Are Comprehensive Cutters and Grinders worth it?

[Magpie]

For context, I just opened the Desert. My workshop has 4 Stone furnaces, 2 Civil furnaces, 1 Industrial furnace, and 1 Electric furnace (not yet used), 1 Civil cutter, 1 Industrial cutter, 1 Grinder, 1 Comprehensive grinder (not yet used), 1 Basic skiver, and 1 Advanced skiver in the works. Plus cooking, drying, blender.

Do most people skip over the Comprehensive machines, or are they widely used? I spent days making the Comprehensive grinder and then was disappointed that I didn't have access to condensed power stones yet. But now that I do, I feel like running it for a single project is a waste of the rare stones. I don't know anything about factories yet, so I'm wondering if these machines are something you still use in the factory later on, or if they're unnecessary or obsolete at that point. I'm also hesitant to set up the whole Fire Powered Generator with Conductive Wooden Flooring, which seems like a huge undertaking.

I'd love to hear what you all think about this. Thanks.

[JVC]

They were a great help for me since they skip the step with melting everything into bars. Instead you can create the finished products from raw materials.

You don't need the condensed power stones, just place them on conductive flooring and use wood powered generators to run them.

[Suzaku]

Those stone furnaces are a waste of wood and time (meaning they make materials slowly), and the civil furnaces aren't much better. Same thing with other similar upgrades. Put simply, the more complex a machine is to build, the faster it makes things and the less power it takes. There's also the improved flexibility for what you can craft and how much of it when using better machines. You should immediately replace any lower tier machine with the improved variants if you want your productivity to improve.

Comprehensive machines are great since they can basically skip a step to craft something with the base resources. When you use them in the factory, they count as both machines (though to a lesser degree than the base machines themselves). They'll still be quite useful at all times.

Conductive flooring and the Fire Powered Generator are excellent in saving you on energy costs. Each generator provides power to 2 machines, and provides that power at an improved rate. For example, an Industrial Furnace uses 1 wood per hour to run, but that same single piece of wood could run 2 furnaces for 2.5 hours if placed in the generator. That's 5x more efficiency. 5x the wood you get to save. Not only that, it runs on wood, hardwood, charcoal, ironwood, power stones, and condensed power stones. You get to choose what energy source to use, and you can put in enough to power it for 8 days and 8 hours with a single charge!

Invest in your workshop and you'll see those investments pay you back handsomely. Upgrade what you can, make several of each machine, and see your productivity skyrocket.

[Magpie]

I appreciate your responses. I do find value in keeping the lesser machines, especially when needing multiple tasks done. My stone furnaces help me a lot, making glass, bronze bars, or charcoal, while the better furnaces keep chugging out carbon steel bars. (Yes, comprehensive will handle charcoal once I get that made).

But it's a massive undertaking to craft multiple high-end machines, in addition to multiple Fire Powered Generators. I'm curious, when do you find time to do commissions and missions? And how do you afford the land expansions to accommodate them?

Will these same machines work in the factory when that time comes? Or will they be obsolete? I don't know if will be soon or if that's far off.

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by Magpie:

But it's a massive undertaking to craft multiple high-end machines, in addition to multiple Fire Powered Generators. I'm curious, when do you find time to do commissions and missions?

That's the thing about the better machines. You spend a day or two, or however many are needed, so that you can really pump out resources as you need them. Those stone furnaces that you've got pumping out bronze? Instead of feeding them wood twice a day to pump out a few bars, wouldn't it be better if you upgraded and made industrial furnaces, that can run for multiple days straight and produce materials 66% faster?

Your resistance to upgrading your machines makes it tougher and tougher to meet demands. The only reason you're finding it hard to have the time to do everything is because your old machines are holding you back. And once you get a factory up and you move those advanced machines into it, then you'll really kick up production.

[Magpie]

I'm interested in what you're saying and I'm trying to understand how I might incorporate it in my own playstyle.

One thing that hangs me up is that my tasks are not such that I'd dedicate multiple days on one machine to producing a single product - to sell, for instance. I have grinders, cutters, furnaces, skivers, etc. suitable to smaller jobs, rather then having small jobs waiting while the big machines are tied up. Are you doing everything on your big machines? Do you use conductive flooring with all of your machines?

[Suzaku]

Before I moved to the factory, I used conductive flooring on most machines. The amount of wood and power stones I saved was incredible. You can set up several generators next to each other, and have that all linked to a long line of machines so it's easy to refuel them or power them on/off as needed.

I like to have surplus of everything; literally hundreds of every possible material. I have plenty of time to do stuff because I spend all of maybe an in-game hour to complete a commission. Since I have so many machines working so quickly, I just grab a commission, run to my workshop, make the thing in an instant, and hand it in. The rest of the day is free for events, relationships, materials farming, fulfilling wishes, completing quests, fighting monsters, or fishing.

I also tend to have lots of machines, like 2 advanced skivers, 2 comprehensive grinders, 8 industrial furnaces, 2 blenders, etc. Having a lot of the best machines means I can process an insane amount of resources, so I always have them when I need them.

[Magpie]

May I ask how far you are in the game? For me, tomorrow is my first Winter Solstice.
I'd be interested in seeing screenshot of how you've linked your generators to your machines.
Still grappling with small jobs. Sometimes you just need bars. Did you eliminate all your older machines?

[Suzaku]

I honestly don't remember. Been a while since I last played. I think I'm somewhere in my second year. Either way, I've already packed up all of those things once the factory was added, as it was not needed anymore.

I do remember that it was pretty simple to set up. Just place enough flooring on the ground that the entire generators and any machines you want powered fit on it.

Comprehensive machines don't craft bars. I just have a row of industrial furnaces pumping out all manner of bars as often as possible so if I ever need them, I'll have them.

[Magpie]

I see, thanks for the inspiration. But one of my concerns was that setting up all that stuff might become obsolete with the Factory. So I'm still confused about that. Would the machines, themselves be obsolete, or just your flooring setup?

[Wanderer Bobbi]

Imvho: You don't neccessarily need the generators or flooring, once you purchase your factory (20 slots). I did not use either, for any of my 3 builders. If you wish, your factory can be upgraded a second time to add even more machinery (I believe it's 10 more stations).
For your factory, at the automation controls (right next to your worktable), you will also need to purchase necessary upgrades for movement/ progressing research notes/ books, in exchange for discs.

One of my builders had the second upgrade. She breed fish & required the extra stations for all the blenders, continually make flour & mucus dough balls to feed the fish. I purchased the mucas from the Civil Corps.

However, I did have 2 comprehensive cutters & grinders; Two industrial cutters; Industrial Furnaces (8-10) to alternate smelting 25 each: Bronze, Copper, Iron, Tin, Lead, Manganese, Carbon Steel (2 Industrial Furnaces), Charcoal Wood (2 Industrial Furnaces), Stone Brick, Welding Rods & Strengthened Glass.
There will be an Electric Furnace. I had 2 of these for smelting 50 each: Stainless Aluminum, Hard Aluminum & Magnesium Powder.
I also had 4 advanced skivers & 4 blenders.
I always had a minimum of 100-200 of each item. Definitely, on the high end with carbin steel bars. I would take a commission, if I could, complete it immediately ~~ hand it in ~~ use the rest of the day for completing other projects~~ either necessary or fun or in truth, a bit of both.

With A&G 999Stone exchange for 999wood, I had no issues running things until the factory became available.
Don't sell the older machines, you can always donate them to the museum.
Hope this helped; Any errors in my post, I'm sure will be corrected by others, which I don't mind.

[JVC]

The comprehensive machines don't get obsolete in the late game. The factory isn't a factory as you'd expect it. It is a building with a lot of spaces set out in which you can place individual crafting stations. So think of it as a building with a centralised fuelling source. Each crafting station you place there provides a number of crafting points (depending on its type) to the factory and the number of crafting points available in the entire factory decides how quickly it can produce the finished products.

The only things that become obsolete when you introduce the factory is the generators, but those can be sold to A&G for a nice price. Also pretty sure the stone furnaces can't be used. I scrapped mine as soon as I could since I wanted the extra production capacity.

The trick to getting the economy flowing is to have some extra crafting stations constantly producing (which is why I like the generators, that way I don't spend a lot of time on gathering wood, simply to make sure that X crafting stations don't run out of power during the night).

So I have a giant chest with all kinds of products and I think. Hmm, I could do with some more bronze bars, or ball bearings etc and I just set the machines to produce something extra while I do my normal commissions using stuff from the others. Also if say I've been mining a lot and has a ton of copper ore and tin ore, I'll just set a comprehensive station to turn it into some bronze items and sell them to A&G for cash.

Making extra stuff and selling it to A&G for cash is a great way. Try them first since they've got 65,000 or so gols in the bank every day. The other stores only have like 5,000 gols to buy stuff for. So A&G first, then sell whatever they didn't want to other stores. You can also make extra crafting stations, wind turbines or water tanks or similar and sell them to A&G. Check the wiki to see the sell price for each item. And remember to sell you excess stuff to them on a day when the price is high (inflation like 120%). Try to buy items when the inflation is low.

Also befriend the mayor to get a discount on future land purchases. It doesn't matter too much in the early game, it matters a lot with the final plots. He likes tea tables.

[Magpie]

Thank you everyone! I've never had any particular interest in mechanical production, so it's a testament to the devs that they slowly sweet-talked me into gradually devoting most of my free time to Portia!

Making all that equipment is time-intensive. Would it be reasonable to spend a game month ignoring Main Mission progression and focusing on producing equipment? I'd have to start selling from the beginning if I'm not making cash from Missions. I'm due for a yard increase, which I'll need for more equipment. Level 4 is not much extra space, but I can't afford the Level 5 upgrade on top of that. But I do have Gale in my pocket.

@babushka: for your comprehensive machines, do you have some secret way of getting enough yellow condensed power stones?

It bugs me when my blue power stones are sitting idle. I'd thought of mass producing, but was concerned that I might do that and then realize I no longer need the lower level items, such as copper bars, etc. Selling makes good sense.

To all: At first were you producing components and selling them directly, or were you mass-producing parts with the intention of selling crafted items?

[JVC]

@magpie I was producing components with the aim of having at least 20 of each component, later moving to 50-100 of each of them. Though the carbon steel bars are so much used that I just made a ton of them.

I played the same playthrough from alpha 7 and the option of selling items to A&G was something people discovered was possible, but it wasn't a main factor of anything. It was just a way to get a bit more cash. Right now the extra profit from selling completed items isn't colossal, so selling complete builds is more profitable, but not excessively compared to just selling the components.

Making equipment is time sensitive, and yes, you can easily spend some time focussing on upgrading the workshop. It might even be the sensible thing to do, not to be overwhelmed when the game begins asking for a ton of carbon steel items and - later - aluminum items.

I had a lot of crafting stations with 6 or so generators to fuel them before I went for the factory. The good thing here is that you don't "waste" the yellow level 1 furnace [civil furnace], it is reused when making the generators.

[Magpie]

@JVC I am already "floored" by the demand for carbon steel, which is motivating some of my questions. ;)

@babushka Why did you need to dedicate furnaces to charcoal if you had the comprehensive machine? It's the charcoal step which makes me want to make comprehensive machines.

I'd love to dedicate a month to this, but I hate when they spring a new main mission on you that entails competing with Higgins. Like the Portia Bridge or the Dee-Dees. You've got to drop everything.

[Wanderer Bobbi]

True Magpie; Often with 2 comprehensive cutters for steel plates, I should've made more; I did have a (personal) concern about having a supply of stones for them. The Industrials run on wood, which is everywhere, and can easily be ordered via the wood farm. However, there are times you'll need the bars. In the factory, I did end up having 4 comprehensive cutters/ grinders. Don't forget the importance of having (4 at least) blenders; You'll need them for concrete, clay, resin etc...