Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Regular reports on Factorio development.
Axs1
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by Axs1 »

Axs1 wrote:
Tue Nov 14, 2023 1:22 am
Sorry for posting the spreadsheet so many times, I have made changes that maybe someone will be interested in.

Now in the spreadsheet you can enter the number of quality or productivity modules for each assembler or recycler (recyclers do not support productivity, but I included it anyway)

Spreadsheet


Edit:
If you place 12 productivity modules (this is done to simulate productivity research and 12, because the productivity limit is 300%) and 4 quality modules in the assembler, you obtain that the cost, only for the items that can be apply productivity, from normal quality to legendary quality is 4.12 --> 0.25

In conclusion, for the late game it is better to always make legendary items. I wouldn't say all of them, but the science packs for sure.
Sorry again, I made another mistake.

This is the final version (I hope), the mistake was that I omitted productivity in part from the equations.

Here is the new spreadsheet
Quality - Cost.ods

Another change - This is the final version.


Finally, everything is corrected
Quality - Cost.ods
(9.44 KiB) Downloaded 65 times

Note: Any questions or errors in the spreadsheet, let me know, thank you

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Hares
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by Hares »

Dear devs.

You mentioned a new RCU producivity research. In the FFF-375, you mentioned that 4x Q5 Prod-3 modules will result in +100% producivity, and it is capped at 300%. If you insert these 4x Q5 Prod-3 in both assembler and recycler, and start producing RCUs with a bonus producivity +x, you will get (2+x) on the 1st step, multipled by 0.5 on the second step, resulting in a (1+x/2) items on each lopp iteration. So, a positive loop is comptelety possible even without 3-rd party mods.

Necronium
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by Necronium »

Hares wrote:
Sat Dec 30, 2023 2:07 pm
Dear devs.

You mentioned a new RCU producivity research. In the FFF-375, you mentioned that 4x Q5 Prod-3 modules will result in +100% producivity, and it is capped at 300%. If you insert these 4x Q5 Prod-3 in both assembler and recycler, and start producing RCUs with a bonus producivity +x, you will get (2+x) on the 1st step, multipled by 0.5 on the second step, resulting in a (1+x/2) items on each lopp iteration. So, a positive loop is comptelety possible even without 3-rd party mods.
Recycler cant take prod modules, there is no positive loop there. Max you can get is +300% from making an item that gives you 4x output per one recipe done, then recycler returns 25% of that which gives you ingredients for 1 recipe again on avg. So at best you can recyle recipe to roll on quality

Chumfactor
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by Chumfactor »

Apologies for being late -- I'm just now catching up on "a zillion" FFFs. At any rate...

Reading about "must craft to earn early technologies" made me wonder what the impact on the Lazy Bastard achievement would be. Can it still be done? Is it being adjusted (to other than 111 items)? Does it all just work out and there's no problem?

Thanks!

Amarula
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by Amarula »

I have been playing the nullius mod that has research checkpoints, which are quite similar to the triggers mentioned in this FFF. Overall I like how the checkpoint/trigger concept works out and I can see there are going to be lots of good uses. (Side note nullius is a great mod check it out.)
I am thinking specifically of all the new players struggling with oil. I can see it could be so helpful for a new player: research oil, get triggers to place a pump jack then to produce some crude oil, that leads to triggers to place an oil refinery and then consume some crude; finally once you research plastic, there are triggers to place a chem plant, consume some petroleum gas, and produce some plastic. You wouldn't necessarily need all of these, but enough that the triggers serve as guideposts what do I need to do next.
Nearly all the checkpoints in nullius have been very reasonable to achieve, following a very natural progression. As this is my first time through the mod, I have been aiming for a micro base - just big enough to keep making progress. Getting to a checkpoint to place 50 large miners was daunting (I had 10 medium miners at the time). No spoilers I can see there was a reason but my first plea for devs (and mod makers) is think about all production and consumption triggers. How much do you really need to make or use to show that you are ready to move on.
Rant warning: My latest nullius checkpoint was to consume 15000000 CO2 AND produce 2000000 oxygen. (Note I haven't updated the mod since I started playing a year ago so this may have changed.) My first thought was this is insane, I am just going to ignore this one. I ran some rough numbers and with my little micro factory I estimated it would take 250 hours to reach the checkpoint. So my second plea is don't assume a mega base or use a trigger to force a particular play style. Challenging okay but not insane.
Secondly just trying to read the numbers was annoying. If some mod maker really needs a trigger of over a thousand of something, please let it display as 153K or 2.7M, or at least 1,500,000. And if you do have an insane trigger amount, it would be really nice to be able see progress numbers or % not just one pixel lit up in a progress bar.
Thirdly how do you interpret progress when there are multiple components. I would rather see individual triggers so you know exactly what you have do to complete the trigger.
Finally, I beg you to consider carefully what research is locked behind a trigger. This nullius checkpoint, which follows the first biology research, locks all the remaining future biology research until it is completed. I can make all the biology science packs I need for the next research but I can't use them until I consume 1.5M CO2. And just for fun it also locks Wildlife Management (I told you this is a great mod) which unlocks rifles and nuclear ammunition because clearly you don't need better weapons until you have produced 2M oxygen. Okay end of rant.
Overall, really looking forward to how the new trigger system will make for a different research experience.
My own personal Factorio super-power - running out of power.

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NightOps
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by NightOps »

  • Maybe create separate research facility and/or techtree submenu for recipe improvements? Have the ability to do one tech research and one recipe research simultaneously. Tech advancement in one window and research improvements in a totally other window or tab.
  • Could this be used to not just increase productivity? Additional research targets could be product output quality min/max. As you research the min/max to the highest quality, you could eventually reduce production chains back down to needing only a single assembler that's guaranteed to get the highest quality.

usafphoenix
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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by usafphoenix »

Can we get more info/details on item productivity research? Or is this something being kept underwraps until release date? ----a sort of: "hey, there will be items that you can research productivity on, but we're not gonna say what, and you'll just have to wait and see."?

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Re: Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

Post by usafphoenix »

Research Target: Quality.

Have quality of recipes be able to be improved using research: +(1-3% bonus to quality) per research level
1) Quality mechanics still require that quality modules be placed in the machine doing the crafitng. If you research 4 levels of Quality but have no quality modules in the machine, that machine WILL NOT output quality items.
2) Quality research reduces the tier-level of ingredients needed to achieve higher value output at increasingly higher proportions.
3) research is expensive and should be effectively-endgame...locked behind having visited the other planets and built factories to produce the other science packs as ALL packs are needed for quality research.
4) As you progress, or FINISH, you can effectively revert the capability to use our current "standard" direct-insertion builds while obtaining quality items without recycler loops or massive builds that trash lower tier results.
5) could either be GLOBAL or item-specific per research.I think I like the GLOBAL implementation better

Assuming the new modding API/engine can possibly allow for this....if it doesn't become a thing in the base game...i'll probably design the mod myself for this :D

If i were to make this...i'd deisgn it such that the research targets the quality bonus provided by the modules themselves.

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