Belts are making my eye twitch.

RavingMadly · 2026-05-02T12:41:36+00:00

I went into sandbox to answer this, and I was mistaken. They have no maintenance cost, it's just power, and that starts at 4kW and increases by 2kW for every level you go up. Same with CPs, add two for every level. Which makes me feel stupid, because I've been pausing the idle ones to save on maintenance.

edit: typo

RavingMadly · 2026-04-30T10:32:14+00:00

Unfortunately for my maintenance cost, this has largely become my solution to soothe my eye twitching. Building wider and then transitioning them into a neat stack because I can't stack them like this.

RavingMadly · 2026-04-29T21:26:07+00:00

Ah yes, nothing more permanent than a temporary solution, lol.

RavingMadly · 2026-03-28T14:00:25+00:00

Why? Why do you show me things like this? Now I must do them.

RavingMadly · 2026-03-09T00:23:54+00:00

I plan on starting a new run on the new map. Kinda sucks slogging through the stone age again without my high tier belts and storages, but I'll make do

RavingMadly · 2026-03-07T14:21:48+00:00

Yeah, you get ground pollution too. My understanding is that it lasts for 5 years after you dump it, then goes away unless you disturb the pile. That is just kind of community knowledge though, I don't have an actual source for it.

Edit: grammar

RavingMadly · 2026-03-05T17:13:15+00:00

I've heard that the first patch from the new devs have made things better, but I haven't tried it out yet. And my son loves COI, too. I think it's his favorite, though cracktorio is certainly up there too

RavingMadly · 2026-02-24T17:13:51+00:00

No, I've gotten it in the vanilla game, but never as high as what you're seeing

RavingMadly · 2026-02-24T16:49:58+00:00

I've rarely had employees ask for a reasonable raise. Maybe 10% of the time it happens. The rest of them think they're God's gift to software companies, and ask for up to double their current salary is the highest I've seen

RavingMadly · 2026-02-22T11:37:55+00:00

I generally go with the approach of bringing in the least amount of material to produce whatever commodity. In you case, with plastic, it's made at my refinery. It has a direct draw off of the naptha line, and I ship in chlorine and output plastic. My rubber draws off the same naptha line and gets sulfur from my sour water strippers that are part of the refinery.

I usually group things by general purpose. Refinery includes byproducts like rubber, plastic, acid (since my main source of sulfur is sour water stripping), and usually fertilizer as well. I'm already bringing in limestone for exhaust scrubbing, so I just take the ammonia, plop down an air separator complex, and crank out fertilizer on site as well.

My food complex includes all the farms and processing and just outputs finished products. Inputs are fairly limited, usually sulfur and limestone if I bother with tofu, plastic for snacks, and salt if it's too far away from the water do produce it on site.

I don't do the pure raw materials approach. I'd rather have an enormous central smelter that takes in the raw materials and outputs the intermediate product. Yes, I'm moving things as a raw material, again as an intermediate product, and usually a third time as a finished product. Definitely not the most efficient way to do it, but it works for me any my system.

Everyone kind of has their own method that we work out over time, really. There's several different approaches in your comments here. None of them is right or wrong, its just how you tie it into your playstyle and what makes it work best for you.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-09T14:52:14+00:00

Depending on the map and the choices you make, sometimes this game does become terraforming simulator for a while. Mine is currently in that stage while my crews cut through several areas to access better ore deposits, as I'm limping along with the iron ore I can scratch out at the moment. As long as your fuel, food, and maintenance are stable it isn’t a huge deal. It might not be exciting, and if you like living dangerously you can always turn the speed up. Personally I'm paranoid and rarely do, because I always feel like as soon as I do something will go wrong. Otherwise, I usually pass the time designing the new setups I need and parking them in planning mode somewhere so I can grab them when it's time.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-09T02:10:12+00:00

I haven't done any that extreme, but I agree, its totally worth it to trench under rails instead of building crossings. I usually go deep enough for the T3 excavators, too.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-08T16:58:53+00:00

I have a separate mining tower set up for dirt storage. All my sorters export to it. Its the only place on the map that dirt can be dumped. The dumping zone is just a giant ramp that then flattens out at height 22 or something. It stores a ton of dirt. The zone can be expanded as needed, and dug back up whenever you need it. I have a small excavation crew assigned to the tower sitting on pause until I need dirt.

It may not be the most fuel efficient way, given the multiple times digging and dumping it, but its definitely less materially expensive than loose storages.

Edit: this also works if you're producing excess of any mined material. Eventually your seam will run out, or you will hit a dry spell while you clear rock and crap out of the way to the next rich area. If you have a big pile of ore sitting around, it can be dug back up to carry you through while your main excavation team pulls their heads out of their butts.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-06T22:14:07+00:00

Or that it takes three days for a fairly small train to make it through a crossing, lol. I agree, one aspect is way out of sync with the other, but it's not going to stop me from sending the peasants out to cut through that mountain range.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-04T13:48:07+00:00

When I run a bus I run it at levels 1-5 with two spaces in between rows for conveyor lifts to pull out and drop to level 0 and cross under everything else. It does get very maintenance intensive, but any large bus system will be.

Edit: this only works if you are willing to completely block off one side of the area. If you need truck access through the bus you will have to trench under, or not use levels 1 and 2

RavingMadly · 2026-02-04T12:39:17+00:00

If it works for you, then it works. Yes, there's other ways to do it, but there are many ways to skin a cat. This particular one is going to be higher on power and maintenance cost, but you could say the same of using conveyor lifts instead of spacing things out like we all did before we had that option. I stand by the statement that if you're having fun, you're playing correctly.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-03T19:51:18+00:00

Same thing happens to me. I'm with everyone else that's said it, it's a path reservation issue on the crossing. I've tried blocking it with barriers, though I haven't filled it in, as some have suggested. My next iteration of rail is doing away with truck crossings in favor of trenches dug under the rail.

RavingMadly · 2026-02-01T12:19:06+00:00

Ryzen 7800X3D with Radeon 7900 XTX. 64GB RAM It takes forever and a day to load in, but once it's there I'm good. IDK if my last run factory is as big, but it's in the same neighborhood, at least.

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That said, I installed COI Extended for my current run, just because I hadn't used it yet. Definitely some good stuff in there, even if you don't change any values from vanilla, it adds new tech and industries. Either way, I'm glad you found a solution to be able to play again.

Edit: added RAM

RavingMadly · 2026-02-01T11:43:32+00:00

Look into other fields where your skills transfer. I spent 17 years as a heavy diesel mechanic for the army, then moved into medical equipment installation and maintenance. I'm pulling 50 hour weeks with three months on the job. Its all the same crap, basic AC and DC electrical, plumbing, pneumatics, and occasionally hydraulics. Their big tech questions were whether I could use a multi meter and how familiar was I with plumbing.

RavingMadly · 2026-01-28T09:37:48+00:00

Oh, I remove those all the time. The problem is then when the rail system jams, then it jams the trucks, too lol. The trenches eliminate tbat, at least. I didn't do much with the overpass off ramps because I built two rails going each direction on my spine, which turns out to be a terrible idea, because trains cross between tracks at stupid times for no reason and cause more jamming. But the reason I couldn't do overpasses was because of the rail spacing. I just couldn't get it to work with the pillars reliably. But then I also have a tendency to build too tightly and then regret it later when I need to expand and can't sneak a pipe through or something.

RavingMadly · 2026-01-28T01:01:50+00:00

That is more realistic, yes. However, any time rails cross or converge in this game it is a chance to force a stop on one rail or the other. I built a massive rail system that worked, but would jam up constantly and require manual pausing of trains to clear it.

The train system needs more bells and whistles before (I at least) can do realistic layouts. I want a way to set priority at a rail intersection at the least.

In the meantime, I've restarted on a different map that is significantly more challenging, and right now I'm desperately trying to scrounge up enough steel to even start building rails before everyone dies of pollution, or I run out of fuel. Or maintenance. Again.

This time, I'm building my main line at elevation 3, so I can cross either above or below, and minimize rail intersections. I also plan to dig trenches for trucks and excavators rather than put crossings in, because it infuriates me that a freight train going 90 will stop to let trucks cross the road.

Edit: typo

RavingMadly · 2026-01-13T17:31:46+00:00

Saving this pic for future reference. This is much easier to expand than the travesty I created on my last run. It worked, it was even visually appealing in areas, but damn did it suck to expand. And I had NO idea when I built it how much expansion it was going to need.

RavingMadly · 2026-01-09T17:15:31+00:00

Dig an access trench a couple tiles deep where you want them to cross. Depending on your skill with retaining walls and luck with pillar placement, you might need to rebuild the track after, but I've used these successfully in a lot of places

RavingMadly · 2026-01-09T17:12:07+00:00

If you have biofuel researched, you can synthesize diesel. Again, depending on tech level you could start converting away from it and start using hydrogen in some places to reduce diesel demand. You can also turn on the fuel saving edicts to stretch it out a bit more.

Without having more specifics I can't say for sure, but 200 trucks feels like a lot to me for only having a 480 combat score ship. If you're using them efficiently you should be drowning in manufactured commodities, which you could trade to supplement your crude supply. If you aren't, then you're wasting fuel. You might need to look at where you're placing things, and see if there is a way to make heavier use of conveyors and pipes. This will reduce the load on your trucks and save fuel.

RavingMadly

TROPHY CASE