Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Change the recipe for the Rocket Control Unit because it is the same <main> ingredients as Yellow Science.

What ?

I am building my first ‘mega base’ and I was considering ways to dissect the needs of production into efficient factories. It dawned on me that the Rocket Control Units are very similar to Yellow Science. I made an account to post this and I also searched the forums and I did not find any discussion about this topic.

The current ingredients for the Rocket Control Unit needed for creating rockets to launch satellites is Blue Boards + Speed Module. These are also the same main ingredients for Yellow Science vials. (Batteries and copper wire are much easier to manufacture so are not the ‘main’ focus for the Yellow factories.)

I was thinking that it might make sense to change up the Rocket Control Unit recipe. I noticed that the red Electric Engine Units are only needed for purple science and bots (I think). And wouldn’t efficiency Modules make more sense for a rocket?

I think that since it is an end game item and represents the complexity of creating a rocket, the ingredients should reflect that and be similarly complex.
So, I propose that the recipe for the Rocket Control Unit changes to Blue Boards + Red Electric Units + Efficiency Module.

Why ?

I think this would improve Factorio in a couple of ways. 1) – It would give the player a reason to create efficiency modules en mass. Right now, speed and productivity modules are heavily used for recipes and factories, but efficiency modules are not normally used for much (in my experience). 2) –The Electric Engine Units sound awesome but they are not used for very much. I produce them for Purple Science and bots, but I kind of expect them to be utilized more often. I would think that a rocket that deploys a satellite would have a need for a couple electric motors. 3) – It would change up the Control Unit recipe so that it is not so similar to Yellow Science. Right now, I could copy-paste my Yellow science factory and only change a couple of things at the end to create Rocket Control Modules.

I want to say that I have put 100’s of hours into Factorio and it is an amazing game! Change this or not and I am still excited to see what else gets added and I look forward to the next release. Thanks for such a great game!

Yes, Speed Module 1 are overused as ingredient.
Changing RCU or yellow science to efficiency or productivity module wouldn't change anything for me though. My designs take the much more common rgb circuits as input and produce required modules on site.

0.17 does plan to change a few recipes.
I believe that science packs will have a complete overhaul. As highlighted in previous FFFs, each pack will be unlocked via it's own science research, and recipes may be tweaked to be appropriate for that stage in the game.
Also highlighted in a different FFF, the rocket technology has been broken down into stages, so you can research rocket fuel for use in vehicles, or even making steam power without researching anything else related to the rocket if you like.

Although I don't recall it being specifically mentioned in the FFFs, these two overhauls may include recipe changes for balancing.

But yeah, Personally I hate using modules in recipes, that's the sort of thing I usually change in my mods.

Rocket Control Units are basically space computers.
Why would they need electric engines?

Modules are magic anyway and rgb units are just electronics.