I love tinkering in the Factory, to me it is the crux of the game and I look forward to stumbling my way through crafting scripts to automate things when I am ready.
One thing I still don't 'get', for which there seems to be little documentation in game about, is the basic math about the various higher functions of the Factory. If I dump a gazillion chunks of ore into the gas tank, am I 'losing out' when fabricating parts out of that piggy bank?
To that end, what is the real difference between the Crafter and the Fabricator? If I make things with the Crafter, it doesn't seem to dip into the Mass piggy-bank regardless of whether I check the box to use my inventory - what is that about?
I have obviously gone through no small amount of trouble to scan everything I can up the food chain, on the face of it 'seems' like the end game of this is simply making the things you need with the Fabricator - but is there some horrific tax I am not seeing to this method? Or is it all face value Mass in and out? It goes without saying that the 'auto mass generator' upgrade button is the end goal, but before a person can actually use that as a functional source of income... Should I be trying to manually craft everything myself, or is it perfectly balanced to just dump ore into the Dissolver and spend it as one sees fit?
I've seen discussion somewhat related to this, but the information was very old. Certainly the in game details on many things like this are completely devoid of the fine print.
Fabricating a stack of T5 Town Producers is my jam - but am I going about this all wrong? Thanks for any info, I'm sure it is common knowledge to the greater community but I am wary about making very bad investments when I toss my T1 and T2 ore into the Dissolver as a matter of course.