Power - Time Reduction

I spent a bit of time doing science with the power coils on my workbench. I assume the other power coils work the same.

The formula for how much the construction time is reduced by power is as follows:

First 100 Power
For the first 100 power over the recipe requirement, the construction time is reduced by 50% (in addition to below).

Each 100 power above the recipe requirement
For each 100 power above the recipe requirement, INCLUDING the first 100 power, an additional bonus applies according to this formula:

Reduction percent (of base construction time) = 100 / ( 8 X <Recipe Power Requirement> )

Maximum time reduction
The minimum crafting time is 25% of the original crafting time. If the above criteria leads to a number less than 25%, then 25% is used instead. 25% of the original crafting time is the same as a 75% reduction.

Examples

T2 Power Coils
Lets say I’m mass crafting T2 power coils, and I have 2100 power hooked up to my workbench.

These need 1500 power to craft, so I’m over the requirement by 600. They take 45000 seconds to mass craft.

First I get a 50% bonus because I’m over the power requirement.

Next I do the formula above:
100 / ( 8 X 1500 ) = 0.8333%

Since I’m 600 power over the requirement I multiply this number by 6 and add it to my original 50% to get 55%

Since than number is less than 75%, I reduce the original crafting time by that amount:
45000 X (1 - 0.55) = 24750 seconds, which is 5 hours, 37 minutes, 30 seconds.

If you do this same thing in game, you’ll see the actual recipe requirement is 5 hours, 37 minutes, 31 seconds, so there’s some rounding going on somewhere, but it’s close enough.

Decorative Gem Blocks
This recipe requires 4500 power. and takes 6000 seconds to mass craft. Lets say I have 5000 power hooked up to my workbench, so I’m 500 power over the requirement.

Again, we get the initial 50%

Run the formula we get:
100 / ( 8 X 4500 ) = 0.2777%

since we’re 500 power over, multiply that by 5 to get 1.3888%

Add that to our 50 and reduce the time by that percent
6000 X (1 - 0.513888) = 2916 seconds, which is 48 minutes, 36 seconds.

This is exactly what is seen in game with the same setup.

No Power Requirement
When you run the formula for a recipe with no power requirement, you get infinity:
100 / ( 8 X 0 ) = Infinity

Since infinity is greater than 75%, you get the full reduction with the first 100 power.

Max Useful Power

To determine how many coils are required to obtain the 75% reduction in crafting time, use this formula:

3 X <Recipe Power Requirement> + 100

The extra 100 is because of the rounding errors described above, but it also makes the formula work for 0 power recipes.

so for example, T2 Power coils need 1500 power so:
3 X 1500 + 100 = 4600

so 4600 power is required to achieve a 25% construction time. This is the same as what I saw in game.

Hopefully I didn’t mess up my math anywhere =D. Let me know if you spot something wrong or inconsistent with in-game behaviour.

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There was a patch a couple weeks ago that changed this. I haven’t nailed it down exactly but I think I have enough information to describe closely enough how it works now.

Power coils now reduce BOTH spark cost and time to produce. The multiplier they use applies to both spark and production time for a given input power. For example 2300 power is needed to reduce spark cost of gold grapples by 50%. The time it takes to produce is also halved. The following talks about how to get said multiplier that applies to both spark and production time.

The best multiplier you can get is 0.4675, which means 46.75% of the original spark cost and production time. adding a power coil above the recipe requirement reduces the multiplier by roughly 5% of the remaining amount. This reduces to roughly 4% after 1000 power, 3% after 2000 power etc. This means there are diminishing returns due to the reduction relative to the remaining multiplier, and the shrinking of the reduction itself.

For example, with a green dot every 500 power, you can see it eventually goes flat:

image

When there is no power requirement for the recipe, the first power coil seems to reduce the multiplier to about 0.82 (almost 20% just with 100 power), then continue at the 5% reduction stated above. Whereas recipes that require power start at the 5% reduction stated above.

The power requirement seems to have a non-linear affect on the maximum number of power coils needed to achieve the 0.4675 multiplier. For example a recipe requiring 0 power, 500 power, or 1000 power all require 2300 power more than their requirement to achieve a 0.50 multiplier, and ~4600 power more than their requirement to achieve the 0.4675 multiplier. Whereas a recipe needing 1500 power achieves a 0.52 multiplier at 2300 power above it’s requirement and a recipe needing 3000 power achieves a 0.55 multiplier at 2300 power above it’s requirement.

Sorry this is not as specific as my previous post, but the calculation appears to be much more complex now. I’m sure someone can figure it out, but I think for now this is good enough.

Bottom Line

If a recipe does not require power, 100 power will reduce your spark and production time to 80%. Otherwise it will reduce it to 95%

2300 power above the recipe requirement gets you about 50% spark cost and production time. Add a couple hundred more for recipes needing above 1000 power.

4600 power above the recipe requirement gets you about 45% spark cost and production time. Add a few hundred more for recipes needing above 1000 power.

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This is fantastic, thanks for sharing!

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