How is efficiency defined in this game?

[Atlas32]

In terms of productivity, waste and profit, how do you define productivity in this game? what is the simple rule for achieving productivity?

[Overeagerdragon]

You do realise this is an almost impossible question to answer right? We don't know if you use mods, which ones or what you define as "waste" and/or "profit"

When leaving those out the question becomes trivial as most people here will simply tell you that:

"The factory must grow"

As more intake = higher productivity.

In the relation to this question then "waste" is 0 because everything can be used to create something in due time and endline products are never "waste" to begin with.
Likewise "profit" will then be infinite because everything taken in will eventually become an endline product.


When adding mods then the answer becomes VASTLY different

In my own game I can label copper as waste because in producing other stuff I produce way more copper than I can actually reprocess. Productivity becomes higher as I take in more materials and build more beacons. Profit means I will sell my waste per 24 ingame hrs but because I don't do anything with said profit then profit = waste...

Confused yet ?

[Atlas32]

Well I don't use mods so I only play vanilla, and also I define production as producing resources in the most time efficient manner possible. So what I am asking, is for the general rule for productivity, or even for several tips on the best general rules for producing things. I'd prefer if the answer was broad in definition. But you said more time spent working = higher productivity right? so you're basically saying more work = more production?

[Killcreek2]

Big question. Lots & lots of different variables involved, and also personal playstyle has a huge impact.

Broadest general suggestion:
Do not hunt for "perfect" solutions, as the final 1% often takes far more time & effort than the first 99% did (Cap'n Ahab hunting that whale). Aim for "close enough" (95-99% -ish?), erring on the side of slight over-production, & move on to the next task once it can "get the job done" (efficient for player-time-spent).

Time spent learning what works / doesn't work is not wasted: what you learn from it will help make your future designs even better. There is a lot to learn, so try not to skip the basics due to impatience (this has tripped me up a few times).

Nguyên văn bởi getAPT:

Well I don't use mods so I only play vanilla, and also I define production as producing resources in the most time efficient manner possible.

This is unclear if you mean: A) constructing a new production line as fast as possible, or B) items are produced from that line efficiently (time from raw to finished).

If A) check out some speedrunning tips (especially early-game bootstrap / quick builds); make & use blueprints, with construction bots; automate everything you would do more than once every few hours; use easily-expandable / tileable designs. If you are waiting for stuff to finish, you ought to be building more production capacity.

if B) various different design methodologies exist here, very personal preference.
You can craft some intermedairies on-site (eg; copper wires for green chips), instead of making elsewhere & transporting them too; or make entire production lines that input raw materials & output science (usualy non-expandable, make another copy to double the output); or use a different production line for each item (easy to expand gradually as the factory grows); or distrubuted production areas with items automatically transferred between sections; and the list goes on...

Personally I prefer heavily-optimised designs (vanilla), with emphasis on:
+ raw resource efficiency ~ productivity modules & speed beacons, (mining prod research too);
+ crafting efficiency ~ fewest number of crafting machines / processes, direct-inserting where possible, 99% near-perfect production ratios (as above) ~ online / ingame planner tools are very useful for larger factories;
+ item transportation efficiency ~ high throughput / short distance / low latency, as possible in that order of priority. This is more an overall factory layout thing, but also applies to individual production lines too. (I use a mix of belts, trains, & logi bots, as each have different strengths / weaknesses so are better for different jobs / designs);
+ UPS efficiency ~ for megafactory only, requires a different design emphasis & knowledge set (not going into details here).

- Construction cost & player design / planning time tends to be rather large, though that only needs to be done once per section (then you have the BP for repeated future use, huzzah).
Alternately, you can just use somebody elses design BPs, though I do not recommend this as you will miss out on a lot of learning / experience: trial & error is a big part of this game, & the things you learn that way allow you to make similar awesome designs that others share (with certain exceptions, such as the N-N belt balancers ~ why re-invent the wheel).
I often glean useful tips & tricks from looking at other players cool designs though, which help with my own projects.

Honestly, the best advice I can give is to simply try as many different ideas / designs / layouts as you can think of, pick your favourites, then see if other people have had other cool ideas you have not explored yet ~ chances are high that those will be more-advanced techniques, by which point you ought to have learned enough of the basic-intermediate techniques to understand / adapt them properly for your own use).
But remember the tip about chasing 100% "perfect" solutions ~ 95-99% "close enough" gets the job done in noticeably less player effort.

[Jacowboy]

I'd define "efficiency" as being able to build a factory that's working smoothly all the time without requiring much, if any, player intervention (or fully automated, I guess)... which is VERY difficult... something always seems to be breaking or lacking somewhere along the production line...

I don't think the size of the factory (or even just a part of it) matters for it to be efficient... if you build a small one but it functions smoothly, then I'd consider it "efficient"... but that's just me of course... I'm not a numbers nerd or a "mods" lover (seriously, what's up with all the "use mods" people in here? xD )

[AlexMBrennan]

Given that power (solar) and space (needed for solar) are both infinite I would argue that the only useful measure of productivity is how much ore you need per science pack/rocket/etc

[knighttemplar1960]

Nguyên văn bởi AlexMBrennan:

Given that power (solar) and space (needed for solar) are both infinite I would argue that the only useful measure of productivity is how much ore you need per science pack/rocket/etc

I think it would just be production per unit time. Throughput becomes your bottle neck at that point.

[Ryan]

This is how I define efficiency:

Your base requires no work on your part to maintain its defenses. All bases, including remote, have completely automated defense and repair mechanisms. No effort is required to maintain trains as they are all automated. New bases are built automatically using blueprints and are self sustaining regarding power and defense.. You just place the blueprints and watch the base build up around you automatically.

I define efficiency as the level of effort it takes to play your game. If you are building things manually it is not efficient.

[MartyrmanX]

In terms of modules of the vanilla game....

Efficiency refers to expenditure of energy to produce a product (ideally the least amount of energy used to make products).
This module saves energy.

Production/Productivity refers to the the number of products manufactured at a time (ideally, making more than 1 product per cycle).
This module costs time, but saves resources (kind of).

Speed refers to how fast a product is made (ideally, making products at phenomenal rates).
This module costs energy, but saves time.


My definition of productivity in this game? Mass production of products as quick as possible. Overall, I ignore efficiency modules unless I'm building a rocket, then I buckle down (like I did for the "Lazy Bastard" achievement).

[Gamer]

Bottleneck on copper plate (factory balanced on spaming rockets and research at same time) , size of copper smelting = iron = ~0.5 self sustained steel.
OFC all in productivity modules and beacons whit mix of speed and efficiency moduls (size of factory)
Size of factory: 3-6 full bandwidth of blue belt per copper & iron, drone factory, rail factory....

Pollution and power usage is "lateral damage".