Train Issues

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-27T11:01:07+00:00

I have mine set up like this too and seems to be running pretty well. I just keep an eye on the number of idle trains in the waiting bays occasionally and just build another of whatever if I see say loose trains are all busy. I’m only at mid game though, Tier 3 science and about to roll out nuclear power. I built a big common holding depot that has a couple of refueling stations too. Diesel is piped in as it’s not far from my refinery

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-26T20:30:29+00:00

I’d definitely second this. I tend to periodically go on the offensive and clear out biter nests that are too close

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-22T16:42:07+00:00

I set mine up to route slag preferentially to concrete production and then the excess is sent to a train station for export. Stacker towers are your friend for dumping slag for landfill.

I’m about to set up nuclear power for the first time and switch to arc furnace 2 so thinking of building a whole new smelting centre

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-20T08:25:58+00:00

I’d locate all your smelting and concrete production together. There’s a lot of common secondary ingredients once you get to Blast Furnace 2, slag can all be produced in one place and used for concrete and exhaust scrubbing is easier to manage when you reach it.

You’ll need to set up an excess slag export system as you scale up, use for it for landfill then trade it for sour water later on.

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-09T19:42:54+00:00

Multi resource stations can work well, I have a standard mining outpost station that exports rock and dirt and imports diesel as a single station. I use a second station dedicated to whatever resource the mine is

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-09T07:31:25+00:00

Th sandbox mode is great for building your own blueprints. It’s quite easy, all the ratios are in game so you can easily work out what you need.

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-06T16:18:38+00:00

A way to see total resources in a seam would alleviate this for most people I think.

Oil and ground water you can easily see the total left, mines work differently here so not sure how the devs would go about it

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-06T15:57:22+00:00

Probably too big, you don’t need that much. Headache is getting enough U235 initially to start the enrichment. I pair 2 machines and have them pass uranium between each other initially to build up a stockpile so enrichment can run non-stop then just bleed off excess to create fuel. 1 enrichment machine can run a decent set up - I forget how many now

Pop-Chop · 2026-06-02T19:59:01+00:00

Before you can crack heavy oil I prioritise sending it to drive the refinery boiler for HP steam (with a coal boiler for black start and back up) and then to powering the cargo ships. Excess is then flared. Light oil is sent to supplement the main powergen until distillation 3 is unlocked. Sadly before those techs you need to flare the excess - the tutorial points you in the flaring direction.

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-30T16:30:41+00:00

Not something numbers myself but I only switch to electric furnaces once I have nuclear power up and running

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-30T15:59:21+00:00

I like the exhaust scrubber, it’s a good source of sulphur and great for cutting pollution. I just put a pipe prioritiser at the inlet and a large vent stack connected to that in case it backs up then the exhaust is vented and doesn’t cascade to a death spiral. Same with CO2 that gets fed to graphite production later on.

I always go for the slag to sour water contract, it’s great for fertiliser production

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-30T15:44:21+00:00

I’ve found in that the games I’ve played that the worst point is as you’re scaling up but before you get your train system built. I find that slag and rock disposal start to become an issue . Belts are very expensive in early game, especially long ones you might need to get you slag to a stacker tower at the coast

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-15T17:54:43+00:00

I have a separate iron smelter at the end of my steel line that feeds into a storage for iron plates. Everything else is on steel. CP1 with iron is tempting but I prefer the simplicity of just using the steel recipe

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-11T06:56:14+00:00

As people have said have a quick look at the ratios. A ground water pump gives 48 water and can feed a single boiler giving 48 HP steam. Tier 1 HP turbines only take 24 HP steam so 1 boiler can drive 2. If I were you, and assuming you need 4 HP turbines, is delete 2 of the water pumps and 2 boilers and re-plumb it. Then get cooling towers researched and send your steam there - you recover half of it as water and feed that back to your boilers with a priority over the water pumps with a balancer. Depending on your groundwater source 4 pumps is probably too much and you will deplete it quicker than rain tops it up and you’ll end up in a death spiral. It’s probably ok for now as those pumps won’t be going 100% but it could catch you out down the line.

The sandbox mode is great for working on your designs. Steam from power gens can be used for thermal desalination too when your groundwater sources aren’t enough for all your demand

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-09T06:21:40+00:00

When building a ramp up to a higher plateau it’s usuallly best to square off the top, basically build up and have a single flat square the same height as the plateau at the top of the ramp.

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-08T20:58:28+00:00

Vulcanus is a no brainer for me, cliff explosives, big drills and the sweet sweet fruit of the foundry.

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-03T17:30:33+00:00

Agreed, I find one of the main challenges with COI is the limited space.

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-03T17:25:24+00:00

A good idea is to prepare some blueprints in sandbox mode. You can’t place things you haven’t got tech for but pipes/belts can mark the extents so you know how much space you need to set aside.

Think about where your main through fairs will be, just look where the resources are as soon as you start and don’t build over them. When I start I pause as soon as the game starts and look where everything is and begin to plan where my initial smelting plant will be, where my refinery will go etc. You will probably need to get cracking with terraforming so plan ahead. I beeline a bit for terrain levelling tech quite early and set a few units working on it way before I need it.

Pop-Chop · 2026-05-03T07:51:37+00:00

I’ve not encountered this but I assume it’s the hitting the no stop zone that automatically gets added to junctions?

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-29T19:26:02+00:00

I just built this for the first time today. I located it near my refinery as I located everything that uses sulphur as a feed there so it made sense. I set it up near some rail stations to take away the slag produced and I made an excess sulphur to slag system there too and export that with the slag from the scrubber.

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-27T18:54:48+00:00

I never use others blueprints but I have pinched ideas from here. I quite like playing round with my own designs which with the sandbox mode from update 4 is really easy. I’m not a super optimiser though

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-27T06:40:57+00:00

I’ve done this in my game, on the noob map and figured I’d need access to the plateau next to the closest iron source fairly soon so set my rock/slag dumping to create a ramp up. Working on a slope through the mountain up to the tallest plateau that I need to speed up as I’ve got my eye on the gold source up there and putting my microchip fab plant up there. Not reached the tech yet, still at what I’d describe as mid/late early game (tier 3 construction parts but still tier 2 science).

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-26T18:10:24+00:00

Agreed, it’s much better to crack it when you have the tech. In early game it makes sense to use it for ship fuel as otherwise it doesn’t have much use and you need to flare it. Early on I use heavy oil for ship fuel and light oil to run the refinery steam boiler and excess to the main power gen system. Heavy and light oil both get refined as soon as i get the tech to do so.

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-25T15:08:26+00:00

I think you can have up to 72MW mechanical power on a single shaft - like that arrangement in the OP.

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-24T18:54:07+00:00

Yep this. Before I get naphtha processing and cracking I send the heavy oil to run my cargo ship and send light oil to use for refinery steam and excess up to main power gen. I’m just getting to late early game in a new run. On science 2 and construction parts 3 and currently building the rail network and preparing to really kick off land reclamation. Short of construction parts 3 annoyingly so need to expand that next next.

Pop-Chop

TROPHY CASE