What is the best way to move ants to other islands for mining and production?

[EmberStar]

I just hit the tier where I'm getting 35 ants per minute, and I'm running into a number of problems. A big one is that I haven't figured out how to efficiently move them to another island so they can collect resources, mine and whatever else. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to figure it out soon, because there's a "Hazmat Ant" in the tech tree.

It also sort of feels like the "intent" is to use the Desert Island for a lot of the building, since there's a lot of open space and Wire Weed isn't constantly trying to regrow there. Once the cinder blocks are cleared out, anyway. I'm already running out of room on the blue island, and I haven't really built very many energy colliders yet.

My first thought was to use Pod Workers, since they'll keep running as long as they have food. (And as long as I don't kill them all by letting a stockpile overflow and not noticing that they're patiently waiting themselves to death because I forgot to put an overflow stockpile or a trash can on the path to their recharge station.)

Drones can carry larvae, but drones are not fast. I'm also having a very, very difficult time trying to manage the amount of specific kinds of ants so that I can produce gynes on top of everything else. The ant launcher seems... well, I have no idea what the design intent is for that, because I can't even begin to figure out how to automate something that has the accuracy of a drunken Stormtrooper. What other options are there? Am I missing something for how to do this?

[KH9I3b]

Летающие дроны. На основном ставите площадку взлета и посадки через захват личинок. Летим в пустыню, высаживаем, летим обратно. У вас быстро появляется возможность развиваться дальше в любой другой тип муравьев.

[Green Cat]

Originally posted by EmberStar:

I just hit the tier where I'm getting 35 ants per minute, and I'm running into a number of problems. A big one is that I haven't figured out how to efficiently move them to another island so they can collect resources, mine and whatever else. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to figure it out soon, because there's a "Hazmat Ant" in the tech tree.

It also sort of feels like the "intent" is to use the Desert Island for a lot of the building, since there's a lot of open space and Wire Weed isn't constantly trying to regrow there. Once the cinder blocks are cleared out, anyway. I'm already running out of room on the blue island, and I haven't really built very many energy colliders yet.

My first thought was to use Pod Workers, since they'll keep running as long as they have food. (And as long as I don't kill them all by letting a stockpile overflow and not noticing that they're patiently waiting themselves to death because I forgot to put an overflow stockpile or a trash can on the path to their recharge station.)

Drones can carry larvae, but drones are not fast. I'm also having a very, very difficult time trying to manage the amount of specific kinds of ants so that I can produce gynes on top of everything else. The ant launcher seems... well, I have no idea what the design intent is for that, because I can't even begin to figure out how to automate something that has the accuracy of a drunken Stormtrooper. What other options are there? Am I missing something for how to do this?

If you want to fix the game, use a mod for infinite lifespan because what you're experiencing now will only get worse and worse—then even worse.

In the meantime, remember that you can always move the queen until you have all the essential infrastructure set up on another island.

If moving the queen isn't helping:
Do you have a larva storage? If so, you can set up a dispenser right next to where the drones are about to take off and start converting larva into workers (or whatever else) directly from the second island.

Regarding the worker pods: Some people ran the numbers on another discussion board. On paper, the higher-tier pod is better, but due to how much pod consumption exists, Pod 1 is the best overall, followed by Pod 2 if you can afford it without issues. The same logic applies to higher-tier pods—only use them if you can afford them with no problems.

As I warned at the start, things will only get worse, so start stockpiling resources on the other island because you'll need to build both buildings and ants and you'll waste a lot of time (just wasting) if you don't start spreading resources across the island early on. The dev just kept adding puzzles on top of puzzles, seemingly unaware that only a handful of people would actually enjoy the game in its current state while the rest would quit. But yeah, use the mod to fix the lifespan issue—there's already so much ant sacrifice, combination, and coordination required that even without lifespan-related deaths, the game is still a massive chore. That's why I keep saying the infinite lifespan mod actually fixes the game.

Anyway, if you're still convinced that playing as the dev intended is more fun than using mods, I have to ask—did you check the guide section? Some people have covered most of what you're asking, and even more. But yeah, I get it, reading all that is time-consuming.

Well, good luck! Hope you enjoy running a colony where the working class constantly dies for your cause just because you refuse to let them live. After all, it's more fun for you to just replace them—capitalism 101.

[Big Poppa Pump]

if you have an hour and a half the launcher can work but you need to cover a 6X6 iron tile area with as many paths as possible (get rid of the iron tiles and zoom in real close and just make a ton of criss crossed paths). works ok but not perfect. kinda funny also.

[Zulton]

Bridges to carry larvae across (or drones). Incubators on the other side to spawn new ants. Stockpile gates function from one island to another island to control the flow.

[EmberStar]

Originally posted by Green Cat:

If you want to fix the game, use a mod for infinite lifespan because what you're experiencing now will only get worse and worse—then even worse.


[...]

Anyway, if you're still convinced that playing as the dev intended is more fun than using mods, I have to ask—did you check the guide section? Some people have covered most of what you're asking, and even more. But yeah, I get it, reading all that is time-consuming.

Well, good luck! Hope you enjoy running a colony where the working class constantly dies for your cause just because you refuse to let them live. After all, it's more fun for you to just replace them—capitalism 101.

First, take a deep breath. This is a game about bossing around robotic ants, not a political forum. I did check the guides, and when I asked there was not a guide that covered the information I am interested in.

Second, yes, I want to play the game "as intended." I do not generally use mods. I've tried it before, I didn't enjoy it, and I had about a hundred hours of progress in a save for a different game completely destroyed because a modder quit updating and a patch rendered the mod completely incompatible and corrupted the save. Been there, done that, not doing it again. If I wanted to play a factory game where nothing ever grows old and the only challenge is balancing resource consumption rates... I already own Satisfactory. Balancing the lifespan of the different castes and managing their population is part of what makes this game interesting and worth playing in the first place.

Third, I apparently wasn't as clear as I meant to be. My question is if there is a mechanic for *quickly* moving larva to different islands. Drones are possible, but unless I have tons of them they are quite slow at moving anything. And I really don't think I currently want to have too many Drones, since I'd rather be turning a majority of large Workers into Inventor ants. I'd much rather have either the research points or the supply of Tier 3 energy orbs.

The issue is that I don't currently see any other good options for rapidly moving larva around. Slingers are relatively fast, but *barely* have enough range to hit another island. (Assuming Slingers work on Larva, which I have not tested.) The ant launcher is honestly just about useless except *maybe* to manually fling a few Hazmat Ants onto the toxic island at the start. It's wildly inaccurate and can't really be automated. With the layout of islands I have, bridges are very long, very expensive, and it takes quite a while for the ants I have to trudge across. And also means sacrificing two ants from the gyne cocoon paths unless they'll live long enough to grab an item and trudge back.

[Opium]

Yeah drones are slow, but walking over bridges is slower... But if you have a A LOT of drones: it's not the trip time that matters, it's "drones per minute" or whatever... Just setup a loop super close to the edge of both islands: if you've got a drone arriving inside 10 seconds that's faster than you're going to incubate it... I had my drone production working off a timer: i think from memory every 8 seconds on my main 'old path' it would take an iron worker and make a drone... I would also create drones remotely wherever I was using workers (i.e. worker->big worker -> drone... i didn't bother making iron workers remotely). Anyway... you end up eventually with a reasonably stable number of drones (zoom right out and count global). For me that number was always 50 - 60: but i adjusted up or down as required just by changing that one timing gate.

You can walk ants over a bridge but you're kinda just wasting their life... I guess you could incubate them close to the other island then walk them over *shrug* it's handy having drones going back and forth anyway i found (i.e. drop a larvae off, return with materials, repeat)

[EmberStar]

I just recently unlocked the longer range catapults, and that helps. Distance between islands is still an issue, there's really small patches of each that are actually in range. At least until I get high enough to unlock the new radio stockpile / cargo transporter.

As far as drones, I've been trying to set them up to always be carrying something, although setting up stockpile gates across islands is pretty tedious. I really don't like letting them move anything that could potentially overflow. Mostly because sooner or later I always seem to miss setting up either an overflow stockpile or an emergency trash bin.