Mass producing Hydrogen & Deuterium | #20 | Let's Play | Dyson Sphere Program

[@TheDutchActuary]

Hey everyone! The deuterium build was *really* fun to build, I recommend trying to build something similar yourselves!

[@blitz3463]

These builds are just glorious, especially that cracking build, trying to study it to understand it more (your explanation was top notch, but my brain is like, nope lol)

[@redjumping]

Really lovely builds, and 2 of the most tricky to set up...Both in one episode! :D

[@robbenada4836]

I believe that a splitter with priority and filter will only allow the filtered item out on that line, any overflow will be split between all non-filtered output lines, along with all rejected items. Assuming this is correct, then deuterium will start being mixed in with your hydrogen and will block up the fractionators. I look forward to the blueprints. I am Really enjoying this series.

[@TheDutchActuary]

I haven't seen the behavior that you are describing sofar, as far as I can tell the filter setting always means 'this item only goes this way'. Remember, you can only mix items if you have two inputs, that only leaves two output slots - one of them with the filter.

[@BradCox]

Appreciate all the work that's gone into this. There's some conveyor belts missing on one end of the Fractionator build. If one side is clogging, look for the missing join onto two fractionators and it will fix it.

[@chuckmclaughlin]

The X-ray cracking build has problems, I believe. X-ray cracking can only get speedup from proliferation, so 20 refineries will fill a hydrogen belt. Your line is longer than that, I think, which means that several machines will be jammed on hydrogen output. The stacker being halfway down makes half space on a belt, so while the sections furthest away from the tower can be 20 long, the sections close to the tower can only be 10 long without jamming - they only have half a belt to fill. The fractionator build has some funky beltwork at the back end which I believe will create intermittent jam conditions. At 23:54, you'll notice the fractionator sideloads onto the hydrogen belt, when the fractionator output should always have priority. I don't know what your splitter priority is, you might have managed to set it up such that it really is impossible to jam, but it stood out to me as a potential problem area. While this is one of the nicest x-ray cracking builds I've seen (especially once you work out the bugs), I question it's usefulness. Simply adding a few more orbital collectors to various gas giants should give you plenty of hydrogen, it's won't cause your oil output to degrade, and orbital collectors are significantly more UPS efficient as a source of hydrogen, as they don't require power, splitters, sorters, power poles, etc. Even at very low VU, your average deuterium gas giant produces something like 10 hydrogen per second per collector (8x base rate for collectors times ~1 hydrogen per second, times 1.2 for red-science level Veins Utilization).

[@TheDutchActuary]

The cracking build is mostly meant until you reach the vein utilization and/or you actually have enough gas giants going - I have neither in my current game at this point though, and thus was starved on hydrogen. Regarding the fractionator and the stacking, its interesting since i've had this comment before. The 2nd stacker doesn't do anything - Until it is needed. As soon as the belt backs up ( because 2 stacks isn't enough), the 2 stacks will in fact become 4 stacks - self-solving the issue. Good catch on the side-loading of the fractionator. It self corrects it seems as it didn't cause any problems for me, but it shouldn't be there - fixed the blueprint accordingly. Thanks!

[@chuckmclaughlin]

@@TheDutchActuary We've had a slight miscommunication. I have no complaints about the stackers on the fractionators, it will of course start running once it saturates. My stacker comment was about the X-ray cracking build. Because X-ray Cracking cannot be proliferated for extra product, only for speed, and because you're not self-feeding the build directly, 20 refineries will fill an output belt of hydrogen, and I believe you have 24 in each section before and after the inline stacker. In the back section, 4 refineries can't run, they can literally never output. On the front section, because a stacker can never create more space than 1/2 of a belt, 14 refineries won't be able to run.

[@TheDutchActuary]

@@chuckmclaughlin You're right, I goofed the math there as I based it on extra products, not extra speed! That actually means about half the buildings in each section won't be of any use.. ugh! Will have to fix that this weekend :)

[@Mbusybuu]

Not gonna lie, those builds are good on the eyes.

[@TheDutchActuary]

:D

[@piffwhiffle]

I love X ray cracking, but I've found it difficult to reliably consume the excess graphite in various stages of the middle and endgame besides burning it all off, which can take an annoying amount of space and planning to both have enough power demand and throughput to consume graphite at max production speed. edit - ah, should have watched to the end. I like the solution of charging accumulators to help ensure at least some power demand keeps the furnaces cooking.

[@TheDutchActuary]

I admit it isn't a perfect solution though - this also relies on having enough accumulators to charge up and (at some point) those being used up elsewhere. That is somewhat easy to fix by building the next few planets to solely rely on accumulator power though (although I don't recommend building the most vital things there, just mining etc probably).

[@piffwhiffle]

@@TheDutchActuary In the larger context of the game I am now thinking that managing the graphite from x ray cracking is not really any more difficult than managing any other potential excess backing up. It's just that unlike managing excess hydrogen which is presented in so many contexts, there are fewer uses for graphite. Maybe limiting graphite production from coal in general would allow diamonds for proliferates to be a reliable sink for X-ray graphite

[@TheDutchActuary]

@@piffwhiffle That's actually not a bad idea - setting up a proliferator build for example, that also makes immediate use of the diamonds.

[@NatanStarke]

Man endgame you use graphite like craaaaaaaaaazy just store it or make more diamonds with excess, but believe me you WILL need it.

[@NatanStarke]

If you are going to want a big mark in the milky way or big science both paths require insane graphite production and keep in mind that they eventually become one of the rarest resources especially now that proliferators exist using tons of more coal, x ray became a necessity and oil is a nightmare of its own late game.

[@drakedbz]

I believe that putting two stackers in series like that doesn't actually stack the belt to 4 high, as the first stacker leaves a gap between each item in the output, which means the second stacker doesn't have two things to stack, because it only looks at two "slots" on a belt at a time. Maybe that's changed since I first tested it, but essentially the second stacker won't be doing anything. The way I usually get around this is by keeping the two halves of the belt separate until the end, where I stack each of those belts to 2 high, then combine the belts and stack again.

[@TheDutchActuary]

You're right, but since that leads to underproduction of the deuterium, the belt soon backs up, and then starts stacking to 4 - solving its own issue. It's a fun little build to observe while it's trying to balance itself out :)

[@Vell1981]

I took your Chrystal Silicone Build and fitted it for Fractal Silicone because you have 1.9 million of it sitting there on the Planet should be enough for the Accumulator Build. I found a minor error in your Super Cracking Blueprint at two ends the belt that runs back the Graphite is not fully connected so the Graphite gets stuck, it is easy to spot and to fix by the user but as your a perfectionist i just wanted to let you know. xD

[@konnerbrickey9569]

Hey TDA, loving this series! Is there a reason you don’t instantly smelt things like iron, copper, and titanium, and then treat the bars like raw resources?

[@TheDutchActuary]

Mainly to simplify the planets I get the raw resources from, and to ensure I know for sure i'm always smelting things that i'm going to use, and i'm always smelting exactly enough for what I need. There's nothing wrong with setting up things like smelting planets though, this is just my preference!

[@NatanStarke]

I really like smelting some stuff in loco to reduce warper needs, but as the game goes on smelting planets really are the best option especially for the volcanic ash planets because of the sulfuric lakes.

[@Skilez]

totally unrelated to this: i found an error in some of your earlier blueprints! the blueprints for proliferated iron / copper whatever plates have an outgoing belt in the middle that is not connected to the splitter right in front of it. small but noticable difference! and a question: i am at the stage where i want to upgrade the mall to the final endgame mall. is there an easy way to upgrade or do i have to raze the previous one to the ground and plant the new blueprint over it? OR do i have to build the missing assemblers myself (mk3 assemblers and rocket launcher)? thanks for the series, its a great pleasure to play along with you! and i am still waiting for a mighty skilez system :P

[@TheDutchActuary]

Sadly no easy solution to the mall, other than razing it and rebuilding. (not the worst if you have some storage containers on hand). Alternatively, you could simply build the mall on the first 1-2 next planets you visit. You really only need 1 or maybe 2 with the new buildings, and having more than 1 mall is a good idea anyway :)

[@Skilez]

@@TheDutchActuary yeah, think ill go with that solution. Sounds a lot more convenient. Thanks for advice

[@meepmoop3489]

Hey TDA! I have built the blueprints of this episode and i have experienced a problem that might occur at a random time. The fractionators that produce deuterium have clogged once. The fractionators were not able to put the hydrogen back on the belt because the belt was full. I have put the accumulated hydrogen of one fractionator out of it and now this part runs smoothly (and fast omg :D ). But as it has 4 segments that all clogged at some time i am currently waiting for it to clog again. This might have been a one time only failure, but i just wanted to let you know that it happened..i already imagine you searching for the reason why the deuterium doesnt get to the rocket factory ^^ The blueprint with all those refineries has two cut belts (graphit belt) at diagonal corners. And i got a question about power on this planet (i have only built miners, extractors and these blueprints on it). How many thermal power plants have you built on it? When everything is running it peaks at about 1,3 GW demand, so i have built 18 times the thermal blueprint and have set up some graphit smelters to fuel those.

[@TheDutchActuary]

Yes the clogging can occur in the original blueprint. Have fixed the issue I think, now I just need the website to function again so I can upload the new version :) I built the thermal power blueprint only 6 times I believe, as I was not aiming to power this entire planet with it. But you can! You could also opt to use the thermal power elsewhere though (e.g. a new planet with low solar energy ratio)

[@coszmin8223]

Hey TDA the deuterium output isnt proliferated? I only see sprayers on the hidrogen

[@TheSkepticSkwerl]

Two pilers in a row doesn't do anything. It only piles touching items. Unless your next belt intentionally slows down the flow

[@TheDutchActuary]

The 2nd stacker starts working like intended as soon as the belt backs up - immediately solving the ' backing up ' issue whenever it occurs.

[@TheSkepticSkwerl]

Since gas Giants make an insane amount of deuterium and hydrogen. I mostly truly on those

[@TheDutchActuary]

They are awesome! Aside from setting the 40 orbitals up - I hate that part :(

[@NatanStarke]

It cannot feed the factory late game, at least not for milk way scores but for science the deuterium builds can be mostly neglected.