Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah. Theme hospital was radical!

Oh bloat head disease how I loathe thee!

God I loved that game.

2 factory seems a bit more reasonable, as you won't have to manipulate N2 and Methane in the same space.

I agree, but I think I'm still going to
Won't win any awards for symbol usage, but should drastically reduce my cycle count.

Unfortunately for me, every time I finish a level, this is what happens:
*revel in victory*
*open next level*
*look at inputs/outputs*
Sweet Zombie Jesus...
*quit SpaceChem for 24 hours or so*

I'm still stuck on the optional production level on the third planet.  I'd post screens, but I'm stuck at work and would frankly be embarrassed at this point.

I would, but I'm not quite there yet.  Though I have to say, for one of the more frustrating games I've ever played I find the draw of it immense.  I'm sitting here at work wishing I could install it.  Or, you know, play it.

Also, last night I reached my first challenge level.  I loaded it up fully intent to play it.  Instead I stared at the requirements for a moment, closed the game, and went to lay down.  Is it me, or does the difficulty level seem to expand geometrically?

(edited to avoid double-post)

God this game is terribly addictive.  But the one thing that bugs me are the statistical breakdowns of how I did.  Not because it's not working or anything, but rather that it makes me feel inadequate.  I've optimized "Sleepless on Sernimir IV" three times now, and that got me into the 900-1000 range (982) but I still have too many symbols (50).  I can't think of any way to make it more efficient!


Is there some concept I'm missing that simplifies everything?

There seems to be quite a sale going on for a lot of stuff.  Orange box for $15, Super Meat Boy for $4, the Deus Ex collection for $6

Man, I wasted a ton of time in this last night trying to figure out electricity, and wondering why my "ingenious" system wasn't working.

As I was taking my first wobbly steps into the game, I wound up making a box of solid wall filled with noble gas.  I marveled at the increase in pressure inside the box, and then I saw the little tidbit that noble gas turns to plasma when given a charge.  I then spent probably half an hour trying to get electricity to flow from my battery to my conductive wall through an insulated wire.  Yeah, that didn't work.  Eventually I switched from insulated wire to bare metal, and all was well.  I had ignition, and even better - the gas wasn't consumed in the process!  I also noticed that the temperature in the box had jumped to a few thousand degrees.  That gave me an idea!  Have the plasma-generating charge come in on the material that only passes charge if it's cold.  That way the plasma will only get triggered once, rather than continuously.  I figured that later on I'd find a way to cool the box down to wind up with a repeating process.

The problem was that everything stopped working after the initial sparking!  I couldn't figure it out.  Plus, some of the noble gas was becoming attached to the conductive material!  I didn't know what was going on.  Then I accidentally hovered over one of the particles and noticed it was not noble gas, but lava.  The temperature had risen to the point that it melted the cold-conducting particles!

Oops.

So much for that idea!