Recipe Efficiency System
This guide focuses on making your factory life simpler by reducing time and effort. I organized all the alternative recipes into different tiers with specific scoring:
- S Tier (Top Choice)
- A Tier (Great Pick)
- B Tier (Good Option)
- C Tier (Decent Sometimes)
- D Tier (Use Sparingly)
- F Tier (Skip These)
I made two different guides. If you care more about using materials efficiently than saving time, check my other guide instead. That one focuses on resource optimization over convenience.
My Tool Setup
I built a math optimization program using Python and open source solver tools. This program finds the best way to make anything based on what you want to prioritize. The data comes straight from the game files.
This tool is different because it adjusts every recipe to find the optimal solution before scoring changes. Most other tools just change one recipe and see what happens.
For ranking, I test each item recipe one by one while keeping all other options available. Then I compare the scores to using standard recipes.
What Gets Measured
My system tries to minimize these things:
- Power Usage: Energy from machines and resource extraction
- Item Movement: Parts flowing around your factory
- Machine Count: Total buildings needed in production
- Raw Materials: Base resources required by type
I also created weighted versions that account for building complexity and resource scarcity on the map.
My Settings For Time/Effort Priority:
- Power Usage: 0.0 (Already factored into other metrics)
- Item Movement: 0.4 (Scaled to match resource impact)
- Building Complexity: 30 (Weighted by recipe inputs/outputs)
- Resource Scarcity: 1.0 (Based on map availability)
Production Targets
What I’m Making:
- End Game Assembly Components (in correct ratios)
- Some Power Crystals and Special Items to test all recipes
- Basic parts like Fasteners, Wiring, Metal Rods, Containers
- Enough Power Generation for everything (split between fuel and nuclear)
Results Comparison
Standard Recipes Only:
- Power needed: 85,907 MW
- Items moving: 131,675 per minute
- Buildings required: 2,783
- Raw materials: 56,286
With Optimized Alternatives:
- Power needed: 70,908 MW (-17.5%)
- Items moving: 82,383 per minute (-37.4%)
- Buildings required: 1,020 (-63.3%)
- Raw materials: 32,458 (-42.3%)
Top Recommendations
S Tier recipes save the most time and effort. Negative percentages are good, positive are bad.
Best Choices:
- Heavy Encased Frame (-1.83% power, -6.53% items, -7.65% buildings)
- Copper Alloy Ingot (0.55% power, -23.37% buildings)
- Pure Aluminum Ingot (-0.66% power, -2.16% buildings)
- Oil-Based Diamonds (-2.54% power, -10.88% resources)
Great Options:
- Super-State Computer (-0.83% power, -2.77% buildings)
- Diluted Fuel (-0.96% power, -1.67% buildings)
- Steel Screw (-5.15% buildings)
- Fine Concrete (-2.92% buildings)
Avoid These:
- Pure Copper Ingot (12.56% more power needed)
- Instant Scrap (5.16% more buildings)
- Fertile Uranium (increases everything)
- Most diamond alternatives except oil-based ones
Recipe Combinations That Work Well
- Steel Rotor + Standard parts: Same materials, easy setup
- Stitched Iron Plate + Steel Frame combo: Eliminates screw production
- Copper + Iron Alloy Ingots: Same inputs, saves on everything
- Fused Wire recipes: Great resource savings with simple setup
These combinations use the same input materials so you can set up dedicated production lines without complex routing.