Thanks for the feedback, and especially for going the extra mile to break down the costs under different mod configurations.
You're correct that part of the point of the extra intermediates is to increase the total cost of things, as a sort of lesser marathon mode that is more focused on crafting complexity than scaling the raw resource requirements, but not generally to the proportion you were seeing.
A large portion of the issue was that AAI electric motors are significantly more expensive than my default recipe for them, so throwing as many of them into recipes in K2/SE as I did for vanilla proved problematic. Another was that I had considered gears and articulated mechanisms basically equivalent - AMs are 1.75 plates each but they're a bit more complex, so it comes out about even if I just replace gears with an equivalent amount of AMs. This was not the case with K2 halving the cost of gears - you're still getting a better deal than vanilla so I prioritized the motors but those two combined are where the disparity you were seeing on the miners was coming from. Belts were the cheap gears again increasing the relative cost contribution of other things and stack inserters were from not remotely respecting how incredibly expensive PAMs get with AAI's motors.
For the low amounts of nickel and zinc in K2's science recipes: I did as you suggested and replaced sulfuric acid in blue science with batteries. To keep the 5-of-a-thing scheme going I had to effectively double the amount of acid needed, which I would barely blink at in vanilla but is a potential issue to watch out for with finite oil spots. Also circuits in green science are replaced with motors. I was considering replacing gears in green science with inserter parts as well, to get in articulated mechanisms, but that seemed like loading too much extra cost into a single science pack - K2 seems to like its cheaper science.
With the vanilla science packs you get a good amount of nickel and zinc in them because a lot of them need finished products. I hadn't realized how heavily K2 tech cards replace this with intermediates, specifically intermediates I didn't really touch. For the non-SE version of the K2 productivity science, I added a pump, since it paralleled the inclusion of red belts and brought in all four of pipes, gears, valves and motors. This still leaves a lot of the science recipes light on brass, but I'm not sure where else to add it.
I found it somewhat difficult to integrate the various zinc and nickel based intermediates into SE space sciences in a way that felt flavorful and not overly forced - there were some exceptions but not a ton - so instead of looking specifically at science I looked for ways to integrate them into all ongoing space operations: It's annoying to send more types of parts up into space just to make five of a machine in your space mall one time, and less annoying if there's a recurrent need for it, like there is with data card components. So I came up with these sorts of ongoing maintenance loops where the process requires an intermediate and usually spits it back out but sometimes produces scrap instead:
- Iridite crushing requires replacement articulated mechanisms
- Arcosphere type conversions requires replacement gyroscopes
- Delivery cannon capsules require skyseeker armatures (This is supposed to be a part of the cannon, but adding extra outputs to the delivery cannons themselves is an Entire Technical Problem and I would need to beseech Earendel to change base SE control scripting.)
- Radiators and hypercoolers require replacement flow controllers
- Particle accelerators and similar stuff require replacement electromagnets
I'm concerned that these choices of processes will feel arbitrary since nothing else in the game needs replacement parts, and also these are pretty intrusive on relatively core parts of the mod.
I also added a toggle for these separately from the toggle for experimental intermediates so as to avoid forcing players with an established base to rebuild significant amounts of infrastructure, and also because with a hurricane on the way I don't really have the time for a full SE playthrough to test the numbers thoroughly. (This is also the reason for the update right now, I want to get the mod updated now in case something happens to me or my computer.)
Please follow up if there are any more specific recipes you think are too expensive, especially if any of this patch's changes make things worse - this patch is effectively incomplete and I intend to do a more thorough balance pass on experimentals if I don't die in the course of the next few days, but direction helps and I think my personal intuition for what's fun is not perfectly aligned with consensus.
