Strategy Mid Game

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Mid game

Tips

In the mid-game you need to upgrade your research development to build up the research cores required to unlock the recipes required for the end-game. You also need to manufacture the more advanced drill bits as those below mark V become obsolete on level 10. The game can become quite overwhelming if you try to match input and output belt rates up exactly as there is no ability to change the processing rate on a machine-by-machine basis. There are also no mass-copy functions in the game. You may find it best just to think about roughly how many items you want out of the end of the chain and work back from there. Any excess will just stall the machines.

Using the recipes for Copper Ore Powder, Iron Ore Powder, Steel Mixture and Atlantum Powder you can set up small loops which consume only Limestone, Kindlevine Extract and Shiverthorn Extract but will generate and infinite supply of ingots of each type. This is helpful as it removes the dependency on ore veins and Resource Extraction, since all the inputs, including the Limestone can be generated from Kindlevine (Item) and Shiverthorn. The ingots can also be converted into slabs using a Blast Smelter.

In the end-game these loops can be further streamlined to generate the ingots more directly.

There are several levels in this part of the game which can house large factories without major terraforming, inlcuding L7 (Excaliber), L8 (Research), L10 (Foundary) and L11 (Freight). Any of these can be used to set up a factory to generate Research Core 380nm (Purple), Research Core 480nm (Blue) and Research Core 520nm (Green). You may also want to leave space to add extra machines to generate Research Core 590nm (Yellow) once the technology is unlocked.

Another factory which generates the best drill bits is also a good idea. It is useful to leave plenty of space to expand this as new drill bits are unlocked. This factory does not need to be high volume as you don't need vast numbers of drill bits. If you find yourself with lots of earlier drills then consider pausing the part of the factory that generates them and using a box to feed in the excess into the next stage. It is usually worth using the best drill bits, not only because it is quicker but also because you will eventually need Excavator Bit MKV to build Excavator Bit MKVI and finally Excavator Bit MKVII in the end-game. In total you will need around 30 MKVII bits to get from L15 to L16.

Good Factory Layout will help keep things easy to upgrade and expand. Belts can be stacked very high and this allows you to make good use of the space, which will increase the density of the machines. Multi-floor factories will also help but remember to leave space to navigate between and over machines, through belts and between Floors.

Best factory levels

• L7 (Excaliber)
• L8 (Research)
• L10 (Foundary)
• L11 (Freight)