Technology to Increase Refinery Throughput

[C4st1gator]

Greetings, fellow star conquerors.
I've been thinking about a simple little thing, that would make playing late game empires more CPU-friendly.
The latest update has brought us technologies, which improve throughput of Metallurgist and Artisan jobs.

Throughput: The rate at which a resource is processed.
That is, doubling an Artisan's throughput would allow him to produce 12 units of Consumer Goods for 12 Minerals. As you can see, this doesn't affect efficiency, but allows one Artisan to do the work of two artisans, making production more effective.
There are separate technologies, which improve output. Those would allow an Artisan to produce 9 units of Consumer Goods from those same 6 Minerals, making production more efficient. Both exist to optimize your production per worker, which is crucial in this game, especially with a reduction in the number of pops.

As of right now, the throughput of Chemists, Gas Refiners and Translucers is very small. They all produce 2 units of Motes, Gases or Crystals respectively from 10 Minerals. A simple technology, which allows them to go to a base production of 4 MGC-Units (Mote-Gas-Crystal) for 20 minerals may greatly help to adapt to the limited building slots of Post 3.0 gameplay, where buildings slots have been cut from 16 down to 12.

Ultimately, this doesn't have to be a true (infinitely) repeatable technology, but three technologies of this type over the course of the game would make playing more bearable, especially considering that there are not enough naturally occuring strategic resources in an entire galaxy to supply one single high tech empire, let alone a bunch of them.
What do you think?

 

[ezno]

There should be a productivity tech but it's broken

 

[HFY]

There are techs and traditions which reduce upkeep, and that's in some ways equivalent to increasing output, but without the breakage.

There are also modifiers (e.g. Guilli's Planet Modifiers) which give increases to base production of specific jobs, like he's got a planet modifier which adds +1.50 motes to the output of every Chemist.

Those base-increase modifiers could be used in techs, I think.

 

[GOLANX]

Crazy thought, why aren't the buildings upgradeable?

 

[HFY]

Crazy thought, why aren't the buildings upgradeable?

Probably because the resource extraction buildings can't be upgraded, due to something about how deposits work.

If they did the smart thing and had rare resource deposits directly create jobs, then this comparision between extraction buildings and refinery buildings would no longer exist and upgraded refinery buildings could totally be a thing.

 

[GOLANX]

Probably because the resource extraction buildings can't be upgraded, due to something about how deposits work.

If they did the smart thing and had rare resource deposits directly create jobs, then this comparision between extraction buildings and refinery buildings would no longer exist and upgraded refinery buildings could totally be a thing.

So because Mechanic A is garbage Mechanic B must also be Garbage? Great game design

 

[C4st1gator]

Probably because the resource extraction buildings can't be upgraded, due to something about how deposits work.

If they did the smart thing and had rare resource deposits directly create jobs, then this comparision between extraction buildings and refinery buildings would no longer exist and upgraded refinery buildings could totally be a thing.

That is a good idea concerning resource deposits, but those only have output - from a resource perspective. Saving the extremely rare and valuable building slots instead of having to build Crystal Mines, Gas Extraction Wells or Mote Harvesting Traps would help. Though you are correct, the mining tech maybe should improve the output of resource gathering operations, too.
Which can easily include the jobs of Crystal Miners, Gas Extractors and Mote Harvesters.

However, resource refinery buildings can be built anywhere, including habitats, which is where I personally like to put them.

You could upgrade those in order to get more production, saving valuable building slots in the process, which would involve more pops. I don't think that method excludes my proposal, both can easily be combined.

I'm rather talking about technologies, such as:

• Improved Production (Resources from Jobs: +10%, Upkeep from Jobs +10%)
• Efficiencies of Scale (Resources from Jobs: +20%, Upkeep from Jobs +20%)
• Maximized Productivity (Resources from Jobs: +30%, Upkeep from Jobs +30%)

These technologies are from the social tree and applied generally to all production as an improvement in the organization of production processes, but there can be technologies, which improve the efficiency of technological production processes, which could be part of engineering research and increase throughput of strategic resources.

The issue of throughput is more balanced, since your jobs need more input as well. Essentially you're saving jobs and building slots as opposed to minerals.

 

[HFY]

However, resource refinery buildings can be built anywhere, including habitats, which is where I personally like to put them.

Same here.

Refinery habitats are so convenient, I usually forget to build extractors.

I'm rather talking about technologies, such as:

• Improved Production (Resources from Jobs: +10%, Upkeep from Jobs +10%)
• Efficiencies of Scale (Resources from Jobs: +20%, Upkeep from Jobs +20%)
• Maximized Productivity (Resources from Jobs: +30%, Upkeep from Jobs +30%)

These technologies are from the social tree and applied generally to all production as an improvement in the organization of production processes, but there can be technologies, which improve the efficiency of technological production processes, which could be part of engineering research and increase throughput of strategic resources.

The issue of throughput is more balanced, since your jobs need more input as well. Essentially you're saving jobs and building slots as opposed to minerals.

I think those techs are exactly what this refers to:

There should be a productivity tech but it's broken

There have been some very long, math-heavy posts about how those particular techs don't deliver what they promise.

I can't replicate those arguments, so I'm just going to mention that they exist.

 

[ezno]

That is a good idea concerning resource deposits, but those only have output - from a resource perspective. Saving the extremely rare and valuable building slots instead of having to build Crystal Mines, Gas Extraction Wells or Mote Harvesting Traps would help. Though you are correct, the mining tech maybe should improve the output of resource gathering operations, too.
Which can easily include the jobs of Crystal Miners, Gas Extractors and Mote Harvesters.

However, resource refinery buildings can be built anywhere, including habitats, which is where I personally like to put them.

You could upgrade those in order to get more production, saving valuable building slots in the process, which would involve more pops. I don't think that method excludes my proposal, both can easily be combined.

I'm rather talking about technologies, such as:

• Improved Production (Resources from Jobs: +10%, Upkeep from Jobs +10%)
• Efficiencies of Scale (Resources from Jobs: +20%, Upkeep from Jobs +20%)
• Maximized Productivity (Resources from Jobs: +30%, Upkeep from Jobs +30%)

These technologies are from the social tree and applied generally to all production as an improvement in the organization of production processes, but there can be technologies, which improve the efficiency of technological production processes, which could be part of engineering research and increase throughput of strategic resources.

The issue of throughput is more balanced, since your jobs need more input as well. Essentially you're saving jobs and building slots as opposed to minerals.

In fact theses techs are not balanced, because they increase the mineral cost per strategic ressources (and the bonus are not very high in some cases

 

[GOLANX]

In fact theses techs are not balanced, because they increase the mineral cost per strategic ressources (and the bonus are not very high in some cases

Same increase in output as upkeep, if they just increased output you would save 30% on car insurance Minerals which would be an odd bonus from social tree.

 

[ezno]

Same increase in output as upkeep, if they just increased output you would save 30% on car insurance Minerals which would be an odd bonus from social tree.

I mean that the way that the tech works for now doesn't do that and that's why they're broken, the good way is how buildings increase the base amount of prod/cost for artisans

 

[C4st1gator]

I mean that the way that the tech works for now doesn't do that and that's why they're broken, the good way is how buildings increase the base amount of prod/cost for artisans

It may be, that the throughput isn't multiplicative. Thanks to Stellaris having production bonuses always be additive to prevent exponential growth, they may have actually failed with properly calculating throughput.
The order would be:

1. Take Base Production (Output) and Upkeep (Input)
2. Apply throughput modifiers (Add them up and multiply both input and output.)
3. Apply Input modifiers (Add them up and multiply with input)
4. Apply Output modifiers (Add them up and multiply with output)

Stellaris seems to only add up once, which leads to the wrong result. Want to submit a bug report?