Fulgora impressions and opinion

[Chuck]

I went to fulgora first because i wanted to get recyclers to make quality stuff easier. I didnt really know what to expect so i didnt bring anything, which was definitely a mistake. I have been stranded on this planet for the past few days. real days. The space platform got beat up on the way back so to be fair most of my time here was spent remotely viewing nauvis to make stations that make the stuff i needed to fix the platform, but i havent done much here anyway. Progression has been so slow, mostly because i just dont get the crafting here. I know the FFF talking about it basically said "its like regular progression but inverted" which makes sense on paper but ive been having such a hard time wrapping my head around it. I havent been able to make a good factory here that can make what it needs. I would appreciate it if i could see some screenshots of other peoples setups here because mine is definitely lacking. Its basically just a sorting loop that has all the scrap products put on it, but thats kind of where i get hung up on with what to do with each product.

I am definitely going back home though, i made a good amount of recyclers and will be taking them back, otherwise im going to check out vulcanus next, it looks more interesting. I dont like fulgora. Its dark and confusing. It probably wouldnt be if i understood it more but right now i hate this planet.

[Hurkyl]

Here's a really, really lazy solution:

• Create a "main line" that is a mixed belt of goods
  
• Feed scrap into recyclers and have them output onto the main line
  
• Filter out each item type and store it in a chest
  
• Run belts from those chests out to the productive part of your factory
  
• Create an "overflow" line that leads to a bunch of recyclers, which returns recycled results to the main line
  
• For each item type, use an inserter with a circuit condition to move items from the storage chest to the overflow line whenever there are 'too many' items in the chest. (e.g. be super lazy and just set 1000 for everything)

Then, whatever you're overproducing will get broken down into components, and ultimately things you can't use will get voided rather than clog your system.

I haven't mathed it out, but this is probably* a rather inefficient solution. But it does work so long as you have enough recycling to keep the lines from getting clogged. And that gives you time to plan something better while you're letting it do its thing.

*: My mathematician's gut is telling me that this is either "very inefficient" or "actually perfect" and probably not somewhere in the middle. I'm leaning towards expecting it to be inefficient, but not so much that I would be shocked to learn it achieves the perfect balance.

[Chuck]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Here's a really, really lazy solution:
...
Then, whatever you're overproducing will get broken down into components, and ultimately things you can't use will get voided rather than clog your system.

I sort of already did this except without the overflow, i havent had the chests or the main loop fill yet (except for gears, which has its own mini overflow), so I guess that means my problem now is that i dont make enough scrap.

I have a train running to a deposit of 15M scrap that is what i mine from and that train is pretty much always going back and forth. Looks like i just need a second train. Im all for lazy solutions though, especially on this planet. I only want to make electromagnetic plants, recyclers, and science, everything else, not here, excluding intermediates that have to be made here. I am not a fulgoran enjoyer.

Maybe my problem was i was trying to turn that main loop into a main bus like on nauvis. I think the main loop is the closet thing you can get to organizing resources on this planet.

[Hurkyl]

Ultimately, (IMO) the guiding logic is this.

Suppose I want to make copper because I need it in a recipe. Should I recycle copper wires? Batteries? Low Density Structures? Maybe even advanced circuits to get the copper wires I need to recycle those.

If I had a good idea about how much I needed from everything, I would know exactly which things to recycle and when.

But I don't.

So the point of the chests is to create a buffer, and then monitoring the buffer tells me "Ah, this is a thing I'm making too much of, so that's what should be recycled". So the buffer overflow gets sent off to the recyclers.

But something like green circuits is a trickier proposition: do I recycle blue chips? Red chips? Or assemble them from copper wires and iron plates? I'm not entirely sure I have the right solution for when to assemble green circuits versus preferring to tap them off the main loop.

[Chuck]

I see it now. I made the complete buffer overflow and just had filtered bulk inserters along the line to grab all the different item types. Definitely working better. Still dont have enough scrap and scrap recyclers though, but now i have a good variety of items visible and i can actually work with them. I guess fulgora is just overwhelming when you first land on it, trying to rewire a factorio brain thats used to a certain style of industry is hard.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Chuck:

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Here's a really, really lazy solution:
...
Then, whatever you're overproducing will get broken down into components, and ultimately things you can't use will get voided rather than clog your system.

I sort of already did this except without the overflow, i havent had the chests or the main loop fill yet (except for gears, which has its own mini overflow), so I guess that means my problem now is that i dont make enough scrap.

I have a train running to a deposit of 15M scrap that is what i mine from and that train is pretty much always going back and forth. Looks like i just need a second train. Im all for lazy solutions though, especially on this planet. I only want to make electromagnetic plants, recyclers, and science, everything else, not here, excluding intermediates that have to be made here. I am not a fulgoran enjoyer.

Maybe my problem was i was trying to turn that main loop into a main bus like on nauvis. I think the main loop is the closet thing you can get to organizing resources on this planet.

I dunno, I made a main bus type factory.

Mixed belt is sorted.

Each belt has an overflow line after sorting, leading into a recycling facility that destroys anything - a recycler loop can do this easily and you just make it big enough to destroy all the overflow. Obviously this is wasteful but it makes sure the factory keeps running and it's not like processing units and low density structures are in short supply anyway.

More belts are potentially added (actually just green circuits from processing units right now but I could improve this a lot)

Like I say mine's not all fixed up but you could easily make belts of plastic, iron plates, whatever you want this way. It's not perfectly efficient at the moment because I'm just wiping low density structures from existence right now but that's easily fixed by making outputs from the recycling loop for steel plates or whatever you need later.

Then the real bus begins!

One thing that helps is a lot of materials you don't get in the main stream just aren't needed.

Copper plates are basically unnecessary. Iron plates are easy enough to make locally rather than producing a whole bus.

Plastic bars might be worth adding to my bus, but realistically on Nauvis half the point of a bus is to collect stuff together to make circuits anyway lol

[Chuck]

Screenshots? What materials would even go on the bus if not copper and iron? I tried a main bus when i first got there and i never had enough iron to do anything with a bus.

[Kazouie]

I'll spare you the screenshots but i went with drone based economy.
Mining directly into recycler outputting into active provider chests.
LOTS of yellow chests and then anything i have more than 10k of gets thrown in a recycler.
It's a horrible goblin base but it works.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Chuck:

Screenshots? What materials would even go on the bus if not copper and iron? I tried a main bus when i first got there and i never had enough iron to do anything with a bus.

Well you just put the immediate products of recycling junk in a bus, right? All 12 of those. Plus maybe green circuts and plastic which you can just have output from the overflow recycling loop so they come from whatever backs up.

I mean gear wheels are the iron and wire is the copper anyway.

Then just pull off what you need. Most things just need some of those 12 anyway.

And you can save space because a few lines only go to a few things anyway. Like solid fuel becomes rocket fuel and ice becomes water (which you put on it as a pipe). Similarly stone and concrete likely don't go far

On the off chance a recipe needs iron or copper plates just produce them after pulling off the bus. Recyclers do it fast enough.

[Chuck]

Originally posted by Kazouie:

It's a horrible goblin base but it works.

well its a horrible goblin planet so do what you got to do

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by Chuck:

Screenshots? What materials would even go on the bus if not copper and iron? I tried a main bus when i first got there and i never had enough iron to do anything with a bus.

Well you just put the immediate products of recycling junk in a bus, right? All 12 of ... Recyclers do it fast enough.

Okay, i think i understand. I already sort the recycled products, but right now i just store everything. I could try a bus of intermediates. Definitely hard without foundations or cliff explosives. Being stuck on whatever island is big enough to justify storing things on can be tough. im just too used to nauvis.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Chuck:

Originally posted by Kazouie:

It's a horrible goblin base but it works.

well its a horrible goblin planet so do what you got to do

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Well you just put the immediate products of recycling junk in a bus, right? All 12 of ... Recyclers do it fast enough.

Okay, i think i understand. I already sort the recycled products, but right now i just store everything. I could try a bus of intermediates. Definitely hard without foundations or cliff explosives. Being stuck on whatever island is big enough to justify storing things on can be tough. im just too used to nauvis.

Ahh, I came with elevated train rails researched that could cross shallow oil ocean which might make a difference.

I mine on small islands and then ship to my big island.

And if I got really fancy I could ship sorted products to yet another. Honestly you can just use a train to sort all 12 items out at once anyway if you're wanting to save space

[ViolentSweed]

I just use logi bots for everything. I looked for a decently sized island with plenty of space and when I found one I just started scrapping. The stuff you get makes building up a bot army so fast and easy. The ocean is also heavy oil so it's ez to get lube. I was also not stupid and actually brought some basic stuff like miners, electric furnaces and assemblers.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by ViolentSweed:

I just use logi bots for everything. I looked for a decently sized island with plenty of space and when I found one I just started scrapping. The stuff you get makes building up a bot army so fast and easy. The ocean is also heavy oil so it's ez to get lube. I was also not stupid and actually brought some basic stuff like miners, electric furnaces and assemblers.

Personally bringing stuff would spoil so much of the fun though.

But I also think overuse of logistics bots spoils a lot of the fun too. I don't refuse to use them but try not to for anything I'm actually mass producing. (I make exceptions for making 1 single factory to make things I just want a small number of)

[ViolentSweed]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by ViolentSweed:

I just use logi bots for everything. I looked for a decently sized island with plenty of space and when I found one I just started scrapping. The stuff you get makes building up a bot army so fast and easy. The ocean is also heavy oil so it's ez to get lube. I was also not stupid and actually brought some basic stuff like miners, electric furnaces and assemblers.

Personally bringing stuff would spoil so much of the fun though.

But I also think overuse of logistics bots spoils a lot of the fun too. I don't refuse to use them but try not to for anything I'm actually mass producing. (I make exceptions for making 1 single factory to make things I just want a small number of)

I mean, if you're into intentionally breaking your own legs just so walking is harder and more annoying, go for it. The point of the planets isn't to start from scratch, it's to adapt to whatever the gimmic is on that specific planet.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by ViolentSweed:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Personally bringing stuff would spoil so much of the fun though.

But I also think overuse of logistics bots spoils a lot of the fun too. I don't refuse to use them but try not to for anything I'm actually mass producing. (I make exceptions for making 1 single factory to make things I just want a small number of)

I mean, if you're into intentionally breaking your own legs just so walking is harder and more annoying, go for it. The point of the planets isn't to start from scratch, it's to adapt to whatever the gimmic is on that specific planet.

You clearly have you own opinion but I think they were undeniably designed to be started from scratch and you're missing out on a lot of the fun.

[Nicholas Kane]

shoutouts to the "any planet start" mod
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/any-planet-start