blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

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bobingabout
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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by bobingabout »

Koub wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:55 am
Please don't be offensive. Some people play thousands hours before even bothering register on the forum. Others are big posters, but may have less experience with the game. Postcount can't be a measure of the legitimity of a poster.
I have to agree on that.

As for the OP... Yes, a raw machine placed in the world, Grey are the most efficient, using the least energy per cycle, however, you'd waste more space to use them (which most people consider a non-issue) and they lack fluid inputs, meaning you can't use them for all recipes, and module slots would allow you to increase the performance of AM2 and AM3, so when moduled, the AM2 and AM3 will out perform them.
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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by mrvn »

bobingabout wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:29 am
Koub wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:55 am
Please don't be offensive. Some people play thousands hours before even bothering register on the forum. Others are big posters, but may have less experience with the game. Postcount can't be a measure of the legitimity of a poster.
I have to agree on that.

As for the OP... Yes, a raw machine placed in the world, Grey are the most efficient, using the least energy per cycle, however, you'd waste more space to use them (which most people consider a non-issue) and they lack fluid inputs, meaning you can't use them for all recipes, and module slots would allow you to increase the performance of AM2 and AM3, so when moduled, the AM2 and AM3 will out perform them.
There are also items where you need intermediate products that have different production speeds. Sometimes you can e.g. use 2 yellow assemblers to feed one grey assembler to get the right ratios of goods. Otherwise you would need a 4:1 ratio which would require a much more complex setup.

But yeah, the main gain is modules. Like electric furnaces having the same speed as steel furnaces, being bigger and far more expensive. But with modules they are worth it.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by Qon »

Koub wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:55 am
Please don't be offensive. Some people play thousands hours before even bothering register on the forum. Others are big posters, but may have less experience with the game. Postcount can't be a measure of the legitimity of a poster.
Well from what OP wrote it's safe to conclude that he hasn't played thousands of hours. But I can agree that there are people with big post count that still have no clue about what they are writing about. But my annoyance is that the category rules are not enforced at all. Why you guys allowing people to use the balancing board as another "Gameplay Help" board?
I'll be more careful though...
ef_ex wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:47 am
Looking at assemblers it appears that grey assemblers are the best.
OP has never actually built a big factory with assemblers. As he says himself, he looked at the stats. He never got any practical experience building a big factory.
ef_ex wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:47 am
As it is for the ressources, every assembler takes the previous tier so they are always more expensive.
The higher tiers cost more than the lower tiers, is that surprising to you?
ef_ex wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:47 am
3 Grey are faster and cheaper than one yellow and use less power.

The only difference between gray and the rest is that grey do not allow fluids and sincespace doesn't matter in factorio
You can't say that resources and power matter but space doesn't "because it's infinite" when resources and power scale with your space. Resources and power are just as infinite and limited and valuable as space.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by Selvek »

Hi

Looking at assemblers it appears that yellow assemblers are the best.

Grey:
speed 0.5

Blue:
speed 0.75

Yellow:
speed 1.25

so yellow assembler are clearly the best.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by Qon »

Selvek wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:40 pm
Looking at assemblers it appears that yellow assemblers are the best.
[...]
so yellow assembler are clearly the best.
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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by bobingabout »

honestly, it depends what you're trying to do.

I believe grey assemblers have a higher pollution per joule ratio than blue and yellow too, so they might use less energy, but pollute as much, if not more.
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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by nafira »

Speaking of assemblers, anyone has done math about beacons ?

Like is it better to have 6 AM3 with max beacons and SM3 (+ 500% speed if I remember well @max), or to have 36 assemblers ? And does adding beacons with EM2 or EM3 (but less beacons) help, because it needs to eliminate 480kW at least ? (for I'm pretty sure it's mandatory and profitable)

In the end, the throughput is the same but energy cost and pollution shouldn't. Space should be somewhere 50% higher.

PS : I'm considering that I'm using PM3 to have 40% productivity inside my assemblers


Edit : didn't want to wait ^^ bothered me so I've done simple math without taking all thing like inserters crafting modules energy, etc.

I based my calculation with 100 AM3 having 4 PM3 modules, which downgrade speed by 60% but with 40% productivity, which is, with SM3, negligible.

For 100 AM3 :
  • I took 1 beacon for each AM (borders are negligible)
  • Consumption without any modules is 157.5MW (except PM)
  • Consumption with 4 PM3 in Assemblers + 2 SM3 in each beacon + beacon cost is 1.3GW (rounded)
  • Need 100 AM3 and 100 beacons + 400PM3 + 800SM3
For 600 AM 3 :
  • I took 1 beacon every 2 AM (borders are negligible also)
  • Consumption without any modules is 945MW (except PM)
  • Consumption with 4 PM3 in Assemblers + 2 EM1 in every beacon + beacon cost is 333MW
  • Need 600 AM3 and 300 beacons and a lot of space + 2400PM3 (lolz) + 600 EM1
I think you can mix Speed and Efficiency Modules to improve the cost of Assemblers and still reducing energy and pollution footprint but I need to calculate the optimal setup.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by torne »

nafira wrote:
Tue Apr 02, 2019 6:27 pm
Speaking of assemblers, anyone has done math about beacons ?

Like is it better to have 6 AM3 with max beacons and SM3 (+ 500% speed if I remember well @max), or to have 36 assemblers ?
If you put 16 SM3s (in 8 beacons) touching an AM3 (with 4 PM3s in it) you get good results for the power you spend: this ends up being 855% speed and 140% productivity at a power cost of 1540%, and the speed and productivity combine by multiplying, so a single assembler will output nearly 12 times as much as an assembler with no modules/beacons.

So, you're getting ~12 times the output for 15.4 times the power, plus the 480kW per beacon. If you arrange the assemblers and beacons into alternating, compact rows (you'll see lots of examples of this in large bases), then each assembler is affected by 8 beacons (giving you the numbers above) but also each beacon affects 8 assemblers, so you are effectively only paying for one beacon per assembler. This makes the 480kW drain of the beacon pretty tiny, since the power usage of an assembler that's using 1540% power is much more than that :)

This is much more power efficient than having more assemblers with *just* productivity modules which increases power consumption much more than it increases output, but it's still less power efficient than using no modules at all.

It's also the most space efficient option, since you can use only 1/12th as many assemblers :)
And does adding beacons with EM2 or EM3 (but less beacons) help, because it needs to eliminate 480kW at least ? (for I'm pretty sure it's mandatory and profitable)
It's generally not worth putting efficiency modules in beacons; it's hard for that to beat other setups.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by nafira »

torne wrote:
Tue Apr 02, 2019 7:20 pm
nafira wrote:
Tue Apr 02, 2019 6:27 pm
Speaking of assemblers, anyone has done math about beacons ?

Like is it better to have 6 AM3 with max beacons and SM3 (+ 500% speed if I remember well @max), or to have 36 assemblers ?
If you put 16 SM3s (in 8 beacons) touching an AM3 (with 4 PM3s in it) you get good results for the power you spend: this ends up being 855% speed and 140% productivity at a power cost of 1540%, and the speed and productivity combine by multiplying, so a single assembler will output nearly 12 times as much as an assembler with no modules/beacons.

Indeed but you need to feed it with bots in complex setup

So, you're getting ~12 times the output for 15.4 times the power, plus the 480kW per beacon. If you arrange the assemblers and beacons into alternating, compact rows (you'll see lots of examples of this in large bases), then each assembler is affected by 8 beacons (giving you the numbers above) but also each beacon affects 8 assemblers, so you are effectively only paying for one beacon per assembler. This makes the 480kW drain of the beacon pretty tiny, since the power usage of an assembler that's using 1540% power is much more than that :)

This is much more power efficient than having more assemblers with *just* productivity modules which increases power consumption much more than it increases output, but it's still less power efficient than using no modules at all.

My goal in here is to maximize the whole chain production. In the end you can double certain recipe output, or even more

It's also the most space efficient option, since you can use only 1/12th as many assemblers :)
And does adding beacons with EM2 or EM3 (but less beacons) help, because it needs to eliminate 480kW at least ? (for I'm pretty sure it's mandatory and profitable)
It's generally not worth putting efficiency modules in beacons; it's hard for that to beat other setups.
I made some calculation to test that considering 10 Modules. I used my 100 AM to calculate a speed factor which gave me the number of Assemblers needed to match the output if removing a SM3, creating a score for different setup, counting also SM needed.
  • 10 SM + 0 EM (base) : 100 AM + 600 Modules for 700 item/cycle =>+700% Energy
  • 9 SM + 1 EM : 120 AM + 726 Modules for 700 item/cycle =>+524% Energy equivalent
  • 8 SM + 2 EM : 152 AM + 916 Modules for 700 item/cycle =>+404% Energy equivalent
  • 7 SM + 3 EM : pointless
So the 8+2 is quite performant in energy saving at the cost of +50% AM and +50% Modules

Edited and cleared up !

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by bobucles »

An efficiency beacon costs 480kW at all times to stay active. In order for it to be effective it needs to reduce the cost of production by at least 480kW.
An eff3 reduces energy demand by 60% of the base, or half of that strength when in a beacon. 1 / 30% eff, *480kW power => You need to cover 1.6MW of raw demand per eff3 module to have any meaning at all.

The current wiki has assembler 3's consuming 375kW base. So a beacon covering 4.27 assemblers running at full tilt will just break even. What an expensive way to accomplish nothing!

Electric furnaces consume 180kW so you need to cover 9 furnaces per efficiency beacon to get anything. That automatically rules out Eff3s having any value in an 8x8 beacon furnace build.

The rocket silo consumes 4MW, so you can actually save some energy here. I ran a pure efficiency module base a long time ago and a prod3/speed3 rocket silo was something like a quarter of my energy demand or more. It was scary high compared to the rest of the green base.

Long story short, don't worry about efficiency beacons. You'll get a ridiculous up front cost for trying, barely get anything when it works perfectly, and lose all those gains when it doesn't.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by mrvn »

What really makes modules worth is is the exponential effect of productivity modules. You get more output for the same input. Or seen the other way you get the same output for less input. That means you need less miners, less furnaces, less assemblers, less inserters, ... for the same output. And those savings multiply with each step of the production chain where you use productivity modules.

Everything else just saves you resources building it (assuming solar cells). Using speed modules means you need less assemblers, means less productivity modules. While SM and PMs cost the same the beacons mean you reach more assemblers with each SM. So overall that is a saving in resources to get the same output. Doing the math to get the perfect SM/PM ratio is left to the reader. Even power consumption just means you need more solar cells which is a one time investment to build solar cells and create space to place them. In the really long run that averages out to 0 cost.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by dog80 »

you obviously forgett that it takes much more time/energy to transport fuel to the inserters - wait

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by nafira »

bobucles wrote:
Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:14 pm
An efficiency beacon costs 480kW at all times to stay active. In order for it to be effective it needs to reduce the cost of production by at least 480kW.
An eff3 reduces energy demand by 60% of the base, or half of that strength when in a beacon. 1 / 30% eff, *480kW power => You need to cover 1.6MW of raw demand per eff3 module to have any meaning at all.

The current wiki has assembler 3's consuming 375kW base. So a beacon covering 4.27 assemblers running at full tilt will just break even. What an expensive way to accomplish nothing!

Electric furnaces consume 180kW so you need to cover 9 furnaces per efficiency beacon to get anything. That automatically rules out Eff3s having any value in an 8x8 beacon furnace build.

The rocket silo consumes 4MW, so you can actually save some energy here. I ran a pure efficiency module base a long time ago and a prod3/speed3 rocket silo was something like a quarter of my energy demand or more. It was scary high compared to the rest of the green base.

Long story short, don't worry about efficiency beacons. You'll get a ridiculous up front cost for trying, barely get anything when it works perfectly, and lose all those gains when it doesn't.
If tiled correctly, it's 5 (not counting edges) you can cover. But if you're doing lasagna structure, it's 10 assemblers for a single beacon.

Lasagna structure :
A=Assemblers
B=Beacon
C=Carriers (belts+inserters) + eletricity


Here it is :

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

As you see, all middle Assemblers have 10 beacons (it's shifted by a tile in reality).
I give you the fact that it's a particular design but it works very well with multiple recipes.

Clearly it's not revolutionary, and you won't gain a lot, but, still, it can be done even if it's not worth it in the end due to the number of modules needed.
I've done simple math, and clearly adding little things here and there, it becomes less and less attractive.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by dog80 »

1 think that came into my mind - did you incalculate the amount of energy it takes for a grey inserter to insert fuel into himself? regards^^

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by GregN24 »

One thing to call out is that more assemblers means you need more belts and more inserters.

I did the math for grey and blue assemblers using 0.17 costs and if you assume an additional assembler requires 2 additional inserters and 6 additional belts then a set up with two blue assemblers costs less iron then a set up with three grey assemblers (142 iron vs 144 iron). The cost difference will be even greater in cases where you need two lines of input belts or things like long-armed inserters or fast inserters which are more expensive. Also remember that a larger factory needs more electric poles and possibly more turrets and walls.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by JimBarracus »

grey assembler
Power: 75kW
Pollution: 4/min
crafting speed: 0.5
resources: 22 steel, 4.5 copper, 0 steel, 0 plastic
no modules, no fluids

blue assembler
Power: 150kW
Pollution: 3/min
crafting speed: 0.75
resources: 32 steel, 9 copper, 2 steel, 0 plastic
two modules, fluids

yellow assembler
Power: 375kW
Pollution: 2/min
crafting speed: 1.25
resources: 130 iron, 148 copper, 4 steel, 40 plastic
four modules, fluids

setup costs and power consumption can be neglected
the yellow assembler is the fastest, has the least base pollution and can fit four modules
once you setup the mall und the smelters are up und running building your base is virtually free compared to all the resources you burn for research.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by mrvn »

I have to strongly disagree on ignoring power consumption. Steam and nuclear are a big drain on UPS if nothing else. Solar is free after the setup cost but doesn't work at night. Accumulators I haven't tested yet but I assume since each has a charge that can be read by signals that each accumulator entity is handled separately by the game and costs a bit of UPS.

So while solar energy is free you still have costs for power during the night.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by Qon »

mrvn wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:53 pm
Solar is free after the setup cost but doesn't work at night. Accumulators I haven't tested yet but I assume since each has a charge that can be read by signals that each accumulator entity is handled separately by the game and costs a bit of UPS.
It doesn't matter if they have a charge or if you read them. They all have the same charge (after being filled once and on the same network) so they can all just be combined into 1 big accumulator for any calculation.

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by mrvn »

Qon wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:44 pm
mrvn wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:53 pm
Solar is free after the setup cost but doesn't work at night. Accumulators I haven't tested yet but I assume since each has a charge that can be read by signals that each accumulator entity is handled separately by the game and costs a bit of UPS.
It doesn't matter if they have a charge or if you read them. They all have the same charge (after being filled once and on the same network) so they can all just be combined into 1 big accumulator for any calculation.
But are they?

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Re: blue and yellow assembler are worse than grey

Post by Qon »

mrvn wrote:
Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:04 pm
But are they?
Yes.

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