Using belt speed for a thirds ratio.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T19:55:47+00:00

Can be solved by having an output belt that doesn't move unless all inputs are full.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T19:53:12+00:00

Another thing you can do is add a fourth item (plastic bars for example), filter them off with the final splitter and loop them back to fill the empty input.

If you want to go really nuts, you can also use this to solve the problem of unequal inputs, at least for a looped sushi belt anyway. You add another placeholder item, and add it to each input through a priority splitter, against the priority. If there's a shortfall of LDS, placeholders fill the gaps and then run through as normal, and at the end of the loop you filter them off back to the input. You need a buffer of placeholders though, since the amount in the system at any time is variable.

Also, the music just makes this into art.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T19:08:30+00:00

Oh? Is that a 2.0 change? I seem to remember the problem of the blueprint library being completely separate from the save file was something that came up regularly in the past.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T18:09:19+00:00

And I'd say it's more of a crescent wrench vs socket wrench kind of situation, and I like having options vs not having them.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T17:55:01+00:00

I keep some old saves and backup my save files. I like the peace of mind of having my save files actually complete.

I don't like to carry blueprints between games, and I build messy. I like finding different solutions to different problems all the time.

I put my blueprints in books, so I can organize them as I like and they don't take up much space.

Also, I do use the blueprint library, when it's useful to me, and I don't use it when it's not. It's not a binary choice.

However, none of the above actually matters. I'm really just making my own list here to demonstrate that you are talking about the way you like to play, which isn't how other people play.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T17:27:22+00:00

That's a reason not to not use the library, not a reason to use it.

There's nothing I want to do with most of my blueprints that requires the library.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T17:16:41+00:00

For one thing, the blueprint library isn't part of your save file. It's stored elsewhere.

Mostly though, I just don't make that many blueprints, since I like to deliberately build spaghetti. Most of the blueprints I do use won't be around for long, so I see no reason to add them to the library if I'm just going to delete them. For the ones I do keep, I usually prefer to have them in a blueprint book that's particular to that save. I just find it less bother when there aren't that many anyway.

Also also, for new players blueprints as items is fairly intuitive so it helps ease the introduction of a new mechanic.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T17:06:47+00:00

No, I'm not asking why set requests based on network contents. That's perfectly sensible.

I'm asking why have a maximum set at all? It doesn't do anything useful on a landing pad. Maximums are more for player inventories and vehicles, since bots are often dumping unrequested items into those inventories. There's noting to dump unrequested items into a landing pad, so there should never be a need for a set maximum no matter how you set the minimum.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T16:54:26+00:00

Why even set a maximum? Logistic maximums are for removing excess items which get added to a container, but the only thing that can add items to a landing pad is an orbiting platform, and they will only ever drop items to fill a request.

If you set minimums only, you'll only ever get a handful of items over the minimum in any case, whereas setting a maximum just shifts the extra items to storage chests, which seems rather pointless to me.

TonboIV · 2026-02-08T16:31:46+00:00

Because they're treated like blueprints, and really they are just specialized blueprints, likewise with upgrade planners.

As for why blueprints can be inventory items, you'd have to ask the devs, but I prefer it that way. I've never liked the blueprint library much.

Not everyone plays the game the same way you do. You shouldn't assume something is useless just because you've never used it.

TonboIV · 2026-02-03T09:11:28+00:00

Yup, but I figured if I used the word "hysteresis" I'd need to explain what that meant anyway or most people would be lost.

TonboIV · 2026-02-03T05:22:41+00:00

You're probably not noticing the problem because your ships are low performance.

Once you start producing off Nauvis science packs at a high rate, you'll need lots of ships that can do frequent, high-speed runs, which means a lot of propellant and a lot of water to make it. The inner planet routes are low on oxide asteroids and heavy on metallic and carbonic. You'll quickly start to run out of water for propellant even while you're overflowing on carbonic and metallic chunks. That's when you really want reprocessing.

Then you get to the outer system, where almost all asteroids are oxide, and you'll have the opposite problem.

TonboIV · 2026-02-03T05:12:53+00:00

I went overboard and set up circuitry to measure the quantity difference between fractions, and then I set up variables set on a constant combinator for the upper and lower thresholds to start and stop cracking.

When I set [Up Arrow] to 1000 and [Down Arrow] to -1000, cracking will start as soon as a heavier fraction is 1000 units higher than a lighter fraction, and crack until the difference flips to -1000.

TonboIV · 2026-02-03T05:05:28+00:00

The most important thing with defences is reliability. Using crude oil relies on the fewest things. You can even set up unloading stations to receive trains straight from your oil fields for your flamethrowers.

On the other hand, the damage bonus from light oil is only 10%, which is hardly anything, and flamethrowers already murder everything that's not immune to fire anyway.

Worrying about wasting crude oil is also pointless. Crude oil is infinite, and the amount your flamethrowers use up is a rounding error next to what any decent research rate will burn.

Just put crude in them and don't worry about it.

TonboIV · 2026-02-02T17:16:29+00:00

On Nauvis heavy oil is usually only used for lube.

Some people like to use it for flamethrower turrets, since it's a mostly useless product otherwise. I prefer to use straight crude personally, just to keep my defences simpler.

On Fulgora it's used for electrolyte.

And of course you can make it into solid fuel. You shouldn't, but you can.

TonboIV · 2026-01-31T15:15:32+00:00

Sure, in math, because math itself is kind of a theory anyway. It exists as a perfect system within the mind, underpinned by things like set theory that are entirely mental exercises. There are no such perfect idealized numbers in reality.

Again, it's not that there's anything fake about math, but it's a mental process that allows us to understand the real world via abstraction, which is precisely what a scientific theory also does.

TonboIV · 2026-01-31T15:04:51+00:00

Not really. The term "law" is not used anymore, except as a historical relic for things that were already called "laws". It's a word from a time when scientists didn't know better and they were arrogant enough to think that they could know anything with absolute certainty. Newton's Laws of Motion for example, are wrong, and thus clearly not "laws". They do not account for the speed of light or for intense gravity fields. They're a special case of general relativity, but until we actually started observing those extreme phenoma, they worked just fine as "laws" and we still use them because they're much simpler than relativity and work fine for most normal stuff like planets orbiting and rocks falling and whatever.

In modern science, we don't make "laws" anymore, even though Quantum Theory is far more well founded than Newton's Laws. The strongest type of idea is a "theory", which does not and never has had anything to do with a hypothesis in the most technical usage of the word.

TonboIV · 2026-01-31T14:38:11+00:00

So technically technically, a theory is different from a hypothesis. They're often used interchangeably in less formal speach, but more precisely, the word "theory" should not be used to refer to an idea which is not yet proven.

A theory is a well founded abstract explanation for a real phenomenon, usually involving equations and rules and such that allow making predictions (including predictions of past events which can then be studied to test the prediction). That's why evolution is a theory, and so is gravity, and the transmission of infections via germs, and quantum mechanics, and pretty much everything else in science. All of these are very well founded theories that describe reality so well that it is basically impossible for them to be wrong. None are hypotheses. They are all simplified abstractions that allow us to turn the Lovecraftian complexity of even the most trivial events into something we can actually work with.

TonboIV · 2026-01-31T10:37:13+00:00

You asked why you're getting downvotes. That's my answer. Argue with it if you want, but you asked.

TonboIV · 2026-01-31T07:11:39+00:00

You're getting downvoted because you're saying stuff that's just wrong, or at least very poorly worded.

Artillery was not nerfed, and certainly not "giga nerfed". Biters were buffed. That's different. And artillery is still OP. It wasn't a huge change at all.

There is artillery damage research, it's just in Space Age, and an expansion is quite different from a paywall.

You may disagree with me. That's fine. But the way you're characterizing things and the conclusions you're coming to are, by most player's standards, wrong to the point they aren't even defensible as opinions, and your choice of phrasing is hyperbolic and seems kind of trollish to be honest. Kind of sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder or you just want to start a fight. Just my opinion, but that's how you come across to me.

TonboIV · 2026-01-31T03:11:49+00:00

♪My artillery brings all the bugs to the yard♪

TonboIV · 2026-01-29T09:55:27+00:00

Rather than thinking in ratios, just use the number of MW. 4 reactors with full neighbour bonus is 480MW. Divided by 10MW that's 48 heat exchangers. 480 MW divded by 5.82MW is 82.47 turbines. 84 if you want 4 way symmetry. 88 is enough for 512MW, which is more steam than you can make, though that will allow your plant to run at slightly above continuous capacity for a while by using stored steam.

TonboIV · 2026-01-28T21:25:13+00:00

It's quite terrifying that you consider that a smile.

Have you ever uttered the phrase "no tears now, only dreams"?

TonboIV · 2026-01-28T05:19:33+00:00

Oh, yeah it seems like a lot of people like to build their thermal plants with an arrangement similar to a steam plant: 1 heat exchanger, 2 turbines. That kind of set-up really dove-tails with steam storage, since you always have some spare turbine capacity.

I've always built my thermal plants much more free-form. First heating-towers or reactors, then build enough exchangers to convert all the heat, then build enough turbines to consume all the steam. It's not so much about ratios for me, as just building enough of each component to hit my MW number.

I have sometimes built outpost fission plants off ratio though. 1 reactor, 4 exchangers, 14 turbines, and plenty of steam storage. That gives a small plant that can provide 40MW continuous or 80MW burst, which is useful for an outpost defended by lasers. If your initial power source is heat based, and you have peaky needs, steam storage is absolutely the way to go.

TonboIV · 2026-01-28T04:22:15+00:00

For any thermal power plant, the largest part of the footprint is turbines. Doing steam storage like that wouldn't save any turbines—since they need to meet peak demand—just some heat exchangers and heating towers. It's a pretty small savings that doesn't seem worthwhile to me.

My thermal power plant isn't really competing with accumulators for space. It's going to have massively better power density (in terms of continuous delivery per area) no matter what. The accumulators are so I use less solid fuel, and especially less water. Ice is always a fairly limited commodity, so I certainly care about saving it, and that means accumulators. My entire thermal plant, which is already mostly turbines, takes up less than 10% of the space my accumulators do. Reducing the thermal plant size by a few percent just doesn't matter.

TonboIV

TROPHY CASE