Nodes are the plan
Your base location is decided by where the ore is. Build on the nodes, not near them, so belts stay short and cheap.
Purity tiers
Nodes come in purity levels that change output rate. Higher purity means fewer machines for the same part and a smaller footprint.
Mark and lock
Claim good nodes with markers early. A rebuild later costs more than the initial walk to secure the spot.
Leave room
Resource fields are big. Spread out so belts have space to reach every machine without a tangled crossing.
Stack the yield
The item database shows stack size. Plan storage so a pure node never overflows its line and wastes ore.
Think long term
Reserve nodes for late tiers now. A node you ignore today becomes the bottleneck that forces a second base later.
Weigh travel against yield
Purity decides how much a node gives, so a rich node near base beats a pure one far away. Weigh travel against yield when you claim a spot.
Resources and their research tier
- Beacon (tier Tier 1 - Field Research, stack 100)
- Chainsaw
- Bacon Agaric
- Copper Powder
- Automated Wiring
- Concrete
- Cooling System
- Aluminum Ingot
- Coal
- Blade Runners
- Aluminum Casing
- Copper Ore
- AI Limiter
- Alien Protein
- Assembly Director System
- Compacted Coal
- Caterium Ore
- Caterium Ingot
- Adaptive Control Unit
- Aluminum Scrap
Smelters and refineries to claim them
- Equipment Workshop (width 10, length 7)
- Conveyor Lifts (width 2, length 2)
- Biomass Burner (width 8, length 8)
- Foundry (width 10, length 10)
- Fuel-Powered Generator (width 20, length 20)
- Blender (width 18, length 16)
- Geothermal Generator (width 19, length 20)
- Conveyor Belts (width 2, length 1–56)
- Beams (width 0.8, length 1–40)
- Blueprint Designer (width 40, length 40)
- Conveyor Poles (width 2, length 1)
- Buildings
- Assembler (width 9, length 16)
- Drone Port (width 24, length 24)
- AWESOME Sink (width 16, length 13)
- Coal-Powered Generator (width 10, length 26)
- Fluid Buffer (width 6, length 6)
- Crafting Bench