I try not to but I sometimes break that rule. It’s possible that it will happen and I don’t want to have to allocate time to thinking about and checking for that sort of stuff. A big part of the game is taking the time and resources to do things that will save you time and resources over time. Overloading goes against that.
But sometimes I get lazy.
I don’t think of occasional overloads as a big deal, so I don’t plan too much for it; but if it’s happening regularly, I reroute some wires.
It leads to a messy-looking wiry mess, so I’m not saying i recommend this approach :).
True, but it saves you transformers. And transformers save you heat. And heat is a bitch. 
I tried it this time around, and it is working really well. It is true I need to take some time to carefully consider realistically what the power load will be but so far I’ve had zero damaged wires. Most of my networks are running at a constant 480-600W-ish instead of the more typical 240-360W-ish. That’s half the number of transformers, and so half the heat.
Is it worth it? I’m still undecided. I know eventually I’m going to bring the base to a shutdown from all the circuits blowing up. But it’ll be spectacular! 
I just found my first anti-entropy device on this map. And not a moment too soon. Things we’re starting to get real hot in here.
Does anybody else feel like you completed a real great wonder (like in Civ) when you complete a major construction project? Building the base cooling system is such a massive undertaking. I don’t know about you but it usually takes me about 40 cycles or more. And when it is done. Oh wow, it feels so impressive!
Especially when it works, which is one of the things I like about this game. Not everything works. Like my failed attempt with crude oil yesterday. But oh, when it works, I could do the dance of joy! I feel like $1,000,000 (US or CAD your choice)! It is truly satisfying. Anybody else get that?
Absolutely! There’s a lot of tweaking and half-working and kluged together systems; and I spend a lot of time figuring out why the hell a particular system isn’t working, or just swearing and tearing it down and rebuilding it so it works. But when I finally see things come together, it’s pure joy.
3 AM. That is all.
I’m still using the “Surviving the __ game” series of guides. But what I’d really like is a set of plain-language tutorials on new systems. How do rockets work, and what should you think about when setting up a launch pad and building one? How does automatic shipping work? How does automation work?
These systems are pretty opaque, and it takes me a long time to figure out what’s going on. I’d love to have a beginning explanation that gets me started on informed experimentation sooner, instead of discovering the problem only after I’ve built something and have to tear it all down.
Next project: figure out shipping, so I can use solid transport rockets.
Yes, some information would be useful. I don’t mind the trial and error but it would be nice to at least know the basics of how something works. I never did set up the conveyor system in that other base, so I still don’t know exactly how it works. I don’t want to look it up, because I feel like I’ll end up with too much information. I don’t want an optimized view, just the basics. The wiki isn’t too bad, which will provide some hints and information on how something works.
I would kill for two QoL improvements. Probably more, but these two come to mind right now. I wonder if the devs look at this thread at all?
You may want to check the mods - there’s one that colors buildings by the material they’re constructed from. I dunno if pipes are one of the things changed, though.
That would be pretty cool, but it’d also be amazing to be able to “paint” the pipes. I know which pipes are for polluted water when they’re full, but when they’re not, it can get hard to tell.
Ideally I’d like two painting methods:
I couldn’t figure out multi quote. Showing by material would but but kind of locks you into using particular materials for particular pipes. What a pain. And heaven help me if I ever forget and use the wrong material.
Yeah, what LHoD says! That would be awesome.
My inspiration are the mass transit lines in Cities Skylines. It is so incredibly easy to see a glance what mass transit you have going where because you can color each line individually. Generally I make all the ones of the same type have a similar but distinct color.
It would really be a nice improvement for ONI.
The other thing I would love to see is a report that shows you have much of something you used on the previous day. The colony summary has some of the information but not enough.
For example, I have 30 tonnes of algae. Is that a lot? More importantly, is it enough to last until I switch to elecrolyzers? It is hard to say, and it would be nice to get as part of the report. You used 2.9 tonnes of algae last cycle. Oh. Umm. And 3 tonnes the cycle before. Hmm… I guess I better get ready to switch or find more algae.
Pie in the sky, I’d like to be able to set warnings for some materials. Dirt, bleach stone, algae, that would tell me when I have less than 10 cycles (or whatever) remaining given current usage. Of course, having this for all materials would be impossible and even irksome.
Do you ever notice how at the start of the game you use 9 priorities and rarely priority 10, but by the mid/end game there is only priority 9 and 10?
Or is that just me 
I definitely did that at first, but eventually trained myself to not cause priority inflation. Hard not to get into that habit, though.
In terms of feature requests, I’d like to have automatable alerts. Just a siren or something hooked up to an automation wire. Then I can easily know if some resource is too low, or too high, or whatever.
Screenshot of my full base (watch out–it’s big)
Amazing base. I’ll try to take a screenshot of mine tonight. I’m currently transitioning to full steam power from steam/hydrogen/natural gas. I have two steam turbines being built over volcanoes that are dormant. And I have five turbines being built in oil regions. With all of those running at 50% I should be fine let alone with them running at full power.
I’ve had near zero issues using a statistical overloading technique on my grids. I’m using a fraction of the transformers that I would normally use. Definitely less than a quarter. It is strange seeing grids with potential output 2500W, but no overloads. Well, that’s not true I did have a couple of overloads here and there when I did something foolish. For example, I had four massage tables on one grid figuring, what would be the odds all four tables would get used at once? Well, of course, it happened and blew the grid. So now I separate the tables. Also, I put a metal refinery on the same conductive wire grid as my plastic production. That was silly and of course blew up. But so long as I do a careful analysis, I can keep under the 1KW/2KW limits with very few transformers.
Also, the past couple of days I’ve been managing the priorities better. I’ve been thinking in terms of projects. A class 9 project is something which is vital to the survival of the base, and must be done immediately (but is not an emergency class 10 project). Class 9 projects need to be small. Class 8 project is the an important project that overrides the current task. Class 8 projects are the “current task”. Class 7 projects are quality of life projects. Class 6 projects are long term projects, that will probably be upgraded to 8 later. And so on.
Finally, I’ve started thinking in terms of energy. I guess it is because I’m moving to steam power. I don’t see 300 degree C gas. No I see that it is energy, and I want to move that energy from here to there, so how do I do it? I don’t care if the physical gas gets moved, I just want to move its powa’.
Love this game! It is now my #4 played game of all time beating out Civilization V. Well over 300 hours now, so about a third of the way to becoming #1. (ignoring subscriptions games like WoW).
I tried to get a screenshot, but my playback thingy seems to be bugged and it gets stuck at cycle 156 or so. 
Patch today so I’ll try it again.
Noooooooooooooo! This update killed my base. My entire food production revolved around lettuce, and now lettuce won’t grow because it is bugged.
That’s pretty much my approach as well. The only exception are a few careful builds, particularly gas liquifiers, that I really don’t want to have to repair. So I dedicate a full transformer to those.
What happened here? I know they nerfed lettuce earlier, but I don’t see any changes in the latest hotfix. I’ve avoided it since they started requiring bleach stone, and I haven’t felt like setting up the production for that.
Playback thingy? Not sure what you’re referring to here. You can press alt-S to put it in screenshot mode and then F12 to take the shot (through Steam). I actually took several overlapping screenshots and then used the MS Image Composite Editor to auto-stitch them together, but that’s probably overkill.