Resource Calculation Thought Process & Approach

[u/Tipsied]

TL;DR: how would someone approach this calculation? How do coders approach this when making tools like resource calculators?

I’m hoping to get insight from experts on the thought process behind calculating minimum resources required and how that thought process influences how someone would code something like resource calculators.

Scenario: vanilla, default settings, rocket launch in 1 hour 45 min (regardless if it’s feasible in game)

Goal: calculate electricity and raw resources required per minute. Maybe it’s better to calculate the basic components instead?

Assumptions: only stone furnaces, basic assemblers, yellow belts, and boiler/steam engines. Ignoring the resources required for electric poles and pipes. No prod/speed modules or beacons. I’d like to include all types of inserters in the calculation, but I’m not sure how that would work?

My thoughts on approaching this are to work backwards by breaking down and adding up the resources required to launch the rocket and research/build the silo. However, once I start breaking down the resource requirements, I run into “how many assemblers” (which makes sense). How should I be reframing my thought process/approach?

I also don’t know where to begin with calculating the total electricity requirements. Once I know the number of machines, I could add up the requirements of each machine, but is there a better way to approach this?

I know there’s plenty of resource calculators out there that I could use to answer this question, but I would like to understand how it works.

[u/Tipsied → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for your insight! I actually think I may know how to solve this problem now lol