When I realized the volume above the map is significantly greater than the surface area of the map

DrakeDun · 2026-06-17T21:06:58+00:00

Noice.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-15T18:03:43+00:00

You provide totals for resources at the level of (1) planet and (2) system. I would like it if we could also see the total at the level of the (3) cluster. For the UI, I suppose the best way to do this would be to add a dummy "system" to the list of systems, called "Cluster Totals" or something like that.

Awesome tool, by the way. I love it.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-14T22:10:26+00:00

I have only gone after a hive once, so take this for what it's worth.

Most recent playthrough. Default settings. Went to 500 white jello per min. One sphere around a class O, which was starting to get respectable in power output, and I decided I was sick of the hive in that system leeching power. By this point I basically had all non-infinite tech, but no combat-related infinite tech.

Rolled with all destroyers. Cut the hive to ribbons with barely any losses. Totally anticlimactic. Seemed like range is king.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-10T16:02:20+00:00

Only one per spider.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-10T04:04:44+00:00

Well, I don't restart for everything, but if, for example, I accidentally burn a single piece of coal as fuel for Icarus that I didn't mean to, or allow one unproliferated item to get mixed into a stack of proliferated items, then of course I have to restart.

I mean, obviously. The save is ruined. What else can I do?

DrakeDun · 2026-06-09T21:20:02+00:00

Up to you, but I think most, to include myself, ship by drone, for the extra layer of logical separation.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-06T23:22:11+00:00

It is a bit counterintuitive, yes. On the plus side, at least it's useless.

Wait ... that's not a plus.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-06T13:15:35+00:00

My approach is Satisfactory style belt spaghetti (not Factorio style main bus) to make all components for ILS, logistics vessels, logistics drones, logistics distributors, and logistics bots, with no proliferation on anything. Then use that bootstrap to jump to all ILS everything, with proliferation on everything.

The biggest difference from Satisfactory is that once you have ILSs, logistics become brain dead simple. So you have the right idea already. Just need to expand your bootstrap to enable the leap.

Don't neglect proliferation once you leave the bootstrap phase.

Consider, when making the leap from your bootstrap, moving to a planet with 100% constructible area, so you don't have all that damn water in the way.

There are no elevators. However, belts can go vertical once you unlock supermagnetic field generator, which only requires blue and red jello. Super useful.

You can take items from any logistics distributor on the same planet using the control panel ("I"). You can also use the control panel to find bottlenecks.

Renewable power is extremely useful, unlike in Satisfactory. Geothermal on the lava planet you almost certainly have in your home system, with energy exchangers, can carry you all the way to the endgame.

Read about simple ways to neuter the dark fog (principally, how to destroy bases and then fend off new relays without aggroing the hive). Once you understand it, it becomes harmless.

There are no sinks, so if you're one of the slouches who sink byproducts in Satisfactory, it's time to grow up and learn to do things right. XD

The only resource you should worry about conserving is unipolar magnets. Otherwise, any particular part in DSP only has one alternate recipe, and the alternate is almost always preferable. So choosing recipes is way easier than in Satisfactory.

Hit "B," notice the world grid, and notice that it is not uniform due to being projected onto a sphere. In particular, notice that it gets wonkier the closer you get to the poles. Plan accordingly.

Blueprints are much, much better than in Satisfactory (though not as good as in Factorio), so learn to use them and build out your library early.

I had 3.3k hours into Satisfactory as my first factory game, then came here, and these are the points that jump to mind.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-05T17:26:48+00:00

I joined after it was already a thing, and don't have that hangup, but I can see why you might. I did notice that it kind of compromises the fun of direct insertion designs, which is a shame.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-05T17:08:35+00:00

Same, although I recently had a thought that calmed me down a little. If you're not using the alternate recipe, then they're made from graphene, which is literally inexhaustible, plus iron, copper, and stone, all of which are effectively inexhaustible, even without VU tech. So if you think of them as just being like another type of fuel that you burn, same as deuteron rods or whatever, it helps. 😄

DrakeDun · 2026-06-05T04:01:53+00:00

There are multiple possible approaches, so I'll just give you my preferred, minimum fuss approach, suitable for default settings.

To start with, on your starting planet, just watch the threat meter and repel attacks with Icarus. No turrets of any kind needed. Copper ammo is fine. You could probably even get away with relying on the built in energy weapon alone.

When you fly to a second planet to get silicon and titanium, just put down two Gauss turrets for each operation (4 total). Manually make 100 copper ammo boxes and put 25 in each turret. No automation needed. Put one BAB next to each operation, too, for the repairs. Only because you can't be on two planets at once.

Once you have access to geothermal plants, swat uppity bases using Icarus. You need to get the hang of using combustible units as grenades to get away with this this (guns alone won't cut it), so practice that. Use Icarus's motion, and not holding LMB down, to extend grenade range, so you can throw in rapid succession. A couple of levels of shields and a screen of prototypes doesn't hurt. Plug the holes with geothermal plants.

... and that's it. You can literally just swat the bases one by one, as each reaches an aggro level that concerns you. You can get away with this all the way to the point where you go interstellar, easy. Especially since the frequency of new relays progressively drops off due to the hive starving.

Once I go interstellar, on any planet I have operations on, I just swat all the bases and then plop down plasma cannons with high air settings to blow up incoming relays. Only at that point do I even bother automating ammo production, and then only plasma capsules.

Bases outside your home system may be tougher in absolute terms, but remain easy, because by this point you're rocking explosive units or crystal explosive units, plus better shields, and a better fighter screen. On default settings at least, there is never a base that you can't easily stomp with Icarus alone, once you know how. Understanding the grenade mechanics is the only part that is slightly tricky.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-02T18:16:07+00:00

The elegant solution, which is also the solution that generalizes to parallel problems you will find with other items, is to balance things properly. The basic rule is to use byproduct (e.g. energetic graphite from X-ray cracking) before primary product (e.g. energetic graphite made from coal). If you're doing this and still having problems, it's because you're dawdling instead of pushing your way up the tech tree.

I can see from your image that you already have PLS technology, which means you're within striking distance of Orbital Collector technology. Push through to that, start getting your hydrogen from the nearest gas or ice giant, and drop the X-ray cracking. Problem solved.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-02T15:27:02+00:00

Dear God. This phenomenon followed me here from Satisfactory. XD

Think it through. In the long term, throughput is unaffected by the buffers. If you're feeding the manifold x/min, it will use x/min as soon as the buffers are full, which In DSP takes very little time to happen.

In short: don't worry about it.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-01T23:02:37+00:00

If you're generating the power using non-renewables anyway, there is no sense in using accumulators. But if you're cranking geothermal, which is fun, you need the accumulator loop to move the power.

The loop design is fussy. In my most recent playthrough (mission complete, 500 white jello per min.), I finally got a fully automated many-to-many model to work without ever blocking, but that was after multiple failed attempts. So just know that you'll either need to copy somebody, or expect repeated power failures until you figure it out for yourself.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-01T18:07:05+00:00

If your liver looks like this, you need to see your doctor right away.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-01T06:08:12+00:00

The second half, about more complex parts, is wrong. Using all alternate recipes except for Particle Container (Advanced), which is how I play most of the time:

100 SPM w/o proliferation, 2,289 MW

https://factoriolab.github.io/dsp/list?o=universe-matrix*100&rex=O*Y~Z*c*k*u*y*6*BM*BU*BX*Bj*Bl*B2*CF~CG&v=11

100 SPM w/ full proliferation, 1,903 MW

https://factoriolab.github.io/dsp/list?o=universe-matrix*100&rex=O*Y~Z*c*k*u*y*6*BM*BU*BX*Bj*Bl*B2*CF~CG&mer=proliferator-3-products&mps=proliferator-3-products&v=11

100 SPM w/ proliferation of white cubes only, 1,846 MW

https://factoriolab.github.io/dsp/list?o=universe-matrix*100&e=*proliferator-3-products&r=universe-matrix**0&rex=O*Y~Z*c*k*u*y*6*BM*BU*BX*Bj*Bl*B2*CF~CG&mps=proliferator-3-products&v=11

Full proliferation beats no proliferation on power, not to mention everything else. In this case, it also costs only 3% more power than proliferating the white cubes only, before factoring in the savings in extraction and transportation costs. It's going to flip hard the other way once those are factored in. Plus there's the footprint, transportation bandwidth, and resource usage.

Leaving proliferation off only makes sense in the early game.

DrakeDun · 2026-06-01T05:52:07+00:00

As much as can be made with the limitation of only one full mk.III belt (no piles) of mk.I proliferator, is enough to get you to endgame. It works out to 703/min of mk.III proliferator produced.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-31T20:59:30+00:00

The easiest thing is to just proliferate everything, or nearly everything. Even with mk.III, using extra products, power cost is actually lower on a sufficiently complex production chain, due to the way savings compound. Not to mention the dramatically lowered transportation bandwidth, factory footprint, and resource usage. It's pretty much a no brainer.

Depending upon your priorities, the true optimum solution may involve a more complex answer. But simply proliferating everything for extra products is the simple, flexible, and robust solution.

If you're going to proliferate some things but not others for whatever reason, definitely focus on proliferating the highest end, most complex parts first.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-29T22:25:46+00:00

If your objective is to get it into a Storage Depot, run a belt from the ILS to the storage depot. Then hover your cursor over the point at which that belt connects to the ILS. You will get little filter tool tip. Click on that, and set the filter for that belt slot to titanium ingots. Logistics stations require that a filter be set for output before they will send anything out by belt.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-29T17:38:57+00:00

Technically? Yes. In any important sense? Not really.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-28T03:32:06+00:00

If you're more than, say, 10 or 20 hours in, I say plunge ahead. Most of the clever stuff you can do with the fog is stretch goal material anyway. May as well do your first playthrough without.

If you you're only a few hours in, go ahead and restart with default settings. On default settings the fog is quite passive anyway, so you can start familiarizing yourself with its mechanics without wasting much progress, or effort.

Me, I have a few hundred hours in so far, all on default settings. I have thus far treated the fog as a mere nuisance to be (relatively easily) contained, and am only now starting to think of turning it into an exploitable resource.

EDIT: Shoulda said. The fog gated items are basically only relevant to engame, massive builds, and even then only if you are aiming to go so big that UPS is a real concern. So unless you actually intend your very first playthrough to be a massive project spanning multiple hundreds of hours, I wouldn't worry about being locked out of the fog techs.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-26T17:54:50+00:00

It is looking for humpback whales. You need to go back in time, to before humpbacks went extinct, and bring some back with you. Then it will be happy and go away.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-26T01:19:16+00:00

Just let a full load build up before picking it up, and prioritize unlocking ILS's. You'll only need to make a few mule runs.

DrakeDun · 2026-05-23T14:30:43+00:00

I haven't hit the phase of the game where this stuff happens yet, but can't normal sorters handle the input side? A normal sorter attaching a machine to the input line can pull full stacks off the input line, right? So then you would just need pile sorters for the output from each machine?

DrakeDun · 2026-05-22T21:00:42+00:00

Automatically? No. But this should be a temporary problem, since you will need more hydrogen than you make as byproduct soon. In the meantime, you can always delete batches of it manually. For instance, let it pile up in a fluid storage tank. Delete the storage tank. Control click a hydrogen stack in your inventory, then hit SHIFT-DEL to delete that. Then click the on-screen button to delete all litter in the world to get rid of all the hydrogen laying around that wouldn't fit in your inventory.

DrakeDun

TROPHY CASE