Gleba has killed the game for me.

[mmmPI]

You can make demand-based factory where you don't send AG science on Nauvis if you don't need it. It require more complex logic than producing all the time, but it is possible to achieve.

[Tertius]

I just don't wanna deal with spoilage of science and all. Since you can't really make "demand-based" throughput in Factorio, I will have to deal with never-ending stream of AG science spoiling out on Nauvis

About dealing with spoilage - is it "I don't want" or is it "I don't know how"?

If it is "I don't know how", you need to include one consideration in all designs that will handle spoilable items. Consider every single spoilable item on the map turns into spoilage at once. Every few minutes randomly, all at once, everything is spoiled. Belt content, machine content, inserter hand content, chest content.

Design your factory so it is able to cope with this situation. You need to make sure all the spoilage is eventually being removed automatically. From belts, from inserter hands, from input slots, from output slots, from storage containers, so the new unspoiled items continue to flow. Check every single spot. Never trust that one item will not spoil, assuming it's processed fast enough. No. Don't assume anything. Always keep in mind this still-fresh-for-2-hours item might spoil here in this spot, wherever it is.

If a belt might carry a spoilable item, add trash removal to this belt. if a spoilable item is being put into a machine, it's possible actual spoilage is being taken from the output slots and put on the output belt or storage chest. So add trash removal here and make sure filters don't prevent inserters from removing spoilage from the machine. If you use stack inserters, keep in mind spoilage is an additional item they might try to grab (and stall until they get a full hand of 16).

That's the core challenge of Gleba, and if you keep this in mind, you will be successful. It's not an explicit and obvious requirement such as the heat pipe requirement on Aquilo, but it's as mandatory.

The most simple approach to this challenge is to let belts never end and the items on the belt never stall. Build an endless loop that returns into itself and merges new items into the loop with a splitter, and somewhere on this loop is a filtered inserter that extracts spoilage from the loop and puts it into the trash removal facility (in my case: active provider chest to be carried away by bots)

[mmmPI]

if you want to make an on-demand factory on Gleba you have to consider a few things :

1°) the egg in the science recipe

When you don't research Gleba science, you don't need to run an endless egg loop, you can have it stop. You can restart it by recycling biochambers. This can be automated. You need to store some biochamber to make sure you can recycle a few in case you don't get eggs in the first one.

2°) the endless plant growth

When you don't research Gleba science you don't need to maintain full belts or stockpiles of fresh fruits or nutrients spoiling. You can control the agricultural tower to only produce fruit when you need science by reading orbital request on silos. You need to keep some spoilage to kickstart it again.

3°) the bacteria loop

Same thing, you don't need to keep a bacteria loop when there is no need, you can have it stop and use the recipe that doesn't use bacteria as input to kickstart automatically again.

4°) The space platforms

This is how you make sure Gleba can be on-demand, Gleba can be made to be active only when a platform is in its orbit using previous point. You then need to only send platforms away from Nauvis and to Gleba, when "science stall because of an absence of Agricultural pack". If you have a long research queue that mixes Gleba science and no-Gleba science, you can detect when you need Gleba science : when all the other packs stall. Then you can allow a platform to leave Nauvis, by providing some item you use as token in Nauvis' logistic network. If that item fulfill the departure condition of a platform , such platform can throw it overboard in space when receiving it on their way to Gleba. There they trigger the science production, and come back with the science pack. Then if you don't need Gleba science, the other science pack will be consumed, so the platform will not go for another round on Gleba because it never receive the item token. Then Gleba turns inactive.


You don't need that on Gleba , it's much more straightforward to just burn everything, but it offers this possibility !

[Hurkyl]

I wouldn't say Gleba is hard. Nothing on Gleba is hard per se, it's just not fun.
I have 2 Space Age starts both died at Gleba. For second one I even, eventually, took someone's "all-inclusive" blueprint that produces science and fiber. I still continue to go to my K2.0 or Nullius runs because I just don't wanna deal with spoilage of science and all. Since you can't really make "demand-based" throughput in Factorio, I will have to deal with never-ending stream of AG science spoiling out on Nauvis, it just makes me so not wanting to do it, I'm actually considering putting a mod to turn off spoilage for AG science only. And somehow make sure that wouldn't kill my Gleba factory by clogging.
So yeah, Gleba isn't hard it is just so not fun, I would say it doesn't fit in the game that well. If it would, tons of people wouldn't complain about it being just straight annoying.

P.S. Yes, I only have 2k hours in Factorio so maybe not worth listening.

FWIW, a simple solution that I used in my playthrough (I did Gleba first, incidentally) is to do mostly AG researches for a long period of time, and then manually flip a switch* that spins Gleba down to an idle state** and do non-AG researches for a long time.

*: Well, toggle a constant combinator on/off
**: Actually, the first time I just shut the planet down entirely. But later redesigns usually had this feature.

Auto-detection of whether or not AG research is being done should be possible too, by putting a lab on Gleba stocked with the rest of the sciences. Use circuit logic to detect if agricultural science packs are actually being used (e.g. a pack is put in without a spoilage being taken out). More sophisticated designs could trade off between "the latency between spinning-up and doing research at full throughput" and "how much agricultural science is left to decay over time".

Of course, if your actual issue is "I have to build in a spoilage-handling system" rather than "I have distaste for mass production of things just to be destroyed even though it's made from renewable materials", then none of this could help.

[Ignalion]

Of course, if your actual issue is "I have to build in a spoilage-handling system" rather than "I have distaste for mass production of things just to be destroyed even though it's made from renewable materials", then none of this could help.

Yeah it's for sure the latter. I didn't hate spoilage until I realized there is no sane way to make it other way than "You open pipe and let water flow right into sink all the time and if you need you just tap to that stream". It's not how Factorio was designed, I shouldn't produce items just to burn them.
As I said, Gleba isn't hard, building a spoilage-handling isn't hard as well. Tapping a belt on Nauvis on the end of science belt and inserter in each lab, well, it's ugly but it isn't hard, it's just... idk

Somehow it is ok in Fulgora, the "recycling" part while being obnoxious as well, I can turn it off easily. Another thing to add is that you need things from Fulgora/Vulcanus in quantities. Gleba... well, most of its things aren't that useful in a first place, you only need so many stack inserters and other buildings are meh. You don't need Gleba running for Heating towers also. So it makes even less sense to have it constantly running as soon as you don't need AG science.

And as @mmmPI mentioned early, you need to go way way way out of your way to make it work, and it is never perfect.

you can detect when you need Gleba science : when all the other packs stall.

Meaning any time research stops for whatever reason you will be fed AG science that will be rotting in your belt

[mmmPI]

you can detect when you need Gleba science : when all the other packs stall.

Meaning any time research stops for whatever reason you will be fed AG science that will be rotting in your belt

Yes and no, if research stops i feel it's because you have finished them all ideally (or the queue) else you can detect if the reason for stall is the absence of another pack and not "request" the AG packs. There is not that many reasons for research to stops, as if it's a shortage of material, eventually you can detect a missing science pack. Else it's power shortage but you can also detect that and not request Ag science.

But it does means there will be a few spoilage when the research from Gleba swap to another one, if you had deliver 1000 AG science pack, and like 400 are still ready to be consumed when the research changes to another one without gleba science pack, those are bound to spoil somehow. ( you need a few spoilage for modules anyway ).

It still on-demand, it's not the constant stream from which you tap what you need, while you afk the Glebase can be idle for 3 hours , then start for 3 hours then idle for 3 hours, that will only generate spoilage one time after 6 hours when the research is finished before it idle again, the reminder of the AG shipment.

Now clearly it's not what i did in my first or second or third playthru x) it took some time and sharing of ideas with other players, and i wouldn't recommend it as the way to go, but it is there, the tools are available, if really that constant stream of material irritate you, it's like maybe a super difficult boss in a side quest, harder than the end game boss. It still can be beaten !

[Ignalion]

Now clearly it's not what i did in my first or second or third playthru x) it took some time and sharing of ideas with other players, and i wouldn't recommend it as the way to go, but it is there, the tools are available, if really that constant stream of material irritate you, it's like maybe a super difficult boss in a side quest, harder than the end game boss. It still can be beaten !

Thanks for the idea! It's definitely fun challenge to make a restartable Gleba factory. Not right away tho, I'm gonna kludge it somehow since I want to finally see Aquilo first! But def will do after Aquilo, it's good idea storing eggs in biochambers that would solve the issue. The only thing is the latency will be big, if you restart Glebase only when you need AG science, you kinda already way too late.