u/sobrique

Remember this delight from back in the day?

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/enpeov/i\_see\_your\_216\_mw\_boiler\_plant\_and\_raise\_you\_a/

Well, as it turns out, you can do the same thing using legendary burner inserters, legendary boilers and stacked green belts and get 636 x 4.5MW = 2862MW of steam.

You do hit issues of pipeline length though, so have to 'split' it about 3/4 of the way up. I've included a pumping array to highlight how much steam is up there, but it'd be way more sensible to have parallel banks of chuffers so you don't need to bother pumping.

Water is still fine with a single pump per 'line' as 8 columns of boilers with an offshore pump each is sufficient - even legendary boilers only use 15/sec, so that's a total of 8 offshore pumps (and thus 8 'inline' pumps at the break is sufficient).

Leading to things like this:

https://factoriobin.com/post/bpt254

Sure. It would probably be way more sensible to use heat towers, but where's the fun in that?

Will attract biters to come and play from a rather substantial distance.

So maybe a bit niche, but IMO one of the downsides of 'nuclear powered' space platforms is fuel efficiency. They don't need (generally!) the 480MW of a 2x2 reactor, but if they did have a 2x2 they could have 300% fuel efficiency on those rocket delivered fuel cells.

(and yes, I know, rockets get cheap later in the game, but at the same time temperature controlling reactors on Nauvis is a similarly not really necessary)

So a design concept:

• 2x2 reactor.
• A 'brick' of 152 heat pipes.
• 4 heat exchangers. (converts heat at 40MW)
• 7 turbines. (for 40MW of power)
• 1 steam tank to smooth out any latency.

Like this:

https://factoriobin.com/post/1qvs6g

Will consume 96GJ at a time, on a temperature trigger, using 'heat pipe' temperature. Actually heat exchanger might be more sensible, but it should be the same. Reading the heat pipe adjacent to the furthest heat exchanger to ensure all 4 can always supply steam.

Can be expanded to do more than 40MW - it's a 2x2 reactor after all - by adding more exchangers and turbines. You might get away with fewer heat pipes in practice - 152 is the needed amount to 'buffer' 96GJ from zero, but if you're actually using power you won't need that full amount. (Heat exchangers also buffer the same amount as a piece of heat pipe, so technically it's 148).

And of course you can add more exchangers/turbines if you need more MW than that - it'll sustain up to 480MW after all

But the idea here is that you'll maybe be using the readily available solar power most of the time - even an Aquilo trip you're going from 200% to 60% over the leg from Gleba, and just using your 'stored' power from the nuclear when you need it.

2 new recipes - gated by 'bacteria cultivation'.

• Calcite bacteria (takes fruit mash + calcite and is horribly inefficient)

• Calcite bacteria cultivation - uses bioflux and breeds bacteria like iron/copper bacteria, so 1 bacteria + 1 bioflux -> 4 bacteria (6 with biochamber productivity).

Bacteria decays into calcite (just like iron/copper bacteria).

Both 'gated' by reprocessing (unlike iron/copper bacteria) because the calcite cost of starting up is high enough that it's just a terrible idea to even try until you can cultivate - you'd be spending 10 calcite to get 0.1 calcite bacteria, so it's a great way to waste a load of calcite but not much else.

Motivation: Calcite 'manufacture' on Nauvis/Gleba so you don't just have to import it. (Of course you might need to import bioflux to Nauvis still, but 1 flux for 6 bacteria before prod is still less logistics - I'm thinking I might add more mods in future *).

Also: Gleba is the best planet.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/calcite-bacteria

Probably makes the game easier - a lot of mods do that. But I don't think having a local source of calcite is crazy OP compared to importing it from Vulcanus/Space Platforms either.

* My 'fantasy' here is a mod bundle that enables 'full chain' manufacturing on Aquilo without needing imports, and that involves assorted bacteria, also maybe a 'greenhouse' that's expensive/lategame/promethium and an energy hog, but that grows gleba-fruit (less efficiently than an agri tower). Making a decent sprite is a stumbling point though, so we'll see...)

So I've said it before in a few threads, and I appreciate it's easy to get jaded by 'politics'.

But casting a vote every few years is really very minimal amounts of 'political influence', and does almost nothing to improve circumstances for a minority issue. Which ADHD is - at most it affects 3-4% of the population directly, and maybe a few more indirectly.

Petitions? Sadly don't work well either, for much the same reason - it will always be hard to accumulate popular support for an indirect issue.

But writing to your MP? Well, I don't want to get you hopes up too far, because you are just one person in 65 million.

But to your MP you might be only one in a few thousand, and if nothing else, they want to be re-elected.

And y'know, it's their job to represent your interests as their constituent.

Writing to MP:

• They usually have caseworkers who can 'investigate' issues for their constituents. E.g. asking questions of particularly public sector bodies about what is supposed to happen, and how to achieve a positive outcome.

• They can ask questions of Ministers and raise matters in Parliament

• They also contribute to party policy, and 'feedback' from the voters helps inform policy and future manifestos.

Parties work really hard to try and figure out important issues and get feedback on policy, so they absolutely pay attention when you supply that information to them.

It's also very easy to contact your MP:

https://www.writetothem.com

If you can't think what to say, my usual suggestion is to try and keep one 'issue' per contact - so they can reply/respond without needing to pull together multiple disparate questions

Aim for 3 paragraphs (or sections? But don't overdo it - longer isn't always better!):

• Outline the general issue you're writing about for context and clarity. If you've more specific information that's general, like say, how long lead times are in your area, or how many patients are 'seen' each year, add that. Freedom of Information act requests can gather this information, although it can be a bit frustrating trying to figure out who to ask https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/ *

• Be specific about how it's hurting you, as their constituent - their job is to represent you, and it's just generally more impactful to explain how you're hurting, than trying to be general about it. Limit this as much as possible to people within their area of responsibility, although if you're aware of specific issues in the 'local community' (e.g. at school or similar) that might also be worth adding.

• Then, if you know, be specific about what you'd like them to do. Maybe what you need is some advice on 'so what should I do?' or maybe you want them to tell public sector bodies to knock it off with their disingenous bullshit. Maybe you'd like them to consider amending a law or asking a Minister or raising it as party policy.

(Just generally though, they're politicians - they're quite adept at spotting bullshit and co-ordinated campaigns - an authentic communication gets a LOT more weight)

And genuinely, it's not as hard as you think. It's not a lot of influence - because ultimately you're one person out of 65 million - but your voice is now louder than the very vast majority who don't vote and never contact their MP, and that's worth having.

* FOIA results are also published, and can maybe be forwarded on to journalists who might be looking for a story on a slow news day.

So I've been on the 'index fund and chill' bandwagon for a while now, and I broadly accept a market equity tracker has been a sound strategy so far.

However I'm now looking at some recent rules changes for some markets around rapid buy in.

https://www.lseg.com/en/insights/ftse-russell/faster-large-cap-entry-to-the-russell

Specifically that where previously there may have been some considerably delay for 'new entrants' to the market to be included in indices (and related - being purchased by index funds), now the timescales are much shortened.

Implicitly some upcoming large IPOs will be relevant here. As they rapidly enter the index, a tracker fund is now going to need to rebalance more quickly and predictably (e.g. allowing for trading against them). A company valued at ~2% of the S&P total capitalization could have a noticeable effect perhaps?

I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, as to whether these new policies do in fact, make index funds more (or less?) vulnerable than prior?

Have to manually fight most, because AR picks on my Ghorgon.

But still, 44s victory non ambush is still pretty good I think.....