TL;DR
Assemblers should output execution time for set recipe with all performance modifiers applied, and ability to set the control signal for it.What?
With factorio 2.0, assemblers provide a number of useful statistics readable by circuits such as read working/finished.I'd like to have also another output that sends the time a recipe is executed given all modifiers applied to the assembler, in similar fashion as read working output.
Why?
In generic assembler factories (i.e. factories that have their recipe set by a circuit) that are connected through a single input belt in sequence, some recipes can be done by assemblers quite fast while requiring a lot of resources, more than a single belt can provide. In such case all factories are starved for resources and may work inefficiently. The execution time would allow players to precisely compute how many ingredients would be transferred over a belt and decide how many factories could consume entire belt.For example, speed modules require not many resources and have long build time, while nuclear reactor requires a lot of resources yet is fast to manufacture by assembler. In first case in a generic assembler factory say would employ 10 assemblers to produce speed modules while consuming a belt of resources, while in later case only 1 assembler would be running because it would consume entire belt.