Electronics factory still needs electronics for maintenance

[Eddy63]

So I thought electronics factory were changed to use machine parts for maintenance. I was starting to wonder why no droid was repairing the electronics factory even though I have tons of machine parts. see here:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Eddy63/screenshot/951850507859977724

When I selected a droid and told it to repair the building the hover over says: cannot find any electronics nearby ....
see here:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Eddy63/screenshot/951850507859977382
so the game pretends it needs machine parts for that building, but its actually still looking for electronics ... meh, is this a known bug?

[Bored Peon]

You sure it aint the error message that has it backwards and you didnt have enough machine parts and the error message still says electronics?

[Eddy63]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

You sure it aint the error message that has it backwards and you didnt have enough machine parts and the error message still says electronics?

Pretty sure, just look at the top bar in the screenshot, there are 279 Machine parts available and in reach.

[Eddy63]

Now the electronics factory gets repaired with electroincs:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Eddy63/screenshot/951850507863559650

[Alaskan Glitch]

The base production of the Electronics Factory is 9 Electronics by consuming 1 Rare Metal. The maintenance of the Electronics Factory is 3 Electronics. So you are effectively only getting 6 Electronics for each 1 Rare Metal and 8 power consumed, providing you have 30 workers (10 per shift).

See: https://survivingmars.gamepedia.com/Electronics_Factory

[Bored Peon]

That is weird, pretty sure it was changed, but I actually didnt look look at what was going on.

Is that colony from an old old save?
Are you using any mods?

[maiden4meldin]

so, with the calculations you just made about the factory, wouldn't it be better to just sell the rare metals, and buy electronics on resupply, skipping the whole trying to make them? how much would a person actually lose?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by maiden4meldin:

so, with the calculations you just made about the factory, wouldn't it be better to just sell the rare metals, and buy electronics on resupply, skipping the whole trying to make them? how much would a person actually lose?

No, because those calculations are not even close to accurate.

I rare metal is like 25-35 credits.
5 electronics is 100m credits.

In other words he has to sell 3-4 rare metals to buy 5 electronics.
If he runs a factory he gets 6-9 electronics per rare metal, so he would receive 18-25 electronics.

Also maintainance costs is NOT per Sol.

He is also forgeting to factor in factory upgrades, worke rperformance, and other such matters.

TLDR: It is better to produce your own electroncis than sell rare metals to buy them.

[maiden4meldin]

Thanks Bored Peon, I didn't know how to do the math on it. But you explained it nicely

[Blake Walsh]

The truer calculations are closer to:

• 0.3 rare metal makes 1 electronics, or 1 rare metal makes 3.33333 electronics, most factories involve a conversion of one resource into another at a flat rate which is not modified by productivity, with an exception of grid resources (power, water, oxygen) which are consumed at an hourly rate independent of how productive the factory is.
  
• For a typical sponsor 1 rare metal can be sold for 25mil or turned into 66mil worth of electronics
  
• Electronics factory requires maintenance every 6 sols or so. Typically machine parts, not sure what's going on in OP's game.

So anyway for most sponsors the electronics factory turns 1 rare metal into 66mil worth of electronics, whereas the rare metal would only sell for 20-30 mil. This means the electronics factory provides double to triple the value of exporting. For Spacey their electronics costs half as much and they export at 20mil, so they only get ~50% more value out of the electronics factory.

The Space Elevator halves the cost of electronics, that means that for Blue Sun the Electronics Factory becomes just barely better than import, for most sponsors it's still slightly better than import, and for Spacey importing is actually cheaper.

On the whole only as Spacey should you seriously consider not making your own electronics (unless of course you have more funds than you know what to do with).

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Blake Walsh:

The truer calculations are closer to...

Well I did leave out thigns that further ciomplicate the issue. Like playing with the Inflation rule, events that increase electronics import costs, the events that lower rare metal market, Russians gaining 40% value on rare metals (which is a pain to do.)

However the basics always show producing your own is best value and you dont need rockets.

[Eddy63]

The save might have been pre-patch of when the electronics got changed to hardware and maybe the factory didn't fully updated because of that.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Eddy63:

The save might have been pre-patch of when the electronics got changed to hardware and maybe the factory didn't fully updated because of that.

Thats why I asked, never know when someone pulls out an old save :P