[FOR 0.17] Recipe changes to high-tech/prod packs

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Hexicube
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[FOR 0.17] Recipe changes to high-tech/prod packs

Post by Hexicube »

In light of the announced 0.17 science pack tech nodes (for clarity to new players), I have a proposal to go with it for 0.17:

- Production and high-tech packs are made cheaper
- Techs that currently require prod/ht packs become more expensive to compensate; alternatively, make blue packs more expensive
- Various techs that require these packs no longer require blue science packs (electric furnaces, substations, advanced oil - stuff typically researched early on with blue packs)

This has the potential to ease new players into higher level packs more easily, as the main limiting factor in higher tiers is setting up oil processing (for blues) and expensive recipes (for prod/ht). If blues are no longer gating and prod/ht are cheap enough to viably do instead of blues, as well as having nice-to-have mid-game techs like electric furnaces unlocked via these side-grade packs (red+green+prod), interesting choices crop up and there are extra avenues for setting up oil production half-way instead of needing to immediately rush for advanced processing (which could also be locked behind prod packs after this change).

This could also be pushed further, by having military/prod/ht packs be a side-grade pack for each tier. Military becomes an optional additive available right after reds, production after greens, and high-tech after blues. This would require making the military pack technologically cheaper too, possibly by removing the piercing ammo requirement and replacing it with regular ammo.

This additionally has the side-effect of making lubricant (prod packs) relevant earlier, which when combined with using solid fuel for things, would mean that a base could theoretically avoid needing cracking for an extended period of time. This could be made especially true by designing the production pack recipe in such a way where it requires petroleum gas and heavy oil in the same ratio that basic oil processing provides, leaving the light oil to be used as a fuel additive for power or trains. Doing this would alleviate the current difficulty spike with learning oil production, as you can just directly hook up the outputs instead of needing to buffer and crack, at least until you hit blue packs. A possible production pack recipe that would ratio match basic oil processing is steel furnace + electric engine + advanced circuit.

Even if this is only done for production packs, it has the potential to help ease new players into oil production, as the above trick would simplify an initial setup to the point where a new player could probably put something down without a ton of hassle and fretting over build-up.

Jap2.0
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Re: [FOR 0.17] Recipe changes to high-tech/prod packs

Post by Jap2.0 »

Don't make blue science more difficult or expensive.
There are 10 types of people: those who get this joke and those who don't.

bobucles
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Re: [FOR 0.17] Recipe changes to high-tech/prod packs

Post by bobucles »

Don't make the green tech tier even larger than it already is. Green tech already fills half of the tech tree.

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