Science & Industry

So I'm extremely new to PI. I've only just returned since I left in Apocrypha, and while I understand how PI works, I'm hesitant on the efficiency of my current setup. I would appreciate any advice on how to make it less wasteful, or if it is a worthy setup.

Currently, I only have Command Center Upgrade III, and CCU IV is over a month away. Some other skills got in the way.

My setup is thus:

Command Center
Launch Pad
Storage Facility x 3
Basic Industry Facility x4
Advanced Industry Facility x1
Extractor x1

It's linked this way. CC---Launch Pad----Central Storage, which is then linked itself to everything else. So everything is routed through the central storage. Materials from the extractor route through the central storage to one of the side storages. From side storage, the raw materials are routed through central to the basics, converted into P1, deposited in Central. From central, P1 are routed to the Advanced, makes it into P2, routes through Central to the Launch Pad. From launchpad, the P2 will be taken to space, to a third planet, which will convert from P2 to P3, which will be sold.

The extractor will be on a 1-3 day cycle, not sure which yet, of harvesting first RawA, then RawB, to keep 2 basic industries running for each material to supply the P2 production. Upgraded links +1 required between the Extractor and Central Storage, and then from Central Storage to Side Storage.

Edit: The side storages are needed, thus far. I filled up the main storage within a few hours, running a 3 day test.

Is there any place I'll bottleneck? Some more efficient way of doing it? Some glaringly obvious oversight? Any feedback is helpful. Thank you for your time.

In FACT it is more efficient to run 1 ECU than 2. How it works?

*Day1 - Extract material A
*Day2 - Extract material A
*Day3 - Extract material A
*Day4 - Extract material A
*Day5 - Extract material A

*Day6 - Extract material B
*Day7 - Extract material B
*Day8 - Extract material B

Did you notice the 3/5 ratio? That is because it is hard to get the same amount of 2 different materials. One spot is always better than the other.

Advantage over 2x ECU:
- no R0 leftovers
- you save up 2200 Power grid
- only 1 ECU to restart

Disadvantages:
- you need to destroy the ECU when switching material extraction
- more work if done in short switching cycles(like rebuilding the ECU every day*)
- you might need to switch P1 processors also (Note1*)

Note1:
In a normal situation you have 4-6 basic processors. 1/2 is intended for reprocessing material A and the other for material B. If you switch to a single ECU setup then you might notice that 1/2 of the basic processors are idling. So to not let that happen you can manually switch all basic processors to reprocess material A and after a few days switch over to material B. But this is only true for low CC Upgrade skills. If you do have the extra Powergrid then you can build more storages which can hold R0 resources up to 3-5 days. In these case 1/2 of basic processors would reprocess the currently being extracted material, while the other 1/2 would be reprocessing what was left in the storages. In the end the processors run 100% for 24/7.

So. I've taken suggestions into account...

I've removed the link between CC and Spaceport. Thank you for that.

Also removed the central storage, and am routing everything through the Spaceport. That allowed me to build a second P2 factory, so now I am not bottlenecking at P1.

Now, that said...it's been one day, and my new extractor has just filled up one of my side storages. It's looking like, no matter what I do, I will always have an excess of P0, unless I make another 2 basic/1 advanced after dropping a few extractor heads. Is this a good idea, or should I stay with the large overflow of raw materials? Opinions?

Another option is to do a 2 planet setup, on each planet you have:

2 advanced factory
4 basic factory
1 extractor
9-10 extractor heads
1 launchpad

Route everything through launchpad.
Every few days you move the excess P1 materials from each planet to the other.

More heads let you use longer cycles and still get the average 6000 P0 / hour / basic factory.
Longer cycles also wears down the planet less.

For example im running PI in a wormhole with 7 days cycles.

Actually the best profit can be done with pure P0 selling but you make so much m3 that it is annoying, every step after that you lose profit but gain compression.
You can calculate your the current profits with this sheet i made
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av6bUJhtOy5qdFpUempHRXFKOFVhZGpPdHMxc3g0bmc&usp=sharing

My setup is to have extractors route to the launch pad. I then have basic factories churning the P0 to P1. I then haul the P1 to a factory planet where I make the P2/P3 materials.

The only exception is a gas planet where I make P1 and P2 components on the planet. I just have four basic, two advanced and one extractor. I just swap the extractor and schematics on the basic every three to four days.