Alternative Coal Source?

[PyroMancer]

I'm trying to maximize efficiency by using proliferators to get extra items. However I've noticed that they require coal for Mk1 and simply upgrade from there. All the other items you can pretty much farm from Fog, even fuel that needs coal to make.

My concern is the eventual running out of coal as it doesn't seem as abundant as other resources around the galaxy. I have the tech that lets me see how much is in other systems and most systems seem to have a fraction of coal compared to other resources.

I don't need many of the fuel so I far it from Fog which saves on coal. The graphite you can get from fuel and Fog so that's an alternative source for that. Thus leaving proliferators as the only thing that uses up my coal.

Even with that it still feels like going with proliferators in my builds is ultimately a losing plan as it will run out faster than other resources.

[Raeilgunne]

kind of, I swap from coal to hydrogen rods as fuel as soon as possible from fire ice and gas giants. The only way to be sustainable with anything though is to rush white science and spam the mining tech. Eventually, in the 240s i think, node depletion becomes 0% per resource mined.

[josmith7]

I don't know what resource multiplier you're playing on, but on 1x there are usually at least a few planets out near the galactic rim with 10s of millions of coal -- more than enough to keep you in proliferation until you finish the game (or boost your vein utilization to the point where effectively no resources are consumed anywhere within the galaxy)

[teron]

One other thing to keep in mind is that you can proliferate the proliferator paint which gives extra charges and makes it last longer. So for Proliferator Mk.III it gets bonus charges based on the +25% extra product bonuses. Making a mark 3 spray go from 60 --> 75 charges


Not everyone knows that. It is also why it is a good idea to build a belt that fees back on your Proliferator Mk.III production line to spray the finished product.

[Kyrros]

Coal is an early-game resource. Other than Proliferator, you will not be using it for much else at later stages of the game, and by then, you will also have mining efficiency upgrades which will reduce consumption even more. Feel free to use as much of it as you need, since it will just be sitting idle later in the game. In fact, that is one of the reasons that Coal is a base component of Proliferator - the Devs needed to give coal something to do in the mid and late game, as it had no uses otherwise.

Unless you're in a low-resource setting game (x0.25 or below) and trying to maximize what little resources you have, there is generally not much advantage to widespread use of Proliferator 1 - I use it almost exclusively for Icarus fuel and for a handful of Thermal Power Station fuel rods - after that, I don't bother with Proliferator use until I unlock Proliferator 2, then that $#%& goes everywhere, heh.

Originally posted by Raeilgunne:

The only way to be sustainable with anything though is to rush white science and spam the mining tech. Eventually, in the 240s i think, node depletion becomes 0% per resource mined.

Thankfully, you get "sustainable" long before then. Once you get into the 20s and 30s with Vein Utilization, there will be very little worry about primary resource depletion (Fe/Cu/Si/Ti/Stone/Coal) the rest of the game, except maybe possibly in the very largest game production economies (Multiple stars with multiple Dysons surrounding them and the labs cranking out 1000's or 100s of 1000's of White Jello per minute). That's a reason there's an achievement for getting Vein Utilization to lvl 31, it's a subtle way the Devs let the player know that resources will be less an issue form this point forward.

That said, back to the OP, you will most likely use up all or nearly all the coal on the starter planet for use in proliferator through the course of a normal game, don't worry too much about that. As Mr. Smith alluded to above, by then you'll have access to better mining efficiency tech and also whole new systems to gain coal. The way resources work in DSP, the farther a system is from the starter system (the center of the map!) the higher the resource multiplier is. Even at the very minimum resource scarcity settings, while the starting system will have very little, systems out toward the "edge" of the cluster will still have Millions of everything... more than a player will ever be able to mine in a reasonable game length. We're talking years (or decades) of IRL 24/7 gameplay in order to reduce the resources of an entire map to 0.

It is the main reason why I only pick game seeds where the Netruon Star and Black Hole systems are out towards the egde of the map and not close to the starting system (center) - to maximize the amount of Unipole Magnet resource in the game, since those actually ARE RARE and can be 100% depleted by a player if they're careless with them and start using them too heavily before sufficient levels of Mining tech are researched. Every other resource in the game is either literally infinite (Hydrogen/Deuterium/FireIce/Oil/Water/Sulfuric Acid) can be made from Infinite resources (Organic Crystals, Energetic Rods, Diamonds, Graphene, Plastic), or 'functionally infinite' (everything else, except Unipoles) - but that's a whole other thread.

[Kyrros]

An addendum to my previous post. This is a case where the Vein Utilization tech is absolutely your friend.

If a miner is on a node, it will consume 30 node resources per minute and output 30 usable resources a minute... multiply that by however many nodes the miner is covering (6-8 on average) to get the average depletion/output of a single miner. At Vein Utilization 10, a miner will consume 32.32 node resources per minute, but outputs 60 usable resources. At VU 20, resource depletion is only 26.11 units per min but the output is 90 usable resources. that 'raw resource unit extracted per node unit used' is where VU really starts to show its value.

VU	Node consumed / min	Resource Multipler	Resource Output / min	x6 Nodes	x7 Nodes	x8 Nodes
0	30	100%	30	180	210	240
6	33.11 (max)	145%	48	288	336	384
10	32.32	186%	60	360	420	480
12	31.41	210%	66	396	462	528
18	27.58	305%	84	504	588	672
23	23.85	415%	99	594	693	792
26	21.61	500%	108	648	756	864
29	19.45	602%	117	702	819	936
32	17.40	724%	126	756	882	1008
34	16.10	820%	132	792	924	1056
36	♥♥♥♥♥	928%	138	828	966	1104
38	13.72	1050%	144	864	1008	1152
39	13.16	1117%	147	882	1029	1176
40	12.62	1188%	150	900	1050	1200
41	12.10	1264%	153	918	1071	1224
50	8.16	2206%	180	1080	1260	1440
93	0.98	31558%	309	1854	2163	2472
100	0.68	48665%	330	1980	2310	2640
189	0.00	~12M %	597	3582	4179	4776

The research maxes at VU 10K I believe... though I'm pretty sure it's a theoretical value, as noone has actually researched that high, since it costs 40M White Jello and needs ~36 Billion lab hashes (that's a lot, even with upgrades :-p )

You can see a breakpoint at VU 6 with the max possible node consumption rate, every other VU after that is actually lower.

VU 93 also an interesting breakpoint where you drop down to less than 1 unit resource consumption per node.

You can see the Rank 189 that raeilgunne was talking about. Usage never actually gets to 0%, but gets so low that it rounds DOWN to 0.00%. So, yeah... lots of fun there! 233 is where it drops below 0.000%, 272 hits below 0.0000%, 312 hits 0.00000%. The max of rank 10K is 0.0 with either 265 or 266 zeroes after it. Yeah... it's reeaallly small.

You also eventually get the rank 100s and above issue of the miner actually produces more than can be carried out on Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 belts (depending on how many nodes the miner has covered)... so there's that limitation as well, at least from regular miners.

I added the x100 % multipler ranks up to 1000%, you can see that each sucessive rank of VU adds more % per rank than the rank before. The reduction of usage/resource multplication of each rank grows exponetially while the cost in white jello (not shown) only grows linearly... very quickly. It literally pays for itself in material costs to research vs what that research then yields from the remaining resources in your entire star cluster.

Okay, I'll stop being a long-winded geek

[Kyrros]

Fun fact: Somewhere at or around VU 2300, the time it would take to deplete an entire node would run somewhere on the order of the same amount of time we have until the literal heat death of the our universe. So... yeah... a couple 100 ranks of VU should do you just fine.

[The More You Know.gif]

I appologize, I seem to have fallen into a bit of a Vein Utilization 'thought' rabbit-hole... I really like the VU mechanic in this game

[josmith7]

Originally posted by Kyrros:

You also eventually get the rank 100s and above issue of the miner actually produces more than can be carried out on Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 belts (depending on how many nodes the miner has covered)... so there's that limitation as well, at least from regular miners.

Though when you do that you discover that even regular miners will take advantage of the 'Logistics Station Integrated' upgrades and start automatically stacking their output.

They don't have a checkbox and slider to control that like advanced miners, PLS, or ILS do; they just automatically stack if their production exceeds the (unstacked) max capacity of the belt. (However I don't think they'll automatically stack if the belt backs up; only if their production rate exceeds the belt's rating)

[VANGUARD]

Unipolar magnets can be farmed from foggies plus VU affects drop rates as well.
Shouldn't that stuff be functionally infinite as well then?

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by Kyrros:

It is the main reason why I only pick game seeds where the Netruon Star and Black Hole systems are out towards the egde of the map and not close to the starting system (center) - to maximize the amount of Unipole Magnet resource in the game, since those actually ARE RARE and can be 100% depleted by a player if they're careless with them and start using them too heavily before sufficient levels of Mining tech are researched.

Lol those are one of the resources I'm not too worried about. The dark fog drop them and I've been farming a ton of them.

I took it slow in my starting system and farmed up the dark fog to a really high level so I could get lots of resources from them. I get a steady supply of those which I use to make my Particle containers.

Originally posted by Kyrros:

...
You can see the Rank 189 that raeilgunne was talking about. Usage never actually gets to 0%, but gets so low that it rounds DOWN to 0.00%. So, yeah... lots of fun there! 233 is where it drops below 0.000%, 272 hits below 0.0000%, 312 hits 0.00000%. The max of rank 10K is 0.0 with either 265 or 266 zeroes after it. Yeah... it's reeaallly small.
...

Good to know. I wasn't to concerned with other resources running out just the coal. So by the time I get to those far out planets I should be golden. I've already got up to VU 11.

I use Proliferators to boost production because if your producing 25% more then you need less factories to produce the same amount in the same time. I prefer it over speed because with speed increase you need more materials coming down the belts as they are used up faster which also burns through your reserves faster.

[Kyrros]

Originally posted by Sceadugengan:

Shouldn't that stuff be functionally infinite as well then?

In that specific instance, yes. However; since Dark Fog is optional, I was mostly referring to the broadest sense should a player decide against activating the DF option in their game.

DF presence in a game throws a lot of that right out the window due to loot/drops :-p

Originally posted by josmith7:

[...] even regular miners will take advantage of the 'Logistics Station Integrated' upgrades and start automatically stacking their output.

I'm not sure I actually knew that, or have even noticed recently - so "Yay" for that. For some reason I was thinking only advanced miners could break those limits due to drone usage and not belts.

[b...]

All resources are infinite eventually. At some point your mining efficiency will grow faster than resource nodes deplete. That is getting additional 6% efficiency will cost you <6% remaining resources. Depending on your difficulty level the "breaking point" is on different point on infinite research.
As for early game proliferators? I really dont know how you managed to run out unless you proliferate recipes like copper ingots...

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by b...:

As for early game proliferators? I really dont know how you managed to run out unless you proliferate recipes like copper ingots...

I proliferate EVERYTHING. More iron & copper plates means more of everything you make with them. The only exception is the items that can't increase production like when you goto Mk 2 & 3 belts it won't let you proliferate for increased production only increased speed.

Also I never said I ran out, it seems to be a common assumption in the replies though. I was mostly planning for the future. As I've used about 60% of the coal on my starting planet and the two others in the system have about 300K coal combine.

As I've begun to upscale my proliferator production vs use is reached it's limit as I was running out of proliferators. Thus I need to expand how many I'm making and want to optimize it by looking at production like and resources it uses. As I finally began planning to ramp up production and design baseline builds for new planets I was checking their resources when I noticed this short fall.

I had already taken to stacking 4 high which lets you spray 4 items for the price of one spray. But when looking at the numbers I see systems with like 30-40M each in Iron, Copper, and stone with like 3-4M in Coal with is like 10 to one ratio and the thought of trying to proliferator all that with the coal available is what sparked this post.

However much of the talk about how eventually the nodes will become unlimited resource nodes has me feeling better about it as by the time I get to some of the further system I'll have near unlimited unlock.

[josmith7]

Originally posted by PyroMancer:

I had already taken to stacking 4 high which lets you spray 4 items for the price of one spray.

Did you verify that on the current patch?

Because when I tested that claim (which was several patches ago) it turned out to be incorrect - running a 4 stack through a spray coater consumed 4 sprays.

Stacking lets me get more items / minute through the sprayer (and the rest of the belt) but it didn't provide any savings in proliferation consumption. (However I can't completely rule out the possibility that they changed that somewhere along the way; though I don't know why they would)

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by josmith7:

Originally posted by PyroMancer:

I had already taken to stacking 4 high which lets you spray 4 items for the price of one spray.

Did you verify that on the current patch?

Because when I tested that claim (which was several patches ago) it turned out to be incorrect - running a 4 stack through a spray coater consumed 4 sprays.

Nope. Just saw several tip guides mention it so I assumed them to be correct. I'll have to double check it though.

EDIT: Did some testing and you are right, the guides saying that stacking items saves on proliferators are wrong. It uses 1 spray per item and not per stack.

Is this just the result of people misunderstanding how it works or did it change at some point. Cause the whole reason I started Stacking items was to try and save on proliferators. Knowing it doesn't matter though gives me some ideas of my builds as I originally did proliferator only at incoming production line as it was easy to get stacks up.

I had been thinking for a long time though how much easier it would be to just proliferate at the source. Like my Proliferators spray new proliferators before the get put into the logistic system to be distributed across my factory as they already sprayed. But all other resources don't do this. So it's like for each place I use that resource I gotta put up proliferators which means LOT of proliferators around. Where as I could just spray them as they come off the line.

This would mean places like my Mall doesn't need a ton of extra proliferators. Though I will need to start spaying all that stuff coming in from Dark Fog. It's something I'll have to think of for new planets as my Home World would require a complete rework for that setup.

[b...]

Originally posted by PyroMancer:

I proliferate EVERYTHING. More iron & copper plates means more of everything you make with them. The only exception is the items that can't increase production like when you goto Mk 2 & 3 belts it won't let you proliferate for increased production only increased speed.

I'd say that's useless since as you said there is more ores than coal in the cluster and belt capacity is the main limiting factor for smelter stack either way but you do you.
Generally the main way to save on proliferators is Kimberlite ore and Spinaform/Fire Ice.
Drops down the price to 4coal per blue. I thiiink proliferating proliferator production would be net positive as well but am to lazy to run calculations