What do you proliferate?

[Ohm is Futile]

Title.

I'm getting back to the game and there's a bunch of cool features... but I'm not too sure what I'm thinking of proliferation. Aside from stretching limited resources by using the extra product setting, I'm not super inspired by it.

I'm guessing it cuts down on the space you need overall if you use the speed up version, but 2x the speed for 250% power usage in a game where you can literally cover several planets in industry doesn't seem *that* useful. Also, you need to provide the proliferant which, sure you don't need much, but it's an extra bit of logistics and belting required so...

Do you guys use it and, if so, on what?

[Wiawyr]

Yes, everything that gives extra products.

[Ohm is Futile]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Yes, everything that gives extra products.

Everything? *Everything???* Are you playing on 0.5x?

I've restarted and so far I'm only doing it for silicon and processors because my starting system doesn't have that much silicon. I could certainly see myself doing it with unipolar magnets, research jello, photons, that kinda stuff...

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Yes, everything that gives extra products.

Everything? *Everything???* Are you playing on 0.5x?

I've restarted and so far I'm only doing it for silicon and processors because my starting system doesn't have that much silicon. I could certainly see myself doing it with unipolar magnets, research jello, photons, that kinda stuff...

The earlier in the chain you start using it, the more benefit you gain. Although, the Mk.I spray is not really worth using and Mk.II is a big improvement compared to it. The gain from Mk.II to Mk.III is not as much of an increase compared to the resource cost and some people don't use the Mk.III spray because of that.

[Nekogod]

The extra product version massively cuts down on space, more than the speed up version for large chains (rockets, green cubes etc) it can also be a net reduction in power usage too.

It's definitely more useful for low resource games.

I use it on long chains, power cells (hydrogen, duet and antimatter) and on research cubes. It's also good on solar sails, makes them launch faster.

[joebobku]

I would only go to second level proliferation personally. The extra power to go form 20% to 25% production boost doesn't make a lot of sense IMO. I only use this on Processors, Quantum Processors, Plane Filters (because they are slow to manufacture), Dyson Components, Research Cubes, Green Turbines, Fiber Optics, Pink Cubes maybe??. Basically anywhere where you're not wasting Diamonds on low level items or where you're using them to proliferate large quantities of things like Hydrogen/Deuterium/Optical Crystals.

[josmith7]

I don't use the +speed, 200% product output, 200% inputs, and 250% energy (100% + 150%) is a 25% power increase just to shrink the footprint 50% compared to using non-proliferated builds. That's not horrible, but it's not amazing.

However on a many-stage production lines the 25% free product from +product can really add up.
For any given stage it's less efficient than +speed; 125% product output, 100% inputs, and 250% energy is a 100% power increase (but a 20% savings in input materials).

However, lets say I'm making something fairly simple, titanium alloy using pumped sulfuric acid.
steel < iron ingots < iron ore
titanium ingots < titanium ore
sulfuric acid
If I want to make 360/min without proliferation, and with arc smelters that takes:
18 smelters for titanium alloy, 12 for titanium, 18 for steel, and 18 for iron = 66.
This consumes 720 titanium ore/min, 1080 iron ore/min; and uses 23.76 MW

If I apply Proliferator Mk.III in +product mode to all stages, to make that same 360/min it now takes (rounded up to whole smelters):
15 smelters (83.3% as many) for titanium alloy, 8 (66.7% as many) for titanium, 12 (66.7% as many) for steel, 10 (55.6%) for iron = 45 (68.2% as many)
This consumes 460.8 titanium ore/min (64% as much), 553 iron ore/min (51.2% as much); and uses 40.5 MW (+70.9% power - not the +100% power you'd get from a single production stage)

You can see, even on that short chain, how each stage lower requires proportionately fewer buildings, because that free +25% product means at each stages you need only ~80% the production you'd need without proliferation.

For a production chain that's n stages long the original stage needs only 0.8^n as much production = 80%, 64%, 51.2%, 41%, 32.8%, etc.

That vast reduction in size over a long multi-stage production chain can end up mostly, or completely, offsetting the extra power each remaining building actually uses. (And that means even proliferating your smelting, can end up significantly reducing your mining and shipping requirements, while allowing for far fewer smelters to supply a given level of end item production compared to going without proliferation.

[josmith7]

Still - I don't start off proliferating everything. Creating the proliferator adds some power and resource consumption of its own. I generally start selectively proliferating working backwards from the final products towards the initial ones.

It's only my late mid-game or later blueprints that call for full proliferating of everything :D

[DaBa]

Yes, you want to profilerate just about everything you can for the +20% production bonus. The production speed is irrelevant.

Also, stick to MK 2 Proliferator. Mk 3 only gives an additional 5% bonus, and it adds a carbon nanotube into the recipe, which is a headache that's not worth dealing with for such a marginal benefit. Just stick to MK 2 that is much easier to make AND only requires coal.

I have only made a base once since they were introduced, but I would recommend not bothering with MK 1, early in the game it doesn't really help that much and it will make progression slower. Just leave room for spray coaters in your base and then when you unlock MK 2 hook it up to your production lines.

[Ragnaman]

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Title.

I'm getting back to the game and there's a bunch of cool features... but I'm not too sure what I'm thinking of proliferation. Aside from stretching limited resources by using the extra product setting, I'm not super inspired by it.

I'm guessing it cuts down on the space you need overall if you use the speed up version, but 2x the speed for 250% power usage in a game where you can literally cover several planets in industry doesn't seem *that* useful. Also, you need to provide the proliferant which, sure you don't need much, but it's an extra bit of logistics and belting required so...

Do you guys use it and, if so, on what?

Proliferate literally everything, its a production multiplier and only cost is power which you have near infinite later on. Sure you need coal as well, so you kinda turn coal into other types of resources via proliferation.

I have my proliferators delivered to my towers and then i output from this tower to proliferate the other outputs from that tower.


Early game I proliferate Deuterium fuel cells to power my first planet. I do not proliferate early builds, but i have them blueprinted in all my tower stacks.

[Ragnaman]

Originally posted by DaBa:

Yes, you want to profilerate just about everything you can for the +20% production bonus. The production speed is irrelevant.

Also, stick to MK 2 Proliferator. Mk 3 only gives an additional 5% bonus, and it adds a carbon nanotube into the recipe, which is a headache that's not worth dealing with for such a marginal benefit. Just stick to MK 2 that is much easier to make AND only requires coal.

I have only made a base once since they were introduced, but I would recommend not bothering with MK 1, early in the game it doesn't really help that much and it will make progression slower. Just leave room for spray coaters in your base and then when you unlock MK 2 hook it up to your production lines.

MK3 has more uses per can, although yeah, its sad that MK3 is such a marginal increase from MK2.

[SkyCake]

I paint literally everything. Mined, assembled, shipped on or off world, ect. I think it's a fun feature. It's super cheap and easy to have planet-wide painting. I like to create a little paint station that crafts yellow > green > blue paint with a line that runs through everything and loops back around on itself with the logistics to send it to other planets. That way when you upgrade the paint it'll run the old paint out of the system. Super easy to expand the line by just snipping it, adding the proliferate, then reconnecting it back to the main line.

It's a bit overkill. Especially the way I do it. I play on 1x and still everything is just super cheap and easy to make for them. But, I'm also the kind of player that likes to setup entire planets for one or two products. Even the upgrade to mk3 (blue) isn't costly at all relative to the rest of the game.

[Rekal]

Proliferate your power plant and Icarus fuel ASAP. Even just mk1 proliferator on energized graphite is a nice boost to power.

What proliferating extra products does in essence is convert power into free products. I'd recommend not starting to proliferate those until you have your power situation sorted with an abundance. Usually around the min-fusion plant stage.

[Ohm is Futile]

Ok I'm pretty torn. I'm getting a lot of "proliferate everything" and ironically, I could see the value with MK3 speed because then you're literally halving your building requirements although at a cost of power but still...

For MK2 vs MK3, for extra products MK3 definitely doesn't seem worth. Extra products itself obviously nice for things that are *relatively* limited but I don't know that I'd do it on literally everything. You do get into a loop where each level of VU starts costing less materials overall than it provides via mining efficiency so at some point both energy and raw materials become more or less infinite...

Unless I'm missing something?

Originally posted by Rekal:

Proliferate your power plant and Icarus fuel ASAP. Even just mk1 proliferator on energized graphite is a nice boost to power.

Ooh that's a cool tip.

Originally posted by Nekogod:

The extra product version massively cuts down on space, more than the speed up version for large chains (rockets, green cubes etc) it can also be a net reduction in power usage too.

That just sounds wrong.

[Ohm is Futile]

Originally posted by josmith7:

I don't use the +speed, 200% product output, 200% inputs, and 250% energy (100% + 150%) is a 25% power increase just to shrink the footprint 50% compared to using non-proliferated builds. That's not horrible, but it's not amazing.

(snip)

Very informative by the way, thank you.

[Rekal]

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Originally posted by Nekogod:

The extra product version massively cuts down on space, more than the speed up version for large chains (rockets, green cubes etc) it can also be a net reduction in power usage too.

That just sounds wrong.

It does sound wrong, but it is actually correct like he said for the long production chains. The reason Extra Products is superior than Speed Up is because it double dips. Mk3 proliferator gives you 25% free product which translates to a 20% reduction of inputs or the previous step's buildings. That free product doesn't take an extra cycle to pop out so that translates to a 25% increase in speed or a 20% reduction in the current steps buildings.

So 25% extra speed directly reduces your factory size by 20%, and the 20% input reduction means the previous step can be 20% smaller. Each extra step in the process that gets proliferated continues compound this savings.

Simple two step example:
1800 gears per minute requires 22MW, 40 mk1 assemblers, 30 smelters, and 60 miner nodes.

100% Speed Up proliferation would take 27MW (+23%), 20 mk1 assemblers, 15 smelters, and 60 miner nodes..

25% Extra Product proliferation would take 39MW (+77%) 32 mk1 assemblers (-20%), 19.2 smelters (-36% or -20% twice), and only 39 miner nodes (-35%)

With only two steps the boost is not as apparent.

More complex multi-step example:
60 Small Carrier Rocket per minute requires 448MW, 543 mk1 assemblers, 119 chemical plants, 34 fractionators, 543 smelters, and 975 miner nodes.

100% Speed Up proliferation would take 549MW (+23%), 237 mk1 assemblers (-50%), 60 chemical plants (-%50), 34 fractionators, 273 smelters (-50%), and 975 miner nodes.

25% Extra Product proliferation would take 398MW (-11%), 229 mk1 assemblers (-58%), 44 chemical plants (-63%), 22 fractionators (-35%), 170 smelters (-69%), and only 293 miner nodes (-70%).

With the full production line you can clearly see why everyone swears by the Extra Product mode.

All of these numbers are coming from: https://factoriolab.github.io/list?s=dsp&v=6