[1.1.109] Rocket Silo Energy Consumption (!Please read & reassess "not a bug" status!)

[Adam_v_R]

TLDR: boosting the speed (and energy consumption) should only apply to the building part (250 kw), as the launch sequence and all others (when it uses 4MW) are not sped up at all - hence the increased energy consumption does not seem to make sense. (Also, the assembly time could consume more energy in my opinion)

Disclaimer: I've searched and read the previous assessment considering that it is not a bug, in light of that I still suggest that it is:
viewtopic.php?t=61030

While it is not stated inside the game or in the wiki (probably it should be...?), according the the above article, the rocket silo uses the following amount of energy:
idle: 10 kW
crafting rocket parts: 250 kW
launch sequence: 3990 kW

Applying productivity and/or speed modules appears to affect the "crafting rocket parts" period, with additional products and increased speed. Applying the increased energy consumption to this part does make sense.
The launch sequence animation however, takes exactly the same amount of time, cannot be sped up or slowed down (which makes sense, and is in line with the rest of machine animations). Since it is not affected by either "increased productivity" or "increased speed", increasing the energy consumption for this part seems contradictory. (may seem like nit-picking, but this is factorio, where getting lost in the details is the core of the universe...)

Possible resolutions I see:
I understand that from a player perspective, not seeing the "max energy usage = 4MW" go in pair with a higher energy usage when boosted, may result in additional "bug reports". which could be less than ideal.
Also, I can expect programming the launch sequence separately could have other performance impact (i.e. an "IF statement" before multiplying the energy consumption on the go in each tick)

As an alternative I could imagine something utilizing the existing logic of roboports, namely, that:
A) the rocket silo could be a combination of two (logical) parts:
- 1st is a production part: Which only applies while assembling, clearly stating the energy usage during this stage and this gets affected by modules - just as any other machine in factorio.
- 2nd is an "internal launch battery" part, which charges at a constant rate*, and uses up all the accumulated energy during the launch. Similarly to how robots use up the "internal battery" energy from the roboport, albeit at a humungous rate.
B) only the idle energy is used during the launch part, [as the energy required to push the rocket to space is actually contracted in the 100 rocket fuel parts it consumed while assembling.] so no need to reserve extra electricity for the launch sequence.

Either of these would seem more clear-cut to me, make sense, and probably also easier to interpret for users and also easier to program.
Let me know, what you think!


*The charging rate could either be fixed as in the roboports, making sure that it charges in time for the fastest possible rocket assembly, or be proportional to the actual production speed, so that it charges in the same time as the rocket is ready.

[Nosferatu]

I guess this could be fixed for 2.0

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-405

Faster subsequent rocket launches
In the late-game, you can craft and prepare rockets pretty fast, but there was always a throughput bottleneck: The beautifully crafted animations taking a long time.

We didn't really want to increase the animation speed, as it might look a bit weird. But we figured out a compromise:

The rocket silo can craft and buffer an extra rocket inside.
After launching, if there is a buffered rocket, the door closing and opening sequence is skipped.

So they changed the process so that launching and building can happen at the same time.
I guess when they did that they changed the way power consumtption too. Not sure if they actually fixed that in the process but there is a chance...