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?
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?