I'm confused about PI routes

Hey, so I’ve got my first PI setup going trying to make P2 on a single planet, and I’m using the Extractor - Launchpad - Processors method.
First question is what am I to do with the 3000m^3 limit for a single route, should I make a million routes to the processor so that all my product is routed or just one? how is that handled?
Second question is after the first processor, should I route the P1 material to the launchpad as well, or should I send it straight to the Advanced processors?
Thanks guys

I am uncertain exactly what it is you are asking, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

That I know of, most of us route our P0 through the launchpad. That is, we will extract and have all the resulting material go to the launchpad first. This is to avoid wastage from overflow if you were to route material into the processors directly. You also get the benefit of being able to drop things from a POCO into your launchpad and have the processing automatically do its thing once it’s stocked up. You can route directly from P1 output to P2 input, if you want, but you’d have to be very careful not to overload the P2 processor when you’ve got unbalanced production lines. I would avoid this and route the P1 to the launchpad instead.

You can see percentages pop up on your connecting routes to show you the % capacity used. If a connection becomes overloaded, you can upgrade that connection, but you can not make multiple connections from and to the same two points. Connections take more cpu and pg for being longer, so keeping things tight is preferable. You can send your extractors where they need to go, but factories should cluster around the launchpad.

PI is easy as an babyfart compared to what it once was…

And still some people are complaining…or not getting it…

Same for scanning…simply self-explaining and auto finding stuff…and still…

-sigh-

This game will become even more casual and automatic in the future…

Thanks. Heres what I mean by all the routes:

Do I need to do that, or does it matter?

As long as there is a route AND that route is not overloaded, you should be fine. There is a max number of transitions (or hops) across factories and the like that your route can take, but you are still well under that limit.

The goal is to minimize the amount of road you build to conserve powergrid and cpu for other things.

Select the launchpad and hover over the other objects to see just how much headroom you have in your links, and upgrade any that are too small (though I don’t think any will be).

In the above, you could link your launchpad to your adjacent factories, and those factories to the one adjacent factory to them, and then finish by linking the final two factories and the extractor to those. Everything would have a road to everything else, and you can route through those roads as necessary.

Yeah thats basically how I have it set up. So I don’t need all those little 3000 routes? I only need one?

You don’t need any redundant links. The ‘routes’ you see are to route products to their destination. If you have two factories that each need 3000 of something from the launchpad to do their thing, you’d need to specify the route for each, but that route does not need to be direct. It can pass through another factory or extractor or whatever.

You have redundant links in the above screen shot. You can path from the launchpad to the upper most factory and finally to the factory to the south east of it, or you could path from the launchpad to the factory south of it and then to east to the same factory, by the look of it. Either that, or your lanes are needlessly long.

With upgraded routes you can pump all resources through one route between Extractors, Facilities and Launchpad in most cases. In some scenarios, when the Planet has very high resource density over 80% and it’s designed as an extractor hub mainly, you have to build separate routes between your Extractors and Refineries or between Refineries and Launchpads to unload the traffic like a half: 4-2-1, 2-2-1.

2-2-1 is: two extractor routes goes to one storage; from one storage resources goes to two/three refineries through two separate routes and back transitionally to launchpads (refined mats); from storage route goes to one launchpad. You can stack all materials to one launchpad or you can distribute them between two of them by letting you to visit the PI more rare.

So if I have a whole bunch of those 3000s to the processor will it make mats faster? theres some part of this I’m not seeing. I understand links and link capacity, but the resource routes are weird. The processors use 3000 mats a cycle, so it seems I would only need one of the 3000 routes to keep it happy. Yet, If I have multiple, as shown in the pic, it used more bandwidth on the links, so that means more mats are moving, but where? do the processors store them? are the extra routes pointless since the processors can only go so fast?

Processors don’t store anything. If your processor is currently working, and it already has the next batch in queue, then any more material dumped into it disappears into nothing. That’s why you need a storage unit or launch pad to store everything, then route it to the processor from there so that it’s not wasted.

Oh wow okay. So the routes work as a queue then. So will the whole system shut down when it runs out of routes, or will one set route keep the processor supplied until the end of the extracting cycle?

You only need one route from the storage to each processor. When the processor finishes its job, the next batch will automatically load. Even if, for example, you go on vacation and run out of raw materials, all you have to do is add more materials to your storage, and the route will still be there.

ALright so all those routes shown in the picture are redundant and unnecessary. I gotcha. That simplifies things a lot. You guys are so helpful. I think I just got my life turned around.

RULE TO MAKE YOUR PI LIFE BETTER:

Always route (1) from, or (2) to, a buffer (e.g. storage facility or launchpad).

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