Ore Sorting and the new "Expensive" recipe mode

[spitfire_23]

Hey, I'm doing a playthough of all Angel's mods with the new Marathon-esque game settings introduced in 0.15 for expensive recipes and technologies. It seems that in this mode Ore Sorting is now much worse than directly smelting crushed ore, because e.g. Saphirite sorting requires 6 crushed Saphirite to make 2 iron ore.

Is there a mod or setting I can look at to restore the correct behavior, where ore sorting is better than smelting crushed ore?

[BlakeMW]

Marathon:

2 Raw Ore -> 2 Crushed Ore

Crushing:
5 Crushed Ore -> 2 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.4 Plates

Basic Sorting:
6 Crushed Ore -> 3 Refined ore
5 Refined Ore -> 3 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.3 Plates

Ingot Smelting:
24 Refined Ore -> 24 Ingots
12 Ingots -> 120 Molten Metal
50 Molten Metal -> 4 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.4 Plates

Smelting Crushed Ore creates 33% more plates than smelting refined ore, and the same as smelting ingots.

Normal:

2 Raw Ore -> 2 Crushed Ore

Crushing:
3 Crushed Ore -> 2 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.666 Plates

Basic Sorting:
4 Crushed Ore -> 3 Refined Ore
4 Refined Ore -> 3 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.5625 Plates

Ingot Smelting:
24 Refined Ore -> 24 Ingots
12 Ingots -> 120 Molten Metal
40 Molten Metal -> 4 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.75 Plates

Smelting Crushed Ore creates 18.5% more plates than smelting refined ore, and 11% less than smelting ingots.

Ultimate conclusion: in neither mode is sorting alone worth doing compared with just crushing (unless you want the secondary ore or slag), in normal mode it's an improvement to do ingot smelting, but in expensive mode you need to go up to ore processing stage before you get an improvement over mere crushing.

On expensive mode the magnitude of the disimprovement from sorting combined with not getting any benefit out of doing ingot smelting is a bit suspect.

[Arch666Angel]

Thanks for doing the math. Seems it should have been 5:1 for the expensive raw to plate recipe.

On a note expensive ratios are open to change and suggestions, I added them where they made sense in context of how the recipe chains work.

[mtilsted]

Thanks for doing the math. Seems it should have been 5:1 for the expensive raw to plate recipe.

On a note expensive ratios are open to change and suggestions, I added them where they made sense in context of how the recipe chains work.

I really don't think the 5:1 ratio work in marathon mode. It takes so very very long to get started with that mode. It does now require mining 150 ore, just to get the next miner -(

And you can help a bit by doing it by hand with a pick, but half the resources you mine by hand are used just to build the pick.

I really think you should swap back to a 5:2 ratio, or maybe 3:1 and then maybe buff ingot->iron plates by 15% to make it more attractive in marathon.

Alternate if you insist on keeping 5:1 is to start the game with 6 miners instead of 1, so the first hour of the game is not spent just to get 6 miners.

[mrvn]

Marathon:

Ultimate conclusion: in neither mode is sorting alone worth doing compared with just crushing (unless you want the secondary ore or slag), in normal mode it's an improvement to do ingot smelting, but in expensive mode you need to go up to ore processing stage before you get an improvement over mere crushing.

But usually you can use the secondary ore. For example copper is quite useful as side product of iron. So what is the ratio if you crush and sort Sapharite and Stiratite. Should give a 50% boost for the output, or 1 Crushed ore -> 0.45 Plates in marathon and 1 Curshd ore -> 0.84375 Plates in mormal mode, right?
The limitations would be that you can only vary the ratio between 2:1 (100% Sapharite) and 1:2 (100% Stiratite) and you need 2 crushing/sorting/smelting chains. Anything outside that range you have to make up with direct crushing.

Aside from that isn't the benefit of basic sorting the speed?

[acraftyhippo]

Marathon:

2 Raw Ore -> 2 Crushed Ore

Crushing:
5 Crushed Ore -> 2 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.4 Plates

Basic Sorting:
6 Crushed Ore -> 3 Refined ore
5 Refined Ore -> 3 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.3 Plates

Ingot Smelting:
24 Refined Ore -> 24 Ingots
12 Ingots -> 120 Molten Metal
50 Molten Metal -> 4 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.4 Plates

Smelting Crushed Ore creates 33% more plates than smelting refined ore, and the same as smelting ingots.

Normal:

2 Raw Ore -> 2 Crushed Ore

Crushing:
3 Crushed Ore -> 2 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.666 Plates

Basic Sorting:
4 Crushed Ore -> 3 Refined Ore
4 Refined Ore -> 3 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.5625 Plates

Ingot Smelting:
24 Refined Ore -> 24 Ingots
12 Ingots -> 120 Molten Metal
40 Molten Metal -> 4 Plates
1 Crushed Ore -> 0.75 Plates

Smelting Crushed Ore creates 18.5% more plates than smelting refined ore, and 11% less than smelting ingots.

Ultimate conclusion: in neither mode is sorting alone worth doing compared with just crushing (unless you want the secondary ore or slag), in normal mode it's an improvement to do ingot smelting, but in expensive mode you need to go up to ore processing stage before you get an improvement over mere crushing.

On expensive mode the magnitude of the disimprovement from sorting combined with not getting any benefit out of doing ingot smelting is a bit suspect.

if you want to increase the production of a single material such as iron this will actually result in a net loss.

[mrvn]

Ultimate conclusion: in neither mode is sorting alone worth doing compared with just crushing (unless you want the secondary ore or slag), in normal mode it's an improvement to do ingot smelting, but in expensive mode you need to go up to ore processing stage before you get an improvement over mere crushing.

On expensive mode the magnitude of the disimprovement from sorting combined with not getting any benefit out of doing ingot smelting is a bit suspect.

if you want to increase the production of a single material such as iron this will actually result in a net loss.

But generally you do need the secondary ore. Especially the iron/copper combination will use most if not all the copper right from the start. Could you update those numbers including the secondary ore (maybe in parens) please.

And hey, nothing wrong with sorting being worse if you don't need the secondary ore. That's a puzzle. You can use the sorting method till the secondary ore backs up and then use the direct method.

[Astrella]

But generally you do need the secondary ore. Especially the iron/copper combination will use most if not all the copper right from the start. Could you update those numbers including the secondary ore (maybe in parens) please.

And hey, nothing wrong with sorting being worse if you don't need the secondary ore. That's a puzzle. You can use the sorting method till the secondary ore backs up and then use the direct method.

Their calculations did include that; they're counting all the plate types. Like, Saphirite for example returns a 2:1 ratio of iron to copper plates through sorting.

So like, say sending 1 Crushed Saphirite and 1 Crushed Stiratite through basic sorting gives you 0.5625 Iron plates, 0.5625 Copper Plates and some Slag. Directly smeling the crushed ore gives you 0.66.. Iron Plates and 0.66 Copper Plates. So until you can do something with the slag just smelting the crushed is better.