UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

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Premu
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UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

Post by Premu »

There are lots of threads about UPS optimizing for mega bases. I wonder at which production level in general the UPS becomes a concern, though.

Last year I built a 1k SPM megabase without any real consideration for UPS optimization. It runs fine and doesn't drop below 60 UPS. With 1.0 I started a new megabase with the aim to reach 2k SPM. Here I took a few steps to optimize for UPS (like limited usage for belt balancers wherever possible), but nothing really wild. For example my power is provided by 92 nuclear reactors as I really didn't like the idea to cover a huge area with solar panels.

While my 2k base is not finished yet and I haven't launched a rocket yet, a first stress test showed no problems either - After finishing both my lab area and all six basic sciences I let my buffers in the lab get filled this caused at least the six basic science packs to be produced at a rate of 2000 per minute for around 20 minutes, and the update time for one tick was around 9 ms according to the debug mode. So there's still quite some runtime buffer left and it should run fine once my rocket site is ready, too.

My PC isn't too shoddy, but it is already three years old (with an i5 quadcore, 3.5Ghz). So at which sizes the UPS starts to really hurt? Does anyone has experience about that?

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jodokus31
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Re: UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

Post by jodokus31 »

You can increase game speed and Check how mich ups you can get. This disables achievements but you dont have to save this

Koub
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Re: UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

Post by Koub »

It really depends on the potatoness of your machine. A 10 year old not too fancy laptop will not perform the same way the average desktop where you can get to choose your components, which in turn won't perform as well as a recent machine with high/top grade components in it (with a fast single thread CPU, and very fast memory).
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

azesmbog
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Re: UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

Post by azesmbog »

UPS is not strongly dependent on SPM. Not directly.
There are bases with 10-20k SPM, and they work with 60 UPS.
But another example is my 1k SPM base, on most computers it either will not start at all, or the UPS will be no more than 10-20. Everything is relative.
Therefore, we must start from the opposite. At what values of the UPS is it still comfortable to play.
For myself, I decided that 35-45 is still bearable, but 30 and less is all, the end of the megabase. Or we change the processor to I9 and memory to 4000 MHz and play a little more.

Yoyobuae
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Re: UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

Post by Yoyobuae »

I've made a bunch of synthetic tests UPS tests: Start with an empty map, place a large number of active entities until UPS starts to drop bellow 60 (on my PC, Ryzen 3900x, DDR4 RAM 3200MHz CL16):

Assemblers+inserters = 24k assemblers + 58k inserters feeding them

Belts = 100k active belt lanes. Several belt tiles in a row are processed together so they count as just one belt. Splitters and sideloading break up the belt optimizations.

Bots = 100k active bots

Nuclear power = ~200 GW of continuous power production

Heatpipes = 786k, heatpipes are always active

Pipes = 1.3M pipes which contain fluid. This also depends on the number of independent fluid systems (more = better for multi-core CPUs)

Individually each of those can make the UPS dip bellow 60. Your factory will likely consist of a combination of several of them.

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Re: UPS - at which base size it starts to become a problem

Post by azesmbog »

Yoyobuae wrote:
Sat Nov 14, 2020 2:18 am
Nuclear power = ~200 GW of continuous power production
Interesting results :)
If there were saves, I could double-check them all on the Intel processor.
I have 96 GW of atomic energy on a real map.
I would also like to see your results with the maximum number of laser turrets under the same test conditions.
I don't know how active they are, but on my real map there are 1.5 million (36.8 GW)

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