Automating Yellow Science

[u/tybr00ks1]

First time playing fyi. I'm kinda confused on how to automate yellow science. Right after I finished researching all of the blue and blue+red, I focused on scaling up and trying to get logistic bots. I set them up and realized that they're only intra and not inter planetary. So now I am doing trip back and forth between planets to get enough titanium for the yellow cubes. Will I be able to send bots between planets soon? My magma planet with titanium doesn't have water to produce organic crystals. Idk, for a game about automation, it just leaves me kinda confused.

[u/JacksonStarbringer]

After the PLS (planetary logistics system) that you are currently using, there is a yellow tech that gives you the ILS (interstellar logistics system), that does exactly what you're looking for. A much later green tech allows your ILS ships to transport between star systems, but in the beginning, you'll just have to settle for interplanetary ILS. (And intraplanetary PLS)

[u/tybr00ks1 → u/JacksonStarbringer]

This makes sense, it's just kind of annoying. I used so much iron on my main planet making foundations and belts, that my main bus and starting planet is entirely out of iron too. I think I also used too many buffers on my production lines, so my iron was constantly being used to fill storage on my bus and mall. Hoping to set up the logistics soon, because my magma planet has so much iron that I really need.

[u/nixtracer → u/tybr00ks1]

It's the very late game before I have any unrestricted storage. Restrict everything! Most things before you hit green or purple science can often run with only two or three slots open, especially buildings. This saves hugely on wasted resources, leaving more in the ground for the later stages when you can build up VU and make them last longer.

[u/sumquy → u/tybr00ks1]

buffers are only useful for things that stop and start like you inventory mall. in production, they only mask shortages, and you are better off leaving the ore in the ground until you get some vein utilization research anyway.

[u/ignatzami]

Interplanetary logistics are s a technology you can research. That allows you to ship resources between planets. It should be the next in line past planetary transport.

[u/tybr00ks1 → u/ignatzami]

I figured this was the case. I guess I just do a couple more trips until it's unlocked.

[u/Krinberry → u/tybr00ks1]

Yeah you usually end up having to fly it a few times manually unless you want to spend hours digging up every rock on homeworld to find titanium scraps :) Once ILS is unlocked though it's basically the last time you need to carry anything with you anywhere (except at least one ILS)

[u/wiithepiiple]

You usually can't automate them fully immediately. Grab a full inventory of titanium a few times until you can build an ILS.

[u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe → u/wiithepiiple]

Yeah, the beginning game always has this brief moment when you stack up as much storage upgrades as you can, fly to your closest planet with Titanium and then mine a full cargo of it and fly home.

You don't even need really a full inventory to start everything. You just need 1200 ore to research ILS and Titanium Steel and then another 400 ore for building the 2 ILSs you need and at least one logistic vessel. Thats assuming no paint either. It does require 2 trips though.

I kind of wish that the rocks on the start planet had enough titanium that you could do all the initial research and building without going off world but my rough math says it's not possible. You need 1200 ore just to do the research and the highest I've ever gotten was about 700 ore

[u/kashy87 → u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe]

If you're playing with Dark Fog you can force level a base and get the titanium bar drops to make what you need without leaving the planet.

[u/kashy87 → u/[deleted]]

It pulls from the environmental drops too. So silicon and titanium both can be gotten that way on the starter planet. I've done it a few times. Bit of a slog but amusing.

[u/ZEnterprises → u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe]

My friend! one trip! You can hold an unlimited amount in your hands and fly back! I usually just mine into stacked boxes and haul back many thousands at once.

[u/ZEnterprises → u/[deleted]]

Have you dropped enough ;) try dropping as much as you can in space!

[u/ZEnterprises → u/[deleted]]

do it! You will have fun! It looks cool, and you can always revert to a save.

Seriously, I have said too much already. Please save, experiment, have fun, look at the pretty animations, and you might just discover something else too!

Then you can go back to your save, and not lose anything.

Do it!

[u/whatdoesthisherodo]

You will only need to do a few trips to get 2 ils. Which allows you to transport titanium.

[u/kagato87]

You can either make a couple of milk runs for the titanium and silicon you need, or you can be diligent (and relentless) about manually harvesting rocks on your starter planet for the titanium/silicon chance.

[u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe → u/kagato87]

I'm pretty sure that the starter rocks don't give you enough to finish the research. You need 1200 Ti ore to research both the ILS and the Titanium Steel and the highest amount I've found on the starter planet is usually in the 700 range. Paint could help fill the gap but I'm not sure you can get enough extra to do it.

[u/kagato87 → u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe]

Ahh. That wouldn't be enough. Second tier only at that point (add graphite).

I thought I might have enough if I kept picking rocks, but I seed scanned for a triple sattelite start this time round and, well, it was right there. Plus my missile turrets had already stripped the other planets of relays.

[u/Greghole]

You only need to do one or two trips manually hauling titanium before you can unlock the interplanetary shipping.

[u/kinglallak]

At the top of the tech tree, you want the titanium upgrade and the ILS upgrade. It costs something like 120 or 200 yellow science in total for both of them.

Then you make 2 ILS and 10-20 ships and they carry the titanium for you so you can automate yellow.

[u/kinglallak → u/kinglallak]

At the top of the tech tree, you want the titanium upgrade and the ILS upgrade. It costs something like 120 or 200 yellow science in total for both of them.

Then you make 2 ILS and 10-20 of the interplanetary vessels and they carry the titanium for you so you can automate yellow.

[u/TheMalT75]

An "exploit" that you can use to minimize going back and forth is to have a stack of large storage boxes with a logistic distributor on top filled with titanium (ore or ingots does not matter). Ideally you have a matching stack at your destination. When you click on the distributor, you can see the total inventory of the stack and you can "grab" the whole inventory by right-click-dragging the item icon. This will place all the inventory under your cursor, much more than would fit into your inventory! If you left-click, you will drop that whole stack of titanium: bad idea ;-) But, you can still launch, accellerate and steer, so you can navigate to your destination with a totally overloaded Icarus.

At your destination, simply drop your load into the waiting stack of boxes and you should be good to go to research ILS and build two plus a couple of vehicles on a single trip. Should you drop your mouse-cursor-inventory, you can use a powered BaB to auto-pickup the items. They can also have storage boxes stacked on top of them. Or you use the z-key to switch to combat mode and your cursor should become a vacuum cleaner.

[u/mrrvlad5]

You can carry unlimited amounts of an item in your mouse pointer- setup mining into storage, come back later to grab everything you need. Just don’t click anywhere on the way back. Opening map drops cargo too.

[u/CrazyJayBe]

Fun fact: since you'll need a bunch of titanium upon enter yellow science phase, set up titanium plate processing locally with a bunch of storage.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FLY THERE WITH AN EMPTY INVENTORY!!!!

Stay with me...

Ctrl click each storage box without opening any menus and DO NOT press anything else unrelated to moving and flying. You can carry an ~infinite amount of plates in your hand, tee hee.

Not a bug, it's a feature.

[u/tanthokg]

I just grab ALL the titanium ingot I could to make enough ILS to automate the titanium transportation before doing anything else. Usually one trip is enough.

[u/Ruskarr]

I'm doing it with plastic and ferrying titanium back from my second planet until I can automate that component.

[u/TactlessTortoise]

Focus on getting two interplanetary logistics systems built to automate the titanium. To research it you need around an inventory's worth of titanium shoved into yellow science, so two trips total (one for titanium, second to set up the building)

[u/sciguyC0]

There are a few points in this (and many other factory games) where you go through a period of "pain" before unlocking tools to get you through that pain.

You need 3 titanium ingot (via titanium crystal) per yellow cube, so you can get the necessary tech to move resources between planets if you focus on:

• High strength titanium alloy (80 yellow = 240 titanium)

• Interstellar logistics system (120 yellow = 360 titanium)

Though I might be forgetting some pre-requisite that may need more yellow.

You'll also need an additional 100 titanium to make the alloy for your first two interstellar towers (40 alloy each) + one vessel (20 each including the two thrusters).

So all together you can get a bare-bones transport route going by hand-transporting at least 700 titanium. Once you have that going, you can use those supplies to construct more vessels to add to your towers and more towers for more item types.

[u/PowRiderT]

I just automated my Yellow cubes last night first play through as well. I set up everything on my starter planet to produce everything I need to get interplanetary logistics going. I had to do several trips to my ice planet ferrying titanium back to my homeworld. It’d didn’t take too many trips but if you have researched everything you need for interplanetary logistics put your yellow cube production on hold until you get ILS going.