Goonhub
03-31-2017, 11:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-02-2017, 07:53 AM by Mordent. Edited 4 times in total.)
Because the original post was probably not in the best thread, re-posting here.
Materials need their costs normalized (I'm going with "z" because now that I'm in the US my spellchecker whines, plus British English doesn't use anywhere near enough "z"s, so why not?).
By that, I mean we a) shouldn't be able to generate infinite materials by Smaht™ use of the machines, and b) should have a reason to use both. There's also some other general materials stuff that needs a look at, so I'm rolling this all up into one post.
Some terminology:
Ores
Ore has various qualities. These are, as per this thread, not used for anything (they may have affect on sale value now, but I'm going to bring that back up here just in case, apologies for repeating myself).
Let's give ore quality a numerical scale of 0.5 to 1.5 (arbitrary numbers, could be anything). The "grade" of ore (great, terrible, etc.) gives you an indication as to where the ore sits on the scale (so each grade covers a range of this scale, e.g. "at least 0.8 but less than 0.9" could be "poor"). Quality modifies the sale value of the ore (not for traders, who don't care, but for the general market) by their scale, rounding down. For example, if the base price is 250 and your ore is of quality 0.95, you get 237 credits for it.
Stacks of ore have a quality that is the average of the ores within it. If you have 3 ore of quality 0.8 and 2 ore of quality 1.5, the result is a stack of 5 ore with quality (0.8*3 + 1.5*2)/5 = 1.08. Once ore has been stacked you cannot return it to its original parts - if you split the stack you then have two stacks with the new averaged quality (so splitting the stack above would give a stack of 3 and a stack of 2, each with quality 1.08). Basically, each stack only has to know about one quality value.
Ore quality will also come into play in a bit, so keep reading.
Ores can now be split into stacks in the same way as material sheets: by having a stack in one hand and clicking on it with your other (empty) hand you get a dialogue asking for how many you want to take from the stack. This makes e.g. filling a furnace with the right amount of char much easier, and also reduces the issue of "well, I need some clarentine to make this thing in the mining manufacturer, but I can't be bothered to split my stack half a dozen times to get the one ore I need to make into a block so I'll just use the lot". Now you can take the bit of ore you need from the stack of ore, use it for whatever, and send the rest of the stack on to the QM.
Making Bars
Bars can currently be made from ores in two ways: portable reclaimers and the material processor. They both convert ore-to-bars at a 1-to-1 ratio. This is good. To make this better, bring quality back in: the quality modifier of the stack of ores you load (or whatever's in the reclaimer at the time of activation, as you can put lots of different stuff into it before turning it on) affects the number of bars that are generated. To simplify the process, different objects contribute different amounts:
Optional: loading not enough into the material processor (e.g. one sheet at a time, or having some leftover material from your stack of ore) leaves behind the amount of that material that isn't used, letting you add to it over time and outputting a bar once enough material is eventually inserted. Would probably be a pain-in-the-ass as it would keep small amounts of potentially lots of different materials stored within it. Alternatively, have it store only the last type of material, discarding it if you load a different type but stacking with it if you use the same type.
Making Sheets
Both the NanoFabricator and assorted manufacturers can make sheets. These costs are normalized to be as follows:
Chunks
Optional, quality-of-life improving extra:
NanoFabricators can make "chunks", making a stack of 10 chunks per material (can apply to any bar or block, and I guess fabrics and whatever else). These chunks can be loaded into manufacturers and count as 1 "material" each. "But Mordent," I hear you ask, "what's the point of this if you can just make bars?" - firstly, it lets you insert just the right amount of material to make whatever you want. No leftover from the whole bar you had to insert to make that one thing you wanted. Secondly, it sets up the framework for being able to remove fractions of bars from manufacturers.
Chunks could also be loaded into the reclaimer or material processor to contribute towards making bars (0.1 each), if your need to carry around whole things is driving you nuts.
Bonus: we have a separate component that we could use within NanoFabricator blueprints, allowing us to use fractions of bars for things (e.g. lightbulbs) or allowing us to blend in a second material to get its properties (e.g. cells could require a metal bar for its casing, and need 5 chunks of a power source to determine its capacity and another 5 chunks to determine how well it recharges - you could make a cell that has high capacity from, say, telecrystal, and decent recharge from being radioactive, like cerekite or koshmarite - I'm just spitballing, I'm sure there are much better ideas out there).
Summary
Materials need their costs normalized (I'm going with "z" because now that I'm in the US my spellchecker whines, plus British English doesn't use anywhere near enough "z"s, so why not?).
By that, I mean we a) shouldn't be able to generate infinite materials by Smaht™ use of the machines, and b) should have a reason to use both. There's also some other general materials stuff that needs a look at, so I'm rolling this all up into one post.
Some terminology:
- ore: mined from asteroids; has variable quality
- scrap: random bits of metal that are sometimes found at the mineral magnet, or can be found as a result of explosions; can be stacked. This includes glass shards.
- bar: a bar of material, namely that which is made from ore - functionally identical to "blocks" for crystal materials
- sheet: material sheets, whether metal or glass
- tile: floor tiles (4 per sheet)
- rod: metal rods (2 per sheet)
- manufacturer: I think this are actually called fabricators in the codebase, but everyone knows them as manufacturers so going to use that term. The "General Manufacturer" is an example of one of these.
- material processor: the new-ish machine for converting ores into bars.
Ores
Ore has various qualities. These are, as per this thread, not used for anything (they may have affect on sale value now, but I'm going to bring that back up here just in case, apologies for repeating myself).
Let's give ore quality a numerical scale of 0.5 to 1.5 (arbitrary numbers, could be anything). The "grade" of ore (great, terrible, etc.) gives you an indication as to where the ore sits on the scale (so each grade covers a range of this scale, e.g. "at least 0.8 but less than 0.9" could be "poor"). Quality modifies the sale value of the ore (not for traders, who don't care, but for the general market) by their scale, rounding down. For example, if the base price is 250 and your ore is of quality 0.95, you get 237 credits for it.
Stacks of ore have a quality that is the average of the ores within it. If you have 3 ore of quality 0.8 and 2 ore of quality 1.5, the result is a stack of 5 ore with quality (0.8*3 + 1.5*2)/5 = 1.08. Once ore has been stacked you cannot return it to its original parts - if you split the stack you then have two stacks with the new averaged quality (so splitting the stack above would give a stack of 3 and a stack of 2, each with quality 1.08). Basically, each stack only has to know about one quality value.
Ore quality will also come into play in a bit, so keep reading.
Ores can now be split into stacks in the same way as material sheets: by having a stack in one hand and clicking on it with your other (empty) hand you get a dialogue asking for how many you want to take from the stack. This makes e.g. filling a furnace with the right amount of char much easier, and also reduces the issue of "well, I need some clarentine to make this thing in the mining manufacturer, but I can't be bothered to split my stack half a dozen times to get the one ore I need to make into a block so I'll just use the lot". Now you can take the bit of ore you need from the stack of ore, use it for whatever, and send the rest of the stack on to the QM.
Making Bars
Bars can currently be made from ores in two ways: portable reclaimers and the material processor. They both convert ore-to-bars at a 1-to-1 ratio. This is good. To make this better, bring quality back in: the quality modifier of the stack of ores you load (or whatever's in the reclaimer at the time of activation, as you can put lots of different stuff into it before turning it on) affects the number of bars that are generated. To simplify the process, different objects contribute different amounts:
- Ore: quality value (0.5 to 1.5)
- Scrap: 0.1 (scrap pulled in by the mineral magnet is now in stacks of 5-10 scrap, to make it still marginally worthwhile to pick up, and it fits in ore satchels/scoops as currently)
- Sheets: 0.2
- Tiles: 0.05
- Rods: 0.1
- Cables: (I forget the amounts here, but normalise as per sheets to give the current behaviour) - only available in the reclaimer
Optional: loading not enough into the material processor (e.g. one sheet at a time, or having some leftover material from your stack of ore) leaves behind the amount of that material that isn't used, letting you add to it over time and outputting a bar once enough material is eventually inserted. Would probably be a pain-in-the-ass as it would keep small amounts of potentially lots of different materials stored within it. Alternatively, have it store only the last type of material, discarding it if you load a different type but stacking with it if you use the same type.
Making Sheets
Both the NanoFabricator and assorted manufacturers can make sheets. These costs are normalized to be as follows:
- Manufacturer: 2 "material" (i.e. 0.2 bars) per sheet - options for single sheets and stacks of 10 sheets are now available (they come out as a stack of 10, not 10 individual sheets). As it stands, if you increase the speed of a fabricator it has no effect on items that take 1 second to make. By allowing you to make stacks of 10 (10 seconds) you a) need less clicks, and b) give speed tweaks some purpose. This applies to both metal and glass sheets.
- NanoFabricator: 1 bar per 4 sheets (come out as stacks of up to 50 sheets, based on how many you make - if you make 13 lots of 4 sheets you get one stack of 50 and one stack of 2). You get the result instantly (or near enough), which gives you an advantage over using the manufacturers, but as the NanoFabricators are rapid they are also wasteful: you lose some of the material (compared to a manufacturer) in converting it to sheets.
Chunks
Optional, quality-of-life improving extra:
NanoFabricators can make "chunks", making a stack of 10 chunks per material (can apply to any bar or block, and I guess fabrics and whatever else). These chunks can be loaded into manufacturers and count as 1 "material" each. "But Mordent," I hear you ask, "what's the point of this if you can just make bars?" - firstly, it lets you insert just the right amount of material to make whatever you want. No leftover from the whole bar you had to insert to make that one thing you wanted. Secondly, it sets up the framework for being able to remove fractions of bars from manufacturers.
Chunks could also be loaded into the reclaimer or material processor to contribute towards making bars (0.1 each), if your need to carry around whole things is driving you nuts.
Bonus: we have a separate component that we could use within NanoFabricator blueprints, allowing us to use fractions of bars for things (e.g. lightbulbs) or allowing us to blend in a second material to get its properties (e.g. cells could require a metal bar for its casing, and need 5 chunks of a power source to determine its capacity and another 5 chunks to determine how well it recharges - you could make a cell that has high capacity from, say, telecrystal, and decent recharge from being radioactive, like cerekite or koshmarite - I'm just spitballing, I'm sure there are much better ideas out there).
Summary
- Make ore stacks splitable easier.
- Make how much material is used to make sheets/received from sheets consistent.
- Make manufacturers able to make sheets in bulk so they can benefit from speed increases.
- Introduce some lossy behaviour (gives reasons to use specific equipment).