Initial Thoughts on Game Modes (100x, 0.5 recipes, 0.5 power cost, random adv resource rich)

I’ve started 1.2 experimental and am playing with game mode settings:

100 times space elevator cost

Half cost recipes

Machines draw half the power

Resource nodes random weighted to advanced resources.

I have to say, the 100 times space elevator cost and advanced resources are by far the most challenging part of these settings, so much so that I made sure to set the recipes and power cheaper to avoid making the early game too hard.

There seems to be an “oversight” with the recipe cost setting. It doesn’t actually make all recipes cheaper, because 1 cost recipes divide to 0.5 then round back up to 1, meaning they don’t change.

That’s not the problem. The problem is that all these recipes compound and things get EXPONENTIALLY cheaper, not just “twice as cheap.”

I figured that was how it worked, which is why I chose 100x space elevator cost to prevent progressing too fast. It works for me, but I think this reveals a problem with the recipe cost setting from a fundamental design perspective.

Cheaper recipes actually make the game “harder”, because you don’t just get stuff for free, you have to build a bigger factory to make full use of the more efficient recipes. I did the math, and 60 nuclear pasta per minute builds could be scaled up to 600 nuclear pasta per minute no problem, but you have to actually BUILD a factory that can actually do that, which is no small feat.

This isn’t the issue. The issue is that more expensive recipe settings have the same compounding problem, but instead of making the game “harder” or “grindier” or “ more challenging“, it just makes the game impossible.

Which sounds more “challenging”: building 1000 pasta per minute, or not building anything at all because you can’t build a powerplant?

What do I mean, “can’t build a powerplant?”

It’s simple. 1 compacted coal normally costs 1 coal and 1 sulfur and gives 2 coal worth of energy value. On 2x, 2 coal gives 1 coal worth…. 2 coal energy value. You get nothing. Worse: on 5x 5 coal gives 1 compacted coal worth 2 coal energy value. This compounds all the way down the fuel chain to turbofuel, to rocket fuel, and don’t get me started on nuclear.

You make one fifth the compacted coal into 1/25th the turbofuel into 1/125th the rocket fuel into 1/625th the ionized fuel.

To put it another way, if you needed 1 coal vein for your rocket fuel plant in vanilla, now you need 125 coal veins FOR THE SAME POWER OUTPUT OF A ONE COAL VEIN VANILLA SETTINGS TURBOFUEL SETTUP.

Can you see the problem? There isn’t enough nodes on the map to handle 5x.

The only solution to this problem is to change the way the recipes are calculated for the multiplier so that fractions can work. So multiply every recipe by 10 for input AND output, so you can have more granular control over the rates.

2x and 5x should be 1.2x and 1.5x. And honestly? Still impossible. So the current solution is even worse.

EDIT:

After thinking about potential solutions other than taking the setting out of the game entirely, the only solution that seems to work in my mind is making the recipe cost multiplier only apply to space elevator parts. Anything else affects the fuel chain and makes progress impossible or makes byproducts unmanageable.