in that shit hole of a planet.
Otherwise, the gas giant I am around also has fire ice, so thats nice. EZ graphene once I discover ice giant mining.
Otherwise, the gas giant I am around also has fire ice, so thats nice. EZ graphene once I discover ice giant mining.
yyyyyyup, i've come to believe that the initial seed generation only ever gives you rares on a home system planet (not the gas giant) if there's some kind of caveat. Same deal- frozen fireice titanium planet that also has Silicon, honest-to-God 5AU trips sometimes. 5-10 vessels it is dedicated solely to ferrying titanium, lol
(it gets better with research upgrades)
lol
FWIW, having a stash completely separate from research (1/s yellow eats up 3/s Titanium) a full stack of Titanium dumped into a crate somewhere being turned into Titanium alloy specifically for the fusion setup should last a good long while. 1200 Titanium Alloy eaten at 1/3s lasts a full hour and that's assuming your fusion power draw taps that at full bore, which isn't going to be the case while your thermals etc are still up. Plenty of time to get it up and running then use that power to continue to automate Titanium.
edit: seriously that's a hell seed. if you get through this other playthroughs should be much easier
To be fair, I selected "infinite" resources, so I have no problem with only using one Silicon mine, as it will probably last me for nearly ever, its only a limiter to how fast I can make processors.yyyyyyup, i've come to believe that the initial seed generation only ever gives you rares on a home system planet (not the gas giant) if there's some kind of caveat. Same deal- frozen fireice titanium planet that also has Silicon, honest-to-God 5AU trips sometimes. 5-10 vessels it is dedicated solely to ferrying titanium, lol
(it gets better with research upgrades)
lol
FWIW, having a stash completely separate from research (1/s yellow eats up 3/s Titanium) a full stack of Titanium dumped into a crate somewhere being turned into Titanium alloy specifically for the fusion setup should last a good long while. 1200 Titanium Alloy eaten at 1/3s lasts a full hour and that's assuming your fusion power draw taps that at full bore, which isn't going to be the case while your thermals etc are still up. Plenty of time to get it up and running then use that power to continue to automate Titanium.
edit: seriously that's a hell seed. if you get through this other playthroughs should be much easier
Regarding titanium, thats how I have been doing it before, having the titanium dump into my yellow maker (which i then have to manually move to my research center) and the titanium alloy in a separate stuff.
Now that I have a constant move of Titanium and Silicon stuff, I can actually start cleaning up and isolating stuff, such that it works mainly using planetary logistics centers.
I am also using your design for the turbines so thanks!
lol my current run really is a weird frankenstein of building stuff neatly and realizing this pretty much is another throwaway run because of the terrible seed and just spaghetti. For example, a nonstop pingpong between 'let's set up a proper smelter farm' with 'just tap exactly what's needed and build exactly enough smelters so we can get XYZ going', and the 'endgoal' keeps flipping back and forth between wanting to just go Game Complete, or to get a Dyson Sphere set up. I think part of it is the fact that going to the outpost to get literally anything done is just five minutes of waiting around and it really kills momentum, so I end up building stuff on home system that really should be on an outpost.
Currently at 12h25 and have Particle Broadband, Planar Filter and mk3 assemblers set up, which actually should be the point of 'what's built now is kinda permanent so we should stop putting down temporary stuff'. I'm literally 30min away from putting down another 20 Orbital Collectors down, setting up a second Fractionator farm to feed Graviton then plonking down 2/s Green cubes.
I think my next might be my long-term run (since it'd also coincide with new PC) and I'll go hunting on discord for good seeds before starting.
edit: actually come to think of it I've had my fill of early game. Probably just get greens, get game complete, get a small Dyson set up, setup a Copper and Iron mining outpost within 4LY away (entire system is hardcore running out) then hunt for a good new home base at an O-star in my current seed.
Speaking of pingponging, the more I look at the numbers, the more it seems that speedruns for Game Complete is just going to forgo the Dyson sphere and just rush sails, get about 960/min in the air then ride the 1GW of photon generation through the 4000 white cubes needed to beat the game. Transient power source or not, the immediate return is far greater vs its setup cost vs launching rockets, especially considering the relatively short sprint of white cubes required. That time spent and power draw might as well go to earlier Green vs having to set up Frame Material and especially Planar Filter at some decent rate.
It's probably going to be similar to Factorio where speedrun builds are awful for scaling past the speedrun since they trim the fat to what's needed to launch a rocket, and no more than that.
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Am I missing something or is there no conveyor elevator?
Have this cool idea for a vertical conveyor layout for my main hub but no elevator makes it a real PITA
Have this cool idea for a vertical conveyor layout for my main hub but no elevator makes it a real PITA
Yeah, if we're talking a Dyson Swarm just smash all the planets into teeny bits, give them all a gravity source and align them in their processionals (I've just finished reading Reynolds' 'Revenger' trilogy, so I'm all in on Dyson Swarm's rn)
You call that Spaghetti? You should see my first attempt at this game lmao, but I'm not very good at these kind of games.
So far so good. Could be less sphagetti but it seems pretty functional so far.
Still, I know where everything is!
I'm probably going to convert the lava planet I"m next to into a Electromagnet Factory, it takes up so much space to make those I'd rather just devote an entire damned planet to them.
Oh, I've done worse - tbh it was probably worse before I started - but still, stuff like the motor line and the end of the plasma exciter line make my teeth ache a little.
Yup, I'm at the point where I'm just gonna turn a planet into a motor/plasma/whatever the electromagnet generator thing is/ factory. Takes up too much space on my main planet.