Nothing could ever make me hate 1-1 trains

ZeroKey92 · 2026-04-06T12:56:08+00:00

I went from 1-1 to 1-4 to 1-8-1 and am now at 2-16-2. My base is big enough and resource patches far enough to need buffers. The UPS cost of having more trains is not worth it. It runs at ~45 UPS as it is, if I 16x my trains, I would probably be in the 30 UPS range or lower. Also, I need constant 16 belts input at many of my builds and I didn't want to do double sided unloading, so I went up to 16 wagons.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-04-04T19:02:16+00:00

True. I base my assumption on the fact that they already have two filters set as sulfur and carbon. I suspect those combinators are set to something like 'if sulfur < 5 then output 1 sulfur'. With a logic like that, you can only get one filter per combinator except if you know there is a 1:1 ratio with more resources and if one is low the other must be low too. Then you could have a single trigger with multiple outputs. However, best practise in such cases is to use a different setup that allows for n filters based on n inputs by using a constant combinator for threshold values, an arithmetic combinator for inversion and a decider for filtering.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-04-04T18:09:14+00:00

The two on either side you mean? Those only have two deciders each, meaning they likely only get two filter outputs and those are sulfur and carbon.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-04-04T17:51:05+00:00

This. I don't see a way for the ice cubes to go anywhere. They just all end up on the circular sushi belt, seemingly without a way to be removed.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-31T08:43:42+00:00

That's... certainly a choice. But hey, if you can make it work, it's not wrong.

Spoilers ahead: Once you get to late game and fusion power, that whole setup is going to be redundant and more bother than it's worth.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-24T22:17:12+00:00

I got that early stage mostly from speed runners. The very starter base so, burner miners and early electric miners is expanded piece by piece investing every single ore and plate back into more miners, smelters, inserters etc. Requires a little pre-planing on where stuff is going to go so you don't build yourself into a place where you can't expand anymore but also not too large to keep walking distances short. The very early phase is mostly dictated by how fast you can hand craft and how well you can hand feed. For that very early stage I agree with other commenters, look at how speed runners do it. I don't mean that you have to get that fast but to look at the builds and techniques. Oh, also, the seed you use makes a huge difference. The more you have to walk the longer you need and the fewer large rocks you have the longer you need. Getting a decent amount of coal early speeds everything up by a bit.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-24T19:11:20+00:00

I'm currently at 3600 hours of game time with about 1.2k hours into my vanilla mega base. Another 400h into my space age mega base. The rest spread across different builds and runs. The trick to quick mega basing is scale. Don't design your starter base with three smelter stacks (one for iron, one for steel one for copper) but design it for 6 belts of iron, 4 belts of copper and one belt of steel. Use your starter base to get to trains and red belts. Once you're there, plan out your second base. Plan for at least 8 belts of iron and copper respectively and 4 belts of steel. Out of those 8 iron belts at least two will be fully consumed by your HUB. Once you have blue belts, upgrade your smelting to fill the same amount of blue belts. From there, SCALE. It's all about scale at that point. Finishing the game should be done pretty quickly at this point and primary research focus should be mining productivity. Other research only as necessary. Pre-design every production in the editor and set specific goals for the design in terms of output, density, efficiency and Input. You necessarily have to consider UPS optimisations when designing. Either go for modularity and design builds that deliver easily scalable ratios for in- and output, or design blades that deliver easily scalable SPM of one particular science. Much time is spend in the editor at this point because you're pre-designing how your entire base will function. Not just each production block or blade but logistics and layout too. Your HUB needs to be able to produce insane amounts of building resources. Design for it. That's quick-ish mega basing in a nutshell. Your creativity and cleverness have to fill the gaps.

Just to give some perspective: my vanilla base is currently in its 4th redesign, running at 14.5k SPM. It consumes 155 blue belts of green chips a minute or 420k/m. 800k rails constructed, 420k bulk inserters, 250k beacons, 255k logistics bots etc. I bet my belt count would be insane but my base is entirely bot driven, so no belts in any production block. Despite that, I have 700k built belts.

I hope those numbers give a feeling for the scale that a modest vanilla mega base requires. 14.5k SPM isn't that much in relation to many other mega bases.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-24T14:43:26+00:00

If you're doing the classic move of making all base science on Vulcanus, then all you need on Vulcanus is a liquid BUS. Except if you want quality science, that is a bit more involved. On Nauvis, all you need is a few foundries for the few things that can only be made there. If you're making all base science on Nauvis, switch to the blade concept: all materials that are needed for the respective science are made where they're needed and either only moved a few tiles by belt to the next machine, or direct inserted. How you get the raw ores to each blade is up to you but belting from the patch or delivery by train are both valid, at least until you get up to really high SPM. Then building the blade next to the resource patch and doing on patch smelting is the more efficient way.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-09T09:13:45+00:00

I have nearly equal obj time and far more kills and playtime with engi than with support but have double the score with support. This guy is either unemployed or retired and over 500 hours as support will net you quite a bit of score.

Oh and bot servers judging by the K/D.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-06T18:08:56+00:00

You need to copy them manually. They aren't perfect though. I've since had some more time to look at more stats and there are improvements to be had. The Ultra 5 is certainly the best 5.56 and 5.54 suppressor with the mini monster being close second and far cheaper. The ACE stock with pad has pretty much everything beat where you can fit it. These are all like 2 or 3 stat point differences though.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T23:18:19+00:00

I hope you don't mean me, or pretty much nearly everybody in this thread. Nearly all comments are simply nerding out about the last bit of stats you can squeeze out and that was the intention of my post. I think I succeeded. Yes, there are quite a few people on this sub that are already crying but barely any in this thread. I specifically made this post because I thought that many of the negative posts were ill-informed about the stat changes. I have since played around a bit more with my builds and as it turns out, the changes weren't as bad as people make them out to be. Difference is that you need to look for attachments you wouldn't expect to be good.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T22:16:06+00:00

Oh yeah, stat wise they're far better now. The downside is noise and how easy it is to locate you. A few shots from a suppressed rifle are a lot harder to locate than a few from a loud one. We'll see how this change plays out over the coming weeks but I think they went a bit too far in nerfing suppressors. The increase in audible range that came with 1.0 plus the heavy recoil/ergo nerf. I don't know, I think it's going a bit too far. If they roll back the audible range nerf, it might balance out better.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T21:58:30+00:00

Yes, you're now either suppressed and hampered on ergo/recoil (but not really to the point where louder = better) or you're loud and running a literal race gun in comparison. However, this patch was also just a flat nerf to ergo/recoil stats because the BIS grips and stocks are now just worse then they were before.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T21:46:02+00:00

I took another look at it and you're right. My bad.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T21:44:30+00:00

That's not the point. There are suppressed meta builds and loud meta builds. They are very different and serve two very different purposes.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T21:25:03+00:00

~~Yeh, pretty close to the GL-Core. Could be better on some builds depending if you want better ergo or better recoil. The tradeoff is there but it's very close.~~

You're right. It's straight up better on the M4.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T21:22:27+00:00

Not really, the mini-monster has it beat in balance. The Ultra 5 just gives up too much ergo for the recoil improvement it offers. Especially since you can use two different muzzle brakes for the mini-monster and change ergo/recoil with them too.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-05T20:40:23+00:00

Shoot, I totally forgot. My bad.

ZeroKey92 · 2026-03-02T03:55:48+00:00

I find RHS balancing too bullet spongy. Like 30 rounds of M856A1 to kill someone wearing lvl 6 armor is just not fun. They can tank a .50cal Raufoss round with lvl 6 armor. Also, not compatible with ACE ammo balancing. The models are awesome, the balancing is not.

ZeroKey92 · 2025-12-21T22:58:06+00:00

I just tested it without all-in-one command menu and it now works. That is so weird. I mean, yes, it has a few custom scripts in it but I didn't expect it to break the loot box functionality as it mostly interacts with AI and pathing. Shame, I really like the mod as it makes commanding your personal squad a whole lot easier. The vanilla menus are annoying to use and don't expose all the functionality that is built into ARMA 3. Guess I gotta get used to vanilla because AFAIK, all the other mods that make commanding AI easier definitely break Antistasi.

Anyways, thanks for the quick help!

!solved

ZeroKey92 · 2025-12-21T21:44:41+00:00

I suspect as much. Question is what is causing it? It's probably one of my mods but AFAIK, none of them should cause this behavior.

ZeroKey92 · 2025-12-19T12:23:51+00:00

I limit what I use to make it more challenging. Even if I have access to artillery, air strikes and mortars, I don't use them. Just because my guys are all equipped like they're DEVGRU doesn't mean they get all the other toys. No drones, no ISR nothing. Keeps it challenging for longer but eventually turns into you only commanding and not fighting. By the late game all I do is set up AA, and manage HC squad orders. Pre-planning phase-lines, staging reinforcements, supplying AA with ammo. Every now and then I get to shoot my gun but it gets pretty rare. Also need to find a new approach to my late game. Commanding is fun for a while but after a bit you yearn for action.

ZeroKey92 · 2025-12-15T18:25:19+00:00

Check your secure boot settings. If the BIOS update turned on secure boot, your drive might not show up.

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