How big of a factory do you build?

[Bookslayer10]

When I need to complete a space elevator tier I always think to myself, "How many items per minute should I make to beat this tier?" This playthrough I settled on a ratio of 6 parts per minute for every 100 parts I needed, and expanded my factory to procure that. That means I would need to wait just over 15 minutes to complete the parts requirement, which I now think was overkill, - by the time I set up every line the first one was done, and then my power grid blew, so I need to go and find more coal nodes to feed my burners. I need to turn off the factories I just built to power production for the rest of the space elevator parts, and I feel like they are going to be obsolete before I turn them back on. Now the game is starting to feel like a chore; I want to build a big factory, but I know that it's going to be a waste of time past a point.

I'd like to know, how long do you plan for your factories to take to fill the space elevator requirements? What is the sweet spot you decide on between effort and time waited? How many parts per minute do you plan on making for each resource between tiers as you unlock more technologies?

(I'm playing at dune desert by the way, so many pure iron nodesǃ)

[[BLK] Telu]

I just link up the part needed (from supply chain) to an assembler and i connect it to the space elevator and i go do something else. When it's done and than the item is not needed anymore for the next tiers, i ditch the assembler and do something else. (Putting extra part into an awesome sink)

For the first item, for example, i've linked up only one assembler and all 550 items were produce pretty quickly. (It's more easy with the product named "Automated Wiring" since there is good alternative recipe to do it quickly)

[Bookslayer10]

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

I just link up the part needed (from supply chain) to an assembler and i connect it to the space elevator and i go do something else. When it's done and than the item is not needed anymore for the next tiers, i ditch the assembler and do something else. (Putting extra part into an awesome sink)

For the first item, for example, i've linked up only one assembler and all 550 items were produce pretty quickly. (It's more easy with the product named "Automated Wiring" since there is good alternative recipe to do it quickly)

You just use a single assembler to build hundreds of space elevator parts? I guess if you wait for a few hours you would get enough, but do you produce lots of other parts, like your belt building materials?

[[BLK] Telu]

For Smart platting it's pretty quick.

You know, when you build a factory, it takes hours, so, during this time, the objective is complete.

You can also do with 2 assembler but i've figure out than 1 assembler is enough for T1.

I produce enough parts needed in the background for the assembler to turn at 100% efficiency.

Elevator parts are not used in the game after you complete tiers, it's a waste of time to invest in it. (The only case where it's useful is if you want to produce those parts just for pleasure to build a factory for them)

(You will need to destroy your factory anyway later in the game because there is better alternative recipe with plastic for elevators parts. Making your factory outdated. You can steal produce parts with it, it's a bonus but i think you understand me.)

[kLuns]

When my containers overflow the items will be sent to the space elevator factory, which runs only on excess storage. A lot of machines on standby when you grab stuff from the conatiners but it eases up the production lines. And always build more power generators than you need.

For the last phase, start modular and let the modular run in the background while you design bigger.

[umop-apisdn]

If you're getting bored waiting for the space elevator parts to finish, go do something else. Learn to wait faster.

I make the space elevator parts on an "as needed" basis, focusing instead on making factories to produce each item I can craft. It's not difficult to throw together manifolds feeding from storage containers into a bank of assemblers/manufacturers when it's time to make the space elevator parts, and I can go farm up some hard drives, nuts, and critter bits while I "wait".

I deliberately wait until I have completed all the available milestones on the current tiers and built production lines for everything I can craft before I start feeding the space elevator.

[nfgman]

Projecting 15 min for final space elevator project (Employee of the Planet),,,,

1000 Thermal Propulsion Rockets would require 67 turbo motors per minute.
4000 Assembly Directors would require 267 supercomputers per minute.

15 hours is a bit more realistic.

[[BLK] Telu]

People "down-cloacking" their machine anyway, because the ending of the game came too quickly.

[Bookslayer10]

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

If you're getting bored waiting for the space elevator parts to finish, go do something else. Learn to wait faster.

I make the space elevator parts on an "as needed" basis, focusing instead on making factories to produce each item I can craft. It's not difficult to throw together manifolds feeding from storage containers into a bank of assemblers/manufacturers when it's time to make the space elevator parts, and I can go farm up some hard drives, nuts, and critter bits while I "wait".

I deliberately wait until I have completed all the available milestones on the current tiers and built production lines for everything I can craft before I start feeding the space elevator.

My problem is that I overbuild all my craftable items as well. How many per minute of those do you make?

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by Bookslayer10:

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

If you're getting bored waiting for the space elevator parts to finish, go do something else. Learn to wait faster.

I make the space elevator parts on an "as needed" basis, focusing instead on making factories to produce each item I can craft. It's not difficult to throw together manifolds feeding from storage containers into a bank of assemblers/manufacturers when it's time to make the space elevator parts, and I can go farm up some hard drives, nuts, and critter bits while I "wait".

I deliberately wait until I have completed all the available milestones on the current tiers and built production lines for everything I can craft before I start feeding the space elevator.

My problem is that I overbuild all my craftable items as well. How many per minute of those do you make?

"Parts per minute" isn't really a factor in my planning; I pay more attention to the ratios of materials involved.

I build my factories to fully utilize whatever nearby resources I'm exploiting, with material/production "overflow" (whatever materials won't fit into the production line and whatever output doesn't fit into the container in preparation for transport) being shunted to a sink for coupons via a smart splitter.

As an early-game example:
The "stitched iron plate" recipe calls for 18.75 iron plates per minute and 37.5 wire per minute, to make 5.625 reinforced iron plates per minute.

Ignoring the silly non-integer production rates the recipe gives because we're going to underclock everything to perfection anyway, we determine that we need twice as much wire as iron plates.

Iron plates are produced at a 3:2 ratio of iron ingots, and wire is produced at a 1:2 ratio of copper ore, so we need 3 parts iron ore and 2 parts copper ore to produce our reinforced iron plates.

Therefore, we drop miners on some nodes in that ratio; 1 normal iron node, 1 impure iron node, and 1 normal copper node, for example. Using smelters (ie, not "alloy ingots" or "pure ingots", because this is early game and I want to keep the numbers small and simple), that gives us 90 iron ingots (60 plates) and 60 copper ingots (120 wire) per minute... which results in an output of 18 reinforced iron plates per minute.

I would probably build that as 6 assemblers running at 3 output items per minute (ie, a little over 50% clock speed each).

[Shahadem]

As small as possible.

I usually aim for making a complete production run.

So if the recipie is for 1 per 2 min that is what I aim for to start out.

Now if I am using that thing ALL the time like you do with reinforced iron plates until you unlock Mk 3 belts then I'll increase my production capacity accordingly to have enough to make all the belts I need.

But for space elevator parts I don't bother making them anymore. I did it once, didn't enjoy it, so now I just add whatever I need to unlock the next space elevator tier. Since I've already accomplished it in a prior save I earned the skip. Unlike the items you use for unlocks WITHIN the tier, the space elevator tiers aren't used outside the space elevator.

[MJS WARLORD]

Hello bookslayer i had never used a game like this before so as you can imagine i made a lot of noobie mistakes , my conveyors looked a mess because i did not make enough space for individual machines.

I am a good way through my second playthrough and now i have a different approach.
Just like last time i have built foundations on the big water area and i have created more build space by making foundations on top of the different slopes in the grassy fields , i then built outwards and downwards to box the cliff edges in and this also gave me more floor space.

As i know where i intend to put belts this time i spent a long time preparing walkways in all different directions instead of messy belts scattered all over the place

The one thing i will do different this time is to build a lot more of each machine and if not needed i can just turn them off.

Example ..... last time i only had 6 smelters and 6 constructors to make copper powder nuclear pasta and even that was not enough to keep the particle accelerator running to make nuclear pasta

[Bookslayer10]

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

Originally posted by Bookslayer10:

My problem is that I overbuild all my craftable items as well. How many per minute of those do you make?

"Parts per minute" isn't really a factor in my planning; I pay more attention to the ratios of materials involved.

I build my factories to fully utilise whatever nearby resources I'm exploiting, with material/production "overflow" (whatever materials won't fit into the production line and whatever output doesn't fit into the container in preparation for transport) being shunted to a sink for coupons via a smart splitter.

So if you just fully utilise every single node and then take from how much that produces to get your parts per minute for the elevator, then how many nodes do you go out and exploit typically?

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by Bookslayer10:

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

"Parts per minute" isn't really a factor in my planning; I pay more attention to the ratios of materials involved.

I build my factories to fully utilise whatever nearby resources I'm exploiting, with material/production "overflow" (whatever materials won't fit into the production line and whatever output doesn't fit into the container in preparation for transport) being shunted to a sink for coupons via a smart splitter.

So if you just fully utilise every single node and then take from how much that produces to get your parts per minute for the elevator, then how many nodes do you go out and exploit typically?

As many as are needed? I guess I don't understand the question.

Are you trying to determine the maximum amount of everything you can build? Just use one of the many calculators.
Are you trying to reach some target? Build against that target.

Me, I'm trying to have fun... which is why I'm playing a game.
Stressing about hitting some production goal isn't fun, it's work. I leave that at the shop, thanks.

[Nova Unit]

I can't really remember where exactly I was last time (before update 6), but I built several "bases" and kept feeding the space elevator with parts. Was a very short game.

[Man's Best Friend]

As big as I need it to be.

And then I make it bigger.