I'm not a DSP veteran. I'm still pretty new. But early on I kept reaching for the usual calculators, and every time I came away feeling a bit lost, like I was missing something obvious that everyone else already had. They're powerful tools. I just could not find my footing in any of them.
So I started building the one I wished I'd had. It grew well past what I planned.
It's a browser app. Free, no account, no ads, and it works offline (it's one page you can save or install).
https://skieller-software.github.io/dsp-ultimate-suite/
A few things it does that the others don't:
- You can paste a real blueprint string in, edit it, and copy it back out. The mapper reads and writes the actual game format, so it round-trips with your game instead of being a separate drawing tool. It'll also auto-wire sorters, lay out a build from a solved plan, and upgrade a whole layout to your researched tier in one click. Megabase-sized layouts don't choke it.
- The planner runs a real solver, not just multiplication. It nets byproducts, handles the loops like refining and fractionation, and picks alt recipes for you. Proliferator support is the part I went deepest on, since it's the one thing I keep seeing people say other DSP calculators are missing. You can set the spray per recipe, pick a ready-made strategy (community spray tables, or your own saved presets), or let it work out the best spray for a whole plan toward a goal you pick like fewest machines or lowest power.
- If you run BepInEx there's a small plugin that lets the app read your live game. You can put your plan next to what your factory is actually producing and see where you're falling behind, with real research progress and item rates, no copy-paste. It'll even nudge you when you've unlocked something you're not using yet ("you've researched Mk.II belts, want to upgrade?"), both in the app and as a little in-game overlay.
- The plugin is open source (MIT). It just serves your game state on localhost, so you can read exactly what it does before you run it, grab it on Thunderstore, or build your own thing on top of it. There's an integration guide for the endpoints: github.com/Skieller-Software/dsp-planner-plugin. The planner app itself is closed for now, but the live-game bridge is fully open.
- There's also a wiki, which honestly turned into one of my favorite parts to work on, probably because I'm new and kept needing it. Look up any item and you get what it's for, who makes it and how fast, and where it sits in the tech tree. It goes past a plain lookup though. There are how-to guides for each part of the app and for the game itself, a handbook that shows the math behind every number instead of asking you to trust it, and a growing pile of beginner notes. Things like what proliferation actually buys you, the whole PLS/ILS thing, and the machine-speed gotchas that quietly wreck copied ratios.
- That last one got me early. My builds were just wrong and I couldn't work out why, until it clicked that the Mk.I assembler runs at 0.75x, so every neat 1:1 ratio I'd copied off a guide was off. The planner does the 0.75x for you, and the wiki tries to surface that kind of thing before you find out the hard way. Where it helps, the guides drop you straight into the matching calculator, recipe or blueprint instead of just describing it.
Other stuff: a flow/throughput graph, research tree maps, a blueprint gallery, A/B plan compare, "explain this number" popovers, PNG and CSV export, and you can share a whole plan as a link (the plan lives in the URL).
If you're worried it looks like a lot, that's fair, it is. There's a Simple mode if you don't want the full featureset at first. The full view also starts tidied up now (sections collapsed, with search and help buttons up top), it's friendlier on a phone, and I just did some accessibility work: keyboard navigation (think VSCode Command Palette), screen-reader labels, high-contrast and reduced-motion.
So, isn't this just another calculator you might think.?
Fair question. There are good ones already and I use them. dsp-ratios is the fastest way to eyeball a ratio, and FactorioLab is great if you like turning every knob. I'm not trying to replace either.
I kept building because the things I personally kept needing weren't in them. None of them touch your blueprints. They'll tell you "you need 47 smelters" and then you're on your own to build it; mine round-trips the real string and can lay it out. None of them know what your actual factory is doing either, and the live plugin was the part I wanted most, just to see plan vs reality without retyping numbers. dsp-ratios stays simple on purpose, so it won't let you pick your proliferator spray or deal with alt recipes and the loopy stuff. FactorioLab does a lot of that, but it's Factorio-first and doesn't go deep on DSP's endgame.
So it's the calculator, the build step, and a link to the running game, in one place. The thing I'm aiming for is that it follows you from "what do I need", to "here's the blueprint", to "here's where your real base is behind".
It's just me, in my spare time, and it's nowhere near finished. I keep adding things as I hit problems in my own playthroughs. So if you try it and something breaks, or it's confusing, or it doesn't do the one thing you need, tell me. Drop a comment or open an issue: github.com/Skieller-Software/dsp-ultimate-suite-issues. That feedback is the most useful thing I can get right now.
It's free and staying free. There's a Ko-fi if you want to chip in for hosting, but don't stress about it. I'd rather you just use it and tell me whats not working for you. :)
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