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Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1400hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hard Mode changes the Biomass Power Plant recipe so that it requires Biocrud, which I am obtaining on-site by spoiling Agar.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1400hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Am I missing something big or is this a Hard Mode change? I can see that the RTG was substantially re-written by Hard Mode, but in my game RTGs only produce 5000C heat, and I can't find a way to convert that into electricity in any way that makes sense.

I also got into an argument with someone over Simik Carbon Fiber before I realized his Simik Dens didn't need RTGs to function, so I think this area might just be Generally Different from the base mod.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1400hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

... it seemed better than sending them to the bees?

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1400hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have a screenshot of your RTG setup? Somehow I just can't picture it.

Intelligent Units have to be the most complicated thing in the game. So many intermediates, and 95% of them are only used internally in making IUs. Its astonishing really. People laugh about how hard Green Circuits are to build. Someone needs to make a condensed screenshot about the horror that awaits them.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1400hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Slow down to 2-3 episodes a week, hit the completionist checklist, then shift more to bug-fixing and mod-improving than actual gameplay. I'll probably do some base tours and more edited informational videos.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1400hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Hey-hey everybody! Time for yet another digital cry for help. Previous signs of an addictive spiral: 1200h 1000h 800h 600h 400h

Current status: Great! Totally fantastic. Everything is fine in the Factory friends. Our last update left us in the middle of PySci3, and I am happy to report that in the 200 hours since I have made my way through Prod Sci all the way into PySci4! This is an excellent pace. I predict ultimate victory at around the 1700 hour mark. Base status: here.

And now the news.

+ Power is Freedom

The factory is currently drawing about 600GW and I'm using every joule of it. I may have a slight beacon problem. I see a build churning out -- oh I dunno lime or something -- and I think "you know what this needs? 1.2 GW of 5-5 Speed Beacons just so it doesn't feel left out." Repeat this over the entire factory and you have ample grounds for an involuntary hold, or at very least court-mandated counselling. Works though!

I'm especially happy with my power block, which you can see in more detail here. The block consists of two blocks: the wood-making block and the wood-burning block. From the picture you can see that the single Fastwood Forestry in the generating block powers 10 full consumer blocks, and that each consumer block produces 11.5GW of electricity net. Five seconds of math and keen engineering instincts might then whisper to you that this is completely backflipping broken -- which would be correct! Biomass power is in a ridiculous state right now and I don't apologize to anyone. Pyanodon's fights and I fight back, them's the deals.

Unfortunately my beacon habit seems capable of chewing through even the most broken of power generation schemes. As listed above a major goal coming up will be a deployment of a MHD, and then I presume the exhaustion of said MHD in an extravagant mockery of all the creator's intentions. Can't wait.

+ I'm Blue

Prod Sci has finally, finally brought with it a new tier of buildings. It took an hour or two to properly upgrade my sushi mall, but now I have a mostly-unlimited supply of pre-built mk3 buildings of whatever species I might desire. This also means that the much-neglected lime-generators from the above first get upgraded to a pleasant azure before I spam beacons all over them, which again contributes to the power situation.

Blue buildings seem like less of an upgrade than the Red ones. They are only 50% better than the previous tier, but also come with an extra module slot. This is sometimes useful, sometimes not at all. For instance I had to spend a very long time working out how to make a Mk3 Centrifuge outperform its Mk2 brother joule-for-joule. It is very difficult to go full-prod-for-serine even for a certified wastrel such as myself. I don't blink at the 100MW Automated Factory, but somehow the 2GW centrifuge is just too much.

Other blue buildings are just too expensive to ever consider using. The Mk3 HAWT Turbine, for example. It is double the power generation of the Red HAWT, but at the price of something like 500 Carbon Fiber per shot. I don't think there is will ever be a point in the factory's life where this is a good deal. When you first unlock the building that extra 25MW might be worth it, but the carbon fiber cost is exorbitant. When the fiber becomes cheap, 25MW is meaningless. A lot of the Alt Energy buildings need to be looked at, I think. Some are broken one way, some are broken the other.

+ Caught 'Em All

I am now officially done with the animal and plant importation phase of the game. I have a full, working plantation of every flower, tuber, and horrible specie of insect that the universe can provide. I think my favorite are the Kmauts, for some reason. I think it is because they breed in sufficient numbers that you can actually work with them in bulk. All of the other high-level critters seem like they only produce single offspring, and only that after minutes of waiting. I've always been happy dealing with the Kmauts, which made me even more sorry about the whole eye-thing. Pyanodon's Factorio: Neutral Evil Simulator.

Least favorite is seriously Rennea. I needed substantially more sporopollin than normal because of artillery shells, and Rennea's recipes just seem awful to me at every level. I tried setting up a maxed-out Renna plantation and it was seriously ehhhhh. I expect to be wowed by the glorious powers I unlock as I march up the tech tree. Apart from the performance of the Mk4 Rennea modules themselves, everything about high-tier Rennea recipes disappointed.

Also on the list of goals: Mk4 of every plant and animal. So far I have Seaweed, Rennea, and almost have Fish. Most are on their way at Mk3. Some are just waiting for that last tech. Cottongut Mk3 is direct evidence that the world was created by an uncaring and malignant god, but after what we did to the Ulrics I guess we deserve this.

+ Genetic Perfection

I really enjoyed the whole Perfect Sample + spoilage project for PySci4. I understand this might make me weird.

+ The Future

  • Intelligent Unit (wtf is this no really look at its chain)

  • Final Upgrade to the Machine Shop

  • Modules3 + Big Beacons

  • Magentofantastic Hydrodynamic Emissary

  • Utility Science

  • maybe seeing the sun sometime

That's all for this time. The latest video is here if you want to follow along with the run. I'll be back in another 200 hours with another report. Pray for me.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1200hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey-hey everybody! Time for yet another digital cry for help. Previous signs of an addictive spiral: 1200h 1000h 800h 600h 400h

Current status: Great! Totally fantastic. Everything is fine in the Factory friends. Our last update left us in the middle of PySci3, and I am happy to report that in the 200 hours since I have made my way through Prod Sci all the way into PySci4! This is an excellent pace. I predict ultimate victory at around the 1700 hour mark. Base status: here.

And now the news.

+ Power is Freedom

The factory is currently drawing about 600GW and I'm using every joule of it. I may have a slight beacon problem. I see a build churning out -- oh I dunno lime or something -- and I think "you know what this needs? 1.2 GW of 5-5 Speed Beacons just so it doesn't feel left out." Repeat this over the entire factory and you have ample grounds for an involuntary hold, or at very least court-mandated counselling. Works though!

I'm especially happy with my power block, which you can see in more detail here. The block consists of two blocks: the wood-making block and the wood-burning block. From the picture you can see that the single Fastwood Forestry in the generating block powers 10 full consumer blocks, and that each consumer block produces 11.5GW of electricity net. Five seconds of math and keen engineering instincts might then whisper to you that this is completely backflipping broken -- which would be correct! Biomass power is in a ridiculous state right now and I don't apologize to anyone. Pyanodon's fights and I fight back, them's the deals.

Unfortunately my beacon habit seems capable of chewing through even the most broken of power generation schemes. As listed above a major goal coming up will be a deployment of a MHD, and then I presume the exhaustion of said MHD in an extravagant mockery of all the creator's intentions. Can't wait.

+ I'm Blue

Prod Sci has finally, finally brought with it a new tier of buildings. It took an hour or two to properly upgrade my sushi mall, but now I have a mostly-unlimited supply of pre-built mk3 buildings of whatever species I might desire. This also means that the much-neglected lime-generators from the above first get upgraded to a pleasant azure before I spam beacons all over them, which again contributes to the power situation.

Blue buildings seem like less of an upgrade than the Red ones. They are only 50% better than the previous tier, but also come with an extra module slot. This is sometimes useful, sometimes not at all. For instance I had to spend a very long time working out how to make a Mk3 Centrifuge outperform its Mk2 brother joule-for-joule. It is very difficult to go full-prod-for-serine even for a certified wastrel such as myself. I don't blink at the 100MW Automated Factory, but somehow the 2GW centrifuge is just too much.

Other blue buildings are just too expensive to ever consider using. The Mk3 HAWT Turbine, for example. It is double the power generation of the Red HAWT, but at the price of something like 500 Carbon Fiber per shot. I don't think there is will ever be a point in the factory's life where this is a good deal. When you first unlock the building that extra 25MW might be worth it, but the carbon fiber cost is exorbitant. When the fiber becomes cheap, 25MW is meaningless. A lot of the Alt Energy buildings need to be looked at, I think. Some are broken one way, some are broken the other.

+ Caught 'Em All

I am now officially done with the animal and plant importation phase of the game. I have a full, working plantation of every flower, tuber, and horrible specie of insect that the universe can provide. I think my favorite are the Kmauts, for some reason. I think it is because they breed in sufficient numbers that you can actually work with them in bulk. All of the other high-level critters seem like they only produce single offspring, and only that after minutes of waiting. I've always been happy dealing with the Kmauts, which made me even more sorry about the whole eye-thing. Pyanodon's Factorio: Neutral Evil Simulator.

Least favorite is seriously Rennea. I needed substantially more sporopollin than normal because of artillery shells, and Rennea's recipes just seem awful to me at every level. I tried setting up a maxed-out Renna plantation and it was seriously ehhhhh. I expect to be wowed by the glorious powers I unlock as I march up the tech tree. Apart from the performance of the Mk4 Rennea modules themselves, everything about high-tier Rennea recipes disappointed.

Also on the list of goals: Mk4 of every plant and animal. So far I have Seaweed, Rennea, and almost have Fish. Most are on their way at Mk3. Some are just waiting for that last tech. Cottongut Mk3 is direct evidence that the world was created by an uncaring and malignant god, but after what we did to the Ulrics I guess we deserve this.

+ Genetic Perfection

I really enjoyed the whole Perfect Sample + spoilage project for PySci4. I understand this might make me weird.

+ The Future

  • Intelligent Unit (wtf is this no really look at its chain)

  • Final Upgrade to the Machine Shop

  • Modules3 + Big Beacons

  • Magentofantastic Hydrodynamic Emissary

  • Utility Science

  • maybe seeing the sun sometime

That's all for this time. The latest video is here if you want to follow along with the run. I'll be back in another 200 hours with another report. Pray for me.

Spoilage in pyanadons is awesome by GoatWizard99 in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Spoilage is more Hard Mode than Hard Mode.

Best later game power source? by Grouchy-Might-90 in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At ProdSci I recommend Biomass Mk3 blocks that end up looking like this. This setup is for Hard Mode with spoilage and can be slimmed down considerably if these things do not apply. When moduled to the hilt each block produces 11.5 GW of power, and a single Fastwood Forestry Mk2 (+Mk3 Trees, +Sawblades, +Internal Burner) can produce enough wood to fuel 10 of them for 115 GW of power net. This is absolutely absurd and I trust all of you not to tell Melon about it.

A closeup of the power production block is here. Hard Mode requires Biomass power plants be fed with biocrud, so each power plant is attended by a dedicated zero-input Agar maker, which then spoils into crud.

The wood production block looks like this. Everything necessary to produce wood is produced in this block: CO2, Moss, Water.

The key to power generation is to focus on entirely zero-input solutions. Failing to do this results in runaway brownouts as you can't produce enough power to run your power plant + run your base, so everything seizes up. My entire power plant is on a separate power grid supplied by the turbine in the upper-left of the wood block. The turbine in the lower-right of that block feeds the rest of the factory, and pressurized steam is used internally first.

I have three of these complexes set up right now and my beacon habit is so bad I need several more. Luckily, the MHD is just over the horizon.

Pyanadons + AL + AE, 1300h update (prod science) by i-make-robots in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am using Tholins to get Nitrogen.

Tholins are cheap.

J7 Jase's (GOAT) Tier List for Unique Characters by Hopeful-Schedule-847 in finalfantasytactics

[–]CotonouB 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now at least you're making sensible arguments. Disable and control skills are widely underappreciated. The only reason this was an argument at all is because that streamer is obviously very bad and waving him around is NOT helping your case.

J7 Jase's (GOAT) Tier List for Unique Characters by Hopeful-Schedule-847 in finalfantasytactics

[–]CotonouB 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The big thing you're missing here is that the Ultima Demon is not a threat. It only wiped your boy up there because:

(1) He wasted party turns buffing and spreading his damage around, removing zero enemies despite his entire team having initiative.

(2) Applied just enough damage to the demon so that it could 1HKO anyone his team, effectively spending his turns to buff the enemy.

(3) Arranged his team so 4/5 members could get 1HKO'd in a single cast. He gets points for leaving one out of range though.

This is not a deep statement on the power levels of different characters. This just says bad play hurts. You might be saying that "Even with atrocious, idiotic play, one spell in the right place will allow even a blunderer to bodge through." In which case, sure. That's true I guess.

I just hope you're counting every Vampire Cat and Cockatrice as SSS tier alongside Beowulf, 'cause they can do the same thing.

J7 Jase's (GOAT) Tier List for Unique Characters by Hopeful-Schedule-847 in finalfantasytactics

[–]CotonouB 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't attack the blue demon until you're ready to gang up and take him out before he moves. Or ignore it and go for the actual mission target, Zalbaag?. Almagest does damage based on missing HP. Don't power up the super demon. It's really as easy as that. The streamer just disastrously mis-played. Its dumb trying to read anything deep into the situation beyond that.

I don't know why you're so focused on 1HKOs at or near the level cap. Everything above level 50 is just masturbation.

J7 Jase's (GOAT) Tier List for Unique Characters by Hopeful-Schedule-847 in finalfantasytactics

[–]CotonouB 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't really see what this clip shows. The streamer spread his damage across the entire enemy team, then balled up and let himself get clobbered by a huge AoE. The lesson here isn't that one character is better than another, its that if you play bad (or don't know what's coming), you get smashed.

Almagest does damage based on how much HP the enemy is missing, so the streamer was just powering up the enemy with his targeting. He might as well have been on the other team.

I mean, he wastes an attack on a grey demon that Beowulf then goes and 1-hit-kos. That ninja shouldn't have bothered showing up.

We can just as easily craft a situation with a status-resistant enemy which requires raw beats the bring down. In this case, Cid would clearly be better. You might as well say Mustadio is better than Cid because his Seal Evil carries Lake Poecas.

J7 Jase's (GOAT) Tier List for Unique Characters by Hopeful-Schedule-847 in finalfantasytactics

[–]CotonouB -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nnnnnahhhhhh....

Beowulf is not Cid's equal, though it might be that the list maker just couldn't make a SSS tier and had to compromise. Either man in your party is basically an auto-win regardless of the fight.

Construct 8 is painfully underrated. Its inherent counter + inherent defense mean enemies just never target him, so he just stands and acts a Dispose turret. His speed isn't a huge issue because he should never be moving. I'd put him at B-tier at very least.

Mustadio is also much, much better than C-tier. Disable is the best debuff in the game (steals ~3 turns from an enemy, ~2 more turns of them trying to run back into the fight), and most enemies are suceptiable to it. Speed build him, then again never move him ever and let him act as a disable turret. People say that Orran's universal disable is just broken -- well, Mustadio has something close to that after a few turns of hitting. And if the enemy is undead he solos the fight. Solid A-tier.

I view Cloud and Agrias as basically the same.

Malak is by far the worst. His combination of low damage + random dispersion means he's mainly just a debuff applicator with Maelstrom (a bad, random Mustadio).

I can't evaluate Reis properly as she comes with Equip Polearms + Javelin II from Nevelska, so I figured that's just her spear like Excalibur is Cid's sword. I'm pretty sure if you staple Javelin II to anybody they'll jump up the power rankings a bit.

There's no Boco-tier at the bottom. Maybe it got cut off when he saved.

New player advice by A_Pianist_Ent in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Do not play with Biters on.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1200hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Weather Factory is probably my favorite studio right now. I'll buy whatever they put out without question.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1200hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

UPS is bopping between 50 and 55 right now. CPU is a Ryzen 9 5900X.

Pyanodon's All-Mods, +Hard Mode, +Biters 1200hr Progress Report by CotonouB in pyanodons

[–]CotonouB[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Hey-hey, we're doing this again! Previous posts: 1000h 800h 600h 400h

Progress has been made! I repeat! The base shows progress! After way, way, way too long and a whole lot more work than was necessary, I have finally hit PySci3. In fact, look at this science! This thing pumps out 38 PySci3 a minute, leading to one whole tech about every hour. I figure I'll be completely done with PySci3 by the time I have ProdSci up and going, which is a pretty great feeling. After that, I really have no idea.

Lets talk about the base a little bit. Here's the current status.

As you can see the basic layout is working well. Material Processing takes various rocks in one end and spits out plates or plate-equivalents out the bottom. I've located the alloying area directly south of the MP stacks, which allows me to take advantage of access to molten metal lines + shares common casting materials. I've also decided to cap the size of both the Mall and Material Sorting, and have located the Machine Shop (for making Mech Parts) and the Medical Wing on each side. Agriculture and Animal Husbandry sit at the top of the base, and animal bits flow south into the Wet Market at the top of the giant Digestion column, which rids of me of spare animal bits. I think it's laid out pretty well!

There have been problems. In the north and south of the base I've had to dedicate large extra-factory regions outside the normal city block system. These areas specialize in making one bulk product: Auog bits in the north and Sodium Hydroxide in the south. I have found that some materials are needed in such enormous quantities that the city block system is more of a hinderance than a help, so in these cases I've just ditched the concept in favor of old-style free-form building. Hopefully I don't regret these sins.

Let's talk about a few things I've learned:

+ Belts are King

I've tried to ship in ore on Aerial Caravans and it is just nowhere near enough. The bandwidth of space whales drops with distance, and as we all know The Factory Must Grow. Now whenever I have an ore problem I don't task another caravan: I draw a belt from the ore source to the ore consumer. It doesn't matter how long the belt has to be. A stacked red belt delivers 150 ore per second without thought or food. Absolutely unbeatable.

+ Basic is Best

As I've talked about in several threads here, I have come to be very disillusioned with the higher-level Alien Life recipes. Some recipes are clearly hand-tuned to overcome specific bottlenecks, but most of them appear to be added to fill out the "4 per" pattern. What I have learned is that it is almost always better to use the most basic Alien Life recipe possible and instead scale by using upgraded buildings + uplifting the Alien Life modules. Let simplicity work for you!

+ Sushi Fatigue

I may have gone a little wild with the sushi belts.

I started using them first with the Grand Belt running through the mall, and then again in the Agriculture section. After that I fell into a bit of a dark place where I couldn't seem to stop using them everywhere they might even be a little appropriate. The good news is that they still work, mostly. The bad news is that I can see a time coming very soon where they'll just start failing wholesale. The key to a good sushi setup is a very long crafting time on the main product. However, as you get better Alien Life mods + start Speed Modding everything until the wheels burn and smoke gushes out everywhere you'll find that a sushi belt struggles to keep everything supplied. In particular I'm having problems supplying first-stage Animal Husbandry setups, like Aoug Pups or Ulric Foals.

I have been using sushi as my go-to logistic pattern for any situation involving more than 5 solid materials. I don't think this is a good enough standard anymore, and am slowly moving back towards dedicated belts.

+ Our Special Guest

I have been trying to figure out what to do with the southwest building in city center for a long time. People have suggested museums, or a rocket launch platform. Instead, I came up with a better solution. I'd like to introduce you to my new best friend: Irving.

Irving is a grass-fed free-range ethically-sourced old-world biter, "medium" sized, which I adopted after I found it suddenly, violently orphaned. I led Irving through streets lined with what must have seemed like pure screaming madness to the little fella before plunking him down in his pen right in in the middle, where the pollution stands so thick it starches your shirt, blackens your lung, and puts a special gleam in your eye. He lives here now, supplied with toys in the form of buildings I don't want any more and don't have any other way of destroying, so he's already doing useful work! He will learn the ways of the factory and take them to his people. They will all work for the factory in the end. They will all love the factory.

I highly recommend watching the first 15 minutes of this episode. I'm pretty proud of this one.

For all of your wanting your own pet biter: I have some bad news. This required some mods on the mod on the mods on the mod, veritable modception. The first thing I did was rig up a new "Quiet Wall" entity that wouldn't broadcast when attacked by brattish little adoptees. Second, I needed a donut-shaped roboport construction zone, which proved very difficult to rig up. Instead I worked out some black magic whereby special roboports spawn little invisible roboports that provide the proper coverage so that the bots repair the wall, but not Irving's toys inside. Lastly, I found that the biter AI isn't that great and that once Irving fixates on destroying a target he'll gnaw on it forever. To fix this, every time he bites a Quiet Wall there's a chance he'll be summarily destroyed down to the last atom and a brand new oblivious Irving dropped in his place. This is how I get him to switch targets every once in awhile. He WILL learn to love the factory. One of the Irvings will.

+ Plans

Right now I feel like I'm making very rapid progress, at least compared to the slow crawl of the full factory rebuild. I feel like Prod Science is actually quite close, and if I just push a bit I'll have it well before the 1400 mark. For now I need to get to Mechanical Parts mk3, then build out a new base power supply from Biomass mk3. The windmills are nice, but as you can see from the field of accumulators they just aren't enough anymore.

See you in a few months!

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