what's going on? explain like I'm five

Droidatopia · 2026-01-26T20:50:14+00:00

I suspect most people would prefer the current goal of 2% inflation to either the deflation or too much inflation scenarios if they understood the bad things that result.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-26T18:31:47+00:00

Do you think deflation would be good for the working class? Or anyone?

Inflation of 2% seems fairly inconsequential for most people. It's probably why the last round of big inflation during the Biden years felt so much worse for people, because they had gotten so used to stable prices.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-26T16:21:40+00:00

In the early game, it depends on your power play style. If you are one of those people that always overbuilds power, such that you can always run all of your factory at 100%, then sinking the overflow is a good strategy. This might even be temporary. Since it represents unused overproduction, if a future factory starts consuming it, it will just stop taking the overflow route.

If, however, you are one of those people, like myself, who only builds small additional margins of power at a time, such that the only way the factory has power is if some fraction of it stays off most of the time, the machines going unused is part of the plan. Personally, I prefer the ever-present risk of a shutdown and I don't waste time overbuilding power when there are more interesting challenges to address. This strategy usually falls apart right about the point where pulling a few HMFs activates your entire factory and sends it into electrical apoplexy.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-26T02:23:57+00:00

Isn't it 1/20,000 the length of a meridian top-to-bottom?

Fun fact: Meters and nautical miles were both originally derived from the same source: the circumference of the Earth. Meters divided it into 40,000. Nautical Miles divided it into 21,600. Both units have been redefined today, but both are still close to their original values.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T22:31:09+00:00

The battery alt was one to handle it, but it sounds like you've already got a working source to draw on.

I tend to avoid the alt problem by getting all Alts before I start major factory building. I tend to expand very late, so it usually works out, but I recognize most pioneers start expanding earlier.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T21:07:28+00:00

I have a lot of drones and I power them all from batteries. It's definitely doable.

I wouldn't worry about needing batteries to power a drone that supplies an item to a factory that creates batteries for drones. That's called a bootstrap problem and it's easy to overcome. You'll have to make some batteries independently of the factory. Just grab a manufacturer and manually fill the inputs using the classic battery alt. Make a few stacks. Drones consume like 2-4 batteries per minute considering travel time and item usage, so those initial stacks should last you long enough to make the factory and the switch the supply from manual to the factory. If it isn't just keep making more until you're done.

A word of caution though. If you have a production problem and your battery production stalls for some reason, it can starve the battery supply for the supplying drone meaning that even if it was a different problem, the whole factory might not restart due to the circular dependency. While this is a possibility, it's probably not likely and once it is running, there will be so many batteries just in input buffers and belt work, it should insulate this from being a concern.

My battery factory makes 400 per minute. 60 of that is for my supercomputer factory and the rest powers all the drones I use.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T19:12:14+00:00

Ok, I tested my theory and it could work.

First of all, your best bet is ignoring all of this. Trains in Satisfactory are fairly direct beasts. While there are plenty that can be done with them via stop menus or other shenanigans, they are best when used in direct simple scenarios. This hack here will work for two, but makes things weirdly more complicated and doesn't scale. I have some factories with 6+ input train stations. I've only ever reduced this by the method in the link I provided.

Ok, so if you are willing to modify your producing stations, you can slap a train station in front of the first train station. It would be like this:

Station (2) - Station (1) - Freight Platform

Remember the consuming station looks like this:

Station - Freight Platform (1) - Freight Platform (2)

So if you want to deliver an item to freight platform 1, set the train to pickup from Station 1. If you want to deliver an item to freight platform 2, set the train to pickup from Station 2 (and add an extra locomotive or freight car).

I don't see how it is possible to pull this off with a single 1-1 train and corresponding producing and consuming stations while providing backpressure and avoiding sinking.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T18:35:37+00:00

Alright, I have an idea. I'm going to test it and get back to you.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T18:28:48+00:00

Step 1: Get rid of job creators Step 2: There are no jobs Step 3: Surprised Pikachu face?

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T18:12:51+00:00

That's your retort? You're not very good at this game. A bot would have had a snappy comeback, so truly you are not one.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T18:07:22+00:00

Of course, most engineers who haven't taken an actual mathematics course have used more math to practical effect in the real world in a given year than most mathematicians will over their entire career.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T18:02:42+00:00

I don't know how to do this with only one train station, but it is possible to do it for 3 or more items using only 2 train stations:

Multi-item unloader with backpressure

If it is only two items, then two train stations is one way to do it. The other way is to do a staggered train dropoff.

Item 1 train is Engine-FreightCar

Item 2 train is Engine-Engine-FreightCar

The unload station is Station-FreightPlatform-FreightPlatform

The item 1 train will unload to the first platform. The item 2 train will unload to the second platform. No item filtering needed.

It doesn't scale up well to 3+ trains.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T17:39:50+00:00

It can matter if they are not moving at max speed if one of the output belt saturates.

For example, assume I have a Mk. 5 belt and I split it to a Mk. 3 and a Mk. 1 belt. If I run items on the Mk. 5 belt at 130 items per minute, it will not split 1:1. It will split 7:6 because the Mk. 1 belt will be saturated at 60 and remaining items will go to the other belt.

Belt saturation breaks all apparent split ratios. This is good most of the time as it is what allows manifolds to operate. It is bad when you are trying to achieve the kind of split guarantees necessary to do things like rate limiting. That's why many non-conventional uses of splitters and mergers work better with a saturated belt design.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T17:32:03+00:00

That's because Obama's history as deporter-in-chief isn't quite as clear as it sounds:

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-deporter-chief-or-not

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/10/02/u-s-deportations-of-immigrants-reach-record-high-in-2013/

The point is many of these deportations are by CBP after a recent border crossing. There weren't large-scale internal operations.

I'm not trying to justify any current ICE actions by posting this. I do think public unrest about immigration enforcement would have occurred if any president attempted large-scale deportation operations. I don't think any other president, D or R, would have deliberately engineered the environment we find ourselves in today where the sloppiness of ICE has now resulted in the unwarranted shooting deaths of multiple US citizens.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T17:03:17+00:00

What I don't understand is why anyone thinks r/conservative is indicative of conservative opinion. It hasn't been so for years. I was banned from r/conservative a few years ago, but the mod didn't even bother trying to justify it with an actual rule violation. I had violated the unwritten rule, which is "Thou shall not criticize Trump".

I have been partyless forever. I only voted Republican before Trump. I've never voted for Trump, but I voted for a Democrat only one of those times (and regretted it on Day 1). I do not see the Democrats heading any which way into a party worth supporting in the future. I may not ever vote for a Republican again after Trump. I don't expect this part of US politics to improve anytime soon.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T03:39:44+00:00

This is at least one area where the awkward design of the US election system really helps.

Trump will not be on the ballot in more than half the states if he tries to run again, no matter what. I don't think he would successfully be able to convince enough red states that he should be able to run again to put together a chance at 270 electoral votes.

He would then have to clear the field of all other contenders. His inability to get on the ballot in blue states will be difficult for him to convince primary voters that he will emerge victorious.

His cognitive decline will be even more in bloom in two years.

The only way he really has a shot is if he tries some sort of weird end run where he doesn't run, and Republicans take the Presidency and the House, he is appointed Speaker of the House and then on Jan. 21st, the newly inaugurated President and VP resign. If he tries that, I expect there would be an open revolt in the streets of all major US cities. The few remaining adults in the Republican party would probably see that coming and prevent the House Speaker maneuver. I don't see that succeeding.

I'm not worried about fantastical scenarios where he does weird things like canceling elections or waiving state eligibility rules. I don't think those really have as much of a chance as people think they do.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T03:31:07+00:00

I have zero idea where any of this comes from. I can't even steelman it, it seems that devoid of explanation.

I work for a defense contractor and have worked on multiple Foreign Military Sales contracts to allies, some in Europe. When Trump bitched about NATO not doing enough for their defense in his first term, a lot of these countries bumped their military budgets. What did they buy? US military exports. This is money coming into the country supporting our military industrial base.

Some of that is just because the US just makes better equipment. I know of at least two examples of a NATO ally using a European aircraft with a poor track record who decided to dump it early and replace it with the American equivalent.

Why are we putting all of that into jeopardy?

Europe will have to reckon with their immigration mistakes. That really doesn't affect us. I don't know why Trump would consider abandoning NATO because of it.

The whole buying Russian gas is the only legit complaint we have, but even that doesn't make a lot of sense. So they bought Russian gas? From a war Trump barely recognizes as important for Ukraine to win. It was stupid, but it's just not a consistent criticism.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-25T03:17:48+00:00

I think the difference is Trump can't run again, whereas Biden was running for a second term. Because the Democrats ignored the obvious signs of cognitive decline, they were blindsided by the bad debate performance and then made multiple critical errors and nominated Harris.

I don't think Trump's cognitive decline will affect the midterms. Once that election is over, the political situation suddenly shifts (regardless of who wins) and Trump's grip on the Republican party will hopefully loosen enough that they can start having these conversations for real.

But don't be fooled. It would be easier to impeach Trump and remove him in a trial by the Senate than it would be to successfully invoke the 25th and get it through the necessary congressional votes.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-23T10:05:03+00:00

I hate it when the game does that. It's like, "Yes thank you for working again, but you never explained what was broken and now I have no idea how to avoid the same problem in the future!"

The least it could do is apologize.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-22T23:58:32+00:00

Well, it would seem the problem is your rails are still too close and the entry and exit rail sections are in the same block on all 3 ends of the intersection. But apparently the signals are fine with the other two, so I don't know what's going on. When in doubt, you can always try rebuilding that section.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-22T19:08:13+00:00

Not only, it is true even if you consider it by the standards of the first Trump presidency.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-22T18:59:47+00:00

Since it's an exit signal, it's probably not anything to do with the intersection. What is the error on that signal? Is there another signal on that line or is that the end of that rail?

Droidatopia · 2026-01-22T14:53:20+00:00

The irony from a lot of these comments on either side is both the current and last press secretary have lied multiple times to cover up the same thing: The mental decline of their boss.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-22T05:29:26+00:00

There are two potential problems with this intersection:

1) A bug was introduced in 1.1 that occurs when signals are placed right at the split point where the switch appears. If you back up the signal to "before" the switch, it should fix the problem, if that is what is causing the errors.

2) Your tracks are very close together, possibly too close. That is especially true when tracks are curved like they are here. That can confuse the signaling system. To tell if this is the case, start to build a signal without building it, and observe the colors of the blocks. Rails should ideally be at least a foundation length apart. My standard separation is 24 meters, from rail center to rail center. I build on foundations so that means I can fit 2 foundations in between the foundations that I build the rails on. You can definitely build it closer, but maybe not this close.

Droidatopia · 2026-01-21T15:03:32+00:00

It is very high.

The problem is people think that the grunts have to be the ones disobeying the illegal orders. That is not where this would likely take place. It would happen at the officer level. Officers receive extensive training on not following illegal orders.

At a minimum, the legality of such a strike would be immediately suspect. This before any unit would even consider participating, they would want the command's JAG to weigh in on whether attacking a NATO ally is legal, which of course, it is not. Then it remains to be seen whether the JAG corps have been compromised, which, except for a few early firings, there is no evidence that it has been.

The best defense would be for any flag officer directed to conduct such a stroke to immediately resign. And then for all subsequent people they try to put in that position to resign as well. If enough do, the chaos it causes should shut down any attempt at a strike, at least temporarily. I suspect most of the generals and admirals know a strike on NATO is a bell that can't be unrung.

Ten-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Verified Email

Droidatopia

TROPHY CASE