.15 Expensive Recipe Science costs are inconsistent.

[Sicnarf]

Playing a map with Expensive Recipe's.
I fine the resource requirements between Red/Green Science and Blue science to be such a big jump it ruins the flow of the game. Blue Science costs over 6 times as much raw resources as both Red and Green combined.
Before anyone says it, yes it's not a huge deal just build more stuff, I did. However having to multiple my production by 6 felt a bit excessive. For the standard one a second Blue Science (L2 assemblers so not really) it takes over 5 compressed yellow belts of Iron
Purple science costs are almost equal to Blue science which makes it even feel even more jarring I was expecting to have to construct half a continent of infrastructure to support it. Turns out I just had to double up which is easy at this point with bots and blueprints.
Anyone else feeling the same way or is this just me?
Simple fix would but have Blue Science produce 2 per recipe, it's still a big jump in costs and about half purple so I feel like it would fit more with the flow of the game.

Resource cost for 1 of that science.
Red Science 1
4 Iron (Gears)
1 Copper

Green Science 2
11 Iron
5 copper

Blue Science 3
Total
92 Iron
39 Copper
2 Coal
40 Petroleum

Black Military Science
Total
39.5 Iron
7.5 copper
5 Coal

Purple Production Science pack
88.5 Iron
47.5 Copper
5 Coal
100 Petroleum
10 Stone
7.5 Lubricant

[Distelzombie]

I guess they did it because you need to have a certain tech level to start fabricating things on a large scale. You know, to make it easier to increase fabrication.

[Nich]

Ya it is crazy but if you are producing 1/ sec you blow through the tech tree faster then you can use it. I have to say I really like it. I think the hardest thing do is change your mind set that an 8 hour rocket launch is no longer fesable for an average player.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

Blue science is supposed to be a jump, I think it it makes it more fun...

[Deadly-Bagel]

Yeah it's more expensive now but much simpler compared to requiring both batteries and advanced circuits. Red/Green science tends to be fairly base stuff that you need at some point and you'll get to researching it all eventually anyway, but once you add blue science it forces you to be more picky as to what you research. Sometimes you might not want to research anything at all because you're saving the steel for your solar farms or w/e (though you can still finish off those early red/green sciences).

Remember your 4th or 5th game on pre-0.15? You breezed through science faster than you needed it, yeah blue was a pain to set up but overall it was still pretty cheap so once working at 1/s you returned to just wiping out all the early research. There was never a time it was a bottleneck, at least until you needed alien science but that wasn't a healthy problem to need to solve.

Still, 8 hour launch should actually be an achievement. I finished that on like my fourth game without really trying, was a bit disappointing tbh. The only achievement that's actually difficult to get is the 20mill Electronic Circuits and that's purely because of the time required to get it. The average factory probably produces ~700/min which would take 476 hours. Whether an 8 hour launch is feasible for the average experienced player is something that would need testing, maybe when I'm finished my current game.

[Nich]

Still sad my best time was 8:17 and now with .15 out I will probably have to join a massive multiplayer to try to get a rocket in less then 8 now.

[utoxin]

People, you're missing the point that he's mostly talking about the Expensive Recipes setting, and the fact that the packs have wildly varying costs on that setting, because of the various ingredients.

[Nasabot]

I see only a problem with BLUE science, as its recipe costs increases TWOFOLD in expansive mode:

Iron gear AND mining drill cost more

Please change the mining drill cost to normal(you still have increased cost as the base materials are more expansive)

I am sure the cost of blue science is not on purpose.

Blue science was red circuit + engine + Mk1 assembly machine, then they changed the assembly machine to mining drill and forgot that the mining drill costs more.

[Mehve]

Yeah it's more expensive now but much simpler compared to requiring both batteries and advanced circuits. Red/Green science tends to be fairly base stuff that you need at some point and you'll get to researching it all eventually anyway, but once you add blue science it forces you to be more picky as to what you research. Sometimes you might not want to research anything at all because you're saving the steel for your solar farms or w/e (though you can still finish off those early red/green sciences).

Remember your 4th or 5th game on pre-0.15? You breezed through science faster than you needed it, yeah blue was a pain to set up but overall it was still pretty cheap so once working at 1/s you returned to just wiping out all the early research. There was never a time it was a bottleneck, at least until you needed alien science but that wasn't a healthy problem to need to solve.

I would point out that in pre-0.15, blue science WAS the end-game, since the only other research involved processing alien bits (and this didn't require any other materials). So you could justify the increased complexity back then. But now? We've got 4 other researches beyond blue, each specialized in their own way. If the devs intended for such a drastic jump in marathon mode, fine. But I don't see why marathon mode shouldn't maintain the sense of linear escalation, even if everything has been scaled upwards.

[Lav]

I fully agree that the difficulty curve now feels like it's missing a step or two. Military science could be that step, but it's too narrow-focus for that. So downgrading the blue science is a viable alternative. Perhaps give it a focus in chemistry and only require raw oil outputs like plastic and sulfur.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Yeah okay, it's a bit odd it's almost as expensive as a production science pack given that there is a clear difference in normal play.

[iceman_1212]

I wonder if the issue at hand is that expensive recipes changes the cost of the mining drill (which is now included in blue science). If the mining drill cost was the same as in normal play, I think it would make for a smoother progression.

Edit. I see Nasabot suggested something similiar up above.

[Sicnarf]

People, you're missing the point that he's mostly talking about the Expensive Recipes setting, and the fact that the packs have wildly varying costs on that setting, because of the various ingredients.

Thanks for making me feel like I'm not crazy
For the record i'm not against expensive science just would prefer a more normalized curve. Instead of decreasing the cost of Blue you could double the cost of Red, Green and production science then it would have a normal curve and make for much more of a marathon game. Though that would be a lot of changes, decreasing the cost of the mining drill a bit would even out the flow and requires less effort.
I'm playing Expensive, Science costs * 4 and the jump to blue required a three fold increase in my smelting and shortly thereafter the use of trains as blue ate all my nearby Iron also the increase pollution required me to clear a bunch of biters. I am definitely getting my moneys worth out of this game the hours I end up burning on it.