Factorio Forums

I've been looking around trying to figure out what I would think is a rather simple gameplay mechanic. I did a search and sadly 'time' didn't reveal much as it picked everything with time in it.

So the simple question. What exactly is 1 unit of time in the game? Because there are a lot of recipes that have like 1 time or 15 time or 30 time. This seems to be somewhat consistent throughout the game but I can't for the life of me work out what 1 'time' is actually supposed to be. At least the baseline of what it is supposed to be. If there is even a base universal time unit in the game or does every base 'time' mean something different?

It would be really helpful if someone who manages the wiki added an entry for time as it is literally all over the game. But without a baseline value or something to compare against you really don't know what 30 time means or 5 time. Would be really nice to know what it means. Thanks!

This "15" or "30" has the unit "seconds"... just stand besides and watch it, then you see it.

Thank you, it didn't actually seem to match up with seconds that was where I was getting confused.

Note that the time displayed in the recipes only equates to seconds if you're crafting yourself or using assembling machines 1 (I think). Later-tier assembling machines or ones with speed modules are considerably faster.

It feels more like 0.5 seconds per unit to me. The time displayed in the tooltip does not factor in sub-components you already have in your inventory, only making the entire product from raw ingredients (that don't need smelted first).

If you are using god controller (sandbox),or playing some special campaign, stuff may be crafted faster.

I have to admit, that for some historical reasons (balancing before values were in lua files), there is 1.8 of crafting time done per second for the player.
In other words, time 1 = 1/1.8 = 0.555
So crafting time 1 = 0.55 seconds.

We have to fix this somehow.

kovarex wrote:I have to admit, that for some historical reasons (balancing before values were in lua files), there is 1.8 of crafting time done per second for the player.
In other words, time 1 = 1/1.8 = 0.555
So crafting time 1 = 0.55 seconds.

We have to fix this somehow.

Ahh see that's where I was getting confused. I thought "okay 1 second made sense" but when I actually timed it, it was going much faster. And it seemed somewhat inconsistent. Obviously it's hard to time exactly but I was curious as to why it seemed to be inconsistent. Perhaps if possible add something somewhere in one of the menus (perhaps the crafting menu) that states what the current 1 TU (Time unit) is in seconds factoring in whatever mods/etc you have. Not withstanding extra mats you might have.

It's not only the times. Another big field is to see, what is needed to produce something. Think for an part of an tree, which you can follow and see the next 2 or 3 levels. Same for research.