Make sure to use the right one, as well. The T1 extractor doesn’t work for osmium or super alloy. And they will pull other materials too, just in smaller quantities.
I had a T2… maybe I just got unlucky on the first few loads.
I’m not even sure what I’m limited by most at this point. Squash, maybe? A bunch of the bio-related things need a lot of fertilizer, and making it is painful and slow. I think I’ll set up a a factory now that I have drones available. Hmm, wonder if they can even harvest algae for me…
Yeah, the progression of unlocking stuff is pretty great.
I just got my breathable atmosphere, which I realize is gonna make wreck exploration much more relaxed–no worries about getting lost and running out of air. I have T2s mining super alloys, uranium, osmium, and sulfur, and a T1 getting me some aluminum, and a couple teleporters. At this point, the game is a lot of running around back and forth between the farms, the DNA analyzers and incubators, the Bio Lab, and the algae pond. If drones make that automatic, that’d be flippin awesome.
Onwards to fish!
I made a cookie. Only 2.2% of players have made a cookie. The cookie should sell for way more than it does, though. 36 resources!
Drones and T3 miners are so awesome. I now have full stocks of sulfur, osmium, iridium, and super alloy at all times. Only wish I could get pulsar quartz as well, but it’s apparently impossible. Oh well–I have enough power for now (about 20 MW).
Interesting that we all seem to be struggling with different parts. My bottleneck is oxygen, mainly because I didn’t get an oxygen fuse. So biomass and pressure is great, but my O2 is lagging so far behind that I haven’t even unlocked the water life gatherer–which I need for fish. I’m already at amphibians and my aquarium is empty because I can’t create fish eggs (and haven’t found any, either!).
I’m about to reach 2500 trade tokens, so I can buy an oxygen fuse, which will be a huge help. But then I need to save up again for heat.
It would be nice if the game guaranteed at least one each of the main fuses. I found a couple more–and they’re lame production fuses. Otherwise it’s easy to get bottlenecked, at least until you start a big trade empire.
I had enough fuses and unlocked a few things, so I upgraded to T3 tree spreaders with a full T2 optimizer pushing oxygen. Oxygen production is now my driving force for terraforming index. While I’m waiting for that to run out of steam, and other toys to unlock, I’m adding production capacity for the bio things - sulfur extractor, a few more algae spreaders, better water collection, more outdoor farms, etc. I’ve noticed my rocket launches are nearly where other people are - two oxygen rockets, four of the rest.
Went walkabout today, exploring the map and following the coordinates I got from whoever. I highly suggest anyone that hasn’t started that to do so - some truly gorgeous locations are involved. And if you have air/water filters, the hardest part is to not pick up everything along the way.
Which is my biggest issue at this point - I’ve found so much useful stuff while exploring, but it’s pretty much guaranteed to stay there. Unless I’m doing multiple trips everywhere I go, a lot of things I want are left behind. For example, I filled up a big locker I found somewhere completely with rocket engines. I wanted those rocket engines, but I wanted the obsidian and fertilizer and osmium rods and and and - you get the picture. So the rocket engines will wait, and I’ll never go back to get them, even though the materials for doubling or tripling my output from launching more rockets is inconsequential. I just refuse to build rocket engines when there are so many available in chests.
I’m lagging behind, only a third of the way to breathable atmosphere and progress for that is crawling.
My first attempt to finish the warden quest sent me to a location way out west, but I could not find the cave entrance. I found myself standing on top of cliffs perfectly at the x and y coordinates but too high for z. I’ll have to take another look when I’m done with other things.
Unlocked trade rockets but have not placed the building yet. I think that’s next on my agenda.
I’m very confused about optimizers. Remember how I said that I put three t1 tree spreaders and two beehives within radius of my single optimizer and put the plant fuse in it? I upgraded that optimizer to a t2, and since it had three slots I tossed in the two oxygen fuses I happen to have laying around. That over doubled my oxygen production, from just under 250k/s to just under 600k/s. And I only have one oxygen rocket in orbit. I don’t understand how it could have increased that much. I also need to upgrade those three tree spreaders to t2, but with my oxygen production tripling that of heat and pressure, that feels almost counterproductive.
Both heat and pressure are major bottlenecks for me, neither even at 200k/s yet. I launched two more heat rockets for a total of six but that only took it from 140k to 170k, so that’s not the answer. I suppose I’ll do that for pressure as well but meh.
I need to go exploring to find fuses but it seems like there is always something I need to be doing at the base. I feel like I’m going to end up putting off exploring until I have a breathable atmosphere.
Correction: Checking now my Heat went up to 203k/s, not 170k/s. Still meh.
Most fuses add 500%. However, this stacks with the seed bonus, so it usually isn’t 5x. But if you have, say, a 450% tree, it’ll be about double.
D’oh! Just realized that–like everything else in the game–fuses sell for 100% of their value. So 2x5000 tokens means I can buy quite a bit of other stuff. Though that’s a one-shot deal and I really need some energy fuses. Earning that will still take time.
Looks like the trade rocket launch platform is beyond me at the moment; I won’t be able to make circuit boards for a very long time. I could find them while exploring, so once I finish upgrading my tree spreaders and get that optimizer hitting all my buildings, I’ll head out.
Does this mean you can freely exchange any fuse for any fuse you want?
Well, they have different costs. The four terraforming-related ones are 2500 each. Production is 5000–so you can buy two with that. Energy is 6000.
You can harvest circuit boards before you can build them. You need the T2 deconstructor, though.
So, you know how when you explore wrecks, you sometimes find a fusion generator with an empty space in it? It’s worth filling that space.
I was wondering about those. I suppose I have an idea now. I tried putting some stuff in previously, but not the thing that is likely to work.
I did just get my portal generator up, though. Which allows exploration of wrecks with some valuable loot (including trade tokens). So it may be a moot point now. And my trading setup earns a few thousand tokens an hour (and is totally automated).
ETA: I’m quickly approaching the final unlock. I’m at about 1.6 TTi, and the final thing is at 5 TTi. At least for now.
I made it to breathable atmosphere, woohoo!
I was hoping I could ditch my oxygen tank but looks like that is still useful for swimming. I did, however, recycle my air filter.
Got like three or four pulsar quartz meteor strikes, each one in the exact same spot. Weird. So I tossed up two more fusion generators and still have 17 quartz left. Available energy is now just a hair over 3000. I suspect I will be burning through that relatively quickly. Got my eye on some teleporters…
I would have deconstructed my t2 nuclear generators but I don’t have anywhere to put all those green rods. My uranium locker is half full of uranium, half full of uranium rods, with only like two spaces left. I never did mine uranium but I doubt I’ll ever need any more than I already have.
I did toss down an obsidian mine with a T2 or extractor. Had to rearrange my lockers again to accommodate all these new materials: zeolite, pulsar quartz, obsidian; these were not part of the original plan!
Now I’m basically waiting for enough biomass to unlock t5 heaters and drillers. I guess next thing to do is toss down some butterfly farms and then go explore for fuses. I’ve got breathable atmosphere, t5 backpack, a water filter and high quality food…I’ll be exploring in style.
EDIT: Can I just say that I hate tree spreaders? When I put them near my base they grew all into my base and blocked stairwells and encroached inside my biolab. I ended up moving all the tree spreaders away from my base. Much better now. Speaking of, tier 3 just unlocked. That could help with my biomass.
Another note here–the T2 optimizer increases both the range of the optimizer (50 to 75 meters) and the max machine count (from 5 to 8). So there are lots of possibilities here.
I’m not totally sure how the optimizer picks the machines. I have an energy fuse in my power generation area, which has both nukes and fusion plants. Based on the highlighting, it looks like it preferentially picks the fusion plants. Though it could be range based as well; I think those plants are closer. Ideally it would be smart and optimize those things with max benefit. I also wonder what happens if you have two optimizers and >8 machines. Do they try to maximize the number of covered machines, or do they independently pick which ones to optimize?
If you’re curious and motivated, I’d imagine creative mode would be an easy way to test things like this.
I decided to give that a try now that I have those energy cell things unlocked. Costs 2 quartz to make one, but I figured I only needed to make one and I could just reuse it for each wreck. Slapped it in the first wreck I happened to be exploring and saw that it got locked in, meaning I could not remove it. I was pissed.
Then I started exploring the wreck again to find all the now-open hidden passages. Holy crap, you weren’t kidding! More than 2 quartz, so at least that paid for itself. Also two microchips (only need one more for my trade launch platform!) plus a couple / few thousand trade tokens.
Not to mention several blueprints, though I still haven’t gotten anything particularly good. I’m figuring blueprints are just a simple numbers game. There are only so many recipes to unlock, so it’s just a matter of going and finding enough blueprints to unlock them all.
I’m still wrapping on my head around exploring with teleporters. It’s hard to break the habit of carrying food and water with me. And I have to say, it sure is nice being able to just dump everything I collect from a wreck straight to my home base.
Now 95% of the way through insects, plus I just launched my first insect rocket.
I thought I was all set with super alloy. I have a t2 extractor mining super alloy, plus two t1 extractors mining aluminum with an auto crafter in between them crafting super alloy. Narrator: He was not all set.
These max tier buildings are insane. I thought the t5 heater was huge; had to move them off back behind my launch platform because they took up so much room. Then I unlocked the t5 drillers. Jesus Christ, seriously? I have no idea where I’m going to put those. Nor how I’m going to manage having a single optimizer hitting eight of them. Was hard enough arranging the heaters for that. Good grief.
Not to mention the t3 tree seeders. Holy crap, my entire base was overgrown with jungle. Couldn’t even enter my biolab because the doors were blocked. After popping the seeds out then back into the seeders like four times just to erase the trees I finally moved them far enough away from my base to no longer be an issue.
And then of course there’s the teeny tiny max tier nuclear fusion generators. One of these things is not like the others!
I’m just starting to use teleporters to set up terraforming stations in empty expanses of the map. Right now I have T3 tree spreaders near the big waterfall, five of them surrounding a machine optimizer with two plant fuses.
And I’m hitting a weird and annoying issue. I’ve been putting up the spreader, and then coming back to add the tree to it. With four active spreaders, the trees are so dense that I can’t find the fifth spreader that doesn’t have a tree in it yet!
New plan: don’t build the final three spreaders until I have the trees ready to go.
Meanwhile, I just built my portal generator and went through the first portal. TWO TIPS:
- Pay attention to where the portal appears in the new world. If you lose track of it, the journey will be wasted.
- Carry a food and a couple bottles of water with you: you really don’t want to die of dehydration out there!
My first journey may end up being a waste: I stopped the game with about 20% water left, and no idea where the portal is, and a backpack full of excellence.
You can pop the seeds out of all of them to make all the trees go away, then pop them all back in and you’re good to go with only a few seconds of production lost.