Factorio Forums

Having different crafting speeds of assembling machines makes sense. A grey assembling machine having a crafting speed of 0.5 is meaningful to distinguish it from e.g. yellow assembling machines with crafting speed of 1.25. The crafting speeds makes it a bit harder to calculate e.g. ratios, but the complexity is a necessary consequence of a meaningful feature (that feature being having 3 levels of crafting machines).

The 1.25 crafting speed of chemical plants makes no sense. All the things that can be made in a chemical plant can only be made in a chemical plant, and not even handcrafted. Increasing the crafting time of all chemical crafting recipes by 1.25 times, and setting the chemical plant crafting time to 1, would leave everything functionally unchanged and less confusing. Having the chemical plant crafting speed different from 1 is unnecessary complexity, with can be removed without affecting any meaningful feature.

So I think the chemical plant crafting speed should be changed to 1, and the chemical crafting recipe times increased correspondingly.

The chemical plant crafting speed affects the ratios of recipes that consume an ingredient made in a chemical plant, but are themselves made in an assembler. Having the chemical plant crafting speed be 1 would mean it wouldn't match any of the assemblers at all; at least now it matches yellow assemblers

torne wrote: at least now it matches yellow assemblers

Yes, this is the most important part. In the end game I only use yellow assemblers, and having chemical plants the same speed makes ratios easier. But then agian, I use a lot of modules so the point is moot again

torne wrote:The chemical plant crafting speed affects the ratios of recipes that consume an ingredient made in a chemical plant, but are themselves made in an assembler. Having the chemical plant crafting speed be 1 would mean it wouldn't match any of the assemblers at all; at least now it matches yellow assemblers

The chemical plant changed to crafting speed 1 would match the crafting speed of refineries, which also have a crafting speed of 1, which is the most natural thing for a chemical plant to work together with. Since chemical plants get their petroleum from refineries, and cracking works with refineries.

Yes, 1.25 matches yellow assemblers, but they are expensive and not everybody uses them always for everything. And the crafting speed of 1.25 makes calculating ratios harder for the whole early part of the game, which are the first many, many hours for most people.

I agree. I think blue assemblers and chem plants should both be craft speed 1, as they are the ones players use when first trying to get "perfect ratios" in their production lines.