I'm confused on the direction I need to go

[Remnar]

I am playing update 5 at the grass lands beginner area. I have reached tiers 3 & 4 and finished making 2 of the 3 items for the space elevator. I have basic parts, including stitched iron plate, rotors, and modular frames at my home base. I have steel pipes, beams, and encased beams at another location near by. I need to start making stators now, in order to complete the elevator items.

I thought I should bring everything to one location that has a main bus. The issue is, what to put there. I thought maybe I should put belts on the boxes of my basic parts and get them there; but I am also thinking this is the wrong way to do it.

I could overclock a tier 2 miner to get more coal from the current spots I have miners on, and build a separate section for stators; but that is getting complicated when coal gets much much further away. I could use some advice at this stage of the game.

[kLuns]

For steel bring one of the mined items to the other node and process it there. Steel pipes, steel beams, concrete and encased industrial beams are much more compact to transport.

Little trick for the space elevator part:

You only need 800 wire, 1000 cable and 300 steel pipe to make 100 automated wiring. You can do this in a container fed production line.
Focus on motor and encased industrial beam production you need them a lot for refineries and mk4 belts in the next tier.

[Remnar]

For the automated wiring, I can easily make the stators near the steel item production area. It's what to do after that. Things are already complicated, and it took some alternate recipes to make it easier (and produce more). So should I have a main bus, and just tear down everything and have all I need made at one location? The thing is I have a set number of items per minute being made. Like steel pipes 120 per minute, steel beams 45pm, etc, etc.. This is not going to work for more complicated systems, so I end up needing raw materials for the new parts. I could use trucks to bring ingots or w/e to a main bus. But as I said, finding bare resources gets to be a pain when they are high up and far away. I would prefer to stick with modular systems, but a main bus would be easier (but lot of work).

[SpaceCat]

So I'm relatively new to the game, just finishing my first playthrough essentially and it's not exactly pretty, but I kept starting over when I got to basically where you are (or maybe a little further along). What worked for me that kept me going was basically not to worry about logistics until I got trains--not sure if this is right or not, but trains really opens the world up, not only allowing you to transfer items over long distances easily, but also taking power and yourself across the map easily.

Once I got trains, I scouted out 3-4 prime locations for a combination of steel/iron/copper/oil products and used the rail to connect each of those modular factories to a sort of main storage hub (not a megafactory). I produce things (still) at that storage hub but it won't work without the train supplying the raw mats (specifically all steel products, rubber, plastic, silicon etc.) and even then production goes down fairly frequently since it's not optimized well. It's sloppy but it works (sort of, still needs a ton of refinement).

Now that power isn't really a huge concern (just got up my first turbo fuel hub and a couple nuclear generators), I'm focused on making factories for the two main t6 components (heavy modular frames and computers), which will then be bussed back to the storage hub to start branching out into automation of the t7-8 parts.

TLDR: I guess what I'm saying is that you will soon have the tools to make your logistics headache less of a headache so try to get to trains before scrapping the entire system.

[SpaceCat]

So I'm relatively new to the game, just finishing my first playthrough essentially and it's not exactly pretty, but I kept starting over when I got to basically where you are (or maybe a little further along). What worked for me that kept me going was basically not to worry about logistics until I got trains--not sure if this is right or not, but trains really opens the world up, not only allowing you to transfer items over long distances easily, but also taking power and yourself across the map easily.

Once I got trains, I scouted out 3-4 prime locations for a combination of steel/iron/copper/oil products and used the rail to connect each of those modular factories to a sort of main storage hub (not a megafactory). I produce things (still) at that storage hub but it won't work without the train supplying the raw mats (specifically all steel products, rubber, plastic, silicon etc.) and even then production goes down fairly frequently since it's not optimized well. It's sloppy but it works (sort of, still needs a ton of refinement).

Now that power isn't really a huge concern (just got up my first turbo fuel hub and a couple nuclear generators), I'm focused on making factories for the two main t6 components (heavy modular frames and computers), which will then be bussed back to the storage hub to start branching out into automation of the t7-8 parts.

TLDR: I guess what I'm saying is that you will soon have the tools to make your logistics headache less of a headache so try to get to trains before scrapping the entire system.

[Huillam]

Автор сообщения: Remnar

I thought I should bring everything to one location that has a main bus. The issue is, what to put there.

In my main base I centralize:
Concrete, Iron Rod, Steel Pipe, Screw, Copper Sheet, Wire, Quickwire, Rotor, Stator, Motor, Radio Control Unit, Turbo Motor, Cooling System, Electromagnetic Control Rod, Quartz Crystal, Silica, Crystal Oscillator, Iron Plate, Reinforced Iron Plate, Steel Beam, Encased Industrial Beam, Alclad Aluminium Sheet, Aluminium Casing, Cable, Modular Frame, Heavy Modular Frame, Fused Modular Frame, AI Limiter, Circuit Board, High-Speed Connector, Computer, Supercomputer, Plastic, Rubber.
That's a lot, but except for Screws and Stators everything here is used to build machines and having those items delivered in containers in your main base will make your life a whole lot easier.

Автор сообщения: Remnar

I could overclock a tier 2 miner to get more coal from the current spots I have miners on, and build a separate section for stators; but that is getting complicated when coal gets much much further away. I could use some advice at this stage of the game.

North-north-west of the field is a spot with copper, iron and coal (at varying altitude but not that far from each others) where you could build a factory for your stators.

And despite being labelled as beginner friendly, the grass lands is probably the worst starting area. The wildlife here is probably easier to handle (if I remember correctly it's mostly boars) but the resources are scarce. If you ever start a new playthrough, give a try to the Dune Desert. It has everything except crude oil, bauxite and uranium (none of those having any use early on) in large quantities.

[SpaceCat]

Yeah the above poster has basically the same thing I have centralized though I tend to bus lower tier items (such as screws, iron rods, etc.) in to whatever modular factory I'm making, and since I'm mostly building in dune desert there's so much iron/limestone/copper around that I just build what I need on the spot for that modular factory. Still need to tinker with my production line of t7-8 items like fused frames--using mostly drones for that at the moment to get the HMFs over to my nitrogen plug.

[Shahadem]

Grass Lands is actually the easiest for a newbie. And there are pure nodes of every early resource relatively close to the starting area although they aren't all packed together. But you don't need all pure early game anyways. The normal iron nodes are enough since there are a lot of them. Directly north or south you have several coal nodes with a pure iron and copper node and a lake. If you hit the coastline and follow it for a little while you will find a spot with a pure oil and 2 normal oil. There is also pure caterium near the start of the coast, and normal crystal right up on the cliff near the starting area.

Down in the cave is a uranium node.

And of course if you head straight up to the pink zone you have access to aluminum.

Having started on every starter zone the grasslands is the easiest if you have no clue what you are doing.

THe other starting areas are better if you already know where the pure nodes are and have a basic plan for the layout you are going to build.

[Remnar]

I hope I am not necro'ing my own thread here, but again I have no idea on what to do (or rather the specifics). If I choose a modular method or a main bus, one question is, how much of the items do I need to make?

If I use the bus method, then what to put on the bus? I could just keep the bus simple, and only make the items I need, pulling the ore or ingots; but such a build for a specific item would be huge. I recently built a factory making encased industrial beams, at 46 per minute. I am using alternative recipes and most of the constructors are over clocked to keep the size manageable. Still, it's a whole lot to make so little.

I watched a few videos but even if I just start doing something, I have no idea how many things I need unless I am making something specific. Should I build enough of small products to saturate T4 belts? Trucks are cool, but how much is necessary? If I make too much, I waste resources; if I make too little, it takes @#!? forever.

I also tore down everything at my main base. I am also on tiers 5 & 6, with everything researched.

[jhughes]

I don't think starting area really matters. By the time you are really doing things at Tier 7/8, you are going to need to have moved to several areas.

IMHO the easiest start is covered at time 10:30 here:

https://youtu.be/r4OuTLNj38Q

[Huillam]

Автор сообщения: Remnar

I am using alternative recipes and most of the constructors are over clocked to keep the size manageable.

Keep in my that the only thing limiting you in the game is resource per minute, not resource and definitly not space.
If it feels like that factory is too big, you should probably adapt your layout.
Overclocking machines isn't something you should do on a whim as the increase in their power consumption isn't linear (if you overclock a machine to 250% its power consumption will increase by more than that).

[SpaceCat]

I'd say don't worry about it? And I really mean that. Just make your encased steel beams, literally don't care whatsoever about how many you are making per minute, and bus them (or train them or whatever) to your main hub. Build your HMFs there. What you'll likely find is that you'll be chugging along making your HMFs when suddenly one of your lines is empty. Again, no math, no numbers, just one is empty--for me this almost always happens with modular frames. So then address that problem next. Do you need to mine more iron or do you need to adjust your lines? Now that that is sorted, you'll likely find that something else is empty. Fix that next. Repeat.

Basically use forethought for your production, and then when your forethought fails slightly in one direction (too little) or the other (too much), adjust.

[Liquidouz civilnetworks.net]

I feel you, I'm like stuck right now where im at and im just like, wtf am doing..?

[Bobucles]

Grasslands is a comfy starter zone, but it actually falls apart more quickly than most. It lacks access to good water, coal, or oil locations, so it suffers the most when trying to tech up.

[Ninjabiscuit90]

You're probably going to need to start branching outwards. I started in the grasslands too and I noticed pretty quickly that there's not really a lot of viable close stuff. Learn to set up trucks. I set up a couple truck stations. Jammed them with biofuel and had another container being fed the parts it needed then have it ship it out to where you need. But really practice setting up vehicle routes. Before the train, vehicles are a saving grace.
Take a break from building and look around the world to find some good locations that are also drivable.
Since you have a steel factory set up, what id suggest is set up a truck station there and find a copper node to start making copper wire. Set up an automation for the truck to deliever copper wire. Then ebxpand your steel pipe belts and use a splitter to feed into an assembly and have the truck station feed copper wire into the assembler.

Once you start getting more transportation options the entire world opens up to you. And taking resources from one spot to another is much easier.

[Bookslayer10]

Автор сообщения: Ninjabiscuit90

You're probably going to need to start branching outwards. I started in the grasslands too and I noticed pretty quickly that there's not really a lot of viable close stuff. Learn to set up trucks. I set up a couple truck stations. Jammed them with biofuel and had another container being fed the parts it needed then have it ship it out to where you need. But really practice setting up vehicle routes. Before the train, vehicles are a saving grace.
Take a break from building and look around the world to find some good locations that are also drivable.
Since you have a steel factory set up, what id suggest is set up a truck station there and find a copper node to start making copper wire. Set up an automation for the truck to deliever copper wire. Then ebxpand your steel pipe belts and use a splitter to feed into an assembly and have the truck station feed copper wire into the assembler.

Once you start getting more transportation options the entire world opens up to you. And taking resources from one spot to another is much easier.

Trucks are really bad though, they are horrible; just use belts for everything until you need to bring back oil, and just hand carry materials over a few times until you unlock trains to transport the oil products back automatically.

Feeding trucks with biofuel is a really bad idea because you'll constantly need to do increasingly difficult manual labour, wasting your most valuable resource, time. Using up your coal is a better idea, but still a bad option, as that could be used for more power or steel instead of wasted on running trucks when you could just use belts. For anything other than a featureless plain, trucks are also going to be more difficult to set up and maintain than belts - especially for a new player - and will be harder to upgrade the throughput of. I don't know why you would ever want to use trucks over belts.