Space Engineers Tutorial: Upgrades, Refineries & Assemblers (tips, testing, tutorials for survival)

In this video we take a closer look at how the upgrade modules work on refineries and assemblers in Space Engineers. I started thinking about this because I'm likely to run into power problems in my survival base and I'd like to know the best way to set up my industrial infrastructure to make the most of the ore that I mine and the solar power I've got available.
The Space Engineers wiki has a pretty thorough guide on how these work even if the terms are slightly changed in the current version of the game. The mathematical formulae they've used still seem to be mostly correct but are all quite complex so I wanted to run through so I had a stronger idea of how it all comes together.
Hopefully that information is useful for you too!
As always, don't forget to enjoy this awesome (if at times buggy) game!
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Space Engineers
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[@rachels587]

Splitsie is the real MVP taught me more that I've learned in 200 hours of trial and error thank you

[@Splitsie]

Thanks! I'm glad it's still useful stuff :)

[@videogamerNattie98]

To Sum it up from what the wiki states (Yield Modules) 1 Fully placed Yield Module gives you 119% more Materials from ore 2 Gives 141% more Materials from ore 3 is 168% more Materials from ore And 4 Doubles the amount by making you 200% of what you put in the refinery given enough time to refine everything that is. (Speed Modules) For every speed module attached it increases the speed by 100% but also comes at the cost of increasing power consumption by 100% as well. So 1 will double speed and power consumption 2 will triple speed and power consumption 3 will quadruple speed and power consumption and 4 will Quintuple Speed and power consumption (at this point the machine needs 2.8Mw to run, a reactor is practically required at this point.) (They increase power consumption so not to make power efficiency modules useless and so no matter how fast its going youll always consume the same amount of power with the big difference being how much more power is needed that your power systems need to put out to sate the power needs of your machinery.) (And Lastly we got Power Efficiency modules) This module is usually the underdog not usually is it cared by anyone as many people see it as if you got uranium and reactors this is useless. Sadly this is true...But it wasn't made to just reduce the overall power consumption of a machine. It can also reduce the minimum required power to get the machine to start, also it can be paired with speed modules to keep power consumption and power needs of a machine down whilst improving its overall speed. Also useful in the very beginning especially more so if you don't even have a reactor. This ones a little hard to explain but for the sake of ease of explanation the basic Refinery and assembler power consumption is 560Kw every 1000Kw is 1Mw for the sake of reference With 1 of these modules it will decrease power consumption to 374.49Kw, or by 33.13% Or increase power efficiency by 150% With 2 it will decrease power Consumption to 250.44Kw, or by 66.28%, Or increase power efficiency by 224% With 3 it will decrease power Consumption to 167.48Kw, or by 70.09%, Or increase power efficiency by 334% With 4 It will decrease power Consumption to 112.00Kw, or by 80%, Or increase power efficiency by 500% Basically by my mathematics granted this is with Vanilla non upgraded machines the best speed to power configuration is 2 Speed modules with 2 Power efficiency modules this way you'll gain 3x the speed but with a little less then double the power consumption you can opt for 3 power efficiency modules instead of 2 but you'll only have enough for 1 speed module which only causes it to use a little less then 1.5x over the base for Double speed. But because the Power consumption is grater the mathematics cover more power consumption so this can enable your power to possibly stretch even more so doing this. TL:DR Overall, Yield Modules I would only Recommend for those that are patient and want to maximize Ore to Material Ratio with no care to speed. (Unless you use this with Speed modules to get Materials at a reasonable speed and more of them from the ores that provide the materials. Or your playing on a faster Setting for Refineries and Assemblers, cause you do not need an assembler to be running at 50x if you can get more resources at the already fast speed.) Speed modules I recommend for both Refineries and Assemblers if you have the power for it as it will speed things along in a game that's already quite slow. (unless your playing on 10x mode with Assemblers and Refineries this is not needed id suggest Speed Modules in that case but this should be applied to assemblers on any setting to be honest because you never can have enough components.) And Power Efficiency Modules I do Recommend it only if your REALLY tight on power or trying to mix speed with this module, because most scenario's start you with a reactor or power making device of some kind and unless you play it the splitsie way with worlds, you should have access to uranium from practically most places you can base at in some way shape or form. Even Splitsie albeit the more aggressive way, he still got it on a world that didn't have it generated. Effectively its better then nothing because it can aid with power consumption but that's not saying much. (So only use it if you have limited power and no means to make it e.g a Battery Charged by itself with nothing in the immediate means to charge it.) Here are the Wiki's links since there not in the description. Power Efficiency Module Wiki: www.spaceengineerswiki.com/Power_Efficiency_Upgrade_Module Speed Module Wiki: www.spaceengineerswiki.com/Productivity_Upgrade_Module Yield Module Wiki: www.spaceengineerswiki.com/Effectiveness_Upgrade_Module And this comment is to act as a general info pool to follow along with in the video rather then having to constantly Tab out and about with the info.

[@joachimgauckler8555]

Thank you for your comment this summary should be included in every video to make it faster to gain knowledge.

[@videogamerNattie98]

@@joachimgauckler8555 Your welcome mate :)

[@stoneowl2383]

"unless your playing on 10x mode with Assemblers and Refineries this is not needed id suggest Yield modules in that case but this should be applied to assemblers on any setting to be honest because you never can have enough components." Didn't he showed us in the video, that a yield modul has no effect on assemblers?

[@videogamerNattie98]

@@stoneowl2383 One Sentence up "Speed modules I recommend for both Refineries and Assemblers if you have the power for it as it will speed things along in a game that's already quite slow." I was actually talking about Speed modules there not, Yield modules. So out of reaction of this comment I spaced out that separation to make it easier to read. And also clarified the writing so you can understand what I am trying to say there.

[@millerchism8746]

Joachim Gauckler thanks this helped a lot

[@approximately82kangaroos19]

I'm making an Elephant-class refinery frigate, and I needed this so much! The reason it's called an Elephant is because elephants are considered one of the most resourceful animals in the world. I wanted to make it run with as little loss if mass as possible, and this helped me more than anyone would normally think. Again, thank you!

[@Drakefance5]

Wait, the small square within the assembler's conveyor port is also an upgrade port. Man, now i guess i should redesign all my older ships.

[@macgabhann1108]

yep though I keep forgetting about that myself even though i did learn about that awhile back and even tested it once.

[@Splitsie]

Yep, I completely forgot about that too until people highlighted it to me when I stuffed up my base building tutorial :P

[@videogamerNattie98]

I found that the best means to make everything very solid in design is stick the refinery down first and then stick the assembler standing up straight up on the top port of the refinery this works because the top is still use able so you can put either a conveyor system or storage area up on the assembler and access both from the Refinery's open port or terminal. This also leaves all upgrade slots open enabling full modulation of your assembler and Refinery combo. The only problem is for smaller big ships this can be hard to fit in. So do consider what you want from a ship before building it. Another Tip is if Oxygen is in the atmosphere it can be collected with an air vent set to depressurize connected to your oxygen tank outside the ship so have a hole that a port in the tank leads to the outside put an air vent in it, and don't worry this will seal the hole and if your really worried just add a conveyor block followed by the Air vent if it helps ease your fears. Then stick another air vent on the inside port set to pressurize and now when in an oxygenated environment your tank will utilize it to fill itself to pressurize your ship. and have an air vent attached to your H2/O2 Generator and leave it off to act as a back up oxygen pressurizer if your O2 Tank runs out mid travels.

[@ChozoSR388]

Another fantastically informative video, Splitsie! Thanks so much. You know, I've been playing SE since around the time that refineries and assemblers came out, and even now, 1200 hours later, I still hadn't the slightest idea how to use the upgrade modules, and I didn't even know the yield modules didn't work on assemblers. Had my doubts, but, I never really messed with the modules all that much, if any. I will now, however. Thanks for the info :)

[@Splitsie]

You're very welcome. I've always liked the modules but honestly it's been mostly for aesthetics - I love the complex industrial look. I keep learning new stuff with these videos after about the same amount of time in the game as yourself, scripts are a prime example :P

[@Arbiter1223]

Damn... this information is INCREDIBLY useful! In my almost 600 hours in Space Engineers I've ALWAYS set up my Refineries to have maximum Yield Modules, no matter what. (My ideology has always been, "If I want it done faster, I can always build more Refineries.") Now, seeing as how great of an impact those things are with Speed Modules, I might consider rethinking how I set up my Refinery sections of my base... or perhaps have multiple Refinery sections for specific ore types... This has really got me thinking; I'm really glad I found your tutorial videos. :D

[@Splitsie]

I'm glad it was some food for thought, my general approach is to choose between whether I want to mine more often or build more refineries, as the speed modules just mean you need to keep digging that hole :P

[@macgabhann1108]

if you are starting out with the vanilla lander you can actually move the 2 bottom back thrusters back one block then put 4 upgrades on the refinery and one on the bottom of the assembler as well as one on the outside facing part of the assembler and if refining uranium it will refine it so much faster then the reactor can use it even with every thing running.

[@Splitsie]

Handy to know, thanks :)

[@unshackledjester]

It happened. I learned something new. I had no idea that iron ore had no appreciable benefit from the 4th yield boost module. Not that is impacts me putting 4 on my refinery, but it is something new. =3

[@Splitsie]

Yay! Even if it's useless trivia nice to know it's something new 😃

[@Rasip]

Unshackled Jester that is with Iron. Most, i think all, other ores produce ingots at a low enough rate for that 4th to matter.

[@unshackledjester]

I was commenting that I learned something new because on the last video I'd claimed that such was unlikely. It's not going to change my play-style, nor am I going to bother considering it at any point in design...but it IS something I was completely unaware of. =P

[@topminator1667]

Actually there is no cap at the moment,you can easily get 140 kg of iron ingots from 100 kg of iron ore

[@net343]

So practically: if you want to refine things fast use speed modules, if you want to refine uranium, use the yield modules

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, I'd agree with that in most cases. I frequently put myself in a position where power is a little difficult to come by so I use a lot of power modules in the early game too

[@BrianJ1962]

The arc-furnace looks like the perfect for a small-grid survival ship, where you're short on space, limited on power, and still needing good yield. Didn't know it existed - lol - so huge thanks there!

[@Splitsie]

The current 'basic refinery' is pretty much the same, though not quite as good as the arc furnace used to be. But it's still large grid so you won't be able to use it on small grid without rotor shenanigans, could still use it for a compact large grid survival ship though :)

[@BrianJ1962]

@@Splitsie Ooooh yeah, was forgetting about grid size ... good point.

[@XevianLight]

I usually just start mass refining with yield modules when I'm flying between planets. Way worth it.

[@Splitsie]

When you've got the time it's my preferred way to go too :)

[@justsoicanfingcomment5814]

This video was very informative and helpful thank you.

[@Seed2Sapling]

As always, an intresting video. I like to send new members on our server to your tutorials. It has helped many of them become better engineers. Thankyou

[@Splitsie]

You're welcome and thank you for pointing your new members my way :)

[@Maubedo28]

Another great video, your channel is the best Space Engineers channel ever... Thank you!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks, glad you're finding them helpful, should be some more coming soon :)

[@forwarduntodawn1000]

This beyond amazing both information and not to fast that I lose the plot and not too slow.that it drags wish I found you earlier

[@Blondejesus7]

Keep up the good work your videos to help me out a lot

[@DavidBest_YT]

Hey Splitsie, I did some testing about the Refineries and Arc Furnaces as well to get some numbers couse i was a bit sceptic about the results, mostly couse of the block space differences between the machines with the modules (not conveyors inculded). And i think i prefer the Arc Furnaces for the 3 ores it accepts, at least for it's speed, couse the cobalt is so slow in the refinery even with max speed modules. Here are my findings : 12 Arc Furnace uses 3.96MW 1 AF make 27Kg Cobalt Ingots out of 100Kg Cobalt Ore 12 AF make 324Kg Cobalt Ingots out of 1200Kg Cobalt Ore 1 Refinery with 3 speed, 1 productivity and 1 efficiency module uses 1.83MW 1 Refinery with 3 speed, 1 productivity and 1 efficiency module make 26.17Kg Cobalt Ingots out of 100Kg Cobalt Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module uses 2.8MW 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 24Kg Cobalt Ingots out of 100Kg Cobalt Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 0.80Kg Gold Ingots out of 100Kg Gold Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 72Kg Gravel out of 100Kg Stone 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 56Kg Iron Ingots out of 100Kg Iron Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 0.56Kg Magnesium Powder out of 100Kg Magnesium Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 32Kg Nickel Ingots out of 100Kg Nickel Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 0.40Kg Platinum Ingots out of 100Kg Platinum Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 56Kg Silicon Wafer out of 100Kg Silicon Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 8Kg Silver Ingots out of 100Kg Silver Ore 1 Refinery with 4 speed module make 0.56Kg Uranium Ingots out of 100Kg Uranium Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield Module uses 560 kW 1 Refinery with 4 Yield Module make 48Kg Cobalt Ingots out of 100Kg Cobalt Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 1.60Kg Gold Ingots out of 100Kg Gold Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 100Kg Gravel out of 100Kg Stone 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 100Kg Iron Ingots out of 100Kg Iron Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 1.12Kg Magnesium Powder out of 100Kg Magnesium Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 64Kg Nickel Ingots out of 100Kg Nickel Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 0.80Kg Platinum Ingots out of 100Kg Platinum Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 100Kg Silicon Wafer out of 100Kg Silicon Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 16Kg Silver Ingots out of 100Kg Silver Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Yield module make 1.12Kg Uranium Ingots out of 100Kg Uranium Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power Module uses 112 kW 1 Refinery with 4 Power Module make 24Kg Cobalt Ingots out of 100Kg Cobalt Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 0.80Kg Gold Ingots out of 100Kg Gold Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 72Kg Gravel out of 100Kg Stone 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 56Kg Iron Ingots out of 100Kg Iron Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 0.56Kg Magnesium Powder out of 100Kg Magnesium Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 32Kg Nickel Ingots out of 100Kg Nickel Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 0.40Kg Platinum Ingots out of 100Kg Platinum Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 56Kg Silicon Wafer out of 100Kg Silicon Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 8Kg Silver Ingots out of 100Kg Silver Ore 1 Refinery with 4 Power module make 0.56Kg Uranium Ingots out of 100Kg Uranium Ore Setup cost: Arc Furnace * 12 Steel plate 120 * 12 = 1440 Construction components 5 * 12 = 60 Large steel tube 2 * 12 = 24 Motor 4 * 12 = 48 Computer 5 * 12 = 60 Refinery + (4 * Speed module) Steel plate 1200 + (4 * 100) = 1600 Contruction components 40 + (4 * 40) = 200 Small steel tube 0 + (4 * 20) = 80 Large steel tube 20 + (4 * 10) = 60 Motor 16 + (4 * 2) = 22 Computer 20 = 20 ****** Conclusion ****** For the test on Cobalt: The Refinery with 4 speed module is about 3.3 times faster then 1 Arc Furnace and uses 2.47MW more. But with 12 Arc Furnaces in the same space (not the conveyors included) you can proces 1200Kg ore instead of 330Kg ore in the same time for the extra cost of 1.16MW, and you also have 36Kg more. But don't forget the Arc Furnace only processes **** Cobalt Ore - Iron Ore - Nickel Ore ****

[@Splitsie]

Nice detailed breakdown :) It's helpful to have info like this so you can optimise for your particular situation. If you've got easy access to huge amounts of ore and only need to get it as fast as you can vs mining the ore is difficult, you're short of power and space vs any other combination you're going to want to tailor your build to that situation. In this way I think Keen got the balance of the upgrade modules done really well as there is an argument for different setups without one being the 'best'. The arc furnace does have that space advantage, but I was mainly focusing on output per unit of ore and output per unit of power as I wanted to know the best setup as those are usually the limiting factors in a survival game when you don't have uranium. In that situation the refinery is still better as long as time isn't an issue nor the huge cost in components. In my survival series I've been gradually readjusting my balance of refineries and arc furnaces as I get more power and more space available to me, but with the info I learnt from these tests I've been able to do it more sensibly than I would have in the past - where I would have pretty much just guessed :P

[@DavidBest_YT]

Hmm, that's indeed a factor i didn't took into acount, the initial settings to start up the game. I went out from an unlimited gameplay, so no worry about resources, power or room; but I forgot those can be limited to the players wishes. With that in mind both setups are indeed equally good and I think the player will have to focus more on sorters to distribute his/her ores to where he/she wants it for max speed/profit.

[@kevingriffith6011]

It's worth noting that you can fit a massive 12 arc furnaces in the same space with about the same materials as you can a fully upgraded refinery. Compared to the refinery, this will burn through uranium/battery power many times faster, but will produce an equally impressive amount of iron, cobalt, and nickel ingots. If it wasn't for the limitation on the flavors of ore they could process, they'd be all I used once I was no longer concerned with power.

[@Splitsie]

They certainly are useful for space, but if space isn't an issue you'll get more ingots and faster if you have a refinery for each of the furnaces. On a base I've never really worried about space, but if you're on a ship with space limitations the furnaces certainly have a nice benefit as you say :)

[@kevingriffith6011]

Well, it's less about saving space and more about the arc furnace's ability to be built in extreme bulk. You just get significantly (around 8x) more bang for your materials/space with arc furnaces... of course 8 arc furnaces will use up almost 6x the power of a single refinery. The trouble of course is that you'll need to set up conveyor sorters to make sure your refineries don't get anything your massive banks of arc furnaces could handle. There's also not that much point in having 12 arc furnaces in a single player survival scenario, there's basically no chance you'll be able to actually be able to make use of that much production ability. In the end unless you're trying to process an absolutely absurd amount of iron/cobalt/nickel, you're still better off with the versatility of the standard refinery.

[@Ratzfaz]

Why is the space called space ? ;-)

[@bluelightfox]

+Kevin Griffith Depends on what you want to build in survival...big projects require deep pockets. Arc furnaces can certainly free up refineries to process the ridiculously slow/low-yield ores like gold, platinum, and uranium 24-7. I usually build the refineries with 4x yield modules each as that'll greatly reduce the time spent mining and seeking new patches of rare ore. When designing a survival starting ship, I prefer a set of arc furnaces to a refinery due to space/weight. With arc furnaces (and assemblers) on the ship, you can build a base for the refineries, then use it to refine the other ores and build anything else. Power efficiency modules are only useful when power is limited. In space, there's way more uranium than I would ever consume. On planets, it comes down to luck. But setting up a space base to process a ton of uranium (and platinum!) and drop the ingots to the planet base periodically seems like a simple/fun way to supply a planetary base with fuel. The problem with speed modules is you could simply build more production blocks. I tend to use speed modules on assemblers anyway for aesthetics. A room of assemblers with speed modules, plus some decorative blocks and lights looks great IMO.

[@ZeroPointAlpha]

The miners I design are basically long (or rather wide, as my friends say they resemble "Space Invaders") flying bore-heads that rotate to dig up ore, so they always bring back a hefty amount of ore, often hundreds of kilos of iron and others at a time, so I basically use the setup Michael Matthews suggested earlier combining Arc Furnaces and Refineries. If there's anything you'll ALWAYS need a ton of when building large bases/ships, it's a metric butt-load of iron.

[@dcarthe_guy1080]

I was pointed to this video by someone on a server I play around on because it taught him a lot. That said, it's worth remembering that all the numbers you came up with can be shown in terms of percentages in the control panel for the machines after you put upgrades on them. So, an assembler with all 8 points occupied by speed upgrades will run at 500% of base speed but also consume that much more energy per time because you're paying energy per work performed. The same is true of refineries where you're paying energy per volume of ore transformed into whatever amount of ingots it turns into at the time. For those who'd like to experiment with how much you can get in a survival server, you can swap out all the upgrades on a machine and check the multipliers in the control panel without having to run all these tests and wait for things to process.

[@Splitsie]

You're right, It gives you a lot of the numbers, the ones that I couldn't get from the control panel were the power comparisons using limited uranium, I could have worked them out using the information from the wiki but that would have been much less fun 😉

[@kaksspl]

You posted it the day after I was struggling with mods. And it's 2nd time you've done that. You're amazing. Though I hoped you'd mention cooperative mode in assemblers since I didn't have occasion to test it myself.

[@Splitsie]

I do seem to have some luck with timing ;) I'm not a big fan of cooperative mode with the assembler since it used to work really poorly but that's something I should test since I haven't looked at it in a long time. I might see if I can think of enough tips and tricks with assemblers to make up a short video on them alone :)

[@aBuIIet]

when you test cooperative mode, play around with: speed modules on master and slave assembler different components (different producing times) i usually run one master assembler and a lot of cooperative ones. it usually works quite fine, but i found something worthy of optimisation: every time the coop-assemblers refresh their queue, they restart their current production. + one overview over what is being produced and queued - annoying to fix queue with missing components thx for this informative video and keep going :)

[@macgabhann1108]

I would also like to see a video on coop mode I never use it because im not sure how it works exactly even though ive been playing for years lol

[@Splitsie]

I will add it to the list :) I'll definitely include a comparison of which method is faster to produce an few differing components, as that refreshing problem affects things differently dependent on the production time of each piece I think

[@FritiFirecaster]

Glad to see someone breaking this down outside of the Wiki's, and they more or less fit with expectations. I commonly go the efficient/solar power route myself, though as you pointed out this can also help reduce one's uranium burn rate as well. For some, if Uranium is accessible or abundant, then solar power and efficiency can be ignored. Early on, I'll stick with a single refinery and an assembler, all with efficiency modules. This'll keep my power draw under 300kW (224KW for 1x fully efficient refinery and 1x assembler) for them, and this means I can survive on just a couple solar panels (6-10 commonly to start) and batteries for a good amount of time with limited resources. It's also a benefit I don't need to be constantly scurrying for more Uranium and can focus on construction and expansion as well as collection of ores for additional building. Less time getting/refining uranium means more time for other things. Need more speed? Add in another (or a couple) fully efficient refinery/assembler to the process and expand the number of solar panels/batteries. You hit diminishing returns with solar however once you scale out beyond a couple of these and it becomes better to aim for other routes or modules. Solar panels expand very linearly on power and take alot of components, particularly if they're not sun tracking. If you start adding in speed modules (very easy way to have your power requirements skyrocket!) to your refineries/assemblers or start getting alot of them all together at once (past 3-4 each) you start needing a truly large number of solar arrays and space to put them. Exactly where this comfort point is depends on the player. Mid-game onwards I go for a mix of efficiency and space requirements and speed. Solar can continue to work here if you're not constantly processing, but working in batches, and can even be viable for mobile bases. For me, I'll commonly have 3-4 paths through my Refining processes for my ore to automatically be pushed/pulled by sorters. Iron (and scrap metal), Nickel and Cobalt will generally run through Arc Furnaces. The return on investment for the energy and yield is a decent compromise for the components and space used, as you noted. Not perfect, but 'Good Enough' given the high ratio anyways of metals in these ores. Each will have it's own line (Raw ore pushed via a sorter into them, and ingots pulled out by another sorter for each core-type line), and if I'm concerned about speed, I'll just add another Arc Furnace into the chain, balancing this against the additional potential power drain from such. This frees up my regular refineries to deal more effectively with the rarer and low-yield ores (IE: Uranium) and with the multiple paths allows me to process alot of different ores simultaneously... or limit my total power draw by only one refining/arc-furnance line being in use at a time. Anything else I'll tend to run through my regular refinery with Yield Modules (2-3 of them) and a couple efficiency modules (or speed if I have power to spare). Can quite effectively and quickly process alot of different ores simultaneously in the space of 2x normal refineries (1x yield refinery, and multiple arc-furances for the low-level ores) with this approach, with manageable/reasonable power requirements. :) Assemblers (2-4 of them) are commonly just fully efficient (4x efficiency modules each) as I'll look at the start of a day/night cycle and try to anticipate what I'll need and set them to produce such in job lots (via cooperative mode) while doing other things (IE: Mining, scouting, surveying, etc). They'll not be the most quick, but you can get up to about 5 of them running for the same power cost of one unupgraded one and still produce 5x as quickly. I generally can't justify having speed module assemblers given the additional power draw of such compared to the power draw of just having multiple efficient assemblers unless I'm space constrained. The parts cost isn't generally a consideration at this stage, just space. Plus, they look neat if you have them rotating along their long axis with all the upgrade modules attached. :) Given how Keen is looking to add in Wind Turbines and Hydrogen Engines (At least, they showed sneak-previews of such a couple months back in the weekly streams after the teased the parachutes), I have a sneaking suspicion we may see Uranium deposits either shrink, become less common, or otherwise less available/harder to process for the early to mid-game like they did with Platinum with the introduction of Planets (made such only available in space (exception - meteor impacts and salvage for small amounts) off the main planets (moons counting as being in space) in the default solar system map) to give the game a bit more of a progression curve (when starting with little to nothing on the main planets), so I've been trying to look into solar and efficiency approaches to operate on a lower power budget.

[@Splitsie]

It seems like your approach is pretty similar to mine, except for the assemblers. I've always gone for the high speed ones for the convenience of having a single menu to queue from but I think your idea of having a bunch with power efficiency modules on them is going to be my plan for my survival series as it should work really well. I hope they do cut back the amount of uranium by a lot of they introduce another power source, otherwise we'll just have another option that we only use when artificially limiting ourselves, I'd like to have the gameplay direct me wherever it can :)

[@FritiFirecaster]

Right on. :) But yeah, take a look at cooperative mode for your assemblers. Queue it up in the 'Master' Assembler, and all the Helpers will also assemble till the total is reached. I usually just use a sorter to pull the completed parts out to a cargo container so I don't have to go to each assembler. And agreed - I do think they're going to change things up for progression gameplay, but we'll just have to wait and see!

[@Roofedhobo]

Pointless comment: when you say “yield” it sounds like “yee-old”. Neat.

[@Splitsie]

That'd be my aussie accent shining through ;) Just wait till I say NOW when I'm agitated, sounds like Nee-OW! :P

[@lucasmorais3694]

I love Splitsie videos

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@afoekon]

Love your videos!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks Jeffrey!

[@FenrisHunter2]

That was realy helpful!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@CrossForth]

thanks man I needed this tutorial so bad

[@Splitsie]

Always happy to help :)

[@Tiltrotortech]

Should have used timer blocks for your tests to shut each test down after a set time. The timers will use a fixed amount of power over time, so they won't negatively affect any tests.

[@Splitsie]

I've found timers to be really unreliable when there are a lot of industrial or other scripted parts in a world. Even when there are very few using them to turn two lights on or off at the same time will end up with widely varying results which is quite unfortunate as I'd like to use them in most of my tests :(

[@BillWiltfong]

Don't forget, you can fit 12 arc furnaces (or now, basic refineries) in the same space that one upgraded refinery takes up. So per block the smaller unit has a higher output. I don't know how they compare on the ingot per ore measurement.

[@Splitsie]

They fall behind on ingots per ore, but you're right, if density is called for (as an example a tunnelling machine now that we can turn rock into iron) they could be useful :)

[@kalsaari4670]

I always use Yield modules on refineries and Speed on Assemblers, they're just the best of both to my opinion, power can always be fixed other ways! As for the Arc Furnaces, even down the line they can be very useful because i'll often throw in large quantities of ores that takes a long time to refine with refineries, and i'll throw into the Arcs the limited types of ore that it can use (aka Iron, Cobalt, Nickel), so that my Refineries can stick to more important things, such as Platinum, Magnesium and Uranium.

[@Splitsie]

If you've got the power I would tend to agree with you there, speed for assembler and yield on refinery is my personal preference too :)

[@G4nda1f]

Great comparisons! As always, lots of good info to consider. However for my needs (though there certainly is room for different opinions here), I'm primarily yield modules for refineries all the way. They may be somewhat slower than an all speed module setup, but they get more ingots with less ore which in turn means less time I have to spend mining ore. The time spent mining ore requires my direct involvement whereas additional time needed to finish refining is time time which I need not be directly involved and can spend doing other things. So for me, yield modules are the way to go in most if not all cases. It's the most bang for the buck in terms of my personal involvement time though perhaps not so in terms of total raw time. And, converting ore to components really isn't my end goal anyway, it's just the means to the end goal of capturing ships and grinding them down. At least for the vanilla game, ship capturing is more interesting than mining in the end as far as I'm concerned. Even the reduced performance for iron doesn't change my mind since that's just one of the ores (though perhaps most prolific and most used one). A separate refinery tweaked for iron ingot production might be in order though... I'd seen this info about iron refinement on the wiki but had not considered the implications for refinery upgrade module setup. Good to know. Thanks for the info! :)

[@Splitsie]

I completely agree with your logic. The modules you use should be tailored to your situation and if I can power full yield modules and had the room for enough refineries I'd go with all yield as well :)

[@user-pl3gw1gi9n]

Nice video, thank you for this info) Btw, can you do a video about remote control and autopilot, please?

[@WoolyGriffin]

Yes, please I would love to see that

[@Splitsie]

It's been on my to-do list for a while, I'll hopefully come up with a reliable setup soon so I can make a video on it :)

[@Dogburt_Junior]

I thought it was already done. Anyways you may want to tap into scripted autopilot as well since it is much more user-friendly than vanilla.

[@tassie7325]

I can't be 100% sure, but I think my head just exploded. Nice work.

[@Splitsie]

Thanks Mick, hopefully your head will grow back better than ever!

[@tassie7325]

I fear it is beyond repair. But congrats on passing 4K subs. On track for the 5K by NY

[@Splitsie]

Thank you again and fingers crossed :)

[@tassie7325]

I have the utmost confidence and will get the fridge stocked ^--^

[@GuardianCitadel]

It doesn't hurt to have an arc furnace or four in the mix to help crank out iron (or speed refineries), which is really more of a bulk material and not really something you worry about refining efficiency for. Especially early game when iron and iron products can be a huge bottleneck for ever-larger projects. Power Efficiency is excellent for refining uranium, since it takes less energy to produce more energy

[@Splitsie]

They're certainly a good stepping stone if you haven't got the stuff yet, but once you can have a full refinery they're worth it (if you can handle the space)

[@kirknay]

If i'm not concerned with production speed, I usually stick with one power effeciency module with 3 yield modules. It increases the effeciency of processing the more rare minerals, without sacrificing large amounts of power in the process.

[@Splitsie]

If you're playing with uranium available power shouldn't really be much of a concern, but if you're like me and a bit of a masochist, then you'll be playing with solar only and then every little bit of power counts :)

[@kirknay]

Splitsie my base runs on only 6 panels and is running 6 assemblers and 4 refineries with my standard setup. My 6 batteries are keeping up overnight, and recharging completely.

[@arch-zo8vp]

Great video

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@razaelll]

I thought I saw minions at the beginning xD

[@z6n387]

On the refinery with speed modules the one that has 8 SM on it with half working green half not working and red if you put and additional 2 on the side that are red to fill the gaps or simply put conveyor pipes between them connecting them it will turn all lights green and increase the speed modules

[@Splitsie]

I suspect that wouldn't work either, but I would be interested in testing it, the way is seems to work is by detecting what is attached to each of the 8 upgrade ports so it shouldn't matter whether the remainder of the upgrade block was lit up green or not but worth testing

[@z6n387]

Splitsie definitely! Let me know how it works for you, it's works for me fine I also tested it after this video it increases the speed when adding the speed modules to the red parts not lit green hanging off the sides, both side have an additional 4 access point on both side causing half of it to not turn green and not work soon as I fill it with a extra 2 speed modeuks either side to cover the access point exspied and not used it all lights green and works even faster as the Attu on all ones I speak of add to the the ones connected directly to the refinery and simply slows thru them increase the overall speed, Hop you enjoy using it it's helped me a lot in survival mode

[@kiiikoooPT]

Jax if that is true, then you can put an endless array of modules and it will make it in a blink of an eye...

[@jamesmassee6629]

I love these videos. I have to say, you may want to revisit this one though. Either they have messed up how yield modules work since you made this or they don't work the same in creative mode. I just ran the following in my creative build world: Refinery with 4 yield modules attached covering all upgrade ports. 10,000kg of scrap into the refinery = 16,000kg of iron ingots out. I figured that maybe it was scrap, so, since you used iron ore, I reran the experiment as follows: Refinery with 4 yield modules attached covering all upgrade ports. 10,000kg of iron ore into the refinery = 14,000kg of iron ingots out. Seems like a bug to me, but I don't know exactly what settings you used in your test world and it has been three years...

[@rebaav]

Another well done and needed video. Thanks for doing tthse. The results suggest iron through arc furnace seems the best practices, interesting. An escape pod with a arc furnace makes sense. These results suggests a speed, an efficiency, and a couple of yield modules on a refinery is best for uranium refining to get the best ratios, time, and power use. Thoughts? How long it's running, consuming power at what rate and getting what amount of fuel out for the effort seems like needed information.

[@Splitsie]

I think a mix of efficiency and yield would give you the maximum return for your uranium power supply, since the speed ones increase their power draw proportionately while the others don't have a downside. Of course you'll need to be willing to wait for the uranium to be refined and that could take a while dependent on your settings... so in the past I've always leaned toward speed modules because I had plenty of ore and just didn't want to wait for it to be refined :P

[@rebaav]

Splitsie I think that's an important consideration: the longer something runs the more power it uses.

[@Splitsie]

It's unfortunate the speed modules work faster but draw more power to do so, they give zero bonus in power consumption per unit of ore they refine which is a bit of a bummer and something I was completely ignorant of prior to testing for this video :P

[@pupsratte3308]

With the blast furnace being so substantially cheaper than the refinery, the only thing being the real challenge in starting as a lonely astronaut in vanilla is the difficulty of amassing the components for a small generator or battery by taking apart wolfes and drop pods. That being said, something more efficient at killing wolfes in meelee would be a crucial addition to the game to really unlock the potential for a start-from-scratch-survival game mode. I'd really like to see this happen.

[@Splitsie]

Keen seems to go one way then the other on the idea of the astronaut only start. It's technically possible right now with the unknown signals but you need an incredible amount of patience to attempt it. Whether I like that type of start or not is going to depend on how they implement it if they did - I'm not sure that I like the idea of having to hear wolves whimpering as I kill them in order to build up my equipment, not because of the gameplay but just because they look kinda sad :P

[@kevingriffith6011]

I was inspired to make a scenario something like that from an experience I had on lone survivor (the bare-bones asteroid platform start). While I was surveying asteroids for ore I needed, I lost contact with the home platform and honestly couldn't find it (Because genius me didn't GPS marker it)... running out of power and oxygen, I decided my only option was to harass an NPC mining ship to get it to call in an assailant, shoot the turret off of it and grind it down. Had enough to build a super bare bones ship, with a remote control to pilot it, a chair to sit in to recover power, thrusters, a gyroscope and an oxygen generator... but not all at once, so I would have to grind and weld parts to manage the functions I needed until I could bring down another ship. It was a lot of fun, to be honest.

[@FritiFirecaster]

That and unless it's changed since I looked, the arc-furnace can't handle silicon, which is needed for glass and computers and a few other important things. Otherwise, it would indeed be more than sufficient for a survival start instead of the regular refinery. :) I keep wondering when Keen will adjust this, if ever.

[@NumericChaff]

Seems like adding 1/2 power, 2/3 yield, and 1 speed is a good bet all around.

[@Splitsie]

Yeah there's good arguments for balancing dependent on your situation - limits of space, power or time will push things one way or another, if you go the mixed approach like you suggest you'll be slightly better off than an arc furnace I think - as long as you have the space

[@Duke00x]

Arc fences are also good when you want to save the fully upgraded refineries for more valuable and rare ores. You put large bulk of iron, nickel and cobalt in the arc fences and use the refineries for uranium and gold and silver and so on.

[@Splitsie]

They're certainly handy for that when you're limited by space, components or time so you can't build extra fully upgraded refineries :)

[@gluegui]

Arc furnaces win in raw speed when you compare same amount of space taken. 1 arc is faster than an unmodded refinery. a fully modded refinery is what? 5x faster than the unmodded version? but in that same space you can fit 12 arc furnaces. Meaning you get over twice the speed in the same space.

[@thefly7244]

ye but using speed is stupid

[@thefly7244]

better to use yield modules and just make a bunch of them a few hours of farming and i got 9 refineries fully modded with yield modules idk why people act like its hard to do that not to mention once u find uranium thats it power is ez

[@thefly7244]

by putting my iron in an arc furnace i loose the double iron i could be getting from a full yield moduled refinery

[@ryangehrs8741]

hey thanks a lot for the vids and work u put in! im much the same way, and like to know exactly what things do in the game ;) and a big thank u for pointing bugs out in the game, they should fix the red light green light functionality haha

[@Splitsie]

You're very welcome, thanks for watching :) I always have mixed feelings on pointing out the bugs, I really like the game and want people to see the good side of it, but they almost always stay in when it comes to editing as I don't want to put anything false out there either

[@LexieAssassin]

Interesting... Say, could you do a tutorial on armor blocks? (Resistance to being shot at, explosives, ect. Not sure if the game calculates damage differently for explosions vs armor as projectiles vs armor.) Particularly curious how all the vanilla armors stack up in comparison to this concrete armor mod that I recently added to my game.

[@Splitsie]

I'm planning on looking into armor block resistance in the future, was thinking of looking at different shapes, rebuilding with welders etc so could definitely include explosions from missiles as well as warheads in there :)

[@helohel5915]

Nothing beats full yield modules and uranium ore The amount of ore you get makes up for all that power

[@Splitsie]

Unless you're impatient or have enemies coming to put you under time pressure, then you might have other priorities :)

[@srg08]

Have you tried the difference between the one yeild upgrade and the four upg. on platinum what the result?

[@stanpollard]

Will the speed module work on ion thrusters to increase your speed faster Great video splitsie What planet was this test done on.i just woke up.im thinking gravity effects the speed too.or should I have a coffee first before I ask a stupid question like this one

[@Splitsie]

I think there might be some mods that allow you to place upgrade modules on thrusters but that's not something that works in the vanilla game. I decided to change things up and do the video on mars with earth just above the horizon, thought a change in scenery would be nice :)

[@Savsgames]

though the video is older I'd like to make a correction. When you observed the results of the efficiency module in the beginning of the video you compared it to speed modules saying it had less output. However, the truth is that it would make a lot more refined materials than a refinery with all speed modules. it would just take more time.

[@SirTragain]

I just started the Workshop Star System w Crashed Red Ship steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1119094817 by casualsailor and placed 2x Power Efficiency & 1x Speed Module on both the Assemblers which are recessed into walls, celling & floor leaving the walk path between them accessible still and Enabled Cooperative Mode on the second Assembler. They both are showing a 200% increase in Productivity and 224% Power Efficiency with a Max Power use of 500.88kw each (1.00176 MW) together. I also captured a Solar Sail and merged it to the rear of the Red Ship so the Solar Panels and 3x batteries are ample power to run them and the Refinery which has 4x Yield Modules on it. I have also hide a Projector in the remaining Control Station room behind the Re-spawn Bay's wall for which I found an old Blue Print of The Red Ship before it's upgrade. Again; Thank You for another interesting video that helps take some of the guess work along with trial and error out for some of the new players and yes even some of us old timers learn a new thing or two now and then. Time to build an Arc Furnace; I got a lot of Steel Plated to make...

[@Splitsie]

It can be fun melding multiple ship designs together like that, in the past I've merged a whole bunch of different captured ships together and tried to build an agglomeration that was actually functional with the end plan to make it look like a space station welded together out of derelicts :P I'm glad the info was useful, I hadn't explored it in any particular way until I made this and I've been making use of the info myself ever since - and that was starting with well over 1000hours :)

[@Blockinstaller12]

The moral of the story is: Use blast furnaces. They're faster, cost far less, take up less space (and weight) and are more ore and power efficient than refineries.

[@Splitsie]

Not true, I think you might have missed the bits about the upgrade modules, with upgrades the large refineries are better in every way except size than the old blast furnaces (which are pretty similar to the current basic refineries)

[@bluelightfox]

One question I've had for a long time: What refinery configuration yields the most net uranium, on a base whose only power source is reactors? The key point being that the processing method consumes a portion of what it's producing. If I knew the answer, I'd dedicate a set of ideally-configured refineries to uranium ore.

[@dcarthe_guy1080]

You could actually calculate that fairly easily if you look at it in terms of what work is done per second. Knowing that one kg of uranium will always generate 1MWh of power, compare that to the power taken by the machine and look at how much uranium is created per second by whatever upgrades you have. A little spreadsheet would probably help you keep it all straight in your mind when you start swapping out the bonuses.

[@Splitsie]

That's an interesting question, I think it would be the full set of power modules from the fact that they produced the most cobalt from the 100g of uranium. So if you set up to refine uranium the result should be the same, not sure if it would be enough for you if you were running lots of other refineries and assemblers though as it's pretty slow to produce that way

[@lgvereor]

Run sorters to refineries with platinum and uranium going to your efficiency refinery and then run a separate speed one for less valuable minerals like iron. What you have in between would depend on where you're situated I guess, my last game I had too much cobalt but this time it's too much magnesium.

[@Splitsie]

Surely you mean you were short of everything but cobalt and now magnesium? ;) I think that's a good idea having sorters to divert the slower or rarer ores to their own optimised setup

[@lgvereor]

Normally but I am situated in a super massive hollow asteroid filled to the rim with a magnesium wall, surrounded by three other medium sized magnesium core asteroids. I've estimated the total deposit based on what I've already mined to be around 500,000 kg of it, at the very least, and possibly 1,000,000 kg. All within suit-flight distance. So yeah, Magnesium is like stone to me this playthrough. This is why I want my server to grow, so I have people to trade with.

[@kiiikoooPT]

there is another thing you need to take in mind when testing, the amount of ore in the refinary and the amount of ingots in the assemblers, cause if im not mistakin the eficiency module makes the same amount of end result but saves you more ressorces to make it, i mean it does not spend that many as a normal one... right??? like in the assembler 1 and 4 the amount of ingots does not match... even when the plates do... and those are diferent modules right?

[@kiiikoooPT]

ok i should have finish watch the full video before comment, :) sorry

[@Splitsie]

No worries :)

[@stefanminkelis4932]

Like a wise man called Jeremy Clarkson always says: "SPEEED AAND POWERRR"

[@Splitsie]

lol

[@vojtechsejkora1554]

Could you update this test to actual time? Now we do not have arc furnace and refinery work a little bit different i think. And i think that I find that 1 yield and 3 power modul are best setup for power consumpsion/unit.

[@machintrucGaming]

Didn't watch the full video, but Yield module = super duper use full

[@machintrucGaming]

Also, for the assembler, I use 3 speed and 1 economy

[@Splitsie]

My preference would change dependent on situation, they're pretty easy to grind off and replace once you need to change so I'm expecting in a survival game with solar I'd use the power ones initially at least until I had a good solar farm, then switch to the yield modules assuming I could be patient enough to not use the speed ones :P

[@FritiFirecaster]

I'd have to double check, but if memory serves the parts requirement differences and/or ingot requirements for these upgrades are pretty similar. I seem to recall in the past you could grind one off and just use the parts to build another with only minor variations. Yes, very easy to switch between them as needed. :)

[@Splitsie]

There's often only a few large steel tubes and motors between each I think, so pretty easy to carry on higher inventory, but more painful on low settings but certainly doable :)

[@commanderdan2319]

I'm having an issue in my survival world where my assemblers aren't pulling the ingots needed to build components. Everything's conveyered and I can manual pull ingots from anywhere and place in the assemblers and it'll build. Use conveyer system is turned on. HELP?!

[@Rasip]

I usually go with 2 power, 1 speed, and 1 yield. Question though. You showed one that had 3 of one module and 2 halves of the others. Does that actually do anything?

[@Splitsie]

Yep, it's all based on 8 attachment points and you can get any combination of them even if they're half dangling off :)

[@Rasip]

That is pretty cool and gives you more options. Like 3/8 yield, 4/8 power, 1/8 speed for Productivity: 150% Effectiveness: 130% Power Efficiency: 224% Ie, slightly better than the arc furnace at all 3.

[@Nethan2000]

So are you going to replace the refinery with an arc furnace in your survival? I like the music, BTW.

[@ZeroPointAlpha]

The only real advantages that an Arc Furnace has over an upgraded Refinery are: A) They use less power while still processing at a decent speed, but once you get outside of iron (they blast through iron like crazy, but then again so do Refineries) you barely notice any speed benefits, especially with cobalt. It takes FOREVER to process cobalt in Arc Furnaces. My setup of 18 Arc Furnaces (6-per-ore) can go through 200 kilos of iron ore in less than half an hour or so, but it takes HOURS to go through even 100 kilos of cobalt), so once you get decent energy infrastructure going it's a moot point, and B) They take up less room/less materials to build. IIRC you can fit between 4 and 6 Arc Furnaces in the space of a single Refinery, but that's not counting the tubes you'd need to connect them all together, so you're still not saving much space in that regard.

[@Splitsie]

Since I'm still mining by hand I think I'll add an arc furnace initially, but as soon as I have enough resources I'll probably upgrade to high yield refineries, I should probably figure out where to put them too...

[@Rasip]

ZeroPointAlpha a fully upgraded refinery takes as much space as 12 arc furnaces. If you lay them out right you can get 10 and tubes for them into the same space as the refinery.

[@WillTea]

It's funny that "dotted rock" was also on top of a mineral vein lol

[@Splitsie]

That's some convenient placement for mining

[@matthewcox4660]

For the EFF mod, compared to a vanilla, yes you get more than vanilla but not as much if the eff was a speed. 1 Eff mod compared to 1speed mod, your eff refinery used .06 Colbat but your speed used .1 cobalt...thats were the trade off happened.

[@matthewcox4660]

EFF modules should reduce the input, speed modules should decrease output time

[@Splitsie]

The efficiency modules also slightly decrease output time by putting out more per unit processed while processing at the base rate. But no where near enough to keep up with the speed modules as you say, having run through this it's probably going to change how I usually set up my refineries, if I can manage to be patient enough I'll max out yield as long as I have the power :)

[@matthewcox4660]

glad you put in my tip about the assembler ;)

[@phreddeigh]

With efficiency, you only checked output, not raw ore consumed

[@Splitsie]

If I remember correctly that's because I was either checking the output per unit of power so didn't care about the ore in, or because I used a fixed amount of ore at the start

[@codyprodutions8623]

I don’t think speed modules really increase the amount of ingots, I think they just produced ingots faster before you turned them off.

[@peterfixit7221]

is the ark furnace and the basic refinery the same?

[@Splitsie]

Pretty much, the basic refinery replaced the arc furnace. I think there may have been some balance adjustments made to it so it's not exactly the same though

[@QuantumRealm-]

Fairly sure yield on assemblers reduce the amount of resources required to make components.

[@Splitsie]

The 100% do not. They are incompatible with assemblers and these days they kindly tell you so I wouldn't have needed to test them :P

[@stanpollard]

Did you a video on gravity generators.i made a gravity cannon on Earth .I tried both genorators .they don't seem to werk on earth.i tried 1 with negative field and the other positive field.i turn off the negative field.with 1 on and the other off.at the same time I turn one off and the other on to shot stone.it werks in space not on earth.cannont create a field on earth

[@Splitsie]

Gravity generators do not work properly within natural gravity fields. There is a zone of crossover at high altitude where both the planetary gravity and the artificial gravity will work, however once you get even remotely close to the ground the artificial gravity will be completely non-functional.

[@kurmis999]

Yield modules is best for gold,platinum, uranium. Because you will not have big stacks of ore, and never will be inaf

[@Dogburt_Junior]

The only difference with the dangling ones is they use more power since they are turned on

[@Splitsie]

That's a good point that I definitely hadn't thought of at the time :P

[@arnearne12345]

question! when is he gonna cover batteries and their management?

[@Splitsie]

I completely forgot about that one, I'll try to come up with something soon as I'll probably integrate it with how they interact with reactors and solar panels

[@arnearne12345]

danke! this is something very few think about so it's gonna be great finally having a comprehensive breakdown of this

[@sabersight908]

Can you make a Roleplay series i Thing you can be there good in

[@macgabhann1108]

im actually looking forward to that , and as i said before let me know if you want some help with the drones ive got a few ideas that im going to be working on soon as my computer decides to realize a certain mod is subscribed to that should allow for better control over an entire swarm of drones via a script.

[@EternallySlaying]

A little sad you didnt compare 12 arc furnaces vs max module furnaces. If Im mathing in my head right, itll be faster and more power efficient than max speed furnace.

[@Splitsie]

I rarely think about space as a limiting factor so completely forgot to test it, I suspect you're right though :)

[@EternallySlaying]

I just tested 1 refinery with 4 speed mods vs 12 arc furnaces making iron ingots with 0.01 kg of uranium. Then I was looking through comments at the end of my testing and found others making the same conclusions, so I guess sorry for the repeat, but anyway. -Refinery: 2404.08kg, 2641.46kg, 2611.72kg -Arc Furnaces: 6945.16kg, 6642.52kg, 6864.48kg I tested 3 times, cause I couldn't believe it the first time, and thought I may have put more uranium in the arcs by accident.... BUT I DIDN'T. That is about a %288 increase in product for power compared to the solo furnace and chews through the .01 kg of uranium and the ore REALLY fast (12 arcs use about 3.96MW total with a speeder at 2.8MW). I was also surprised by the amount of variance I got from the retesting. Then I decided to test 4 yield, and 2 speed and 2 yield, and effiecincy as well. I know it retests a lot of what you did, but I couldn't remember how much fuel you used, and I went this far so I figured why not. -4 yield: 5226.00kg, 5212.97kg, 5290.97kg -2 yield 2 speed: 3423.59kg, 3984.32kg, 3528.18kg -2 yield 2 efficiency: 9368.83kg, 9307.06kg, 9286.49kg -4 efficiency: 14552kg (only tested once cause took forever) I think arcs are a really good alternative in mass due to it freeing up your refinery count for other ores. And to reiterate, the arcs got through the ore much faster than the max speed mod (roughly 9.5sec to 14.5sec using the same amount of fuel) I guess the real lesson in my bit here is that if you want speed modules for your arc compatable ores, just mass arc furnaces.

[@Splitsie]

I love that you went to that effort, my original attempts at testing this started with 1kg of uranium... I realised fairly early that I didn't have a year to run the tests and cut down to something like 0.1kg :) It's good to know that if speed is what you want then go arc because you get those extra yield bonuses, you would need some form of balancing script for it to be good for smaller amounts of ores, but if you're going speed that shouldn't be an issue as you should have huge volumes for it to matter :) Tl:dr nice work, thanks :)

[@stevenfernandez7867]

instead of looking at what is produced why dont you look at the ore i prefer yield modules simply because get more from a stack

[@Splitsie]

It depends what you're short on, if you've found an ore and can dig lots of it but need ammo quickly because you're under attack, getting the most from what ore you have isn't important it's more about getting the ingots as quickly as possible

[@stevenfernandez7867]

Ahh I see I personally prefer yield only because I can get a lot out of a little bit with 4 refineries all with yield

[@moxzy3213]

NOw test this on small grids

[@Splitsie]

When I run out of ideas for testing the vanilla game I'll likely move on to mods, but at the moment I've got more ideas than time to make them :)

[@ealtar]

why do you not use buttons ....good vid tho

[@Splitsie]

I've found at times buttons and timers will stuff up and not turn everything off at precisely the same time so I figured I'd just use the control panel :)

[@jmichaelolds]

Wait, why can't you just do the math? I feel like this is a lot more work than getting a pen and paper.

[@Splitsie]

Largely because I don't like it and also because the SE wiki is frequently quite off on its numbers so I'd have little to work from :)

[@sGeeMoney]

“Our industries” *communism intensifies*

[@giggoty4926]

I play on x10 so i don't need speed modules

[@davidmccarthy7058]

What you are curious about and you suspect you already know the answer to??????? Seriously, is this actually meant to be a tutorial. Show you don't know what you are doing. A tutorial is meant to be done when you know how to do what people are looking for the answer to. Go figure.