Jade Monkey
Having recently come to the attention of the Intrusive Gardening Club, Knowledge of Jade Monkey is limited. The aspect of him which sparks interest is how he plays Factorio.
Factory Design
Nauvis
Being the starter planet, ones Nauvis base is expected to be a bit messy, however, Jade Monkey presents a special case for this. His design philosophy is unique in the sense that it doesn't revolve around logistics. His entire base is unorganized, fractioned into compartmentalized pieces that serve no function outside of their own selves. These sections can be as large as a third of the factory, or as small as a single assembler.
Base Overview
The base is laid out in four distinct sections, each is encased in layers upon layers of walls to the effect of many turrets being useless. These walls consist of unorganized, random patterns. The turrets within cannot be refilled by any other means than by hand. There is a single train running between the three largest sections of the base with turnaround points at bases A and C.
Base A
Being the largest of the four bases, this is where vital systems such as the rocket, and most of the power production is held. A large number of construction items are built and stored here. The inside of the factory is dotted with several hundred steel chests, which are filled with completely random items.
There is seldom anything close to a main bus. In fact, the majority of items are produced, and then simply stored in chests for Jade Monkey to move around. Even vitally important items, like Green Circuits have this property. I'm going to repeat myself: he moves every item by hand. He does not use bots. He does not use belts. He doesn't even use inserter chains.
The power production for the factory is strange, and is a functional byproduct of the non-existence of the logistics system. Because only a very, very small fraction of the machines in his factory are running at a time, the power production is extremely small, requiring only a nuclear power plant with six steam turbines, as well as an additional coal plant with seven steam engines.
Base B
More information is needed about that goes on at Base B, though it is suspected to be a large product hub making more advanced things such as Red Circuits and possibly even drones. The proximity to Base A suggests it is merely an extension of it. The train connecting the two further solidifies this line of reasoning, and the extension of this train to base C suggests it's purpose is to ferry fluids such as petroleum between Base C and Base B
Base C
Base C is where oil refining and coal power generation takes place. It's the second biggest of the bases, and also the most remote. The majority of it's space is dedicated to oil refining, or more specifically, fluid tanks.
Fluid tanks are extremely important to refining as another consequence to his base design. It's important to be storing fluid so that when Jade Monkey moves the necessary items over to factory C from A or B, the products can be made as quickly as possible.
In addition to the fluid production, there is a small coal power station, consisting of one boiler connected to seven steam engines. In game testing shows that at full speed, the steam engines only run at between 20%-33% efficiency.
Base D
this is the smallest of all the bases. Research shows it's merely an outpost for one of the two (2) artillery that exist within this base. The other is located on the opposite side of the base, in Base A
Special Features
The base has a bot network, but it's limited to only about two hundred bots. Additionally, there are no resources hooked up to the network, including things like repair kits, which are manually placed into each roboport.
Nearly every roboport is disconnected as well, meaning almost every roboport must be individually stocked with robots and repair packs.
At times, Jade Monkey has been seen loading science packs into space shuttles to be sent off-world. The reasons for this are unknown, but are important enough to have several chests full of science surrounding his space shuttle.
Environmental notes
For a player with bases on Gleba, Folgora, and Volcanus, his evolution factor is quite low, sitting at around 83%. This is likely due to a combination of his energy habits, and refusal to expand his base too far. His extremely small bot network certainly does his energy demands a favor.
Despite this, he still faces frequent encounters with the natives, and due to his largely separated base, sometimes even have biters between bases A,B or C. They encroach on his base quite a lot, only taking a few seconds of walking to be within range of a biter nest.
His tank inventory (right) poses as an accurate representation for the rest of his factory. It houses such oddities as:
- 900 Copper Plates
- 30 Barrels of Heavy Oil
- 200 Copper Wire
- 1 Light Armor
- 100 Engines
- 200 Green Circuits
- 225 Iron Gears
...And fairly high counts of items you usually wouldn't keep very many of on hand.
