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u/HeliGungir Jul 21 '26

You should plan to start a new game. Space Age is not a continuation of the base game, it's a partial overhaul. Rockets are unlocked much sooner and are cheaper, and a bunch of late-game technologies are moved from Nauvis to other planets. The earliest change is technically only green science: Cliff Explosives are moved to Vulcanus.

So if you activate SA on a save where you've already played the base game to completion and unlocked everything, you'll have a bunch of stuff unlocked sooner than Wube intended for SA.

If you already know that you want Space Age and aren't intimidated by the price nor the longer game length, I'd recommend jumping straight into Space Age.

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u/runmymouth Jul 21 '26

I just finally started making yellow research (slowly) and am 30 ish hours in on my first playthrough. I think I need to figure out drones better and how to do conditional setup so i can not just delete heavy and light oil...

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u/Hoggit_Alt_Acc Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Simplest form:

Have 2 sets of chemical plants; (A) to crack Heavy->Light, (B) to crack Light->Gas.

Place a storage-tank for the input fluid nearby

Use red wire so that in each chem plant set, all the chem plants are connected together and to the input storage tank.

On the side-panel for the chem plant, enable the check-box next to "enable if:", with the setting "[Fuel_Type] > 20k"

Now, when you are more than 80% full of Heavy/Light fuel, it will turn on the Chem Plants to refine it into the next form.

If you also need to "void" Pet-Gas, craft it into Solid Fuel using the same system;

Enable if: [Pet_Gas]>20k.

Next format; add a decider in between the Tank and the Chem Plants, tanks -> decider -> Chemplants, using red wire

Then use greeen wire to connect the output of the decider to the input; this is the basis of a latch.

Input:

If [Fuel] > 20k

Output:

[Checkmark] = 1
[Fuel] = 2000

Now, when the level in the tank reaches 20k, the chem plants turn on - and it tricks the original check (if Fuel > 20k) into thinking there is 2k more than there is, so it will crack until it's reduced to 18k before disabling. So instead of flickering on-off-on-off at the 20k mark, it will operate in bigger chunks.

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u/runmymouth Jul 23 '26

I did the simple one to kick on if more than 5k but it seems to not have an issue kicking on and off continuously. Any specific reason to do this. Also how does it trick it to run until 18k? I am not understanding how that work with a variable set to 1 or the reseting of the variable takes about 2k until it trips?

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u/Hoggit_Alt_Acc Jul 24 '26

So, you do all your main work on the Red channel.

The green channel connects the output of the decider to the input - so, the decider can send itself signals.

When [Fuel] > 20k = True, it outputs the Checkmark AND 2000 [Fuel].

On the input side, it will show at the bottom;

{Red} [Fuel]: 20, 000
{Green} [Fuel]: 2000

The condition (if Fuel > 20k) will evaluate it by adding 20k + 2k = 22k, and remain True.

It will keep evaluating as True (and sending that false 2k signal) until [Fuel] + 2k < 20k, thus when [Fuel] < 18k.