[0.0.9-rc7] Extra paint launchers cause staggering

[zinc nest]

When designing a MAM, I discovered that shape painting was staggering, even though there was enough paint. I found what caused it, and created a simple reproduction case, shown on the screenshots below.

Description: The paint input (4 launchers) is combined into a single pipe, then split into two "half-pipes" which are then used separately, for painting 2 full shape belts each. Both "half-pipes" use intermediate launchers (in my MAM there were obstacles to jump over), so to handle 2 belts, there have to be at least 2 launchers in each "half-pipe". And if they have exactly 2 launchers, everything works fine. However, if I add a 3rd launcher to one "half-pipe", the other half starts staggering, the painters work only at 88-90% efficiency. I expected that the extra amount of launchers should not affect the speed. After all, the demand is still 50/50, the extra paint delivered by the 3rd launcher has nowhere else to go. There should be only an initial short period of imbalance, while the 3rd launcher is filling up with paint. But for some reason the staggering just continues indefinitely, it never ends.

For the sake of experiment I also tried 2+4 launchers, the problem remained. 2+8 launchers, it became even worse, the painters of the first half dropped to 80% efficiency. When I put 3+3 launchers, the balance restored, all the painters started working at full 100% capacity. So the higher amount of launchers per se is not a problem. The game doesn't seem to like it, when the amount of launchers is not equal.

[warm crescent]

What is the top launcher block doing? nvm discord wasn't showing the full image until I clicked it

I should try and check that this is an issue later (@ me to remind me to do it)

[random magnet]

no issue there, your just demanding more paint that is supplied, so the buffers take longer to fill up

2+2 = 4 launchers, once u place more, the buffer takes longer to fill

[zinc nest]

They take longer to fill - but they also take longer to deplete, because the amount of painters remains the same, and they consume paint at exactly the same speed.

With specific numbers: 8 painters use 450*8=3600/min. Each launcher can provide 1800/min, with the total max throughput of 5400/min. But since there is no demand for such amounts, these 3 launchers still release only 3600/min in total, and therefore work at 2/3 of their max speed. They simply cannot accept more paint than that, there's no space to store extra paint, apart from the launcher's internal buffer. Once that buffer fills up, the paint consumption speed should settle down to those 3600/min.

[young totem]

Hi @zinc nest!

Thank you for your report. I got into investigating this issue, and the reason it is caused it's because the 5th launcher takes too much paint from one side to its side, thus making the machines not get enough for it to function optimally.

Each painter can process up to 450 mL and each paint launcher produces brings 1800 mL of paint. Therefore it makes sense that one launcher feeds four painters (450 mL x 4 = 1800mL) and four launcher feeds correctly 16 painters (450mL x 16 = 7200 = 1800mL x 4)

The issue occurring here is that by adding a 5th paint launcher you increase the output on one side by decreasing the output on the other, thus not allowing the other side to get the 10 mL required to paint that other side efficiently.

[zinc nest]

Does it just "lose" those 10 mL of paint? (A.k.a. the much requested paint trash. 😄 )
Or is it just some kind of timing issue, when the game delays the paint output on the 2-launcher pipe, trying to feed extra paint into the 3-launcher first, and thus staggering the whole paint transport, but not losing anything?

[young totem]

It is more a timing issue. The painters require to fill around 10 mL before they can actually paint. You can see the progress for the stored paint in the painter in real time when selecting the building. The painters can also store a maximum of 30 mL until not accepting more. With that 5th launcher on one side you're taking paint pressure that could go towards the other side. It's like adding a 5th person to a job that can be done by 4 people. Someone's going to get less to do and it'll be inefficient

Fluid launcher also have their own fluid contents bar. If you look at it with the 5 launcher, you'll notice that the ones with 3 are mostly full all the time while the 2 are constantly trying to reach the necessary 60 mL to launch

[zinc nest]

Yes, I've seen how the painters and launchers fill up and deplete, but since I can view only one building at a time, it's impossible to get a complete picture of the fluid movements in the whole transporting net.

Thanks for checking and explaining! Hope it will get fixed in the future. Luckily, I managed to redesign my painters so that the 3 receiving launchers are not connected anymore (they went into different directions, but were connected due to lack of space), and that fixed the speed balance for me. But it's definitely something to keep in mind!