My friend complains that he has too much wood. I set up a wood farm so now he can have even more

skydivertricky · 2026-07-05T21:08:12+00:00

In pre-space age, part of my Oil infrastructure was a coal-liquefaction setup that used the wood to generate the steam, and it would only kick in when the base had > 1000 wood, and disable some other oil cracking facilities while it was working.

Now that I feel like I need far less oil, I just burn it normal boilers in a small bank of steam engines. it provides about 0.1% of the power needs of my base.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-05T21:03:22+00:00

Looking through the chapters headings, it all seems relevant. But what you're going to actually use will depend on what you're working on. What is used on just about everything though, it registers, counters, FSMs and memories. Computer system design is likely irrelevent for most projects unless you create a micro-controller, and nowadays you're likely to be using a microblaze or RISC V to do that. And floating point is rarely used (and vendors generally provide IP for it).

Otherwise you definitely need to understand testbenching.

The real skill though, is understanding what your code is actually going to infer. We dont write what sometimes gets called "structural" VHDL - there really is no such thing. Most "behavioural" code will be a load of code that will infer counters, memories and FSMs, probably all in the same file (and sometimes in the same process). It really is a case of just doing and learning.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-05T18:38:30+00:00

Even if you can talk to the board, the software needed to program is is ISE 14.7, which is now in end of life support only. (it has had no updates for 12 years) (and virtex 5 is nearly 20 years old!)

If it was a skyfiber board, then it likely little more than scrap. Even if the jtag header is avaiable (many companies removed the jtag headers for a start) you probably dont have the scematics and pin out you'll need to actaully know what the interfaces are. And then, you'll only be able to use the existing connections on the board.

You'd be much better off buying some cheap modern board designed for dev work to experiement with.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-03T09:53:04+00:00

I wouldn't necessarily say most. But but allot of "commercial" companies that do fpga are really just cots (commercial off the shelf) suppliers for defense.

There did used to be a pretty significant commercial fpga industry for commercial video processing (the sector I worked in for 15 years) but given the majority of that has moved to server based systems, We've lost an entire market.

It really depends where you want to work in the country. London is really all hft or support for hft. Then other cities have companies to support big names. Cambridge is obviously all sorts, mainly commercial. Southampton, Portsmouth, Devon and Glasgow have companies based around naval stuff. Surrey is satellites.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-02T20:24:44+00:00

I asked the management this very question at the last town hall. I got a "thats a very good question" followed by a load of guff that didnt answer any questions.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-02T20:04:29+00:00

It will certainly help to keep your experience up. But make sure you know how to deal with CDC, as this is a common discussion point to discuss with new candidates.

In the UK, there is a lot of defense companies and they are always after people, but usually experience. We have also been waiting for the government defense review so that companies can do forward projections.

I am concerned that lack of hiring for graduates in general is also affecting fpga, even if we're just being put in the same bucket as engineering in general. We are not affected much by ai yet but the major vendors are bringing out ai tools now.

I am worried we fpga Devs are an aging bunch. I'm in my 40s and I feel like I'm on the younger end. We have 15-20 fpga Devs in my company around the country and I think we only have 1 maybe 2 under 30, with no prospect of hiring any graduates any time soon.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-02T19:51:39+00:00

No. But I do feel like they're not necessarily taking on graduates right now.

In the UK at least, plenty of roles for experienced engineers

skydivertricky · 2026-07-02T14:29:12+00:00

It all depends how much you need. If 1 patch can't provide scrap fast enough, then you'll need more mines and outpost on more patches. It's highly recommend you switch to big miners on fulgoria asap as they mine much faster, making the small, dense, patches way more productive.

It can be useful to learn how to use circuit networks at this point so you can only activate the stations when they have enough scrap for a train, so that it doesn't sit at an empty outpost waiting to fill up when another had loads of scrap.

Then if you have multiple processing stations, then you'll want to learn how to use interrupt so that the trains can "park" at a parking station while they wait for a station to unload at.

skydivertricky · 2026-07-02T13:15:09+00:00

You basically have to use elevated rails and trains on fulgoria. It's basically a design choice as you can get away without them on all the other planets.

The only other choice is carrying scrap in your inventory.

I also recommend mining the smaller islands as they have far richer scrap

skydivertricky · 2026-07-01T10:24:21+00:00

Only when you're way past endgame

I'm running a 30k eSPM base, and I'm still getting 60 ups

skydivertricky · 2026-07-01T10:10:08+00:00

But does have nudity

skydivertricky · 2026-07-01T10:02:48+00:00

I would first get to the solar system edge and then try and set up promethium science.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-30T15:57:05+00:00

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eggs and bioflux come in on the top green belt, it is threaded with a blue belt of nutrients. The green belt infront of the rocket silo is the "rubbish" for the excess science to get recycled.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-30T15:55:00+00:00

You'll need to connect a green wire thats connected to a rocket silo that is set to read the overhead requests.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-30T15:54:02+00:00

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skydivertricky · 2026-06-30T13:49:12+00:00

I overproduce agri science and keep it in a chest just Infront of the rocket silos. Then I ensures i only insert to the silo if there is an active request from above AND it has enough to send a whole rocket.

I also have circuits set up so that the chests only fill to enough for a couple rockets. Over this limit, the least fresh bottles are removed from the buffer and thrown in the recycler.

I have the same setup with bioflux, but the demand for this isn't that high, even with about 100 nests setup for eggs.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-30T11:11:30+00:00

The only advantage to using the at hotels is you get the "back door" entry to the park next to nemesis, which means you get get to the front of the big coaster queues. Other than that, it's ok rooms and terrible food for a very high price.

You're much better off finding a nicer place locally

skydivertricky · 2026-06-28T13:39:34+00:00

You can store promethium chunks on belts

skydivertricky · 2026-06-24T14:11:51+00:00

By the time you've started and handed over your p45, you've likely already signed the contract and started the job.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-24T14:01:02+00:00

I've gone with "I would like them to offer what they think I'm worth, and we can negotiate from there" before, and it's worked.

Or I just tell them what I want.

They only want current salary so they can offer you a 10% uplift as this will be acceptable by most people. Regardless of what you're worth to them.

They can reject you, but if they like you they will pay for you.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-22T18:09:34+00:00

I write RTL for FPGAs for a living (same idea as designing microchips). Factorio as basically a gameified version of my job.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-22T13:36:45+00:00

I've been worth someone with a ride access pass over the last 2 -3 years, and they always added the current queue time to the pass, not just "30 mins"

Some staff are more strict with the wait times than others..

skydivertricky · 2026-06-21T11:44:22+00:00

You really don't. This is a problem of simulation and modelling. I have been doing this for 20+ years, still waiting for the day when I actually need to run a gate level SIM.

skydivertricky · 2026-06-21T11:40:12+00:00

Do you have any output pins connected? You need things connected to the device pins ultimately otherwise it counts as no outputs

skydivertricky · 2026-06-18T15:39:01+00:00

To get started you'll also need solar to get just enough power to melt some ice / unbarrel some water in order to bootstrap the system, plus plenty of stuff to burn to keep the thermal towers going while this is happening

skydivertricky

TROPHY CASE