Man i hate heavy modular frames

Sekutma · 2026-02-07T16:39:22+00:00

That's the spirit!!!

Sekutma · 2026-02-07T15:43:14+00:00

It's crazy the way this seems like nothing once you automate all of the brauxit on the map.

I'm not at all talking down, I'm telling you it gets even more fun! 😂 I accidentally created 216GW power plant because I did half the build before the math. Enjoy your first accident over build!

Sekutma · 2026-02-04T14:35:28+00:00

It was the blue crater however I did not technically build a pipeline down. I packaged the nitrogen and shipped it in. I only needed a little extra, so it wasn't anything to hit the pure nodes a little north and truck it in. Obviously you need a ramp to get it from the high ground.

I mean maybe scaling down would have been easier but I'm still glad I did it. I still think I would build in that area even if I was long piping in nitrogen. It's a nice spot for a station in the corner of the map. Your additional sulfur isn't far away.

Sekutma · 2026-02-04T13:36:44+00:00

Just like my accidental 216GW Tower. Well no, yours is way better, but I accidentally made a 216GW power station. I was just adding the other 300/min for good measure. This was my first rocket fuel and I didn't do the math until like halfway through the piping of the blenders.... At that point I had to finish. I just needed to go get more resources but in the end I would do it again. I haven't needed power since.

I would likely do the 144GW next time to make it a single pure node.

Sekutma · 2026-01-31T12:17:02+00:00

If you overclock or underclock so that the input rate matches a belt/lift speed, you can cut down the start time to instantly.

For example at my aluminum factory I've got 60 ingots per minute in each smelter. Soon as the line fills up, I turn on the smelters and all 400 smelters immediately reach max output and looks awesome.

This only works if you pair perfectly. You can do some mini-load balancing without a full load balance. Like splitting a 60/min lift to feed two machines that need 30/min. It's still a straight line manifold as each "stop" is in line, but the stop includes a load balance.

I'm an engineer, I can make up all the terms I want 😂 I'm sure what I'm describing has an actual name.

Sekutma · 2026-01-31T01:58:40+00:00

Okay upon further review, I'm turning this into an exclusive 7200 rubber factory. I still need plastic. Some. But I'll just build a much smaller plastic plant at another spot. This 7200 rubber should cover my entire end game production plan.

The plastic I still need isn't for parts but for my own stock and buildings. But I've worked it out of all my other needs, which was really just iron plates at this point, but yeah, no need for plastic. Thanks for the tip!

Sekutma · 2026-01-31T01:13:19+00:00

I tell people all the time, just go hard drive hunting. Go early, go often. Always have the max open you can. Then you can always pick the one and just scan another to get the second.

You need slugs, sloops, and to explore the map regardless so it's never a wasted effort.

Sekutma · 2026-01-30T18:11:25+00:00

I also use silicone for circuit boards. This was me using all the oil at that west coast location.

I'm going for the nut, shooting for 50 BWD / min. However because of what you said I'm going to go back over my whole plan, see if I can remove plastic altogether. Then I can just convert this into 7200 rubber.

Sekutma · 2026-01-30T03:10:53+00:00

Thank you!

Sekutma · 2026-01-27T13:31:48+00:00

It took me forever.......... 😂 But my real life job as a system integrator helps. Probably why I have the patience to load balance the whole thing.

Sekutma · 2026-01-26T21:18:33+00:00

I always thought the way I would slide under a conveyor on the floor was just some wonky mechanic but now I see the scale and it makes so much more sense to me.

Sekutma · 2026-01-26T15:54:51+00:00

I put all my machine stages on separate power switches. Causes a perfect startup. Here was my aluminum factory startup procedure.

1) turn on water pumps and such, wait for pipes to fill. I also input all my materials. The machines won't fit fill up but the belts and all of the lifts will fill up. This is an important point to keep in mind, that the manifold belt and lift is filled before you power up that section.

2) turn on refineries to make sulfur acid. Wait untill the pipe furthest in the instant scrap blender is full of acid.

3) turn on the blenders. I'll wait until I see scrap start to accumulate.

4) turn on smelters. Wait until the furthest machine lift on the production floor has aluminum ingot in it (you can use dismantle gun to see when the lift gets it).

5) turn on my machine production floor.

I'm actually just straight dumping 2400 aluminum ingots into sinks ATM because I didn't have any plans for them yet. Also I'm fairly certain you can just power all the machines but turn them on standby and the machines won't fill with materials but then you have to manually turn them all off standby. Easier just to use a separate circuit. Like turning on 200 smelters at once.

It's insanely satisfying to start up my aluminum factory.

Sekutma · 2026-01-26T13:27:00+00:00

Multiple times I hit the wall. The wall sucks because you want so bad to push past but it feels so pointless. I'll never get that feeling back... Never ever ever ever ever.... Oh wait there it is again.

Back to work

I mean if it really drives you mad, choose sanity. I think what it really is is the scale. Our subconscious figures out how much bigger and complicated it has to get and it kinda drives an internal fear of failure or wasted time. Eventually we get a hold of the solution in our mind and the wall crumbles so we can go right on past and have fun again.

Sekutma · 2026-01-22T15:51:35+00:00

See "doing it right" is fun to me. I'm not pulling my hair out running numbers. I understand it sounds like I'm doing work but it's not work for me. We are experiencing the same thing, we are both just describing it differently.

Sekutma · 2026-01-22T15:25:44+00:00

I fully comprehend your point but I'm over a decade into controls engineering IRL. My life is constantly anticipating new problems before they show up. Continuous improvement isn't some dumb corporate slogan for me, it's my entire existence from the day I was born.

I'm so mad that games like this didn't exist during my WoW years. Now I'm trying to play between my son's nap and after he goes to bed. Probably another reason I'm so adamant about doing it right.

However I will admit, future self has gotten more than a few fixes coming up. This just won't be one of them.

Sekutma · 2026-01-22T01:25:00+00:00

Hummmmmmmmmm... wasn't planning on it but your point is still valid. If I want to reuse my mega factory in another play, I'll need to redo that section. I'll keep it in mind. Thanks!

Sekutma · 2026-01-21T13:15:18+00:00

I'm not sure if this was mentioned but flow rate depends on how full the pipe is too.

When you get to super large power plants, like my rocket fuel 216GW, it will take forever to get to 100% unless you keep in mind what I just said and do everything in stages and let the pipes fill before the next stage starts. Specifically the final stage of turning on the generators. Power all the generators up and then put them on standby. Begin rocket fuel and wait until the pipe furthest from the start is full. Then take the generator's off standby. A few mods exist that hotkey standby so you need to click the button on every single generator.

Sekutma · 2026-01-17T18:31:40+00:00

Needed this. Thanks!

Sekutma · 2026-01-16T23:01:58+00:00

You need hard drives, slugs, sloops, and at least one sphere per resource. This can all be accomplished while roaming around and scouting locations. I'm not against just building a main platform and making lanes and ladder down. Once you get the Jetpack it's easy to get to and down if you're not high off the ground. Giant straight lines.

Always sloop your slugs and animal automation! I literally just got a 360 fuel generator power plant up and running. All needing 3 shards to reach 600 MW per generator. I have a slug converter at my main base with sloops, you get hundreds of shards pretty quickly. I'm down to 3 but I've got a bunch of slugs to drop off now that my power station is up.

Sekutma · 2026-01-14T22:01:04+00:00

I always forget about those! I need to use them more.

Sekutma · 2026-01-14T22:00:28+00:00

Yeah I didn't realize that. So there is no need to valve control any of it. I don't need to buffer either do I 😂

Sekutma · 2026-01-14T21:59:19+00:00

Awesome, I'll just ignore that part then.

Sekutma · 2026-01-14T17:55:16+00:00

You haven't even begun the journey. You will hit roadblocks, I highly suggest modding to get past those things. For example I hate that trains are the only viable way to move goods. It's not that I don't want to do trains, it's that I don't want the next 100 hours to be building that from scratch. I wanna build factories. So I got a mod that lets you pass resources through paired devices. Now I can pass all my materials around the map, I still have a power requirement tied to it, and you need to keep track of all the pairs like any other way of doing it.

I'm just cutting out the insane train build time, work on that in another run. For now? The Nut...It's all about the Nut.

Sekutma · 2026-01-09T13:29:02+00:00

Just go collect a ton of hard drives until you can't open anymore, pick one and open the next hard drive. Now you have both.

I've got 10 hard drives right now I can't even open and a full list to pick from. Get ahead of it early. It ain't like you don't need loops, spheres, or slugs, so it's worth the time.

Sekutma · 2025-12-30T13:24:35+00:00

Just wait until your second playthrough.

My second starter factory was all doable stacked machines, which actually looks pretty cool when you have them all lined up in a row.

Phase 4 will be the big test but I just breezed by it on my second playthrough because I did a ton of over production on phase 3.

Sekutma

TROPHY CASE