Mid-Game Question about Space Elevator Items (Adapative Control Unit / Modular Engine)

[F4lc0n]

Sadly, I started in the first biome because I thought it was the best for new players. I build my space elevator there and all my several smaller factories - not necessarily super tidy but efficient and I am producing my Space Elevator parts.
Now I advanced to the next stage and I have to re-use materials from the previous part, namely the Automated Wiring and Smart Plating. I have these factory lines all setup already. Only the new components are missing.

Now my Oil Refineries are quite far away on the middle west coast whereas my factories and space elevator are in the south west part of the map. I am wondering what to do now as I am not yet very experienced with the game.

Should I start building a completely new factory near the refineries that will produce everything from Ore to the finished product and then somehow transport it to the space elevator. Or should I try to extend my current factories and just bring in the rubber and plastic from the refineries. In both cases I need to somehow transport the goods - I guess I will have to go with trains (or might give the truck a try).

If I don't expand my current factory it will just keep producing stuff I don't really need. So, what would an experienced player do?

[DaBa]

You do what you want to do.

- You can build long pipes to move the oil closer to your main base (not recommended)
- You can use trains to carry the oil to your main base
- You can make everything oil related on the site and then use trucks/trains to move the final product to your base. Or you can just build long conveyor belts.
- You can start an entirely new, independent factory closer to the oil fields and leave your old one to just do what it already did.

There is no one valid option, it's all about how you want to proceed. It's a sandbox game about building factories after all.

[julupu]

I'm basically in the same spot right now - curious about the answers. For me personally I decided to just manually carry the automated wiring and smart plating to the new production sites and the finished products back to the elevator.
It's not really a lot of parts, so it's just a few trips that I'll do anyway and doesn't feel like it's worth automating yet (but I assume that will change later and I'm already dreading it). In my case, it's either way easier (numbers wise) to bring everything towards the oil than the other way around.

[Fenix]

There’s no such thing as something you don’t need, you will need it later, keep producing it

[DaBa]

Originally posted by julupu:

I'm basically in the same spot right now - curious about the answers. For me personally I decided to just manually carry the automated wiring and smart plating to the new production sites and the finished products back to the elevator.
It's not really a lot of parts, so it's just a few trips that I'll do anyway and doesn't feel like it's worth automating yet (but I assume that will change later and I'm already dreading it). In my case, it's either way easier (numbers wise) to bring everything towards the oil than the other way around.

That's how a lot of people seem to do it, including me. Since there is no long-term need for project assembly parts, you end up creating temporary construction lines for them, often even using your stockpiles to create the necessary parts. Then you just hand carry it to the space elevator and voila. Then you dismantle everything and carry on until you need new parts, then you repeat the process.

[kLuns]

carry 1000 motors and 1000 smart plating to an oil node. setup rubber production and you got modular engines
if you got enough power use somersloops
Use somersloops to make 4 times as much dna coupons and buy the computers and heavy modular frames from the awesome shop.

[Boothy]

That's part of the challenge of this game. Set up a new factory, or transport things in.

Personally I build specialist areas, such as oil related, steel related etc, then ship the end products (Computers etc) to where they are needed.

I also started in the first biome, I have my main iron and copper production done in the starting area (and concrete), with my steel just to the south along the edge of the map. My oil (and electronics) is way to the East, and my newly opened up Aluminium is far to the North of my starting location (approx centre of the map).

For automated transport you have road vehicles, trains and drones.

Road vehicles are the first unlock, but I usually just ignore these, other than for personal transport.

Trains are good for bulk, but of course take a bit of building tracks and stations etc.

Drones are easy to set up, but don't carry much, so better for high value parts.

So far I'm building all my space stuff at the main base (start location), and have just been travelling to the far locations myself (after leaving my inventory at the main base), and filling up my inventory with the stuff I need.

I've just unlocked drones, so am setting that up for some items, but plan to set up some trains going between the main factories for bulk items.

[F4lc0n]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Since it is not that many ressources, I probably just setup a Manufacturer and "handfeed" it the parts from the previous step. However, I don't know if I will need smart plating again in the future. Right now, it seems to be only used for the space elevator.

In any case - if I build a completely a new factory that produces everything from start to finish, I will have my old factory go to waste - don't really like that. But if I need more Modular Engines in the future, it might be better to setup a new factory - until I need the modular engine as ingredient and have the same problem again.

I guess I will have to start moving stuff around automatically at some point, but building "roads" is still something I don't quite get. My factories look ok on multi-story foundations but building foundations to create a road is quite tricky with all the clutter like rocks and hills in the way.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by F4lc0n:

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Since it is not that many ressources, I probably just setup a Manufacturer and "handfeed" it the parts from the previous step. However, I don't know if I will need smart plating again in the future. Right now, it seems to be only used for the space elevator.

In any case - if I build a completely a new factory that produces everything from start to finish, I will have my old factory go to waste - don't really like that. But if I need more Modular Engines in the future, it might be better to setup a new factory - until I need the modular engine as ingredient and have the same problem again.

I guess I will have to start moving stuff around automatically at some point, but building "roads" is still something I don't quite get. My factories look ok on multi-story foundations but building foundations to create a road is quite tricky with all the clutter like rocks and hills in the way.

Project Assembly parts are only used for space elevator, nothing else. They are entirely useless items outside that one purpose. You can safely ignore automating them, especially since it's so easy to just throw down a few assemblers or manufacturers and then just feed them your excess materials to create what you need for the next phase. That is, if you've been diligent enough to keep stockpiling all your excess production in storage crates and can just grab a 1000 motors and 10k cables on the spot.

[mikemonger]

Congratulations! You've hit the part of the game where trains come in really handy!

[Nibbie]

For that phase I ended up using the oil deposits in the SE corner in the big crater lake, and there was enough of the other materials around that I just made a new factory for those oil products and ran a stacked belt back for the elevator pieces, with all the other essential products just being dimensional depot'd. Haven't started with bauxite/aluminum yet, but I think I'm going to figure out trains and use them from now on.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by DaBa:

Project Assembly parts are only used for space elevator, nothing else. They are entirely useless items outside that one purpose. You can safely ignore automating them, especially since it's so easy to just throw down a few assemblers or manufacturers and then just feed them your excess materials to create what you need for the next phase. That is, if you've been diligent enough to keep stockpiling all your excess production in storage crates and can just grab a 1000 motors and 10k cables on the spot.

If you're being diligent, you can get ahead of the production for the high quantity or intermediate components earlier.
If you're being really diligent, you can have a single container filled with exactly the right quantity of a common material, then set up automatic production of the other stuff it needs, and you've now limited the production to only what you actually need.

But yeah, realistically, just set your To-Do List to half the requirement, and throw the items into containers feeding somersloop'd Assembler/Manufacturers. They aren't worth the production chain.
Maybe Phase 4 is the turning point for where you do want to be setting things up properly, but Phase 3, nah.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Evilsod:

Originally posted by DaBa:

Project Assembly parts are only used for space elevator, nothing else. They are entirely useless items outside that one purpose. You can safely ignore automating them, especially since it's so easy to just throw down a few assemblers or manufacturers and then just feed them your excess materials to create what you need for the next phase. That is, if you've been diligent enough to keep stockpiling all your excess production in storage crates and can just grab a 1000 motors and 10k cables on the spot.

If you're being diligent, you can get ahead of the production for the high quantity or intermediate components earlier.
If you're being really diligent, you can have a single container filled with exactly the right quantity of a common material, then set up automatic production of the other stuff it needs, and you've now limited the production to only what you actually need.

But yeah, realistically, just set your To-Do List to half the requirement, and throw the items into containers feeding somersloop'd Assembler/Manufacturers. They aren't worth the production chain.
Maybe Phase 4 is the turning point for where you do want to be setting things up properly, but Phase 3, nah.

You can do all that. But unless you've played the game before you can't know which one of those will be useful and in what quantities. So planning ahead is not possible, you can only hope that those modular engines you've just automated are going to be useful for future project assembly milestones, and guess as to what quantities of them you're going to need.

As a new player in the past once I figured out these items aren't useful for anything else I found the most logical approach to be what I described in my previous comment. As an experienced player now I know what I'm going to need so I can pre-plan some of the production, or at least know what rate of production for normal items I am going to end up needing in order to transform them later into project assembly parts.

OR you can still product every single item in the game, it's not like resources are limited so much that you need to pick and choose what you're making. Even useless project assembly parts can be turned into coupons, so technically even they have their uses.