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The internal power buffer for beacons holds 6 ticks of energy. But beacon effects are only updated once per 120 ticks. This means it is possible to get the full effect from beacons by only feeding them power for the 6 ticks before they are updated.

Here is a proof of concept, using clocked beacons at 5% of the normal power cost. The assembling machine builds rocket fuel with max productivity, at a cost of only 6.7 MJ per rocket fuel.

You figured it out!



We aren't going to fix it, its a part of the optimization (according to kovarex).

Hm. It seems highly impractical to exploit, though, doesn't it? The assembler still needs full power so it has to be on a different network, so placement is heavily affected. And there's the fact that energy is cheap. Or am I missing something that could change the metagame?

It is a lot easier to build more power. It's only useful in limited power challenges.

For max savings (-95%), you need frame-perfect beacon construction timing. This is easy to do using the editor time controls (place the beacon on the second tick that the power switch green light is on), but difficult in realtime. However, modifying the design to only save -90% or -80% gives you a much larger timing window.

Also, put your combinators on a separate highly reliable power network, because if they miss a tick the whole thing falls apart.

That's an amazing find!

DaveMcW wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:27 am For max savings (-95%), you need frame-perfect beacon construction timing. This is easy to do using the editor time controls (place the beacon on the second tick that the power switch green light is on), but difficult in realtime.

Does that mean it updates every 120 ticks since it was built, so you need to place all beacons at the same tick % 120 that are on the same electric network?

That looks like it is trivial to fix by enlarging the energy buffer of the beacons to hold 120 ticks of energy.

My -95% savings was calculated by feeding a beacon 0.48 MW for 6 ticks. However, it is possible to do better by feeding a beacon 2.44 MW for 1 tick. This results in a savings of -96.1%.