Sulfur Production and Production Chain

[sbroadbent]

I did a search to see if there has been any past discussions, but while a lot of discussions touch on Sulfur production, I didn't find anything specifically regarding what I was looking for.

From my experience, 1 Sulfur Chemical Plant and 1 Sulfuric Acid Chemical plants are more than sufficient to handle the sulfur needs of most factories, although I was wondering if there was an ideal ratio in other scenarios such as Speed Runs where you're pushing production to the limit.

Chemical Plants (in my current version of .10.6) have a Crafting Speed of 1.25, but I suppose for the purposes of this exercise since each of these discussed are all produced in a Chemical Plant, Crafting Speed can be ignored as a factor. Sulfur gets produced at 2 every second, while Sulfuric Acid produces at 5 units every second, but requires 5 Sulfur. The only two uses of Sulfuric Acid are Batteries which produce at 1 every 5 seconds and which require 2 units of Sulfuric Acid per Battery, and Processing Units that produce at 1 every 15 seconds require only half a unit of Sulfuric Acid per processing unit.

The inital bottleneck in the Sulfur production chain will be Sulfur itself and if you have 1:1 Sulfur:Sulfuric Acid Plants the effective Sulfuric Acid production will be 2 every second.

1 Processing Unit plant requires 1 unit of Sulfuric Acid every 30 seconds if constantly producing. 1 Sulfuric Acid plant (if limited by one Sulfur plant) can therefore handle upwards of 60 Processing Unit Plants.

1 Battery plant requires 2 units of Sulfuric Acid every 5 seconds if constantly producing. 1 Sulfuric Acid plant (if limited by one Sulfur plant) can therefore handle up to 5 Battery plants. Give the Sulfuric Acid Plant a second Sulfur Plant and that output doubles to 10 Battery plants.

Batteries are needed in a lot of areas (Robots, Accumulators, Science 3, Laser Turrets, typically during the mid game). Demand for Processing Units tend to be more in the late game as you try to build the modules required for Rocket Defense and Power Armor pieces.

What does everyone else build for their Sulfur production? Do you find you need more than one Sulfur and/or Sulfuric Acid Plant or is 1 of each more than plenty? Any thoughts on the above?

[-root]

You're right, it is a bottleneck. Normally I don't worry about it because my consumption of batteries/sulfuric acid is never high enough to warrant upgrading it.

[n9103]

If you're sticking to Rocket Defense gameplay, you'll never really need a 2nd sulfur plant.
If you're planning for beyond, it'll definitely need to be built eventually, but it is still going to stay a low priority for the most part.

[Xterminator]

Agreed. If you plan to just ignore rocket defense and just keep expanding, you will probably need to increase production for that. Especially if your playing on hard mode, as just the sheer amount of lasers you will need will take quite a few batteries, not to mention the accumulators and such needed to support those lasers.
Plus blue science etc...