erickeeper wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 7:29 pm
Are there any mods that can help improve UPS performance with minimal gameplay changes?
I'm envisioning something like Factorissimo2, but instead of the interiors of building being run by the game engine they are simulated or modeled in a much more computationally efficient way. There would probably be a sacrifice of accuracy to make this happen.
Yes, actually. I created several mods for exactly this purpose:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/MiningUPSGrade
* Basically, one large miner that (configurable; default 25) is as fast as a certain number of smaller miners. It is no faster, has no higher productivity, and does not take any (meaningfully) less material to build than the miners it replaces. It is, technically, more dense (meaning you can extract at a higher speed) but that's because...beconed miners are a huge PITA to simulate at a 1:1 rate. You WILL need to mine into a chest and use bots to move the ore around.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/KingsNuclearBots
* Speaking of bots, this mod adds in nuclear logistics bots which: 1) do not need power (but take 1500 nuclear fuel cells, a nuclear reactor, and a few other bits, each, to build), 2) can carry full stacks of material in one trip (cargo size 100 iirc). 3) are no faster than normal bots.
* Yes, I realize this changes the game quite a lot, but the pain of building each bot, I feel, balances out the fact that each bot replaces *at least* 10 normal bots, as well as all the roboport infra for charging. Further saving UPS.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SmelterUPSGrade
* Just like the minerUPSgrade, this does the same thing for smelters. Each smelter no different as 405 (the number you could first in 2-layer nested Factorissimo) electric smelters. No higher productivity, speed, etc. Literally it just gets rid of the need for all the beacons/smelters/inserters/etc on the map. The cost to build it is the cost of all the components you'd have to build anyway, so that's how it is balanced. Don't have a heart attack when you realize it needs like 1800 (or was it 3000+?) speed modules to build *each* bulk smelter. That's how many modules you'd need to build the same number of normal beaconed smelters!
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/EnhancedGridEnergyStores
* Adds higher tier accumulators. Needed for the next mod to be useful / make sense.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/NuclearRebalance
* Overhauls nuclear energy, making it much more realistic. Greatly saves on UPS. Read through the FAQ/mod page for a LOT more info on the why/logic behind this mod.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/AssemblerUPSGrade
* Similar to the smelter and mining UPS grade mods, this collapses a (configurable) certain number of buildings into one ASIF (application specific integrated factory) that can only build one thing, but can build that one thing as fast as the same number of smaller buildings, just without the UPS impact of all those (thousands) of smaller entities.
* For example, Speed 3 modules: the resulting building would output 87.5 speed 3 modules per minute, just like the 10 assembler 3s doing the same job would.
BUT the ASIF buildings
ONLY take raw materials. So you have to figure out a way to load the:
- 48613 iron plate/minute
- 21607 plastic bars/minute
- 67365 copper plate/minute
- 9375 sulfuric acid/minute
into this one (massive) building. Again, to be clear, those four inputs are all the building accepts. It builds all the intermediates as part of the ASIF design. As such, the recipe cost for building this ASIF factors in (and requires you to build) all of the assembers/beacons/modules/inserters/etc needed to make such a massive fleet of buildings work, so even at a recipe level, you are ONLY saving UPS, nothing else (meaningful).
* The mod also has settings to constrain the maximum size of the building (since, at 10:1, a speed 3 ASIF would end up being like 300+ units on a side) so that the buildings are not massive pains in the ass to place and live with.
* The specific things that can be built with ASIFs are:
- Green/red/blue Circuits
- Engines
- Plastic Bars
- Low Density Structures
- Speed 3 modules
- Prod 3 modules
It may or may not include a petroleum gas ASIF as well. I have some definitions for that in the file, but I don't remember if I actually put that in the mod or not. Essentially, the entire idea behind this mod was the hand full of items that, in a megabase, you end up needing 95% of your assemblers dedicated to building, could be collapsed into a single (or small set of) buildings, dramatically saving UPSs. To that end, I have a 10k sci/m base that still runs at 60 UPS with around a 6ms update time (when I kill off all the biters :p).