Late game difficulty spike - Green Cube production too complex - Casimir Crystals too much hydrogen

[TigerTank]

In the late game, green cube stage, the level of difficulty and complexity of producing these cubes is far too high.

The problem is that there are too many steps to making the green cubes, and some specific ingredients like Casimir Crystals need way too much hydrogen. These crystals should have their hydrogen requirements halved.

Also, orbital collectors generate far too little of their resources, particularly hydrogen. Its usually much easier to generate hydrogen from oil refineries.

Finally, we need some way to generate hydrogen from water - maybe from electrolysis even if it needs a lot of energy.

[DirtyHaris]

factoriolab.github.io
You're welcome xD

[noodles]

I had to convert the entire second planet to produce Green Cubes. Almost there. Hoping I can set up and scale up some Warp logistic lines once everything is running.

[--T-a-u-r-u-s--]

Originally posted by Zenstrive:

Hydrogen is tough to manage. Either you have too much or you don't have enough at all. And yes Green Cube (Gravity Matrix) production line probably require a whole planet as factory if you want to have tons of it.

like hydrogen isn't hard to manage what my big issue is now that only with mk3 belts can feed 7 assemblers for crystals max that way i need take new belt for new production feed other 7

[EmDriver]

Just keep scaling up. Make sure your automating your buildings. Nothing like grabbing 80 Orbital Collectors ready to go and heading out to that system with 2 gas giants. I have a decent part of the galaxy industrialized and am at about 60,000 hydrogen a minute, 1000 a second. And that's probably less then a quarter of what is currently obtainable. There is more hydrogen then you'll ever need, just gotta build it. Build it and they will come.

[EmDriver]

Originally posted by --T-a-u-r-u-s--:

Originally posted by Zenstrive:

Hydrogen is tough to manage. Either you have too much or you don't have enough at all. And yes Green Cube (Gravity Matrix) production line probably require a whole planet as factory if you want to have tons of it.

like hydrogen isn't hard to manage what my big issue is now that only with mk3 belts can feed 7 assemblers for crystals max that way i need take new belt for new production feed other 7

I just optimized a crystal build. If you can saturate 240 hydrogen a second, I'ved found this setup to work best:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2419907822

[OmegaMaelstrom]

Originally posted by Kasterix:

Feedback isn't what I take issue with, but the people who'll demand 'X' should be done or should have already been done in an early access game is.

Some of the discussions about multiplayer come to mind immediately in that regard.

Totally agree with your statement. Some of what would prevent this is an idea board or committed future features outside of the FAQ; and they've even stated they will upload a roadmap. But a roadmap isn't as interactive as some community ideas that can easily be incorporated, be favored among most gamers, and not detract from the original game design (i.e. mob rule doesn't always win).

Even all that, you're still going to have the sense-of-entitlement person that embellishes the whole situation to plea for something not to be added that a majority of people want AND that can be simply toggled (people know what I'm talking about). There's always the few that are so ridiculous that they believe they are the center of the universe while not in-game.

[vkobe]

Originally posted by TigerTank:

In the late game, green cube stage, the level of difficulty and complexity of producing these cubes is far too high.

The problem is that there are too many steps to making the green cubes, and some specific ingredients like Casimir Crystals need way too much hydrogen. These crystals should have their hydrogen requirements halved.

Also, orbital collectors generate far too little of their resources, particularly hydrogen. Its usually much easier to generate hydrogen from oil refineries.

Finally, we need some way to generate hydrogen from water - maybe from electrolysis even if it needs a lot of energy.

time to go outside of your solar system and survey other solar system for rare resource ^_^

[Wat]

Originally posted by TigerTank:

The other weird situation is that the Dyson Sphere is the whole point of the game

Power usage spikes when building a Gravity Matrix (green cube) production chain. It is a good time to start building a Dyson Sphere.
The power can be used to gradually replace Thermal Power Plants. Then Hydrogen can be redirected to Deuterium and Gravity Matrix production.

[Garp02]

Originally posted by TigerTank:

In the late game, green cube stage, the level of difficulty and complexity of producing these cubes is far too high.

The problem is that there are too many steps to making the green cubes, and some specific ingredients like Casimir Crystals need way too much hydrogen. These crystals should have their hydrogen requirements halved.

Also, orbital collectors generate far too little of their resources, particularly hydrogen. Its usually much easier to generate hydrogen from oil refineries.

Finally, we need some way to generate hydrogen from water - maybe from electrolysis even if it needs a lot of energy.

Hi, I agree that Green cubes was a difficult one to work out and execute, it took me many many hours from start to completion, but in the end the solution was surprisingly simple enough, and i am aware it all depends how you have your factories setup, as there are many.
I setup mine to be as independent as possible and output just the two manufactured parts required for matrix production exclusively.
This is a description of how i managed to make all cubes (matrix) @ 60/min. Focusing primarily on Hydrogen:
Blue Matrix: N/A
Red Matrix:
2 Oil/s = 12 Refiners - 4x oil 8x x-ray cracking = 120/min Graphite + 180/min Hydrogen. 120/min Hydrogen required = 60/min excess.

Yellow Matrix:
1 Oil/s = 6 Refiners - 2x oil 4x x-ray cracking = 60/min Graphite + 90/min Hydrogen. Graphite used for Diamonds, and 90/min Hydrogen excess.

Purple Matrix:
3 Oil/s = 10 Refiners - 6x oil 4x x-ray cracking = 60/min Graphite + 120/min Refined Oil + 150/min Hydrogen. R. Oil + Graphite used to make Plastic, and 150/min Hydrogen excess.

At this stage I should point out a few things:
1. I was producing a small amount of excess Hydrogen from Graphene production that I added to the excess Hydrogen line but havent calculated that excess in because its a fairly small amount, and not a constant in my production system.
2. I was burning all the excess Hydrogen in Generators.
3. I was collecting some Hydrogen from a gas giant in my star system but only using that to make Deuterium.
4. I setup a very small and slow green production using some of the 300/min excess Hydrogen I was originally burning to get a few upgrades to better explore the star cluster.
5. I was bringing in Rare resources before making the 60/min Green matrix line.
6. I had started to make a Dyson Sphere, and the Carrier Rocket Line had its very own Refiners supply Hydrogen solely to that end product.

Green Matrix:
Now with this production and for a few reasons I didnt want to use a ton of Refiners to make the 720/min Hydrogen required for enough Casimir Crystals to make 60/min Green cubes, this was my solution.
My Gas Giant has a rate of 0.25/s Hydrogen, 4x Orbital collectors = 1/s Hydrogen.
I used 40x Orbital collectors for a total rate of 10/s = 600/min
Adding this to the other 300/min excess from the other matrix lines.
600 + 300 = 900/min Hydrogen. 900 - 720 = 180/min excess.
using the 180/min excess for Warpers from green cubes + a small production of Antimatter Fuel Rods for personal consumption.

Now the keen eyed of you may have wondered whats he using to produce Deuterium if consuming all the Hydrogen produced + Orbital collectors consume some of the Hydrogen harvested. Well by the time you reach Green Matrix Automation you should have researched the minor speed and vein consumption a few times and therefore be harvesting more than stated. All the numbers above are based on 100% minor speed and the harvest rates will improve as you play. In addition I was adding some Hydrogen to my total Hydrogen system once I started to produce antimatter.

Therefore I personally didnt have any issues with Hydrogen shortage and was able to supply Hydrogen for Deuterium and some other fairly low Hydrogen consumption items too.
As stated earlier there are many ways to setup production and this is just one of the many methods. I hope you find something useful from my example.

[Sigil]

i didnt find it that hard...but then i have an Hydrogen/Deuterium gas giant with several collectors. the logistics of it are relatively straight forward.

[Riot]

Totally disagree. Producing enough hydrogen is the least of your problems. All you need to do for more is jump across to the gas giant and throw down a bunch of gas collectors. Problem solved. It couldn't be easier.

The main imbalance that is difficult to address late game is bottlenecks in quantum chip production. You need an incredible amount of plane filter & chips, & hence silicon plate.

[Garp02]

Originally posted by Riot:

Totally disagree. Producing enough hydrogen is the least of your problems. All you need to do for more is jump across to the gas giant and throw down a bunch of gas collectors. Problem solved. It couldn't be easier.

The main imbalance that is difficult to address late game is bottlenecks in quantum chip production. You need an incredible amount of plane filter & chips, & hence silicon plate.

I agree Silicon consumption late game rises quite a bit, but If you are lucky enough to have plenty in your local system, its not a problem. I placed 48 smelters and that was enough to supply my factories. :)

[Nova]

The first time I played it took me ages to setup a green cube production as well but that was mainly because I kinda rushed through the tech tree and when arriving at green a lot of stuff I would need for green wasnt automated yet.
The second time around it took me about 20 minutes to setup because I was way more diligent with just automating everything on the way there even if it wasn't at great speed and I changed my whole production setup to be logistic tower based so this time once green cubes came around I plopped down a couple of towers scaled up what needed to be and 20 minutes later I was done.
Obviously I took knowledge from the first playthrough but the biggest timesaver was switching to a completely different way of building production lines and really just automate everything before rushing to new research.
This time I go for 30/s research and that's a different type of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ xD
To be honest tho I think I would be quicker if I didn't try to hit all sorts of synergies with resources instead of just burning through warpers and just importing everything to the same place hehe.

[EmDriver]

Originally posted by Weswyn:

The first time I played it took me ages to setup a green cube production as well but that was mainly because I kinda rushed through the tech tree and when arriving at green a lot of stuff I would need for green wasnt automated yet.
The second time around it took me about 20 minutes to setup because I was way more diligent with just automating everything on the way there even if it wasn't at great speed and I changed my whole production setup to be logistic tower based so this time once green cubes came around I plopped down a couple of towers scaled up what needed to be and 20 minutes later I was done.
Obviously I took knowledge from the first playthrough but the biggest timesaver was switching to a completely different way of building production lines and really just automate everything before rushing to new research.
This time I go for 30/s research and that's a different type of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ xD
To be honest tho I think I would be quicker if I didn't try to hit all sorts of synergies with resources instead of just burning through warpers and just importing everything to the same place hehe.

Yea don't be afraid to restart. These kind of games every time you start again you will reach where your currently at in a quarter of the time. And you'll do it being less wasteful. It actually ends up being OK to import ores late game. When energy isn't an issue and you have a lot of logistics speed upgraded, the game really starts to open up. I think you may as well have a full logistics tower worth producing at least 1 of every material in your starting system and 2 each of the ingots. The theory here is that it's the center of the galaxy so the distance to every other solar system is the least. Then when you have maximized your space, go to the next closest system and make more builds there when you have to scale up. Stuff like the advanced recipe for particle containers may as well build in the same system because its a 12 to 1 ratio.

[sinoplez]

There is a noticeable complexity step for the Green Cube, but as you should have unlock wrap before (you only need purple cube and having Graviton Lens which is "half the way to green cube" to wrap to other star) you should be able to search and exploit the rare ressources which would reduce greatly the production line. (you may still be blocked to ~6 years stars because of your meca core energy, but that's enough...).

Of course you have to set up the Graviton Lens product line BEFORE the Quantum Chips one !

What I found a pitty is how easy is the white cube production set-up comparing to the green one.

Having to double the size of your "factory" for each step of science is common is these kind of game.