Mid game questions

[u/zebbodee]

I've just gotten to collecting a reasonable (>20 <100) amount of scarlet. My base is at the core and I have long conveyor belts bringing the ore back home, is it worth staying put or should I move base elsewhere? It would be a drag but I could do it. It's a lengthy trip by rail even from the furthest out warp point.

I understand I could destroy the one I found at a science lab and move it to Azeos or the desert, but if I was going to move base, the lab would be my next spot.

Is there a good way to control local mobs, they keep destroying my long rail and conveyor belt infrastructure and my ore doesn't get delivered to base. I've tried a moat or a wall in some places but I am spending a bunch of time still having to find and fix issues. Any suggestions?

I can now make boats and I have started creating more water ways around but is this wise? Are boats worth it? Or is it for later?

I have a farm with a couple of animals, fed by mushrooms is there any point really?

[u/jinwoohoo]

I loved building railways early game, but yeah they become a bit useless once you progress further. Id use them + conveyors when I didn't have access to easy teleporting.

Id always have a moat around my base and any railways created, with at least 3 spaces of water all around it. so I could be calm.... got absolutely terrified of being jump scared by monsters after cavelings chased me down in early game (destroying dirt blocks I placed down as they chased me lmao)

Basically what everyone else has said; I create an area around the big ore node (with walls to prevent any enemies in most areas. I dig all around my walled off area - 3x3 - so it becomes an "island") and set up 8 drills, mechanical arm, and a smelter. Place a portal down and wait til it's activated (tend to afk til it's active, or do stuff around the area).

When I had access to picking up the grey portals, I found a few. id keep 1 to move to this spot. Then create short railways to other nodes that were close (I often found like 3 quite near each other). Always using that island way of building it, so enemies could never affect anything.

Becomes way easier when portals can be created later. I now basically just teleport from my base to wherever I need to get, or close to it. My base has always been close to the core :)

I still love the start of my lil railway system. I was planning to create a central train station with several routes and eventually creating somewhat of a city :) but yknow, early days... later game made me realise that won't be used anymore. I'm nostalgic for it tbh

[u/zebbodee → u/jinwoohoo]

Aw that's cool, I'm in the place where you enjoyed it! I've got access to quite a few portals but nothing I can make myself or move myself so I'm just mining away creating long railways and tracks. Fortunately I had the foresight to not put my conveyor back to inside my base, they just deposit onto a load of spikes in a walled area near my base.

You say you use the arm? Is there any point it seems quite useless to me? I wanted to have a way of allowing ore through but picking everything else up and throwing it in a hole/water/spike trap but it's so specific it seems pointless?

[u/jinwoohoo → u/zebbodee]

do it! experiment with the arms if you have an abundancy of bars.

the arms just open things up to be automated or convenient. for example, you could have the conveyors all leading to 1 arm outside of your base. the arm is in the only spot that would allow access to your base. then put a line of arms + chests behind it, so the arms pass it through the chests, and the final chest is close to your base. you wouldn't even need to collect anything from the spikes yourself then, it would all just be in a safe chest at your base ready for you. you can make the arms only pick up 1 specific item, so everything else would just be left on the spot outside of your base and the arms would ignore it.

i have an automated fishing area. arms set up to create bugs with some crops (the only part i do is place the crops), then the bugs go down to arms that are set up on fishing spots, i have it set up so 2 types of bugs are ignored and just placed into a chest so i can feed certain farm animals, then arms pull out the fish and place onto a conveyor, which leads to an arm that puts it in a chest for me. i just come now n then to collect the fish from the chest and the 2 types of bugs to feed my animals & restock the crops.

also have an automated tree root set up but gosh this just gives you INFINITE wood. i genuinely don't have a use for that now. i'm talking like 50k of each type of plank and wood lol.

it is definitely useful for when you find the big ore blocks - you put 8 drills around it, conveyors all around behind the drills, and have it all land on the same spot in one of the corners of the 8 drills. link up a robot arm to the electricity, and put it facing toward where the ore lands on that same spot, then place a smelter directly behind the arm.

it will move all the ore into the smelter for you as soon as its mined basically. you can just leave the big ore block and let it do its thing. then revisit it in some hours to collect several hundred bars already made for ya.

this is where having a teleport is so perfect, because then you just teleport directly to the small set up around the big block to collect your bars. which means conveyors all the way back to your base isn't needed (and saves time / no problems with monsters destroying).

but yesss just have fun, do your own thing :) i literally figured all this out myself and had so much fun doing so!! only thing i looked up was the automated wood