How to guarantee a very nice endgame factory.

[Honorable_D]

I see a lot of ppl asking about how much they should produce and how they should plan for the future. The common response to this isn't very helpful—it is always something along the lines of "It depends" or "How big you go is up to you".

Well, I'm here to give you the exact answer:

4 Particle Accelerators producing Nuclear Pasta at 100% (no under/over clocking)
3 Blenders producing Biochemical Sculptor at 100% (no under/over clocking)
2 Quantum Encoders producing AI Expansion Server at 100% (no under/over clocking)
2 Quantum Encoders producing Ballistic Warp Drive at 100% (no under/over clocking)

There you have it. The above is a sort of "magic ratio" where everything works out perfectly. The final tier of Elevator parts are the most complex in the game so this is your endgame goal. You'll find, working backwards from these parts at the above ratio, everything will work out perfectly.

***For example, lets take the 3 Blenders making the Sculptors. The 3 Blenders require .5 Assembly Director Systems each, so 1.5 per min.
***2 Assemblers making Assembly Director Systems make .75 per min each, so 1.5 per min total, which is exactly what you need.
***The 2 Assemblers making Assembly Director Systems require 1.5 per min Adaptive Control Units each, so 3 per min.
***3 Manufacturer making Adaptive Control Units make 1 per min each, so 3 per min total, which is exactly what you need.
***The 3 Manufacturers making Adaptive Control Units require 5 Automated Wiring each, so 15 per min.

So, finally, Automated Wiring is one of the "base" Elevator parts you make early on—6 Assemblers making Automated Wring is 15 per min, exactly what you need. See how the ratios all work out perfectly? This holds true for all the other endgame Elevator parts I listed above.

Obviously these parts take more than just previous Elevator parts to make, but again, all the ratios will work out nicely. This is why I called it a sort of "magic ratio" to shoot for. By starting at the end and planning backwards, you will find everything falls into place nicely and you can avoid the number 1 source of burnout—realizing you have incorrect ratio/production rates and now need to tear down and rebuild or somehow cram in more production.

Again, if you stick to the endgame goal of machines running at 100% that I listed above and plan backwards from that, you'll have an impressive factory from the ground up as you're going to need to automate and produce almost every item in the game to get there. Happy building Pioneers!

And remember, you can always go bigger by simply doubling or tripling what I listed,

[Honorable_D]

Note the reason I say 4 Particle Accelerators at 100% is because this will give you an extra 10 per min of Singularity Cell after you've made the 2 Encoders making Ballistic Warp Drive.

The 10 left over Cells is exactly enough to make 10 Ficsonium, which gives you exactly enough to make 5 per min of Ficsonium Fuel Rods which gives you exactly enough to power 5 Nuclear Reactor. Now, you also need to 10 Plutonium Waste per min to make that Ficsonium which is exactly 10 Plutonium Reactors running. To get 10 Plutonium Reactors running you need exactly 20 Uranium Reactors (assuming no alt recipes).

See how nicely it all works out? You can even dabble in Nuclear power if you want, or have those 10 per min Cells go towards a couple Portals. Willing to Sloop? Now you can have both!

[Ryzilynt]

I think my biggest recent "oh ♥♥♥♥" surprise was building out the line to feed my offshore nuclear waste processing facility. I was droning in the sulfuric acid and the nitric acid, packaged obviously, but I had never packaged and unpackaged liquids before. My experience was limited to packaging for sink or packaging for jet-pack.

I had no idea they packaged and unpacked at different rates. I had 40 reactors running at 250% making a ♥♥♥♥ ton of waste. I had built out all of the recycling before turning them on. But now i had to scramble. Thankfully i had my machines on a manifold, and I had spaced them out in a large factory, so i was able to squeeze in some extra machines on the unpackage side and shard to balance.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Ryzilynt:

I think my biggest recent "oh ♥♥♥♥" surprise was building out the line to feed my offshore nuclear waste processing facility. I was droning in the sulfuric acid and the nitric acid, packaged obviously, but I had never packaged and unpackaged liquids before. My experience was limited to packaging for sink or packaging for jet-pack.

I had no idea they packaged and unpacked at different rates. I had 40 reactors running at 250% making a ♥♥♥♥ ton of waste. I had built out all of the recycling before turning them on. But now i had to scramble. Thankfully i had my machines on a manifold, and I had spaced them out in a large factory, so i was able to squeeze in some extra machines on the unpackage side and shard to balance.

I experienced a similar instance with turbofuel packing/unpacking not matching - kind of an "well....####" moment myself.

Nice little gotcha from the dev's.

[SomethingCoolBro]

This is a nice post for those who enjoy a productive factory. But you don't need to produce that much to win. For instance, I had one particle accelerator producing pasta and that was more than enough while I got my power and infrastructure together for the rest of it.

My next play-through may very well use these values though, so thanks.

[Ryzilynt]

Originally posted by SomethingCoolBro:

This is a nice post for those who enjoy a productive factory. But you don't need to produce that much to win. For instance, I had one particle accelerator producing pasta and that was more than enough while I got my power and infrastructure together for the rest of it.

My next play-through may very well use these values though, so thanks.

You will see the "pasta" is full in all my screenshots. Also one machine. I think. it's back in the starter factory.

[Obz3hL33t]

Nuclear power is filled with "Oh Fics!" moments. It's a good test of your ability to pay attention to details for sure.

@Honorable: I dig your answer to that most common of newbie questions. It's got real, well thought-through numbers in it.

[randyeischer]

Originally posted by Honorable_D:

Note the reason I say 4 Particle Accelerators at 100% is because this will give you an extra 10 per min of Singularity Cell after you've made the 2 Encoders making Ballistic Warp Drive.

The 10 left over Cells is exactly enough to make 10 Ficsonium, which gives you exactly enough to make 5 per min of Ficsonium Fuel Rods which gives you exactly enough to power 5 Nuclear Reactor. Now, you also need to 10 Plutonium Waste per min to make that Ficsonium which is exactly 10 Plutonium Reactors running. To get 10 Plutonium Reactors running you need exactly 20 Uranium Reactors (assuming no alt recipes).

See how nicely it all works out? You can even dabble in Nuclear power if you want, or have those 10 per min Cells go towards a couple Portals. Willing to Sloop? Now you can have both!

The portal/Singularity cells come so late in the game that I wasn't even able to build any cells until about two hours before I finished the game, so there was no point in building any portals.

The 30-second delay alone turned me off of portals, let alone the materials cost behind just a single trip.

And I never messed with nuclear power. Again, the negatives far outweighed the benefits. I thought I was required to dabble in nuclear to make some Elevator parts, but nope. Not needed.

[nfgman]

No need to rush phase 5. It's over quickly. Especially with sloops. If you want to continue, you can convert and divert to alien power matrixes or ficsonium or ionised fuel, if you haven't already.

[Huren Ogeko]

Its not like the game ends after phase 5. For me completing phase 5 means the game is just beginning, because now I have everything unlocked and I have only my own goals to obtain.
So the real fun begins in phase 6.

[Honorable_D]

Yes, the Portals are very much a "too little' too late" kinda thing. Especially when you've got Hypertube Cannons and Liquid Biofuel for your jetpack to fly across the entire map with.

With the buffed Fuel Gens and new Rocket Fuel, Nuclear has lost some of its luster. However, I consider Nuclear to be pretty damn fun/satisfying to build and a sort of Badge of Honor if you get it automated all the way to Ficsonium Rods.

[Obz3hL33t]

My Southside build was compact enough hypertubes were enough, but I built a portal to the Rocky Desert uranium site just for fun. I plugged it in and teleported then checked my power storage. 17% left. With my current power output I can teleport once every 12 hours.

Nuclear power definitely has a use now, if it makes sense to build nuclear so as to afford teleporting to the nuclear plant.

[Tman]

Getting the coal and copper ingots to feed the particle accelerators is where the real effort is. Two pure copper nodes overclocked and feeding about 50 or so smelters is where the word "crapton" came from.

[Obz3hL33t]

Purify with water. Metric crapton.

[ShadowSkill11]

I just built my way thru phase 4 and my first nuclear plant and plutonium recycling facility myself. Then for phase 5 I started using blueprints and pieced together a large low, medium, and advanced facility that would produce everything at a slow but steady rate along with a nice blueprinted additional nuclear and recycling plant. I stuck drones to go to my phase 4 base and deliver advanced space elevator items I needed to speed up production at the new endgame base. For the final 4 production buildings I attached quantum storage to the storage units I had storing the endgame final 4 elevator items along with a portal to them with s subportal at my space elevator at my original early game base. I didn't need to do anything else except check my quantum storage and sit in front of the space elevator and load it up every 250 items.