Dyson Sphere Program: spray the spray to get more spray per spray

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awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

DSP is an early access logistics/management game. It's 60% factorio :swoon:

30% satisfactory :coffee:

10% no mans sky :psyduck:

It's the first factorio-clone I've felt adds something meaningful to the genre - instead of just an infinite plane, you're working on planets, so you have both intraplanetary and interplanetary logistics. Instead of paving the planet, you get to pave the entire galaxy!

also it's really pretty, compared to a lot of games in the genre

_{thx Ciaphas}

_{thx apseudonym}

_{thx Truga}

_{omg owlfancier}

faq 1 faq 2

dev seems good at updates so far - bunch of bugfix patches and QoL feature patches in the first few weeks, all with entertaining machine translated patch notes.
It's gameplay-complete as of the initial release, as much as any of these are - you can build the dyson sphere and win the game.
mods support is planned (and there are semi-supported mods already at https://dsp.thunderstore.io/)
the machine translation is funny without obscuring meaning at all.
there's no combat at this point, but it's on the roadmap

it's cheap, go get it
steam:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1366540/Dyson_Sphere_Program/

pro tips:

blueprint collection https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/
Splitters can be configured to split goods onto belts at a higher altitude than they go in. Hit 'Tab' while placing to swap between the different configurations.
storage containers can also be stacked and used to adjust belt altitude
recipes for the science cubes - note that this includes alternate recipes so you dont need all this
https://factoriolab.github.io/list#s=dsp ratio calculator
you can drop from inventory onto a specified material (drop it onto the icon). You cant shift click or ctrl click from inventory, you have to drag and drop.
you can rightclick on the icon to pick up from the tower storage. You cant shift click or ctrl click, or even left click. have to right click.
when you're in planet-map mode ('m'), you can access storage from anywhere. You dont need to be close to the container (or logi tower)

How to Early Game Power:

Dirk the Average posted:

For the former, it's like factorio, where tesla towers are your power poles. Tesla towers connect together and will supply power to nearby structures in their radius. Some power structures also provide power in a radius, though it's generally small and not that important outside of your first couple of miners. Power structures can also connect together so that you don't need to dot tesla towers down between them the way you have to put power poles down around turbines and solar panels in factorio.

For power generation, you have a few options in the early game:

1. Wind power - this is your first power source and is pretty reliable on your starting planet (each planet has wind and solar efficiency ratings, and the starting planet seems to get good efficiency for both). Plonk down a turbine and enjoy the power. It's not a whole lot of power, but it does work.
2. Thermal generators - This is the second power source available, and isn't a bad stopgap to get you to better power sources later. It has inputs that are similar to smelters, and you can burn anything with a fuel value. Coal is perfectly fine to burn early on until you get oil refining, and then I'd burn oil products as a stopgap at that point instead (oil is unlimited). You'll phase this out fairly quickly, but it's a nice help to get over the early game hump in my experience.
3. Solar panels - These are only really readily available once you have silicon ore. They also only function in the sunlight, and your planet both rotates around the sun and around its own axis. This means that roughly half the planet at a time will be exposed to sunlight and available to produce power. What I and other people have done is create a belt of solar panels around a planet to ensure that the factory has constant power. It's pretty effective, but I personally held off until getting access to silicon ore directly, rather than turning stone into silicon.

Edit: Images

Tesla towers connecting to the grid as well as a breakdown of my grid. Blue is my available power generation, orange is my current consumption. I am making plenty of power, so everything is blue.

Wind turbine. You can see the power radius of the structure, and that it is generating 300kW

Solar Panel. You can see that it is generating almost no power since it is night time on that part of the planet, and how the panels are switching off. This is my solar belt. Also note that there are no tesla towers here; the panels hook up to each other without needing a power pole

Thermal generator. This one and a few others are burning crude oil for some power. I'm not using the oil for anything else, and it's infinite, so there's no reason not to do this. It's generating 2.16MW too, which is more than 7 turbines. I used these to power myself until I got access to silicon ore and made the solar belt. It's not decomissioned yet because I haven't expanded my production to the point where I am using all of my oil.

You asked about oil as well - one oil extractor is on the right side of the screenshot. You can see that there's a belt coming directly out of the extractor; no sorter (inserter) is needed to pull products out of it. Sorters are needed to pull products into the thermal generators though, and you can see those as the orange >> things in the screenshot that are connected to the thermal generators.

awesmoe fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jul 24, 2021

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:15

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 20:16

Control Volume: Dec 31, 2008

I dont buy early access games anymore but Im keeping an eye on this one. Is there a planned end goal? Like completely blacking out a star or something?

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:25

Jossar: Apr 2, 2018; Current status: Angry about subs

This is almost certainly not the way you're intended to use the Interplanetary Logistics hub but i'm relieved to know that even if you can't figure out how to get the local intraplanetary logistics shipping working, you can still shove goods out of it via a conveyer belt, as long as you make sure to set the filter properly via selecting a conveyer belt leading out from the hub and tab selecting from a list of relevant goods.

Still waiting on my 3rd planet to be relevant, although i'm kind of suspecting if it isn't now that i'm starting to build the T4 science chain, it'll never be.

DSP good.

EDIT:

Control Volume posted:

I dont buy early access games anymore but Im keeping an eye on this one. Is there a planned end goal? Like completely blacking out a star or something?

It's pretty much 80% feature complete right now, and the endgame goal (building a dyson sphere to funnel power back from the colonizable systems to the unseen home world) is present.

Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jan 25, 2021

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:26

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

In case you missed it, DSP started as a kickstarter: Kickstarter!

I was a backer purely on a whim and I am astounded at how good this turned out.

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:27

awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

Control Volume posted:

I dont buy early access games anymore but Im keeping an eye on this one. Is there a planned end goal? Like completely blacking out a star or something?

the end-goal is already in the game, as I understand it (i havent got there yet). but yeah it's building a bigass dyson sphere

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:30

A GIANT PARSNIP: Apr 13, 2010; Too much fuckin' eggnog

My robot is named Edward and he likes to eat trees.

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:44

Hihohe: Oct 4, 2008; Fuck you and the sun you live under

I wouldlike to see customizable robots or at least the ability to change your bots color. other than that I love this game.

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:45

kitten emergency: Jan 13, 2008; get meow this wack-ass crystal prison

i wish there was a way to more easily figure out which swarm orbits are fireable from a given position

# ? Jan 24, 2021 23:47

awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

Hihohe posted:

I wouldlike to see customizable robots or at least the ability to change your bots color. other than that I love this game.

Q: Can we customize the mecha?

A: It's not included yet, but it's in the plans and will be implemented later on. The game is currently in the Early Access stage, and there are many features yet to be developed. As we said earlier, stay tuned for our development roadmap, which will be announced soon.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:04

Alkydere: Jun 7, 2010; Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.

I realize there's a lot to do and we're all struggling to get off of our starter planet/system but I feel we should post pictures of worlds OTHER than the starter/terrestrial world:

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:14

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

Asking again here but do different fuel types for the thermal power plant cause it to generate more power? Or is it all the same

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:16

Alkydere: Jun 7, 2010; Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.

toasterwarrior posted:

Asking again here but do different fuel types for the thermal power plant cause it to generate more power? Or is it all the same

Yes! Mouse over a stack of the item to see the item's fuel value.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:24

awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

Alkydere posted:

Yes! Mouse over a stack of the item to see the item's fuel value.

but does that affect the amount of power generated per second, or the rate at which the power plant consumes the fuel?

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:25

Alkydere: Jun 7, 2010; Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.

awesmoe posted:

but does that affect the amount of power generated per second, or the rate at which the power plant consumes the fuel?

The rate it consumes the fuel. More power=lasts longer.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:28

Deadmeat5150: Nov 21, 2005; OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN

I should grab a pic of my gas giant eaters at some point since I can see them from my starter planet.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:38

K8.0: Feb 26, 2004; Her Majesty's 56th Regiment of Foot

Fuels also have a production rate. In the mech it affects charge rate, I presume it works in the thermal plant as well but I haven't checked.

Game is good. It has actually new and interesting concepts that have mechanical merit, the first new game in the genre that isn't just "Factorio, but a lot worse." Definitely needs a lot of UI work, but there are some core usability decisions that make me think the team gets it and will move in the right direction instead of just saying "gently caress you, fighting the UI is the game!"

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:41

Deadmeat5150: Nov 21, 2005; OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN

K8.0 posted:

Fuels also have a production rate. In the mech it affects charge rate, I presume it works in the thermal plant as well but I haven't checked.

I think in the power plant it affect burn time.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 00:58

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

started playing a while ago and yeah this is going to be a problem alright

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:01

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

This game is really a lot of fun (as someone who got as far as nuclear reactors and weapons in factorio but still hasn�t quite gotten around to launching a rocket). What it needs, and what I am sure will exist soon, is a really good community wiki so it�s clearer what you�re aiming for.

Actually I find the tech tree to be kind of short, as I just started making red packs and they seem really easy, and it seems like this will get me halfway thru the tech tree.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:15

Alkydere: Jun 7, 2010; Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

This game is really a lot of fun (as someone who got as far as nuclear reactors and weapons in factorio but still hasn�t quite gotten around to launching a rocket). What it needs, and what I am sure will exist soon, is a really good community wiki so it�s clearer what you�re aiming for.

Actually I find the tech tree to be kind of short, as I just started making red packs and they seem really easy, and it seems like this will get me halfway thru the tech tree.

Tech tree is short but the later techs do feel like more of an investment.

It could use some expansion or some endless techs it feels. In the meantime though at least you'll likely be making green tech forever as it can be crafted into warp cores.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:27

explosivo: May 23, 2004; Fueled by Satan

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

Actually I find the tech tree to be kind of short, as I just started making red packs and they seem really easy, and it seems like this will get me halfway thru the tech tree.

I thought this too but yellow and up seems to be way more complex and involves setting stuff up on other planets which requires even more complex systems to ferry goods around. All while fighting with increasing power demands. Really feels like the back half of the tech tree gets exponentially harder to deal with.

I'm about to run into some real problems because the iron mine I started my base around is almost cashed, so I'm going to have to bring in iron ore elsewhere and somehow feed it into the middle of my factory.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:29

Frances Nurples: May 11, 2008

dead gay comedy forums posted:

started playing a while ago and yeah this is going to be a problem alright

yup, about an hour in and i'm hoping i'm gonna find out i'm too stupid before this devours the next week or so of my life

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:35

Ciaphas: Nov 20, 2005; > BEWARE, COWARD

kitten emergency posted:

i wish there was a way to more easily figure out which swarm orbits are fireable from a given position

I liked this circular design so much I straight copied it and planted it on my north and south poles. Wondering the same thing too about picking targetable orbits

Can't believe it's only January and we're already playing GOTY 2021 :allears:

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:40

Shartweek: Feb 15, 2003; D O E S N O T E X I S T

Peekaboo!

My logistics production network now spanning half of the starter planet.

Just finished off my last yellow research, time to start expanding the incoming resources to get purple production up and running! Game is awesome, sitting around 42 hours played so far!

Alkydere posted:

I realize there's a lot to do and we're all struggling to get off of our starter planet/system but I feel we should post pictures of worlds OTHER than the starter/terrestrial world:

The other two planets in my starter system are garbage tier, a rocky world that looks like mars with nothing but titanium and iron/copper, then an ice world that is so far out from the star that it only gets about 25% solar energy - nothing but minerals there but luckily it has silicon so I could stop using stone to make it.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:51

apseudonym: Feb 25, 2011

This game feels as polished as factorio was after a few years of development. I haven't had any major issues yet.

I've been slowly moving everything over to logistics ports. I tried a bus early on but 1) you need 1 space between each belt to fit the stacked splitter 2) I didn't know what to put on it, so it never got very far anyways.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 01:53

Ciaphas: Nov 20, 2005; > BEWARE, COWARD

Beginning to think my EM cannons and ray receivers need to be equatorial rather than polar, the uptime on the guns feels terrible

(e) maybe it's because this thing is tilted off axis twenty goddamn degrees :stare:

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:14

Demon_Corsair: Mar 22, 2004; Goodbye stealing souls, hello stealing booty.

There seems to be a weird lull in the game once you unlock red science. There doesn't seem much to do other then wait for enough research to unlock so I can start hitting the other planets in my system. Kind of wish I had started my red science then spent hours building a terrible mall.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:15

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

Just bought this on Friday night and I've got 12 hours into it already. For $15 I feel like i've gotten my moneys worth out of it easily and I'm fiending to almost take a day off work to just play more. I don't even really like these types of games. I think I was kinda complaining about sitting around waiting for the research to complete, but it makes it so very chill and I dig chill. There hasn't been anything "hectic" about it yet to turn me off really.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:18

explosivo: May 23, 2004; Fueled by Satan

Demon_Corsair posted:

There seems to be a weird lull in the game once you unlock red science. There doesn't seem much to do other then wait for enough research to unlock so I can start hitting the other planets in my system. Kind of wish I had started my red science then spent hours building a terrible mall.

Just gotta find stuff to automate, while researching my way through the red tech I set up automated lines for conveyors, all 3 sorters, smelters, floor tiles, etc.. I never noticed much of a lull, and now I'm trying to play catchup because of all the tech I researched and need to figure out what the gently caress to do with it :gonk:

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:19

Demon_Corsair: Mar 22, 2004; Goodbye stealing souls, hello stealing booty.

explosivo posted:

Just gotta find stuff to automate, while researching my way through the red tech I set up automated lines for conveyors, all 3 sorters, smelters, floor tiles, etc.. I never noticed much of a lull, and now I'm trying to play catchup because of all the tech I researched and need to figure out what the gently caress to do with it

That's where I think I hosed up. I did all that automation before I built my red science facilities. I guess trying to fit the second tier of belts and storage into my spaghetti nightmare will take some time.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:24

Omi no Kami: Feb 19, 2014

That's about where I am too: red science is ticking in quickly enough that I don't feel inefficient, but I don't really have a whole lot to do- I've been keeping it running in the background. I suspect the intent was for you to spend that time scaling up or learning to manage the byproducts of hydrogen generation, but I'm at this weird point where I'm close enough to yellow that I don't really wanna redo my supply lines, but there's no real obvious short-term goal while I wait to get there.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:25

Deadmeat5150: Nov 21, 2005; OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN

Redo supply lines? Just add to them! I've found no downside so far to leaving my old factory blocks chunking away slowly at stuff while I build more efficient ones elsewhere.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:38

Demon_Corsair: Mar 22, 2004; Goodbye stealing souls, hello stealing booty.

Deadmeat5150 posted:

Redo supply lines? Just add to them! I've found no downside so far to leaving my old factory blocks chunking away slowly at stuff while I build more efficient ones elsewhere.

The sooner I can get off this planet and never look back at this disaster the better.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:40

explosivo: May 23, 2004; Fueled by Satan

Deadmeat5150 posted:

Redo supply lines? Just add to them! I've found no downside so far to leaving my old factory blocks chunking away slowly at stuff while I build more efficient ones elsewhere.

Yeah I'm making more condensed factories further away near other deposits and just making a miles long conveyor to bring it back to my mega factory and plugging it in to a line *somewhere* using a splitter so it adds to the existing lines. It's such a mess lol

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:41

Deadmeat5150: Nov 21, 2005; OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN

Unlike factorio, where everything needed nice clean lines to make me feel good, and to a lesser extent Satisfactory as well, I'm embracing my mess.

Edit:

This is a really pretty game

Deadmeat5150 fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jan 25, 2021

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:42

Azhais: Feb 5, 2007; Switchblade Switcharoo

Deadmeat5150 posted:

Unlike factorio, where everything needed nice clean lines to make me feel good, and to a lesser extent Satisfactory as well, I'm embracing my mess.

I found it pretty hard to make clean lines in satisfactory just due to how big everything is

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:43

explosivo: May 23, 2004; Fueled by Satan

The future of this game is particularly exciting to me because it's got this whole galaxy that can be added to. Like the core gameplay of building a factory already feels fantastic, the rest of the game seems infinitely expandable/moddable by just introducing new planets with new biomes, resources and sights to see.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:46

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

IMO if you're waiting for research to tick down in the blue/red phase, I can recommend tapping every single well on your starting planet and consolidating all their output into one mega oil belt. You'll need plenty of oil for high tier industries, and everything you can't use can get thrown into storage tanks or burnt for power.

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:49

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

it will be really cool when they add the D-Gun and the ARM Commander working against you :v:

# ? Jan 25, 2021 02:50

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 20:16

Frances Nurples: May 11, 2008

is there bluebrinting?

# ? Jan 25, 2021 03:04

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