Rating your factory: SPM v. RPM

[Oglethorp]

Been playing for a few years but still relatively new to the game, just got out of spaghetti building (which was fun) with 500+hrs put in and looking at all the bigger Mega factories and it seams the SPM count and RPM counts are good standards to rate the size/efficiency of your base...My question is, because you can sacrifice one for the other by diverting resources to science and away from rockets or vice versa. What is the best way to rate your base?? My feeling is it should be an equation between SPM and RPM represented as a single Number. My last base was at 53 SPM (which is basically my yellow science which was holding everything back) and launching rockets every 20 minutes. Im sure i could have got my SPM up more if i wanted to launch every 2 hrs lets say...

If the standard is 1000SPM = 1 RPM

Maybe ((SPM/1000) x RPM)x 100 over a 1 hr window? so 100 would be the benchmark?

[Optera]

I generally prefer RPM as metric, as it is more clear cut than SPM.
If SPM is the consumption of Science Packs per minute then it's exactly RPM x 1000.
If SPM is the actual work done by labs then lab productivity will make SPM significantly lower than RPM x 1000.

There's also no clear consensus about what science packs are part of the SPM metric. In my opinion all Science Packs should be included, but I've heard Military being not included also.

Finally, regardless of RPM or SPM, the most important thing for such metrics to be meaningful is for a base to sustain production from ore to final product over extended periods without relying on having intermediates prefabricated.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

I prefer RPM for the reason the SPM may not include all packs. SPM is a lower number typically, as it takes more resources to get all science packs than just the white science.

[Acacel]

I prefer the used SPM during a late game Science (mining prod) because you need both rockets and the rest of the packs (due to there is no way to use military and all of the rest), its the best way at last without mods.

Also i agree the base needs to be able to run this without any dropp in the storage (I build a 1000 SPM base only with belts so I know you will have a very big moving storage...)

[Optera]

I prefer the used SPM during a late game Science (mining prod) because you need both rockets and the rest of the packs (due to there is no way to use military and all of the rest), its the best way at last without mods.

Also i agree the base needs to be able to run this without any dropp in the storage (I build a 1000 SPM base only with belts so I know you will have a very big moving storage...)

Follower count drains all science packs equally https://wiki.factorio.com/Follower_robo ... (research)

My LTN based 2k SPM base researches follower count for over 10h game time now to make sure all the station buffers don't cheat and it's really sustained 2k production.

[Acacel]

ok I normaly don´t use the battle robots so I did not look at this research very often, but ok for the next base I give it a chance (at last to see the SPM at the end, because I hate to waste the time for something I never use )

[reduke]

I've gone a slightly different way - How many silos can I keep launching as quickly as possible continuously while usefully utilising all of their output? I'm currently up to 4 at ~25-30UPS.

Yes, it is very close to SPM and RPM, but I felt like doing something different