On Tier 3 Planetary Production – My Current Setup
As I have reviewed what has happened in getting a good sized Planetary Interaction setup organised, several things began to pop up. There was this constant nagging sensation that I was Doing It Wrong™. There also had to be a way to get a better yield and some how make use of the CPU that was not being used. The first idea was to see if would be better to separate extraction and production completely. To do this, I enlisted the help of The Puppet to set up his four planets to extract each of the four P0 needed in the production of Robotics.
First a quick survey of the system gave us a good rundown of what resources were available on each of the planets [or just glancing online somewhere] and in what quantities they are present at each one. This part was something that I felt was important as it allowed me to eliminate some planets in favor of others. From this survey I whipped up a quick and dirty sheet of numbers to help plan out my strategy:
| Planet | Aq
Liq |
Base
Mtl |
Carbon
Cmpds |
Micro
Org |
Noble
Mtl |
Hvy
Mtl |
Non-CS
Crys |
Susp
Plas |
Ionic
Sol. |
Noble
Gas |
Reac
Gas |
Plank
Col. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 25 | 75 | 75 | 75 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| II | 25 | 75 | 75 | 75 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| III | 0 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 80 | 40 | 50 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IV | 60 | 80 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 50 | 60 | 0 | 0 |
| V | 50 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 75 | 25 | 0 |
| VI | 50 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 75 | 33 | 0 |
| VII | 50 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 75 | 25 | 0 |
| VIII | 50 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 75 | 20 | 0 |
| IX | 100 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 0 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 0 | 50 |
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Ice Planet"]
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The Puppet planned to just extract the raw materials and export the refined P1 materials and store them in the Corporate Hangar Array for me to haul to the planet where I was building Robotics. He set up on the ice planet to extract Heavy Metals as it had the largest concentration of that resource. I added an extraction set up for the ice planet as well and soon we were pulling in a great volume of Heavy Metals and exporting quite a fair amount of Toxic Metals to put toward Cons. Elect. production later. One of the big benefits of the way the new extractor head system works is the ability to move them around freely to adjust to changing deposits of resources or fix and fiddle with any of them without having to destroy and rebuild a colony every time. Due to the way the CPU/power grid worked out, I was not able to get an additional basic industrial facility as I was short about 50 PG. Since there was copious amounts of CPU available, I opted to add a second Landing pad and put the intermediate P1 there for storage and export.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="151" caption="Kename's Storm Planet"]
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[caption id="attachment_1126" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Storm Planet"]
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For his second installation he set up on the storm world to extract Base Metals. This was a deliberate decision based on my previous survey of the system. All but one of the planets in our wormhole has deposits of Base Metals and at fairly high concentrations. The storm planet has the benefits of being the largest quantity by percentage coupled with a fairly low planetary radius to keep link costs down. It also does not have any other resources necessary for production of robotics. The lower CPU and PG needs for links allows for an additional processor instead of the second spaceport of the ice planet. The Base Metals are refined and converted into Reactive Metals for the later production of Mechanical Parts needed to make Robotics.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="244" caption="Kename's Plasma Planet"]
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[caption id="attachment_1125" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Plasma Planet"]
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The third move was into toward the plasma planet’s set up. It was initially set up to be both an extraction and production plant. Some conversion was necessary in order for it to fit the new structure of pure extraction instead. The basic industry facilities were retained but in some cases repurposed with new schematics. Additionally the the spaceport for storage and export was kept intact. Production schema were updated and routes modified to match. The radius of the planet is similar to that of the storm and so has a similar number of processors. The Puppet here also set up shop to extract Non-CS Crystals and produce Chiral Structures for later incorporation into Cons. Elect.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="244" caption="Kename's Barren Extraction Planet"]
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[caption id="attachment_1124" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Barren Planet"]
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Finally the last extraction planet was one of the Barren Planets. There was not much difference between the two and their relative deposits so The Puppet put up an extractor colony on the first planet and I opted to build my extraction facility on the second one. The idea was to avoid interfering with each other’s setup and thereby maximising the returns. The barren planets both have somewhat mediocre deposits of Noble Metals, but the only other planet with the resource is the plasma planet which is already obligated for Non-CS Crystals.
After all of that, it seemed like the bulk of the work was finished. Eight planets had been set up to extract the four necessary P0 materials and refine it into the four Tier 1 Products used to produce Consumer Electronics and Mechanical Parts for final inclusion of the Robotics.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="194" caption="Making Robots"]
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[caption id="attachment_1123" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Backup Production Facility"]
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The last step was supposed to be the most straight forward as it could be set up on any planet and did not require survey. Again, I opted to have this set up on the second barren planet in our home wormhole system that I was not using for Noble Metals [but The Puppet was] as it had the smallest diameter and thus was the most economical in terms of CPU and PG needed for links. This was a fairly complex setup and in hindsight would do a couple of placements differently [for aesthetic reasons mostly]. The lessons learned in previous iterations and attempts at PI were useful in making sure that things went smoothly.
The first installation [after the Command Center] was the Spaceport. Additional Advanced Industrial Facilities [AIFwere placed around the Spaceport in a hexagonal layout while attempting to minimise the distance between them. The result was a tightly packed set of 25 AIF. The next step was to link everything together with the minimum number of links and avoiding any long links. This involved a bit of trial and error and sketching to get it set up with the least number of links without overloading any of them or requiring upgrades if necessary. The final result was 5 branches of 4 AIF connected in a general ‘Y’ or ‘T’ shape and one branch with 5 AIF.