Episode 26 is a recorded episode, and it opens on a much busier rail network. More trains have been added off camera, split into two routes, and a passenger train now runs between stops. The plan for the video is set out early: push the defenses forward, fortify the area by the water, and build "a big steam engine thing" there. By the end a new steam power station runs beside the lake, a coal train keeps it fed, and nothing is researching.
Two routes and a passenger train
The trains were "a huge clustered mess," so they now run in two directions, and refueling is less of a bottleneck, though "it's still a bottleneck." The passenger train loops between two stops and picks up fuel on the way. Power is running short as more of the defenses switch to laser turrets.
A quick round of fixes follows. The wall line is slow because coal was being fed into it by mistake ("I didn't realize I was putting in coal and messing this whole thing up"), so stone gets belted in instead. At the oil works, a chemical plant's recipe turns out to take light oil and water, so Basket switches it over and pipes water to it.
Marching the laser turrets
With "almost fifty" laser turrets on hand, Basket rides a train down to the southern defenses. The wall there holds, so the next step is to go after the nests beyond it. Power poles go forward, then a cluster of laser turrets, then the next cluster. "This is sort of my way of doing combat, is sort of slowly marching laser turrets a little further and further." When the nests nearby are gone, Basket repairs the damaged turrets with a repair hotkey.
Laying out the station
Next is the lakeshore. After clearing trees, Basket checks the crafting menu for landfill to straighten the coast, does not find it, and works around the shoreline. Boilers and steam engines are set out in a test layout, with an offshore pump at the water and room to run coal "down every other" row.
The coal has to arrive by rail, so more forest comes down for a loop of track with a drop-off stop long enough to fit a whole train on the straight. Signals go in at the junctions, and a new passenger stop, PassengerStop-SouthWest1, is added to the passenger train's schedule.
Coal by train
Short on pipe, belts and inserters, Basket rides the passenger train to the manufacturing stop and back. "This is a lot better than running around." The commentary notices a kill count on the passenger trains, since "they can run over stuff."
Back at the lake, steam engines go down in rows, and the coal train's schedule gets a new PowerPlant stop that waits for the cargo to empty. Inserters fill a row of chests from the wagons as a buffer, and more inserters feed the boilers. One row runs at lower performance at first, so Basket adds extra boilers as a test, watches the temperature reach 100, and takes them back out: "it was a good test."
Where it ends
After a cut it is daytime, with more of the station built. With the electric network window open, the commentary reports that "during the night typically there was enough power," with dips when the laser turrets fire. Turrets go in along the open top edge of the station, and the coal train pulls in to unload. Then it is a ride home on the passenger train, which does something odd at one junction: "I'm not sure why it didn't go straight through in that one spot." The research box still reads "Press T to start a new research." The video ends on the train, rolling past a solar field.
