[Smelting] Some back of the napkin calculations

[longtomjr]

Good day folks.
I was having trouble validating the use of Angel's Smelting options, so I did some math.
This is the basis that I was working from. Getting 1750 Iron Per Minute.

Now for this calculation I was trying to focus on Initial Iron cost. So for argument's sake I am ignoring power usage for now, but it is obvious that power usage can result in a big problem.
Here follows some math:

Code: Select all

11 x Ore Processing (10)
6 x Pellet Press (10)
32 x Blast Furnace (55) (10 steel = 50 iron + 5 from pipes) (10 steel = 20 iron if `bobmods.config.plates.CheaperSteel = true` in bobconfig [Default])
52 x Induction Furnace (10)
78 x Casting Machines (10)

So adding this all up:
(11x10)+(6x10)+(32x55)+(52x10)+(75x10) = 3230 Iron

When cheaper steel is on:
(11x10)+(6x10)+(32x25)+(52x10)+(75x10) = 2210 Iron

So from the above calculations there is a 3230 initial iron cost. This is a lot of iron!
So lets calculate how much time it would take for the setup to pay for itself with the extra iron you will get from it:

Code: Select all

933 ore gives 1750 iron.
1750 - 933 = 817 iron gained per minute
3230 / 817 = 3.95
So it will take approx. 4 min. to pay for the initial investment! (with cheaper steel off)

I think that the iron cost is well worth it, especially if you start small and scale it up.
The other thing that you need to consider is energy cost, inserter's iron and energy cost and space.
My hunch is that he inserter's iron cost will be covered in at least 2 - 5 min. extra.
So there is 3 variables that we still need to account for:
- Energy Cost
- Space
- Build time
To quantify those three is difficult, but energy cost seems the most straight forward. Space and Build time can also be a deal breakers, depending on the situation and the value that the player attach to it.

If you want to, please go over my calculations and tell me where I messed up. I plan to do power calculations soonish as well, and will post them in the topic when I get around to it.

My conclusion is this: It is worth it from a iron standpoint, but the space and build time is pretty hard deal breakers for me. The infrastructure needed to support that amount of power is also insane, and pollution will be out the wazoo. For me, I don't think I will use these yet, Maybe I will for steel production, but some math will need to be done before I commit to that.

Also, I heard in the pipeline (and because the smelting mod is relatively new) that there will be balance changes. I cannot confirm yet, but it make sense. I hope to use this topic as a way to help Angel when deciding on where to balance.

Kind Regards
Longtomjr

Edit: Added calculations for cheaper steal true

[septemberWaves]

Either Bob's mods or Angel's mods (or maybe another mod I'm using but I'm reasonably sure it's one of those two since other people seem to experience this as well) changes steel cost to be 2 iron instead of 5. This would mean that all machines costing steel have a lesser initial iron cost than you calculated, and the setup regenerates the initial cost even quicker.

[longtomjr]

Either Bob's mods or Angel's mods (or maybe another mod I'm using but I'm reasonably sure it's one of those two since other people seem to experience this as well) changes steel cost to be 2 iron instead of 5. This would mean that all machines costing steel have a lesser initial iron cost than you calculated, and the setup regenerates the initial cost even quicker.

Ty fixed

[septemberWaves]

If you consider all of the belts/pipes/inserters/power poles that are required for a large metallurgy setup the initial cost does increase significantly. I've been using rows of 10:5:30:48:72 Mk1 machines to produce a full red belt of iron for each array, and each array takes over a thousand belts (about half of which are red) and several hundred inserters. I do use copper pipes because they help to offset the cost between the two major metals, but there's still significant amounts of iron being used for the infrastructure needed to run the machines. Even so, they pay for themselves within minutes.

Space cost is probably the biggest concern regarding metallurgy setups. The initial cost for the machines may be rather large (especially for an end-game array of Mk4 machines outputting a full purple belt) but the biggest issue is fitting it all somewhere. I get the feeling that when I reach the end-game I'll have to split up the metallurgy arrays into several different locations (linked by train) because the arrays will be so big (although a Mk4 setup for a purple belt takes fewer machines than a Mk1 setup for a red belt), and they'll definitely have to be somewhere different than the initial ore refining because that in itself requires a lot of space. There is also the secondary resource requirements to consider - the fact that most metals need some secondary input to catalyze the smelting process means that those setups will be even bigger (although, other than chlorine and NaOH, most of the secondary inputs use relatively small machines).

Overall I think the question of whether advanced metallurgy is always worth doing comes down to how much the player values compact setups, since the resource benefit alone makes them a must-have (even the lowest tier for rare resources like gold provides a reasonable improvement compared to conventional 1:1 processing). Even the most compact possible arrays for ore processing and metallurgy (and really anything efficient in Angel's mods) are either pointlessly slow or excessively large. But the world is infinite (or near enough) and the rewards for maximum-tier refinement processes are enormous, so for me at least they're a huge priority.



Additionally, regarding steel production, I don't think it's worth it if you have whichever mod changes steel plates to cost 2 iron instead of 5. I did some calculations in a spreadsheet and the iron plate:steel plate ratio appears to be 2:1 with the maximum refinement process. If the steel cost was like the base game (and I wish it still was but I think it's Bob's mods that change it so I can't really remove them) this would be very much worth it since you'd get 2.5 times as much steel as usual. But as it is there's not really much point. Using metallurgic processing for the iron and then putting it into normal furnaces for steel would be worth it though; if I'm not mistaken that converts iron ore to steel plates with an excellent ratio of 16:15.

[Light]

If the steel cost was like the base game (and I wish it still was but I think it's Bob's mods that change it so I can't really remove them) this would be very much worth it since you'd get 2.5 times as much steel as usual. But as it is there's not really much point.

In Bob's Plates, the data-updates lua has the following:



You may revert the 2 back into a 5 to keep it at vanilla value.

[nagapito]

Additionally, regarding steel production, I don't think it's worth it if you have whichever mod changes steel plates to cost 2 iron instead of 5. I did some calculations in a spreadsheet and the iron plate:steel plate ratio appears to be 2:1 with the maximum refinement process. If the steel cost was like the base game (and I wish it still was but I think it's Bob's mods that change it so I can't really remove them) this would be very much worth it since you'd get 2.5 times as much steel as usual. But as it is there's not really much point. Using metallurgic processing for the iron and then putting it into normal furnaces for steel would be worth it though; if I'm not mistaken that converts iron ore to steel plates with an excellent ratio of 16:15.

You spreadsheet is wrong then. You need 1066.7 iron ore to make 1000 steel bars.
In rough numbers, the ratio is 1:1 which makes it a very good investment for cheaper steel. If vanilla steel... Its almost mandatory to use!

And for the Bob's steel recipe, just disable the cheap steel recipe in bobs configs options.

[Arch666Angel]

in smelting 0.2 the ratio from iron ingots to steel ingots is 5 to 1, but I also did this:

Code: Select all

	if bobmods.plates.CheaperSteel == true then
		data.raw.recipe["ingot-iron-smelting"].results={{type="item", name="ingot-steel", amount=12}}
	end

So with bobs cheaper steel activated iron to steel ingot ratio is 2 to 1