Gleba Spoilage I can't follow. - Complaint

[MXK]

Spoilage is happening too fast for me.
By the time I can find a section with an icon among hundreds of small icons to see what is supposed to happen next, stuff spoils.
By the time I figure out what is supposed to happen next, stuff spoils.
By the time I can figure out what goes where, stuff spoils.

I can't get anything meaningful going on, because things are happening too fast for me. And on top of that, spoilage is not very good for anything because it doesn't even burn for very long. It's very frustrating. Spoilage speed is anxiety inducing.
I am constantly running out into the fields trying to get more stuff manually!
Normal Factorio and Vulcanus I have time to do things at my own pace. Gleba, things are just happening too fast and I did not find any in-game tutorial beside what is Spoilage, which didn't help.
I hate to look on YT, because game should be self explanatory and so far isn't.
I find myself getting more and more angry as my frustration grows. Gaming should be a form of relaxation not frustration and anxiety.

PS - Speaking of small icons, why is there no option to zoom in on icons like there is on map? I've been playing Factorio for hundreds of hours and I still catch myself trying to zoom in on the icons!

[Hurkyl]

Note that the spoil timer on fruits and nuts is a whole hour, so you can take some time to plan things out before you start up your crafting chains.

And if you don't overharvest, you can use the same forest a few times if you have false starts. Lay out your buildings and plan the handcrafting, and scavenge just enough to get things running.

I went through the experience of things spoiling too, until I identified the problem and adjusted my habits to compensate.

And once you're deeper into producing things, it may help to try and focus on things with long (or nonexistent) spoil timers -- e.g. Bioflux and Rocket Fuel -- so you again have time to think about what to do with it, and/or have goods that won't spoil.

[MXK]

I know I have an hour with some items, but so what? The whole point is to process those items. The moment I start processing them into some sort of jelly for example, the timer rapidly advances. And I get lost again with new outputs, by the time I can even find out what to do with the outcomes.
And since I don't remember things easily anymore. After it turns into spoilage I don't even remember what the hell it was I was making in the first place and what was I supposed to do with it!
So I have to open the icon menu and look and try to remember what I was trying to do in the first place. It's a constant battle of what am I doing next?

[Awstrd]

Rather than trying to prevent spoilage, its easier to plan for it by having filter splitters or filter inserters to remove it and take it away so that it doesnt clog your factory.

Spoilage can actually be used to make a variety of things on Gleba including sulfur, carbon (for carbon fibre) and nutrients (though not as good as bioflux).

Spoilage is in fact decent when you burn it for power. If you use a fast inserter to put it into a heating tower, the red out of fuel sign will flicker, but dont be fooled - it will still be enough to raise the temperature high enough to provide heat for heat exchangers to make steam for power generation using steam turbines. It is much better source of power than solar, and you dont have to haul fuel cells for nuclear power.

The most important thing is to process all incoming fruits and nuts to get seeds from them so that you can replant and not run out of seeds. If your fruit or nuts are getting backed up, focus on processing it all to get seeds, and the send the excess yumako mash or jelly to a heating tower. Yumako mash and jelly are better than spoilage when burned for power.

Using bio chambers and productivity modules to process fruits and nuts will give you more seeds, fruits and nuts, thereby removing the need to run out into the fields to manually collect more.

Hope this helps.

[^4Steel ^1Jackal^2~FYANB~]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3461231120

consider this simple loop setup.

both splitters have their input priority set to "right" which will keep the items on the belt revolving at all times. the filtered splitter will remove any items that spoil and put them on another belt to go get disposed of.

i just mass produced nutrients to fill a belt and any that spoiled went into the heating towers to keep the base running.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by MXK:

I know I have an hour with some items, but so what? The whole point is to process those items. The moment I start processing them into some sort of jelly for example, the timer rapidly advances. And I get lost again with new outputs, by the time I can even find out what to do with the outcomes.
And since I don't remember things easily anymore. After it turns into spoilage I don't even remember what the hell it was I was making in the first place and what was I supposed to do with it!

If you build automation -- and note the jellynut -> jelly recipe can be done in an assembler if you don't have the biochambers yet -- you can look at your factory to see how the production chains go.

And if you have the biochambers so that handcrafting isn't part of the chains you want to experiment with, you can actually lay out the whole production chain you want to try before fetching the base materials to start it up.

And, if you need to, you can actually make in-game notes using the Display Panel. So, e.g., you can put up a couple signs listing out the steps of what you want to do, and then go get the base goods to try it out.

[MXK]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

(P.S. take the other comments with a grain of salt -- I don't think they've noticed you haven't gotten to the point where you've actually learned the production chains)

I was just going to comment, I can't even get a decent amount of Iron and Copper plates to make anything and he is already suggesting how to deal through some loops.

Notes? I have no idea where to look for it. Plus it's not my nature to make notes. I usually get lost in my own notes and abandon them in real life. so I doubt I'll be making anything of that sort.

Why is it so hard to figure out how to have a decent production of Iron for example so I am not constantly running out looking for.... something blue that turns into iron.

And why the cliffs so frustratingly blend in with everything! I am constantly running into walls! Color palette is just atrocious!

[Galileus]

Originally posted by MXK:

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

(P.S. take the other comments with a grain of salt -- I don't think they've noticed you haven't gotten to the point where you've actually learned the production chains)

I was just going to comment, I can't even get a decent amount of Iron and Copper plates to make anything and he is already suggesting how to deal through some loops.

Notes? I have no idea where to look for it. Plus it's not my nature to make notes. I usually get lost in my own notes and abandon them in real life. so I doubt I'll be making anything of that sort.

Why is it so hard to figure out how to have a decent production of Iron for example so I am not constantly running out looking for.... something blue that turns into iron.

And why the cliffs so frustratingly blend in with everything! I am constantly running into walls! Color palette is just atrocious!

At some point it's time to ask yourself - is it the game's fault, or is it me.

[MXK]

Originally posted by Galileus:

At some point it's time to ask yourself - is it the game's fault, or is it me.

That is a good question. However until now there was NO time limits on anything that I can think of in this game. So something has clearly changed.

I am not the youngest anymore, so this game worked very nicely for me because up until this point I had all the time in the world to approach it however I wanted. But now it forces me to remember things and I don't... "Sorry", but aging is a ♥♥♥♥♥.

And the horrible color scheme is definitely not my fault! Vulcanus and Nauvis I can clearly distinguish everything. Gleba looks like puke. Heck, I can't even distinguish where there is deep water and where is not!

[^4Steel ^1Jackal^2~FYANB~]

Originally posted by MXK:

Why is it so hard to figure out how to have a decent production of Iron for example so I am not constantly running out looking for.... something blue that turns into iron.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3461240181

this is the setup that i use to make iron ore from the iron bacteria.

you feed it nutrients and bioflux from the belt on the right (preferably from a loop like i mentioned before) and iron ore will get spit out on the left.

the chests and and inserters use some circuit conditions to automatically delete iron in the recycler if you make too much iron in order to prevent the bacteria from dying.

if you dont have the recycler yet, you can just slam down a bunch of chests to buffer the ore for later.

heres the blueprint string so you can just import it in to your game if you would like:

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

you can use this setup for copper as well, just make sure to change all the circuit conditions and filters to copper

[zombiemickey]

remember，every kind of bio-material（fruits and pentapod eggs）& materials derived from the fruits（mesh、jelly）can be burned as fuel，except bioflux，make nutrients on individual
production lines
you can just make traditional main bus with the *end* directly inserted to the *heating tower* if the loop is too much of a hassel，and the resource on gleba is infinite so nothing really need to worry about i hope

[Hurkyl]

I definitely agree visual clarity of terrain sucks in Space Age, which is really awkward on Gleba.

Originally posted by MXK:

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

(P.S. take the other comments with a grain of salt -- I don't think they've noticed you haven't gotten to the point where you've actually learned the production chains)

I was just going to comment, I can't even get a decent amount of Iron and Copper plates to make anything and he is already suggesting how to deal through some loops.

Notes? I have no idea where to look for it. Plus it's not my nature to make notes. I usually get lost in my own notes and abandon them in real life. so I doubt I'll be making anything of that sort.

The Display Panel item. It can be used to display an icon, and you can add freeform text to be displayed as well.

So you can use it, for example, as a quick reference for a sequence you want to handcraft things in, or where you want to lay out factory pieces, or whatnot. Or any other information you want to remember for later.

Why is it so hard to figure out how to have a decent production of Iron for example so I am not constantly running out looking for.... something blue that turns into iron.

Here's a good trick for scavenging: use the deconstruction planner to highlight an area, and it will show you the resources you could get from hand-mining. So you can use this trick to quickly tell whether there is any iron bacteria to mine in a region.

(note you don't get iron ore from rocks; you get the iron bacteria, which spoils into iron ore)

IIRC, the various kinds of rocks are biome-locked (as are the relevant trees), so if you have trouble finding iron rocks in one area, look in a different biome.

(I actually had to figure out the importance of biomes to even find Jellynut in my game)

Also, there is another option: you can use your space platform to ship the stuff you need (be it iron ore or more advanced products) from other planets. Or have the platform collect iron itself and drop it to Gleba.

I enjoyed the starting from scratch experience, but this is something you can do if you're having trouble bootstrapping your factory.

Once you figure out the production chains and how to get them working, you can fairly easily produce all the iron/copper you need, so the above is mainly to tide you over until you get to that point.

[MXK]

Originally posted by zombiemickey:

remember，every kind of bio-material（fruits and pentapod eggs）& materials derived from the fruits（mesh、jelly）can be burned as fuel，except bioflux，make nutrients on individual
production lines
you can just make traditional main bus with the *end* directly inserted to the *heating tower* if the loop is too much of a hassel，and the resource on gleba is infinite so nothing really need to worry about i hope

I am aware of that. I am just tired running out back and forth collecting more things by hand, brining them back to the base just to find out the other stuff I didn't babysit and forgot what to do with it in the mean time all spoiled. How much iron and copper can I bring by hand?

And then as I mentioned I forget what I was trying to make while I was gone that just turned into spoilage. So I setup something else, run out, just to find it turned into spoilage in the meantime.

I know I sound like I'm whining a lot, but nothing like that was happening up to this point.

My main gripe is that the game (or Gleba) expects me to remember and I simply don't! On other planets I could afford to forget what I was doing because I got distracted with something else. Here the timers relentlessly go down and turn into exactly the same item no matter what was the original item or what was supposed to happen with it.
Yes, it is my poor memory, but there is no fixing that! But until Gleba that was not an issue!

[Galileus]

Originally posted by MXK:

Originally posted by Galileus:

At some point it's time to ask yourself - is it the game's fault, or is it me.

That is a good question. However until now there was NO time limits on anything that I can think of in this game. So something has clearly changed.

The thing is, there is no time limit. You only impose one on yourself by trying to process things in real time. If you change your approach to prepare for processing instead, you won't need to do it fast.

[MXK]

Originally posted by Galileus:

Originally posted by MXK:

That is a good question. However until now there was NO time limits on anything that I can think of in this game. So something has clearly changed.

The thing is, there is no time limit. You only impose one on yourself by trying to process things in real time. If you change your approach to prepare for processing instead, you won't need to do it fast.

I don't even understand what are you trying to say.
Up until this point that's not how Factorio worked for me. For now, Gleba feels like a different game.

[Glyph]

You do have to work Gleba differently, but that's the entire challenge. The core of the entire production line there is Harvest fruit -> process fruit -> replant seeds. If you work out just that part, you can extrapolate the entire base.