Ferrous/Cupric Crystal Chain - Pointless?

[emp_zealoth]

It's insanely complicated, energy, space and resource intensive. It requires over a dozen different inputs
And in the end we get 1 Manganese Ore and 1 Chrome Ore mixed with garbage :/ The Cupric one is even worse...
It always annoys me to no end, because I always rush building a huge washing plant to produce enough catalysts.

I'd love to have the challenge of actually building out this huge complicated plant. But IMO it is completely pointless right now, they are endless pit for resources for basically no gain
Why not add 2 recipes to combine them with either with Crystal or Mineral Catalyst to get Chrome Ore/Manganese Ore?

Discuss

[Rue99]

I only ever use the first steps in the chain for no-catalyst sorting of iron/manganese and copper/tin. The rest is, as you say, pointless as it stands, unless you enjoy complexity for complexity's sake, in which case I would point such folk at Pyanodon.

[pezzawinkle]

While the concept is fantastic, i do think the balance of the output is a little on the nose... there is not enough iron in the later stages to make the process balanced towards making steel, iron or alloys in a nice clean process. If the chrome output matched the ratio for that particular steel recipe, the path would be worth it, but as it stands it just seems like a waste to go past the first tier... same kind of problem with the cupric path, although possibly not as bad. Silver and gold are lower use till later and you could theoretically dump this system in the middle of an electronics district and go ham, but again it needs to be balanced for that to work.
While the materials and complexity are up there, the ore yield is about the same as the other processes, so its not broken in that respect (but should it be?).

If it is to stand up to the de-coupled methods of (mixed in, pure out) sorting, it does need tweaking to work in that way...
Stage 1:
-ferrous: well balanced to iron plate production
-cupric: well balanced to tin coil production (should be balanced for the actual BEB though)
Stage 2: ideally
-ferrous: be balanced to a tier 2 steel production
-cupric: be balanced to make T2 electronics
Stage 3: ideally
-ferrous: rebalance to work on titanium, or steel (with nickel and cobalt)
-cupric: be balanced to deal with the T3 electronics, gold more than copper
Stage 4: ideally
-ferrous: balance to work for both iron and steel coil (steel with chrome, and iron with ni-co)
-cupric: be balanced for RCU's and T4 electronics

Addendum:
-Not sure if batteries should be added to the balancing, since T1/T2 batteries are independant (mostly) of these paths
-Alloy production outside of these (bronze, brass, nitinol, co-steel, invar)... not sure if these should even be considered through this path
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Now... while this is how i see it in ideal terms, there are still some serious conversations around what the balances actually are, and as the base game, science packs, bobs/angels electronics recipes change... the balance would get thrown for each change.
Do you de-couple each stage to work with one stage and thats it, or do you leave it as a useless mess that is specific for a set mod-pack balance?
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Madclowns mods have added pure manganese and chrome recipes so if you are using a mod that demands chrome, that is the recommended path.

[emp_zealoth]

Huh, I might add that mod then

Do you know what mods make use of chrome or manganese, beyond bobs or angels?

[Blokus]

Huh, I might add that mod then

Do you know what mods make use of chrome or manganese, beyond bobs or angels?

Circuit Processing (part of Seablock, but also available by itself) uses chrome plate to make its final tier of circuit.