Achievement Strategies

A presentation of various game data (as of version 0.13.1) to help players plan for tricky achievements. The aim of this guide is to help players find a foundation on which they can build. In other words, this guide gives milestones, not step-by-step instruction.

Disclaimers

Changes to research expected in version 0.15 will probably make everything in this guide obsolete and incorrect. This guide is an abandoned Work-no-longer-in-Progress, which I started prior to achievements being implemented based on the descriptions of the achievements released at the time. I wil probably just delete the guide when the new version drops.

Achievements are meant to be obtained without the use of any mods. 0.13.1 now grants achievements so long as all mods are disabled.

Lastly, the first thing you should always do is open the new achievement menu/tracker. Check which achievement you're trying to get and make sure there are no restrictions. e.g. Several achievements are disabled in "peaceful mode." So before you start playing, understand what will count and what will not count, and adjust your game settings if you so desire.

Lazy

Objective:

You may not craft manually more than 111 times. Please note how I describe the objective in contrast to how the achievement is written. What the achievement implies is that your output from manual crafting should be less than 111 objects. But that would be impossible: it takes a minimum of 125 outputs from manual crafting before you can even make one 'Assembly Machine 2.'

What the achievement tracks is not the output, but the number of times you craft. There are some crafting procedures that give multiple outputs from singular inputs. In these cases, what the achievement is tracking is not your output - it is tracking how many crafting procedures you complete by hand.

e.g. when you make 2 copper cable from 1 copper plate, the achievement counts that you crafted manually one time. It is not counting that you crafted 2 objects by hand. You can verify/confirm this in the achievement menu/tracker.

Returning to the matter at hand, your objective is to win, but winning requires several things that you can't yet automate. As such, your objective must expand such that Automation 1 and 2 have the highest priority, with Automation 3 being a priority at some point. You will need all 3 tiers of Assembly Machine to do the majority of production for you.

Note that, in order to research Automation 3 and unlock AM3, you will need plastic to make science pack 3. You can't make plastic by hand, and within the chain of processes that eventually lead to plastic, the one thing that you can't automate with AM1 or AM2 is the oil refinery (it requires 5 inputs and AM2 can only handle 4).

Major milestones:

Minimum manual crafting procedures:
- 1 lab
- 10 'science pack 1'
- 1 steam engine
- 1 boiler
- 1 offshore pump
- 2 total electric poles (impossible to craft only 1 because of input:output ratio)
- 1 'assembly machine 1'
- 1 'assembly machine 2'
- 1 oil refinery
subtotal: 18 crafting procedures

You must use AM1 to automate production of the science packs needed to research Electronics, Automation 2, etc. Also automate the intermediate components needed to craft AM2.

Moderate milestones:

Most of the above cannot be crafted outright. You will need to craft intermediate components. This changes the minimum manual crafting procedures needed to reach AM2 as follows:
- 15 electric circuits
- 33 iron gears
- 4 total conveyor belts (the input gears for these are included in the 33 stated above)
- 48 total copper cables
- 7 pipes
- 2 total wood
subtotal: 82 intermediate crafting procedures, and 100 total crafting procedures.

This means you have limited freedom to craft 11 other things manually (e.g. additional drills, furnaces, storage). You may wish to save one manual procedure for the Rocket Silo. You CANNOT make another research lab manually.

reminder: iron chests use one procedure, but wooden chests use two procedures

Minor milestones and extra hints:

Minimum raw materials needed to reach AM2:
- 337 iron ore, all converted to iron plate
- 148 copper ore, all converted to copper plate
- 1 raw wood
- 5 stone (to replace your starting furnace if you use it to make a boiler)

Lastly, regarding fuel and the minimum coal you should need:

Burner drill placement does not matter, either regarding the number of tiles with ore or the richness of the ore on the tiles. The fuel consumption for the drill will always be the same: 50 coal will mine 372 ores (and even more stone), as long as you do not move the drill.

Iron Throne

Objective:

At some point, produce iron plate at a rate of 400,000 plates/hour.

Formula: Each iron plate has a production time of 3.5 seconds / furnace crafting speed.

Disclaimers: It is not impossible to do this naturally, if you've been playing a significant amount of time and are running on a large scale with the infrastructure to support it. I think for many, though, this achievement will be something that we go out of the way to do just for the achievement. This guidance assumes you'll be building more furnaces than you actually want/need to continue supporting after getting the achievement.

Since you can't normally control whether the furnace is active or inactive, you can't just stick coal and iron inside it and hope for it to still be there while you go about placing other furnaces, inserters, et cetera. You'll want to pick one thing to put inside the furnace (coal is easier to track, because of the flashing red icon when it has none), and one thing to put in a container with a disconnected electric inserter ready to add it.

Plan to have at least 1 inserter for each achievement-dedicated furnace that you are building. Also decide which layout you want to use, so you can plan how many containers and electric poles you need to place. Then plan to satisfy the power demanded by the inserters (and any electric furnaces used).

Place all your furnaces so that none are operating, connect the network with the inactive inserters to a power source so that all furnaces activate simultaneously, and the achievement should pop.

Major milestones, the faster ways:

Speed modules can be added to electric furnaces to increase their production rate further, if you really have so many to spare. Consider the following:
Rate.........Furnaces Needed...Module Configuration
2.100k/hr... 191 minimum... 1
2.275k/hr... 176 minimum... 2 {research requires science pack 3}
2.450k/hr... 164 minimum... 1 + 1
2.625k/hr... 153 minimum... 3 {research requires science pack 4}
2.800k/hr... 143 minimum... 2 + 2 {research requires science pack 3}
3.500k/hr... 115 minimum... 3 + 3 {research requires science pack 4}

In most instances, I'd rather just build a dozen or so furnaces instead of building and placing 100-200 modules (plus satisfying all the power demand).

Major milestones, the modest way:

Steel furnaces and electric furnaces without modules craft at the same rate: roughly 1.75k/hr
You will need 229 furnaces, of some combination of those aforementioned.

The least demanding inserter requires 13 KW, so you'll need to supply at least 2,977 KW if you have a dedicated power supply or are willing/able to suspend all other operations when attempting the achievement this way.

Major milestones, the hard way:

1 stone furnace makes 1 iron plate in 3.5 seconds, therefore its rate is roughly 1.028k/hr
You would need 390 stone furnaces, all dedicated to iron plate, to eclipse 400k/hr
It will take several hours to set this up.

The least demanding inserter requires 13 KW, so you'll need to supply at least 5,070 KW if you have a dedicated power supply or are willing/able to suspend all other operations when attempting the achievement this way. You'll probably need over 10 steam generators, if you have no solar panels.

Circuit Veteran

Objective:

At some point, produce advanced circuits at a rate of 25,000/hr

Formula:

The production time for a machine = 8 seconds (recipe time) / crafting speed of machine

Notice
In this section, all asterisks (*) indicate potential inefficency. Building a beacon to effect only 1 or 2 machines wastes more resources and wastes the full potential of the module, as compared to putting the modules directly into the machine(s).

Major Milestones (Assembly Machine 3):

Rate.....Machine 3 Needed...Module Configuration (least demanding)
562.50/hr...45 minimum...None
675.00/hr...38 minimum...1
731.25/hr...35 minimum...2
787.50/hr...32 minimum...1+1
843.75/hr...30 minimum...3
900.00/hr...28 minimum...2+2
1,012.50/hr...25 minimum...2+2+1
1,068.75/hr...24 minimum...2+2+2
1,125.00/hr...23 minimum...3+3
1,237.50/hr...21 minimum...3+3+1
1,293.75/hr...20 minimum...3+3+2
1,406.25/hr...18 minimum...3+3+3
1,518.75/hr...17 minimum...3+3+3+1
1,575.00/hr...16 minimum...3+3+3+2
1,687.50/hr...15 minimum...3+3+3+3

Major Milestones (Assembly Machine 2):

Rate.....Machine 2 Needed...Module Configuration
337.50/hr...75 minimum...None
405.00/hr...62 minimum...1
438.75/hr...57 minimum...2
472.50/hr...53 minimum...1+1
506.25/hr...50 minimum...3
540.00/hr...47 minimum...2+2
675.00/hr...38 minimum...3+3

Major Milestones (AM3 & Beacon):

Assuming you actually want to keep using this setup beyond the achievement, the best layout that I can imagine uses 1 substation to power all of the machines in each hub (1 beacon and 8 surrounding assemblers). A hub would look something like this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=704006057
note: you cannot let the belt back-up with input, because there would be no place to put the output, which would cause the assemblers to stop production. You need end/exit inserters to catch input overflow, which you could return all the way to the start (the flow is managed better through storage chests).

If, however, you simply want to do the achievement, then it may be possible to place 12 assemblers around the beacon, stacking the input manually instead of constructing any input feed. The number of assemblers needed won't decrease, but the number of beacons (and modules) will.

Rate.....AM3/Beacon Needed...Module Configuration
562.500/hr...45/0 minimum...None
618.750/hr...41/6 minimum...B1*
646.875/hr...39/5 minimum...B2
675.000/hr...38/5 minimum...B1+B1
703.125/hr...36/5 minimum...B3
731.250/hr...35/5 minimum...B2+B2
843.750/hr...30/4 minimum...B3+B3

Major Milestones (AM2 & Beacon):

Rate.....AM2/Beacon Needed...Module Configuration
337.500/hr...75/0 minimum...None
371.250/hr...68/9 minimum...B1
388.125/hr...65/9 minimum...B2*
405.000/hr...62/8 minimum...B1+B1
421.875/hr...60/8 minimum...B3
438.750/hr...57/8 minimum...B2+B2*
506.250/hr...50/7 minimum...B3+B3*

If you really want to go overboard, you can use modules in both:
Rate.....AM2/Beacon Needed...Module Configuration
337.500/hr...75/0 minimum...None
438.750/hr...57/8 minimum...B1+A1*
455.625/hr...55/7 minimum...B2+A1
472.500/hr...53/7 minimum...B1+B1+A1
489.375/hr...52/7 minimum...B2+A2 or B3+A1
506.250/hr...50/7 minimum...B2+B2+A1*
523.125/hr...48/6 minimum...B3+A2
540.000/hr...47/6 minimum...B2+B2+A2 or B1+B1+A1+A1
573.750/hr...44/6 minimum...B3+B3+A1 or B2+B2+A1+A1
590.625/hr...43/6 minimum...B3+A3
607.500/hr...42/6 minimum...B3+B3+A2*
641.250/hr...39/5 minimum...B2+B2+A2+A2 or B3+B3+A1+A1
675.000/hr...38/5 minimum...B3+B3+A3
708.750/hr...36/5 minimum...B3+B3+A2+A2
843.750/hr...30/4 minimum...B3+B3+A3+A3

On Track Like A Pro

Objective:

Build a locomotive within 90 minutes of starting a new game. (5,400 seconds)

In some ways, this seems like more of a research race to me than anything else. You can't reliably accomplish this with just one research lab, as you would have to get it running in about 8 minutes. You have no idea where the resources will be from your spawn point, so just make the task much easier by building multiple labs.

Research Milestones:

I can't say much regarding in which order these should be done. My only inclinations are to start with Automation and then tackle everything that can be done without science pack 2. This allows you to get research done while still setting up assembly and input feeds.

Techs Required: Automation, Logistics, Electronics, Automation 2, Steel, Logistics 2, Engine, and Railway.

Total research cost: 390 'science pack 1' and 160 'science pack 2'

Total materials cost: 1,660 iron plate and 630 copper plate

Number of Labs	Total Research Time	Power	Iron	Copper
1	4,900 sec	60 KW	36	15
2	2,450 sec	120 KW	72	30
5	980 sec	300 KW	180	75
10	490 sec	600 KW	360	150

Keep in mind, if you are setting up 7-11 assembly machines, plus over 40 inserters, then you could easily find yourself in need of 5 steam engines @ 20 iron plates each (plus boilers!).

Production Milestones:

Research doesn't happen without the necessary input to feed consumption. You probably need well over 3,000 iron plate, plus over 1,000 copper plate, all restrained by stone furnaces. 3.5 seconds per plate means you've got over 14,000 seconds of coal to burn (probably around 550 coal for the furnaces alone).

There Is No Spoon

Objective:

Win in less than 8 hours (28,800 seconds) THIS SECTION WAS NEVER FINISHED

Research Milestones:

Essential/Required:
Automation, Logistics, Electronics, Automation 2, Steel Processing, Oil Processing, Fluid Handling, Sulfur Processing, Advanced Material Processing, Advanced Material Processing 2, Concrete, Plastics, Engine, Electric Engine, Advanced Electronics, Advanced Electronics 2, Modules, Speed Module, Productivity Module, Speed Module 2, Productivity Module 2, Optics, Solar Energy, Battery, Electric Energy Distribution, Electric Energy Accumulators, Alien Technology, Productivity Module 3, Speed Module 3, Explosives, Rocketry, Rocket Shooting Speed (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), Flammables, Rocket Silo

Beneficial:
Automation 3, Advanced Oil Processing, Lab Efficiency, Effect Transmission, anything to increase mobility, surviviability, and DPS

Total essential research cost:
4795 science pack 1, 4645 science pack 2, 2300 science pack 3, 2600 science pack 4

Total essential materials cost: iron plate, copper plate,

Number of Labs / Total Essential Research Time* / Power / Iron / Copper
1 / 209,100 sec / 60 KW / 36 / 15
2 / 104,550 sec / 120KW / 72 / 30
5 / 41,820 sec / 300 KW / 180 / 75
10 / 20,910 sec / 600 KW / 360 / 150
*Not all tech cycles divide by 2 or 10, therefore the actual time is longer for lab set-ups with those numbers (the difference is less than 90 seconds in all cases)

Note that this achievement is impossible without a significant number of labs running. It is fairly critical to get an efficient set-up that doesn't require you to stand watch, as you have to go about collecting a significant number of alien artifacts in order to finish the "late game" research. Alien hunting and evolution will probably pressure you to research several additional technologies for mobility and survivability.

No matter how many techs you decide to pursue, Lab Efficiency can make a huge difference. Just getting Lab Efficiency 1 early could save you 1 hour of essential research time, and Lab Efficiency 2 could save you 2.5 hours. (Note that with more labs, each lab does fewer research cycles, so the time saved by efficiency drops as the time saved by total lab number rises)

# of Productivity 2 Modules / Packs per Artifact / # of Artifacts needed for essential research
0 / 10 / 260
1 / 10.6 / 246
2 / 11.2 / 233
3 / 11.8 / 221
4 / 12.4 / 210
5 / 13 / 200 (2 modules per beacon + 1 beacon affecting each AM)

# of Productivity 2 Modules / Packs per Artifact / # of Artifacts needed for Productivity 3 research
0 / 10 / 30
1 / 10.6 / 29
2 / 11.2 / 27
3 / 11.8 / 26
4 / 12.4 / 25
5 / 13 / 24 (2 modules per beacon + 1 beacon affecting each AM)

# of Productivity 3 Modules / Packs per Artifact / # of Artifacts needed for essential research*
1 / 11 / 210
2 / 12 / 192
3 / 13 / 177
4 / 14 / 165
5 / 15 / 154 (2 modules per beacon + 1 beacon affecting each AM)
*Assumes Productivity Module 3 is already researched

Production Milestones:

Getting research done ASAP is one thing (given the alien artifacts need to be hunted down), but the win conditon also involves plenty that you cannot even begin crafting until the last technology is researched.

So, even though the silo could build 100 rocket parts in 300 seconds, you could find yourself in a pinch if you don't have a plant ready to craft intermediate components. 1,000 rocket control units, 1,050 rocket fuel, and 1,100 low density structures (LDS) all take 30 seconds per unit to assemble (w/o modules).

Having only 1 assembly machine for each of those inputs means your silo will be bottlenecked, waiting (30 / assembly machine crafting speed) seconds to begin each rocket part. You can't afford to wait 30,000 seconds for assembly machines to do their job: that's longer than 8 hours in and of itself.

You either need to get your production time down, set up plenty of machines to compensate for the slow production, or even better - do both. AM3 is strongly recommended, but remember to add Automation 3 research to the essential research.

# of AM3 / Crafting Speed / Time to complete 1,100 LDS
1 / 1.25 / 26,400 seconds
1 / 2.75 / 12,000 seconds
1 / 3.00 / 11,000 seconds*
10 / 1.25 / 2,640 seconds
10 / 2.75 / 1,200 seconds
10 / 3.00 / 1,100 seconds*
20 / 1.25 / 1,320 seconds
20 / 2.75 / 600 seconds
20 / 3.00 / 550 seconds*
*3 is achieved with six Speed 2 modules (two per beacon + 1 beacon affecting each AM3); that is the most you'll practically get without hunting additional alien artifacts

# of AM2 / Crafting Speed / Time to complete 1,100 LDS
1 / 0.75 / 44,000 seconds
1 / 1.20 / 27,500 seconds
1 / 1.425 / 23,158 seconds*
10 / 0.75 / 4,400 seconds
10 / 1.20 / 2,750 seconds
10 / 1.425 / 2,316 seconds*
20 / 0.75 / 2,200 seconds
20 / 1.20 / 1,375 seconds
20 / 1.425 / 1,158 seconds*
*1.425 is achieved with four Speed 2 modules (two per beacon + 1 beacon affecting each AM2); that is the most you'll practically get without hunting additional alien artifacts

Delivery Service

Objective:

Use logistics robots to acquire 10,000 items.

It's hard to set-up milestones for this, because it's not my place to tell you what to do with your logistics robots. If, however, you still don't have the achievement after playing naturally, and you are searching for some efficient way to knock it out...

I'm thinking ammo is the simplest solution for this:
-The most basic ammo only requires 2 iron plate, so producing thousands of that shouldn't consume as many resources as requesting other objects.
-It's generally a handy thing to have, so having a stockpile for yourself or for your turrets isn't the end of the world.
-You can dispense it fairly easily if you just want to be rid of it. Shoot rocks, trees, or whatever obsolete stuff you don't want in your inventory anymore (as long as it can be placed).

Ultimately, you can request to have anything delivered. Then simply return it manually to have it delivered again. But if that seems boring and grindy, then ammo is a thing you might be okay with stockpiling on your person.

Winning

1 Rocket Silo, 100 Rocket Parts, 1 Satellite

That's what you want to finish to finally "win" the game. But breaking that down is humongous.

1,300 Processing Units
1,000 Speed Modules
200 Electric Engine Units
5 Radar
100 Solar Panels
100 Basic Accumulators
500 Batteries
7,600 Advanced Circuits
20,700 Plastic Bars
48,125 Electric Circuits
1,650 Sulfuric Acid & Sulfur
1,000 Concrete
200 Engine Units
12,700 Steel Plate
500 Pipes
400 Lubricant/Heavy Oil
10,500 Solid Fuel
225 Iron Gears
174,775 Copper Cable
500 Stone Bricks

Raw:
1,000 stone
93,888 copper plate/ore
113,655 iron plate/113,755 iron ore
20,700 coal

THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE: inserters, assembly machines, belts, robots, storage chests, solar power, steam power, refineries, chemical plants, pumpjacks, pumps, barrels, drills, furnaces, train track, etc.

ALL of that was just to make the silo, satellite, and rocket.

But wait...

You need 64,575 petroleum gas

There are several paths to getting gas. Getting gas efficiently (i.e. minimizing the crude oil you have to secure) is worthy of its own section.

For starters, having refineries perform advanced oil processing is superior to basic oil processing. If you crack heavy oil, you basically get 1 petroleum gas for every 2 heavy oil. Advanced processing does give you 2 less heavy oil, but you get an extra 0.5 gas compared to cracking AND you'll have an extra 1.5 light oil to work with, too. Since light oil is the best thing to make solid fuel with, that's a fine payout. And you don't need a ton of heavy oil to turn into lubricant anyway.

We need 23,334 crude oil in order to have enough light oil to craft 10,500 solid fuel. That would give us 12,833 gas outright, plus 1,933 excess heavy oil that we could crack into 966 gas. So, we've got 13,799 gas guaranteed (if tenths aren't tracked/made/stored). How much more oil do we need to get the remaining 50,776?

0.55x (outright) + 0.3x (cracked from light oil) + 0.05x (cracked from heavy oil) = 50,776 = 0.9x
You still need 56,418 crude oil to make enough gas.

Long story short:
The absolute minimum crude oil you need to build 1 silo, 1 satellite, and 1 rocket = 79,752
But you have to use advanced oil processing on all of it, and take exactly 400 heavy oil out for lube, plus take exactly 10,500 light oil out for solid fuel. Then crack the rest to gas.

[Krin-San]

I found very easy to get "On Track Like a Pro" achievement by creating a blueprint of a small started base to produce basic sciences and only the stuff which is needed to handcraft a locomotive. Blueprint string: https://pastebin.com/raw/PVgPzHST

[Slimurgical (Stormy)]

For Delivery Service, just do iron plate itself isntead of ammo.

You jsut need anything delivered to you 10K times, so it could work with coal and ores, anything really.

[Lingluo]

In my spoon run I use 20 PM2 in labs and after I researched all the needed research,I pick up all the PM2 and craft them into 4 PM3 and then put them into the silo.

[Puph]

I think you should keep the guide up with a disclaimer that some numbers are off. The strategies you mention will always be applicable.

[MassConnect]

I haven't thought it through, but my expectation is that changes to research in the next version will make everything in this guide cease to be correct. It won't be as simple to fix as just recalculating numbers, though, so I'm expecting to delete the guide when that happens.

[>//The_FALCON]

A way to do the "there is no spoon" way is to watch a speedrun, memorize it and doing it on the same seeded map.

[MassConnect]

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend like I played the game a bunch and know everything, least of all the updates that have happened since I moved on. I'd add someone else as a contributor so they could update the guide, but trustworthy candidates aren't immediately obvious to one who isn't active in the community.

[Greenrover_0]

just a thing about the delivery achievement, if you auto trash and request so that both values overlap you can finish the achievement in about 3-4 mins MAX you only need one item to do this aswell so you don't waste resources on it, I used wood but if you want you can use a pistol or a shotgun etc. just think it's the quickest way to do it

[menghao]

I don't know about the Solaris achievement, I checked this guide for information on it and started to build up towards 10k panels... It just triggered a moment ago with 2.0k panels and 2.7k accos that have 13GJ of charge. I disconnected the steam engines a long time ago.

[Muman Rider]

For some reason I don't get achements, I should have ones like the polution achement but I don't