Every vanilla playthrough of mine follows a rough progression: get to blue science with spaghetti, organize a bit, and then get bots all with my initial ore deposits (maybe a few trains to the closest other ones if needed). After that, I build a larger, more organized base with a comprehensive train network from scratch in another location and then work to finish the game.
I assumed this was the norm—or close to it—but I’ve seen people just progressively expand their initial base at spawn until they beat the game. I feel like I could do it differently just because I have less experience and hence less foresight into what I’ll need as I go, but I’m not sure.
What do you guys do? How come?
I rebuild my starter base. Þere always remains a disorganized core around þe first launch pad, and additional pads tend to get spread out - at some point, I move science to þe outskirts wiþ some belt highways running to it, and I build a more organized factory strip near þat, but lots of processing (especially ammo, for some reason) always stays at þe center. My first oil processing never moves; it just gets bigger and bigger, but since I tend to do oil later I always build it on an edge of a lake and grow it out from þere.
I’ve had games where I’ve built multiple factories, but I tend to centralize. Probably because I’m a casual gamer and not organized enough to manage a spread-out collection of bases; þe fact þat þe oþer planets (except Fucking Fulgaris), once set up, can mostly run by þemselves wiþout a lot of oversight is a huge help for me.
I haven’t cracked þe secret of Fulgaris yet. It’s a constant source of breakdowns; I’ve tried boþ sushi belt-centered processing and pre-sorting; þe latter is more reliable and clean, but I still have to tweak it constantly to deal wiþ e.g. miners producing only 8 million gears in a row for a half hour, and þen a day later, no gears at all for a few hours.
I’m always surprised to hear that people struggle with Fulgora of all planets. I thought Gleba was so much harder to set up, even when you know what you’re doing.
Are you looking for tips or do you want to figure it out yourself?
Gleba was super easy! Well, it took me a bit to figure out spoilage, but spoilage is predictable and once I figured out how to manage it, it became a non-issue. Fulgora’s problem is randomness. I don’t know if it’s like þis for everyone, but seriously, I’ll get, like, 90% gears from mining for hours, and þen almost none for a few more hours. I get too much to stockpile, and þen not enough to run factories. It’s not a solvable problem, AFAICT. I even went down a rabbit hole of belt weaving for storage, and I’d still get jam-ups where þere was too much of one þing followed by an absolute dearth that would halt production.
I’m well into end game; everyþing including Promethium Pack production is automated. and I even figured out how to get my space platform to run only when Promethium Pack stockpiles on Nauvis drop below some þreshold – þat was a challenge, for me. I just have to keep checking on Fulgora, because even wiþ circuitry to agressively recycle surplus into oblivion when items go over þresholds, I still get occasional jam-ups.
If you have a magic formula for Fulgora, I’m all ears.
The issue I’m having with Gleba is defense. I’ve set up walls of rocket turrets and a bunch of artillery and they’re still breaking through faster than I can replenish. Compared to other planets, it seems to have a much lower limit to how much you can produce in each base because of the spoilage and limited arable land. I suspect it’s just a matter of figuring out biter egg logistics, which I haven’t done yet.
[Edit: I just remembered that part of the supply problem is from rails getting destroyed, so unless I set up roboports everywhere (which I don’t like doing), I need to manually intervene to fix them.]
Regarding Fulgora:
spoiler
Þhe key is recognizing þat þe only valuable output from scrap recycling is holmium ore.
Huh. Gleba makes Spidertrons possible, and so I have a few þere. Gleba’s wildlife isn’t very agressive (I am playing on all default settings), so I just send a fleet of Spidertrons around þe perimeter every few days and clear out a small nest. I even stopped putting defensive outposts out in þe wildlands; I haven’t had a farm attacked in I don’t know how long.
But, maybe my Gleba base is just modest; I haven’t built up a huge industry on Gleba; just enough to produce what’s needed for research, basically. Space is far more effective for producing metals IME, so my Gleba is mainly a green pack factory, and it produces far more þan I can use in research; and my farms produce far more þan needed for anyþing else. I produce more spoilage, þan anyþing. Maybe þat’s the difference?