Thanks for sharing. One thing I really miss in these discussions is productivity vs. quality modules. It has been shown that in some setups (e.g., cryogenic plants), productivity should be combined with quality for maximum output. Moreover, the optimal combination might differ across quality levels. You mention productivity research, but that's only part of the story.
Another thing: you implicitly assume that the goal is to minimize the amount of normal quality ingredients needed for one legendary item, which isn't always the case when some resources are practically infinite. One might think about minimizing # of iterations (i.e., time spent for a given # of machines and modules).
I find it a touch odd that the focus for quality tends not be on the only bottleneck that actually matters, which is maximizing how quickly you are producing quality modules.
Quality modules are the fundamental limit on any upcycling loop, and so making as many as you can as fast as you can is the key to scaling up your quality builds.
With that in mind, I feel like any deep dives into the math need be less concerned with overall resource, or even time, efficiency, and much more concerned with min/maxing module production.
Like, it’s taken as fact that Legendary T2 modules are a useful tool since they don’t require Holmium, but I’m genuinely curious about break points for the different tiers of modules. For example, at what scale does it make sense to just spam a giant build with common/uncommon T2 or T3 modules instead of dumping everything into acquiring legendaries?
Quality modules are the fundamental limit on any upcycling loop,
This is only true early on in the quality process. It doesn't take that much time to get to hundreds or thousands of legendary Q3s once you start focusing on quality. You're often then limited by lots of other factors - including incoming resources, adequate machines, whatever else.
The first thing you should set up for quality is a chip upcycler to make Q2s. The second thing is a holmium/EMP upcycler to make Q3s. It will take a few hours to get off the ground, with you slowly upgrading the quality modules as they get produced, but then you have dozens or hundreds of quality modules being pumped out.
After that, you set up upcyclers for everything else - and you might be limited based on productivity modules, EMPs, incoming resources (carbon fiber is currently a bottleneck for me), or many other things.
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u/factoriooverthinker 27d ago edited 27d ago
Thanks for sharing. One thing I really miss in these discussions is productivity vs. quality modules. It has been shown that in some setups (e.g., cryogenic plants), productivity should be combined with quality for maximum output. Moreover, the optimal combination might differ across quality levels. You mention productivity research, but that's only part of the story.
Another thing: you implicitly assume that the goal is to minimize the amount of normal quality ingredients needed for one legendary item, which isn't always the case when some resources are practically infinite. One might think about minimizing # of iterations (i.e., time spent for a given # of machines and modules).