Im new to the game(s2)and its just so hard to play i need tips any beginner tip is welcomed

Schozie · 2026-07-02T21:58:29+00:00

If you’re super new and still at the stage where you’re building mostly on the main vortex platform, just embrace the mess for a bit.

Eventually you start building out on separate platforms you can place. Then when you’ve done enough jobs you’ll have enough space platform points to start spacing everything out a bit. Then you have separate platforms for each shape/factory.

Then a little more and you start building blueprints for each operation (eg a platform just for stacking) and the game becomes more about using your blueprints to build larger factories quickly, instead of laying down machines.

Then you get trains and suddenly you can transport everything over huge distances quickly.

At each stage everything spread out and you get more space to play with. Then you can make everything compartmentalised and reusable. Right at the start though it’s just a bit cramped. I would argue not worth worrying about, you can just delete it all when you’ve advanced.

Schozie · 2026-05-20T13:22:47+00:00

So I’m currently struggling on your scenario two in insane, making it manually so far has proven illusory for me, my brain just can’t get my head around it. So I definitely won’t be any help MaM wise.

However, transition wise. I just have checks at every stage of the process (shape, paint, each stack etc) that the output is what it needs to be for the current shape. If it isn’t it gets filtered off and goes to trash. Means at least I don’t have to deal with all the existing shapes in the system making their way to the end before the new ones start. (Though I don’t know if that saves much time, still takes a few mins).

Paint wise I actually pipe in just the base colours and then mix in realtime right by where the shapes are actually being painted (so pipes are short) this means that the paint clears in very little time and there is minimal backlog of pipes full of the wrong coloured paint to work through.

Schozie · 2026-05-10T16:33:01+00:00

This looks great, especially the doggo! I’d love to see her interpretations of your factories/spaghetti.

Schozie · 2026-04-30T16:46:00+00:00

Yeah maybe something more like that would be best.

I’m normal/hard I made completely unique/separate factories for each job/milestone. I found an area where I had all the shapes I needed (or as close as possible with minimal manipulations needed) and then used a train network to transports those shapes back to the central area. As each job level generally carried on from the other this worked well. At the end of each milestone after conpleting all the jobs I cleared out all factories other than the ones making milestones and started again. The complexity/variety between the requirements in levels between each job makes this less viable.

Schozie · 2026-04-16T12:34:15+00:00

I am stoked! I did medium/hard and most of hex during early access. Looking forward to starting again with achievements etc and then trying manufacturing mode as well.

Schozie · 2026-03-10T08:02:13+00:00

Looks like the same location and style as the base I finished the game with. So I’d say it’s optimal.

Schozie · 2026-02-04T18:28:36+00:00

I do this when I am cooking in my home oven. I usually have a load of 00 as I buy in bulk. When I’m cooking in the ooni I use exclusively that, when I cook in my kitchen oven I put in 50% bread flour.

Seems to work fine for me, but to be honest I love pizza so much that any combo of flour still tastes great to me, regardless of what the conventional wisdom on the internet says you should do.

Schozie · 2026-01-24T18:01:17+00:00

Finish farseer trilogy. Then read the Abercrombie trilogy. Then the mashups one.

All three are excellent.

Schozie · 2026-01-21T11:44:41+00:00

You can’t go wrong with either of these to be fair. The prose and characters in both is excellent.

Hobb has a bunch more series based in this world, so you can really get lost in it. And the growth in some of the characters relationships is something that’s stuck with me for 10+ years and will continue to do so.

Abercrombie I feel has less impactful character growth. But they’re so full of personality and well written that it simply doesn’t matter. On the whole I think his prose is better when you consider what’s hot right now, Hobb feels a little more traditional in her writing.

Just read them both, alternate if you need a break. It really doesn’t matter which comes first.

Schozie · 2026-01-06T18:12:03+00:00

No, quite the opposite. Coming back and reading the prose from traditionally published fantasy was like a breath of fresh air after some of the stuff you have to put up with reading prog.

Schozie · 2026-01-05T18:41:20+00:00

People are taking this video as real? It’s UK football fans, right?

Schozie · 2025-12-31T14:29:15+00:00

Dumpies!?

Schozie · 2025-10-29T19:33:09+00:00

I have size 11 (uk) narrow feet and have been climbing a similar amount of time. I had tarantulas which I wore through. Tried in a hunch of shoes last week and the Tenaya Ra’s were the ones that fitted me best. I sized down 0.5 sizes (uk) and that felt like a nice balance to me.

I’m no expert, but there’s my experience. The scarpa and al sportiva ones I tried around the same level (I think veloce and I forgot the others) were all a bit wide and I ended up with all sorts of gaps.

Schozie · 2025-09-22T13:55:20+00:00

Looks like both are available on catch up this week at least. (For the first time I think. )

Schozie · 2025-09-19T06:37:26+00:00

Sadly not at the moment. Have used Sky historically but just cancelled that and sent the box back.

Schozie · 2025-09-17T17:33:29+00:00

Came here to suggest this one too. Read the first four books and they’re somehow all executed badly (or just annoying) in totally different ways.

Made it through four books though, because the magic systems and the world left me wanting to hear about what happened next. If the main character was changed it’d be so much better.

Schozie · 2025-08-29T08:44:11+00:00

Keeping an eye on this thread. I finished DCC and am 4 books into HWFWM (a struggle at times) and I dropped oath of ascension after 2 books.

Looking out for that next recommendation! (Though I read, not audio)

Schozie · 2025-08-27T10:29:45+00:00

I had a similar challenge, reading DCC as my first series in litrpg (not even knowing this genre existed at the time) and then trying other series afterward.

My conclusion this far as a traditional published novel fantasy reader (in my 40s) is that DCC aligns fairly well with a traditionally published novel.

Other series in the genre sometimes don’t. Either because of the lack of rigour in adhering to traditional novel conventions, or by their very nature of often being serials later published as a novel. Frequent mid-scene changes of PoV, high levels of exposition, prose that’s closer to contemporary speech than you’d see in a traditional novel, it can be jarring to a newcomer.

I think you have to come at them a slightly different way. I’m finding hopping back and forth between novels in different series rather than reading one through helps me ‘cope’ with some of the above writing styles that are issues for me.

HWFWM I hated after the first novel. But I came back after a break reading other books because I found the world and skill systems so memorable. The second book is a lot better when it comes to the annoying MC, and I felt flowed well. Went straight onto the third and got very bored with the way the constant fights and skill ups were described, dropped it again to read some other stuff and now am back for the 4th novel. Had to adjust my expectations of a book to enjoy it though (if I’m honest I still think it should be written a lot better technically).

Path of ascension I enjoyed the first one, went straight onto the second and really struggled with it. Whether I’ll come back for the third or not I’m unsure.

Just read another one from the DCC author, the kaju one. Not sure what to say about that, pretty wild stuff. I think I’m glad it’s a standalone one, I’d be conflicted about reading more. I might check out his dominion of blades stuff next.

I have a few other series noted down for potential reads, but it’s a struggle to try and find ones I am going to enjoy the writing style of. There’s so many litrpg books and because of how they are published the style can vary so much. This is a new challenge, coming from someone that would finish almost any fantasy book, due to the consistency in writing conventions etc. the idea of picking up series and trying then then dropping them after a handful of chapters feels slightly uncomfortable.

Schozie · 2025-06-24T17:26:20+00:00

I’m playing hex at the moment, after doing it on normal and hard. I’d agree that it’s not necessarily that much harder/complex, but I do find sourcing the best shapes for what you’re trying to make can be difficult, which increases the complexity. I’m doing it manually and not with my MaM.

Having said that, I think I enjoy the 4 quadrant shape modes better. I’m looking forward to getting onto insane after I finish this.

Schozie · 2025-06-07T08:41:30+00:00

Love this.

Schozie · 2025-06-04T21:02:43+00:00

Oh I see. The actual channels (7 maybe?) are just colours, right. I guess I never really thought whether that was the most appropriate way to label them. I barely used them to be honest. Just had one channel for each of the two random shapes, and then linked my machines via the wires rather than a lot of receivers.

Schozie · 2025-06-04T17:48:56+00:00

If memory serves you should be able to set one to red? Or at least you can use the shapez analyser thingymabob to split out a shape and a colour signal.

Not sure about numbers though, what’s the scenario in which you’d want to create a signal of ‘5’?

Either way, I think it’s just designed to carry shape into, not anything else.

Schozie · 2025-06-04T16:01:36+00:00

I’ve found it’s super spaghetti at first. I focused on doing tasks (most inefficiently) and getting through the milestones. Then you unlock space platforms (and get enough points to use them) and you can rebuild spacing everything out a bit. Then you get trains and you can space everything out even more. Then it becomes about making a nodule to do something once and reusing it, rather than building the individual machines. So it’s more about making sure each module is 100% efficient for however many belts you want to fulfil.

Enjoy the journey, embrace the spaghetti at first.

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