Greetings!

I'm a huge fan of this mod, and me and my friends always play with this mod... but a question comes with the latest update: Why remove the balance setting?

In my opinion, the balance setting was what made mini machines unique from normal machines, and what made this mod unique, other than just "huh, things are 2x2 now" because then, why use larger machines if the minis are exactly the same? Even if i preferred to build with mini machines to keep my builds small and compact, especially with factorissimo, i knew they had a drawback of being somewhat slower and costing a bit more for what they might return, but i was fine with that, hell, it was the sole reason i was always excited to used them: because there was a reason to use them in an way that didn't made them completely overpowered.

So i came here asking if you would be willing to add it back, or at least explain your reasoning for the choice of removing it?

Thanks in advance!

Yeah, definitely! I strongly encourage anyone to provide feedback or ask questions when they have them; I am more than happy to respond to them, and to explain my reasoning. And first off, thanks for using my mod! Glad to hear someone's been enjoying it.

So regarding the removal of the mini balance setting... during a not-so-recent conversation with the creator of the Electric Furnaces mod, I realized that my "balancing" changes, were actually causing most of the mini machines to be completely overpowered compared to their base machines.

I was assuming that reducing everything by 2/3 would keep everything balanced, and that reducing module slots and crafting speed on top of that, should make them functionally "weaker" than the bigger machines. But the formulas are a little more complex than I thought.

Specifically, by reducing the power consumption of the mini machines compared to the base machines, the equation is fundamentally altered; for example, the mini assembler has the same crafting speed as the regular assembler, but uses less power. This means that less power is needed to craft the same object. That's less resources that need to go into power, making the mini assembler better than the regular assembler. Module slots are also identical between the two, so even lategame can't make up for this discrepancy.

By making the mini machines the same as the base machines.. well, it ensures that they are at least balanced against each other. One is just smaller. I think I even removed the recipe cost tweak (reducing by 2/3), so they are near identical.

This method also helps in one other area... mod compatibility. Since I'm just copying the stats of the existing machines, I don't have to worry about specific changes when using specific mods. That's less code that I have to deal with.

Basically, I don't know how to balance them properly, so I gave up on balancing and hoped no one would notice/care. I've just been working on this total rewrite for so long, and wanted to get it out there already.

Maybe I could go back and try to balance things. Something as simple as reducing the number of module slots by one might even be enough. It just needs to be something I can "math", using the existing value; not something I have to set for specific machines in specific cases.

But then, what other values are there to balance? Definitely don't want to mess with power consumption; that's fine the way it is. Crafting speed might possibly work. Though I can't just reduce by 2/3, because awkward values will mess up crafting chains. Maybe a flat reduction of 0.5? Although for the t1 assembler, that would result in 0 crafting speed... it's tough.

If you have any ideas for balancing, I would love to hear them. Balance is something I value pretty highly. I just couldn't trust myself to do it properly, knowing that my idea of "balance", was already flawed.

Ah, i understand everything now. Funny how i was blinded and it didn't occur to me that they might be stronger and better than using normal assemblers, i never properly looked into if they are truly balanced or not because i'm not good with comparing things with different sizes and performances.

Thank you for your explanation! Really insightful, and i'm sorry that it didn't work out, i'll try to come up with a balance idea between my friends if possible.
Currently, one thing me and another person were thinking about is having 1/2 crafting speed, but i'm not sure if that is actually too little or still too much, and then also keeping the 2/3 cost or similarly (but leaving power the same, as you said yourself), that's as much far as we two got without the rest of the boys to boost brain processing power.

Hmm, if power consumption is kept the same, recipe cost reduced by 2/3, and crafting speed reduced by 1/2.. assembling machines would be 0.5 compared to 0.25, which would technically require double the power for the same amount of crafting, and with a slightly higher resource investment. (2*2/3 = 4/3 ; or 33% more resources).

It's skewed a little towards the "too weak" side of things, but that's probably better than being skewed toward being "too strong". It does make sense however, since the entity is technically just under half as large as the original entity (4 tiles, compared to 9).

Actually... now I'm left wondering why I ever decided 2/3 was the right amount to reduce everything by.. maybe I was subconsciously skewing everything towards overpowered? The difference between 50% and 66% isn't much, but it's definitely noticeable... of course, reducing the recipe cost by 1/2 would only make things easier, so leaving that at 2/3 seems about right. Hmmm...

I have re-added the balance setting to v6.2.5, with minimal changes between mini and base machines.

I went with reducing recipe cost by 33%, while reducing craft speed by 25%, and reducing the module slot capacity by 1. So early game, mini machines are cheaper than the base machine, and slightly more efficient, but late game, they will end up being slower than the base machine.

I even mathed this one out; if the base machine is 1 cost, and 1 speed; then the mini machine would be 2/3 cost, and 3/4 speed. Then 3 mini machines would be (3x2/3)=(6/3)=2 cost, and (3x3/4)=(9/4)=2.25 speed; compared to 2 base machines, which would be the same 2 cost, but would only have 2 speed. Mini machines are slightly better at this point.

But then when you add modules to the mix, and especially consider that the base machines have more room for more beacons to affect them, then they will quickly end up faster, when you start working with modules. I like this balance very much. Reminds me of the choice between steel and electric furnaces; they are the same speed, and electric furnaces cost more upfront, but they will eventually be much faster with modules. It's actually perfect.

Oh, and I also remembered why I was using 2/3 as the reduction for everything. I reduce the graphics by 2/3, in order to turn a 3x3 entity into a 2x2 entity lol.

Awesome! Glad you could solve it, and that i could been an assistance with the problem!
Huge thanks! Keep up the good work!