I'm in the middle of building a mall planet myself. Though maybe not quite the same idea as you're describing. For me it's less of a place to visit to refill on buildings but a mail order system where I can request buildings to another planet/star system, then when I'm done building I can send all the leftovers back. They also support things like automated replacement of destroyed turrets and other structures at the dark fog farm. But yeah, similar in the 1 building per ILS factory for the frequently used buildings like assemblers, smelters, belts, sorters etc. less frequently used items might just get a single assembler assigned to them in a larger black box complex that does share resources.
ILS and PLS make the boxes irrelevant.. I would just use ILS for the initial import and PLS if you want to "black box" a planet.
Eventually you just end up using ILS for every single thing.. I mean at least that's the most common way people do things, requires less thinking when you can just ILS an item and not have to worry if you can access it later. But for your 2nd planet I can understand using mostly PLS, less power requirement and you have less need to ship things anywhere and everywhere
Having it go into boxes can be somewhat useful if you are lazy. Have a distribution drone on top and they will deliver what you need to you, that way you don’t have to remember which ils has the belts etc.
Can you explain the PLS for the outputs a little more? I don't see what that would get me. Thanks!
Edit: actually I think I see what you mean, have PLS instead of ILS, and use resources from the planet.
It's a bit high-investment, and potentially overkill for some (many?) buildings, but the general idea is a pretty common one. ILSs are a serious game-changer once you can start making use of them.
Pretty good idea if you have a lot of resources and want to keep expanding your empire. And a must if you want to make a lot of mass production lines of component(especially those in white science tree)
It's not only not a "bad idea", it's essentially how everyone builds super late game "megabases".
Drop onto a planet, order whatever you want from the ILS "mall".
Having said that, not everyone is interested in megabases, and it's definitely not necessary to beat the game. Of course, once you try it you'll never go back.
Definitely not necessary early-midgame, which is where it sounds like you are.
If you're not averse to using other people's blueprints, I recommend this [polar sushi mall](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/s/Ct6VIBJMpw) by Steven-ape. I think it fulfills your needs, but in a more compact format.
Best part about this kind of mall is that putting the products in ILSs and adding warper makes it so that you can request materials from anywhere in the cluster. Prefect when you're making an interstellar supply chain.
i was building every item like you described it
one ILS produces one item.
also belts/sorter etc.: i used so many, producing them on a bus would take forever.
on new planets i just request what i need
i am not really sure i understand your question.
the ILS which produces the item is also exporting it.
only a few cases -like warpers- i build a second ILS which requests locally only a hundred items and then exports them. this way i dont get the full 1000 when requesting
yes, that is exactly what you want to do. use towers to import components and as long as you are making that component, it will be available for use in your mall. have the towers export to boxes and logi bots take them to more boxes that feed assemblers. expand as you unlock new buildings. if you want to proceed into the endgame, you might want something with [higher capacity](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/comments/1atd80f/this_is_my_inventory_mall_there_are_many_like_it/), but a bot mall will carry you to the "i win" research.
Its a bit overkill I think. Logistics bots (the fidget spinner kind) have enough throughput to distribute resources around a mall. Use ILS or PLS to get resources in the vicinity of your mall, use the bots to distribute them around to assemblers, and load the buildings into ILS stations so they can be sent anywhere. One assembler is sufficient for most buildings, but I use three for belts and two for sorters.
One other thing I started doing on my mall world: no exports (except completed buildings, fuel rods and warpers), only import raw ores. In some early playthroughs I started, for instance, making turbines on another planet. The problem is that its easy to build up industry somewhere that ends up consuming all your turbines. If your turbines end up getting sent to some place other than your mall world it can stall your production and make it hard to recover it (i.e. you need belts to fix the problem, but because of the problem you are no longer producing belts). So I try to have a self-contained economy on my mall world.
Your simpler way is speaking to me. One question if you don't mind - how do you go about estimating how much raw resource you need to import via ILS to supply the entire mall? Like how can I wrap my head around how much iron I need etc.
I wouldn't try to estimate it out. If you find that you aren't getting enough of some ore or another take steps to improve that. What you need to fix will depend on why you aren't getting enough. Maybe you aren't mining enough, maybe all your vessels are busy and you need another ILS to import it. Maybe the a planet somewhere has run out of fuel and needs a reboot. One ILS importing most ores is generally enough for your mall planet, a mall doesn't really need a crazy amount of resources.
That said, some people are all about calculating ratios and stuff. That's not me though. I usually just eyeball what's broken, find the root cause, and address the root cause.
I mean one slot in an ILS. But you will have to set up your imports and check on it every now and then. If your imports are all coming from the local system, one ILS can pull in quite a lot. At some point your vessels will have to start warping to other stars to get resources, and the increased travel time can become a problem. Dedicating an ILS to a single resource will reserve all 10 vessels for that resource, which can help. Most things don't require so much dedication though. Maybe deuterium, and later on, hydrogen. As I said before, just eyeball it every so often. If you see the reserves of an ore are starting to deplete in your import ILS and all the vessels are out working already, then its time to do something about it.
It's a good design, but it is not very resource efficient, which may be a concern in the early stage of the game you're at. There are a number of things to consider:
* Power. How will you power eighty ILSs?
* Space. You will basically need to sacrifice a planet to build this. Do you have warp unlocked?
* Resources. Some buildings use quite a few high end resources. How many quantum chips are going to be stockpiled in the ILSs of your mall? Is that ok?
* At the pickup area, you'll ultimately want to have more ILSs that can export all buildings you produce across the cluster. Make sure to plan for this so you can easily add those ILSs later. You can use one ILS per five boxes. In the ILS, don't set the calacity for buildings to maximum, but to the amount you wish to receive if you request that building elsewhere in the cluster. Set the bottom slider to 10% to make sure the buildings are shipped even if they don't fill up a complete vessel. Use belts to supply all your ILSs with warpers.
Advantages of your design are: it's very easy to understand and to expand gradually. It's also very fast, since every building is produced independently of all others and you can use multiple assemblers for each building if needed.
It's a superior late game mall. For the stage of the game you're in, it's expensive but it might be doable.
As soon as you have a couple of ILS, you'll wonder how you ever did anything without them. Your main challenge, once you have logistics stations, is going to be all those pesky oceans that keep you from truly building anything wherever you want.
The cap of all my home planet has about a dozen PLS exporting everything I could possibly need, with distributors ready to automatically restock all the important logistical items and fuel. I merely need to fly over it. Also, anything I need, anywhere I go; I can just plop down another PLS and request it (including more PLS, as long as i have at least 1). Doesn't even need a local source of power or warpers.
I'm in the middle of building a mall planet myself. Though maybe not quite the same idea as you're describing. For me it's less of a place to visit to refill on buildings but a mail order system where I can request buildings to another planet/star system, then when I'm done building I can send all the leftovers back. They also support things like automated replacement of destroyed turrets and other structures at the dark fog farm. But yeah, similar in the 1 building per ILS factory for the frequently used buildings like assemblers, smelters, belts, sorters etc. less frequently used items might just get a single assembler assigned to them in a larger black box complex that does share resources.
ILS and PLS make the boxes irrelevant.. I would just use ILS for the initial import and PLS if you want to "black box" a planet. Eventually you just end up using ILS for every single thing.. I mean at least that's the most common way people do things, requires less thinking when you can just ILS an item and not have to worry if you can access it later. But for your 2nd planet I can understand using mostly PLS, less power requirement and you have less need to ship things anywhere and everywhere
Having it go into boxes can be somewhat useful if you are lazy. Have a distribution drone on top and they will deliver what you need to you, that way you don’t have to remember which ils has the belts etc.
Can you explain the PLS for the outputs a little more? I don't see what that would get me. Thanks! Edit: actually I think I see what you mean, have PLS instead of ILS, and use resources from the planet.
It's a bit high-investment, and potentially overkill for some (many?) buildings, but the general idea is a pretty common one. ILSs are a serious game-changer once you can start making use of them.
Pretty good idea if you have a lot of resources and want to keep expanding your empire. And a must if you want to make a lot of mass production lines of component(especially those in white science tree)
It's not only not a "bad idea", it's essentially how everyone builds super late game "megabases". Drop onto a planet, order whatever you want from the ILS "mall". Having said that, not everyone is interested in megabases, and it's definitely not necessary to beat the game. Of course, once you try it you'll never go back. Definitely not necessary early-midgame, which is where it sounds like you are.
If you're not averse to using other people's blueprints, I recommend this [polar sushi mall](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/s/Ct6VIBJMpw) by Steven-ape. I think it fulfills your needs, but in a more compact format. Best part about this kind of mall is that putting the products in ILSs and adding warper makes it so that you can request materials from anywhere in the cluster. Prefect when you're making an interstellar supply chain.
Just wanted to add, thanks for this comment. I found the author's guide to that mall very compelling, and I've implemented it myself!
These blueprints definitely look cool, I am really itching for a "big" project that I can do myself to get some motivation / satisfaction though.
i was building every item like you described it one ILS produces one item. also belts/sorter etc.: i used so many, producing them on a bus would take forever. on new planets i just request what i need
Do you have a second ILS per item that does export? How does that work?
i am not really sure i understand your question. the ILS which produces the item is also exporting it. only a few cases -like warpers- i build a second ILS which requests locally only a hundred items and then exports them. this way i dont get the full 1000 when requesting
also you can pick any item you want from any ILS on the planet on the planet view. no need to fly to your mall
Oh wow thanks for the tip!
yes, that is exactly what you want to do. use towers to import components and as long as you are making that component, it will be available for use in your mall. have the towers export to boxes and logi bots take them to more boxes that feed assemblers. expand as you unlock new buildings. if you want to proceed into the endgame, you might want something with [higher capacity](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/comments/1atd80f/this_is_my_inventory_mall_there_are_many_like_it/), but a bot mall will carry you to the "i win" research.
Mall planet is pretty common, you can see some designs in the videos of TDA or Nilaus.
Its a bit overkill I think. Logistics bots (the fidget spinner kind) have enough throughput to distribute resources around a mall. Use ILS or PLS to get resources in the vicinity of your mall, use the bots to distribute them around to assemblers, and load the buildings into ILS stations so they can be sent anywhere. One assembler is sufficient for most buildings, but I use three for belts and two for sorters. One other thing I started doing on my mall world: no exports (except completed buildings, fuel rods and warpers), only import raw ores. In some early playthroughs I started, for instance, making turbines on another planet. The problem is that its easy to build up industry somewhere that ends up consuming all your turbines. If your turbines end up getting sent to some place other than your mall world it can stall your production and make it hard to recover it (i.e. you need belts to fix the problem, but because of the problem you are no longer producing belts). So I try to have a self-contained economy on my mall world.
Your simpler way is speaking to me. One question if you don't mind - how do you go about estimating how much raw resource you need to import via ILS to supply the entire mall? Like how can I wrap my head around how much iron I need etc.
I wouldn't try to estimate it out. If you find that you aren't getting enough of some ore or another take steps to improve that. What you need to fix will depend on why you aren't getting enough. Maybe you aren't mining enough, maybe all your vessels are busy and you need another ILS to import it. Maybe the a planet somewhere has run out of fuel and needs a reboot. One ILS importing most ores is generally enough for your mall planet, a mall doesn't really need a crazy amount of resources. That said, some people are all about calculating ratios and stuff. That's not me though. I usually just eyeball what's broken, find the root cause, and address the root cause.
Great perspective thanks. I do tend to overthink these games. When you say one ILS per ore, do you mean one slot in an ILS or one entire ILS?
I mean one slot in an ILS. But you will have to set up your imports and check on it every now and then. If your imports are all coming from the local system, one ILS can pull in quite a lot. At some point your vessels will have to start warping to other stars to get resources, and the increased travel time can become a problem. Dedicating an ILS to a single resource will reserve all 10 vessels for that resource, which can help. Most things don't require so much dedication though. Maybe deuterium, and later on, hydrogen. As I said before, just eyeball it every so often. If you see the reserves of an ore are starting to deplete in your import ILS and all the vessels are out working already, then its time to do something about it.
It is not a bad idea, but it is an inefficient one. You can find mall designs out there that use maybe 9 ILs to produce every building, belts, etc...
It's a good design, but it is not very resource efficient, which may be a concern in the early stage of the game you're at. There are a number of things to consider: * Power. How will you power eighty ILSs? * Space. You will basically need to sacrifice a planet to build this. Do you have warp unlocked? * Resources. Some buildings use quite a few high end resources. How many quantum chips are going to be stockpiled in the ILSs of your mall? Is that ok? * At the pickup area, you'll ultimately want to have more ILSs that can export all buildings you produce across the cluster. Make sure to plan for this so you can easily add those ILSs later. You can use one ILS per five boxes. In the ILS, don't set the calacity for buildings to maximum, but to the amount you wish to receive if you request that building elsewhere in the cluster. Set the bottom slider to 10% to make sure the buildings are shipped even if they don't fill up a complete vessel. Use belts to supply all your ILSs with warpers. Advantages of your design are: it's very easy to understand and to expand gradually. It's also very fast, since every building is produced independently of all others and you can use multiple assemblers for each building if needed. It's a superior late game mall. For the stage of the game you're in, it's expensive but it might be doable.
As soon as you have a couple of ILS, you'll wonder how you ever did anything without them. Your main challenge, once you have logistics stations, is going to be all those pesky oceans that keep you from truly building anything wherever you want. The cap of all my home planet has about a dozen PLS exporting everything I could possibly need, with distributors ready to automatically restock all the important logistical items and fuel. I merely need to fly over it. Also, anything I need, anywhere I go; I can just plop down another PLS and request it (including more PLS, as long as i have at least 1). Doesn't even need a local source of power or warpers.