#Low Buffer vs Fuel Costs comparison
ocean dome
timid shell
I feel like for practical purposes a good place to begin would be to have some distance and fuel based metrics? 1km, 2km, 5km maybe
How much a trip costs on each fuel
static otter
"how long (distance in tiles) does a train need to travel on X fuel to justify having a larger buffer"
vapid vessel
Loading / unloading is gonna be instant. Braking doesn’t exist, or traffic now. Let’s say to run your consumer perfectly, you need 1k fluid in the train, moving. That means you need it to build up another 1k for when it’s back. So your system buffer will fluctuate with (0-1000) at consumer, (0 or 1000) in train, and (0-1000) at the producer. For an average of… 2000, always, I think. 600 kW train, which means, for simplicity here, 1 solid fuel every 20 seconds. Or 0.5 light oil / second. Now if we were to fill that train up all the way, it should use 25x less fuel, but needs 25x the buffer. The fuel saving would be 0.48 light oil / second, for an increase in buffer of../ 48,000. About 1000 seconds, we could say, to payoff. Or 16 minutes
timid shell
Oh right, time to payoff makes sense, one is a one time cost, the other is ongoing.
vapid vessel
So I think lubricant is maybe not the place for a low buffer train. In conclusion
However more expensive things could be.
static otter
the other arguably more important factor here is that extra train trips could cause rails to not be able to transport all the goods
timid shell
I think that's why my instinct was to start with fuel cost metrics, so we could easily compare to differing cargos, but I think both can work together. A couple numbers you can quickly calculate payoff time
timid shell
the other arguably more important factor here is that extra train trips could ca...
in this particular case it's a matter of trains per hour, to hours per train, but still worth mentioning
vapid vessel
Yeah if you move the train more, other trains will brake more that have conflicting routes
sinful flume
How does polution fit in if I missed it?
Slow trickle of creation / usage vs. a "system shock" if creating say, 50k lubrication.
vapid vessel
Loading / unloading is gonna be instant. Braking doesn’t exist, or traffic now. ...
.
In theory at least the later pollution costs are always cheaper as later on you have more upgraded industry and it just takes more evolution points total for the later increases, and you’ll have better tech, and all that fun stuff.
And less time for expansions
timid shell
I'm curious how much of a shock it'd actually be, as well. How many extra machines are producing lube, over the demands, that it would fill up that quickly?