My problem is this.

I need yellow science. Yellow science needs lubricant. Lubricant needs lithium. My Cerys has a single lithium brine node, and it is out of the range of any heating towers. Thus, my only option is to thaw it with heat from the reactor.

Which means I need plutonium. And I need enough of it to constantly be running the reactor.

I have spent many, many hours attempting different methods of manipulating the particles to convert my U-238 into plutonium at a fast enough clip to keep the reactor running. I've tried funnels, spirals, circles, and long hallways. I've tried circuit setups that progressively change the rods' polarities to make a sort of revolving door that allows particles into my cage but not out. I've tried manipulating the particles up close to the rods, and using their subtler influences from farther away.

I cannot for the life of me get more than one or two particles hitting my U-238 chests at any given moment, and usually it doesn't even have one. It's not nearly enough to run the reactor on, even with fuel recycling. The particles all eventually accumulate enough speed to escape entirely, and for every one I am able to funnel in, my setup ends up bouncing three away in the opposite direction.

Has anyone managed to get a setup consistent enough to run the reactor?

If so, by the Spaghetti Gods, please tell me how.

Hello there! I expect you will be satisfied with the recently released Cerys v4.0, which revamped this gameplay by providing a testing entity you can use to optimize your plutonium farm design in much less time. The dynamics of charged particles was also changed to be less dependent on short-range collisions with charging rods and so easier to predict.

That sounds great! I'll update and check it out.

How did it go?

Fairly well, I approve of the changes you made to the tech tree, though I notice what might have been an oversight in one of them.

Hydrogen bomb requires atomic bomb requires explosives requires coal. And we can't get or make coal on Cerys.

As far as particle manipulation goes, I think it's better than it was, but honestly I have not played with it nearly as much as I did the previous version. Thanks for your responsiveness!

Yep, that issue was fixed in the launch day patch, v4.1. I am glad to hear I am always one day ahead of your concerns so far!

Let me know your thoughts when you have some time to experiment.

Heya!

The ghost particle generator is a nice touch. Good addition, there.

Tech tree, no complaints now.

I had a chance to toy with the particle mechanic a bit more. I can't say it's any easier or more predictable than it was before. The change to the ranges was noticeable, but I am still having the same problems of them being too fast, or deflecting at weird angles, etc. I don't know that there's necessarily a glitch or something working in an improper way, so much as it is that the way it is set up seems to resist any kind of automation.

It's entirely possible that I'm just going about this the wrong way, though, so I'm very open to being corrected here.

The way I envisioned this was that I could build a funnel shape of positive and/or negative rods to kind of push the particles together into one space. From there, I could either put them into a circular shape that would cycle them around and around, or at least funnel them all through a small area to hit as many chests as possible.

The issue I run into is that even before they get into the small space, the particles that the funnel catches tend to end up at extreme angles and end up charging right through my "bumper" towers and out of the setup, or they hit at such an oblique angle that the bumper positive towers decelerate them entirely and they die. The only particles that consistently make it into the setup at such an angle that they hit a fair number of chests were the ones that were already coming in at that angle. I end up with a setup that is barely, if at all, more efficient than just leaving it open with no charging towers.

I feel like the design of this is pushing toward a particular type of setup, but I cannot see any indication of what that setup should be. I've used circuits to kind of alternate them and make a revolving door, as I'd mentioned, but just like before, for every particle they usher in, they deflect 2 or 3, or facilitate the escape of another.

Do you have any specific advice for building a setup that will consistently funnel particles into my uranium storage?

The designs I used in the testing phase work a bit differently to pre-Version 4. Hopefully, it takes just takes a bit of adjustment to find them, and they are not the only possible designs. The important fact is that since the particles are deflected over longer distances, the designs are generally a bit bigger and rely less on particle collision trajectories with individual charging rods.