How do rockets work?

[Shizai]

I have launched several rockets, the rockets which bring uranium, the rockets which bring iridium, and just now, a plant rocket.
I had the feeling that none of my statistics increase when I launch the rockets, so this time I watched carefully the biomass ticker. And it is ticking at the same speed before and after rocket launch. And the total biomass is also still the same?

So how do they work? What do they actually do?

[Phoenix Cat]

Most of the rockets I believe increase it by a multiplier of 1000%. You have to send up several to see real changes quickly. They do help though.

[archmag]

Yes, all of them increase income for one of the resources by 1000%, basically 11x for the first rocket and extra 10x for each next one (11x, 21x, 31x, etc). You can later unlock a screen that shows total effects from each one. To see the difference you need to look at gains per second, not the total amounts of resources.

[ninjawannabe]

In short, the rockets boost the related production metric by a percentage. Since the boost is percentage based, the reason why you didn't see a change kind of depends on a few things. If the metric was ticking extremely slow already and you don't have many "producers" then it will not be easy to see the change. Similar if you have a large amount of the metric (i.e. biomass) because it amassed slowly while you were exploring it won't show a major jump either. If you add a couple of machines/producers you should see the metric tick up faster but it is hard to see how much of difference it adds as it is easy to just contribute it to the new producer you made. I can tell you after playing multiple worlds, that when you are on the biomass items you will want to have approximately 6 rockets of each type to keep things progressing at a reasonable rate. Otherwise, you will feel stuck and just waiting on things instead of things unlocking at a good pace to keep you interested. This number will go up as you unlock things but wanted to give you an idea on how many to work towards.

[Gemini]

Originally posted by Shizai:

I have launched several rockets, the rockets which bring uranium, the rockets which bring iridium, and just now, a plant rocket.
I had the feeling that none of my statistics increase when I launch the rockets, so this time I watched carefully the biomass ticker. And it is ticking at the same speed before and after rocket launch. And the total biomass is also still the same?

So how do they work? What do they actually do?

You may be getting the Plants Rocket confused with the Seeds Spreader Rocket.

Asteroid Attraction = Heat
Magnetic Field = Pressure
Plants = Plants
Seeds Spreader = Oxygen
Insects Spreader = Insects
Animals Spreader = Animals

They boost the generation rates so you should be seeing the rate numbers go up on the appropriate displays, though it won't visually go up on the pop-up machine panels.

[Nefai]

Long story short, you have the best output if you have an even ratio of Generators to Rockets.

5 Drills and 5 Pressure Rockets is way WAY better than 10 Drills and 1 Pressure Rocket, or 1 Drill and 10 Pressure Rockets.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Nefai:

Long story short, you have the best output if you have an even ratio of Generators to Rockets.

5 Drills and 5 Pressure Rockets is way WAY better than 10 Drills and 1 Pressure Rocket, or 1 Drill and 10 Pressure Rockets.

Rockets also have diminishing returns.

The first rocket, you get a big fat 10x increase (I don't know where you're getting 11x), for a total of +1000% as the game states.

The second rocket, you get 20x increase, which is +100% from the previous rocket.
The third rocket, you get 30x increase, which is +50% from the previous rocket.
The fourth rocket, you get 40x increase, which is +30% from the previous rocket.
The fifth rocket, you get 50x increase, which is +25% from the previous rocket.
The sixth rocket, you get 60x increase, which is +20% from the previous rocket.
The seventh rocket, you get 70x increase, which is a 17% increase from the previous rocket.
The eighth rocket, you get 80x increase, which is a 14% increase from the previous rocket.
The ninth rocket, you get a 90x increase, which is a 13% increase from the previous rocket.
The tenth rocket, you get a 100x increase, which is an 11% increase.

Beyond that, there's not much point to releasing rockets as they are not going to do much whatsoever for your gains. In fact, unless you have stray engines laying around and you have all the drones you want, I wouldn't go beyond 5 rockets per category.

Instead, what you could do, is use the Optimizer Machines. You can turn 5 machines into 25 machines with 1 fuse, which would give you a far better bonus than sending off rockets, especially if it was a machine you JUST unlocked.

For example, when you first unlock the T4 heater, placing down 5 of those around an optimizer will give you 25 T4 heaters which is probably more Heat generation than all of your previous heaters combined and certainly way more than firing off a couple rockets would do.

[archmag]

The first rocket, you get a big fat 10x increase (I don't know where you're getting 11x), for a total of +1000% as the game states.

+1000% = 11x increase. You have base 100% and add another 1000% for a total of 1100%, which is 11x. But this extra 100% can be safely ignored when we talk about more rockets. Or maybe it is an extra multiplier like optimizer and not additional 1000%, so then it really is just 10x, 20x, 30x, ... Doesn't really matter.

Originally posted by maestro:

Rockets also have diminishing returns.

The second rocket, you get 20x increase, which is +100% from the previous rocket.
...
The tenth rocket, you get a 100x increase, which is an 11% increase.

That's not exactly the diminishing returns as it is defined. Rockets don't have diminishing returns because it is always 1000% of base income per each next rocket. Diminishing returns is defined when your returns per investment decreases the more you invest but here it is the same no matter the amount. If second rocket would cost the same but gave only 990%, third only 980%, etc then yes, it would be diminishing returns because you invest the same amount but gain less per each next rocket. You can say that it is diminishing returns on relative increase, but that just confused things, no one uses diminishing returns term that way, it is always defined on base increase.

Rockets just give you linear increase in income based on the amount you send. So it is still useful to send more rockets provided they are relatively cheap. Want to double your income - send double the amount of rockets.

Beyond that, there's not much point to releasing rockets as they are not going to do much whatsoever for your gains. In fact, unless you have stray engines laying around and you have all the drones you want, I wouldn't go beyond 5 rockets per category.

5 rockets is just too little, you will be waiting forever. They are pretty cheap and pretty common when you start exploring random maps or setup autocrafting for iridium rods (1 iridium rod + 2 uranium which is mined + 1 super alloy which is also mined) so there is no reason not to send more if you want to reach 5TTi faster.

Instead, what you could do, is use the Optimizer Machines. You can turn 5 machines into 25 machines with 1 fuse, which would give you a far better bonus than sending off rockets, especially if it was a machine you JUST unlocked.

You actually need to combine all three options available to you - more machines (limited by amount that can be affected by optimizers), more optimizers (limited by the amount of fuses you can get), more rockets (technically unlimited).

Until your first two options are capped it may be wise to stop sending rockets at some point and focus on those instead, but after you cap them the rockets are the only unlimited way. Well, technically you can buy fuses using tokens from trading rockets, so you have this option too but it requires either doing more runs in random maps or creating a good production network for obtaining this currency so you can afford to buy extra fuses. Plus don't forget that you may need 500k for one of the endings. Instead it is much easier to just automate engines production and focus on rockets.

If you want to optimize everything perfectly then basically each time you decide on what to add - a machine, an optimizer, a rocket - you compare their price and how much you get from them. Like 6th machine is giving you 20% increase in income and costs 10 minutes of your time to craft all necessary resources, 6th optimizer gives you also 20% increase in income and costs 30 minutes of your time to do runs and buy fuses, 21st rocket gives you 5% of your income but you already have all required parts because you autocraft them so you just need to spend few actions to send a rocket. In this case 21st rocket will be more profitable than other available options. In another case, like when you already have spare fuses 2nd option may be more profitable.

Anyway, there is no need to perfectly optimize everything, even if you don't do it perfectly you will get to the end eventually, but just don't put yourself into such limitations as "5 rockets are enough and more rockets won't add significantly" (sending 20 more rockets in this example will increase your income 5x and it's pretty noticable).