Space Elevator Phase 2 Took 30 hours??

[Ink]

Rather than make advancing costs rational, or even reasonably complete-able by hand, or clearly "you should have multiple bases 5km apart from each other and waste 1,000's of metal for conveyors before trying this"...it's HOURS of waiting for coal to make it to the iron, and trying to get the coal power staying functional so you don't have to babysit burners.

I'm STILL NOT DONE, and I left it running over night. I disconnected my reserve storage for the components, so I will have to wait MORE hours when it's done to progress more. What a miserable game, who designed this!? Stop feeding them lead paint and crayons, and get them some help. What a waste of time, over and over.

[Man's Best Friend]

Do you have like, one machine for each product? Even with only one machine making each assembly product you should be done in under 5 hours as long as you can keep them fed. If it took you over 30 hours, you really need to re-evaluate your factory.

[ThoughtOfTruth]

I had about 2h. With many machines per Ressources.

[Scoob454]

People often say "there's no wrong way to play this game", though I feel like in your case this may not ring true. Are you working on steel parts, or just coal power in general?

This early on in the game, there really shouldn't be a need to belt coal multiple kilometers to your hub. You should be manufacturing everything on-site. If it's coal power, you should be looking for coal nodes within a few hundred meters of water. If it's steel, you should be looking for coal nodes within a few hundred meters of iron nodes.

Build your factory in the middle of whatever nodes you're using. If you're working on coal power, then build your power plants and run a power line to your main base. If you're working on steel parts, then build your factory and store the parts nearby. Yes, you will have to run back to pick up the finished parts as you need them, but at this point in the game you're probably better off doing that, as you don't need much to get to the next tier (which will unlock better logistical solutions for material delivery).

TL;DR

Don't rely on tier 1 or 2 belts for long distance delivery. At the end of the day, setting up a long distance belt will be the most efficient, but it usually takes way too much resources and time to set it up when you're that early in the tier progression. There really shouldn't be any need to leave the game running just to accumulate parts. Set up a necessary factory, make sure there are no issues with it, then move on to planning your next build project. As you're spending time in the game building other things you'll need in the future, the parts you need will constantly be produced.

[Maehlice]

Aren't you the same player who would rather tab out of the game than explore and expand your base?

If you're still AFK-ing and waiting idly instead of expanding your infrastructure, you're in for thousands of hours of not playing this game.

Something tells me it's not the devs here who've been eating lead paint and crayons.

[Ink]

Originally posted by Scoob454:

People often say "there's no wrong way to play this game", though I feel like in your case this may not ring true. Are you working on steel parts, or just coal power in general?

This early on in the game, there really shouldn't be a need to belt coal multiple kilometers to your hub. You should be manufacturing everything on-site. If it's coal power, you should be looking for coal nodes within a few hundred meters of water. If it's steel, you should be looking for coal nodes within a few hundred meters of iron nodes.

Build your factory in the middle of whatever nodes you're using. If you're working on coal power, then build your power plants and run a power line to your main base. If you're working on steel parts, then build your factory and store the parts nearby. Yes, you will have to run back to pick up the finished parts as you need them, but at this point in the game you're probably better off doing that, as you don't need much to get to the next tier (which will unlock better logistical solutions for material delivery).

TL;DR

Don't rely on tier 1 or 2 belts for long distance delivery. At the end of the day, setting up a long distance belt will be the most efficient, but it usually takes way too much resources and time to set it up when you're that early in the tier progression. There really shouldn't be any need to leave the game running just to accumulate parts. Set up a necessary factory, make sure there are no issues with it, then move on to planning your next build project. As you're spending time in the game building other things you'll need in the future, the parts you need will constantly be produced.

I didn't get coal near spawn. It was literally 2.3km away. Same with the water. Nearest Iron to that was down a cliff through gas clouds. I put my base down near starting resources, I have ten thousand copper products each almost, sitting in storage near by base, while I have to upgrade more than 5km of conveyors to not wait 10 minutes for it to get to me.

Nevermind that splitters deliberately slow down inflow to below even what Tier 1 can handle,or that I'm pulling from 2 coal sites to FINALLY STOP HAVING TO FEED THESE BURNERS. It's an enormous waste of time, I FINALLY got it done, and I turn and look and it's another 15 hours or I have to go build another 2km of conveyors to more coal 2km away, or move my supplies over to babysit that base until I move it all back to the elevator anyway??

I got stage 2 done, and I can't do a SINGLE upgrade step without hours more of wasting time -- all for a game with no point at all.

The wrong way to play this game is by paying for it.

[Doc✪Hollywood]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Aren't you the same player who would rather tab out of the game than explore and expand your base?

If you're still AFK-ing and waiting idly instead of expanding your infrastructure, you're in for thousands of hours of not playing this game.

Something tells me it's not the devs here who've been eating lead paint and crayons.

Probably.

... and then he wonders why it's taking 30 hours.

[mikemonger]

Which starting area did you pick?

Also, are you building multiple constructors for each product? Because if you're relying on one constructor to supply both your ongoing expansion as well as component production...yeah, you're going to be waiting for a long, long time.

And no...you never start next to coal. The Quest for Coal Power is the first impetus to explore beyond the starting area. That's by design. But in at least 3 starting areas, you'll find a lovely valley that has both coal and water right next to each other not too far out. HINT: Instead of conveying coal and piping water back to your base, just set up your coal plants in those valleys, and then run a power cable back to your base. Far fewer resources that way.

And finally, are you supplying your burners with leaves and wood, or are you processing them into biofuel and feeding that into your burners? Because if you do the former, you'll run out of local resources fairly quickly, as well as needing to constantly refill your burners.

The way I play, I normally need about 8 burners to supply enough infrastructure to both give me building materials as well as build the components to get the space elevator to coal.

It sounds like your problem is you're not building enough.

I have a fairly standard early game strategy:

Step 1: Research to biofuel.
Step 2: The first thing I automate production of: biofuel
Step 3: Get your space elevator built. Build new production lines for the stuff it wants.
Step 4: Build production lines for the stuff you'll need to expand the base (plates, rods, concrete).
Step 5: Run around for a couple of hours harvesting leaves and wood while that stuff gets made.
Step 6: Research advanced xenozapper and make one. You'll want the advanced xenozapper. Trust me.
Step 7: Research coal power
Step 8: Commence the Quest for Coal!

[Doc✪Hollywood]

Originally posted by mikemonger:

Step 1: Research to biofuel.
Step 2: The first thing I automate production of: biofuel
Step 3: Get your space elevator built. Build new production lines for the stuff it wants.
Step 4: Build production lines for the stuff you'll need to expand the base (plates, rods, concrete).
Step 5: Run around for a couple of hours harvesting leaves and wood while that stuff gets made.
Step 6: Research advanced xenozapper and make one. You'll want the advanced xenozapper. Trust me.
Step 7: Research coal power
Step 8: Commence the Quest for Coal!

Interesting protocoll. I suppose you mean Solid Biofuel

My procedure:


0) Unlock the map as first thing in the MAM.

1) Go straight to place with dead *wood* (e.g. in Red Dessert the oases, every starting zone has somewhere lot of dead wood lying around. activate auto-pick-up-mode: run about 15 - 20 miutes around and auto-gather. (If possible I dont pick up grass and brushes. they dont deliver that much biomass per piece and bloat savegames)

2) wood can get converted very fast by handcrafting into biomass. handcrafting biomass from grass/brush takes much longer.

3) build basic parts (plates, rods, screw, ReinforcedIronPlate (RIP) to expand the base and build a Central Power Plant of Bio Reactors

4) pillage 3 HDDs for better recipes of Screw, RIP, Modular Frame (MF) and Rotor.

5) as soon these three recipes are unlocked I gather Catherium and Raw Quartz and Mycelia , animal remains and slugs to unlock Bladerunner, Paraglider, Powershards and adjustable machine speed, Rebar Gun and Shatter Rebar!!!

6) Solid BioFuel Production Needs first a Milestone, right? After unlocking the map I find usually Spitters/Mergers, and faster belts (and maybe foundaments) more important than Solid Bioful. Without mergers and splitters and without conveyor belt Mk. 2 you wont have many machines anyway, hence normal biomass is sufficing.

But I totally understand that you Solid Biomass Earlier.

For me Parglider, Balderunner, Shatter Rebar and the 4 alternate recipes are just more important. Because once you pick up quartz or caterium etc. then there will be a lot new alt recipes and the 4 I need most will not appear first and be just somewhere among the many new alt recipes.

Last comment: "run for coal" always sounds good, but I find as long I don't have the other mentioned, important milestones production is too hampered. So ... it's not really a run for coal, I just try to get there fast, but also need the other parts and milestone on the way there.

[leaf dog]

Originally posted by Ink:

...it's HOURS of waiting for coal to make it to the iron, and trying to get the coal power staying functional so you don't have to babysit burners.

"Get the coal power to stay functional"? The coal goes in, you get power. No maintenance required. 1 full mk1 belt of coal + 2 water extractors = 4 generators, set it and forget it.

Make the steel offsite and deliver it by truck to your hub. Or, make a depot right next to a coal vein that both fuels the truck and fills its cargo bay with coal, then deliver the coal to an iron vein near your hub and make the steel there. You get tractors before you get steel, use them. If you're choosing to use a conveyor, you need to accept that it's going to be slow as hell. Don't dedicate yourself to playing in the most tedious, unreasonable way and then complain that the game is tedious and unreasonable.

Splitters and mergers are instant, as long as all the conveyors going in/out of the box are of the same tier.

[Fenix]

Honestly 30 hours is about right for a 1st playthru... I can knock out phase 2 in like what? 8 hours or so now, from starting a new save.

[Darren]

Wait. Babysit Burners? Coal Power staying functional? If you have issues with the coal Generators you should just rework because mainly theres something wrong there. it should be running on itself and be forgotten after building up lol.
Also i just can agree on other Tips here, dont bring the coal to some iron far away or whatever. Produce your stuff near the coal node and if needed bring the endproduct back to the base. Logistic at this Point of progress is not really needed. Later it will be, but then you'll have more options. And wth sitting there and waiting for something? Use the whole capacity of the nodes or work effective, Go exploring or hunt for some harddrives with better recipies or whatever, i never wait there for something, build it up, look if everythings running smooth and then do the next Thing. Theres always something to do or improve. Theres nothing wrong with the Game in this Case.

[DreamSword Souty]

Don't loose time with him. Look at his messages history, it's just a troll, who rage all the time

[Remnar]

I don't care for using tractors/trucks for logistics, yet I got them to work for me in my recent game. They get every basic resource, including steel ingots which are made at the resource location. I had to make use of blueprints, which are janky, but I got them to work for building roads.

For coal power, I build near the water with coal near by. If there is no such spot, it is still better to build by water and just truck in the coal. you could do it by belts too. The thing is coal power is best done in groups of 8, with 3 water extractors to feed each group. For every 8 coal power plants, you need 120 coal per minute.

I could agree by phase 4, that the final amounts needed are stupidly insane, considering how little they are made per minute. It's why I never finished this game. Also because a stupid coffee mug isn't worth the effort.

[Wolfgang]

If production is too slow build more production. Go out and find more resources. You will have to do it eventually anyway.

[NashEquil]

Originally posted by Ink:

The wrong way to play this game is by paying for it.

I can feel your frustration. There are "popular" games out there that I just don't like as well for one reason or another.

My advice (based on your comments so far, I am not so sure you want our advice)... If you don't enjoy it, then don't play it.

This game has overwhelmingly positive reviews. Go add your negative one to the list, and move on.