Building A Base

Building a proper base is essential, without one you will quickly find that you lack resources and the necessary power output. Even if you plan on being a nomad later on, you'll still need a base to be able to build your ship.

Although this guide is aimed more at advanced players who have already found a planet, it is friendly to noobs wanting to build their starterbase which have found the instructions in Getting Started inadequate. As such the first few parts may be a little more hand-holdy than other articles.

Setting up
To start, you must find a suitable spot for your base. It should have necessary resources (Iron, copper, mountains, and what you'll use to generate power [eg. Coal] ) nearby. Having other resources nearby is a plus, but not required as you can later transport them using transporters.

If possible, the area should also be fairly clear and flat as it will make building a base easier. This is not necessary however, mountain/hill bases are possible and may even be favorable at times.

(Note you can skip most of this if you brought resources with you, eg. if you just escaped from a starter with them)

Gathering resources
Once you are satisfied with the location, the next step is to find the closest iron and copper nodes to you. You should head to the iron node first, mine a few pieces of iron by equipping your harvest (pickaxe) tool, then clicking on the iron node. If done correctly, you should see pieces fall out. Get 8 pieces of iron and craft the following using the crafting (V) menu;


 * 1 SpawnPoint
 * 2 Bins

Immediately lock the SpawnPoint using the locking (C) menu and place it where you expect the center of your base to be. This will ensure you spawn back at your base if you die or leave the game.

Next, place one of the bins up against the iron node using your hammer tool and resize it (6×6×6 should be more than enough). Then, mine some more iron (place your cursor right above the bin so the iron falls into it). If you're setting up a starterbase, you'll need at least 14 pieces of iron, though more is advised. You should then drag both of your bins to the nearby copper node and repeat the steps you did with the iron node, note youll need to use the empty bin as the now filled iron bin will not accept anything but said resource. Once youve gathered the necessary copper, go to a mountain and mine it until sulfur appears (long yellowish stick-like resource), then drag it over to your bins. You may then proceed to the following section.

Setting up power
You'll now want to set up power. For more advanced sources like reactors consult Guide: Power, this also assumes you brought the necessary resources to build them. If you just need to set up a basic coal setup though, this should suffice. Do note that a basic coal setup will only be enough for a starterbase or for bootstrapping a proper base (eg. you forgot to bring resources from your previous base and must start anew). Start by crafting the following IN ORDER with the resources you just gathered;


 * 1 Extractor
 * 1 Bin
 * 5 Wires
 * 2 BurnerGenerators
 * 1 PowerCell

If you followed the previous section, this should leave you with 9 copper. More than enough for wiring. You'll now set up power generation.

Find a nearby coal node and bring all your newly crafted items to it, be careful not to bin anything as you should now have an empty iron bin! If this happens, you can always click it to take out the item.

Place your extractor on the coal node with the hole (front) side facing  AWAY  from it. If your nodes are close together, you should also be wary of the fact that extractors won't work if they are within 40 studs of another extractor OR on the same node as one (doesn't apply to mountains or the ground).

Resize your bin to 10×10×10 and place it on the extractor's front side. The bin won't fit perfectly but that's okay, as long as the bin is 10×10×10; it should work regardless of where you place it due to it's size.

Attach the BurnerGenerators to the side of the bin (you could also attach them to chutes connected to the bin and place them elsewhere).

All that's left to now do is to place the PowerCell, resize it to 10×10×10, and wire it to the BurnerGenerators (if you played the Tutorial you should know how to do this, if not Guide: Power provides an explanation). You should now mine a piece of coal and drop it into the bin (drag tool while holding CTRL). You should see black smoke emanating from the extractor if you've done everything correctly. Another indication that you've done everything correctly is the PowerCell filling up with power. Don't forget to lock your parts! If you haven't been doing so already, you should really do it now.

Getting Resources
It's now time to get some basic resources, you should start with iron.

Find a nearby iron node and mine some iron from it, then craft the an extractor and a bin. Place the extractor on the iron node the same way you did with the coal extractor for your power setup; front side out, back side in.

You'll now need to configure the extractor by using your hammer tool's configure option. Set MaterialToExtract to Iron in this case.

All that's left to do now is to resize (10×10×10 for maximum storage capacity) and attach the bin, after which you must wire the extractor to your power source for it to work. Although a better storage solution would be nice, attaching and detaching bins will have to do for now.

You should now set up copper, after which you should craft 6 BurnerGenerators. Attach these to your power generation setup. Once this has been completed, set up the following resources;


 * Grass (can be mined from the ground)
 * Stone (can be mined from mountains)
 * Sulfur (can be mined from mountains)
 * Silicon ( can be mined from mountains) 
 * Quartz (can be mined from mountains)

Other resources will be set up later, you only want the bare essentials for now. All that's left to do now is wait until you have a satisfactory amount of each resource. If you used this guide to build a starterbase, you should now proceed to Building A Ship. Otherwise, proceed to the next section. Do note that things will get less hand-holdy from here;

(TIP: If you're getting tired of how dark night is, you could mine for a piece of Ruby and Flint from a mountain. You can then use the flint to smelt sand (drop it on the sand) into glass which you are able to use to craft NightVisionGoggles.)

Expanding your base
After you've set up a basic base, your next goal should be to expand and optimize your resource production. To start though, you should probably sort out storage first as manually attaching and detaching bins each time they are filled is tedious.

Designing a centralized storage solution
The best way to make storage less annoying is to centralize all of it in a single place, then using transporters and filters to sort resources automatically. Another benefit of having centralized storage is easier automation of crafting later on.

You should start by finding a clearing and placing down an iron baseplate. You should then craft enough transporters to cover all your extractors, one filter for each resource you are extracting, and a lot of bins  (and/or pipes/containers if you'll be doing liquids) . The next step is to then build a storage system; this will consist of chutes leading from a transporter to filters, which will sort items and place them into bins (placing bins into lines on chutes is a good approach). If you'd like to more easily distinguish what resources a line contains, a good approach is to paint it and its bins the colour of the resource. If you're colorblind or want absolute specificity, consider using signs as well.

Improving power generation
In this game, power is the capacity to do work. Without it your machines cannot operate. A larger base entails a better power generation method. If you already made a reactor setup in an earlier part of this article as you brought along some resources, you can safely ignore this.

1The reactor is a powerful (and dangerous!) method of generating power. However, its benefits outweigh the risks for a base as it has an incredible power output. A good reactor design will also be able to mitigate most of the risks. You should start by setting up water and uranium extraction (if not available on your planet you can try mining it from other planets in your solar system). You can get water by using pumps on a water source (make sure they're submerged), or by mining ice from mountains then melting it using melters. Consult Guide: Power for instructions on how to build one.

Another option of generating the necessary power to run a large base is deploying a massive solar array in a random region around a neutron star and using relays. Please do note however that other players may be able to leech (you could also try to do this yourself) off of it if they find the relay ID, and having your power generation separated from your base may be either advantageous or disadvantageous depending on circumstance. Other less efficient methods of power generation are also available, though not recommended for a large base; as always, consult Guide: Power.

Resources; refinement and extraction
Resources such as grass are nearly useless on their own. However, they can be crafted into useful resources such as rubber. Doing this by hand would be incredibly tedious though, this is why assemblers exist.

Assuming you have a centralized storage solution, an automated assembly setup should pretty straightforward. Connect the necessary resources to a powered and configured assembler. An efficient setup is to have raw resource chutes on the outside, and crafted resource chutes on the inside leading back to filtering.

(Certain resources like stone or sand can also be refined into other resources using different machines (eg. pulverizer). These shouldn't require much explanation, look at the pages of the respective machines to figure out how they work.)

Resource extraction can be optimized by using MiningLasers instead of extractors; they are 1.5x faster and can be used on the same node. Be wary of the heat they produce, though. You'll need some resources to craft these however, some of which (assuming youve been following the guide) you haven't set up yet. You should now set up all the resources you haven't already.

Finishing off
If you've completed everything up to this point, 🎊 congrats! You have made a base which should last a while. With solid foundations, this should give you a lot of room to expand. Build anything you can imagine! For most players, this should be more than enough; however, some may wish to hold the base for an extended time (eg. faction capital) or feel they need protection. If this describes you, proceed to the next section.

Automated defenses
If you wish to live in the same base for extended periods of time, automated defenses are very important, because you don't want your base to be griefed, do you? There are several ways to protect your base from unwanted visitors.

EnergyShield
EnergyShields are a great way of defending your base against not just energy-based weapons, but Warheads too. Aliens use energy-based weapons, so they're also useful if someone decides to activate an Obelisk in your region for whatever reason. However, they do not work against kinetic weapons or blades.

Turrets
work in progress