I feel like the tutorial REALLY needs to explain the importance of the day/night cycle in terms of power and not freezing to death. I’m partly to blame for this because I read the game setting descriptions and the start and opted for Scarce power/resources, but goddamn that was so confusing to start.
Really enjoying it now, though. I haven’t tried playing on anything other than Scarce, but it’s been a real struggle getting going (in a good way, I like feeling like I’m scrapping to survive after a crash landing).
On your scanner, you can use your middle mouse button to set your scanner to ping Unknown or Known ore. This is invaluable when trying to find a new source of ore. Later you can research new options like Ping Coloured Ore which can make finding a specific vein easier.
Yes, but not for quite some time. I set up 3 large coal generation stations on each side of my base. Imagine a hopper loading coal from the bottom while generators are placed on the 5 exposed surfaces and surrounded by batteries. I would add new hoppers loaded with generators as needed to each station.
You don’t want to use the cubes to transfer energy, since they can only transfer 20% of their total power capabilities per tick. Use the wires, aka laser power transmitters. They don’t lose power over distance or anything like that, they just transfer the maximum amount of power they are capable of per tick. Use lenses to boost their capabilities until you can produce the mk2 & 3.
Agreed. I actually played for two hours before restarting as permanent day. It makes things considerably less annoying because you won’t die nearly as fast on the overworld so as a self imposed penalty I don’t otherwise use solar power. The real reason I restarted is I don’t particularly like the lighting model. It’s annoying to space the lights properly so you don’t overblow the textures on the overworld. For some reason this doesn’t bother me as much underground.
Ouch. The game is hard on plentiful mode, scarce adds a lot of time to reach the end game. It took me 160 hours, though most of that time was spent pulling apart and redoing my infrastructure. I could easily have halved that time if I wasn’t always trying to optimize the base. Actually looking back at it I probably should have picked scarce mode because my systems are currently designed for it, though I didn’t do that on purpose. However unless you have a ton of patience and time you might want to restart on plentiful mode. I mean do you really want to put 200+ hours into this game? The answer for me is apparently hell yes, but it’s highly likely I am an aberration.
I tend to play a few games that I like a lot, as opposed to a lot of games a little. I also find that I enjoy the struggle to scratch out a living (so to speak) in this kind of game and tend to get bored once things are plentiful/easy. I haven’t played it nearly enough yet to know how much time I want to sink into this game yet, but so far I’m enjoying it and I tend to enjoy long progression curves… so Scarce it was, to start. :)
Oookay, for some reason it took me forever to figure out that your research lab has a power capacity itself, it’s not just piggybacking off your CPH charge. Was really concerned that my CPH wasn’t actually generating power from the coal I kept stuffing into it.
Any tips for digging down to find iron etc more efficiently? Trying to cut stairwells is moderately annoying, and SuperDig takes a shitload of power I don’t have early on here.
Just dig down the iron level and ping for it. Go strait down and learn to use your grappling hook. I had a pile of corpses down my main shaft until I learned to get the hang of it. The grappling hook mechanics have some bugs though. Sometimes after getting out of the shaft downward, ill take a few steps and the game will then fling me off in some random direction.
As for Pyrothermic generators, from that article it seems that you will need to have power sinks on at least 2 sides to get the maximum power from it unless you have a tier 2 or better energy cube. Correct? As for improved lenses for my lasers, I have only found 1 diamond and 1 emerald. I have, however, found several perfect eyes which give you a 200% increase. They are rare, but I do get a lot of bugs attacking my base.
I suggest that you watch the first few lets play videos by direwolf20. I have not found a use for sloping conveyors. Conveyors can move materials strait up a wall. The can connect to other conveyors at strange angles and still work. IE: a vertical one can run strait into the bottom of a horizontal one and the coal/ore will move to the horizontal one. Think of them as cubes or pipes which can be loaded from any side and move whatever is on them in the direction of the arrows.
They look pretty. Inventory space > aesthetics for me. The description also says something about them being 2x as fast but I didn’t see that pan out.
I think so, I did end up putting at least 2 battery surfaces to each PTG.
I hated these at first because I thought they were too slow and cumbersome, but until I got far enough to reliably power teleporters they are a literal life saver. Considering how tricky the grappling hook can be it’s faster to rely on them. With a trickle of power and two compressors they can go all the way up to 256. Add in a control unit and you can use them to reliably space the laser power transmitters up and down a shaft to get power down.
Dig a shaft straight down from a location you want the ore to come up a conveyor belt. You can dig straight down very fast if you just use the grapple hook to get out of a 1x1 shaft. If that’s difficult for you build a 3x3 ‘hat’ positioned over the shaft for your hook to grab.
Once you are down a bit keep pinging for unknown ore then dig horizontally to the deposit. Once you know the correct level for the new ore start digging a 3x3 shaft down to that level and install a lift + control unit (if you have researched it yet). Then you will need to dig another single shaft for power and one for conveyor belts. The lift + control unit can make spacing that all out a cinch.Once its all built I usually remove the control unit for the lift because the lift is pretty intelligent by itself.
Does the energy limit for cubes apply to each side individually or total? IE: PTG - CUBE - PTG can the cube accept the 20% from each generator or is maxed by one? Also it just occured to me, that if the rule is 20%, then the basic cube is 200 power and this can take 40 units and the ratio would be 1 cube per generator.
Still though it would be nice to know if the energy limit is per cube or per cube face. Image in if you had a row of 3 cubes and under the two on the end you had 2 PTGs, could the center cube get 80 power per second, 40 each from the 2 side cubes?
Total I think but not tested. So actually rereading that article one battery should be enough for a PTG since they only generate < 15 per tick with coal. Furthermore the 20% battery transfer rule only applies to batteries and not something like the PTG.
I just tried to convert the first post to a wiki and added some tips that people can contribute too (assuming I did it right).
Started a third world on account of my first one being silly newbie settings and second pissing me off for having made some mistakes. ANYWAY.
I kinda feel like I’m staring up this giant awesome mountain filled with awesome things and all I’ve done is get my super-baseline power production automated. You guys. YOU GUYS. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME.
The wiki is wrong about some things. It has not kept up with the game changes. Also that article on steam has to be out of date too. PTGs only produce 11 power per tick, not the 39 or so that the article states.
Is there a way to get perfect organic components from ruined ones? I know the cryo research gives something, which according to the wiki will take 10 of ruined something to give 1 flawless, but it doesn’t state that you can go higher than that. I know that perfect eyes can be turned into lenses that give a 200% laser boost. I sure can use those. Emerald lenses only give 30% and those are hard to find.
The in game help really needs to be improved. Better descriptions would be really nice, but the thing that I really want is the full crafting recipe with materials needed for everything, even if you have not researched it. I do not like to spend research points on things I can;t make or just take a ridiculous amount of materials.
I also dislike how related research items are separate buys. IE: The lift. You need to buy the lift, then a lift controller, and then the rail station. Unless you buy all 3, you are SOL. It should be one price and you get the entire package.
The game has flaws. Lots of them. But considering I just sank almost 200 hours into it in a completely addicted state I hoped at least some of you would enjoy it.
The wiki is pretty bad unfortunately. I think the coal numbers may have been readjusted lately with enriched coal but by 39 I think you mean the 32 which is the max power that can be sent per face. The PTG itself only generates X per tick depending on the fuel, whether wood, coal or refined biomass but it has an internal battery of 1000 that can only deliver 32 per tick.
Yes but I didn’t find it worth it. Ruined components turn to sludge over time unless they are stored in a refrigerator hopper and the device that salvages the ruined components is very slow, kind of power hungry, and delivers an intermediate product that requires a lot to produce a perfect component. The reason it’s not worth it is because by the time you get all that up and running in the quantities you need you will have a high threat (probably) and literally be swimming in perfect/massive/pristine drops. I would concentrate on a good falcor system instead.
I found the same to be true of the Quarry. Unless you need a slow 9x9 shaft straight down to infinity it’s best as generating fuel for a construction paste generator.
Agreed. It’s frustrating. The Dev knows it and was planning on devoting most of today on the handbook if he could swing it.
Research points are only tight until the space debris starts falling and then you will be swimming in the stuff. Or you could be like me, and not figure that out until the landscape is literally covered with it and be very, very miserly with the RP.
I dunno about getting the high quality drops. Yes my base, on occasion when I am doing research will have those wasps attacking and Ill get tuns of bio material however, pristine drops are rare and the perfect drops I have only gotten 2 of (as far as things I am interested in like the eyes).
As for things decaying, then there must be a bug. I put them in the wooden storage crates and they do not decay at all. Id love to upgrade my stack of ruined eyes into a perfect one. Maybe Ill do that cryo research even though it takes a ridiculous amount of ore to do so.
I wish the hoppers would share between themselves (various articles say they do, but if I plop a few down and feed one some bars, it will fill up while the rest stay empty). You can’t conveyor belt things into wooden crates and I can’t afford the one that stores only 25 units that uses all that tin ore.
Yep, it’s really only half implemented. I know the desire to automate it is strong, so feel free, but after doing so I found it completely not worth the time. Especially since you will literally be swimming in perfect & massive drops by the time you really need them. I just used more LPTs to achieve the same thing as a single good lens can.
It’s very confusing, I agree but basically:
The dev just added ambient occlusion to bleeding edge (released to stable at end of every month), really adds a sense of depth to the game.
So near my base, some kind of worm monster appeared in an area filled with soft resin. It wasn’t there before. It doesn’t seem to leave that area, but it spits acid. My gun doesn’t hurt it. What should I do about it?
