Friday Facts #399 - Trash to Treasure

[MeduSalem]

Only use for the lower tiers I'd have is to upgrade the loop that is producing the higher quality stuff.

That is what I meant. But that is still a long-painstaking progress to get there.

And during that progress you will still want to put all the "reject" quality modules still in ALL machines in the crafting cascade...

... simply because of how the quality of the ingredient items also affect the quality of the end product ontop of the quality modules themselves.


But even if all machinery that specifically lead up to the modules plant are already full with quality modules, I am sure you will still not be producing legendary modules constantly yet. There will still be "rejects".


So you will also start filling all other available machinery in your factory with the "rejects" as well (of course prioritizing chains which produce stuff where better quality will have more use etc), even if they are not related to module production specifically.

Simply because it would be such a huuuge waste of resources to immediately throw all the bad modules that aren't legendary tier 3 back into the recycler.


I would only start to throw stuff back into the recycler & directly aim to produce legendary stuff by brute force once I already have legendary quality tier 3 modules inside everything.

But the latter... is a mammoth project. Hence why I write, the worse tier/quality modules still have an "intermediate use" while you are not there yet.



I think the "fragementation" of quality items across the whole factory cannot be avoided or skipped. Not if you don't want to waste like a bazillion resources.

[ywlf]

You can walk across them, but the only things you can build on the sinking sands are elevated rail supports and offshore pumps.


Does it mean all rails will be on one level.... again?

No? You can't load and unload from elevated rails.

Obiously, stations need to be on the ground, but i'm talking about network.
If everything between island need to be elevated, everything will be "on on level", or can we build "elevated over elavated"?

[AzylaV]

So the blue machine from FF#372 is electromagnetic plant. Provious with molten metal is a foundry.

The riddle of what the green machine might be still remains, and its appearance seems to provide the least clues. However, the downward-facing pipe suggests that it could be some device for extracting emissions from the Earth's interior. I think since the other structures were not for extraction, it could be some kind of incubator, perhaps for enriching with certain gases or for cultivating something living. Alternatively, it could be involved in producing substances that require a protective atmosphere, such as without the presence of oxygen.

What do you think?

[FuryoftheStars]

You can walk across them, but the only things you can build on the sinking sands are elevated rail supports and offshore pumps.


Does it mean all rails will be on one level.... again?

No? You can't load and unload from elevated rails.

Obiously, stations need to be on the ground, but i'm talking about network.
If everything between island need to be elevated, everything will be "on on level", or can we build "elevated over elavated"?

Everything off island will be 1 level. Everything on island will be capable of 2. It's the same deal as if the oil sand were water.

[MeduSalem]

Initially, I was skeptical of the challenge and fun involving a non-deterministic production line.

It is still absolutely deterministic. There is 0 randomness involved. They cannot even do randomness because of MP where everything that happens needs to be deterministic so it can be replicated on each computer of each player in the party. So the state is always predictable.

So what that percentage table for the scrap recipe means is that for example for every 100 scrap you will get:

2 Processing units
3 Advanced Circuits
1 Low density structure
7 Solid fuel
2 Steel Plates
6 Concrete
2 Batteries
5 Ice
5 Stone
1 Holmium Ore
12 Iron Gear Wheels
2 Copper cable

That is in sum 48 items you can get per 100 scrap input. And the other 52 out of 100 scrap... give nothing. So effectively the recycler has a 48% efficiency of turning scrap into something "useful".

So you can totally calculate with what amount of each stuff you will end up with if you input 1000 or 10000 scrap... and develop a balanced factory around that which makes use of it all (or not, because it's up to you if you want to dump excess stuff into a recycler loop until it is gone or not).


That said, your observation of the game will be that you won't see the items trickling in exactly that fashion. I am sure they use a weird algorithm to "fake" a certain randomness. But it is actually not random, and isntead the algorithm likely repeats itself over a certain timeframe.

But what is important is that if you would run the game for a certain period of time you will get this ratio of items reliably.

[FuryoftheStars]

So you will also start filling all other available machinery in your factory with the "rejects" as well (of course prioritizing chains which produce stuff where better quality will have more use etc), even if they are not related to module production specifically.

Simply because it would be such a huuuge waste of resources to immediately throw all the bad modules that aren't legendary tier 3 back into the recycler.


I would only start to throw stuff back into the recycler & directly aim to produce legendary stuff by brute force once I already have legendary quality tier 3 modules inside everything.

This is where I think I differ/disagree with you on. By sending "rejects" off to be used elsewhere, you're actually pulling resources out of the loop, thus requiring feeding more base quality resources in and thus make the whole loop take longer to reach Legendary (you're going to use the same amount of resources regardless; in the end, it's a time factor). You're also then adding extra overhead to yourself in having to actually use the rejects, and then later replace the rejects with better rejects or the final Legendary.

[Qon]

You can walk across them, but the only things you can build on the sinking sands are elevated rail supports and offshore pumps.


Does it mean all rails will be on one level.... again?

No

[MeduSalem]

This is where I think I differ/disagree with you on. By sending "rejects" off to be used elsewhere, you're actually pulling resources out of the loop, thus requiring feeding more base quality resources in and thus make the whole loop take longer to reach Legendary (you're going to use the same amount of resources regardless; in the end, it's a time factor). You're also then adding extra overhead to yourself in having to actually use the rejects, and then later replace the rejects with better rejects or the final Legendary.

That is a fallacy. You are not pulling out resources from the loop. The better term would be that we are "temporarily borrowing" the excess/reject modules. And that is actually making good use of opportunity because you already have them, so why destroy them.

If you destroy them you lose 75% of all the resources you input into them. That is a waste. You would have to craft 3 additional items again to make up for the loss. That is especially painful the higher the tier is.

But if you put that "reject" quality module into better use somewhere in the crafting cascade you actually increase the chances further down the line to get a better item.

Sure, if I put the excess/reject T1s into other machinery, then once I eventually I have T2s I have to go back & collect all T1's and replace them with T2. But once I collect them that is when the T1s go back into he loop to craft more T2 out of them.
The same is true when going from T2 to T3. Then the T2s go back to become T3s.

I never wasted anything during that process. On the contrary, I actually increased the chances to get better stuff faster.


You just have to make a good decision where to temporarily put the "reject" modules so that you don't get quality items that will later have no use to you.
I say build more smelters for better plates, build more assemblers to craft more better circuits, dump the excess quality modules in there and siphon off the additional amount of better quality ingredients so you can craft even more better quality modules, further increasing the chances you will get better ones.


Sure, once you are at T3 and your factory starts filling up with T3 quality modules you can start destroying the rejects... because you won't use them anymore and there is no way to make better use of them anymore except for.., setting up even more hardcore expansion, put down even more smelting & assembling for ingredients. ;P

[FuryoftheStars]

That is a fallacy. You are not pulling out resources from the loop. The better term would be that we are "temporarily borrowing" the excess/reject modules. And that is actually making good use of opportunity because you already have them, so why destroy them.

If you destroy them you lose 75% of all the resources you input into them. That is a waste. You would have to craft 3 additional items again to make up for the loss. That is especially painful the higher the tier is.

But if you put that "reject" quality module into better use somewhere in the crafting cascade you actually increase the chances further down the line to get a better item.

You've misunderstood me. In regards to the loop that creates the higher quality products, yes, using within the loop is better. But I'm not going to pull, say, a Q2 or 3 inserter out of the end product line and use it elsewhere outside of the loop that's producing higher quality inserters (although, honestly, I probably wouldn't consider the bonus here enough to be worth replacing a normal inserter within the loop, either). Doing so pulls resources out of the loop causing you to pull in more fresh resources (because you're not recycling that 25% now), which delays the whole loop before you start spitting out Legendaries. Yes, it's technically borrowing because you're later putting it back in, but that's why I also said you're not actually using more resources, it's more of a time factor thing.

As such, too, when I'm working on the Quality modules, everything is going to be recycled in house until I'm outputting Legendary Tier 3 Quality modules. Using any others anywhere else is, to me, a waste in time.

[MeduSalem]

You've misunderstood me. In regards to the loop that creates the higher quality products, yes, using within the loop is better. But I'm not going to pull, say, a Q2 or 3 inserter out of the end product line and use it elsewhere outside of the loop that's producing higher quality inserters. Doing so pulls resources out of the loop causing you to pull in more fresh resources (because you're not recycling that 25% now), which delays the whole loop before you start spitting out Legendaries. Yes, it's technically borrowing because you're later putting it back in, but that's why I also said you're not actually using more resources, it's more of a time factor thing.

As such, too, when I'm working on the Quality modules, everything is going to be recycled in house until I'm outputting Legendary Tier 3 Quality modules. Using any others anywhere else is, to me, a waste in time.

Well yeah, then I misunderstood you, yes.

Because I think it was quite obvious that putting a T1/T2 or low quality T3 quality module into something like an assembly machine crafting inserters is not worth it and never will be.

That was why I wrote... "put the excess/rejects where it makes sense". ^^


That said there are totally other productions besides quality modules where it can make sense to put any rejects/excess modules there temporarily, because you are going to use up those items anyway rather than eventually having to destroy them.
For example gun ammunition would be a superb place to put reject quality modules if you can't upgrade the modules to any better ones yet. The bullets will have more damage, and thereby take less ammunition & resources overall. ^^
And then eventually when you have better quality modules swap them out. You are not losing anything there.

[cackling.fiend]

So who is going to create scrap ore mod for 1.1?

[akxcv]

Um, does this mean that UPS usage from distinct electric networks will be fixed? Because this sounds like it would destroy perfomance in 1.1.

I am also interested in hearing if this issue will be resolved.

It has been fixed in 2.0

Out of curiosity, was this mentioned by Wube anywhere?

Yes

Where?

[Qon]

Doesn't Space Age have ways to throw away items? Just have a priority splitter and if the belt gets backed up, the items go into the garbage.

On Fulgora? With recycling removing up to 75% of material? That would work for non-basic products (steel, copper wires, etc).

The last time I checked, you can not recycle solid fuel (liquid) or stone (already in its rawest form and can not be processed further).

Wrong. It's possible to void stone and solid fuel with the tools available.

Then, one can not help but return to the fundamental issue of non-deterministic recipes occasionally giving players excess of particular resources without a reliable way to sink/get rid of them directly without extra steps.

I already told you to forget about the randomness. It can't occasionally give you excess of a particular resource type.
Voiding things directly or extra steps doesn't matter, both are 100% reliable. You are just giving excuses to fail.

You need power poles all around your factory already, it's not that different. Though these also work like night solar panels as well, so you basically have to put your power plant mixed in with the production.

The problem is about something other than the number of power poles players have to build.

The question is where and how to maintain the power poles against lightning strikes on the low plain where buildable surfaces are at a premium.

The lightning rods takes very little space and power poles don't need maintenance.

Yes, the power poles need protection but the wire does not. You don't build power poles on oily lowland, it's impossible, it's like water except you can walk on it. But if you landfill to place poles you can just protect the poles with the lightning rod just like everywhere else.

Fulgora landfill is not immediately readily available. Meanwhile, scrap processing has a 5% chance (the third-highest odd next to 7% solid fuel and 12% iron gear) to give you stones.

Unless there is a non-trivial sink cost to stone early in the Fulgora unique production chain, the odds are good that players will need dozens of buffer storage chests. The typical scenario in mods with recipes like those is to use a colossal warehouse to solve the buffering issue.

You don't need landfill because you don't need power poles to connect the plateaus. I didn't tell you to landfill, I told you that if you do then you also have the tools to do it safely. And power is sent from the sky to all land, so power never has to be transported from other locations anyways so just don't if you don't want to bother.

Use your brain and come up with a solution instead of giving up many months before the expansion is released.

The non-determinism is a red herring, it has no effect on gameplay. You will get everything in proportion and you don't have to consider luck or bad luck.

Excess byproducts can be handled in many ways. There is never a need to manually clear out things you don't have a use for, you can just void them automatically. Fulgora is the planet that gives you the void machine.

Is the recycle outlet blocked by the exit belt being full and cannot accept more items, a red herring mechanic?

Void stone, how? Launch them to Vulcanis to be eventually tossed in lava? While players initially land and process their first scrap on Fulgora?

I am confident that people are underestimating dealing with non-deterministic recipes, especially those with different products that can block other useful products from coming out of scrap processing. IE: All non-scrap belts are full of stone in this looping video.

It's easy to solve by anyone that actually tries to come up with solutions instead of ways of whining. Outlets being blocked wasn't what I was talking about as a red herring, randomness was. But I suppose that since we can easily void items it's also just a distraction to worry about that as well.

I'm not telling you how to void stone, it's so simple that I'm almost certain that you can figure it out if you spend a few months thinking about it. It's not launching it to another planet.

You are confident? Arrogant and wrong is a sad combination.

If you can actually find something that is provably non-voidable then maybe we would have an issue. But the randomness would still be completely unrelated.

It is your right, what i meant by fix income is that unlike mining drill that allow to have an income of iron or copper and increase one or the other, the income of material on Fulgora will have "fixed income ratio", meaning you will always have the same amount of iron per copper for income, even if you do not consume the same ratio over the course of the game. This is what you describe as a problem. But to me this is like oil refining, where you can't have more "petroleum gas" if you don't deal with the "heavy oil" or "light oil" that could clog the system.

The difference is that RNG doesn't play any part in Oil processing but does for scrap processing.

I maintain my position and disagree that 'fixed income' is the best way to describe scrap processing.

Not processing at least one of the three oil derivates byproducts is a perfect example of the issue in the previous section with stone and the main loop, which can prevent the other oil derivates byproducts from being produced.

Your example with oil is you proving yourself wrong, randomness is not the reason for clogging up the system since it happens in deterministic oil as well. But it's completely solved with voiding, so it's not actually a concern.

You can't get 100 stone pieces in a row from a random process with 5% chance so even with just belts as buffers you should be safe from clogs. You can't even realistically get 10 stone in a row...

[Kadet123]

The last time I checked, you can not recycle solid fuel (liquid) or stone (already in its rawest form and can not be processed further).
...
None of the visible belts in this footage have a stone outlet through inserters or splitters for the main loop. The secondary row of the recycler on the right area doesn't count, as none of them grabbed or consumed stone. The bottom splitter does not have an outlet and is used to merge incoming items into the main loop.

According to the gif you posted, stone can be trashed in that recycler. Look closer at the second row, third inserter from the bottom. I didn't see solid fuel being trashed, but I did see ice being thrown to that recycler, so solid fuel can be, too, I suppose.

I was about to post this same thing.. Seems like a lot of people like to spend 30 seconds on the FFF, then come blast its "shortcomings" with things they skimmed over and didn't see.

[Qon]

Where? I've been reading the FFFs as they come out and seen no discussion of UPS performance. Presumably they have made improvements but no specifics.

Not FFF. viewtopic.php?p=594603#p594603

[farcast]

I think it'd be funny if some of the ruins have to be demolished with explosives before you can place miners on them.

[Qon]

You can walk across them, but the only things you can build on the sinking sands are elevated rail supports and offshore pumps.


Does it mean all rails will be on one level.... again?

No? You can't load and unload from elevated rails.

Obiously, stations need to be on the ground, but i'm talking about network.
If everything between island need to be elevated, everything will be "on on level", or can we build "elevated over elavated"?

You can build 2 levels on the islands.

[factoriouzr]

there are already 3 tires of modules, and pretty quickly in the game everyone ignores tire 1 and tier 2 (or at least i do) , or people like me directly aims at tier 3 directly.
Tier 1 and 2 modules are pretty much only there to reach tier 3.

now there are 5 quality levels ... ?? .. do we really need 5.. ???. I think people will soon ignore lower quality levels .. and it is only a mean to reach to the highest quality level.
i would rather wait and make the best , rather than figuring to make use of lower tier modules and lower quality levels .. to me this becomes like work rather than a game ..
soon there will be more icons / items that we do not even care about in the list ..

I suppose 3 quality levels are enough .. each with notable benefits and worth using in builds ..
or
only one tier module which gets better with quality .. or something ..
request to re consider ..

I'm the same way in the base game, not much benefit in using them compared to the hassle of equipping each machine with them. Plus they only work for intermediates, which I think is bad design. They should work for all products. The new modules should all work for all products as well.

I think with the 5 extra tiers of quality plus 3 quality levels for modules, it just stretches out the time it takes to reach the tier 3 quality 5 modules so it will make it more worth using intermediate modules. However all this quality just artificially extends the wait time to get to the best quality. Some of the quality implications are kind of cool, like the random quality chances and filtering the quality tiers automatically. This stuff though just feels like padding the game length for the sake of padding.

The only way to make using intermediate modules not a chore is to provide blueprints that can insert modules into structures that don't already have them and ones that upgrade existing modules in structures both to a fixed quality level and also ones that upgrade to the best available based on quantity available. Eg. drag a generic productivity module blueprint over different types of machines, and it will insert the best productivity modules into it based on how many you have of each quality and upgrade ones already in there if it makes sense. Eg. if you have 1 level 1, 1 level 2, it would insert both and not try to insert 2 level 2's.

All this extra complexity needs to come with a lot of blueprint quality of life automation, otherwise it will quickly become just a chore.

While this planet looks cool, it's limiting your build space till late game where you can make landfill. The problem with this is that it forces a particular play style, which the player might not like, but even bigger issue, is that it might invalidate your blueprints. If the space is so limited early on, you won't have space to put down your small to medium sized blueprints. They you are left with manually dragging belts around obstacles and around the edge of the build island, just like in the video in the Friday facts with the recycling machines turning scrap into other things. The belts are stair stepped around the edge of the island due to lack of build room.

[Qon]

Where?

Not FFF. viewtopic.php?p=594603#p594603

[Scorpioni]

I'm loving this new planet! And while I love everything shown yet in the Space Age FFF's, I do fear the additional planets, while cool, might become stale quite easily. Unless a lot of Vulcanus & Fulgora content isn't spoiled yet and we've only been shown their most basic mechanics, it seems their main purpose is just to tech up a bit and then ship the new tech back to Nauvis to improve the main base. As of yet, there doesn't seem a reason (or a big enough reason anyway) to stay on one of the new planets for extended periods of time, or just migrate your main base entirely. To put it another way, for now the 2 new planets look like a sort-of minigame (with limited options, and limited ways to play them) in the greater and more flexible Nauvis factorio main game.

I do hope (and actually expect) to be proven wrong though!