Overview
The following is a list of general tips that can help both the beginner and veteran in their factory development. Additionaly, you will find useful information for setting up various power generation systems in the game. Please use the Table of Contents to get around, as this guide is extensive. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to ask in the comments.
Tips and Tricks List
1. Take your time. Do not rush progress. Learn how the different production processes work. Late game production can be quite complex. Do not be afraid to dismantle and try again!
2. Build up! Take advantage that you can build vertically. You can build up to 2 Km into the sky. In the Awesome Shop are double ramps and walkways. These are the best to get too higher floors. From sea level, you can build approximately 244 meters below, into the void for example.
3. The void is the common name for the endless pit you see on the edges of the map, and a few areas in the middle.
4. Practically, your common bottlenecks in the game are belts and pipes. Fundamentally, the bottleneck is resource extraction. Belts and pipes can be removed as a bottleneck through careful planning and factory layouts, but resource limits can never be avoided.
5. Belts are rated by items moved per minute, the tiers are 60 / 120 / 270 / 480 / 780 items per minute.
6. Pipes have two tiers, similar to belts. MK1 pipes have a maximum flow-rate of 300m3, and MK2 have a maximum flow-rate of 600m3.
7. Head lift is the ability to move liquids against the force of gravity. Starting from some source of head-lift (e.g. a pump or building). Liquids can only ever reach that far up relative to said source of head-lift. You can go down and then back up, but a T1 pump at 37 meters elevation will only ever be able to move liquids up to 59 meters elevation. Head-lift doesn’t directly stack:
you can’t have four pumps at 37 meters and pump fluids up to 125 meters; you have to have pumps at 37, 59, 81 and 103 meters elevation.
8. Most fluid-related buildings (e.g. water extractors) provide 10 meters head-lift. T1 pumps provide 22 meters of head-lift, and T2 pumps provide 55 meters of head-lift.
9. This relatively simplified fluid dynamics can lead to interesting results when merging multiple pipelines: This can even be exploited by building a water tower for example.
10. Pumps also act as one-way valves.
11. In the game, there is another pipe related part called a “valve”. This valve provides no head-lift. It can be used to control the flow direction of a pipe, and how much fluid is allowed through. For example, you may only need 150m3 of water. You can use a valve to limit the flow to that 150m3 goal. Keep in mind that valves are not perfect. There can be some fluctuation.
12. If you route your pipes downhill, you can get around head-lift altogether up to where the pipe begins to go downhill.
13. The simplest way to construct chains of machines is by use of the manifold system.
Please reference this Wiki article for more information on manifolds: [link]
14. A manifold is a set of machines in a single, straight line. With the use of splitters, mergers, or pipe junctions, simply take one belt or pipe and branch it off in series. The only downside is that it can take a while for the system to become 100% efficient. This is because each machine in the line needs to fill its internal storage. This system is also commonly known as overflow. This allows easy expansion.
15. Overflow spiter mode, found in smart and programmable splitters can be used to siphon off excess resources to another production chain, or an AWESOME Sink. This is very important in any processes that have byproducts. For example, oil processing. The same effect can be accomplished with normal splitters, there is just no filtering mode with a normal splitter.
16. You can also balance your factories using a more traditional balancer. A balancer is similar to what is commonly used in games like Factorio. They are a set of splitters and mergers designed to create different outcomes. For example, you may have 4 belts that you need to merge into two belts, but those two belts need a different item per minute total. Here is a wiki article on some different balancer ideas.:
[link]
17. Exploration is quite important. You will want to find crash sites and power slugs.
18. Crash sites give you a hard drive. In your M.A.M, you can research that hard drive an discover an alternate recipe. You get 3 random choices per hard drove and you may select one at once. There are currently more hard drives on the map than alternate recipes. An example of a useful, early game alternate recipe is “Stitched Iron Plate”. This is an alternate for Reinforced Iron Plates, and is far more efficient than the normal recipe. Some alternates are straight-up improvements, while others replace a common resource with a rare one. Some are a trade-off.
19. Power slugs can be processed into power shards, which allow you to overclock your buildings.
21. How do i get out of being stuck in between 2 things? ( asked by @red) It depends on what your stuck on. Machine you built? Dismantle it. A tree or foliage? chainsaw. If all else fails, press C to crouch, should dislodge you.
Coal Plant Water Setups
Water is probably the most complicated part of coal power, here I will show you some examples of how to setup your water.
PLEASE NOTE: This note is for endgame builds. Now that Mark 2 pipes have been added to the game, they can be used for coal power setups as shown here. This guide will not show Mk2 pipe setups yet. I may add that in later. For now, if you wish to use a Mk2 pipe in your coal power plant, use the charts shown below as a baseline and simply double their size. Instead of 6 coal generators for a 300m3 supply of water, double it to 12 for example.
The Basics
This is all based off 100% clock speed.
- 45m3 per minute water is needed for each coal generator
- each water extractor will pump 120m3 water
- each pipe can have a flow rate of 300m3 fluid maximum
One Water Extractor
This setup will produce 120m3 water at 100% clock speed, and can support 2.66 coal generators on its own. For simplicity sake, this will be reduced to two coal generators.
Three Water Extractors
This setup has all 3 water extractors under-clocked to 75% each. This will produce a total of 270m3 water a minute, enough for 6 coal generators.
Three Water Extractors to 8 Coal Generators
This method is the most efficient, but the most complicated. With 3 water extractors at 100%, you will make 360m3 water a minute. But, a pipe can only move 300m3 fluid per minute max, how does this work? As shown below, the third water extractor is added late into the pipe, thus providing its 120m3 water after previous coal generators have consumed some, thus balancing out the system.
another example:
Another one, created by kwjcool321#7200 (Discord username):
Provided by Jeslis #6830 (Discord)
This design is a expansion on the 3:8 method shown above. Best approach is to build the top half, then add in the bottom half. This type of approach is infinitely expandable.
Coal Power: Burn Rates and What You Can Burn
To understand coal power, we first must break down the numbers.
physical connections
- 1 pipe input
- 1 belt input
Requirements
- 15 coal a minute
- 45m3 water a minute
- produces 75 MW of power at 100%
Coal is not the only item you can burn in a coal generator. In total there are three resources that can be used in a coal generator:
- Coal
- Compacted Coal
- Petroleum Coke
These resources have different burn times, how much is consumed per minute.
Coal
Coal is easily found through resource nodes on the map. Depending on the node quality and miner tier, you will get different rates per minute.
Compacted Coal
Compacted coal is a alternate recipe you can unlock randomly by researching hard drives at the M.A.M.
Sulfur is a raw resource required to make Compacted Coal. Sufur is a very rare resource on the map and is required for other items such as nuclear fuel rods, batteries, and black powder. Compacted Coal is the most efficient resource to use in a Coal Generator, but the trade-off is not kind. You are using a rare resource that will become very scarce in the later stages of the game.
The recipe takes per minute
- 25 sulfur IN
- 25 coal IN
- 25 compacted coal OUT
Petroleum Coke
Petroleum Coke is a byproduct from oil processing. You get it from converting your heavy oil residue into petroleum coke in a refinery.
Petroleum Coke is a reasonably efficient option.
The recipe for petroleum coke is
- 40m3 heavy oil residue IN
- 120 petroleum coke OUT
Coal Power Tables
Mk1 Belt, 60 a minute
Mk2 Belt, 120 a minute
Mk3 Belt, 270 a minute
Mk4 Belt, 480 a minute
Mk5 Belt, 780 a minute
Power Production Disclaimer
All forms of Automated power plants now will consume 100% of the imputted resources.
this includes
- Coal Generator
- Fuel Generator
- Nuclear Power Plant
You must supply these power facilities with the required materials, or they will stop working.
Geothermal Plants
Geothermal Power now works of a curve. Each gyser node now has a rarity like other resource nodes in the game. Depending on rarity, you will get a different level of power output.
Bio- Fuel Generators
These are still the first power generator type you unlock. They still are the only non-renewable form of energy in the game.
Nuclear Power Plants
Nuclear power produces waste. Before update 4, you could do nothhing with waste. It had to be stored. Now, it can be refined in the Plutonium Fuel Rod production process. Plutonium rods can then be sunk in an AWESOME Sink, or used in more nuclear power plants. If you choose to use them in more power plants, they will produce more waste, but at a considerably less quantanty than Uranium based waste.
Fuel Generators
WIP This section is in progress
Fuel Generators are the next step above coal generators.
Inputs
- 1 Fluid Input
Requirements
- liquid fuel
- pipe attached
- produces 150MW of power at 100%
What different material can be burned?
- Fuel
- TurboFuel
Burn Rates for the various Fuel types
Because Fuel Generators have to be supplied by a fluid, pipe limitations come into play. A pipe can only move 300m3 worth of fluids a minute.
Mark 2 pipes have a maximum of 600m3 of fluids a minute.
Maximum amount of Fuel Generators a single pipe can support
Making Fuel
The hardest part for using Fuel Generators is actually making the fuel. Unlike Coal generators, a refining process has to happen before the fuel is even ready to send into a Fuel Generator.
Alternate Recipes can change this process, but for this section we will start with the basic methods and work our way up to more advanced processes.
- Oil node
- Oil Pump
- Refinery
- AWESOME Sink
- Smart or Programmable Splitters (OPTIONAL)
Oil Node Rarity quality
This process assumes a full Mk1 pipe of oil. If you wish to use less or more than 300m3 oil you will need to calculate down.
If you wish to use mk2 pipes, you will need to double this process.
Link – [link]
This method will produce 200m3 fuel and 150 Polymer Resin a minute.
Why not use the Resin in Residual Rubber or Residual Plastic recipes? You can do this, but it is advisable to not mix plastic/rubber making with power generation. Your fuel generators will not run at 100% for a long time anyway, thus you will not be producing the max amount of Resin as well. Its better to sink it in a AWESOME sink just to keep one potential failure point from being a issue.
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Residual fuel is a standard recipe that turns Heavy Oil Residue into fuel.
This method takes the Heavy Oil Residue byproduct made from
- Plastic
- Rubber
- Heavy Oil Residue ALT *
* This is an alternate recipe that turns Crude Oil directly into Heavy Oil Residue and Polymer Resin.
Here are two examples of how you can use the Residual Fuel recipe to make fuel for power generation.
1. Using Rubber to make the Heavy Oil Residue.
2. Using Plastic to make the Heavy Oil Residue.
3. Using the Heavy Oil Residue alternate recipe.*2
Why does Rubber produce more than Plastic? This is because the standard Rubber recipe produces twice the amount of Heavy Oil Residue.
*2 This method, using the Heavy Oil Residue ALT is also part of a much larger, more complex chain that is considered the most efficient use of oil in the game.
The key to making these methods work is to make sure nothing ever stops moving. You cannot allow the plastic to back up, or the fuel will stop. You also cannot let the heavy oil residue backup, or the plastic will stop. You need to find a way of using AWESOME Sinks and maybe a Petroleum Coke refinery at the end of the Residual Fuel refineries just to make sure nothing backs up.
Advanced Fuel Production
In the previous section, Making Fuel, basic methods of creating fuel was discussed. Here, we will be exploring the more advanced methods.
Because these methods are advanced, I will be using higher liquid amounts, suitable for Mk2 pipes.
Please see the disclaimer below for why the fluid totals do not go over 400m3 per pipe.
This first advanced method requires a few Alternate recipes to be effective.
- Heavy Oil Residue Alt
- Diluted Packaged Fuel
This shart shows thefull process:
As you can see, the complexity of this process has climbed sagnificantly in comparison to more basic fuel production setups. The main advantage here is that your oil usage is much more efficient. As you can see, you will only need 150m3 oil to produce 400m3 fuel.
Lets break this down into managable steps.
This should be the first step you do.
This step will produce two end products. The heavy oil residue, and polymer resin.
The polymer resin can be used in some different ways. If you have the Polymer Fabric Alternate, you can use that recipe to make fabric for filters. You can also use it in either the Residual Plastic, or Residual Rubber recipes. If you choose to do nothing with the Resin, you will still have to get rid of it somehow. Your final option will be to place an Awesome Sink down to remove the resin. No matter what, you must do something with it.
Diluted Packaged Fuel as its name implies creates packaged fuel. To start this process, you will need Packaged water. Packaged Water requires Empty Canisters, and liquid water.
In order to get the canisters required, it is best to build them and place them into an industrial storage container on site. You will need a few thausand empty containers. Once the entire Diluted Packaged Fuel process is working, you will want to loop these canisters. So, they will enter the Packaged Water Packager > Enter the Diluted Packaged Fuel refinery >
Enter the Unpackage Fuel packager, and the empty canister will then loop back to the Water Packagers. It is best to place a storage buffer when the empty canisters are returning to the Packaged Water machines.
Once the Fuel is produced and in a liquid form, you can then pipe it to fuel generators.
Edits
Edit 1 – just a simple reorganization, no content change.
Edit 2 – added future plans section
Edit 3 – began to add coal power information
Edit 4 – Coal power sections complete
Edit 5 – added a question posted by a user in the comments section
Edit 6 – added extra water charts, one from a Discord community member that helps write the official wiki
Edit 7 – began work on the Fuel Generators section
Edit 8 – cleaned some things up, and modified some mentions for mk2 pipes.
Edit 9 – Edited content based on Update 4 changes
Edit 10 – Began to add a guide for advanced fuel production
Future Plans
1. add more tips to the tips list
2. add coal power guide
3. add fuel power guide
4. Adding Advanced Fuel production guide – WIP