Allow constructors to produce biomass from leaves and wood together

Question

Constructors can make biomass from leaves or wood, but not both at the same time. Since the end product is the same, it would be nice to be able to dump both into the same constructor for biomass production.

Since leaves/wood have to be gathered manually, I set up a chain with a storage container I can dump leaves/wood into to feed a biomass Constructor, which in turn feeds a biofuel Constructor, which finally dumps that into a second storage container. However, if I put both leaves and wood into my input container, it will feed these indiscriminately to the Constructor, which is problematic. Allowing both inputs for the same output would be ideal.

Comments

I'm not sure anymore... I mean I understand the play style isn't for everyone, and I wouldn't mind an option for more hassle free play for those who choose the option, but having played quite a bit, the gathering of bio mass can easily be done while waiting for some extra resources being produced. It actually keeps you busy and possibly sends you out exploring a bit. Also, Constructors only use up 4 mw, 1 bio burner will feed a refining setup, and you can always make space. Personally, I always make the bio mass myself, stick it in a container and brew biofuel from it. Only costs 1 4mw constructor and 2 containers. Build a personal storage close. Add 1 constructor and store the leaves wood/ wood then switch  the resource in container / constructor. cost 8 mw, choose a central location where you pass by a lot, next to a craft bench. There's plenty of ways to handle the prob.

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This is the only time in the entire game I've used smart splitters.

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The main issue I see here is that before we can unlock the tech required for solving this "problem", biomass largely becomes irrelevant as we transition to coal power and beyond.

As for constructor and recipe, different inputs have different recipes. Constructors can't run multiple at once. This is just how the game is set up, in principle I don't see an issue with that.

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> However, if I put both leaves and wood into my input container, it will feed these indiscriminately to the Constructor, which is problematic. Allowing both inputs for the same output would be ideal.

I worked around this problem by dropping a piece of whatever is supposed to go into that belt's storage container on the ground in front of it as a reminder.

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This just sounds like cheating to me.

Answer 1

Disagree.

Dealing with related production-chains is a good 'warm up problem' for players to encounter in the early game.

A trivial solution is for players to build 2 constructors, one for biomass (wood), one for biomass (leaves).
Then they can use a merger to feed both constructor outputs into a single storage unit, biofuel constructor, etc.

This helps players learn about what's so great about using those 'merger' and 'splitter' buildings.

Comments

The downside/difference being that biomass production requires player collection, so the player would have to do the manual splitting of input between the two feeds.

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Yeah, the solution (which you outlined) is so straightforward I hope they don't change this.  This game is all about handling this kind of thing, and it makes sense that a constructor can only handle one or the other.

The manual splitting issue pbunit mentioned should be resolved via some filtering functionality addition, which has been suggested in a few comments already that have a lot of votes.

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yea i'm feeling that. Its just laziness to lump it all in together, feels like a detraction from the spirit of the game of extreme organisation and effective system building to have a thing that does all the work of filtering for you without any investment of your own

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Production of biomass/fuel isn't THAT complicated anyway.
Actually many players only use smart splitters for biomass and nothing else(to divide leaves/wood).

I think we should have more systems like this to encourage smart splitters, not less

Answer 2

This is probably not possible with the current recipe system (the same reason why you have to manually select what ore you want to smelt in Smelters, although that's not logical), but i think this could be solved with a recipe for Assembler that would accept both 10 leaves and 5 wood and produce 31 biomass (or more).

But would be nicier to have dynamic recipes that would automatically determine the product based on the input.

Comments

@ SerGreen

Something along th way, yes.

Else it would mean that constructor "mk1" accept multiple ressources, making the further constructor useless.

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i disagree, although it makes more sense for such a recipe in the assembler.

Answer 3

I agree that it does not make much sense. It is probably this way since the number of biomass is different, and you can choose what to use when you are hand-crafting.

But it should be this way, otherwise what I was doing was putting a storage container after the constructor made biomass from leaves, and adding manually there biomass handcrafted from wood.

It does not make sense to have a very big part of the factory to do something that cannot be really automated, so this change will be very good.

Comments

How doesn't it make sense? You're making the same end product, sure, but the materials used to do it are different. Therefore the process required to make the biomass is different and therefore requires different machine settings.

It's one of those problems that you need to work at as you progress. You start by making individual chains for each resource. Then after you unlock smart splitters, you can condense the entire thing.

I made a small building that allows me to put any sort of leaves/wood/alien parts into a bin and it will automatically sort through it and output biofuel on the other end.

This isn't a problem that needs fixing.

Answer 4

Make 1 storage with a smart spliter that sends the leaves left and the wood right. Put an constructor on both belts and merge prod into same storage. Done !

This way even possible to integrate the biomass prod from other surces like mycelia, carapaces etc

Answer 5

If you dont mind installing a mod then modding already solves this :

https://ficsit.app/mod/3onkjc8Kn6xDbU