Speed or productivity module

[Dan Niton]

So out of these 2 modules, which is more efficient? Currently I'm trying to mass produce engines for the blue science pack and have no idea if I should insert 2 speed or 2 productivity modules in each assembly machine.

Edit: Most of these post had partially answered my question but I guess I should clarify further. I do know that speed mod reduce the time it takes to make an engine while productivity makes more engine at the expense of speed. Lets exclude space for the time being.

What I wanted efficiency wise in my case is getting the most possible number of engines in the shortest possible time. Should I go:
1. speed+productivity mod?
2. speed+speed? or
3. productivity+productivity?

Assuming that all engines are going into the wooden storage, which of these 3 will fill up the storage the fastest?

[PunCrathod]

Depends on what you mean by efficient.

[knighttemplar1960]

It also depends on what level module your are talking about. I'm guessing that you are talking about level 1 modules and you are putting them in an assembly machine 2.

Assembly machine 2 has a production speed of .75.
Productivity module 1 increases the productivity of the machine by 4%. So it essentially produces a free engine for every 25 engine units you produce. This comes at a cost of a 15% reduction in speed and an increase in energy consumption (and also pollution) by 40%.
Speed module 1 increases the production speed of the machine by 20% at the cost of a 50% increase in energy consumption.

1 speed module 1 and 1 productivity module 1 would give you an increase in speed of 5% and a free engine for every 25 that you produce at a cost of 90% more power used.

In either case its hardly worth the resources. You are likely better off just increasing the number of machines that you have producing engine units.

I generally don't use modules in anything until I have an excess of power produced by nuclear plants and until the modules are level 3 modules.

[Silberfuchs]

With enough solar or nuclear both modules become viable.

One of them save a bit of ressources, the other space (cause the same assemblers produce much faster).

In case you are worried about biters: use the 3th kind of modules, cause less energy needs = less polution.

All kinds of modules have their place in the game, but they aren't exactly what people care about most when starting with blue science.

[Shurenai]

It's been more or less said already, But, Productivity means less resources for the same material. Speed means the same material in less time.

So it becomes a question of what you mean by efficiency. If you mean the absolute fastest possible production time, then speed, hands down. IF you mean making the best use of your resources, then productivity is the better choice. Each is more efficient in it's own way compared to the other.

Space is the one essentially unlimited resource the player has- You can Always build it bigger. So I personally always do productivity in every machine I can. I might need a few more machines to keep the right ratios due to the slowing effect of the productivity module, but, it stretches out my more limited resources like iron/copper/etc, meaning i have to go out and rope in new mines left often.

[Edwin]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Space is the one essentially unlimited resource the player has- You can Always build it bigger. So I personally always do productivity in every machine I can. I might need a few more machines to keep the right ratios due to the slowing effect of the productivity module, but, it stretches out my more limited resources like iron/copper/etc, meaning i have to go out and rope in new mines left often.

Since I've been going through my first megabase, I've also learned that beacons with speed modules do not only save space, but also massively save on power. I had never thought of that before, but the gain from having fewer machines with productivity modules is much more than the power cost of the beacons with modules.

[Silberfuchs]

Ressources are just as "unlimited" as space.
With more space we get more ressources too.

It's really a matter of what you care about most in your factory.
Mega factory screams productivity, deathworld bunker-bases can have totally different priorities, etc.

[sinoplez]

Speed will reduce the number of factory for the same output. As said before this look like reducing space which is "a free" ressource in the game (because sometime a compact setup is the most valuable thing in your live...) except for pumpjack and driller (as you can't place them anywhere)...

Productivity will reduce the input ressource for the same output. This could be really usefull if you need to reduce the size of the "bus" feeding the factory (you could avoid a second belt and reduce the number of factory building the input product).

Efficency module could be useful when you have power limitation (aka not build you nuclear setup) and this is certainly the case when you have level 1 - 2 module. Efficency module level 3 cost more material than a solar setup producing the same energy in most case so build solar panel instead of them. They still could be useful for a drilling outpost which could have his own energy setup and would reduce energy/pollution for the "neighborhood".

[Dan Niton]

Most of these post had partially answered my question but I guess I should clarify further. I do know that speed mod reduce the time it takes to make an engine while productivity makes more engine at the expense of speed. Lets exclude space for the time being.

What I wanted efficiency wise in my case is getting the most possible number of engines in the shortest possible time. Should I go:
1. speed+productivity mod?
2. speed+speed? or
3. productivity+productivity?

Assuming that all engines are going into the wooden storage, which of these 3 will fill up the storage the fastest?

[Edwin]

Originally posted by Dan Niton:

Assuming that all engines are going into the wooden storage, which of these 3 will fill up the storage the fastest?

Provided that the materials are supplied quickly enough, speed will be faster.

[Silberfuchs]

The answer can't possibly be 2x speed, cause everybody here knows that speed modules never ever result in assemblers going BRRRR.

[DaBa]

Speed modules are only used in specific cases, in general you don't want to put them in anything that creates items. Why? Because it will make your factory less efficient. You can accomplish the same thing speed module does by adding more machines, which will cost you less energy and create less pollution in the end. Why would you choose a less efficient way of accomplishing the same goal? If you want to use modules, use either Productivity or Efficiency.

Productivity looks underwhelming at a glance, but once you start doing the math you begin to understand how good it can be. Being able to produce free items is very powerful, even if at a slow pace. These are probably the most important ones:

- You save resources, so your resources patches last longer

- Free items mean that every full belt of resources will end up creating more items. So you can look at it as a bonus to belt's throughput, without having to supply more resources!

- Creating free items has an exponential effect the more levels of production chain you go through. Here's a theoretical example:

You are producing yellow belts and inserters. You want to turn it into green science. Normally, you will get 100 green science out of 100 each. However, you decide to put Productivity Modules inside assemblers that make belts and inserters. Let's say you added enough to have 30% bonus efficiency. Now you're creating 130 belts and inserters, which you'll be able to turn into 130 science, a 30% increase. However, if you then put the same modules in assemblers that make green science, you'll end up with 169 science instead. That's a massive improvement of almost 70% more items from the same amount of resources. But you can go even deeper, you can do the same with your miners, assemblers that make green circuit boards, electric furnaces, and that number will keep climbing and climbing, in a long production chain this will often mean over twice as many items produced from the same quantity of raw resource, that's an incredible difference.

As long as you can keep up with the large energy increase from using productivity modules, and add more machines to compensate for the speed decrease and maintain the same speed of production, Productivity Modules will give a huge boost to the number of items you're able to produce from every single patch of resources. Or add even more machines than that and make everything go faster than before, thanks to all the new bonus resources you can work with. So as you can see, Productivity Modules can even accomplish the same thing speed module does, but at the same time also decrease resource usage. This is why speed module is not used for general production buildings, it does nothing that adds value to your factory if you simply put it in your everyday production buildings. Instead it has very specific uses for a couple of cases, which you can research on your own. Tip: it involves beacons and oil patches.

Or, alternatively, you can go with an easier option and just cram Efficiency Modules everywhere and enjoy decreased energy consumption. It is a viable option, especially early on if you don't want to worry too much about power. If you start cramming Productivity Modules everywhere so early, your energy usage will skyrocket and you might not be able to keep up.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Dan Niton:

Most of these post had partially answered my question but I guess I should clarify further. I do know that speed mod reduce the time it takes to make an engine while productivity makes more engine at the expense of speed. Lets exclude space for the time being.

What I wanted efficiency wise in my case is getting the most possible number of engines in the shortest possible time. Should I go:
1. speed+productivity mod?
2. speed+speed? or
3. productivity+productivity?

Assuming that all engines are going into the wooden storage, which of these 3 will fill up the storage the fastest?

If space and resources (including power) are not issues then more machines producing engines, gears, and pipes will fill it faster than adding level 1 modules.

8 assembly machine 2s producing engines will produce 6 of them in 1 second.
8 assembly machine 2s with 2 productivity module 1s will produce 3.88 engines in 1 second at the cost of 1.8 times the power used but .6 of those engines are produced gratis meaning they magically appear with out using any extra resources (except for the power and the pollution produced).
8 assembly machine 2s producing engines with 2 speed module 1s in them will produce 8.4 engines per second at a cost of twice the power consumed and twice the pollution produced.
Adding 8 more assembly machine 2s producing engines will produce a total of 12 engines per second for the same amount of power and resources used by 8 machines using 2 speed module 1s.

Edit: What's with the censor filtering the word that means at no cost that starts with f and ends with e and has re in the middle?

[astrosha]

Most possible in shortest amount of time means Production 3 modules, with Speed 3 beacons around them. If the recipe does not allow for Productivity then yo'd use speed in the assembler as well.

Given that you are trying to mass produce for Blue science though .. odds are you're not at that stage yet. Which means, you probably want more machines (rather than fewer machines using modules) to make more items per second .. and might want to consider Efficiency modules. Efficiency caps out at 80% (meaning, power is reduced to 20% of the base machine's draw, as is pollution produced) and two EM1's will get you down to 40%. That reduction means that it costs less power (and pollution) to operate two machines than it would take to operate one without any modules.

[Daynen Drakeson]

When using modules, it's a simple question of what you value most.

Speed modules get stuff on the belt faster, saving time.
Efficiency modules reduce energy use and pollution, saving power (and possibly buying you safe time from biters.)
Productivity modules get more yield out of your materials, saving resources.

What are you most lacking at the moment? That's probably your deciding factor. All modules save space of course, so if you have plenty of that at the moment, building more machines is probably simpler, especially if you can just copy and paste a cluster of them. That being said, if you're looking at the long term, efficiency will do the most good at slowing your pollution growth; since pollution is inevitable, bad and essentially permanent, "going green" can considerably reduce the strain on your defenses.

[sinoplez]

Originally posted by Dan Niton:

Most of these post had partially answered my question but I guess I should clarify further. I do know that speed mod reduce the time it takes to make an engine while productivity makes more engine at the expense of speed. Lets exclude space for the time being.

What I wanted efficiency wise in my case is getting the most possible number of engines in the shortest possible time. Should I go:
1. speed+productivity mod?
2. speed+speed? or
3. productivity+productivity?

Assuming that all engines are going into the wooden storage, which of these 3 will fill up the storage the fastest?

Without space consideration, the better is actually building more Factory (cheaper than the material cost of module and consume less power).

With space consideration, the better is speed + speed. (Using productivity on the factories consuming your motor would reduce the number of motor needed, aka the size of the storage to be filled but used directly on the motor factory it will slow down the filling of your storage)