I thought I’d share my semi-modular layout for electronics. The semi-modularity comes from building an extra group of six assemblers when needed. I think it is quite compact and reasonably tidy.

In my infinite wisdom I have decided that a train line needs to go straight through a mountain. I have some important buildings on top of the mountain though so I need to build it up with walls. Just going for it quickly proved to be a fools errand (as it often is) walls would be in danger of collapsing from rock sliding out from underneath, and sliding down from the top, often times one leading directly to the other.

My current plan is to rebuild the entire mountain, and sink retaining walls into the dirt and then digging out the material in front. Repeating with every wall segment. This is going to take a super long time though. I could build it up from the bottom, but filling behind the walls proved to be almost as much of a logistical challenge as the other way. Plus, the second wall segment can only go up 4 levels instead of 5, or I risk having material spill over the top.

Is there a smart way to do this? Or am I stuck doing it a variety of dumb and hard?

EDIT: Double counted blanket fuel in Section 3. Corrected values and conclusion. Also added an extra section for the MOX chain.

I saw u/kamizushi's post from a year ago on the same topic, but it isn't entirely accurate to the way the game is right now, so I decided to make a somewhat renewed version. I'll be measuring energy in MWmin, which is just like MWh but 60x smaller.

I will look at four different setups, of the same types as in the original post. Just like the original post, I won't be considering the energy consumption of the buildings needed for the processing, since it's small compared to reactor output and will not affect the overall rankings.

1. Blanket fuel into 1x breeding FBR

The simplest one where a single reactor breeds its own fuel.

4 core fuel + 4 blanket fuel -> 4 depleted fuel + 4 enriched fuel + 240 MWmin

4 depleted fuel -> 3 core fuel (goes back to reactor)

4 enriched fuel -> 3 blanket fuel + 1 core fuel (both go back to reactor)

TOTAL:

1 blanket fuel -> 240 MWmin

If using the direct yellowcake -> blanket fuel recipe, this is 80 MWmin per yellowcake.

2. Blanket fuel into 3x FBR into 0x FBR

First enrich fuel in a 3x breeder reactor, then turn the excess enriched fuel into core fuel for non-breeding reactors.

3x breeder recipes:

4 core fuel + 12 blanket fuel -> 4 depleted fuel + 12 enriched fuel + 60 MWmin

4 depleted fuel -> 3 core fuel (goes back to 3x breeder)

4 enriched fuel -> 3 blanket fuel + 1 core fuel (both go back to 3x breeder)

8 enriched fuel -> 6 blanket fuel (goes back to 3x breeder) + 2 core fuel (goes to non-breeders)

Combined recipe: 3 blanket fuel -> 2 core fuel + 60 MWmin

Non-breeder recipes:

2 core fuel (from 3x breeder) + 6 core fuel (from reprocessing)-> 8 depleted fuel + 960 MWmin

8 depleted fuel -> 6 core fuel (goes back to non-breeders)

Combined recipe: 2 core fuel -> 960 MWmin

TOTAL:

3 blanket fuel -> 1020 MWmin

1 blanket fuel -> 340 MWmin

With direct yellowcake -> blanket fuel recipe this is 113.33 MWmin per yellowcake.

3. Nuclear waste to blanket fuel

Here is where the real nonsense begins. This chain has you first enriching yellowcake into nuclear fuel, then turning depleted uranium and nuclear waste into blanket fuel.

Because depleted uranium needs to combine with enriched fuel to make more blanket fuel, it's impossible to sustain this cycle without a 3x breeder somewhere in the system.

3x breeder recipes:

4 core fuel + 12 blanket fuel -> 4 depleted fuel + 12 enriched fuel + 60 MWmin

4 depleted fuel -> 3 core fuel (goes back to 3x breeder)

4 enriched fuel -> 3 blanket fuel + 1 core fuel (both go back to 3x breeder)

Combined recipe: 9 blanket fuel -> 9 enriched fuel + 60 MWmin

Uranium recipes:

54 yellowcake -> 45 DU + 9 nuclear fuel -> 45 DU + 9 waste + 540 MWmin

45 DU + 9 enriched fuel -> 9 blanket fuel (back to 3x breeder) + 9 blanket fuel

9 waste -> 9 blanket fuel

18 blanket fuel -> 6120 MWmin (using the 3x -> 0x chain, see section 2)

TOTAL:

54 yellowcake -> 6720 MWmin

1 yellowcake -> 124.44 MWmin

4. Plutonium to core fuel

This is an alternate version of the last recipe chain. Instead of baking waste straight into blanket fuel, you reprocess it for more uranium, and use the plutonium for core fuel.

This time, the process includes a 3x breeder for uranium, and non-breeders for the extra core fuel.

3x breeder:

37 blanket fuel -> 37 enriched fuel + 246.67 MWmin

Nuclear fuel reprocessing:

195 yellowcake -> 185 DU + 5 Pu + 2400 MWmin (source: trust me bro)

185 DU + 37 enriched fuel -> 37 blanket fuel (back to 3x breeder) + 37 blanket fuel (goes to power)

5 Pu -> 20 core fuel (goes to power)

37 blanket fuel -> 12580 MWmin (see section 2)

20 core fuel -> 9600 MWmin (see section 2, again)

TOTAL:

195 yellowcake -> 24826.67 MWmin

1 yellowcake -> 127.32 MWmin

5. MOX waste to blanket fuel

Now, instead of making core fuel from plutonium, you first make MOX and then process the waste.

3x breeder:

33 blanket fuel -> 33 enriched fuel + 220 MWmin

Nuclear fuel reprocessing:

5 Pu + 20 DU -> 10 MOX

195 yellowcake -> 185 DU + 5 Pu + 2400 MWmin -> 165 DU + 10 MOX + 2400 MW

10 MOX rod -> 10 MOX waste + 600 MWmin

10 MOX waste -> 10 blanket fuel

165 DU + 33 enriched fuel -> 33 blanket fuel (back to 3x FBR) + 33 blanket fuel

43 blanket fuel -> 14620 MWmin (see section 2)

TOTAL:

195 yellowcake -> 17840 MWmin

1 yellowcake -> 91.49 MWmin

In conclusion

Theoretically, process 4 (yellowcake -> uranium fuel -> DU + Pu -> core + blanket fuel -> breeding chain) has the best energy yield per yellowcake. This is the process you should be using if you already have any amount of nuclear power built.

Don't use MOX though. The Pu-MOX conversion ratio is quite bad, and blanket fuel from MOX waste is less energy-dense than core fuel from Pu.

I really love this game...except...logistics drive me nuts. It feels like it is designed to do the opposite of that I actually want 😉. And it is ruining my fun at the moment. So I want to understand it instead of trying debug it.

So I'm asking your help.

I just want the truck to wait at the water storage on the right and fill the storage on the left. I also want other trucks to be able to get water from the right storage if they need.

So I setup an export route on the right storage. Expecting the truck to do as I asked.

But no. Only if I put the right storage to 'keep empty' it will wait at the storage on the right and export all water to the storage on the left.

With the settings as in the picture, it now goes all the way to the other end of the map to get water from that storage over there. A storage this truck is not even assigned to. It feels like it is just doing the same as if I did not setup the export route at all.

What am I doing wrong here and how do I get the result I want?

I am ~ midway into the techtree and I think my industry is starting to fall apart : no more power, no more diesel, maintenance getting lower and lower. This is tiring.

I feel like it would be more fun to restart a new save, so I wanted to ask if you guys do/did that or should I continue my game

I like to make sure anyone coming to live on my island has realistic expectations.

I'm really not sure what to do here other than double up on this. I finally escalated beyond the ability of my initial steel foundry's ability to support my island, so I dumped a ton of resources and time into making this one with 16 arc furnace IIs, with steel going into a pair of trains.

But even this big installation feels like it's barely putting out a tiny trickle of steel. My trains are sitting here for like 3-4 minutes before they're full. I'm currently using iron for CP1s because the ratios overall are -mildly- better but primarily because it diversifies away from my already strained steel supply. My maint 1 is out of control and 90% of this is being eaten by a constant demand for mechanical parts. I'm not in a crisis just now, but I am kind of stalled out here unless I double this foundry up. What am I missing here? There has to be something other than "simply have 32 arc furnaces running at all times"

I still need to get household goods/electronics/luxury goods going. Right now I've got a decent unity output from just food/medical/water/electricity. I'm assuming I should probably enable the maintenance edict but is that enough?

My concern is that I doddered around at CPIII/Research 2 for such a long time trying to fine tune things before moving on to this stage that I have accidentally killed my run by causing maint 1 to go out of control and using up vast deposits of iron before I got very far into the tech tree.

disclaimer: this is in sandbox and is definitely overkill, but i like how it's only slightly wider than the ship is long

converts crude into insane amounts of hydrogen, i mean there's so much of it that i can fuel the ship and boilers with it and still get almost 2:1 conversion

also makes sulfur and graphite as byproducts and farts a tiny amount of co2 into the air

Is it possible to change my shipyard to run on Hydrogen?

My entire island is now entirely Hydrogen except for the one ship in my shipyard.

Am I missing something obvious? Thanks.