Iron on Fulgora

[HyperLightDrifter]

This suggestion is for the Space Age DLC:

When setting up a new base on Fulgora for every playthrough I personally feel that the amount of iron available from mining scrap is low but fair for the resources returned, it's just that new bases need so much iron for all the belts, inserters, everything and it grinds the game to a crawl until you get enough of it. My suggestion to help speed up this process so people can get to the factory building and play the game without having to wait is to add a new recipe for steel recycling. allow it to be broken down into iron ore.

[RiO]

You can already break down gears into iron, which have a 20% rate from scrap ...

[HyperLightDrifter]

Yep, I'm aware of that. I just figured this suggestion would accomplish two things.
1. It would give steel a recycling recipe to add more complexity to the game.
2. It would help diminish the grind which is one of the things people are bringing up consistently in negative reviews.
Early game as far as initial planet goes that 20% is not even close to enough iron and you need the iron to increase scale to fix it.

[RiO]

Originally posted by HyperLightDrifter:

Early game as far as initial planet goes that 20% is not even close to enough iron and you need the iron to increase scale to fix it.

I call nonsense on that one.
I bootstrapped Fulgora to a point where it outputs 1 EM science p/sec and is reliably able to ship out rockets with it to passing platforms, and I barely had to touch the raw iron plate. The biggest iron sink being in piping for holmium solution and electrolyte which was maybe 1k plates in total; 2 at a stretch?

A surplus of inserters and belts could also just be brought in via your expedition platform. You are not meant to bootstrap everything locally. (If that's the game for you, then Aquilo will give you a very rough awakening.)


The biggest iron drain is possibly iron sticks used in rail and used in refined concrete that is in turn used for elevated rail supports and ramps. Which happens as soon as you start expanding for more scrap. At which point you'll suddenly tap so much, your recyclers basically start piling out with gears - and thus iron plates.

[HyperLightDrifter]

Your explanation for why there is enough iron on Fulgora for a new player making initial planet fall revolves around importing resources and late game examples when iron is plentiful.

[RiO]

Originally posted by HyperLightDrifter:

Your explanation for why there is enough iron on Fulgora for a new player making initial planet fall revolves around importing resources and late game examples when iron is plentiful.

No - I said you could import buildables; not resources.
Which is something you have to do for particular things like turbo belts, anyway.

[HyperLightDrifter]

Buildables, resources. Are we playing semantics or discussing a game change?

[RiO]

Originally posted by HyperLightDrifter:

Buildables, resources. Are we playing semantics or discussing a game change?

No, we're correcting a statement that tries to re-frame the argument as something it's not.

Importing of raw resources has the connotation of those being imports by the ten-thousands; continuously and indefinitely. Importing of buildables is logically incidental.

The one playing the semantics game, potentially in bad faith given how you're now replying and attempting to downplay, is you -- not me.

[HyperLightDrifter]

I used the word resources as a broad term that includes end product, intermediate and raw resources and a player can import whatever they need. I am not suggesting that you are suggesting people go about importing in the most inefficient way possible to meet their needs if they want to go that route.
Regardless it's not the topic of this posting.
More iron on Fulgora from steel wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion. If the devs intended for the player to import what they need to supplement what they don't have on the planet then so be it. Regardless, I have made this suggestion to see if people like it.

[RiO]

Originally posted by HyperLightDrifter:

More iron on Fulgora from steel wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion.

It actually would. But for a completely different reason.
Quality transfer.

There's a particular chain of recipes you can use to casually create infinite legendary copper and steel from - for all intents and purposes - nothing, or until you increase your production research modifiers high enough, very-very little input.

If the game were to have a steel-to-iron recycling recipe added, it would mean instant access to similarly infinite legendary iron and legendary copper, which begets basically everything else at legendary quality for zero effort.

[HyperLightDrifter]

You would need more water and raw stone on Fulgora to make any practical use of infinite iron, steel or copper unless a player wants to put a very large commitment into making that planet an exporting hub or unless a player sets up 20 or 30 space platforms to drop ice onto the planet, maybe more depending and you could use the planet to make science 3's at that point alongside electronic science.

[RiO]

Originally posted by HyperLightDrifter:

You would need more water and raw stone on Fulgora to make any practical use of infinite iron, steel or copper unless a player wants to put a very large commitment into making that planet an exporting hub or unless a player sets up 20 or 30 space platforms to drop ice onto the planet, maybe more depending and you could use the planet to make science 3's at that point alongside electronic science.

Recyclers work on any planet. You cannot consider the addition of a steel->iron recycling recipe in isolation to only Fulgora.

It would work on e.g. Vulcanus as well. (Which incidentally is where you can pull off the infinite legendaries trick through the lava-forging recipes.)

[HyperLightDrifter]

Oh now that is good to know. Everything in the game has been planet specific except for items that were specifically designed to be exported and I just assumed that applied to the recylers as well since there's no scrap anywhere else.
Considering your specific point, I don't see how it's an issue since Vulcanis already supplies limitless steel, copper and iron and a player would stand to gain very little from amplifying it using recylers. The amount of calcite used in production compared to what is supplied by the game may as well be infinite for how little is used....coal on the other hand used to make petroleum and carbon is always the limiter there and it would not be affected.

[RiO]

Originally posted by HyperLightDrifter:

Considering your specific point, I don't see how it's an issue since Vulcanis already supplies limitless steel, copper and iron and a player would stand to gain very little from amplifying it using recylers.

Vulcanus already supplies limitless steel, copper and iron -- yes. In normal quality.

There is however a trick you can do with legendary coal created via asteroid chunk shuffling (which is much faster and has much better yields than via recylers) until you have legendary carbonic asteroid chunks; using that to create legendary plastic; and then using that plastic with the LDS-from-lava recipe to create legendary LDS.

Feed that through a recycler; and boom, legendary copper, steel, and plastic back.
If your productivity rate is high enough (which you can reach, given LDS has a productivity research) you can get that all the way up to a self-sustaining infinite loop without needing any further input.

Adding a recycler recipe for steel->iron, means you not only have an exploit for legendary copper and steel, but also for legendary iron. And by extension anything made from iron and copper; like legendary green circuits.