07-20-2013, 02:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-06-2013, 10:31 AM by Darth Pedro.)
The 4 Turn Manufacturing Cycle.
When you Assemble Factories on a new Factory Group, they will immediately (providing they are staffed, powered and supplied with resources) start to produce in a BATCH.
Example:
I Assemble 1,000,000 Factories (whatever same TL) and they start producing Items which will not be available in Inventory for another 4 Turns. If I Assemble 250,000 factories each Turn (on the same Factory Group) for 4 Turns, I will end up getting 1/4 or the overall output in inventory, starting after 4 Turns, and also EVERY Turn thereafter BECAUSE effectively there are 250,000 factories starting a new smaller BATCH of output in each quarter.
If I increase the TL of said Item then the immediate effect will be the next Quarter production will become available after 4 Turns while the remaining 3 Quarters or the older TL Item continue to process through to inventory. Remember to set those Factory Group TL's to 200 so you don't forget to do it incrementally later. If you set the Factory Group TL to Item Type TL-200 when you BUILD the factory Group, they will automatically start building the higher TL item ASAP. Otherwise you will find yourself analyzing the situation repeatedly and possibly forgetting to upgrade the factory Group TL incrementally as needed. The ONLY reason you would want lower TL Items than the maximum TL is in cases like Farms 2 through 5 OR as stated previously, IF YOU ARE PARANOID about an enemy capturing said higher TL Items and using them as prototypes...there are ways to minimize that probability too.
Therefore, look carefully at the Item Type and Research goals you have in Mind.
For manufacturing Mines, especially, I would want the WAD or batch method described above where the whole complement of Factories is established on the same Turn. This way the whole output becomes available at once and the larger quantity will be more useful as you can replace existing Mines on Mine Groups in chunks of 1,000,000 Mines at a time. Remember that Mines are limited to 1,000,000 on each deposit. So the Turn that the newer TL Mines show up in inventory you do the following.
Disassemble 1,000,000 Mines from the desired Mine Group.
Assemble 1,000,000 Mines (newer/higher TL) on said Mine Group.
Scrap the disassembled lower TL Mines for resources and reduced space requirements (raw resources except FUEL are stored OUTSIDE of the SURFACE colonies).
Now think about this when you establish the Factory Group that will be manufacturing those Mines: Put enough factories in the Group to manufacture exactly 1,000,000 of the TL Mines they are producing. This means that as the Mine TL goes UP, the desired output capacity of the specific Factory Group will increase with it since Mines TL mass is directly proportional to TL of said Mines. Therefore you should plan to either beef up the Factory Group with enough more same TL Factories to produce the 1,000,000 Mines (or multiple thereof) OR you should replace said Factories with the required number of higher TL Factories to accommodate the new needs. This requires some calculations and planning in order to optimize the end results.
Note: you want your Mines to be manufactured in BATCHES.
Now we have opened the "can of worms" regarding Factories. You now see the reason we need to keep increasing Factory TL ASAP in order to keep up with the Mines TL and their INCREASED output of resources from those eternal UNLIMITED deposits as well as the increased manufacturing output to create those higher TL Mines.
Forget the long term impact of anything BUT the Unlimited deposits as they will be gone sooner than later. The extra higher yield limited deposits do help kick-start the development of your home orbit but will soon be gone.
When you Assemble Factories on a new Factory Group, they will immediately (providing they are staffed, powered and supplied with resources) start to produce in a BATCH.
Example:
I Assemble 1,000,000 Factories (whatever same TL) and they start producing Items which will not be available in Inventory for another 4 Turns. If I Assemble 250,000 factories each Turn (on the same Factory Group) for 4 Turns, I will end up getting 1/4 or the overall output in inventory, starting after 4 Turns, and also EVERY Turn thereafter BECAUSE effectively there are 250,000 factories starting a new smaller BATCH of output in each quarter.
If I increase the TL of said Item then the immediate effect will be the next Quarter production will become available after 4 Turns while the remaining 3 Quarters or the older TL Item continue to process through to inventory. Remember to set those Factory Group TL's to 200 so you don't forget to do it incrementally later. If you set the Factory Group TL to Item Type TL-200 when you BUILD the factory Group, they will automatically start building the higher TL item ASAP. Otherwise you will find yourself analyzing the situation repeatedly and possibly forgetting to upgrade the factory Group TL incrementally as needed. The ONLY reason you would want lower TL Items than the maximum TL is in cases like Farms 2 through 5 OR as stated previously, IF YOU ARE PARANOID about an enemy capturing said higher TL Items and using them as prototypes...there are ways to minimize that probability too.
Therefore, look carefully at the Item Type and Research goals you have in Mind.
For manufacturing Mines, especially, I would want the WAD or batch method described above where the whole complement of Factories is established on the same Turn. This way the whole output becomes available at once and the larger quantity will be more useful as you can replace existing Mines on Mine Groups in chunks of 1,000,000 Mines at a time. Remember that Mines are limited to 1,000,000 on each deposit. So the Turn that the newer TL Mines show up in inventory you do the following.
Disassemble 1,000,000 Mines from the desired Mine Group.
Assemble 1,000,000 Mines (newer/higher TL) on said Mine Group.
Scrap the disassembled lower TL Mines for resources and reduced space requirements (raw resources except FUEL are stored OUTSIDE of the SURFACE colonies).
Now think about this when you establish the Factory Group that will be manufacturing those Mines: Put enough factories in the Group to manufacture exactly 1,000,000 of the TL Mines they are producing. This means that as the Mine TL goes UP, the desired output capacity of the specific Factory Group will increase with it since Mines TL mass is directly proportional to TL of said Mines. Therefore you should plan to either beef up the Factory Group with enough more same TL Factories to produce the 1,000,000 Mines (or multiple thereof) OR you should replace said Factories with the required number of higher TL Factories to accommodate the new needs. This requires some calculations and planning in order to optimize the end results.
Note: you want your Mines to be manufactured in BATCHES.
Now we have opened the "can of worms" regarding Factories. You now see the reason we need to keep increasing Factory TL ASAP in order to keep up with the Mines TL and their INCREASED output of resources from those eternal UNLIMITED deposits as well as the increased manufacturing output to create those higher TL Mines.
Forget the long term impact of anything BUT the Unlimited deposits as they will be gone sooner than later. The extra higher yield limited deposits do help kick-start the development of your home orbit but will soon be gone.