Quick Start: Difference between revisions

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This guide attempts to describe the steps to take to get a quick start in Dyson Sphere Program.

Currently, all new games will start you on a Mediterranean Planet, which are fairly "Earth-like" and have a good range of resources that can get you all the way up to mid-game without ever leaving the planet. This guide should work for all new game starts, unless and until they make it possible to change your starting system.

If you wish to follow along more precisely, this guide and its accompanying screenshots were written with the following World Generation settings:

Seed: 00000000
Systems: 64
Resource Multiplier: Infinite

With these settings, you should start at a G-Type star named "Iota Sagittae"

Before We Start

Before we start, we'll go over a few tips.

Conserving Energy

In the early game, your mecha has very little in the way of energy storage and power generation. You also don't have access to the some of the better fuel sources that increase the power regeneration rate. For these reasons it is important to conserve energy as much as possible. In a fresh game, these things consume energy for your mecha:

Movement -- 600 kW while moving. Alleviate by planning your path in advance to minimize distance
Hovering -- variable, but in the 1-1.2 MW range while hovering over water. Alleviate by walking around water and being sure not to "idle" while hovering above any.
Drones -- Each drone consumes 288 kW from your mecha while flying to/from a construction. Starting the game with 3 drones, this can get as high as 864 kW. Alleviate by minimizing the distance drones have to fly, and only building one thing at a time.
Gathering -- when mining a vein manually, it consumes 640 kW. Alleviate by automating mining. This guide's approach requires no hand-gathering aside from 60 Logs for an Upgrade.
Replicator -- Hand-crafting items, as well as smelting ingots by hand, consume 240 kW. Alleviate by automating everything you can, as early as possible.
Researching -- Researching technologies using materials from your mecha's inventory means your mecha is doing the research and using 360 kW. Alleviate by setting Matrix Labs to do the research.

Without any fuel source at all, your mecha only generates 80 kW of power to recharge itself. Fuel sources change this amount by varying amounts. In this guide, we will aim to keep mecha energy consumption at a minimum, but if you find yourself getting low, you can either just hang back and let the 80kW recharge itself over time, or find some fuel. You will have 5 Hydrogen Fuel Rods at the start of the game, but using them this early is a bit of a waste. This guide recommends that you use nearby natural fuel sources in the early game, such as trees and plants, organic crystal, or Coal Ore if you are lucky enough to have some nearby.

Trees and Rocks

You have probably heard the adage "waste not, want not" -- or, do not let things go to waste simply because you do not want them. In DSP, every resource has a use, although you may not know the uses until you research a particular technology. Trees and Rocks that are scattered around are no exception to this rule.

When placing a Building, if a tree or rock is in the way when the drone places the building, then that tree or rock is simply deleted, and you do not get the resources from it. For this reason, it is advised that before placing any buildings, you should first manually remove any trees or stones that are near that location. This can grant you many different materials, most of which have early-game uses such as for a fuel source.

Of the resources that you can get in this manner, it's OK to use these for fuel, for now:

Log - come from trees, usually 8-12 for each tree cut down. Decent early-game fuel source, but Be sure to keep 60 on hand until told otherwise
Plant Fuel - come from trees, as well as small bush-like plants.
Coal Ore - can sometimes come from rocks.

Try not to use Organic Crystal for fuel. You will find yourself wanting some later, since they are very tedious to make via recipe. If you feel that you must burn some, try to keep at least 120 of them set aside.

Note: The original draft of this guide was a bit too long and focused on a particular path. In the end, it did not work out when tried on random other seeds, and it was not the intent to pigeonhole the player to a specific seed. The guide will be re-written soon.

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 Without any fuel source at all, your mecha only generates 80 kW of power to recharge itself. Fuel sources change this amount by varying amounts. In this guide, we will aim to keep mecha energy consumption at a minimum, but if you find yourself getting low, you can either just hang back and let the 80kW recharge itself over time, or find some fuel. You will have 5 Hydrogen Fuel Rods at the start of the game, but using them this early is a bit of a waste. This guide recommends that you use nearby natural fuel sources in the early game, such as trees and plants, organic crystal, or Coal Ore if you are lucky enough to have some nearby.
-===Trees, Rocks, and Soil Pile===
+===Trees and Rocks===
 You have probably heard the adage "waste not, want not" -- or, do not let things go to waste simply because you do not want them. In {{abbr|Dyson Sphere Program|DSP}}, every resource has a use, although you may not know the uses until you research a particular technology. Trees and Rocks that are scattered around are no exception to this rule.
@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 Try not to use [[Organic Crystal]] for fuel. You will find yourself wanting some later, since they are very tedious to make via recipe. If you feel that you must burn some, try to keep at least 120 of them set aside.
+Note: The original draft of this guide was a bit too long and focused on a particular path. In the end, it did not work out when tried on random other seeds, and it was not the intent to pigeonhole the player to a specific seed. The guide will be re-written soon.
+<!--
 ===Order of Operations===
 There is no "one right way" to play a sandbox game like Dyson Sphere Program. The order of operations for getting started that is laid out by this guide is intended to follow the following precepts:
@@ Line 108: / Line 115: @@
 We're still using our mecha for too many things, eating up precious power. Almost everything we want to make will require the ore that we're gathering to be Smelted into Ingots, Magnets, etc first. So let's get ready to automate smelting!
-{{Note Box|For the rest of this guide, you will not be told when to gather ore from the miners. If you find that you do not have enough in your inventory to accomplish a task, head to the appropriate miner and pick some up. Don't overfill your inventory, though, you won't need to manually grab ore for long, and you your inventory is very limited in space!}}
+{{Note Box|For the rest of this guide, you will not be told when to gather ore from the miners. If you find that you do not have enough in your inventory to accomplish a task, head to the appropriate miner and pick some up. Don't overfill your inventory, though, you won't need to manually grab ore for long, and your inventory is very limited in space!}}
 * We can't automate smelting until we've learned how! So open your Crafting menu, go to Components, and start 5 runs of Circuit Board (10 Circuit Boards total) and 5 runs of Magnetic Coil (10 Magnetic Coils total).
@@ Line 130: / Line 137: @@
 ** Set one smelter to make Magnets
 * Smelters can hold 20 ore in their input. Grab as much ore as necessary (60 iron, 20 copper) to completely fill each Smelter's input. They will immediately begin smelting their chosen recipe.
+** With all three smelters active, 4 wind turbines is not enough to keep them powered. It's OK for the power grid to be yellow for now, we'll wait until we can automate Wind Turbine Manufacturing to improve our grid.
 {{Note Box|For the rest of this guide, we will stop telling you when to put Ore into the Smelters. If we tell you to grab something from a Smelter and it does not have enough, then go ahead and put another 20 ore in.}}
+== Automating Assembly ==
+Alright, we're halfway there! All that's left now is to automate manufactirng/assembly, and then to Automate Research, and we won't have to use our mecha's own power quite so often.
+* This time, we're going to set the research before we make the items, so that you can see how that looks.
+* Open your {{kbd|T}}echnology Tree, find [[Basic Assembling Process_(Tech)|Basic Assembling Process]] and Activate it.
+* Close the Technology tree, and notice that the icon in the top left corner has turned red. Research has stalled, because we don't have enough items!
+* Right below that icon, the Manual Research panel shows us that we have 0/10 [[Gear]] and 0/10 [[Circuit Board]]
+* Using the outputs from the Smelters, and refilling the smelters as needed, craft 10 Gears and 10 Circuit Boards
+** Remember, Circuit Boards recipe makes 2, so you only have to craft it 5 times, not 10!
+** If you watch your inventory while these get crafted, you will not see them show up! Why? Well, when an item is needed for the currently active Research, it is pulled into a hidden reserve inventory so that you can't accidentally use it for something else. If you need the item back, Uncheck the "Use Inventory Item" checkbox and they will immediately dump into your inventory. Be wary, though, if you don't have enough inventory space, some items will be lost for good!
+* When technology finishes, it gives you 1 free [[Assembling Machine Mk.I]] ("Assembler").
+* Place the free Assembler in the Tesla Tower's supply area, but a little bit away from the Smelters.
+* Click the assembler, then the Gear icon to set its recipe. Choose to make Gears.
+* Give the assembler exactly 18 Iron Ingots, to have it make 18 Gears.
+** The assembler can only hold 10 gears in its output at a time. You will have to remove the first 10 for it to continue making the last 8.
+* When you have the 18 gears, hover over the output of the assembler to make a red X appear in its top right corner. Click the X to clear the Recipe, then set the Recipe to Circuit Board.
+* Provide the Assembler with enough materials to make exactly 14 Circuit boards.
+** Remember, Circuit Boards make 2 per craft, so you only need to craft 7 times.
+* Now with 18 Gears and 14 Circuit Boards in your inventory, manually craft 1 additional Assembling Machine Mk.I -- you'll find it on the Buildings tab in your replicator.
+* Place the new Assembler right next to the first one, and set its recipe to Gears.
+* You should now have two Assemblers - one making Circuit Boards, and one making Gears. Good job!
+Before we can fully automate Science, we need to <em>properly</em> automate our Assemblers and our Smelters so we're not doing so much manual labor.
+==Automating Logistics==
+* You should still have 10 Gears and 10 Circuit Boards from the end of the last section. If not, use the Assemblers to make enough.
+* At the very top of the Technology tree, research [[Basic Logistics System_(Tech)|Basic Logistics System]].
+* When this is complete, you are given 5x [[Sorter Mk.I]] and 20x [[Conveyor Belt Mk.I]]
+{{Note Box|At this point, things start deviating based on player preference. You can choose to follow the guide closely, or try to build in your own way that follows the intent. The guide's process is chosen to minimize the number of additional components that need to be crafted, at this stage.}}
+belts isn't quite enough, with the way our factory is laid out right now. We'll ultimately need to make more. Before we do, we can make some changes that will minimize how many need to be made. In essence, we're going to tear down and rebuild part of our factory. This is perfectly OK! Most players find themselves doing this repeatedly throughout their game...even to the extent of tearing down planet-encompassing factories just to rebuild them in a more efficient manner!
+Before we tear anything down, let's get started on what we CAN do:
+* Select the Conveyor belt from your inventoeery, and mouse over the Iron Miner.
+* Notice that the white circle goes away and the entire miner becomes highlighted. The miner is now the 'starting point' of the conveyor belt we want to place.
+* Click on the miner to start defining where the belt will go.
+* Move the cursor straight out from the miner until it shows 5 solid circles in a row (not counting the first solid circle with a ring around it)
+** The first segment may skew off at an angle. This is perfectly fine, it's because we placed the miner while holding Shift, so it's not centered on a grid, and conveyors need to be on grids.
+* Do the same thing for the Copper miner, but only to 2 solid circles (not counting the first solid circle with a ring around it)
+{{Note Box|Placing Conveyor belts is when your drones are likely to eat the most of your mecha's energy. This is because you're designating numerous things to be constructed simultaneously, so more drones are active at once. Alleviate this by walking as close to the construction as possible, so they don't have as far to travel - drones consume energy while in flight, so minimizing flight time (by shortening travel distance) minimizes energy cost.}}
+* Make sure you have at least 10 open spots in your inventory.
+* Using the deconstruct tool (the red X on the hotbar, or your {{kbd|X}} key), Deconstruct:
+** All three smelters
+** The first two Wind turbines we placed ('behind' the miners)
+** Any other Wind Turbines positioned between the miners
+{{Note|We had to do this to make room for buildings being close to each other to use Logistics properly.}}
+* Place one Smelter immediately alongside the belt coming out of the Copper Miner. Place it on the side that puts it closest to the imaginary line drawn between both Miners.
+** Make sure that two of the white squares are partially overlapping the conveyor belt. See the image for an idea. This will ensure that we can use Sorters to move goods between them.
+* Place the other two smelters side-by-side, immediately alongside the belt coming out of the Iron Miner. Place them on the side that puts them closest to the imaginary line drawn between both Miners.
+** The first smelter will have three white squares over the belt, the second one will have two white squares over the belt.
+* Pick the Sorters in your inventory and <em>once per Smelter</em>:
+** Click the conveyor belt next to the Smelter to connect the Sorter to the Belt
+** Click the Smelter to connect the Sorter to the Smelter.
+** It may help you to zoom in on the area to more accurately click things.
+{{Note|The order is important. The Sorter always takes FROM what you first clicked on, and moves it TO the second thing you clicked on.}}
+* On the Copper Smelter, place a new conveyor on the opposite side from the existing one. For now, make it just 3 segments long, pointing towards the center point between miners.
+* Connect a Sorter FROM the Copper Smelter TO this new conveyor belt.
+* Click the Copper Smelter to set its recipe to Copper Ingots.
+* Place a Wind Turbine in the corner spot between the Copper Smelter and Copper Miner, so that it can power both.
+* On the Iron Smelters, Place a new Conveyor similar to the Copper conveyor, but only from the Iron Smelter FURTHEST from the Iron Miner. Make it 3 segments long, pointed toward the center point between miners.
+** The first smelter will be used for Magnets and will need its own output belt so we don't mix things on belts.
+* Connect your last Sorter FROM this smelter TO the belt just placed.
+* Set the Iron Smelter closest to the Iron Miner to making Magnets, and the other one to making Iron Ingots.
+* Place a wind turbine similarly to how we just placed one for the Copper Smelter. It's OK if it does not cover both Smelters.
+* Place the remaining two Wind Turbines so that they:
+** Power any currently unpowered buildings
+** Create as much additional new coverage area as possible
+** Collectively one single grid out of all placed power components.
+Check out the image for an idea of where you should be at:
+Now, we have automated Mining and Smelting, but don't have enough conveyors to automate Assembly. At this stage, the Guide has only 4 conveyors left! How do we do this without making anything else by hand?
+* Make at least 32 more Circuit Boards and 16 more Gears with the Assemblers
+* Deconstruct both Assemblers
+* extend the Iron Ingot conveyor belt as far out as you can with your remaining conveyors. Try to get as much of it into a Powered area as you can.
+* Place the Assemblers on either side of the Iron Ingot conveyor belt, so that the white squares overlap it.
+** Be sure that all three white squares on each assembler are in a powered area! You may need to move a Wind Turbine to accomplish this, that's fine!
+* Zoom in until you can clearly see the belt and the assemblers. It will help to orient the camera so that the belt is running up/down relative to the camera.
+* Craft 9 more Sorters with the components you just made - by hand is OK, or set one of the assemblers to Sorter recipe to do so, for now.
+* Then set one Assembler to make Gears and the other to make Conveyor Belts
+* Place these sorters:
+** Taking FROM Iron Ingot Belt TO an Assembler
+** Taking FROM Iron Ingot Belt TO other Assembler
+** Taking FROM Gear Assembler TO Belt Assembler (Across the belt)
+{{Note Box| Sorters cannot collide with each other. This means they must occupy three different slots on/across the belt. Fortunately, we have three slots on each side of the assembler, so this works.}}
+If you've set this up right, Conveyor Belts should begin producing automatically! First, an Iron Ingot is placed in the Gear maker, and one in the Belt maker. Then when a Gear is made, it is placed into the Belt maker, and it can make belts. Later, we'll set up an Output Storage Chest for belts, but for now you can always reach into the Belt Maker for more belts as needed!
+* With the remaining gears and circuit boards we made, Hand-craft 2x Assemblers.
+* Place one assembler next to the Gear assembler, on the side facing toward the Copper Mine. Set this to making Wind Turbines.
+* Place the other Assembler beside that one, towards the copper mine. Set this to making Magnetic Coils.
+* Extend the Copper Ingot belt to touch the nearest side of the Magnetic Coil Assembler.
+* Extend a belt from the Magnet Smelter to the back side of the Magnetic Coil Assembler.
+* Extend the Iron Ingot belt to the front side of the Wind Turbine Assembler.
+* Connect the following Sorters:
+** FROM Magnet Belt TO Magnetic Coil Assembler
+** FROM Copper Ingot Belt TO MAgnetic Coil Assembler
+** FROM Gear Assembler TO Wind Turbine Assembler
+** FROM MAgnetic Coil Assembler TO Wind Turbine Assembler
+** FROM Iron Ingot Belt TO Wind Turbine Assembler
+** FROM Magnet Smelter TO Magnet Belt
+{{Note|You'll start to have some serious power problems once this is all running, but it's OK! That's exactly what this setup will solve! You're now making Wind Turbines automatically, and just have to place them!}}
+* As Wind Turbines come off the line, begin placing them all around the area. 10 more should be enough for our purposes, but start placing them as soon as you can to boost the power for the next ones being made.
+** When placing these new turbines, aim for <em>density</em>. Pack them as close to each other as you can, to ensure that there are no uncovered areas for power.
+You have set up a fully automated logistics chain! A fairly complicated one, too. There are some drawbacks to using direct-insertion like we did between Assemblers - namely, it is not very easy to scale up to larger production rates. But our goal was to get it going quickly, and demonstrate how to do so. You're on your way to a well-oiled machine!
+We have just ONE more task for this Quick Start guide....
+==Automating Research==
+We've learned a lot already up to this point. The last thing to do, is to automate Research.
+You should, hopefully, still have 14 circuit boards in your inventory. If you do, great! If not, go ahead and hand-craft enough to get up to that point, and tell the guide author that he doesn't know how to count.
+* Take 10 Magnetic Coils from the approriate Assembler.
+* With those and 10 of the remaining Circuit Boards, Research [[Electromagnetic Matrix_(Tech)|Electromagnetic Matrix]]
+* With the last 4 circuit boards, take some Iron Ingots and Gears from appropriate sources, and make another Assembler and 2 Sorters.
+* Place the Assembler on the Copper Ingot line, on the side facing where the Iron Ingot line comes out.
+* Set the Assembler to making Circuit Boards.
+* Extend the Iron Ingot belt until it reaches the Circuit Board Assembler.
+* Set up Sorters to take FROM the Ingot Belts TO the Circuit Board Assembler.
+The only things at this point that we are not automating, that we'll need more and more of, are Sorters, and maybe Tesla Towers. This guide will hand-craft Sorters as-needed, but leave it as exercise to the reader if they wish to automate these and Tesla Towers as well. However, do read ahead first, as we have to be careful with some of our space to make the Research work.
+Our first Research type is with [[Electromagnetic Matrix]] a.k.a. "Blue Jello". MOST technologies and upgrades ultimately use Blue Matrices in their consumption, so you'll become intimately familiar with setting up your own production pipelines for them. Our setup is one of many many different ways to approach this.
+Upon finishing the Electromagnetic Matrix research, you were given one [[Matrix Lab]]. Unfortunately, we need 2 right now, and these truly are not worth automating the construction of.
+* Open up your Crafting panel and make 1 more Matrix Lab. It is an exercise for the reader to determine what they need.
+* Place one matrix lab such that it is adjacent to both the Magnetic Coil and the Circuit Board Assemblers.
+* Place the other matrix lab adjacent to the first one.
+** You may need to move the Tesla Coil to make this possible.
+* Add Wind Turbines or Tesla Towers as needed to give everything power again.
+* You probably will not be able to have a direct connection between each of the assemblers and the first Lab. Set up Conveyor belts to carry either Circuit Boards or Magnetic Coils as needed, to one side of the first Matrix Lab.
+* Set up Sorters to feed Circuit Boards and Magnetic Coils TO the first Matrix Lab.
+* Set up a Sorter to Direct-feed FROM the first Matrix Lab TO the second one.
+* Click on the first Matrix Lab, and then click on the Blue Matrix Cube.
+** This Matrix Lab is now '''producing''' Electromagnetic Matrices
+* Click on the second Matrix Lab and then click on the Beaker icon.
+** This Matrix Lab is now '''researching''' technologies.
+** The second lab requires the Matrices to be able to do its research. We already set up a sorter to feed those in automatically!
+* Open the Technology Tree and switch to Upgrades screen
+* At the very top left, select and Activate research of [[Universe_Exploration_(Upgrade)|Universe Exploration Lv1]]
+{{Note| Universe Exploration Level 1 allows you to see all Ore Deposits and other veins on the entire planet upon which you are standing. Be sure to go into the UI Settings and enable it (top middle option). You can hit 'M' to view the whole planet and look around for ore deposits without having to move your mecha!}}
+{{Note Box| Turn OFF "Use Inventory Item" at this point. You should try to use Matrix Labs for all research from this point forward. However, there are some Upgrades remaining that cannot be researched by the Labs - they can only use Matrices for research, so the Upgrades that do not use Matrices you will still have to do by hand. To re-enable "Use Inventory Item", go into the Technology or Upgrade Tree, start researching an item, and there will be an option in the top left of the Technology screen.}}
+Congratulations! You've automated the first types of research! As technologies finish researching, you unlock and can research more and more technologies, unlocking new and exciting things.
+==Where To Go Next==
+At this stage, the choice is yours on what you want to do next. This guide has given you the foundation for automating just about everything in the game. Here are some suggestions for what to look into next:
+* Build some [[Storage Mk.I]] and use Conveyors and Sorters from each of the assemblers to output to the Storages, for easy grab-and-go building
+* Add more Assemblers to automate other components or buildings
+* Add more miners and Smelters to keep up with your factory's growing demands
+* Finish off all of the Upgrades that must be done by hand (See the note box at the end of the Automating Upgrades section)
+* Start planning world conquest
+* Tear down the factory again and lay it out the way YOU want, not the way this stupid guide writer did...
+* Set up a Miner on a Coal deposit to provide a much better fuel source for your mecha
+** Research [[Smelting Purification_(Tech)|Smelting Purification]] to get access to [[Energetic Graphite]] for a more compact fuel source
+** Research [[Thermal Power_(Tech)|Thermal Power]] to be able to use [[Thermal Power Station]] to burn fuels for factory power
+OR
+* Start working your way up the Technology tree towards building a [[Dyson Sphere]]!!!
+-->
+[[Category:Dyson Sphere Program]]