Fulgora Guide
3 min
2020-01-01
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Fulgora, the lightning tortured planet with only two resources: Heavy oil and Scrap.
What we need from Fulgora
When we have Fulgora under control, the following items needs to be regularly produced:
- Legendary EM Plant - particularly the legendary one
- Legendary Recycler
- Tesla Turrets - Best defense for biters and for Gleba
- EM Science
Power Source
Power comes out of the sky at Fulgora. We can use capacitors and lightning collectors to fully power everything. This means we also need to produce:
- Legendary Lightning Collector
- Legendary Capacitor
The Fulgora Challenge
The only way to get resources from Fulgora is to turn scrap into its components.
Our main resource consumer is Electromagnetic Science. Unfortunately, the ratio of resources we get from scrap does not match the rate of consumption of Electromagnetic Science. The main challenge thus is to balance the input ratio of scrap to the output of Electromagnetic Science.
The Ratios
We can get the Scrap Ratios from the Wiki and using FactorioLabs we can calculate the rations needed when producing Electromagnetic Science with Legendary Productivity 3 modules. This gives us the following table:
| Item | Scrap Ratio | Electromagnetic Science Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Gears | 20% | 0% |
| Solid Fuel | 7% | 0% |
| Concrete | 6% | 0% |
| Ice | 5% | 22% |
| Stone | 4% | 12% |
| Steel | 4% | 0% |
| Battery | 4% | 34% |
| Copper Cable | 3% | 0% |
| Green Circuit | 0% | 13.84% |
| Red Circuit | 3% | 0% |
| Blue Circuit | 2 % | 0% |
| Holmium Ore | 1% | 4.6% |
| Plastic | 0% | 1.3% |
| Copper | 0% | 1.2% |
| Iron | 0% | 4.6% |
| LDS | 1% | 0% |
What can we tell so far from these ratios?
- We need to get rid of Steel. This in turn means we will have all the steel we need to make EM plants
- Concrete is a waste product
- Solid fuel, apart from what we need to make Rocket Fuel - is a waste product
- We need a lot of batteries
- Red and Blue Circuits need to broken down to their components
- LDS needs to be broken down - and we need the copper we get from it
Breaking down Items
We need gears to make Iron, so those have to be recycled.
Because we need more batteries than scrap can provide, we have to make those from copper and iron.
Breaking down Red and Blue Circuits should provide us with Green Circuits and Plastic.
Steel is useless to us, but we can speed up its discarding by making steel chests and recylcling those.
Concrete must be discarded and we can speed it up by making hazard concrete.
Ratio after first recycle step
After breaking down the scrap stream (taking into account that we lose 75% in the recycler) we get the following ratios:
| Item | Scrap Ratio | Initial Recycle | Electromagnetic Science Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gears | 20% | 0% | 0% |
| Solid Fuel | 7% | 0% | 0% |
| Concrete | 6% | 0% | 0% |
| Ice | 5% | 11.5% | 22% |
| Stone | 4% | 9% | 12% |
| Steel | 4% | 0% | 0% |
| Battery | 4% | 9% | 34% |
| Copper Cable | 3% | 0% | 0% |
| Green Circuit | 0% | 25.2% | 13.84% |
| Red Circuit | 3% | 0% | 0% |
| Blue Circuit | 2 % | 0% | 0% |
| Holmium Ore | 1% | 2.3% | 4.6% |
| Plastic | 0% | 5% | 1.3% |
| Copper | 0% | 13.3% | 1.2% |
| Iron | 0% | 22.6% | 4.6% |
| LDS | 1% | 0% | 0% |
We can see that we have plenty of Green Circuits and that we can make use of those to get more Copper and Iron (for batteries). Batteries can be made in a Cryogenic Plant. With 8 Productivity 3 modules we can get a productivity bonus of 200% on Batteries. This means 1 copper and 1 iron will give us 3 batteries (not counting the minuscule amount to make Sulphoric Acid)
Ratio after second recycle step
If we take enough Iron and Copper to put make the ratio of Batteries right, we end up with this:
| Item | Scrap Ratio | Broken Down Ratio | Battery Ratio | Electromagnetic Science Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gears | 20% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Solid Fuel | 7% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Concrete | 6% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Ice | 5% | 11.5% | 10.5% | 22% |
| Stone | 4% | 9% | 8.3% | 12% |
| Steel | 4% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Battery | 4% | 9% | 34% | 34% |
| Copper Cable | 3% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Green Circuit | 0% | 25.2% | 25% | 13.84% |
| Red Circuit | 3% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Blue Circuit | 2 % | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Holmium Ore | 1% | 2.3% | 2.2% | 4.6% |
| Plastic | 0% | 5% | 4.6% | 1.3% |
| Copper | 0% | 13.3% | 3.3% | 1.2% |
| Iron | 0% | 22.6% | 12.2% | 4.6% |
| LDS | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
We can now see that when we have the right amount of batteries, we have an excess of Green Circuit, Iron, Copper and Plastic.
Ratio of Discard Step
We can recycle the excess down to zero, which gives us the following ratios (roughly):
| Item | Scrap Ratio | Broken Down Ratio | Battery Ratio | Discard Ratio | Electromagnetic Science Ratio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gears | 20% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Solid Fuel | 7% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Concrete | 6% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Ice | 5% | 11.5% | 10.5% | 22% | 22% | |
| Stone | 4% | 9% | 8.3% | 17.4% | 12% | |
| Steel | 4% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Battery | 4% | 9% | 34% | 34% | 34% | |
| Copper Cable | 3% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Green Circuit | 0% | 25.2% | 25% | 14% | 13.84% | |
| Red Circuit | 3% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Blue Circuit | 2 % | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Holmium Ore | 1% | 2.3% | 2.2% | 4.7% | 4.6% (!) | |
| Plastic | 0% | 5% | 4.6% | 1.2% | 1.3% | |
| Copper | 0% | 13.3% | 3.3% | 1.2% | 1.2% | |
| Iron | 0% | 22.6% | 12.2% | 4.7% | 4.6% | |
| LDS | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
And we have our numbers!
Summarising Steps of Electromagnetic Science Production
Putting everything together we now know the steps of producing Electromagnetic Science in the right ratios:
- Recycle Red, Blue Circuits and LDS
- Discard Steel, Concrete and Solid Fuel.
- Recycle Gears to Iron and Copper Cable to Copper
- Make Batteries out of Iron and Copper
- Recycle excess Green Circuits, Iron, Copper, Stone and Plastic
- Feed the Electromagnetic Science production line.
You will barely have enough holmium to power the last step. You may need to produce a some excess holmium to create EM plants and top up any missing Holmium in the Electromagnetic Science production line.
Strategies
There are four basic ways to "solve" Fulgora production:
- Belt based Recycling
- Bot based Recyling
- Train based recycling
- Rocket silo based Recycling
Belt based Recycling
It turns out that is tricky to get belt based recycling stable. You constantly have to monitor for overflows and typically need a lot of circuit logic to make sure that the right items are recycled in time.
I have done belt based Fulgora - but is a lot or trouble to get it right.
Bot Based Recycling
You can always use bots to solve Fulgora. This is a lot easier to get right, but you need a lot of bots to make it work.
If you are going after thousands of SPM - the amount of bots you need will be restrictive for UPS.
Train Based Recycling
Traditional, Factorio 1.x players may try to solve Fulgora with a city block or train based production. Each island makes one or two resources, and you use trains to bring it all together.
This is a highly inefficient way to solve Fulgora - because it requires you to discard a lot of items instead of just making Electromagnetic Science right next to the recyclers
Rock Silo Based Recycling
I got this idea after posting a train wagon recycler on Reddit. Rockets, like train wagons, are really a form of storage chest - one that is 9x9 squares. You can mine directly into a Rocket Silo and then use Recyclers connected to that silo to gradually refine items. It is this method that I will be sharing blueprints for here
The Blueprints
Below you will find every blueprint you need to solve Fulgora. The blueprints are made with legendary quality items, but they should work fine with lower quality as well (except for the Legendary Lightning Field).
Electromagnetic Science Production
Blueprint
This setup keeps 8 EM plants with 8 beacons fully occupied. It comes with its own Rocket Silo launchpad and the only thing you need to do, is to put the blueprint on top of a Scrap Mine.
I will warn you that this blueprint trivialises Fulgora.
Extra Holmium and Auxiliary Production
You will need a steady supply of Holmium to ship to Aquillo and to make Legendary EM plants. You are also going to need a trickle of these items:
- Blue Circuits - to make EM plants and recyclers
- Electrolyte - to make Lightning Collectors and Tesla Turrets
- Holmium Plates - for EM plant upcycler and for shipping off the planet
- Extra Holmium Solution - to cover the slight lack of Holmium in ratios for Electromagnetic Science
This blueprint below handles all this. It would be an advantage to place it near a rocket silo that can launch the Holmium Plates into space. You will also want the Legendary Electromagnetic Plant near it.
TODO
Legendary Electromagnetic Plant
You are going to need a lot of EM plants. This blueprint below creates a steady stream of these. It also makes legendary Holmium Plates and as a byproduct makes Legendary Blue Circuits, Legendary Refined Concrete and Legendary Steel (which you can then use to make Legendary Recyclers)
Legendary Recycler
You can make Legendary Recyclers using the byproducts of EM plant upcycling. The only item you will be missing is Legendary Gears. But you can get those by breaking down the excess Legendary items from the EM plant upcycler.
You should place this blueprint near the EM plant upcycler
TODO
Tileable Lightning Field
Power is free on Fulgora - it comes out of the sky.
The blueprint below is a tileable lightning field that uses a single, Legendary Lightning Collector to power the capacitors. Place it on your excess slands.