See, that’s because it’s not March yet.

On the upside, I’m basically at the point of starting the Supercomputers (And Friends) factory build. I even know where I’m building it… as of, like, a couple of days ago. So it’s time for the weekly progress report!

As of this morning (8 Feb 2026) all of the component parts for the big factory build are in production. Plastic, Rubber, Copper Sheets, and Quickwire come from the worksite I built this weekend. Heat Sinks, Aluminum Casings, Silica, Motors, and Crystal Oscillators will be freighted in from their individual factories at various desert locations. When the whole big fancy project is running at full capacity, I’ll be making:

• Radio Control Units and Cooling Systems at 2 per minute. This is additional production beyond what’s required for…
• Turbo Motors at 2 per minute. And yes, I still initially type the name as Turbomotor. I don’t know why I got that concatenation stuck in my head as the part’s name but well, here I am with my wonky brainmeats.
• High-Speed Connectors at 5 per minute. This is additional production beyond what’s required for…
• Supercomputers at 5 per minute.

Those may seem like rookie numbers but don’t be fooled. Most of those items are plenty difficult enough to make at one per minute, let alone several. The added logistical challenge of doing all of this under one roof will probably keep me busy for most of the rest of the month.

(Side note: I still need to sort out Fused Modular Frames. Sigh. The good news is that they only require three ingredients. The bad news is that I will need to up my production of all three before taking on that build. And yes, that’s the non-Supercomputer item I need to get past the next Milestone. Double sigh. I’m going to need lots of them in the long run, which is the main reason why I didn’t try to roll that project into this project.)

As part of this weekend’s build project I ended up making another modular blueprint group. This one lifts a single item from “ground level” to whatever end height I need. It’s the “cliff scaling” conveyor belt lift solution, basically.

Yes, I know: Most sane normal people are okay with naked conveyor belts and conveyor lifts just out there in the world, same as how they’re not allergic to normal power poles and lots of exposed power wires. I am… not those people. Obviously. Which is how I end up with things like this:

That’s a base with entry port, several stacked intermediate pieces, and a top piece for the exit port. All to route a conveyor belt lift up a cliffside despite the fact that even I myself will probably never have to look at it again once this build’s finished. (Some other day I’ll make the “going down?” version, if it ever becomes an issue.) Building this got me more experience with the Blueprint Designer, which is always good for some “the hard way” kind of learning. Hey, folks! Be very, very certain which blueprint you’re deleting out of your library before you confirm! Ask me how I learned this!

Also, the Designer doesn’t like it when you try to load in a blueprint, vertically nudge it downward, and then perform edits. If the “empty space” clips through the Designer’s boundaries it won’t throw an error… but it acts like there’s nothing in the Designer’s workspace so you can’t save your new blueprint. It’s finicky that way.

I’ll tack on a beginner-ish tip: If you’re making, say, 800+ per minute of something but only have Mk5 belts which top out at 780 items per minute, and you want to load up one freight platform at a train station, worry not! Just use two Mk5 or even Mk4 belts, subdivide the source machinery’s output to route more-or-less evenly to those two belts, feed both into an Industrial Storage Bin, and route both outputs of that bin into the station’s two ports. Easy peasy! (Industrial Storage Bins, in addition to their primary job, also function as a two-to-one belt merger and one-to-two belt splitter. This becomes handy in the oddest of situations…)

The “use both ports” trick for train platforms also works great for unloading a delivery platform at top speed.

At any rate, that’s my progress report for the week. Next time… maybe Supercomputers? Possibly? Hopefully? (Please?!?)