Automated Bases

[CrazedBumblebee]

What setups are people using for as close to fully automated as possible?

I'm wondering if there's a better/more efficient way of setting up the base to minimize interactions.

My setup:
Top floor - large living unit with food growers, food storage, and seed storage
Middle floor - large living unit with DNA Manipulator, Incubator, Automatic constructor, desconstructor, trash, silk generator, storage for non-mineral items (cloth, larvae, algae, sulphur etc...)
Middle floor - attached a biolab, with addition storage for tree bark, lirma, plant seeds and display cabinet
Middle floor - attached outside grids, with food farms and methane collectors
Bottom floor - Lockers for all ore storage, chip storage, rod storage etc... Teleporter

Ground level (outside) - T2 Beehives

With this setup I can create food in the 2nd floor automatically taking the materials from the structures it needs. I can create endless cloth, rods, bacteria and so on...

But I don't really have any way to fully automate any single process (aside from cloth).
The algae spreaders don't work particularly well with the auto crafter, and being that they need deep water it's hard to build a base directly above them, early on at least.

But you also need Sulphur for crafting bacteria, which you can't get from any nearby water source. The T3 ore extractors help a lot, as you can just grab an half locker of a single ore when you need it, but i'm wondering if i'm missing a trick.

If there something more than I can do to automate things?

I don't really need a supply of Uranium or Iridium rods, I have entire lockers full of those. I have my Osmium rods being created from a bank of Osmium T3 extractors, and the same for Super Alloy, I just need to take my Aluminium from my T3 Aluminium Extractor every now and then to keep it going.

Because the range on the auto crafter is very limited (hopefully this will be increased or a T2 version can pull from any locker/building), I had to put it right in the middle of 3d space where everything else I create is, and i've hit the limit of how many things it can reach.

[Koma Toast]

So far I placed the Auto Crafter and arranged all resource storage boxes in range around it (even Overflow boxes). T3 extractors are close by. Same for gas collectors (methane). Base is right beside a deep pond for algae collector.
All in all it runs pretty smooth but there's still a lot of running around.
Also a teleporter to each resource cave helps.
For base organization I have started moving all power generation, drills and heaters to a huge plain on the north side of the map (since it seems about 100+ drills and heaters will be needed in the short term. I only have 50 of each and progress is still seems slow).

[CrazedBumblebee]

Woah... 50 of each? I only have 2x T5 heaters and I think 10-11 T5 drills - i'm at about 17 T3 tree spreaders (my previously play through I had about 25).

You can massively increase your TTI by having more, for sure, but make sure you're sending up rockets to match the numbers, the most efficient number of rockets for each resource is the same number that you have structures for the same resource.

I'm at roughly 2TTI with everything unlocked and just waiting for the Fish update. You really don't need 50+ drills or heaters. A lot of the stuff that we get with Fish will make increasing your Ti that much faster without having to go crazy.

I tried using an Algae collector (well about 5 of them) next to an auto crafter. Sometimes it would create 1 bacteria for me (I had the water extraction thing almost on top of it), but it would only create when I was there picking the Algae myself.

I decided to remove all the T2 generators and put in a T1 as recommended by another post, but it seems even worse.

I feel like the most efficient thing would be to setup multiple auto crafters, so that you can make everything you need like a mini production line, which would allow for some spacing out of your base. But without the Algae being picked by the crafter for me it kinda puts a spanner in the works.

[Víkingar]

Massive TTI won't even matter once you get to atmosphere, as there is no fish stage yet. The only thing I can say that really matters is make sure to upgrade to the biggest thing you have as quickly as possible, and deconstruct all the smaller stuff as they are much less energy efficient.

[hardworker]

Rather than master-plan my autocrafters, I adjusted what was already built out. Almost everything is built outside my base, and I have to run ingredients in and out of my base. My ad hoc solution was to build autocrafters outside next to the production units.

For high-quality food, I put an autocrafter between my 10 beehives and two bean farms.

For super alloy, I have six T3 ore extractors for the basic minerals, and then one autocrafter makes super alloy nuggets from them, while another next to it makes super alloy rods. I also have an ore extractor for super alloy nuggets.

For the bioplastic nuggets, I built a lake extractor for the water and built an autocrafter on the shore. I also moved one of my mushroom farms next to it. This setup is close enough to the silicon extractor to pull ore from it.

For bacteria, mutagen, and fertilizer, I built autocrafters on platforms near three algae generators and a lake extractor. I moved a squash farm, eggplant farm, and two beehives to the shore, and built an ore extractor for sulfur. I also built two methane extractors on the shore. I think the autocrafters wait for algae to be fully grown before using them for recipes, so when I got impatient, I would collect algae from other generators (I have a total of ten) and drop them into the autocrafter inventories. Same with the larvae needed for T2 mutagen.

For pulsar quartz and osmium rods, I built the necessary ore extractors near the methane extractors, and built the autocrafter nearby (I switch production depending on what I need).

Fabric is the only autocrafter I have inside my base, which is next to two silk farms.

There's a lot of running around that I did to hurry up some recipes (especially collecting aluminum from other stashes for super alloy rods and algae for bacteria and fertilizer). Since most autocrafters are outside, I had to run in and out to fill up the storage cabinets inside my base, but at least everything's right outside my base. I'd be interested to see more efficient production setups.

[CrazedBumblebee]

I gather from this response that the T3 Ore Extractors can extract any ore from any location then? Because there's no water anywhere near the Sulphur flats, yet you're extracting it next to water.

If that's so, unfortunately that's likely to get fixed.

I've not been able to get the Algae farms working with the auto crafters properly. You're using T2 Algae and placing the auto crafters and food farms directly above them over the water?

Do you have any screenshots of your setup? It might help to clarify how your setup works.

[Víkingar]

The T3 extractors can extract any ore you select, including the rare ones. Doubtful that will get changed, as that's the design of it.

To place crafters over the water, you have to put scaffolding down first, and then build on that. Due to the limited range, you're going to get very few in-range algae nodes; so you will have to put down several overlapping farms.

[CrazedBumblebee]

Originally posted by Víkingar:

The T3 extractors can extract any ore you select, including the rare ones. Doubtful that will get changed, as that's the design of it.

There are specific biomes where T1/T2 extractors can pick certain ores, they're not available anywhere else. So it didn't even occur to me that T3 would be able to mine anything from anywhere.

I don't see a problem with them being able to mine anything, but they should still be restricted based on the biome they're in. You couldn't mine uranium from an iron ore mine for example.

But this is interesting, i'll have to play around with that.

[Víkingar]

T3 takes a long time to get to, so it's not unbalanced IMO. At that stage you'll be needing tons of specific types of ores based on whatever rockets you're building. Think of it as a reward for slogging through weeks of carrying buckets of ore around.

Up until this point, you could also carry processed materials back, and then deconstruct them back into ore at the base to be able to carry more.

[Pyro669]

Even I have had trouble getting the autocrafter to work properly with algae. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just randomly stops working, I have to deconstruct the autocrafter and rebuild it to get it to work right again. Because of the drones update they say that drones won't collect vegetable or algae, this is true for vegetables but my drones (T1) do in fact collect algae. I kept going out trying to get algae and there was like never any out there. I thought it was a problem with my T2 algae growers until i found 2 completely full containers inside my base that I definitely didn't do myself.

[Víkingar]

Algae has a small radius for collection, you can't collect from all nodes generated by the farm. You have to put them in small groups so they almost overlap on top of each other in order to get any decent farm out of it.

[Guard1an4]

T2 Drones can gather algae

[Víkingar]

No, you have to use it in an auto-crafting recipe, then collect the item it made.

[roboticaust]

Depends on which of the 3 saves have survived being purged since this went EA. Everything prior to autocrafters I didn't deem worth keeping. The game loop was run to extractors (because teleporters didn't exist), manually sort through stuff because no selection of resource, then haul back anything worthwhile for storage or manual crafting. All my builds (and everyone else's) back then were outposts for air due to no breathable atmosphere, dealing with extractors and 2x2 cubes for storage lockers. Boring.

The first save I kept was with the busted t3 extractors that could harvest anything regardless of location. That save has a thousand extractors located all over the place with autocrafters mass producing anything and everything. Not terribly interesting still, but it's a fun little stress test save I dip back into every so often.

Second save I kept was last update when drones went live. I set my rocket platform at the lowest point of the big lake and built around that. The main base is located at the water line so you can look down through glass floors and see the rockets bouncing around against it. This central area also housed odds and ends like the manual crafters, display cases, display screens, teleporter, etc. Around that I had 2x2 spaces full of storage lockers (2 for each resource) set to priority 3 and 2 respectively. Basically housing anything needed to build quickly and always have more than my backpack could hold as a buffer to drones needing time to refill things effectively.

Floor two was basically a massive incubation/manipulation room where I could easily grab any resource necessary and slam them into machines quickly. Effectively allowing me to fill a ton of incubators or manipulators quickly to keep things moving. All machines were set to supply their outputs which went to 2 places. First being a storage space on floor 3 for trees, bugs and fish, second being shredders for anything I already had full storages for. Recycling was deemed a waste of time and energy.

As for automation in particular, I built a platform nearby above a ton of algae collectors and water collectors. First layer had bacteria samples being made and all my farm stuff being produced. Second layer had autocrafters packed in as close as possible to one another and set to anything and everything. Third layer had storage lockers packed the same way with demands set to priority 1 to hold all the materials necessary to make everything below. Basically built around the autocrafters range so that it could reach everything contained in the space. Was a nice condensed mess that quickly refilled storages even if I went ham spamming down a million pulsar powered fusion generators or launching hundreds of rockets in quick succession.

Current save has a massive 4x4 tower where I alternated between a solid indoor space and a outdoor 2x2 space surrounded by indoor space; essentially building air pockets considered to be "outside". In these outdoor spaces, I crammed everything from drone stations to farming plots. The indoor rings around them were the new storage lockers. The full indoor floors above were the autocrafters for that particular craft. Rinse repeat upwards til all crafts and necessary resources were accounted for in mass. Outside the building was surrounded by 16 trade platforms, 15 of which were set to auto launch and the 16th was intentionally left without drone priorities specifically for manual use namely for purchasing and collecting. The idea here was to reduce travel distance as much as possible while having a larger scale facility than my last save.

Lengthy reply, I know. But tis what I did and I'm sure there's some inspiration here for others to make use of.

[Víkingar]

Very interesting strategy. I have a giant mushroom-tree-looking base since ages ago that I haven't had to do much with; the teleporters in the center make for a sort of elevator, and I have alternate outdoor spaces between each floor. Autocrafters everywhere, tons of miners and farms. I kinda stopped playing much because it's just sitting there staring at the screen; literally everything is automated and there's not much else to humanly do.