[2.0.15] Fish Breeding and Nutrients from Fish Lack Correct Module Support
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2024 10:23 am
The Bug:
The Fish Breeding recipe (2 fish + 100 nutrients + 100 water = 3 fish) lacks both productivity and quality module support (trying to put a quality module on says "Quality modules cannot be used on this recipe", trying to put a productivity module on says "Productivity module can only be used on intermediate products."). The nutrients from fish recipe lacks productivity support and without it isn't useful.
TL;DR:
Either the lack of production/qual module support on these recipes is a bug (in which case it should be fixed) or it is intentional to prevent infinite nutrients (in which case I argue that even an infinite nutrient loop would be balanced).
Nutrients from fish:
1. "Productivity modules only work on intermediate products." Nutrients are an intermediate product--productivity modules work on spoilage->nutrients, mash->nutrients, bioflux->nutrients, even biter eggs->nutrients. Not only that, but the recipe (fish -> nutrients), like the other four, is listed in intermediate products section of the Factoriopedia. Raw Fish is also under intermediate product. As far as I can tell, every sign points to this being usable with a productivity module, yet, when you try to productivity it, you get the mouseover error "Productivity module can only be used on intermediate products."
2. There is no practical reason to use nutrients from fish at all right now if this is working as intended. Biochambers and bc recipes are the only things that require nutrients. And the only bc recipes you'd want to use on Nauvis that don't involve fruits/bioflux are: heavy oil -> light oil, light oil -> gas, solid fuel + light oil -> rocket fuel, and fish breeding. In order to get enough fish to continuously pump out nutrients for an automated oil processing plant using biochambers and the first 3 recipes without additional support from Gleba, you would need a constant source of (nutrient positive) fish, which there simply isn't right now. "Oh but you can use fish breeding and just import bioflux" okay, then just use the bioflux -> nutrients recipe to power the oil instead of bioflux -> nutrients -> fish -> nutrients which nets fewer nutrients. No productivity modules on this makes this even worse than bioflux -> nutrients which does accept prod mods.
3. "Sure, but you can use fish to jumpstart production of nutrients via other means". Yes, and you can also do that with good ol' reliable spoilage which notably, unlike fish, cannot spoil and can be automated and left to run with no intervention at all and can be run right out of an assembly machine.
Fish breeding:
1. Because nutrients from fish has no practical purpose, the only real reason to use fish breeding ever is to amass a ton of fish for mass spidertrons, however, with each fish node giving 5 fish, and the late-gamed-ness of the recipe, you probably already have a solid personal roboport with mech armor and exoskeletons, and it is just so much faster to run over water and use the deconstruction planner to pick up ~1000 fish at a time and logistic them into your spidertron generator compared to setting up a process to automate fish breeding and importing bioflux via space platform after storing bioflux on Gleba in requesters and setting up a nutrient blackstart, and then also going and acquiring fish anyways. Because there's no way to increase productivity with this, you are always at a nutrient loss and it requires constant intervention from nutrients via bioflux, which requires both effort on Nauvis and on Gleba and involves taking various productivity hits w.r.t. Gleba products/science. Because of the relative one-offedness of crafting a ton of spidertrons (either for deconstruction or for an army), it's much much more practical to just deconstruct the ocean.
2. Quality modules do not work with the recipe. There is seemingly no reason for this. Quality fish is a requirement to craft guaranteed higher quality spidertrons and the only way to acquire them being recycling is weird and very anti-Gleba. Gleba's vibe is building quality from the ground up--eg, bacteria. Now, is it as effective as the Fulgora strategy? No, not even close. But it's a vibe and I fw it. Why is this recipe different? If the bacteria recipe works with both quality and production modules, why not fish?
3. Much like the intermediate products section for nutrients from fish, the recipe and all its components are intermediate products, yet the error code is "can only be used on intermediate products."
4. The lack of a nutrient-positive recipe means that biochambers are largely useless outside of Gleba, which is unfortunate given that the EMP and Foundary are insanely useful and require almost no setup (EMP: none, Foundary: dropping in calcite from a space platform or importing it). Yet, the fish breeding recipe is restricted solely to Nauvis. Unlike the EMP and Foundary which can be used anywhere--all 5 planets and any space platform--the Biochamber is only useful on Gleba and even with an infinite nutrient loop via fish, Nauvis.
5. An infinite nutrient loop would be balanced, especially one that requires some quality production module 3's (4x uncommon prmod3 gives you +102% in a biochamber), because nutrients are essentially just biological "power" for biochambers and power is a game mechanic that is effectively already infinite provided you've got the space or technology for it (solar panels cost space, fusion costs tech but is 100% free once unlocked, uranium kinda costs both, heat towers cost input fuel and setup but are largely already infinite, etc.).
Ultimately, I'm not sure if these are design decisions or bugs, but I am leaning toward bugs and therefore put them here. I searched and didn't find any other post on them (fish + productivity). Feel free to move to suggestions if they are not actually bugs.
The Fish Breeding recipe (2 fish + 100 nutrients + 100 water = 3 fish) lacks both productivity and quality module support (trying to put a quality module on says "Quality modules cannot be used on this recipe", trying to put a productivity module on says "Productivity module can only be used on intermediate products."). The nutrients from fish recipe lacks productivity support and without it isn't useful.
TL;DR:
Either the lack of production/qual module support on these recipes is a bug (in which case it should be fixed) or it is intentional to prevent infinite nutrients (in which case I argue that even an infinite nutrient loop would be balanced).
Nutrients from fish:
1. "Productivity modules only work on intermediate products." Nutrients are an intermediate product--productivity modules work on spoilage->nutrients, mash->nutrients, bioflux->nutrients, even biter eggs->nutrients. Not only that, but the recipe (fish -> nutrients), like the other four, is listed in intermediate products section of the Factoriopedia. Raw Fish is also under intermediate product. As far as I can tell, every sign points to this being usable with a productivity module, yet, when you try to productivity it, you get the mouseover error "Productivity module can only be used on intermediate products."
2. There is no practical reason to use nutrients from fish at all right now if this is working as intended. Biochambers and bc recipes are the only things that require nutrients. And the only bc recipes you'd want to use on Nauvis that don't involve fruits/bioflux are: heavy oil -> light oil, light oil -> gas, solid fuel + light oil -> rocket fuel, and fish breeding. In order to get enough fish to continuously pump out nutrients for an automated oil processing plant using biochambers and the first 3 recipes without additional support from Gleba, you would need a constant source of (nutrient positive) fish, which there simply isn't right now. "Oh but you can use fish breeding and just import bioflux" okay, then just use the bioflux -> nutrients recipe to power the oil instead of bioflux -> nutrients -> fish -> nutrients which nets fewer nutrients. No productivity modules on this makes this even worse than bioflux -> nutrients which does accept prod mods.
3. "Sure, but you can use fish to jumpstart production of nutrients via other means". Yes, and you can also do that with good ol' reliable spoilage which notably, unlike fish, cannot spoil and can be automated and left to run with no intervention at all and can be run right out of an assembly machine.
Fish breeding:
1. Because nutrients from fish has no practical purpose, the only real reason to use fish breeding ever is to amass a ton of fish for mass spidertrons, however, with each fish node giving 5 fish, and the late-gamed-ness of the recipe, you probably already have a solid personal roboport with mech armor and exoskeletons, and it is just so much faster to run over water and use the deconstruction planner to pick up ~1000 fish at a time and logistic them into your spidertron generator compared to setting up a process to automate fish breeding and importing bioflux via space platform after storing bioflux on Gleba in requesters and setting up a nutrient blackstart, and then also going and acquiring fish anyways. Because there's no way to increase productivity with this, you are always at a nutrient loss and it requires constant intervention from nutrients via bioflux, which requires both effort on Nauvis and on Gleba and involves taking various productivity hits w.r.t. Gleba products/science. Because of the relative one-offedness of crafting a ton of spidertrons (either for deconstruction or for an army), it's much much more practical to just deconstruct the ocean.
2. Quality modules do not work with the recipe. There is seemingly no reason for this. Quality fish is a requirement to craft guaranteed higher quality spidertrons and the only way to acquire them being recycling is weird and very anti-Gleba. Gleba's vibe is building quality from the ground up--eg, bacteria. Now, is it as effective as the Fulgora strategy? No, not even close. But it's a vibe and I fw it. Why is this recipe different? If the bacteria recipe works with both quality and production modules, why not fish?
3. Much like the intermediate products section for nutrients from fish, the recipe and all its components are intermediate products, yet the error code is "can only be used on intermediate products."
4. The lack of a nutrient-positive recipe means that biochambers are largely useless outside of Gleba, which is unfortunate given that the EMP and Foundary are insanely useful and require almost no setup (EMP: none, Foundary: dropping in calcite from a space platform or importing it). Yet, the fish breeding recipe is restricted solely to Nauvis. Unlike the EMP and Foundary which can be used anywhere--all 5 planets and any space platform--the Biochamber is only useful on Gleba and even with an infinite nutrient loop via fish, Nauvis.
5. An infinite nutrient loop would be balanced, especially one that requires some quality production module 3's (4x uncommon prmod3 gives you +102% in a biochamber), because nutrients are essentially just biological "power" for biochambers and power is a game mechanic that is effectively already infinite provided you've got the space or technology for it (solar panels cost space, fusion costs tech but is 100% free once unlocked, uranium kinda costs both, heat towers cost input fuel and setup but are largely already infinite, etc.).
Ultimately, I'm not sure if these are design decisions or bugs, but I am leaning toward bugs and therefore put them here. I searched and didn't find any other post on them (fish + productivity). Feel free to move to suggestions if they are not actually bugs.
Now I have a fish breader that feeds the extra fish into a recycler with quality modules, and a speaker to alert me when I have the desired quality fish waiting.