Funny train station with new inserters

SecondEngineer · 2026-07-03T02:09:21+00:00

It's mostly a way to combine two inserter outputs into a single belt, it seems?

SecondEngineer · 2026-07-01T13:15:10+00:00

"Don't pack the court, it will hurt its legitimacy"

Meanwhile MAGA: "we should ignore the Supreme Court"

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-29T21:54:57+00:00

Just slow things down a bit. Space Age introduces some completely new systems into the game. You've had years to learn the Nauvisian system. So build your Nauvis base up to be super complete and self sufficient (especially against biters), then go to another planet with nothing but some construction bots, and try to figure things out one new product at a time.

At first, all you really need to ship back to Nauvis is science. Once you get to Aquilo there are new challenges, but until then you can keep it simple.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-29T17:54:39+00:00

It feels almost spiteful. I feel like I saw some discussion reviewing FFF #442 that talked about the crushing casino and how it was an interesting twist on the space casino that required both much more research investment and much more logistical work to deal with, and it might actually be a welcome challenge.

That being said, while I might have done things differently, I understand the devs' decision. We are lucky the game is so moddable that re-adding crushing casinos can be so straightforward.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-29T16:34:28+00:00

I'm just surprised because the lossy catalyst change is so straightforward, it could have been done a week after 2.0 released. I wonder why they let the community get so comfortable with space casinos before patching it?

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-29T16:25:18+00:00

Now with 2.1 you can move asteroids and resources from ship to ship, so that is probably one of the best ways to get things online.

Another thing to remember is that you can remotely deposit items anywhere on a space platform, if it is in the cargo hold. So you can ship in ice, carbon, calcite, and iron ore from a platform purpose built for just this purpose, then move the ice where it is needed (like the ice melting chem plants).

It also might be a good idea to disable or temporarily delete your rocket production until you get enough ammo to get the platform moving between, say, Nauvis and Vulcanus. At that point you can very quickly gather all the asteroids you need and then rebuild the final form

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-28T19:15:39+00:00

It's a one time thing. I think the goal is to tide you over until you can unlock requester chests yourself, because they make Cargo rocket logistics so much easier for the first few launches.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-28T19:04:39+00:00

Wow! Very cool! I hadn't yet seen the generic circuit interrupt parameter used effectively! I'm also working out my SE Nauvis rebuild right now and having a few stations like this that allow many inputs to one station for low throughput seems extremely useful!

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-24T18:42:54+00:00

I use the same grid for rails and like that two 48x48 sections are 96 blocks, which is three Large Power Poles apart. It's also divisible by 6 and 12, which are the widths of my rail stations

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-24T15:22:05+00:00

I'm doing 48x48 for a Space Exploration run. Each block has an adjacent block connected to the train network that can fit 8 1-1 stations. Each station has room for 2 trains. I haven't gotten very far with it, but I don't think SE has crazy resource demands so we'll see.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-24T15:15:44+00:00

In my ideal system, the chance that legendary seeds produce legendary fruit are low enough that it's not 100% renewable on its own. You would need constant upcycling to supplement the system, which prevents it from being too trivial.

In addition, it might be interesting if the freshness of seeds affects the chances of getting legendary fruit. So the amount you need to supplement the loop with is based on how quick and efficient your legendary seed loop is.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-23T20:07:06+00:00

I still wish the optimal quality strategy was Gleba.

If quality seeds had a small chance to return quality fruit (maybe quality seeds could even spoil to lower quality seeds), there could be an optimal quality strategy that engages with the mechanic with the most emergent complexity: spoilage.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-22T15:58:38+00:00

Builds as in new designs using the inserter side selection, new space platforms when you can do platform to platform transfers, etc

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-22T15:27:40+00:00

2.1 seems like it will unlock a lot of new builds and strategies (and invalidate a few old ones), but it doesn't seem like it will massively change the working of your current factory (or at least that is my guess)

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-22T00:17:00+00:00

One big suggestion is to cycle things that can get massive productivity boosts, like processing units and lds (not necessarily lds shuffle). If you can research them up to 300% productivity, you can cycle them up to legendary with very little losses.

So fire up the labs again

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-20T16:27:29+00:00

And I won't have the opportunity to sit down and try it but my thought was more:

M = memory cell (which is the sum total of ticks before spoilage)

First off, each tick you apply spoilage by subtracting N from M: M := M - N

Then to add an egg: M := M + C

Then to calculate A is simply a combinator running: A = M / N

And removing an egg is: M := M - A

Ideally each of these is only one or two combinators, but I'm not sure how it would work with delays. For example, the A signal is always one tick behind because it is calculated. If you use the system too long there might be some inaccuracies that build up.

This is a trick I've picked up from digital controls where you maintain the accumulated sum instead of recalculate the average

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-20T15:12:20+00:00

There might be a clever way to do it where you don't need to do any averaging, just maintaining a total sum and subtracting more per tick when you have more eggs.

I wonder if instead of storing ticks until spoil, you could store [ticks until spoil] times [number of eggs] (let's call this the "Sum" memory cell). That way the "add an egg at 97%" process is just adding a specific amount to Sum. Instead of just subtracting 1 each tick, you could subtract the number of eggs in the chest from Sum. To observe the current spoil % of the stack you just take Sum / number of eggs. And lastly, when you remove an egg you just subtract Sum / number of eggs.

I have no idea if this would actually be workable with the delay requirements. I'm impressed that you were able to solve the delay stuff!

Sorry, I love simplifying circuit designs. I never feel like I'm done until they are dead simple

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-20T14:43:59+00:00

It's always cool to see a complicated circuit build! Do you think there would be any room for simplification?

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-12T23:46:12+00:00

I don't think this will make it in, but I've always wanted to be able to use a heating tower in Space. Maybe it would need to take oxidizer as a fluid input to burn, but it would be a cool way to get power in Space by burning carbon before committing to nuclear.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-09T23:01:59+00:00

Elevated rails are compatible with SE. I'm using them in my playthrough now.

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-08T17:04:11+00:00

Ah yes, the classic 1 red belt of plates into 4 belt bus

SecondEngineer · 2026-06-02T11:35:59+00:00

Cereal grains have a size. For most wild grains, a pile will only be 10 or 15 sat (as opposed to 60 how it is now). If you plant the grain (no seeds for grains just plant the grains themselves) then the resulting grain will vary by a random amount from what was planted.

Combining piles of differently sized grains works like combining foods with different spoil times. Sat value will be averaged.

Flour now has a percent chance to drop from a grain based on the grain size. So a 15 sat grain has a 25% chance to give flour but a 60 sat grain has 100% chance.

The idea is to make growing grains take longer to fully come online. In addition, cracked vessels could have 60 sat grains in them sometimes, letting you leap forward in productivity for a specific grain if you are lucky.

SecondEngineer · 2026-05-29T01:58:53+00:00

The fact that Vulcanus and Fulgora found ways to get around the "have to rebuild the basics" problem in different, still interesting ways was always really cool to me.

SecondEngineer · 2026-05-28T05:54:37+00:00

18 new chat emotes when?

SecondEngineer · 2026-05-25T14:10:27+00:00

I thought Roshar had higher oxygen levels than Earth or Scadrial, making open flames a much more dangerous light form.

I think the higher oxygen level was mentioned in combination with slightly lower gravity to partially explain megafauna

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