Module Reballance

[Balthazar]

I've been playing with this idea for a while now and would like to know what you guys think. Pretty much everyone i've heard from thinks theres SOMETHING wrong with the way modules/beacons currently work, and i think i've finally nailed down what could be changed to resolve this:

Productivity module:
- Remove polution and power penalties
- Any machine with a productivity module in it has an increase to recipe production time (Not machine's production speed). I was thinking something like 100% * 2^n | n is the number of productivity modules, so no modules = normal amount of time, 1 module = 2x time, 2 modules = 4x time, 3 modules = 8x time, etc. (Reduced for lower tiers of modules) The problem with productivity modules is that its easy to ignore their penalties; as long as the factory is reasonably well defended pollution wont be an issue and you can always just add more solar panels+capacitors. The only way to counteract the penalty this way is to make more assemblers/furnaces/mines etc.
- This solution reimposes the polution and power penalties but much more severely; 8 miners will eat much more power and produce about the same polution as 1 miner with a productivity module in it, AND it will also kill the speed you aquire ores unless you have many outlying mining bases. The point is to make productivity modules much less attractive early on, especially in the lower end of production where you need LOTS of machines running, (Ores, smelting, electronic circuits).

Speed module:
- Rebalance time requirement of recipies, most endproducts are ridiculously fast to produce (Solar panels, capacitors, substations, etc.) so you end up with 10-20 machines making all the ingredients and 1 machine assembling it in a flash. The low end materials are so quickly produced they become bottlenecked by inserters and speed is useless for them, but with the changes to productivity they would actually have a point.
- Speed increase should be = to power increase, like +25% speed +25% power use for tier 1, +40% speed, +40% power use for tier 2, etc. If you increase the power demand more than the speed like it currently does you can just make additional assemblers to get more speed without more need for power.

Efficiency module:
- Make power reduction static, ie, -50 energy used, and define the minimum power use as 80% of the current normal use.
- Add polution reduction to module (Or create seperate module for pollution reduction)
- Remove power usage as a factor in pollution; pollution is only really a problem early on. Once your bases are well defended no amount of pollution will bother you, and removing it early on is a colossal advantage where you wont need defenses at all. Besides, if power cost increases pollution thats double dipping on speed modules as they're also costing you an upgrade slot that could've been used on something else.

The point here is to make each module have a unique advantage; right now productivity does what speed does (Increased item output) and better so speed is completely irrelevant. By making speed the dominant module for increasing production output, whereas productivity reduces it, would give speed modules an actual purpose, and with productivity butchering production speed, you'd actually want machines working faster. This way you can even re-enable productivity in beacons, although it would take a full hour to make some copper wires, you'd get like 10-20 wires per copper plate, and you'd need a huuuuge and expensive factory to get there :3

[Nova]

The original problem with productivity modules would still be a problem. If we're going to change something, we could adress this problem, too.

[Balthazar]

What is the original problem with productivity modules?

[Robik]

If it would be up to me, I would throw out beacons and productivity modules completely

Productivity modules are making something of nothing right now, that is the problem Nova is talking about I think.

[Nova]

This is the original problem of productivity modules:

[...]
When i want to produce ONE Module type three, the savings are INSANE when i use producitity modules 3 in the whole production chain (2 in the smelters, 4 in the assemblers), You save insame amounts of assemblin machines in the lower tiers. [...]

you start with

unmodified [without modules]:
100 iron ores => 100 plates => 100 Circuits / 4 => 25 advanced circuits

modified:
100 iron ores *1,3 => 130 plates *1,6 => 208 Circuits *1,6 / 4 => 83,2 advanced circuits
even within 3 production tiers we get more that 3 times the normal output.

The full chain für one module 3 cosumes by hand-crafting: 775 iron ore and 1472,5 Copper ores
and with all assemblers and smeltery stuffed with productivity modules 3: only insane 73,04 iron ores and 95,56 copper ores. thats less than a TENTH. (you need that less smelters and assembling machines for the first tiers eg copper wire)

It consumes a LOT of electricity, but you can save massive amounts of ore in your whole unbelievably small but productive factory (I think most people dont realize how much they could save on reseach packs materials and so on), i managed to create massive outputs on a standard map with really small resource fields. I created all!! my equipement (from buildings to my power suit items, research packs) with modules-stuffed assembling machines, all with the small starting resource field where otherwise i would have had to mine 5-10 other fields!!
[...]

Even when the assembler get slow as hell with the rebalanced modules, this would still be a big problem.
@Robik: Yeah, that's about right. ^^

[Balthazar]

But that doesn't take time into consideration. I didn't crunch numbers on what i'm sugesting, but you're clearly right that this wouldn't offset it completely. What if the time penalty is raised to 2^n for tier 1, 4^n for tier 2 and 8^n for tier 3? that would put the time it takes to assemble a single tier 3 module 8.5 hours without bacon'ed speed? I'm sure you're not going to leave the game running while you do that for all your factories.

The other point to this is that you wouldnt be able to run your factory of a single deposit; the ore would simply be extracted far too slowly.

[FreeER]

that would put the time it takes to assemble a single tier 3 module 8.5 hours without bacon'ed speed?

And with speed? I think anything over an hour would be useless to have in the game except for really really expensive items (rocket defense would be an example) because they would practically never be used in an actual game (maybe in a demonstration of how efficient you could make it).
I dislike the idea of production modules creating more items from nothing just on principle anyway. I really think just speed (more products faster, not for free) and efficiency (offset energy costs, and thus pollution, of speed modules) are needed.

[Balthazar]

With speed that would drop to around 1 hour i think, but thats with the highest possible amount of productivity modules; just cutting it down by 1 module would reduce the time to 1 hour that can be reduced to about 10mins with speed bacon. But the point is you would need a much larger factory for a valid production line; making 80 assemblers with tier 3 modules is very expensive as well, even if you save resources once you do have them.

If productivity is removed then whats the point in having modules at all? Efficiency would just take over as the new broken module until only speed remains, and speed is useless in most production because the bottleneck is the inserters.

[FreeER]

With speed that would drop to around 1 hour i think, but thats with the highest possible amount of productivity modules

Not too bad, if that's the route a person chooses to take. Seems way overkill for something that isn't expensive so would definitely lead to more planning rather than just sticking them in everything.

Efficiency would just take over as the new broken module until only speed remains, and speed is useless in most production because the bottleneck is the inserters.

Why would efficiency be broken (assuming you are saying guaranteed not that it would need minor changes). Efficiency is a way to lower energy costs and pollution (that could be separate, I don't think it'd make a huge difference), both of which are good things. I personally don't like having pollution in my world, even though there's little effect right now (that could be changed, and there are a couple topics elsewhere where it's been mentioned), and lower energy costs will allow for A) smaller power production and B) less coal usage, so I would definitely use them. And speed is, well speed, most people like when things go faster

[ssilk]

Instead of making calculations and assumptions, which I cannot follow I suggest to build a test-scenario:

- two identical factories, but one with modules, the other without, in the best case both are on one map, which makes them more comparable.
- a storage of chests (copper, iron ore, coal), both with identical numbers of items in it, feed the whole factories.
- the factory creates blue potion only (just because it is a good example, where you have deep nested assembly-trees) - all is produced in lean production (Just in Time, no long belts, no chests)

We measure the number, speed (time it needs to use all one one item), the number of produced potions and energy (in coal), the factory needs. Eventually we can measure also the pollution.

Then we can compare and make a realistic analysis, what could be done. Any other strategy is just guessing.

[Coolthulhu]

While productivity modules certainly are too good at the moment, removing them would not be fixing the problem, but giving up at fixing it. They happen to be one of the best elements of the game.

I'd try to fix it by reducing its effectiveness on high-level items. Its effect on low-level stuff is fine - 1 wall for 10 stone and 1kJ of energy or 2 walls for 10 stone and 50kJ of energy (energy approximations probably inaccurate). It's only when you stack them along the whole chain and get 10 lvl3 modules instead of 1 when it really becomes a problem.
The effect could be capped in one of 2 ways:

• By measuring the length of the production chain (production tree actually) at the start of the game and assigning productivity-module-effectivity value to every item that can be assembled
• By scaling it to the raw cost

While this wouldn't be too "realistic", as in real life you can't easily save materials on stone walls or copper wires but you can save a ton on computers, it would fix the problem of "free" end-game items.

The biggest problem about speed modules is that upgraded inserters can grab 2x to 5x as many items from a chest or assembly than from a belt. While bumping up production times is an easy fix, making inserters more viable near end-game would be more interesting. The one relatively good and simple solution I see is making a "multigrab inserter":
Inserter that stays on its "grabbing side" and picks up items until it gets the maximum it can carry and only then inserts them.

OP's idea about efficiency modules is fine, though I'd buff them a bit: I see no reason for keeping that 20% lower limit. Instead of them being efficiency modules, they could be turned into powering modules and allow buildings to function without external power. That would make high-level efficiency modules more interesting and useful.

[kovarex]

Yes, all of the said is true, and we were thinking something like this needs to be done.
You can see, that for example the advanced circuit crafting time has been increased (very small step for one item, but it is good example).

Nerfing productivity modules down a little and making the crafting slower will help as well.
Limiting the production to some recipes might be good idea as well.
Maybe every recipe could have parameter how much can it be affected by productivity module, some of the recipes could not be affected at all, because it wouldn't make really sense, for example if you need 4 wheels to make car, no productivity module can help you to di it just using 3 wheels right Or another good idea is the recipe to make explosive rocket from rocket + something (currently fuel, but later something better for sure), you can certainly not make more explosive rockets from one normal rocket
On the other hand, more effective iron processing, or basic inter products, like electronic circuits, it would make sense to have it there.

I'm pointing this thread from our internal issue system, so we will take a look at it for the 0.9

[Balthazar]

I don't think that will matter kovarex Productivity modules improves the core recipie while speed and efficiency only improve the method. Even if they were 1%, 2%, 3% i'd still use them exclusively, because they provide something nothing else in the game is capable off, whereas i can build more power, defense, and production to simulate the other two.

I think part of the problem has to do with having several different ways to play the game. I play almost exclusively in custom game with infinite maps, so productivity means that 1) i have to relocate my miners less frequently because i use less ores and 2) it gives me a goal for myself; providing power, defense and logistics that can support a factory where everything runs at max productivity, so i'm not at all bothered by it. I still think they're a bit too convenient, but i wouldn't call them gamebreaking for the way i play, but if you're playing in the campaign and you need to produce a set quantity of items with a finite set of resources available then requiring less of these resources to accomplish your goal is a huge advantage; especially when it cuts your resource requirements by 90%. It's like playing a strategy game where you go from control 90% of the map to control 20% of the map, that is a massive drop in difficulty.

If we're going to make choices between which modules to use, the choice will have to fall on a choice between recipie changing modules or process changing modules; you simply cannot outweigh the benefit of getting better recipies, so maybe a better solution is to add more choice to the modules that affect recipies? I read in the last friday facts that you had added support for recipies to produce multiple outcome with different odds, have you considered having high quality results to the recipies, like high grade steel on 1% of the steel you make? Choosing between productivity (More low grade items) and a module that increases the chance of producing higher quality items useful for better machines/equipment would be a choice, but i have no idea how much work it would be for you guys since i'm guessing you would have to redo or add a ton of recipies to make that work And again, that probably still wouldn't make a lick of difference for campaign balancing.

[Garm]

This is why I was proposing additional waste byproducts as an alternative to higher power demands. It is not as easy to scale it as it is with power.

[Coolthulhu]

Waste products would mean another belt to take care of and having to use smart inserters to filter trash from good stuff. This would affect factories in the middle of the chain rather heavily, but the end (factories that produce bots or modules) would be pretty much unaffected.

Maybe instead of having more byproducts, productivity modules could produce less of them.
If factories produced some useful byproducts, productivity modules could remove those. Say, making gears could create shavings (that need to be melted back). Producing plates could produce some rare metals (wolfram/tungsten is often found in iron veins AFAIR). Productivity bonus would be capped at 5-10% byproducts (so that you still need to get rid of them, but only that).

This sounds a bit too complex now that I think of it. We'd need some new crazy inserters (very long inserters or 90 degree inserters) to deal with the extra belts involved in byproduct disposing.

[hoho]

IMHO it would make sense to only have the productivity module effect stuff produced from raw materials.
Being more efficient when using e.g circuits doesn't really make all that much sense.

[ssilk]

Hm. Worth thinking idea. I mean that is a good point. Productivity modules only for miners and furnaces.
Makes totally sense for me!

For the assemblies/labs we can think about another module, that would gain their usefulness.

[BurnHard]

Productivity modules for furnaces ok, makes sense (Smelting all metal from the ore without residues). But for miners? I mean, where would you get tha additional material?

Maybe it would be better to change the effects of the modules, to seperate pollution/energy efficiency. But no more "free" resources from productivity modules.

Efficiency modules: Energy reduction
Productivity modules: Pollution reduction
Speed modules: Production time reduction

Would allow to properly implement recycling without the dangers of simply creating items from electricity.

[Coolthulhu]

IMHO it would make sense to only have the productivity module effect stuff produced from raw materials.
Being more efficient when using e.g circuits doesn't really make all that much sense.

Are we talking about gameplay or realism?
Because if realism, the reverse makes more sense. If Factorio was to model real life, circuits would be THE item most affected by productivity, more so than anything else. For example, Intel made this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/07 ... wearables/
I'm pretty sure it uses less resources than a room-sized computer from before few decades.

Things that use circuits could also save some resources by changing their usage and programming.

Not sure if same could be done with more mechanical parts, like gears or bullets. You can hollow out parts of both without affecting their efficiency, but machines that require 8 gears will probably require 8 gears no matter what (and you can't shoot 0.7 of a bullet).

Also, it doesn't make that much sense to make more bricks from same amount of stone. You can hollow them out and pad them with sand or something, but that would make them less useful.

[ssilk]

You are all right. I don't find any good argument in any direction.

I think this is a moment, where things have to be tried out!

@devs: Recommend game config-switches, which enable the players to change the behavior of the modules in some way. With that, interested players can test out modules-behavior to find new ideas.

Efficiency modules: Energy reduction
Productivity modules: Pollution reduction
Speed modules: Production time reduction

Hm. Well. I have a problem with efficiency and productivity. They should be named like so (reduce energy and reduce pollution), because efficiency and productivity means nearly the same.