Quality Lightning Collectors are a scam

[Lindor]

TL;DR

Rebalance quality Lightning Collector attribute scaling

What?

The critical attributes whose quality value scalings need to be rebalanced are:

• Range
• Energy Capacity

I don't want to make a definitive commitment about the amount. That's something that can be discussed, but is probably best to test ingame and see how it feels. My only intention is to raise some awareness that imho a change is needed here.

Why?

Legendary Lightning Collectors can be a straight downgrade from normal quality ones in terms of energy production. Because they cover a larger area, many lightnings may happen at the same collector, and because even legendary accumulators are slow to charge, a lot of power is lost if that happens. From my ingame experience i can say that this is even a guaranteed downgrade if you want to take advantage of the max range of quality collectors. Putting them with min density at max range pretty much always decreases your energy generation. Even with the higher efficiency it doesn't matter because there's just too much lost. You would need like 5 trillion legendary accumulators to have enough recharge rate to counteract that.

Now you might be tempted to say that it's a skill issue because the engineer can just put many overlapping quality collectors in an area. But not only is it not guaranteed to fix the issue, because randomly the lightnings may still just all happen at one collector, it also feels just bad to have worked so hard to get legendary lightning collectors which have this giga range and then you cannot take advantage of it without losing something on another end.

It does not need to be perfectly tweaked so that you can always take full advantage of all lightnings. The mechanics of losing any power from lightning that exceeds the internal storage is an interesting problem to solve for the player. I just want it to be guaranteed that if i place higher quality lightning collectors then it's always a gain compared to lower quality ones, even at min density / max range. I want higher quality to always be better, and under no circumstances be worse than lower quality.

About the amount

As i already said i don't want to necessarily make you balance it by an exact amount that i have in mind and nothing else. It does not need to be exactly how i imagine it.
That does not mean that i don't have something in mind though. I would like to share it because discussing it will be fun

My suggestion is to have the ratio Energy Capacity / (Range * Range) be a constant. Why? It comes from the assumption that the lightning density per area is a constant, and from the fact that area scales quadratically with range. This would make the loss from overproduction a constant across quality if i'm correct. Now am i correct? Let's discuss xD

[computeraddict]

and because even legendary accumulators are slow to charge, a lot of power is lost if that happens.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the quality of the collectors tho? The number of strikes your grid can absorb per second is mostly forced by your accumulator input.

Legendary Lightning Collectors can be a straight downgrade from normal quality ones in terms of energy production.

I don't think this is ever the case at all. If there's charge in any collector or rod when another strike arrives you were already being limited by your accumulators' intake. A normal collector standing on its own covers about 1.5 chunks and as a result should see an average influx of 1.5 strikes per 10 seconds, for an average power generation of about 60MW. Even without draw from the factory, it'll spend most of the night discharged.

A legendary collector covers about 12 chunks, and an efficiency of 100%, so you can draw about 1.2GW from it on average at night. There's a strike about every 50 ticks, give or take. Normal quality collectors covering the same area would only give you about 480MW. Sure you wouldn't lose any to overcapping, but you'd already be losing 60% to inefficiency and 9x the collector drain. A legendary collector won't ever run dry at night without significant load. To make it run dry you'd have to average a 1.05GW draw... well beyond the capability of normal collectors covering the same area.

[Lindor]

I don't think this is ever the case at all.

What shall i say?

grafik.png (19.47 KiB) Viewed 718 times

The increase at about 28 happened when i replaced my normal with legendary accumulators. The decrease at about 15 happened when i replaced my normal collectors with legendary collectors.

If there's charge in any collector or rod when another strike arrives you were already being limited by your accumulators' intake.

No, that is not true. The catch is that you have more electricity storage capacity with standard collectors, so when the night is over you're running from the stored energy in your collectors for a longer time. When you're consuming less than you're producing over night, then with standard collectors you have more capacity to store the overproduction than with legendary collectors, so in that case upgrading to legendary is a straight downgrade.

Sure you wouldn't lose any to overcapping, but you'd already be losing 60% to inefficiency and 9x the collector drain. A legendary collector won't ever run dry at night without significant load. To make it run dry you'd have to average a 1.05GW draw... well beyond the capability of normal collectors covering the same area.

That is partially true, but it is not the complete picture. You're losing more by overproduction than you're gaining by increased efficiency. What is not true is that Legendary Collectors don't have a decreased draw, all quality collectors have the same of 150MW.
The statement that a Legendary Collector won't run dry over night is as true as it is irrelevant, because normal quality collectors also usually don'r run dry over night and they store much more of the overproduction percentage-wise because of their smaller range and efficiency. The very fact that they produce less during night but store the same amount makes them superior, which is a little counter intuitive but it is true.

[pioruns]

The decrease at about 15 happened when i replaced my normal collectors with legendary collectors.

You replaced how many normal collectors with how many legendary ones?

[computeraddict]

What shall i say?

Probably start with what the graph is?

The catch is that you have more electricity storage capacity with standard collectors, so when the night is over you're running from the stored energy in your collectors for a longer time.

Any collector runs dry on its own in at most 6.67 seconds from its own internal 150MW drain. The extra capacity is meaningless.

You're losing more by overproduction than you're gaining by increased efficiency.

True if you aren't drawing 600MJ / 50 ticks (570MW plus 150MW drain). But if you're drawing that much you'd be over drawing 9x normal collectors by more than 50% already, so it's completely irrelevant.

normal quality collectors also usually don'r run dry over night

They do. They drain the 400MJ they collect from a strike in 2.33 seconds and only get struck about every 6.67 seconds.

[Lindor]

You replaced how many normal collectors with how many legendary ones?

I don't know the original normal collector count anymore, so i need to estimate. I think that i replaced 407 normal collectors with 51 legendary ones.

However i can tell you the exact amount of normal accumulators i replaced with legendary ones. It's 11269.

Probably start with what the graph is?

Haha yeah i'm sorry It's my accumulator charge over the last 50 hours.
My max charge is 338 GJ and if you zoom in you can see that the max is reached every night. It's just my average charge that decreased.

True if you aren't drawing 600MJ / 50 ticks (570MW plus 150MW drain).

Yeah my demand is well below that. It's about 1.3 GW on average. The only significant change in demand was when i started upcycling supercapacitors. That was the reason why i replaced my accumulators with legendary ones. The replacement of the lightning collectors wasn't necessary, i could fully supply my demand with normal ones. Just did it out of curiosity.

But if you're drawing that much you'd be over drawing 9x normal collectors by more than 50% already, so it's completely irrelevant.

I don't understand this, it doesn't make any sense to me. Yes that case is irrelevant, but it's also not the case that we're talking about. We're talking about the opposite case, where your demand does not exceed the breakpoint and where you do lose more to overproduction than you gain by efficiency. So it's irrelevant that this case is irrelevant.

They do. They drain the 400MJ they collect from a strike in 2.33 seconds and only get struck about every 6.67 seconds.

You are right! The drop still happened but I guess that my analysis of why it happened is incorrect.

[Stargateur]

quality doesn't increase their internal buffer or it does but not enough ? That indeed is a problem but call it a "scam" is too much. This should be in balance sub forum

[Lindor]

quality doesn't increase their internal buffer or it does but not enough ?

It doesn't increase it at all

That indeed is a problem but call it a "scam" is too much.

Yes i agree. It was based on the then-hypothesis that legendary lightning collectors cost way more but are worse than normal ones. By now it is unclear wether that's actually true or not. Knowing what i know today, i would choose a different title.
And thanks for acknowledging the problem! I would actually still root for a rebalance too, even though the reasons for it got a little weaker.

This should be in balance sub forum

I agree again, that's a mistake on my end

[Lindor]

I think that i would probably set the normal ones capacity to 400MJ, and the legendary ones to 2500MJ. That would exactly have the constant storage ~ range^2 relation that i suggested.

It also fits well because 400MJ is exactly the amount of energy that normal collectors get from each lightning strike. This way the "losing energy to overpruduction" problem would not be exclusive to quality lightning collectors, and it would actually give more of an incentive to upgrade the quality of your collectors before you're having access to legendary quality as well.

[computeraddict]

I started a more in depth reply on break points, but realized I don't have enough info on how lightning works beyond "about one strike per chunk per 600 ticks". A lot of it comes down to the probability distribution and timing of strikes and other than averages I haven't found much to work with.

My gut feeling is that 50 legendary collectors should outperform 600 common with the same area coverage barring any kind of thermodynamic miracle though.

[Stargateur]

As a quick fix just do a mod that increase all Lightning Collector buffer to 2.5 GJ that would not affect much normal one anyway.

[Lindor]

As a quick fix just do a mod that increase all Lightning Collector buffer to 2.5 GJ that would not affect much normal one anyway.

I thought about doing a mod. But maintaining mods can become pretty exhausting. I'm not a very consistent factorio player, there are times where i play a lot and there are times where i don't play at all. Nowadays i'd rather leave this to more active persons than myself.

I started a more in depth reply on break points, but realized I don't have enough info on how lightning works beyond "about one strike per chunk per 600 ticks". A lot of it comes down to the probability distribution and timing of strikes and other than averages I haven't found much to work with.

My gut feeling is that 50 legendary collectors should outperform 600 common with the same area coverage barring any kind of thermodynamic miracle though.

Well if you eventually happen to decide to do it anyways by guessing let's say a gaussian distribution or whatever, then i'd like to gently advise you to first take a second look at all the maths that you did so far. I'm gonna provide you my calculations for cross-checking.

My Maths

Comment: remember the order of operations

constant placeholders

Code: Select all

P=power per lightning (1000MJ)
L=lightning density per area and time
E=collector efficiency (normal=40%, legendary=60%)
D=collector drain (150MW)
S=collector storage capacity (1000MJ)
R=collector range (normal=25tiles, legendary=62.5tiles)
U=electricity usage drain of the factory per collector
N=Fulgora night duration (3600ticks)

Dry-out-time

Code: Select all

dry-out-time=P*E/D

normal: 2.67 seconds
legendary: 6.67 seconds

ticks per lightning

Code: Select all

L=1Lightning/(10 * 60Ticks * 1Chunk * ((32Tile)^2)/Chunk)
A=pi*(R^2)
lightnings per tick = L * A
ticks per lightning = 1 / lightnings per tick

normal: 312.91 ticks (or about once every 5.22 seconds)
legendary: 50.07 ticks (or about once every 0.83 seconds)

Expected power generation per night

following calculations assuming that

• the normal collector always dries out
• the legendary collector never dries out

normal:
Well this depends entirely on your consumption. If you manage to consume everything in a single tick, then the maximum would be:

Code: Select all

power per night and collector = lightnings per tick * P * E * N = 4601.94MJ
power per second and collector during night = power per night and collector / N = 76.7MW

But it is very unlikey that you reach this point.

legendary:

Code: Select all

power per night and collector = (lightnings per tick * P * E - D) * N = 62905.35MJ
power per second and collector during night = power per night and collector / N = 1048.42MW

That is an incredibly high amount and reveals just how much you're losing to overproduction!

beakpoint where loss by overproduction exceeds gain by efficiency

following calculations assuming that

• the normal collector always dries out
• the legendary collector never dries out

Code: Select all

power generation per legendary collector = (legendary collector lightnings per tick) * P * E_legendary
power draw per legendary collector = D + U
charging phase ticks  = S / (power generation - power draw)
overproduction phase ticks = N - charging phase ticks
loss by overproduction per collector = overproduction phase ticks * (power generation - power draw)
amount of lightnings per night = (legendary collector lightnings per tick) * N
gain by efficiency = (E_legendary - E_normal) * (amount of lightnings per night) * P

The breakpoint happens where loss by overproduction = gain by efficiency
Putting the formulae together and resolving for U yields:

Code: Select all

U = (legendary collector lightnings per tick) * P * (1 - (E_legendary - E_normal)) - (S/N) - D
=> U = 312.7MW per legendary collector

So i would need a consumption of 15947.8188069MW or about 16GW to reach the breakpoint. I'm well below that, so i'm losing more to overproduction than i'm gaining by efficiency.

A lot of numbers you provided fit my calculations, but also a lot of numbers don't.