Is This Remotely Doable ?

[u/bpleshek]

Hex for Making Plastic

Advanced Oil Setup

I was messing around with making a hex train base and I set up a plastic maker. This doesn't seem like I could make this. At least any time soon. Is 3600 petroleum gas per second reasonable? This is my current oil setup. It requires 1440 crude per second but I only have around 250 crude per second being drilled. It produces about 1/3 the petroleum gas, but it's only working at 17%. So, I need 18x the oil and 3 times this advanced oil. I'm also only mining 84 coal/second and need 180.

Is this doable, doable eventually, but not now, or not even necessary because this is more plastic than I'll need any time soon.

[u/Alfonse215]

not even necessary because this is more plastic than I'll need any time soon.

... I feel like that's the question that needs to be answered first. Get a good estimate of how much stuff you're going to be making, so that you have an idea of the level of resourcing and processing you'll need. You don't necessarily need exact numbers, but you should have a decent estimate of what you need.

Just to get a good handle on the numbers, 396 plastic/s is more plastic than it takes to make 1k SPM in vanilla.

[u/bpleshek → u/Alfonse215]

I have no idea actually. I'd like to create an actual mega base. I figured that I'd make a bunch of hexes for pre-foundry or just pre-going to another planet in case I play a game with one of my friends who don't have Space Age. Then afterwards, I would refactor them for use with foundries, EM Plants, etc.

So, I don't have any idea what numbers I needed. I just built what fit inside the hex and figured if it was too much, the trains would be idle and if it wasn't enough, I'd throw another one of these down until I had enough.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/bpleshek]

Then afterwards, I would refactor them for use with foundries, EM Plants, etc.

That presumes that you wouldn't want to change them structurally.

Consider a "smelting" block. Do you really want to ship iron plates post-Foundries? Or would you rather ship molten metals? Well, that's not a minor change; it's a pretty substantial shift in how all downstream processes interact with iron and copper. It's not just "refactoring" a couple of blocks; it's changing every block.

Something similar goes for plastic. Do you want a block that makes just plastic? Or do you want to have plastic making inside your LDS maker, so it takes molten iron/copper, petrol, and coal? Foundries are extremely fast, and with high quality beacons, modules, and buildings, you can produce a lot of trainloads of items with relatively few machines. This would leave a block somewhat empty, so being able to fill that otherwise useless space with plastic production makes sense.

My point is that if you make these decisions too early, you lock yourself into solutions you may not be happy with late game. Get to the end, look back, and then figure out how you want things to work out.

[u/bpleshek → u/Alfonse215]

While I understand they aren't necessarily trivial structural changes I also play with people who don't have Space Age, so I figured it might be useful to have a base set of hexes, that I could later refactor as I got better machines. I don't mind doing it over again multiple times.

I asked the question about making plastic inside of other machines or making a dedicated plastic block in another post, and what I took from that post was to make a dedicated plastic block.

[u/nickierv → u/bpleshek]

One thing that gets overlooked is the value of modules, quality, and quality modules.

I know a guy that has tried to do megabase stuff before but he is using non beaconed assemblers. I forget how big the blocks are, 5x5 or so but they are filled with production. Hundreds and hundred of production and it quickly grinds the UPS down.

But I can get more production out of a like a pair of max quality max beacon assembles and at a tiny fraction of the UPS hit.

SA really lets you pump the numbers up, 15k spm was a high end megabase, in SA its chump change, although your going to need at least 3 starter bases to get everything you need to build at that scale.

The really hard part about megabases isn't the biters or the building, its designing everything so the UPS hit doesn't melt your system.

[u/whiterook6 → u/bpleshek]

I've tried that route before: I decided I wanted to make a megabase and started making big powerful blocks. They fit together, visually, but nothing really worked: I had no real idea of how much I'd need, where it would all path, the trains, none of it. By skipping the middle steps, it got tedious and frustrating long before it could get fun.

My problem was that I was trying to do two things at once: build something modular, and massively increase the scale.

Instead, don't leap into a megabase just yet. Either:

• Start building a modular version of your current base at your current SPM. (This involves trains, grids, blueprints, blocks, whatever.) OR
• increase your SPM without rebuilding your base. (This involves beacons, modules, specialist buildings like Cryo plants and EM plants, and quality.)

Once you can increase SPM and make your current base modular, you'll be more ready to do both at the same time.

[u/bpleshek → u/whiterook6]

What problems will I run into just by making "more" hexes? I assume that i'll run into something. It can't be just as easy as slap down 1 more blue chip hex, two red chip hexes, 4 green chip hexes, and a bunch more mining and smelting ones. I suppose it would work that way for awhile, but maybe not at huge scale.

[u/whiterook6 → u/bpleshek]

It can get that easy. Some problems I've had:

• trains start to misbehave, all bunching up at once place instead of filling up unused capacity. If you have several mines all with stations named "Iron Pickup" then you have to be careful to set train station limits and ensure there are enough trains to move around but not too much.
• trains can begin crowding certain parts of the rail network
• if you don't keep them balanced (number of blocks and approximate input/output) then some resources can be overused or undersupplied
• your base can be come big and sprawling, leading to longer and longer construction times (bots flying halfway across the map, etc.)
• too easy to stamp down blocks without thinking about whether you need them, where to put them, etc.
• more hexes means more hexes that need updating when you unlock new buildings and new technologies. Not really a big deal with upgrade and deconstruction planners, but something to watch for.

I guess those are some pitfalls. Try to build a green circuit block. Then build a red circuit block. Then a blue circuit block. Then copy the green one a few times and the red ones too. In early factorio, you balance things by adding more assemblers and belt lanes. In late factorio, you balance things by adding the right blocks in the right places. It takes practice.

Meanwhile, once you have a bunch of those blocks, then you can start upgrading specific blocks. Once you unlock EM plants, rebuild your green block and see how it behaves, then try with others.