[0.15.13] Boiler is idle for a tick after craft cycle

[d4rkpl4y3r]

In a simple 1 boiler -> tank -> 2 steam engines setup the tank looses 1 steam every 3751±1 updates.

My test setup:


Edit: Further investigation reveals that the boiler does not produce steam for a tick if the craft cycle finishes. Since I used rocket fuel I got ~3750 ticks.

[Klonan]

What do you mean after a craft cycle?
Can you provide further elaboration on what behavior is incorrect and what you expect to see instead?

Could you provide a save gamre reproducing the issue?

[kovarex]

I wouldn't consider a bug. The machine needs to start smelting new piece of fuel, lets say it takes one tick.

[malventano]

I wouldn't consider a bug. The machine needs to start smelting new piece of fuel, lets say it takes one tick.

Doesn't this have a greater impact on items that burn quicker (meaning you lose a tick more often - nearly once per second for wood)? It's negligible for long burning items like rocket fuel but for the quicker burning items...

[d4rkpl4y3r]

I wouldn't consider a bug. The machine needs to start smelting new piece of fuel, lets say it takes one tick.

Doesn't this have a greater impact on items that burn quicker (meaning you lose a tick more often - nearly once per second for wood)? It's negligible for long burning items like rocket fuel but for the quicker burning items...

This is exactly what is happening. Burning Wood (the crafted with 2MJ) you loose 1 steam every ~35 ticks. That means you only get ~58.3 steam/s instead of the expected 60 steam/s

Also further testing does reveal that this is not exclusive to boilers. Furnaces have the idle tick as well:



As you can see in the image, the furnace just started burning a new piece of coal for the last item. The wait time between items was 106 ticks while the expected value is 105 (3.5 / 2 * 60). Most of the time it has the exact value of 105 ticks between items, but whenever it starts to burn a new fuel item it adds an extra tick.

[kovarex]

We can easily call it game mechanics right?

[d4rkpl4y3r]

We can easily call it game mechanics right?

You can, but I wouldn't do so. After all belts got changed to be exactly 40 items per second for consistency and north facing inserters are also finally fixed for the next version. Another example was carryover of crafting time which affected every machine, drill & pumpjack and did bind progress to ticks which also got fixed. This bug seems to me to be in the same category and would look out of place in this context if not fixed.

[malventano]

We can easily call it game mechanics right?

I feel for kovarex. Poor guy developes a game that in its nature attracts OCD players, and we keep hitting him with OCD things to fix.