Reasoning behind blue sciente huge craft time

[Avezo]

I am interested what is reasoning behind making blue science craft time so long? Long craft time seems to hit gameplay down too much, especially since you have to set it up in early game time together with starting ENTIRE oil processing. If anything, it should be super fast like 3s/each due to needed effort to fill it up with needed resources.

Mind you, later science packs may take longer, but they produce two packs at the time, which brings us down to producton times of:
Red - 5s
Green - 6s
Blue - 12s ?!?!?!?
Gray - 5s (even less, since late game research options do not need it so much)
Purple - 7s
Yellow - 7s
White - varies

This is not a balance proposal or complaint or criticism. Just an honest question. Depending on outcome of this thread I may make a proper balance proposal, but for now I just expect a discussion.

[Divaya]

I've never found it to be that much of an issue, I just make more assemblers to compensate for the long craft time.

Build two assemblers and you've already cut the craft time from 12s to 6s, which brings it inline with the other sciences.

[Syrchalis]

Reason is simple: Automation

The game teaches you to automate by making the process of creating science more and more "tedious" (in quotes because it's not ACTUALLY tedious... just if you would hand-craft it).

New players might attempt to handcraft green science, which is not really a good idea anymore. The least one can do is throw down 1-2 assemblers, throw 50 belts/inserters into each and let them do the craft. Blue science is twice as long to ensure players don't even attempt to handcraft that stuff.

Just looking at the 12 seconds, even way before they are at the point to craft it might give them a clue that they are supposed to automate that stuff... in big style.

[BlakeMW]

Hmmm, craft times are important but another important metric is raw resource consumption per second (basically measured in iron plates):
SP1: 3/5s = 0.6/s
SP2: 7/6s = 1.16/s
SP3: 45/12s = 3.75/s
Mil Science: 81/10s = 8/s
Prod Science: 131/14s = 9.3/s
HT Science: 146/14s = 10.4/s

In this case Science Pack 3 processes only half as much raw resources per second than the other advanced science packs, but three times as much as the lower two science packs. Even with the slow crafting time the SP3 utilizes an assembler 3x more effectively than SP2, in terms of the raw resources which go through it per second. It's also a bit jarring when there is a big jump in the extent to which a single assembler has "the munchies" for resources. Like it's pretty hard to satiate military science assemblers.

This "resources processed per second" is basically the "assembler utilization effectiveness" and one of the most important things it determines is how effectively a recipe makes use of expensive productivity modules. The 3 specialized science packs are all extremely good places to put productivity modules, I don't know if this is a deliberate thing, but it does make it easier to deal with the high resource cost of these packs.

[Jap2.0]

I've never found it to be that much of an issue, I just make more assemblers to compensate for the long craft time.

Build two assemblers and you've already cut the craft time from 12s to 6s, which brings it inline with the other sciences.

It's not just building another assembler - it's building twice as many. Of course, by that point it shouldn't be extremely difficult to do so - especially if you want high production.

[FasterJump]

We need 1 row of every science assemblers except blue science which need 2 rows.

I find it annoying.

[roothorick]

I agree with halving the crafting time of blue pots (12 seconds -> 6 seconds) while keeping the materials cost per-unit the same. It just seems wrong compared to the ostensibly more complex purple and yellow pots.

I'd argue also increase crafting time of gray pots (10 seconds -> 14 seconds) to make for a logical progression in the assembler ratios (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7 assemblers respectively).

[Avezo]

Just to add up about halving it, I would be fine if it was 12s BUT it produced 2 science packs per cycle. Result is the same, but adds something new in early game.

[Engimage]

I agree with halving the crafting time of blue pots (12 seconds -> 6 seconds) while keeping the materials cost per-unit the same. It just seems wrong compared to the ostensibly more complex purple and yellow pots.

I'd argue also increase crafting time of gray pots (10 seconds -> 14 seconds) to make for a logical progression in the assembler ratios (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7 assemblers respectively).

You will then need also to alter Engine recipe to be on par as you obviously need almost (if not exactly for direct feed) the same number of those.

So the better idea would be imho just making blue science output x2 items like all later packs do. This would also remove super hihg resource cost jump required for blue science along with other tasks like oil processing etc.

[SpeedDaemon]

By the time I get to blue science, the only reason I care about crafting time at all is to get the production chain ratios right and see how many assemblers I need to meet the production target. Other than that, just build more machines... a few assemblers more or less at that point is irrelevant.