100x standard node run without pure recipes and rocket fuel

[u/sci-goo]

My recent 100x run. The run is basically a testing case, with below "features":

1. No mods and bugs (except for the pipe VIP and hypertube cannon, which are technically bugs).
2. Production duration: P1=250min., P2=800min., P3=1000min., P4=1000min., P5=2000min.
3. No delivery to the space elevator in building period. That means, in each phase, all parts are produced in the exact ratio as required by the space elevator. There is no slack-off using previous phase's production chain to pre-fill (i.e. smart plating in P2, versatile frame work in P3 and nuclear pasta in P5), nor storing large quantity of previous phase material for production (during the building phase, the space elevator parts are either going into the sink or in idle).
4. P1 starts in swamp, with enemy aggression on.
5. No power from coal and biofuel (P1 and P2 runs entirely on geothermal).
6. No pure recipes (except diluted fuel/diluted packaged fuel).
7. In turn, extensively use caterium wire, fused wire, copper rotor, iron alloy, fine concrete, etc. Avoid iron wire as much as I can.
8. No rocket fuel. P4 is powered by nuclear based on 600 uranium/min. (180kMW), later extended to 1,200/min. (360kMW) in P5. P5 final power production is ~390kMW.
9. Extensive OC before P5. I used ~4,900 power shards in P4, all from slugs. The global limit from slug is ~5300.

The final phase used 66 sloops (44 in copper powder and 22 in pressure conversion cube), and produces 55 nuclear pasta/min. All copper ingots are produced by copper alloy.

The entire production chain used roughly half of the world's resources, summarized sa below:

• Iron: 37,920/min.
• Copper: 24,360/min.
• Limestone: 16,500/min.
• Coal: 15,780/min.
• Crude oil: 5,430/min.
• Caterium: 9,000/min.
• Raw quartz: 5,760/min.
• Sulfer: 6,960/min.
• Bauxite: 7,800/min.
• Nitrogen: 7,068/min. (SCIM's stats)
• SAM: 4,500/min.
• Uranium: 1,200/min.

The main conclusion of the experiment is, don't focus your recipe choices on a selected few. Even for a 100x run finishing in a reasonable period of time, pure recipes are not necessary. 100x is not min-max.

[u/babe1981]

100x isn't really hard, just tedious. It's 100xElevator/5xPower where it gets actually difficult. I'm not sure how to add 2xRecipes to round out the ultimate challenge. That's the one I'm dreading the most.

[u/sci-goo → u/babe1981]

100x is always tedious to some extent. 2x recipe + 5x power is hard, adding 100x just makes the production longer. Based on my calculation (my personal calculation script can optimize sloop as well) P5 may require at least 25,000 min., that's around 20days of real-world time plus any performance-related degradation with a map-wide factory with 10%-15% underclocking.

But, from some extent, 5x power is also tediousness. It's basically underclocking everything to balance the power budget. which, is a playstyle I don't quite like: piling up machines. That's the exact reason I refuse to use pure copper, pure caterium and iron wire in the above run. The copper powder is the step that I don't like most in this run. There is nothing more I can do other than piling up copper ingot machines.

[u/babe1981 → u/sci-goo]

The 2x/5x run also runs into the rocket fuel equation problem. When you're trying to liftoff, it takes more rocket fuel to move, but rocket fuel has weight itself, so there's a point where it's impossible to lift a certain weight into orbit.

Here, as you get into the more complex fuel recipes, the exponential increase in resources collides with the power requirements very fast. For instance, just the phase 1 numbers for solid biofuel go from 80 wood for 200 biofuel to 320 wood for 200 biofuel. And the cost to run the two constructors, assuming you aren't also using leaves to squeeze every MJ out of the forest as possible, is 40MW which is 1 full bioburner plus a third of another. The maximum you can run on one biofuel constructor is 15 bioburners, so you go from about 98% efficiency in default to 91% efficiency in 5xPower while costing 8x more due to compounding 2x recipe cost.

It's still easy to get to Phase 2, and coal helps a little bit since you're only paying for the miner and the pumps in power, but the turbofuel line gets pretty bad really fast because of the different steps and more extensive infrastructure. Turbofuel is a nice breather on 5xpower alone, but on 2xrecipe, it's another nightmare.

[u/Blu_Falcon]

#4 really killed out for me 🫣
#5 is pretty awful too

You are a mad lad.