Conveyer Fed Biomass Generators Pls!

[Muffinmilk]

I love my biomass generators. They are so clean and green. And I have a wonderful truck station I can dump all my alien carcasses and grass and trees into and bam out comes tons of solid biofuel. But I still have to feed it into the biomass generators myself, all 4 of them, like every 5 mintues, because they're all max overclocked. I like the part about them that you can't fully automate them because all of their fuel comes from direct player harvesting, and but that last step of just putting the biofuel in could go. Then you could just load up a storage container with as much as you'll need for a while and it'll just deliver it for you. Then when it runs out you go on another adventure and get a bunch of dead aliens and trees and turn them all into delicious delicious biomass. I think being able to farm biomass automatically like with some kindof green house or something would ruin it, because that manual aspect of it makes it awesome, and sort of portable and on the go, but that last step unnessecarily tedious.

[sergetechone]

Here my 2 cent.

In Vanila ( regular game ), there is no Belt feed Bio-burner. So a mod has to be use. And there is a few mods that use a Belt feed Bio-burner. Even with that solution, power will be an issue so a coal fire power solution will offer more power for the factory.

So even with the regular Bio-burners, you can setup a Solid Biofuel factory that use Leaves, Woods and maybe Dead Aliens to make biomasses that can be convert into solid biofuel. When you are ready for a Coal Power Plant setup, you will need the surplus of power to prime the Coal Power Plant, by providing power for a miner, a water extractor and a pump to kick-start the first Coal power plant, until the Coal Power Plant solution is self sustain.

And when you start unlock the Liquid Fuel Power Plant, you can setup a Liquid Biofuel Power Plant setup, that use Leaves, Woods and maybe dead aliens into biomasses and into Solid biofuel and into Liquid Biofuel ( add water ) and maybe use that liquid biofuel and place them into jerry cans that can be use for your trucks / explorer.

So even with a Belt Feed Bio Burner Setup or a Liquid Biofuel setup, you still have to collect Leaves, Woods and maybe dead aliens and place into a container. Well, it will be a place to get rid of the Leaves / Woods. Or maybe setup a solid biomasses / biofuel / Fabric / Paint factory and place the extra into the Sink for some coupons points.

[DrNewcenstein]

Aven eredeti hozzászólása:

The more biomass generators you build, the less often you have to fill them. A stack of solid biomass will run a biomass generator at maximum usage for 50 minutes. However, If you build enough generators to produce twice what you need, a stack of solid biofuel in each generator will last twice as long, up to 100 minutes. Double the total number of generators again and you are over 3 hours between fillings. Set up a solid biomass production facility next to your generators and you’ll never complain about biomass again.

A biomass factory and power plant is the first project I tackle in a new game. My typical starting biomass facility has 25 or more generators, set up for easy traversal for refilling, as well leaf and wood storage, solid biomass production and storage, flower storage, and plenty of elevated power poles. It easily covers me taking my time to coal.

I won't ever understand the logic of this argument. You do not start the game with solid biomass. Unlocking it is a distraction. If it's staying, it needs to be an inline process where you HAVE to research it to progress to coal.

[Tenebris]

Maehlice eredeti hozzászólása:

Aven eredeti hozzászólása:

TI think a very noticeable and unavoidable in-game hint about the existence of coal and benefits of obtaining it would be far more beneficial to new players than letting them continue down a dead-end path.

I've been saying this since forever.

A new player without foreknowledge from outside the game has no idea about Coal. Even if they discover a coal node, they still have zero way to know what and when they'll get to do anything with it.

It's more likely that new players "make do" the best they can with Biomass than aimlessly rush forward in blind hope of something better that may or not be just around the corner.

What I'd like to see is more of a "tech tree" showing everything start to finish -- including alternates. But, at the least, I'd settle for Coal being "revealed" in the HUB kinda like how some techs are revealed ahead of time in the MAM.

This could honestly be fixed by ADA giving a voiceline when you build your first biomass generator that says something along the lines of: "Biomass power is inefficient, Fiscit HQ recommends that you search for a more substantial source of power as soon as possible"

Seems a lot easier than completely redesigning biomass burners. Because honestly, they are completely fine as they are.
hey are tedious on purpose, and anyone with slight critical thinking skills would put 2 and 2 together when looking at the rest of their factory (which is automated) and think: "huh, maybe there's automated power later on?"

[MJS WARLORD]

Hi Tenebris

I agree with everything you said , some players just dont get why biomass becomes hard work and i was one of them , i would describe biomass as a games starter pack.

i have never used a game of this type before so i have had a VERY steep learning curve i had 10 biomass producing power , i spent my first 20 or so hours using a trainer because i could not keep pace with the fuel they required .. yes i know it was wrong but i did it.

Their were several reasons why i stopped using the trainer.

1. some of those stupid animals knocked me down holes and no jet pack at that stage meant i was stuck , they also knocked me off the edge of my layout but because i had god mode on i was stuck in a green screen loop so could not die and respawn.

2. an infinite energy mode meant i did not really need coal power then common sense kicked in , how would i ever know if all my equipment was working properly if i could never run out of power .... thats defeating the object of the game .

I am please to say i have spent the last 180 or so hours playing clean but the trainer gave me one final kick in the teeth i have chests all over the place with destroyed building resources in them , example .... 1 chest has dozens of power cables in it , each with a value of 9,000 units ..... they will never be emptied because no way can i carry 1 pack of 900 units ...

I now have 24 coal powered power stations built cleanly.

[sergetechone]

Let me add this :

A bio burner generated 30 MW. So ... you are limited to build a minimum factory setup as possible, to build the necessary parts in order to build your base / factory. The number of bio burners will depend on the number of factory connected to them.

A coal power plant generated 75 MW. So you are limited to the numbers of coal mines purity, rate of the turbine ( that can be overclock ) and rate of the belt and pipes in which will determine the number of coal power plant that can be build. And of course, you need a water source near by.

And you will still need more power ....

A fuel generator generated 150 MW. Again, you are limited by the number of oil well purity, the rate of oil extractor ( that can be overclock ) the rate of the pipes and find a way to get rid off the by-product generated by the refineries.

At that point, you will have more power, but still no enough.

A geothermal generated about between 250 MW to 500 MW <-- I may be wrong, depending on the purity of the geyser. But you need to connected them and they are across the map and limited to 15 < --I may be wrong.

At this point, you are in the late game. And you still need more power.

Here come nuclear. A nuclear power plant generated 1200 MW < -- I can be wrong, you are limited to the number of uranium mines and rate of the pipes and turbines and water as to be near by. in order to build safely a nuclear power plant setup, you will need radiation protection, and that will consume a lots of Iodine filters and it will produce nuclear waste that need to be process into plutonium in order to get rid of the nuclear waste.

A particle accelerator is need in order to make a late game item ( nuclear pasta ) and you will need 4000 to ship through the Space Elevator. That particular machine need about 1200 MW (< -- I may be wrong ) in order to work properly.

So .... yeah .... YOU will NEED MORE POWER.

[Tekk]

umop-apisdn eredeti hozzászólása:

Nope.

Biomass burners are not and will not be belt fed because you're supposed to hate them.

Constantly picking flowers to feed your factory is inefficient on several levels, and the tedium is supposed to encourage you to advance so you can upgrade to something you can automate. The chainsaw is almost a noob trap, except that you can use it to destroy things that would otherwise get in the way of your factory (such as trees).

In addition, biomass is a limited resource; plants don't regrow (other than nuts and berries), so you'll eventually run out. To top it all off, biomass generates a tiny amount of power in comparison to anything else.

My personal rule of thumb is that if I find myself making a 6th biomass burner before unlocking coal, I'm taking too long to get to the next tier.

This is a curious comment!

You start off with a nope, and then the rest of your comment is practically one big argument for having conveyor fed Biomass Generators.

Constantly picking leaves, gathering wood or killing creatures would suck, especially coupled with the small amount of energy you get out.
that should make you hate them and encourage your to upgrade, not the fact that the devs force you to upgrade by having it be the only production device that can't be automated (mostly)

One could with a bit of luck have Smart splitters relatively early, set up a container that serves as a dump for organics, splits it out and turns to biomass.
A line set up to turn various organics into biomass, could also be converted to turning organics into coal (Biocoal Alternate) for a transition period

Biomass isn't a limited resource btw. Alien Carapace and Alien Organs can be turned into 100 and 200 biomass respectively.


Imagine if they removed auto-fueling of vehicles, because you should be encouraged to advance and get yourself a monorail.

IMO, having the option to go the inefficient route adds enjoyment to the game, especially for new players, and I'd also like to refer to Maehlice's excellent comment on new players and foreknowledge.

(I realize that you could set up aforementioned line and manually shift the output, but there's a big difference between having to provide the input manually, and also having to manually shift the end product on top of that)

[Aven]

Here is my biomass facility. 29 generators, 870 power, with central storage and processing for biomass and easy pathways thru for refilling. It took just a couple hours to get up and running and will easily handle my power needs through coal. I generally clear all biomass from an area before construction, as well as around ziplines and roads between facilities, so having to specifically farm biomass is never an issue.

Facility Exterior
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2751436271

Storage Room
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2751436134

First Floor Generators
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2751436235

[Mako Heero]

I was thinking, "if bios mass is this much of a tedious and boring pain, coal must be far worse"

So I avoided upgrading to coal, afraid of wasting my time for possibly nothing.

[Tenebris]

Tekk eredeti hozzászólása:

One could with a bit of luck have Smart splitters relatively early, set up a container that serves as a dump for organics, splits it out and turns to biomass.

Most people who have played the game do this by their second playthrough, but without the tedium of smart splitters, just set up 4 constructors in two parallel lines:

storage-->constructor-->constructor-->storage.

The first constructors take in leaves and wood and convert to biomass, then they both convert to solid biofuel in the second set of constructors, then they all go to 1 storage. Without any overclocking, this will easily fill the whole storage container while you're off doing other things

[Tekk]

Tenebris eredeti hozzászólása:

Tekk eredeti hozzászólása:

One could with a bit of luck have Smart splitters relatively early, set up a container that serves as a dump for organics, splits it out and turns to biomass.

Most people who have played the game do this by their second playthrough, but without the tedium of smart splitters, just set up 4 constructors in two parallel lines:

storage-->constructor-->constructor-->storage.

The first constructors take in leaves and wood and convert to biomass, then they both convert to solid biofuel in the second set of constructors, then they all go to 1 storage. Without any overclocking, this will easily fill the whole storage container while you're off doing other things

Right, and now imagine that could be fed to Biomass Generators, so you could just dump the "trash" in the container to have power.
I don't see the reason for this not being implemented.

[kLuns]

Tenebris eredeti hozzászólása:

Most people who have played the game do this by their second playthrough, but without the tedium of smart splitters, just set up 4 constructors in two parallel lines:

storage-->constructor-->constructor-->storage.

If you got a full inventory after harvesting you might want to use buffer containers between storage and first constructor to prevent problems or backing up. What also gets you very far in the phase before coal is reducing clock speed of all production buildings to 80%. I always use this 80% as maximum clock speed and get below that number in order to balance production

[Tenebris]

Tekk eredeti hozzászólása:

Tenebris eredeti hozzászólása:

Most people who have played the game do this by their second playthrough, but without the tedium of smart splitters, just set up 4 constructors in two parallel lines:

storage-->constructor-->constructor-->storage.

The first constructors take in leaves and wood and convert to biomass, then they both convert to solid biofuel in the second set of constructors, then they all go to 1 storage. Without any overclocking, this will easily fill the whole storage container while you're off doing other things

Right, and now imagine that could be fed to Biomass Generators, so you could just dump the "trash" in the container to have power.
I don't see the reason for this not being implemented.

Because it's supposed to be tedious. That's the entire point. What is so difficult to understand about this?

The devs wanna push you to a fully automated source of power. Adding belts to bio burners basically makes them automated, considering the sheer about of leaves, wood, and alien parts you can get in a single trip out, dozens of burners could remain powered for several hours with no intervention.

And that's not what the devs want, you shouldn't be dawdling around in tier 1-2 for an excessively long time. Even slower players who don't have hindsight will get to tier 3 in around 8-ish hours if they are purely following objectives

[Maehlice]

Tenebris eredeti hozzászólása:

Even slower players who don't have hindsight will get to tier 3 in around 8-ish hours if they are purely following objectives

That depends on which "objectives" are followed. Just the one displayed on screen (unlocking only what is minimally necessary for that specific goal)? The number-ordered Tiers? Research trees in the MAM? HDD looting after ADA tells you to find more?

There's a surprising amount of things in Phase 1 that can snag the player's attention once the hand-holding of onboarding ends.

---

I spent at least 30 hours in Phase 1 on my first playthrough. I unlocked each Tier in succession and then fully explored the facets of each one before moving on. "Field Research" in the MAM turned out to be a HUGE time suck, since it required a fair amount of exploration, travel, & the occasional stumbled-upon crash site.

EDIT: For me, Alien Organisms was the first thing discovered in the MAM, which immediately led to an insanely efficient Biomass source. It felt like providence the way it fell in line, so it genuinely felt like I was "doing the right things". I felt no impetus to rapidly advance (not that it matters when you have no idea what's around the corner anyway).

[Tekk]

Tenebris eredeti hozzászólása:

Tekk eredeti hozzászólása:

Right, and now imagine that could be fed to Biomass Generators, so you could just dump the "trash" in the container to have power.
I don't see the reason for this not being implemented.

Because it's supposed to be tedious. That's the entire point. What is so difficult to understand about this?

The devs wanna push you to a fully automated source of power. Adding belts to bio burners basically makes them automated, considering the sheer about of leaves, wood, and alien parts you can get in a single trip out, dozens of burners could remain powered for several hours with no intervention.

And that's not what the devs want, you shouldn't be dawdling around in tier 1-2 for an excessively long time. Even slower players who don't have hindsight will get to tier 3 in around 8-ish hours if they are purely following objectives

I'm sorry but, are you listening to yourself?
The devs want the early game to be tedious?
Do the devs want players to stay at Tier 3? Since you can automate power production at that point, and for some reason automated power production = no more progression?

Regardless, why shouldn't i be dawdling excessive amounts of time at tier 1-2?
Is there some time limit on finishing the game? Do i get some sort of reward for blowing through he tiers?
The choice should be mine, and coal being fully automated on top of generating more power per generator should be incentive enough, I mean, I doubt everyone just stops at Coal power just because it's hands-off.

Again referring to Maehlice more eloquent comment, I also spent a ton of time exploring during my game-play, and obtaining the plans for turning Alien organics into Biomass was actually the point where i realized that Biomass Generators couldn't be fed by conveyors, though it felt like a logical progression at that point.

Given the open world, and the flexible access to various recipes (though redundant at times), I get the feeling that the Devs definitely tries to make the benefits of certain advances apparent, but generally don't try to force it on the player, so I don't subscribe to the idea that the lack of Biomass Generator automation is a conscious attempt at forcing the player to advance.

[DrNewcenstein]

kLuns eredeti hozzászólása:

Tenebris eredeti hozzászólása:

Most people who have played the game do this by their second playthrough, but without the tedium of smart splitters, just set up 4 constructors in two parallel lines:

storage-->constructor-->constructor-->storage.

If you got a full inventory after harvesting you might want to use buffer containers between storage and first constructor to prevent problems or backing up. What also gets you very far in the phase before coal is reducing clock speed of all production buildings to 80%. I always use this 80% as maximum clock speed and get below that number in order to balance production

That's how I used to do mine. Containers for leaves, wood, carapace, and organs next to each other, feeding into Constructors, feeding into containers. When Solid biomass unlocked, I added another Constructor for each one that made that in front of each container, then fed that into another set of containers, or merged them into one.

Tekk eredeti hozzászólása:

Given the open world, and the flexible access to various recipes (though redundant at times), I get the feeling that the Devs definitely tries to make the benefits of certain advances apparent, but generally don't try to force it on the player, so I don't subscribe to the idea that the lack of Biomass Generator automation is a conscious attempt at forcing the player to advance.

The buildup to coal is unbalanced IMO, because of the tedium of biomass and the inability to automate it, along with the amount of stuff you are required to hand-craft to unlock the stuff that eliminates hand-crafting. You're constantly busy with a thousand things at once; keep the biomass coming, explore to find HDDs to unlock more efficient/better (or much worse) recipes, hand-craft items you can't automate yet because of reasons, other MAM research, suddenly you have to built Smart plating (Rotors and Reinforced Plate) which will consume everything you're currently trying to make so you can unlock the next tier, remodeling, upgrading belts and lifts, stockpiling inventories so you can try to get ahead, and then suddenly you're at coal and your workload gets cut in half once you get it running.

It's the hustle that makes it unbalanced. What's "fun" or "interesting" for one is not the case for all. I get the feeling the people who think it's "fun" or "interesting" haven't had a real job yet.