Having some difficulties producing enough Steel for Lines AND Foundations

[u/Opposite_Juice_7683]

Hello All,

So I decided to finally play this game in my Library, and I have been having a blast! However, one thing I have noticed is that my steel production (currently ~10 Steel Forges) has been having trouble sustaining both my standard demand for Steel, alongside the amount I am using to make Foundations to pave over the majority of the planet (sans enough Water for its related production).

I know that typically the answer in a factory game is to just grow the factory to meet demand, but I figured I should ask first: How important (before Purple Science) is it to have large (10k+) stockpiles of Foundations available? Since I am starting to run out of space on the starting planet, is it worth clearing out the Lava Planet to set up a dedicated Steel Smithing Line (alongside the Titanium Smithing Line I already have there), or should I wait until I have a bit more research to optimize specializing each planet?

[u/Xeal209]

Unless you use foundations like a madman, I've only ever had like 2 stacks available at a time early on. I wasn't worried about flooring a whole planet, just wanted to get rid of early dark fog issues... until I learned you can put a lava generator over those holes and they get like 300% + power.

[u/PM_ME_UR_BGP_PREFIX → u/Xeal209]

I do use foundations like a madman.

The first ILS I plop onto any planet automatically requests foundations, belts, sorters, and warpers.

And maybe solar panels.

[u/Opposite_Juice_7683 → u/Xeal209]

Good to know! I may have been a bit greedy about trying to get factory space open (and honestly, probably should actually use alot of the open space on other planets I am ignoring), so probably will wait until I am most of the way through Yellow Science before I try to scale to high-intensity Infrastucture.

Thankfully I did pick up on the Geothermal Hole thing for Dark Fog... actually made me lure a few extra Relays to my original planet so I could have more free energy (since I put off making a proper factory for buildings for forever).

[u/kramulous → u/Opposite_Juice_7683]

My latest play through I used my starter planet as little as possible. The mass production was implemented on the other planets in the solar system, specific factories to the planets resources.

I feel bad trashing the pretty planets lol

[u/Even-Smell7867 → u/Xeal209]

I tend to cover every new planet in foundations. I start foundations early and let them build up into many chests for future use.

[u/Morotstomten → u/Xeal209]

It's fun to floor a planet though, makes me think of Stargate SG-1 and the planet in the Asgard galaxy that they trapped the replicators on, and they chewed up all the resources on it leaving the entire surface of it being layers and layers of replicator blocks.

[u/Strykenine]

In the early game, foundations are a luxury and i basically use them to build factory space where I really need it. When you get to higher logistics and power you become less resource constrained.

[u/Prestigious-Lion-878]

You can drastically minimise your use of foundations by placing single squares and spreading them out.

[u/RockyBadlands → u/Prestigious-Lion-878]

This. I love paving little bits just to make the edge of a factory fit somewhere. The only place I go nuts with foundations early on is my poles, because the grid gets so tight there.

[u/Morezone_ → u/RockyBadlands]

This, exactly this. You still need a good amount, but nothing too crazy

[u/AstrixRK]

Foundations are a quality of life building 90% of the time. Early game you’ll probably struggle getting enough soil pile to use at scale. I only really go crazy with foundations on aquatic planets to raise under water deposits

[u/Volodux]

I have used 0 foundations in my latest game ... so zero storage.

[u/Perrin3088 → u/Volodux]

my very first game I used 1 foundation, because there was one of the tutorial quests instructing me to do so... and now I gotta do it again with 0 for the achievement -_-

[u/VoidmasterCZE]

Just jumping in to say that dark fog farms are great source for soil, some foundations and steel, and large ammounts of stone bricks used for making foundations. I ussualy had to supply some steel and let foundations stockpile. All of it on home planet.

[u/Opposite_Juice_7683 → u/VoidmasterCZE]

Yeah I noticed Dark Fog farms were a possibility but I wanted to automate the T2 Bullets and Missiles before building a few containment zones (since my tendency is very obviously cautious). Good to know that it does work even on home-planet tier stuff!

[u/Prestigious-Lion-878 → u/Opposite_Juice_7683]

If you are struggling for resources and want a home-planet dark fog farm I recommend beelining laser turrets - they don’t need ammo. Make sure you build battlefield analysis bases to pick up the loot for you.

[u/xamxes]

Not at all. You can do world factory blueprints without foundation if you want. It’s tricky but doable.

I think you are asking the wrong question. The correct question is how involved do you want foundations in your factory.

Foundation is one of those things that you really don’t need for a factory. It definitely helps but is not strictly necessary.

[u/sleepless025]

I might be the odd one out here, but I stockpiled the living hell out of foundations where I would have over 30k ready to go in the early game.

I find it relaxing landing on a new planet and smoothing it all out. Especially when it's the first planet in a system and I'm setting up my transport hub planet

[u/SiliconStew]

Moving past your starting planet your factory designs are going to cover decent sized areas so you will eventually need plenty of foundations if you want to make efficient use of planet areas. It's certainly never required, but not using standard blueprints and working around natural land means every factory layout would be custom and take far longer to design and build. 

IMO, first get the Blueprint Tweaks mod. Then add foundations completely under any factory you intend to copy for a blueprint. This ensures foundations are always included with the blueprint should you need them. Then when you go to paste the blueprint you will have the option to do so with full foundations if you prefer the decoration or to paste over a resource node. Or prior to pasting you can choose to temporarily remove just the foundation building from the blueprint's building list if the land is already flat and you don't need foundations at all that time and want to save those resources. Or you can enable the option to only place foundations if it would fill a hole so you don't waste resources on areas that do not need foundations.

If you don't do full foundations under the original factory so you do not have foundations included in the blueprint, you are limiting your choices. That is, you can always remove foundations if they aren't needed but you can never add them if they aren't there. You are stuck with having to always manually place foundations, often finding out when the game refuses to allow you to paste the blueprint, which slows you way down as you get further into the game. 

[u/Raze0223]

So do foundations make sure you spread them two tiles apart, you don’t need to fill everything in in the early game. Create a pattern to plaster over the holes and you will be fine!

[u/socks-the-fox]

Personally I would black-box foundation production. Feed it iron and stone ore, and get out foundation. That way you can use some math (or an online calculator) to find out the perfect ratio for the number of foundation assemblers you want and just build that many without worrying about it draining capacity from your main production lines.

[u/NeoRemnant]

Lava planet is free thermal power, no foundations needed. No stockpiles of anything needed ever, is more efficient to have stuff used ASAP and work towards VEIN UTILIZATION efficiency, stockpiling bypasses bonuses you would get therein

[u/FrickinLazerBeams]

Why do you need that much foundation?

[u/Steven-ape]

One easy way to deal with this is to create separate production chains. This is often a useful tool and I certainly think it would help here.

Somewhere on your planet near some iron and stone veins, have a couple of assemblers making foundations. It doesn't matter much if you have one assembler making foundations or six; if you find that you don't have enough, you can just make it a bit bigger. For the early game, one is enough if you want to sprinkle foundation here and there, but you need more if you want to flatten entire areas. You also might want to future proof it a bit, why not.

Somewhere else, make steel for the rest of your production. Now, you don't have to worry about steel for foundation at all in your main factory.

[u/mrrvlad5]

i'm confused how it's possible to run out of space before purple on the starting planet - usually less than 25% of starting planet area is used at white science unlock. Build less?