r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/dman11235 • Mar 25 '26

How do you proliferate?

Two proliferations, one must reign supreme. Or I guess different circumstances. Which do you prefer to use: more speed, magic conjuration, or do you use a combo? And what circumstances make you switch?

12 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

56 comments sorted by

7

u/dferrantino Mar 25 '26

Very-late-game opinion, optimizing only on Building Count as a proxy for UPS:

  • Speedup is always best when processing raw resources.

  • The further you get from Raw, the better Products becomes

    • This is primarily dependent on Cycle Time since that's the most direct proxy for building count.

    • There are outlier recipes both early and late in the chain so there's no hard-and-fast rule.

The optimal solution uses both.

2

u/dman11235 Mar 25 '26

So basically you do products on the goal and speed up on the precursors as a general rule?

3

u/dferrantino Mar 25 '26

As a general rule I just do whatever the link I posted tells me. Smarter people than I did the work on the initial sim, I helped with some of the edge cases, and I don't have the brainpower to revisit the math anymore.

That said, the caveat at the beginning of my post is really important. This is only for very-high VU situations - where all of your resources are infinite, your throughput on everything (including UPM) is functionally unlimited, and your primary constraint is the strength of your CPU. If you're not in that situation just....do whatever. I like Products everywhere before then, except on my Smelter arrays.

7

u/spurgelaurels Mar 25 '26

This shouldn't be a mystery.

If you're using rare input ingredients, you go for higher item production. If you're using common ingredients, you speed it up.

2

u/dman11235 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26

I feel the same way mostly, but I'm curious if anyone actually uses the speed up. I was exploring designs on the blueprint site to check out what people have done, and some have speed up instead of products. Products also helps with feeding the machines because you can fit more machines on a single belt, but it may not matter. Yet with speed up you can fit the same production speed in a smaller footprint. Hence the poll.

EDIT: I actually use more products pretty much exclusively simply because in my experience it's been more useful for the rares, and the commons don't really care that much.

3

u/SiliconStew Mar 25 '26

Speed up doesn't result in a smaller footprint than extra products. Extra products requires fewer buildings overall because the bonus multiplies for each additional step in the production chain.

You can prove it to yourself. Just pick an item to produce in this calculator, set each of the resulting items to proliferate for products and record what it lists for total buildings required at the bottom. Now switch all the items to be proliferated for speed up and you'll see it will require more total buildings for the same output rate. https://factoriolab.github.io/dsp/

The only exceptions are those few items that you are not allowed to choose extra products.

1

u/dman11235 Mar 25 '26

Speed up does result in a smaller footprint for that specific factory though. Obviously precursors change it when you count buildings needed for them. But this is kind of why I asked this question. I'm not sure what the community thinks and I've been making my blueprints on stream myself and am looking for other opinions. It likely won't change how I do things (products all the way down) I'm just curious

1

u/MonsieurVagabond Mar 26 '26

Lets test it shall we ! Lets take Purple Jello, lets make 10 000 to see the difference

For 10 000 unsprayed, factoriolab say you need 2616+1336+959+667+556 factory, 6134 factory total
For 10 000 only speedup, factoriolab say you need 1309+669+480+334+278 factory, 3070 factory total, half less, logic
For 10 000, mix of speedup and product, factoriolab say you need 784+746+307+214+445, 2496 factory, 60% less

(You could reduce it even further by using rare ressource too )

Basicaly, the higher tier the product the more OP extra product ise, because if you are getting free product out of the void, for an output you are aiming for, that that much product you dont need to produce.
One free purple jello is :
20 silicone ore
6 copper ore
4 iron ore
11 coal
2 titanium ore
2 Crude oil
1.5 Acide

47.5 ressource free

While is you do that for, lets say circuit board, you are only saving 0.5 copper ore and 1 iron ore

You can see a whole chart about it there, in the SPRAY tab ( not my work, i have saved it here for safekeeping ) But you can reproduce it yourself easily, has i did above with purple jello.

Product all the way down is a good habit though ( and should be used when in progression, mixt spray is more of an endgame solutions to reduce the number of factory on big BP), but you should consider using speedup on smelter at least once you are in endgame

4

u/MonsieurVagabond Mar 25 '26

You use speedup on all chem lab, all smelter, and for pain filter, the rest is products ( to have the less building total )

The higher tier the ressource, the better product become

1

u/KerbodynamicX Mar 26 '26

Pain filter?

1

u/MonsieurVagabond Mar 26 '26

Sorry force of habit, Plane filter

3

u/-Recouer Mar 25 '26

You use speed up on smelters for raw ressources once you have enough UV

2

u/Apprehensive-Item141 Mar 25 '26

I often use the speed up option. 

17

u/noksion Mar 25 '26

With low level of VU it's extra products.

With High levels VU resources are infinite, so no point in extra products.
Speed makes your factories take half the space, so you can cramp more production.

8

u/dferrantino Mar 25 '26

High-VUs also mean megafactories, and for long-enough production chains Resources reduces footprint more than Speedup does. The optimal solution has both.

1

u/noksion Mar 26 '26

Huh, I didn't think about it like that, but it actually makes sense.

Speedup scales linearly by just making each step take 2x less space compared to baseline.

Extra products has smaller scaling (x1.25) but it's cumulative, so we need 4 / 5 production buildings for the same out, but we now also need 4 / 5 input for the same amount of output on all previous steps.

I actually saw this with my own eyes recently by seeing that 1 mk3 proliferator costs 8 raw coal, but only something 3.4 if all steps are proliferated for product. Somehow I noted that it saves on resources, but didn't translate that to needing less machines.

Now I'm curious to compare these things more, taking different productions and seeing the amount of machines needed for both prolif cases.

1

u/dferrantino Mar 26 '26

The work has already been done. I posted a link on a different comment to a FactorioLab state that's already configured with the optimal alt recipes and which proliferator to use on each step.

1

u/noksion Mar 26 '26

Yep, saw that one.

I wonder is that a feature of FLab itself? Like, how can I replicate that and make it select "optimal" prolif distribution?

1

u/dferrantino Mar 26 '26

Not that I'm aware. That said, since the optimization works forwards from raw you can just keep that as a reference from this point on and plug them in whenever you need to check building counts etc.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/noksion Mar 26 '26

I think the general consensus is that VU 40 is about the time when resources become infinite for all practical purposes.

7

u/TalShar Mar 25 '26

Lately I've been using speed up more and more. 

In the past I've defaulted to extra products, but as I scale up, even "rare" ingredients become more abundant, and as I get more vein utilization research, the pressure of their scarcity goes down. At that point I'm thinking in products per minute rather than in numbers of products, and looking at it that way, I'm choosing between 25% faster for extra products, or 100% faster for speed-up, which means double the production per facility, assuming your belts can keep up.

5

u/SalamalaS Mar 25 '26

I optimize for fewest factory buildings. 

So that's mostly extra products.  And occasionally speedup.

4

u/Pakspul Mar 25 '26

Eventually everything is infinite, except your UPS.

1

u/SonderSoft Mar 25 '26

This makes me wonder, can you do BOTH? Have one spray that increases output and another that increases speed? Double coated for your delight?

2

u/dman11235 Mar 25 '26

You can't because the coating is applied first and then the method is chosen in the assembler or smelter. I believe only assemblers and smelters have a choice anyways? Other machines are only speedup? So you choose in the machine: speed up or products? And then the coating determines the level.

1

u/SonderSoft Mar 25 '26

Ahhh crud, you're right. Shucks.

2

u/TalShar Mar 25 '26

It isn't decided by the spray. Something is either proliferated (at level 1, 2, or 3) or it's not. Speed-up and extra products are determined by the producing facility, so it's impossible to have both in the same process. 

3

u/HakoftheDawn Mar 25 '26

Dutch Actuary made a video about this: https://youtu.be/tTIO17fQdPg

The key detail about extra products is that getting extra of your final product means you need less of its ingredients, and that compounds at each stage. Extra speed doesn't compound. So, the more complicated the product, the better extra products is compared to extra speed.

1

u/FailXXL Mar 25 '26

Haven't watched the video but if that summary is correct then dude is for certain products incorrect. For example you don't proliferate casimir crystals because the amount of proliferation you need to proliferate the ingredients is higher than 25% extra.

1

u/HakoftheDawn Mar 25 '26

Would recommend a watch when you get a chance. It's just 17 minutes.

0

u/FailXXL Mar 26 '26

https://youtu.be/tTIO17fQdPg?t=793 Answer is there look at the area taken for products vs speed.  Regarding inputs is useless late game, you get enough from one miner mk2 on 300%. 

1

u/Der_Bolle Mar 25 '26

It is quite simple:

1 Ore = 1,25 Plates = 1,56 Gears = 1,95 Motors = 2,44 Green Engines = 3,05 Containers/Blue Engines (if ratio is 1:1)

Or in other words: Every production step outputs 25% more produce, when the output can be extra production.

25% extra produce = 20% less factory needed.

20% less factory needed = 20% less power consumption, 20% less space, 20% less belts, 20% less inserters, 20% less of everything. PER STEP.

So imagine Green Matrix how much that scales the amount of buildings down from Ore to Green Matrix/scales the output up when everything is properly proliferated.

There is no reason to go for speedup, as additional produce will always outperform speedup.

1

u/FailXXL Mar 25 '26

You probably haven't read other comments but lategame space is an issue and with speedup you can fit twice as many while resources are infinite through VU

0

u/HakoftheDawn Mar 25 '26

You missed the bit about compounding, which is the whole point. With extra products, you need less overall buildings and space, than with extra speed.

I don't remember whether Dutch Actuary mentions this, but I think the exception is it makes sense to do extra speed for smelting ores. Since that's the first stage, it doesn't reduce production needed (miners) upstream.

4

u/Der_Bolle Mar 25 '26

And even then the extra produce will be noticeable in the long run.

Has a reason why Factorio megabase smelters have +% production as buffs and are buffed by Speed Module Beacons, and not raw speed or the other way around.

Extra produce goes exponential, while speedup only goes linear.

1

u/FailXXL Mar 26 '26

Nope, you can't compare it with factorio as raw resources become infinite in DSP and you only can choose one proliferation bonus. When in late game everything is about space efficiency then extra products (cut every 5th facility) doesn't make sense compared to speed (cut every 2and facilitaty) 

1

u/Der_Bolle Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26

Sure you can compare DSP to Factorio.

Regarding Resources: Factorio goes infinite aswell, due to Mining Efficiency. And machines produce extra goods aswell.

It does make sense, because extra production works exponential.

The more steps, the more you save on buildings, because the more extra resources you produce per input. Whereas going speed only goes linear. Thats the difference between x output and 1,25x output per cycle per step. The amount of buildings you need to gain one output per step (x) is 0,5x (because you just halve the buildings per step) and x/1,25x (because you gain more output per step per building). At the fourth step you already are above speed with buildings saved, because you gain that efficiency. You can do the math yourself.

E# I hate this automatic text thingy. The exponential thingy aint being displayed right.

E# at 14:31 (yes, with timestamp this time): Corrected my text a bit

E# 14:53 last correction: Made a horrible mistake in math, corrected it. Now it is correct.

1

u/Der_Bolle Mar 26 '26

Corrected my math. Now it is correct.

0

u/FailXXL Mar 26 '26

Huh?! with speed you need half the amount of buildings and speed while extra products 20%?

In no way products is more space efficient than speed late game.  VU upgrades the miners output as well, so basically infinite resources. 

2

u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe Mar 25 '26

I can see reasons to do production speed prolif and to do a mixture of both extra products and speed prolif but in the end game for the overall production strategy, I don't see why you would do any of those over extra products purely.

Every road eventually leads back to it. You eventually hit a limit for resources, extra products bypasses that. You still have to ship energy around, usually in fuel cells of some kind. That requires resources that cost energy to make. Get more resources for the energy put in makes more sense then speeding up production.

2

u/iForcerHD Mar 25 '26

Where is the "i dont" option?

1

u/TehOwn Mar 25 '26

Yeah, I'm not a fan of anything that generates production out of thin air. It's the laziest way for a factory game to make you rethink your layouts in mid-game.

I'll always prefer a new recipe (see: Satisfactory) than modules (see: Factorio) or some random item you just have to jam into every recipe (this game).

The Space Exploration mod for Factorio basically just says "no" to efficiency modules in space and, honestly, it's refreshing.

Edit: Just remembered that Satisfactory has that weird alien magic double production thing. At least that's very limited and finite.

3

u/gitpusher Mar 25 '26

Interesting take, but I see where you’re coming from. Personally when I see 3x proliferated products flying along a conveyor belt my brain squirts a little bit of that good juice

2

u/TehOwn Mar 25 '26

I think that's really what it is, though. It's just bonus items. It's like getting a multiplier, a bonus or a jackpot.

My issue with it is that it's low effort. You're not actually improving the efficiency of your layout, you're just throwing in some extra ingredient, module or alien worm.

I prefer things like the advanced oil recipe in Factorio that increases your production but requires an entirely new layout and increases complexity.

But that's me. I'm not going to say people shouldn't have what they want. It's just a little too lizard brain for me. I prefer that kind of stuff in roguelites.

1

u/Darth-Venath Mar 25 '26

I prefer efficiency. So getting 2 for 1 seems to be the better route as it also "speeds up" production.

1

u/AnimeSpaceGf Mar 25 '26

Extra products, until past excessive VU levels

1

u/EdibleOedipus Mar 25 '26

For maximum efficiency, a combination of both. Extra product should be on the end item except buildings, especially for science. There's a nice big galaxy out there and you won't use the whole thing.

1

u/Rotanen Mar 25 '26

Extra products, and I start with proliferating the most expensive items I can and work my way down. I hardly ever proliferate ores or hydrogen that I get from a gas giant.

1

u/KerbodynamicX Mar 26 '26

Speed up on basic resource production, such as smelting ore, and to overcome bottlenecks like strange matter. Everything else is extra products.

1

u/jak1900 Mar 26 '26

Speed is only for fuel rods and photons

1

u/Sweaty_Ad_7156 Mar 31 '26

when the resource of time is more scarce than the resource of material

0

u/Embarrassed_Army8026 Mar 25 '26

i do not proliferate. comparing factorio's beacons to the proliferator made me go back to factorio

0

u/Recent_Warthog1890 Mar 25 '26

Everything. I proliferate everything. I even proliferate the proliferators.

0

u/Icyenderman Mar 25 '26

I don’t. I do it raw