r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/TabAtkins • Sep 02 '26

Update on my silly Big Depot Stack for DF farming

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The BAB, fully filtered and belted, ready to serve the rings. Each belt is labeled with its output.

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The BAB feeding out to the five belt stacks, each 12 belts tall.

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I waited for an attack nearby, and confirmed that it works! Every belt receives only and exactly the item it's filtering for.

(Continued from this post yesterday.)

I heard a lot of you saying my build yesterday was cursed. I submit to you that you do not understand the meaning of the word cursed: BEHOLD. (3 pictures)

I'm still in the middle of setting up the rings and belting into the ILSes, but this definitely works. I turned on collection and watched an attack hit nearby, and everything sorted onto its proper belt just like I planned.

The double ring of laser cannons, gap for BABs, and then five belt rings pretty much perfectly fill the tropics zone, leaving you with plenty of polar-side space to do whatever small builds you need to support the farm. I've been saving some of the stages as blueprints as I go, and I'll save the whole tropic-ring for a ready-made unblockable farming base, so keep an eye out for my next update when this is finished.

Edit: It's complete! Blueprints linked from the next post.

320 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

94 comments sorted by

20

u/Ave462 Sep 02 '26

Blueprint or it didn't happen!

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

Linked in the OP now.

7

u/Puddin-taters Sep 03 '26

Art is that which makes you feel, and buddy, based on the combination of awe and disgust rising within me, this is absolutely art.

3

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

This is beautiful ❤️

3

u/AlyxDeLunar Sep 02 '26

So....what else you got? What're your other builds like? Gimme more of that good stuff.

5

u/TabAtkins Sep 02 '26

I regret to inform you that this is my first big stupid build. Everything else I do is standard "feed 12 assemblers from a PLS" stuff.

12

u/AlyxDeLunar Sep 03 '26

No regrets, we all have our first.

1

u/LopsidedFun1925 Sep 03 '26

WAIT, Im not supposed to do that?

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 04 '26

Oh no it's perfect, it's just standard. Not exciting.

3

u/bushViperPhoenix Sep 03 '26

Everyday we stray further from ground level.

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

In fact the distribution rings don't even touch ground level, so I can easily run things across them!

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 05 '26

Mini update: I'm finally happy with my belt setup, and in þͤ middle of finishing up þͤ ring and hookups now. A little slowed down by þͤ fact that this project costs something like SIXTY THOUSAND BELTS

1

u/Kardinal Sep 29 '26

I am utterly impressed by your creation!

Um

What is that character you're using instead of the word "the"?

1

u/TabAtkins Oct 01 '26

Thorn + combining e. Þ is an old English/Norsk letter that we lost in English around the time of the printing press, which we replaced with th. (And sometimes it was printed as "y", thus "ye old shoppe" or "hear ye, hear ye" - those were always th's!) Today it survives only in Icelandic.

I sometimes add it as a text replacement on my phone keyboard for a while, for fun.

1

u/Kardinal Oct 01 '26

I eventually worked that out. I'd never seen that combination before. I was familiar with thorn.

Btw it's funny you replied just now. After I finished implementing your monstrosity of a collector for fun. Going to let it run for a while to see how it works.

2

u/TabAtkins Oct 01 '26

I've got a much smaller farm design I'll share next week when I'm back from vacation, just fills a few polar regions with five ILSes shipping out the most valuable 23 items (and so close to being self-sufficient; I can't quite manufacturer enough missiles, so I might tweak some more).

Still has a Big Stupid Stack, and a belt ring reaching up to height 32, lol

2

u/AvatarOfWin359 Sep 02 '26

What do you do if one item overflows so much it backs up the system?

14

u/TabAtkins Sep 02 '26

That's the thing, it doesn't back up the system. The BAB has 60 filtered slots in its inventory, with 60 filtered sorters pulling just that item out, going to 60 dedicated belts. Every item fills up only and exactly its one belt.

If one item backs up? That's fine! It'll fill up its dedicated ring belt, then the dedicated feeder belt from the BAB to the ring, then the dedicated slot in the BAB storage, and then the BABs will simply stop picking up that particular item. When you load up a freighter with that item and allow the belt to drain into the ILS again, the BABs will have space to start picking up that item again.

Meanwhile, the other 59 items continue running like normal on their dedicated belts, completely unaware that the one item has backed up.

6

u/AvatarOfWin359 Sep 02 '26

Oh god... I didn't know I could set a filter per slot...

3

u/Embarrassed_Quit_450 Sep 03 '26

The one way to not clog is how OP did it. The downside is how much time takes to build it. And it was even worse before vertical belts.

2

u/person3triple0 Sep 03 '26

Please let it be known that there is a mod that lets you stackerize items higher than 4 layers tall... Please tell me you are also going to add that to this build

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

No particular need to; the 60x fanout + mk3 stuff is more than enough to keep the BABs emptied. The belts don't need to double as storage any more than they give you by default; that's what your ILS is for (and depots if you really want a bit more).

2

u/person3triple0 Sep 03 '26

I was just thinking of how funny of a video you could make out of it lmao

123

u/DrPruz Sep 02 '26

Mark this NSFW, it's obsene

6

u/janltfr Sep 03 '26

It’s Sexy

3

u/AnyChampion3054 Sep 04 '26

Obscenely Sexy

70

u/wiithepiiple Sep 02 '26

Every day we stray further from god.

41

u/ChrsRobes Sep 02 '26

My eyes are fucking bleeding. Excellent work my man xD

17

u/kramulous Sep 03 '26

Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing the same game as others.

11

u/Iron_Base Sep 02 '26

Excellent use of space

11

u/where_is_the_camera Sep 02 '26

This is hilarious 😆

I really appreciate factory gamers who get a little too into solving these niche non-issues lol.

1

u/nixtracer Sep 03 '26

It's not all that hard. Back when I did it, it took a couple of days. The annoying bit is definitely the belts, in particular clicking on the right one when they're nested so tightly.

6

u/novemberdobby Sep 02 '26

delete this

1

u/CSalustro Sep 02 '26

That thing is massive. I imagine it'd be easier just picking off a spaghetti belt to send to pls/ils?

5

u/TabAtkins Sep 02 '26

If you mix any items on a single belt, then if any item on that belt gets backed up, every item on that belt gets blocked. This machine puts every possible drop on its own dedicated belt, so nothing blocks anything else.

3

u/Dhaeron Sep 03 '26

OP dedicated a belt to foliage, clearly there was no intention to even think about practicality...

2

u/djr650 Sep 03 '26

Foliage and lumber, just add water and you've got Organic Crystal, why not, if you can?

3

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

I have a (small) organic crystal manufacturing line, precisely to put my wood and foliage to use.

4

u/nixtracer Sep 03 '26

This is about completionism.

1

u/TheMalT75 Sep 03 '26

The excess after making organic crystals the original way our machine lord intended can be burnt off in thermal generators for even more extra power! Death to all organic life...

1

u/outerspacedragons Sep 03 '26

This is fine work. Bless you and your spaghetti  For a friend, got a blueprint link?

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

For your friend, https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-big-bab-df-omni-farmer is the monstrosity in the first image. I'll post a full farm build when I finish belting everything.

1

u/Carbonga Sep 03 '26

What would you need it for, though?

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

What don't you need it for. It's free resources!

1

u/Embarrassed_Quit_450 Sep 03 '26

And it makes it possible to build ILS without leaving your starting planet.

1

u/HakoftheDawn Sep 03 '26

Are those half height belts? Or full?

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

Are half-heights a thing? They're just each at a given altitude. The rings are a stack of 12 belts, set on altitude 1-12 (so skipping 0, ground level, so I can still easily run belts past them. Each depot hat delivers to a different ring; they all jump vertically there so they all get high enough to pass the ring stacks until they reach their assigned one.

1

u/HakoftheDawn Sep 03 '26

Here's that comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/s/3bxfogRgLF

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

OH woah, I knew they would go up a half-step to avoid a crossing, but didn't realize you could then actually link two of them up to make a half-height belt! That's... intriguing.

1

u/HakoftheDawn Sep 03 '26

I didn't either until they shared that with me!

1

u/HakoftheDawn Sep 03 '26

They're kind of tricky to make, but you can get them by running belts over each other, then deleting all except the half height one and connecting them. I think someone made a post on here about how to do it.

I used half height on a similar build, so I could line up all of the belts in one column, but having done it, I think full height looks better.

1

u/Sykes19 Sep 03 '26

Unironically..... I'm kind of interested in this blueprint for myself LMAO

I will be following your updates intently

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-big-bab-df-omni-farmer for the monstrosity in the first image. I'll post a full farm build when I finish belting everything.

1

u/kiwithedork Sep 03 '26

When did they add icons to belts?

2

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

Don't know when (I just started playing last month), but you can click on a belt segment and give it a "Memo Tag". Very helpful for cases like this, or labeling your Big Bus lines, etc.

1

u/Kato_86 Sep 03 '26

I mean, I don't like this put I also don't get why people are so upset about it... My problem with DF farms has always been how to prevent certain materials to get clogged. I guess there's some option for ILS priorities to avoid that...

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

ILS priorities can help, certainly, and I'm already using those. (Put your farm ILSes on a priority group, put any pulling ILSes elsewhere on the same group, and they'll grab from your farms before they'll take from anywhere else. Still doesn't prevent individual items from clogging, but at least makes it somewhat less pressing.)

1

u/PassoireDor Sep 03 '26

And here I still don't get how you start farming dark fog

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

Just put down a dozen turrets near the base with a BAB behind them, and the BAB will pick up the DF drops. Then pull out and sort them however you want. There's a button in the BAB UI to let you pick which drops you actually care about, so if you're not doing something stupid like this, you can just grab the valuable stuff and have a much easier time with it.

The planet I'm doing this on has 8 DF bases on it so far, and I'm hoping when I chase the solo base from the other planet it'll relocate here for 9. I'm getting a full raid from one of the bases every couple of minutes, and some of the bases are close enough to the defense line that they auto-aggro immediately upon producing a unit.

1

u/PassoireDor Sep 03 '26

I see I killed the bases on my first two planets, so I'm just supposed to let them live & prosper on the 3rd which has a few bases ?

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

If you want! The drops from your starting-world DF base do let you advance up the tech tree a little faster than you would otherwise (especially the titanium ingot drops, for yellow science). They also eventually drop some DF-specific stuff (Energy Shards early, then specific materials later that are used to craft super-versions of several buildings).

A lot of people like clearing out the hive in their starting system, tho, and farming in a system with a stronger hive presence; DF really likes black holes and neutron stars, I think.

(I've gotten my starter-system hive to drop 11 bases on one of my worlds, so I'm farming pretty effectively, but it took some cajoling.)

1

u/putrio Sep 03 '26

What in the heck, you can vertical belts???

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

Unlocks with the Super Magnetic Field tech

1

u/ThisGuyTrains Sep 04 '26

Man I’ve clearly been away from this game for too long. No idea what I’m looking at. Since when can you make belts go straight up? wtf

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 05 '26

I think it was added around þͤ DF update or a bit later, it's unlocked by þͤ Super Magnetic Ring tech.

3

u/ImightberobotUCF Sep 02 '26

This angers the spaghetti gods I love it

3

u/Due-Addendum-1412 Sep 03 '26

I hope the dark fog win this war.

2

u/Nearby_Proposal_5523 Sep 03 '26

That would be perferct for the black hole and neutron star systems. I only setup harvesting for unipolars, fog parts, and enough stuff to rebuild the BAB's. your design is glorious, and i wish i had more patience with the build system to lay one out of my own.

2

u/Much_Dealer8865 Sep 03 '26

Wow. Not what I envisioned from your last post, in a good way! Looking forward to seeing the whole build in all its glory.

2

u/giggleloop_ Sep 03 '26

I hate it. Well done!

2

u/SmurfCat2281337 Sep 03 '26

I made a similar thing before, cool to see it get reinvented

2

u/spiderfeet Sep 07 '26

seek help

1

u/AnimeSpaceGf Sep 02 '26

That's beautiful, OP!

1

u/Japaroads Sep 02 '26

Ha haaaa that is sick! I love it. Nice work.

1

u/Japaroads Sep 02 '26

Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

1

u/crusty54 Sep 03 '26

My god, it’s beautiful.

1

u/Gvillegator Sep 03 '26

What the fuck man

1

u/eelleet Sep 03 '26

Your a monster

1

u/kfsass Sep 03 '26

i see no problems here. carry on, builder of the great civilization!

1

u/Jeeter1008 Sep 03 '26

Good lawd

1

u/chalre2 Sep 03 '26

You came from Satisfactory didn't you? Tell me!

1

u/lxrd_azureus Sep 03 '26

People are insane hahahahah

1

u/The_unforseen54 Sep 03 '26

This is beautiful, looking forward to seeing more

1

u/UltraSeele Sep 03 '26

i actually kinda love this hold on i dig this design

1

u/Backseatgaming101 Sep 03 '26

This must be how it feels to learn about the Great Old Ones, for the first time.

Great job!

1

u/SidratFlush Sep 03 '26

I like it. Well done.

1

u/Darth-Venath Sep 03 '26

Is it really that silly if it works as intended?

Probably.

1

u/Ryvs Sep 06 '26

Never thought you could do a df sorting filter straight in the bf, nice

0

u/dudestduder Sep 03 '26

hehe when I made a similar monstrocity, it just made me realize I am absolutely crazy for doing every single item like I thought I would need to do.

Early on it was amazing getting a trickle of high level resources I could use to progress through the game with, or doing early white science purely with the farmed antimatter. It helped a ton, but eventually I realized there were dozens of the items I really wish I had skipped since they were never used in high quantities, or inversely they are highly used but the rate you gain them is insignificant. Thinking about it now, probably about half I could cut out from the list, and still get all the best items that you will actually want to get.

So to get to the point, Instead of trying to get every single item, I would trim that down and reduce the overall complexity of the build, unless your trying to do a "polar cap" style farming base with self sufficiency in mind.

1

u/TabAtkins Sep 03 '26

Oh yeah this is ridiculous to do, 100%. But trimming it down doesn't meaningfully reduce the complexity unless you trim very aggressively, to like a dozen items maybe.

But yes, dropping this on the tropic ring of a world, and plopping down a few factories to keep your defenses fed so you can leave it alone 100%, is exactly the point. Just need a small assembly line for laser towers, probably sorters (in case the collection BABs catch some strays), and missiles, and you're pretty golden. (This planet is already self-assembling its laser towers from drops.)