Assembler Efficiency needs rebalanced + cheaper ice

Engineered Coffee shared this feedback 2 hours ago
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There are two major systemic balance issues currently breaking the economy loops for Hydrogen Fuel and Food:

Issue 1: Ice Base Price is 10x Too High. The current <MinimalPricePerUnit> of 50 SC/kg for Ice makes secondary processing (Hydrogen Fuel and Crops) completely non-viable compared to simply selling raw Ice.

  • Hydrogen Fuel Loophole: 50 kg of Ice yields ~1 kL of H2. At 50 SC/kg, production cost is 2,500 SC/kL. However, the standard NPC station going rate is only 300–400 SC/kL, making player-produced fuel a massive net loss.
  • Crop Disparity: Under current settings, Fruit requires 17,500 SC of Ice to produce (20 kg/min × 35 min × 50 SC / 2 net containers per harvest), but has a minimum store price of 1,240 SC. Conversely, Mushrooms take 7x less ice but have a nearly identical minimum price (1,164 SC), creating a massive disproportion between resource cost and store limits.

Issue 2: Assembler Efficiency Penalizes Items without Recipe Reductions. When the World Assembler Efficiency setting is increased (e.g., default x3), the Store block minimum sell price and the NPC Station list prices go down. While this works perfectly for components (e.g., Steel Plates drop from 3,670 SC to 1,223 SC because Iron Ingot requirements drop from 21 kg to 7 kg), it breaks items with fixed recipes.

Food, weapons, and tools do not receive a recipe reduction, yet their store value is still slashed.

  • Elite Welder Example: The base value drops from 133k SC to 39k SC under ×3 efficiency, despite requiring the exact same amount of ingots to build.
  • Meal Pack (Flatbread) - common NPC item: Raw Materials: 1,264 SC (Grain) + 1,240 SC (Fruit) + 1,189 SC (Veggie) = 3,693 SC. Realistic Setting: Store block minimum price is 6,397 SC (1.73x profit). ×3 Efficiency Setting: Store block minimum price is forced down to 2,581 SC (0.69x loss). Players are penalized for processing raw food into meal packs.

Proposed Economic Fixes

  1. Reduce Ice Minimum Price: Change <MinimalPricePerUnit> of Ice from 50.0 to 5.0. This instantly aligns H2 fuel production costs with station market rates.
  2. Scale Crop Minimum Prices: Adjust crop <MinimalPricePerUnit> values to be proportional to the actual ice volume required to grow them at 5 SC/kg - Mushroom: 240 SC Vegetable: 750 SC Grain: 1,200 SC Fruit: 1,750 SC
  3. Decouple Fixed-Recipe Items from Efficiency Cost-Scaling: Remove automatic store block value reductions for Food, Tools, and Weapons under Assembler Efficiency settings, as their material recipes do not change.

Nerdy spreadsheets available upon request ;)

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