how to auto-stack ore in inventory?

[VladK02]

I dont remember this being a thing, but now when i go to collect ore from some autonomous ore extractor connected to like 16 hoppers, ore does not stack in inventory, so i end up with having like 16 stacks of ore.

As you can imagine, when i go to make my rounds (its early game, dont hate), i quickly run out of inventory space.

So, how to stack the ore? or, how to enable t the way it was before, when stacks automatically stacked, without retaining some quantitive paramemter? Its also weird when i stack the ore by hand, and go to drop it in the hoppers at the smelter array, it deposits in these weird quantities as well, like 15 units, then 85....despite this being a full stack, the pieces remember how they used to be.

EDIT - when I use ore thief, it STILL keeps the ore in smaller stacks, and retrieves the ore from hoppers in small chunks. Also ore thief is impractical as hell when you have 1000+ ore in the inventory.

[Nedrith]

Ore only stacks to 150, the system is setup so that it will only stack automatically if it can put the entire stack into the inventory slot. so having 100 ore in a stack and removing 100 ore from a hopper will not auto stack into 150 and 50.

This change is to discourage exactly what you are doing, automate the extractor!

as for putting items into a hopper. every time you put items into a hopper the game tries to put as much of a single stack of the ore it can put in. So if it picks a stack of 25 it will only put 25 in.

[Shard]

I believe what is being mentioned here is that if you hold q and mouse over a number of hoppers, you will get the following - 89, 100, 142, 119, 132, etc, instead of a number of 150 plus leftovers. When I do a run to my extra-deep ore miners, I end up with ~30 stacks of ore, and after manually re-stacking them, have 23-25 instead of the 30 I started with.

edit: whoops, thought you misread it, looks like I misread you. Oh well, will leave for others to see in case it is easier as an example.

[VladK02]

Originally posted by Nedrith:

Ore only stacks to 150, the system is setup so that it will only stack automatically if it can put the entire stack into the inventory slot. so having 100 ore in a stack and removing 100 ore from a hopper will not auto stack into 150 and 50.

This change is to discourage exactly what you are doing, automate the extractor!

as for putting items into a hopper. every time you put items into a hopper the game tries to put as much of a single stack of the ore it can put in. So if it picks a stack of 25 it will only put 25 in.

Dammit. i cant afford to run a brand new cargo line up, that will cost me 800+ of bars... And whoever thought a cargo lift was a good idea, the rails need so much iron...

[Shard]

They key is to automate everything you can, including production of rails. I recommend going first for hoppers+conveyors, and use those to set up a basic storage system. Once you have that plus automated smelting, you can leave the game running while you shower or sleep, then come back to enough resources to set up much higher levels of automation.

[Nedrith]

Also the first time you need to run a cargo lift really is for T2 ores, lithium it's helpful for but turrets early game can get rid of the need.

Once you have T2 ores available take some up with you and smelt it and you can get regular smelters up. After you build a few of those making the 3200+ bars for even the 400 or so meters that a cargo lift needs to reach t2 level isn't bad.

[mudfarmer]

800 bars only seems like alot if you insist on doing everything by hand. Automate power distribution and ore transport, add more smelters (yes even basics are better then bottle-necking on your starter smelter), and add more extractors / upgrade motors to use that smelting capacity. The cargo lifts mean you don't need to wory about using tubes untill you are ready to automate crystal delivery, and crystal still stacks.

Q: what do you call a base that ouputs 1K bars / minute?
A: a good start

[Ouroborus]

(Sorry, this turned into... something... read at your own risk.)

At 360 hours, I'm now figuring this out:

Find yourself wishing you had more stuff or things are building to slow? You don't have nearly enough capacity.

Not enough bars? You don't have enough mines, ore transport, and/or energy distribution. Stop going after those tiny deposits. Find ones with 10 million ore so you can slap more miners on them later and don't have to worry about moving them.

Not enough parts? Same as bars, you're not using enough manufacturing machines. Setup more capacity.

You can never, never have to much power. You don't really need to store power long term so focus on power creation and distribution. (Solar is the exception but consider power storage and solar as a single thing and build them together. Otherwise, power storage is mainly for junctions.)

Always having to collect stuff? You don't have enough storage capacity. Work on increasing that. Keep it segregated. Try to keep is centralized.

Remember, aboveground you can always build upwards and you don't have to clear much space, if any. Running out of convenient space and your current floor is getting to big to conviently get around? Go up 15-30 blocks and start a new floor.

Figure out a goal and what it will take. Write it down, stick to it. As you figure out sub-goals, do those, but keep the main goal in mind.

My main goals:
Get all the personal upgrades. This is the overriding goal, but not a target goal. Build these items the instant you have the resources to do so but don't collect resources specifically for this purpose. This should happen pretty quickly for the first three items: Solar Cell MK1, Suit Heater MK1, and Suit Power Pack MK1.

Get Mk2 defenses set up. You should be able to defend against the wasps without taking damage. Don't forget to also build a lot of threat reducers.

Get a quarry built and fully powered. There's a huge amount of things that have to happen in order to reach this goal. Don't just get the stuff needed to do this, get enough stuff that you could run a second quarry if you had to. Check the first list for things that are getting in the way of this.

Get energized mining heads with power and distribution for them going. This is the main use for matter movers. You only need the basic matter mover.

Get Mk3 defense setup. Test them using threat increasers to get your threat up and threat reducers to bring it down when you discover you need to increase defense. The goal is to be able to fight off sustained attacks at 20k threat without anything being able to damage your CPH. Use missiles if you like, don't forget the first list, above. If you decide to use missiles, you'll need a hell of a lot. Don't bother trying to store a lot of missiles. You should be able to build them as fast as you fire them. That's end to end. Digging up enough ore, turning that ore into missiles, all fast enough to keep up with the fire rate. That is in addition to whatever else you're doing.

Build the OET. Build the OET first, it'll tell you how much power it needs. Decide how long you want it to take and figure out how much power generation capacity you'll need, start building that. Again, remember the list at the top. You'll also need the four targeters. If you've been paying attention, you should already have infrastructure to make these from getting the OET ready.Once you have the OET and the four targeters, start charging the OET. As the wasps roll in and then roll over, do your best villionous laugh. You earned it. Now get your genocide on.

Done yet? Hell no. That's all just to get you ready for the cryoplasm. And you still aren't ready for that. By now, you know what to do. Get on it.

[MoronWMachinegun]

^ FTW

[MoronWMachinegun]

I am now trying to automate everything I need to build more than say 10 of. All research pods are now automated, along with hardened blocks. Conveyors just got automated, when I need some I just grab a stack of 100. Mostly so I can automate rail production. Rack rails is still up on a tower for {reasons}, but I'll bring it down and automate that too soon so I can dive deep. Automating PSB mk1 and mk2 next.

Once I get my advanced conveyor filter, stuff can automate on both sides of my Mass Storage. Right now I have one long side as input, one short side against the base hill, one long side for production, and one short side for continued expansion. I kinda stupidly did a maximum density build for the research pods coming off my mass storage, so it's tough to reuse the hoppers storing the bars there.

Right now everything is in a large H-ish shaped mass storage, but I'm liking the idea of layers more and more. What's a reasonable number of bars to store? 2,500 per? 10x10 is a little too compact and hard to pull from, but maybe 3x48 per layer to give lots of faces to pull from, and a max store of 3,600. It just requires massive amounts of tin plates....hmm, maybe I should automate mass storage block production next...that's only 1008 blocks...

Edit: Changed from 6 layer stacks to 2 layer stacks in my numbers.