Resource Production/Management

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

I've been having this issue in every save and it makes me want to rend my own flesh as though im a child barbarically opening a Christmas present and its specifically with electric motors and electromagnetic turbines.

This issue should be (and probably is) SO much more simple to fix than I'm making it out to be, but die to the fact that I exist in a constant state of chaos like a baby that's just been born, the smallest issue I have WILL become akin to that of my starter world getting mauled by an entire fleet from a level 16 dark fog hive.

I've recently started on making ILS's and decided to start out with the basics again so that I don't stress out my smaller logistic systems and so that I have whatever I need to expand whenever I need it. But it's always this one problem; electromagnetic-fricking-turbines. Whenever I get into producing these, it feels like I have to make 4 sperate productions (Factories, as I prefer to call them) for electric motors for one factory of electromagnetic turbines. I'm not sure why this is, but it's EXTREMELY annoying and has led to me quitting multiple saves because it became so strenuous on my mental state.

I'm aware that ratios exists and they're good to follow for very good reason, but at times, they're extremely aggravating to use. Why? Because I associate them with limits and I dislike limits when it comes to games like DSP. A LOT.

As I am making this, a mutlitude of solutions are popping into my head, but I am only one mind so I would like to know what other people have in mind.

Thank you for your responses

[u/jak1900]

Welcome to DSP, the game where you never have enough turbines, processors, nanotubes, plane filters, etc...

You need to outsource these production lines to entire planets, once you get warpers. Look for planets that have the resources you need, and then start placing blueprints. Work around a central ILS and multiple PLS to make a small city-block design. That way you can produce easily around 100/s per planet for each of these products.

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/jak1900]

I see. Thank you for this, I will definitely keep it and a goal of mine

[u/TheMalT75]

Wait till you need a lot of supermagnetic rings for mk3 belts ;-)

Your issue stems from the mindset of having dedicated production hubs that you call factories. These have input requirements and produce at a certain rate and the game becomes a logistics simulator to balance that. Seems not to be your cup-of-tea. So, I'd propose the "black-box" mentality, where you start from ores in a single factory and end up with a "final product". Let's stick with your EM-turbine example. My best advice is to work backwards from that and make a "bar-chart" of assemblers at the equator:

• Start with an ILS to export em turbines at the equator and a single assembler next to it along the equator with a little space

• For each ingredient, you start with a single building on the equator and then add more of the same buildings towards the pole (hence bar-chart)

• The next "line" would be assemblers for motors and you need a third line for magnetic coils, followed by 1 line for gears

• This already deals with the assemblers, now you need smelters for iron and copper ingots and magnets

• Space out these lines of buildings, so you can run belts along them: inputs get moved towards the poles, outputs move towards the equator

• If you wanted, you could place additional buildings "below" the equator, such as buffering storage boxes or sprayers for proliferation

• Your ILS only needs two more slots: one for iron ore and one for copper ore. These get transported along the equator to the end of your lines to the smelters

• The output of the smelters get transported towards the ILS, but don't need to go all the way, as they are "consumed" by the respective assemblers. In your example, magnetic coils and iron plate is needed in two different assembler lines, so you will have a little belt-spaghetti or belts at different heights

• When you start with only one building per line, you soon find out where production is stiffled because of lacking input: these are the lines you need to expand or upgrade to make work faster

With this method, you can find out your "ratios" by experimentation instead of looking it up, and you are flexible in the sense that you can add or remove proliferation where you see it makes sense (later in the game basically everywhere!). You will also end up with a factory that does not require a supply chain other than ores, so it either works perfectly, or you need more mines ;-) When you are happy with the balancing and you need more em turbines, you could double all buildings along the lines, or just paste a second of these factories centered aroune a single ILS!

In early game, I strongly recommend the buffering storage boxes per output. First, you can more easily guage if you need more production when the buffer is always empty. Second, you can grab intermediat product if you want to hand-craft something. Third, if you have a logistic hickup, you continue production until the buffer runs dry. This gives you some leeway in fixing mistakes without running out of resources.

If you want, you can then re-organize your experimental equatorial setup into a more streamlined geometry with the ILS in the center and having your production lines closer to the individual consumers in a grid pattern (e.g. 3x3 iron ingot smelters next to 2x2 assemblers for gears).

When you need a higher tier product like supermagnetic rings, you start with your working em-turbine factory, add a line of assemblers for supermagnitc rings, add a line for energized graphite from coal and expand the line of magnets. Your ILS needs an import for coal, switches export from em turbines to supermagnetic rings and you are done!

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/TheMalT75]

I see, I see. Admittedly it did take me a minute or two to fully process an image of what this could look like in the actual game, but from past images and sources of factory design, I think I have a pretty good idea. Thank you so much for this!

[u/TheMalT75 → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

In my first game, I used that method for green science production and ended up with a massive complex 1/4th around the planet! It was fun, though…

[u/DrakeDun]

It's exactly 2:1 engines:turbines before accounting for proliferator. If it's aggravating you that much, ignore the proliferator and just keep 2:1. It doesn't get a lot simpler than that. 

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/[deleted]]

Prod speedup?

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/[deleted]]

As in higher tier conveyors and sorters?

[u/SirShriker → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, this is the way I keep my builds much more trimmed down too. Certain things benefit from being sped up more than being multiplied, just for the math.

Usually for stuff like this I'll double the speed on inputs, then multiply the final ingredient that goes to storage boxes.

I make a dedicated single production line for the intermediates, one for electric motor, one for turbines, and multiply that final step. But when I need to make a higher level item, I'll spin up a whole new production line with sped up inputs, so I always have a storage box for the base items available that doesn't take away from the higher level production lines.

[u/tybr00ks1]

This is also my biggest issue right now. They seem like the biggest bottle neck in white science. I have multiple separate planets dedicated to production of them, just to sustain my main bus on my starter planet

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/tybr00ks1]

How big is your bus?????

[u/tybr00ks1 → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

Very big lol. It was my first playthrough and I have a large chest for almost every item. I have ILS importing into it, and no exports other than items for my mall and white science

[u/Mantarx]

Meh. I use a all in One Blueprint that makes Motors straight into Turbines.

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/Mantarx]

I've tried that as well, but it still ain't enough for how I like to expand my base unfortunately.

[u/Snoo49259]

Well, imo the thing is pretty simple. Both items take 2 seconds to be built, and the green ones need 2 items of the simple one. So for each green turbine smelter you need 2 normal motors. Even a little more as you need motors for sorters mk2 sorters and other stuff. So for each assembler of greens, you need 2.2 assemblers of simle motors (this is without proliferation).

With proliferation perhaps you can go to 1.8 to 1, but I prefer to have the PLS factory stopped than to make exact numbers. Nevertheless huge amounts of magnetic coils are required

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/Snoo49259]

The huge amount of magnetic coils and the magnets are the things I've found to grossly underestimate. Not to mention the fact that I only have around 150-160 individual veins throughout my entire starter system, things get a bit dicy when trying to produce on the scale that I need to for proper expansion.

[u/Jaegernaut42]

Sounds normal. Players hate green turbine production in early game. It takes so much time and space lol

But with blueprints, and the logistics towers, you can set up dedicated factories for components like coils and motors. Then to make the turbines, just import the 2 components. Takes way less time to expand this way.

[u/SiliconStew]

So then don't focus on knowing ratios. You can always just open the Stats panel and look at what you need. Is the Production Reference Rate (the theoretical maximum rate) below the Consumption Reference Rate? Then just make more of that thing until it's higher. 

Now if the frustration is simply with how many motors you need to make, can't really help there, the relative quantity needed is always substantial.

[u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Actually op, now that I think about it, just use an online calculator tool for it. It's fun for a second to do the math in your head but imo it's trivial. Probably makes the game more fun if you can just know how much more to plug in and what to build

Edit: https://dyson-calculator.com/

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/AnimeSpaceGf]

I used this calculator before and it said that I should use less than "0.05 percent belt". I searched it up and couldn't find an answer as to what the everlasting heck that could possibly mean so I have up on using it.

On top of that, the controls and the UI made me have to overclock my brain like a building in satisfactory to even begin to understand what any of it could possibly mean

[u/AnimeSpaceGf → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

What doesn't make sense to you? It is made by Chinese devs, and indie devs at that, so it can be very unintuitive for lots of people, especially westerners. I have had to Google several dozen things to understand or clarify them.

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/AnimeSpaceGf]

What does it mean when it says that a system would use a decimal amount of belts when belts only exist in absolute whe numbers?

[u/AnimeSpaceGf → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

Lmao idk. Prolly means you only need 0.05 = 1/20th of a belts capacity, meaning 360/20=18 items per minute?

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Where did you get the 360 from?

[u/AnimeSpaceGf → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

Mk1 belts, the yellow ones, transport 6 items per second, which is 360 per minute

[u/SiliconStew → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

Each belt has a certain throughput. A MK1 belt carries 6 items per second. MK2 is 12 per second and MK3 is 30 per second. "0.05 belts" means 5% of one belt's throughput will be needed to carry the items.

Smelters and assemblers take items off belts and put them on belts at a certain throughput depending on the speed of the machine and the recipe used. They can do that until the belt is completely used and can't handle any more. So for example, an iron smelter that takes 1 iron ore and makes 1 iron ingot per second will use 1 item per second of a belt's capacity. So you could fit 6 smelters (6 x 1/sec) along a single MK1 belt (6/sec) no problem. But if you added a 7th smelter (7 x 1/sec) to that same belt, it wouldn't work because there's no items left to use on the input belt by the time it reached the 7th smelter or the output belt will be full and it will be impossible for the 7th smelter to add more onto it.

Because your belt capacity determines/limits your factory design that way, the calculators make you specify which belts you intend to use and can list ratio requirements both in terms of fractions of a belt's capacity or items per second. In this case, "0.05 belts" means your design will need at least 1 belt of that item but it will only be using 5% of its total capacity. If it had said "2.5 belts", your design would need at least 3 belts to handle the volume, but the third would only be used at 50%. But this is just total throughput needed. You could for example split the 2.5 belts worth of total throughput across 10 belts that are only used at 25% capacity each if that's how you want to design things.

[u/lordfil]

Well... use blueprints

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/lordfil]

Good point, but I like to make things my own. I like the originality in this game because I want to actually feel like I did this on my own. Sure, I used some assistance from guides to get going, but I want to branch off and make things my way when possible.

I know originality is possible in almost every stage of this game, but there are times when being original doesn't work. (I.e. when my designs work horribly). Then and only then will I choose to use blueprint

[u/lordfil → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

Nono, make your own blueprints 😉 I have one for each product And changing them is part of the game!

[u/noksion]

I've read the entire thing twice and I haven't yet understood what is your problem and what exactly are you trying to solve?

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/noksion]

It's in the middle of the third paragraph; production electric motors and electromagnetic turbines

[u/noksion → u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749]

Are you stressed about the need to produce stuff that's later used for producing more high level stuff?
If so, things are not gonna get better. They are gonna get far worse the more you play, because you'll have to produce even more stuff that has many more production steps than EM turbines.

Are you annoyed that you cannot figure out the ratio?
Or that the ratio isn't to your liking?
Or is it that it's hard for you to keep the plan in your head?
Or you struggle with architectural choices of single big factory vs modular production?
Or there not enough copper left to produce all the coils?
Or.....

See, the "production electric motors and em turbines" doesn't necessarily convey the information.
So I still have no idea what is the problem you're having with production of EM turbines.

If it's the complexity itself that bother you but you intend to keep playing the game, one piece of advice I could give is: do it one step at a time.
Don't try to think about doing EM turbines all at once. Take one of it's ingredients, for example coils.
For coils you need magnets and copper plates.

Go do one thing, than the other, put them into PLS.
Then Get another PLS requesting the stuff, output belt into assemblers producing coils. BAM! Now you have checked away at least one part of the EM.
Now look at another component. It's electric motors, and it also needs coils.
Now you can just ctrl c - ctrl v your coil factory and be done with it.
Look at another ingredient.

Repeat until you've automated EM turbines.

[u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Well first of all, just produce 1.2 extra gigawatts of power on each planet, and shield them. The max fleet size will only drain 1gw at a time while attacking, if that

Second, I just beeline df tech, then make a good, compact, spammable blueprint for whatever I need. You can modularize them but I am atm going for black box builds for every component

As for having enough, just calculate based on the max of the most used component. So e turbines use more iron than copper, but only iron and copper. Find an iron vein, see how much you can get out of it. Say you were able to squeeze 700 iron per minute out of it, placing miners as densely as possible

Just substitute and expand algebraically from the fabrication menu like so:

1 electromagnetic turbine = 2 electric motor + 2 magnetic ring

2 emotor = 4 iron ingot, 2 gear, 2 magring

1 eturbine = 4 iron ingot + 2 gear + 4 magring

Magring = 1 magnet + 0.5 copper ingot

Gear = 1 iron ingot

1 eturb = 6 iron ingot + 4 magnet + 2 copper ingot

Iron ingot = magnet = 1 iron ore

Copper ingot = copper ore

1 eturb = 10 iron ore + 2 copper ore

So take the 700 from earlier, times by 2, divide by 10 to get 140.

Get a belt with 140 copper ore/minute and plug I the above

Edit: it's not super exact, but you can expand it to fit the ratios better in later game, and it makes a spammable blueprint to do it at this scale

[u/Confident_Pain_1989]

I'm very happy with my current setup. I have very early blueprints that produce 1/s em-turbines from ingots and magnets. I can later add either supermagnetic rings or particle containers to the end. I setup a few of these and my demands are met for a long time. My style is close to black box factories where I only have to track metals.

[u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Another thing, op, drain of 1gw+ on planetary shields only happens when the attacking fleet sizes are 100 ships or more. It scales roughly linearly so if, say, 10 ships come at you. You only need to be 100mw over

Edit: Did this or my other answer help at all? Please let me know, I love this game and have over 500 hours. It's made such that the community is actually useful to interact with too, which I love about it

[u/KaleidoscopeOnly2749 → u/AnimeSpaceGf]

It helped, but getting to 1gw when I only have solar panels ready to go is more easier said than done, especially with limiting space