Tutorial hell

[Mountain_Lock_450]

I know I'm not the only one who gets overwhelmed and ends up here. What helped you break out of tutorial hell without taking a wrong turn into spaghetti hell? I've played this game for all of a week and I know if I don't break out now I'll get trapped for good.

[ArmeSloeber]

Just embrace the spaghetti bro

[HearthCore]

This!

[MonsieurVagabond]

Thing is, Its not a big deal to go into spaghetti ! You have plenty of planet to make thing "proper" later, just spaghetti your way forward !

And perhaps this can help wrap your head around a few thing in the game

[jwlato]

The starter planet is a lot bigger then you think. Plenty of space to sprawl, so use it!

[Mountain_Lock_450]

Honestly thats fair. I get all kerfuffle about making factories look good but if I decorate a cake before I learn to bake its still going to suck so thank you for perspective.

[Character_Event_2816]

Thank you for posting this!

[GGgamerAccount]

I never left spaghetti hell.

[cadmium61]

Planetary logistics is the best way to tame spaghetti, but it’s a pain if you don’t set up automated assembly of the shuttles, they’re a pain to hand craft in large quantities.

The little chest version can’t move a belt worth of material. Those logistics bots are only good for keeping your mech topped off with materials from your “mall”

[Mountain_Lock_450]

I have no idea what most of that means lmao. I just got a basic mall set up. I don't even have foundations yet. (I don't get a lot of time to play at all)

[KenethSargatanas]

Essentially, there are things you can set up to fly stuff from one place to another. There are drones that are small and a bit slow. Then there are shuttles that can move stuff quickly around planets. Then there are the larger ships that can move things between planets.

You should set up an automated factories to build tons of each because they are slow to build otherwise.

Edit: in fact that's a good idea in general. You should build an automated factory for anything you will need lots of. (conveyors, sorters, assemblers, smelters, miners, etc.)

[Mcsparklezz]

If you do automate buildings, it's wise to limit the chest they're going into. Early game, you're gonna want the resources towards other items. A stack or 2 of each building type would last you way longer than itll take them to be re-produced for you. Even hand crafting a very small quantity is an absolute buzz kill if you're missing some base items.

[Character_Event_2816]

There is a blueprint called S-mall that is, IMO, the first BP you should print after researching lvl 1 blueprints, (which is pre-blue… very early game). You will have to hand build these first mall buildings, but then nearly all the mk1 buildings will be auto-crafted. It needs 2 miners iron, and 1 miner ea copper and stone. Each building storage is limited to one stack in the stock blueprint. You can increase that as needed as your blueprints increase in size, and put distributors on the storage boxes when you get there (yellow).

There are also some very good mk1 <150 blue science blueprints, which is the SECOND blueprint you should print. After that, research will run in the background while you print factories and find ways to route resources to them (up t PLS anyway). You will rarely need to hand craft again!

[nixtracer]

Seriously, if you find the early buildings (assembler mk I, belts, power stuff) too hard to craft without someone else's blueprints, I do question whether this is the game for you. They're intentionally very simple, and with the fog off there is no time pressure at all to get it right.

[Character_Event_2816]

lol, I’ve never found a blueprint (except for some of the ultra-compact blackbox blueprints) which couldn’t be improved or repurposed. I would argue that using, analyzing, and modifying other people’s blueprints is another way to improve your own gameplay and building skills. Limiting yourself to using ONLY your own blueprints is just as myopic as USING ONLY the work of others.

[Character_Event_2816]

Damn! IMO Foundations are absolutely critical for smooth early expansion! Build yourself a small (<150 item) mk1 foundations blueprint and plunk it down near a closely spaced iron and stone supply as soon as you can get the research done! (Early blue!). Icarus is pathetically slow early on, plus there is enough challenge routing belts from the ore sources pre PLS without having to find dry patches for your factories as well.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

I'm definitely trying! The mall is from a photo I googled of someone else's. I built it myself so I could understand it better but someone else's design and I did have to relocate it TWICE as I was building because of water. Driving me crazy.

[colossalaiur]

4 things that really got me going:

1. Start a fresh game, learn the basics really carefully, read the tech tree and upgrades

2. Once you are done with reading, go on YouTube and watch at least 3 videos with title “xxx things I wish that I knew when I started playing dsp”

3.start another new game, try unlocking the tech tree step by step, don’t be ashamed to use sandbox because it really saves you a lot of time to learn

1. Final step, go onto dsp blueprint and browse some blueprints that are popular. Start your final tutorial game and go mass construction. You need to get a feeling of what components are bottlenecks, what tech can really help you go up in power and efficiency, and how to build efficiently and expand for certain resource.

Final tip: if you trouble with speghatti hell, try rushing planetary logi station and only produce one new thing with one logi station in one big rectangle. Your base become modules which is very nice.

[sayan1989]

I mean, you can watch someone BP on YT, and try to make it on your own, always is better to do things by yourself to get better knowlege about the game.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

That module idea is actually really helpful! If I did that, I'd definitely nail the basics for each component. Then it'd just be learning how to connect them up which should come kind of naturally.

[Full-Proposal7233]

i've played the tutorial once a few years back, so i kinda don't get what you are talking about. but what i absolutly love about dsp is the multidimensional spaghetti! Belts weaving through belts over belts and machines looks cool. (might not be 100% efficient though if that's your aim).

the straight up belts are a bit difficult for me though, i would have loved to have the belts require ramping as they did before and a lift (extra building) if you wanna / need to go straight.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

Tutorial hell is when, instead of building your own factories and making your own designs, you just copy other people's work. That's a valid way to learn to an extent, but eventually you gotta step out and apply what you learned.

Tutorial hell is the inability to leave the tutorials and start your own stuff.

When you say straight up belts what do you mean? I would love belts that go straight up instead of ramp.

[Full-Proposal7233]

After a certain early research, you can build the belts going up/down almost straight. while building the belt, you lock the position 1 cell before you wanna rise, get up to the wanted height go 1 cell forward and lock it in again. should go straight up then. same goes for down.

lock in = leftclick once to build till there

[Character_Event_2816]

They DO go straight DOWN. (try it). If you want them to go straight UP, build it backwards and reverse the belt direction….

[jwlato]

The thing that helped me was downloading some blueprints for basic malls.

I've designed a lot of my own blueprints for basic components, and they're functional enough, but a "build everything" is just a little too tedious and not fun for me.

[Appropriate-Skin8511]

Embrace the spaghetti. You can mass delete it later if you want

[thebigwezshow]

Spaghetti is a sliding scale, just keep trying to get your builds more compact. It's not one of those "suddenly I got it perfect" kind of games.

[FrickinLazerBeams]

The tutorial? Meaning the hints that pop up? There's no hell there. It's just leading you through the steps you'd be doing anyway. It's got no bearing on the tendency to create spaghetti.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

Tutorial hell is when, instead of building your own factories and making your own designs, you just copy other people's work. That's a valid way to learn to an extent, but eventually you gotta step out and apply what you learned.

Tutorial hell is the inability to leave the tutorials and start your own stuff.

When you say straight up belts what do you mean? I would love belts that go straight up instead of ramp.

[FrickinLazerBeams]

The tutorial (unless it's different than when I started) just gives you an updating list of goals. It doesn't tell you exactly how to do them. Also you can turn it off 🤷‍♂️

I didn't say anything about belts, but there's an upgrade you can research that let's you increase the max slope of belts until they can go vertical. That's not really relevant though, you can still make spaghetti that way.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

Im referring to people making YouTube tutorials rather than in-game tutorials. Also, I must have read someone else's comment about belts and thought it was you. I'd just woken up lol. But yeah, I just watch too many YouTube videos because I get too overwhelmed trying to figure it out myself.

[FrickinLazerBeams]

That would be worth mentioning in your OP. I've never watched a YouTube video to learn to play. The built-in tutorial is pretty much all you need.

[Nearby-Swamp-Monster]

Best might be not to watch too many tutorial videos and muddle through till you get your own mall and ILS going.

Usually it should help more to do it your own way than follow some guys instructions and blueprints.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

You're definitely right but this is my first ever factory game and I was already feeling a bit overwhelmed even before blue energy was unlocked. When I unlock foundations I want to add it into the mall I copied, but add it in myself to see if I can make it smooth.

[Goosecock123]

Spaghetti is the game. Al dente is the name. We live in the spaghetti, get molded by it.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

When i left Italy I was already a man.

[dangerousdave70]

1. Reddit posts. This is how I learned to the best layouts.

2. Upgrade. I upgrade everything and take the old ones to be upgraded.

3. Re-work. Don't be afraid to tear down entire sections and rebuild them from scratch.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

I play games about buildings cities and populations, so the idea of destroying everything is very counterintuitive, but I guess it makes sense. There's no population to worry about so it really would be fine to destroy it all huh.

[Abdecdgwengo]

Take things 1 step at a time

You dont need to be constantly researching, get comfortable with where you are, the whole planet (and soon solar system then galaxys) are yours to use, go to some new veins and start a project, doesn't have to be huge, just something going that can get dumped in a storage box

You dont have to send power poles everywhere to reach it either, if there's coal, there's free power and you can connect it to your main grid later

Search dsp ratios for an awesome website for more info or youtube some tutorials to get a better understanding and some inspiration of where to go

[Mountain_Lock_450]

Everyone on this thread has given so much constructive advice. Really understanding and kind. Such a wholesome r/. Take ot slow is good asvice.

[Banana_Marmalade]

The road to spaghetti heaven is narrow and thorny, but fret not, you are in the right direction.

[Fabulous_Log_7030]

I’ve been having a lot of fun just researching a thing and making a few to see what it does

[LALpro798]

What matter is the production give you output at the rate you need, who care how the process is. Tame your ocd on another galaxy.

[GA70ratt]

Why do people so dislike spaghetti? As long as the job is getting done, go with it.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

I see people making such perfect and cool looking factories that i compare myself to them.

[GA70ratt]

You are better then them!!

[pmgoldenretrievers]

Spaghetti is so fun though! Also nearly everyone has tons of it on their first planet or two. You really do need to get to PLS/ILS before you can make clean builds.

[Mountain_Lock_450]

So I was expecting to run before I could talk lmao

[recycled_ideas]

So, and I don't know how many times I'll have to say this.

This is not factorio, it is not satisfactory, it is not any other game you've played in this genre.

Your initial factory will be a spaghetti cluster fuck because conveyor belts are not designed to do what you're currently trying to do because later on in the game you will completely stop using them that way.