[0.10.2][kovarex] sience packs disappear

[BurnHard]

One idea i had was to handle science packs like fuel items and science labs as "burners"

Eg Science lab takes one science pack 1, uses it and gets a bar of "red science" just like a burner does with coal.

As long as something (which needs red science packs) is researched, the bar decreases, just like eg smelting iron. When the research is completed, the bar stops decreasing. But the current status is "saved" when finished, just like in a smelter. For each science pack 1-4 a seperate bar exists. So if research 1 needed a alien pack and only uses half of it in all the science labs, the "alien scienpack pack fuel bar^^" stays at 50% and just stays there until another science project is started which uses that bar.

This would allow of balancing the reseach costs easier and no packs would disappear between researches. Lab efficiency and speed modules would just be more visible by increasing research power eg, drowning that bar faster. Effectivity modules would work like enlarging the bar or make it more dense.

(For balancing, treat research time a tech needs as research-Megajoule, and each science lab produces a certain amount of science-power-kW, fueled by science packs^^)

Would be nice to get some feedback

[kovarex]

I like this idea, it makes it all much more precise.

[BurnHard]

...happy to hear that.

[Shaymes]

is there no way that a lab stop progress bar if a research is done and continue woriking with new research? like a mining drill that cant unload the ore?



edit: err just read BurnHard post i like that too

[Nova]

I don't like wasted ressources. Even more because we don't have unlimited ressources, but finite fields. Also i don't think it adds anything useful to the game. If you really think that's the right way, make a poll.

[HeilTec]

One idea i had was to handle science packs like fuel items and science labs as "burners"

Eg Science lab takes one science pack 1, uses it and gets a bar of "red science" just like a burner does with coal.
(...)
Would be nice to get some feedback

That is a brilliant and logical solution. I would like to see that implemented - sometime.

Until then some fiddling with the number of active labs is needed to avoid waste.

In the early game a simple way to balance the labs would be to use 5 or 10 labs only.
Later when all research needing less than 50 units have been finished (or not needed) then perhaps 25 or 50 labs?
Productivity modules will make the numbers harder to calculate and often result in a fractional count of labs
Use of smart inserters controlled by the contents of a smart chest (adjusted between research of different demands) may be the only choice for 100% loss-less research.

[SilverWarior]

[quote="BurnHard"]Eg Science lab takes one science pack 1, uses it and gets a bar of "red science" just like a burner does with coal.

As long as something (which needs red science packs) is researched, the bar decreases, just like eg smelting iron. When the research is completed, the bar stops decreasing. But the current status is "saved" when finished, just like in a smelter. For each science pack 1-4 a seperate bar exists. So if research 1 needed a alien pack and only uses half of it in all the science labs, the "alien scienpack pack fuel bar^^" stays at 50% and just stays there until another science project is started which uses that bar. [*/quote]

That is basically just what I wanted to suggest.
The only additional chagne I would like to see is that lab can start research even if it only has red bar partially ful and all othes empty despite that technology you are researching reqoures both red and green science packs.
Another advantage that this would bring is that technologies cour now require diferent amounts of different science packs (10 red science packs and 5 green).

[Calico]

I like this direction. While a few wasted science packs don't hurt anyone in a normal game, i can foresee several maps with low biter counts that make science pack mk IV very costly in terms of time.

[Turtle]

So after some thinking I have to say, that the current behavior should be kept as it is.

• Solution1: only labs needed to finish the research start working, the rest of the labs will stay idle, so when you have 15 labs and 10 unit to finish the research, 10 labs will work, 5 will stay idle. The problem of this is, that sometimes, some of the labs could not get the science packs, so it could happen that these not-supplied labs will block the research from being finished. The same applied with lack of electricity etc. It would cause a lot of confusion, and players would post bug reports like "Labs not working".
• Solution2: Refund the science packs of labs that have work in progress when the research is finished. The problem of this solution is, that as we have the bonus production available, it would allow in some cases, to get the bonus production research, while keeping the science packs.
  The extreme case is a modded game, that allows modules to give more than 100% bonus (might expensive etc.), as long as you would have enough labs, it would make all the research for free.

As the extra consumed science packs can be just regarded as the waste caused by massive research (5 scientist don't research 5 times the science ^^) and game mechanics, we will leave it as it is, so I'm moving it to not a bug until there is some good counter argument

IMHO, solution 1 is the cleanest and most elegant option. Solution 2 can create exploits with researching things that require only red science packs and having it complete before all labs finish, then using the remaining progress on something more expensive that require alien science pack.

[DaveMcW]

As the extra consumed science packs can be just regarded as the waste caused by massive research (5 scientist don't research 5 times the science ^^) and game mechanics, we will leave it as it is, so I'm moving it to not a bug until there is some good counter argument

If there is a way to work around the waste with micromanagement, players will end up doing it. As an example, Civilization 1, Civilzation 2, and Civilzation 3 would waste excess resources (shields) every time a project finished. Therefore the "best" players would micromange their cities every time a project was about to finish, and switch production from shields to food. Saving the extra shields instead of wasting them was one of the most celebrated features of Civilization 4.

Factorio is a real-time game unlike Civilization, so extreme micromanagement to eliminate all waste is not possible. But if it is possible to get an advantage from micromanaging waste, the "best" players will do it, and the players who hate micromanagement will complain about it. If you want Factorio to be a competitive game, this is not the kind of competition you should promote.

Solution1: only labs needed to finish the research start working, the rest of the labs will stay idle, so when you have 15 labs and 10 unit to finish the research, 10 labs will work, 5 will stay idle. The problem of this is, that sometimes, some of the labs could not get the science packs, so it could happen that these not-supplied labs will block the research from being finished. The same applied with lack of electricity etc. It would cause a lot of confusion, and players would post bug reports like "Labs not working".

Blocked labs and power loss are easy to fix, just pick 10 new labs to continue researching. It is fine to waste a science pack in that situation. The only thing you need to avoid is starting research with 15 "healthy" labs at the same time.

[HeilTec]

To anyone familiar with javascript this 'pseudo-code' express my thoughts as best I can:

Code: Select all

function findPoweredLabsWithPacks() {
  var lab, labs = findAllLabs();
  var ready = [];
  for (lab in labs) {
  	if (lab.hasPower() && lab.inventory.contains(currentResearch.packsNeeded))
  		ready.push(lab)
  }
  return ready;
}

function startNewResearch() {
  var labs = findPoweredLabsWithPacks();
  var needed = currentResearch.getNeededCount();
  var active = 0;
  for (lab in labs) {
    if active < needed {
      lab.startResearch()
      active += 1;
    }
  }
}

If this makes no sense please pardon my French.

[Blackence]

How about this: Instead of taking the science packs from the lab's inventory when a "lab processing period" starts, why not take them at the end of the period? As soon as a lab is placed and connected to energy, the bar in the lab GUI would start to fill up and stop right at 100%. At that point, the lab needs science packs as required for the currently active research, consumes them and awards research progress and possibly the researched technology atomically (well, as atomically as it can get), resetting the lab GUI bar to 0% so it can slowly progress towards 100% again. If there's no active research (e.g. because it has been completed 0.01ms ago by some other lab), the lab just stops at 100% and waits for new research to be started, even when it's full of science packs.

Of course, this would introduce another issue with research speed, because the current research (and therefore current research speed) may change during a research period. I don't think that's a problem anyone would care about though. The research speed for the first "lab processing period" would be wrong in some cases.


I prefer BurnHard's idea because it's continuous, but this might be easier to implement.

Is it just me or is the dark text on dark grey background in this textarea a little hard to read? Hm. I should probably find that forum theme thread.

[Lilrock]

I would like to have this issue fixed. Because of this, I won't be able to automate the science packs into the labs with assurance that I'm not losing any materials.

I have a nice setup too. I was reading a Reddit post about having troubles with the speed modules in the labs, but that was a while ago and assume that it was fixed.

Factorio_Lab_Placement.png (2.28 MiB) Viewed 3444 times

[kovarex]

Actually, this is solved for 0.12.

Lab research is now continuous. Science packs have progress bars of usage. This means that 20 labs doing research with 10 units will still be faster than 10 labs and the science packs aren't wasted.