UPS friendly endgame - reducing entity count with new OP items.

[Dictator]

This is meant for following scenario:
You have everything legendary - inserters, pumps, machines, modules, etc.
So even one tiny subfactory uses legendary machine with legendary beacons and t3 modules.
You already optimized your base for DI and UPS.

I would like to suggest multiple things, that would help with UPS.
They would be endgame items, using items from multiple planets.
Those items would require all sciences to research, and promethium could be one of ingredients.

1. Loader would allow you to input and output 240 items/second, effectively acting as pair of very fast bulk inserters with belt merge.
There are multiple configurations of legendary items and machines, that are impossible to extract with legendary bulk inserters.
So those machines would use two loaders instead of 6 inserters to output stuff decreasing inserter count in megabases.
It would be 2x1, so you would want beacon rows rather than boxes.

2. 4x4 assembler, which would be fourth tier, and would have innate +50% productivity bonus to all its recipes.
As it would be bigger, you would have to remodel your base.

3. Buff quality, so legendary t3 quality bonus is 12.5% - you would have guaranteed quality output in 8 module buildings, and upcycling would be faster and require less machines to run.
This would counter act space casino ban, as crushers might not accept quality modules in 2.1, same with LDS casting ban.
Maybe there could be 4 tiers of modules of each type, and they would require promethium or something to craft too.

[Stargateur]

I never understand the purpose of this, if people want "better" UPS just don't produce anything. Or just use unlimited chess and cheat. Having "OP" factory destroy the point of factorio, deal with constraint. If you want to remove these constraint where is the game ?

[eugenekay]

I never understand the purpose of this, if people want "better" UPS just don't produce anything. Or just use unlimited chess and cheat. Having "OP" factory destroy the point of factorio, deal with constraint. If you want to remove these constraint where is the game ?

“number on screen go up, monkey get reward”

I also like to work within the confines (or at least the spirit) of the Base Game and Expansion, which means having at least the idea of Scaling machine effects with increasing power, Quality, Beacons, whatever. There are many, many Mods available which add various ridiculous tiers of Ore refining puzzles, Overpowered Modules, giant Crafting machines, etc… so I think this concept is well-answered already.

[Necronium]

This screams like download mods in kind of god modules like in Bob's.

[Dictator]

I never understand the purpose of this, if people want "better" UPS just don't produce anything. Or just use unlimited chess and cheat. Having "OP" factory destroy the point of factorio, deal with constraint. If you want to remove these constraint where is the game ?

Well inserters are too slow for some machines as you use 12 legendary beacons with legendary speed3 module, and put legendary machine with legendary productivity or speed modules.
It was meant to reduce amount of inserters.
Maybe some configurations were meant to be fast with single beacon.

As for next tier of assembler you would reduce amount of machines even more.
That is you could maintain 60 UPS while having even more SPM due to reduced inserter and entity count.

[Theukon-Dos]

The problem with trying to save UPS by making things that are better is that players won't use less of them to get the same output. They'll use the same amount to get even more output.

Not to mention that Space Age already did exactly what you're asking for with... everything that was introduced. So if these things where added, how long until someone made this exact suggestion again asking for even more OP machines?


The only exception here would probably be the loader. Given how inserters are infamous TPS hogs for mega-bases, they'd be a good way to save TPS in mega-bases without being explicitly stronger. I'm honestly surprised we didn't get them with Space Age given how unhinged everything else can feel at times.

[Stargateur]

+1 for loader, I use them in all my modded run.

[Stargateur]

I never understand the purpose of this, if people want "better" UPS just don't produce anything. Or just use unlimited chess and cheat. Having "OP" factory destroy the point of factorio, deal with constraint. If you want to remove these constraint where is the game ?

Well inserters are too slow for some machines as you use 12 legendary beacons with legendary speed3 module, and put legendary machine with legendary productivity or speed modules.
It was meant to reduce amount of inserters.
Maybe some configurations were meant to be fast with single beacon.

As for next tier of assembler you would reduce amount of machines even more.
That is you could maintain 60 UPS while having even more SPM due to reduced inserter and entity count.

With quality you should have very fast inserter.

[Dictator]

Yeah, I mass produced legendary bulk (green ones) inserters.
I have to make legendary stack inserters yet.

I guess I should use less than 8 beacons and start planning for direct insertation for some more recipes at some point - inserters are faster if it doesn't interact with belt
8/10 (bigger for oil refineries, foundries and cryochambers) beacon columns are easy to make

Machines on other hand can be speed in three ways - beacons (8/3x speed boost), machines (2.5x speed boost) and modules (2.5x speed boost with speed modules, productivity varies).
Even then if you go all in DI and optimize use of each machine, then your UPS usage will go start up again.

That is post was for when you already have everything on legendary, and use a lot of DI.

I guess then I can install those two mods
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/infinite-belt-stacking
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/loaders-modernized
so I can move 1k items/second on single belt using one spot on machine, that is legendary, powered by 12 - 16 legendary beacons with legendary speed 3 modules, while this machine itself has legendary tier 3 speed or productivity modules.
That is items on belt could behave almost like liquid.