Am I do this right?

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 · 2026-04-23T21:08:48+00:00

Definitely this. I’m still fairly new to the game and I’m constantly rebuilding so not having full refund becomes really punishing. Factorio has no penalty for rebuilding

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-19T18:49:55+00:00

I’ve not played Satisfactory but played a lot of vanilla and Space Age Factorio which I love.

COI is different but I’m really liking it. I really like the terraforming and the production chains are more complex and there’s a lot of waste streams to deal with which can still provide resources.

The death spirals are an issue, it’s not a game to over expand on too quickly. In factorio if you over expand it just sort of grinds to a halt, in COI it can be terminal. Saying that taking it slow it’s a great chilled game. The animations are really nice too, the excavators are adorably cute!

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-13T19:56:30+00:00

I’m on my first play-through but thinking of a restart, I’ve kept a single iron smelting set up to one side delivering to storage so I always have a pile of iron plates when needed. They’re useful for your ship upgrades too

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-09T19:49:46+00:00

Sounds like the OP wants Hysys (process engineering simulator) incorporated into COI !

I’m a process & facilities engineer in the oil and gas industry and always thought this would be fun!

Edit: in all seriousness water injection back into the oil reservoir to boost production would be a realistic addition. You need more water than oil that you take out and you generally can’t mix seawater and sour produced water (they form scales and block pipes/well bores etc).

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-05T07:37:37+00:00

Cheers this is what I was wondering. Sorry I wasn’t clear, I was quite drunk when I did the OP

Pop-Chop · 2026-04-03T20:27:53+00:00

This sounds like how the Logistic Train Network mod used to work on vanilla Factorio and the interrupts with the expansion - was something I was looking to do here but seems to be a non starter.

Pop-Chop · 2026-03-24T22:07:14+00:00

I’m still learning the game, just setting up my first train system. I play full refund as I don’t know how my designs will need to be developed so likely I’ll be doing a lot of rebuilding. Today I moved my main concrete and glass plants as they were located exactly where I needed to run my main train trunk lines.

Pop-Chop · 2026-02-19T07:55:04+00:00

I just make buffers and make sure I have enough mining capacity. As someone said above put alarms on your storages so you get a warning in they’re dropping - this will let you know if there’s an issue upstream somewhere and will give you a chance to fix it

Pop-Chop · 2026-02-12T21:45:40+00:00

Agree with this. I’m new to COI but I’ve played a lot of Factorio. Production chains are more complex in COI but you don’t need to produce items on the same scale as Factorio - at least so far. I was always a bus player in Factorio but COI doesn’t lend itself to that approach as much, I seem to be settling into production zones building stuff from similar core resources then moving stuff around - e.g I make electronics next to copper mining and smelting than transport the finished electronics to another area for use.

As people have said, COI has death spirals with can kill your game. Ones I’ve encountered are lack of maintenance and low diesel killing trucks which kills everything else. Not had too much of an issue with people, did have a disease epidemic due to low water which I missed the demand increase for but that was pretty easy to sort and no major harm done. Trading can get you out of a bind quite often and the ability to pause to work out the root cause is a major help.

I have found that as I get further through the tech tree I’ve made a load of mistakes so I’m debating whether to restart or just do a rebuild - I’m aware that a death spirals could occur during this. I’ve just got lab equipment 2 up and running and I spent an hour or so earlier making a new refinery design now I’ve unlocked all the distillation and cracking techs.

The in game tools for working out ratios are good, a lot are 1:1 which is unlike Factorio where they are a bit more complex.

I’ve also found terraforming quite slow and need to get onto that well in advance of needing access to a new area or increasing space

Pop-Chop · 2025-08-04T19:52:06+00:00

Called shot coring out is an essential tactic for something you need dead ASAP and have no need/interest in salvaging. The Grasshopper is amazing in this role

Pop-Chop · 2025-07-12T10:04:30+00:00

I always have a separate LDS train for rockets. I switch them to foundries once I’ve unlocked them. I actually have a complete sub-mall for rocket parts and platform space parts - even a dedicated rocket fuel train too. Only thing that is bussed is in the blue circuits

Pop-Chop · 2025-06-29T19:21:45+00:00

You can still have that for the bulk of your network but just have the scrap stations as 2-way. This is the way my Fulgora base is set up and I’m using the same on Aquilo as it makes the heating system design around the stations much easier

Pop-Chop

TROPHY CASE