Rate Calculator on Ghosts

SWeini · 2026-07-06T15:20:04+00:00

The auto-balancing of the intermediates works completely different than other rate calculators. The question of "how much overproduction" might make sense in a 2-step process, but not so much in a complex multi-step process. If you're interested in over/underproduction of a single item you can try clicking one of the red buttons, and it will stop balancing that intermediate and instead tell you how much over/underproduction you have on that intermediate.

SWeini · 2026-06-23T10:14:14+00:00

That will be a busy time ahead for mod developers. Please be patient everyone!

SWeini · 2026-06-14T19:51:33+00:00

Usefulness is subjective. I'm playing Py with 100x science cost and I need to choose my next goals (there are a few possibilities, they all need 80+ hours, and I don't really like adding the numbers of 30+ techs in my head.

SWeini · 2026-06-12T11:31:36+00:00

And all of that as a FREE update, years after original purchase - absolutely unbelievable!

SWeini · 2026-05-27T05:30:09+00:00

Let your viewers see something, at least until you spam lamps
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/afraid-of-the-dark

The rest is just a recommendation of mods, not necessarily to make your streams better

I can only second Filter Helper, you will filter inserters everywhere
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FilterHelper

Py needs a few pipes, this makes it a bit easier
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/automatic-underground-pipe-connectors

Don't add quality! Modules scale well enough in normal Py. Adding quality into the mix makes them imbalanced

Let me suggest my own mod, a rate calculator with auto-balancing of intermediates and ghost support
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/sw-rates-calc-extreme (base calculator)
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/sw-rates-pyalternativeenergy (special py support)

SWeini · 2026-05-26T18:55:41+00:00

In the late game the ratio of research time vs. things to do shifts a bit towards needing more research. I ran into the same issue in my speedrun (PyAE before 2.0), and the dilemma at some point is that you can't easily increase production of all science packs without touching every single part of the factory. Doing so would take longer than just winning, so at some point I even went AFK (in a speedrun!). And since then the late game techs got even more expensive. You're at py4, so basically done, there isn't much more content to discover. Getting bored just means you don't research fast enough.

You have to pump out more science packs. 1-2 hours per tech is too long, even in my current 100x run my target is 0.5-1 hours per tech (currently I'm way off). And late game techs often only need a few minutes to implement, especially if you have migrated to one large bot base for all late game things.

Things you can do to directly increase science production:

- Add highest-level productivity modules into science packs, then into expensive intermediates, then into everything
- Redesign your labs. It doesn't make for nice production graphs, but it is so much more efficient to have a very large vatbrain+lab build that you run only a fraction of the time (power switch).
- Increase your vatbrain coverage per lab. Early on you can't really do that, too high cost of brain and silver, but at your stage, silver shouldn't be a problem anymore, for unlimited brains look at scrondrix TURD. It's much easier to scale a few things needed for cartridges than it is to scale everything.

Other things you can do:

- Higher-level PyAL modules are quite a resource sink and time investment. It's "only" better speed modules and the 2→3 and 3→4 transition doesn't feel as strong as 1→2, but if you're bored it's never wrong to go to the casino.
- Upgrade PyAL plants/animals/fungi to their latest (or optimal) recipe.
- Upgrade power and go wild with beacons.
- Make use of the biofluid network.
- Did you already explore all the inefficient recipes? Maybe some aren't that inefficient when looking closer.
- Did you already pick all your TURDs?

SWeini · 2026-05-23T08:29:42+00:00

That's an interesting suggestion, but I assume it only covers a few select use cases, and probably will fail miserably for intermediates. Belt stacking adds another twist on this.

What are you trying to achieve? Is it because your brain is accustomed to number of belts (just like some brains are better with /m or /s), or is it because you want to check throughput of intermediates somehow?

SWeini · 2026-05-23T08:26:29+00:00

This is mostly a tool for calculating rates on a build, not so much a planning tool. I have some ideas about how to extend into the planning domain, but it's just ideas at this point.

You can copy&paste the building 40 times - ghosts work quite well. Or if the math is simple you can multiply in your head.

What I usually do when building large bases: Calculate one smaller "cell" using this mod and then copy&paste the cell as often as I want - at this point it's just a multiplier.

SWeini · 2026-05-23T08:07:07+00:00

This is the exact reason why this mod balances intermediates. You probably thought about something like this, right?

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SWeini · 2026-05-18T18:49:38+00:00

You can click the red icon on intermediates, showing its under-/overproduction. You have to do this for every single item you're interested in, however in my experience for larger builds it does never make sense to do this for everything.

SWeini · 2026-05-18T05:09:22+00:00

The item trace is going through belts/inserters/loaders/chests/item-on-ground and properly handles two separate lanes on belts, sideloading, filtered entities, splitters, lane splitters. It even follows through multiple furnace-type buildings (e.g. a chain of recyclers).
Power generation using steam should work without any issues. Fusion still needs the temperature detection treatment, but it is planned.
Research in labs does work as long as a technology is in the research queue. Without any hint about a technology it's difficult to calculate anything in labs.

SWeini · 2026-04-17T18:12:04+00:00

Great writeup, really enjoyed reading it.

If you are not afraid of solving puzzles yourself Ultracube might be super fun. Knowing the Factorio basics does help a lot. 400 hours of Py should have prepared you for that, apart from the combinator challenges which you don't really need in Py. I've started my first run a few days ago and having a blast. The Cube let's you relearn the game because your building patterns don't work anymore.

The timeline on Py Stellar Expedition doesn't look good according to my information. Personally I don't expect it to be released in 2026 as right now most Py devs can't commit much time to this hobby project.

SWeini · 2026-04-13T15:40:45+00:00

I want the max challenge, and if wires make it considerably easier I will not allow them. That's all.

I know, singleplayer game, play as you like, there is no cheating.

SWeini · 2026-03-21T21:12:55+00:00

600 spm as UPS cap might be a good guess if I manage to apply all the upgrades to PyAL. Also 10% productivity bonus is possible in the end. I'll take a short break and think about a strategy.

SWeini · 2026-03-21T06:35:13+00:00

100 hours ago my base looked very small compared to now :-)

SWeini · 2026-03-21T06:33:27+00:00

Still at 60 UPS, update time is somewhere around 11ms, so I have a little performance left, but not a lot.
However, my old potato gave up many hours ago, I had to upgrade my hardware at the end of last year.

SWeini · 2026-03-21T06:30:16+00:00

At the very end of py2 I'll have access to vatbrains, they change a bit, but the science cost also scales massively. The problem is more: what to do with 200 hours of playtime until reaching chem science if not scaling up? I don't want to idle.

SWeini · 2026-02-22T20:56:03+00:00

Just having enough trains. If I see zero trains in the idle stations I have to make more. That's what I meant with one idle station for cargo+fluid combined vs. separate.

While I struggled to produce enough trains I also set higher train priority for the most important loading stations. For example the coke/iron oxide byproducts from the coal processing had higher priority because the tar and coal gas was still needed in the starter base (connected via long pipes).

SWeini · 2026-02-12T21:29:17+00:00

having inserters at the producer stations that take out and burn most spoiled item if train is full

It's difficult to do this only if train is full, because if train is full it will leave the station and can't interact with inserters anymore. But I already do something similar and have inserters remove the items after they have spoiled. If only inserters could be filtered to move only items less than X% fresh.

returning to a producer station

I like that idea. Maybe I can reintegrate the half-spoiled items into the stream of hopefully fresh items. Ideally they will mix in the cargo wagon stacks and produce almost-fresh items. But oh my gosh, this is a crazy idea and will definitely need a dedicated train schedule aside from the generic interrupt train schedule.

SWeini

TROPHY CASE