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Dyson Sphere Program ratios: Raw resource processing

This post describes how many machines you need to process a given amount of raw resource (ore, stone, oil) production. They are simple enough to check, and I use them enough for it to be worth caching them.

This is focused on the early game, so no automated harvesting of gas giants.

Mined resources

Miners produce 0.5 ore/s or 30 ore/min per vein in range. That means the important ratio for calculating how many furnaces you need is the veins to furnaces ratio, not the miners to furnaces ratio as it would be in Factorio.

Copper and iron plates: 1 furnace:2 veins. It takes 1 second to produce 1 iron plate from 1 ore, so one furnace uses 60 ore/min. Similar for copper.

Stone bricks: 1 furnace: 2 vein. It takes 1 second and 1 stone to produce 1 brick. That means it uses 60 ore/min.

Titanium plates: 1 furnace:2 veins. It takes 2 seconds and 2 ore to produce 1 plate. That means 1 furnace uses 60 ore/min.

Silicon ore from stone: 1 furnace:2 veins. It takes 10 seconds and 10 stone to produce 1 silicon plate, i.e. 6/min.

High-purity silicon: 1 furnace: 2 veins. It takes 2 seconds and 2 ore to produce 1 high-purity silicon.

Iron rings (magnets): 3 furnaces:4 veins. It takes 1.5 seconds to produce 1 ring from 1 iron ore, so one furnace uses 40 ore/min. (3 furnaces) * (40 ore/min/furnace) = 120 = (4 veins) * (30 ore/min/vein).

To recap: The ratio is usually 1 furnace:2 veins, except for iron rings (magnets) where it's 3 furnaces:4 veins.

Oil

Here the production rate depends on the well and halves every 12 hours, and the rate in seconds is shown on the tooltip as \(x/\mathrm{s}\). So the right ratio is in terms of \(x\).

At least with the earliest oil tech, you want \(2x\) refineries processing your oil. The recipe takes 4 seconds to process 2 crude oil into 2 refined oil, so to process \(x\) crude oil per second you need \(2x\) refineries, which will then produce \(x\) refined oil per second.

In the early game at least, you'll also want chemical plants to process refined oil into sulfur, the main useful recipe at this stage. You'll need \(x\) sulfur chemical plants because it takes 6 seconds to turn 6 refined oil into 4 sulfur.

To support the refined-oil-to-sulfur plants, you'll also need water pumps. Those produce 55 water/min. The sulfur recipe uses 4 water every 6 seconds, so 2/3 of a water per second, or 40 water per minute. With \(x\) sulfur chemical plants that means we need \(40x\) water per minute or \(x\) water pumps to run nonstop.

The chemical plants processing sulfur into graphene — the only use for sulfur at this stage? — take 3 seconds to turn 1 sulfur into work at a similar rate, so you'll also want \(3x\) of those.

Technically, the above do not give a perfect ratio. Because the water extractor gives 55/min, but we only use 40/min, we overproduce water. I don't care about this. Water is cheap. But if you really want, you can follow the "perfect" ratio:

\(11x\) oil per second : \(22x\) refineries : \(11x\) sulfur chemical plants : \(8x\) water pumps : \(33x\) graphene plants

I wouldn't, though.

To recap, the ratio to capture all of the goods is:

\(x\) oil per second : \(2x\) refineries : \(x\) sulfur chemical plants : \(x\) water pumps : \(3x\) graphene plants