Finally got the Golden Nut after 230h
And with that, the last achievement. It was a very long ride, though I did take things easy; I really wanted to experience what 1.0 had to offer.
The last few factories really started to feel like an uphill battle as they became bigger and especially the uranium/plutonium factory required so many inputs and processing steps that it was difficult to even build. It was always a case of some other factory needing to be built.
Upon finishing the final ballistic warp drive factory, the tickets finally started flowing in and my personal goal in the game is over and I can rest (and play other games). I know many people have loftier goals, but I'm proud of just making it this far!
Attached to this post I have also added the map of my save with the following annotations:
Main base with space elevator where all early components were manufactured (up to a small 10/min motors and 20/min modular frame factory). Later expanded with a 2.5/min Nuclear Pasta factory into 45/min singularity cells for portal and endgame needs.
Main Steel factory. Made all the steel I needed, pretty much. I feel like steel isn't needed as much as it should. Later in steps expanded with 4/min heavy modular frame, 4/min Fused Modular Frame, 4/min Pressure Conversion Cube, 4.5/min Turbo Motor factory. In the late game a 30/min Crystal Oscillator and 60/min Electromagnetic Control Rod and 5/min Iodine Filter factory were added.
First and only Coal plant with 16 coal generators on 240/min coal.
First fuel power plant (8x generator). Also a big rubber and plastic factory. Later expanded with an even bigger plastic and rubber plant for all plastic and rubber needs.
Big caterium factory making 15/min computers, 7.5/min AI Limiter, 11.25/min High speed connector. Later expanded with 3.75/min Supercomputer.
The factory making 20/min Crystal Oscillators. Later expanded into a 20/min Radio Control Unit factory. Byproduct goes into 9 fuel generators.
Turbofuel plant making packaged turbofuel and generating power with 12 full oc fuel generators. Also makes black powder and smokeless powder. Later expanded with aluminium casings and electrode circuit boards for other factory needs.
First aluminium factory, making alclad sheets, casings and fluid tanks. Upgraded twice in capacity and later added 36/min heat sink production.
Nitrogen packaging facility. Packages all the nitrogen there into bottles that can be shipped by train.
Motor 18/min and rubber factory 108/min for the purpose of assembling the turbo motors at the steel factory. The byproduct goes into 9 fuel generators.
Rocket fuel factory, making a lot of packaged rocket fuel and generating power with 58 full oc fuel generators. Also makes 5/min gas filters.
Revisiting the crater lakes with a basic 36/min time crystal and 60/min dark matter crystal factory. For phase 5 progress needs.
Factory making 225/min Ficsite Trigon and 50/min SAM Fluctuator using the local iron ore patches and the SAM from the huge cave (clipped through the ceiling and made it look nice with a building around it).
Early game this location was used for silica processing for the nearby aluminium plant. Dominating the location now is a big heavy modular frame 55/min factory using local materials. Most is sunk for tickets. Unfortunately it was by far not enough for 1000 tickets.
Second aluminium plant making a lot of casings and sheets for all endgame needs (1050/min casings and 200/min sheets).
Factory making plastic smart plating, modular engines, cooling devices and fused frames for processing into 4.5/min Thermal Propulsion Rocket.
Power was running out so this is a 18x 200% nuclear generator facility using 7.2/min uranium rods. Most of this facility is dedicated to recycling the waste to 1.8/min plutonium rods and then sunk.
The final factory was much easier and simpler than expected, after that huge uranium monstrosity. It uses 1950/min oil from nearby and turns it into dark matter crystals and 22/min superposition oscillators. And then finally many products are combined into 9/min Ballistic Warp Drives. This generated a lot of ticket points to finish my last game goal.
If I (or you) ever feel like a new playthrough I want to give the following tips:
- Vehicles are great, try more vehicles. As you can see I only really got into them with trains and then later tons of drones.
- Use more blueprints. I could've saved so much time connecting belts, connecting power, creating manifolds etc, if I had a stricter blueprint discipline.
- Try to use the early game factories more and try to keep them expandable. In the beginning I made a 10/min motor factory but they were only used to refill the dimension depot. If I had built a better, expandable factory I wouldn't have had to build a 18/min motor factory elsewhere.
- You don't have to break down old factories. There's so much space on the map that you can easily build your new whatever-factory elsewhere! In the end of the playthrough it's actually nice to visit old locations and reminisce the good old times when everything was small and simple.
- Try to get portals earlier and automate some singularity cells. You only need 2/min which is 0.2 nuclear pasta/min. This should be easily doable even with early game factories. My HMF factory was 4/min into 4/min Pressure cubes, and I haven't really needed more until the final steps of the game, this is enough for a small supply of pasta.
- I've come to despise pure recipes. They take up so much space and power. Basic, Alloy and Tempered is where it's at! I've also used leached, if you're bringing in sulfur anyway, why not?
- It's fine to not use the maximum of a node. Don't try to build things thinking that at some later point, you will come back and use up the remainder of the node. This allows you to use stuff like the Leached Ingot recipe, because if you're bringing in sulfur, might as well use it right? Try not to think you "might need it later". Your later factory will most likely be in a different place altogether.
- Don't get stuck on which alt recipe is "the best". If you want to build computers but you have no caterium nearby but you do have unused quartz, go for Crystal Computer and Silicon Circuit Board!
I feel a bit tired now after all of this, but it's been a great journey. I hope this post of my journey can inspire some of you to keep going and be efficient! If you have any further questions about anything, feel free to ask!