Route comparison guide
Choosing Between Alternative Recipes
The recipe with the highest visible output is not automatically the best factory choice. A useful comparison holds the target rate constant, expands every input, and measures the effect on facilities, power, shared materials, and future flexibility.
Comparison item
Carbon
6 tracked routes
Throughput
Compare output per minute per facility, not output amount alone. Craft time changes the meaning of every batch size.
Input pressure
A fast route is useful only when its input can be supplied at the required rate without starving another production line.
Opportunity cost
An ingredient used by several valuable chains can be a worse choice than a slower but abundant alternative.
Chain complexity
Count the upstream facilities and power, especially when an alternative input must itself be refined through several stages.
Worked comparison
Six ways to produce Carbon
All six current routes use the same facility family and a two-second crafting cycle, but they do not have the same output. This isolates the first tradeoff cleanly: two routes double per-facility throughput, while the remaining choice depends on which plant input is easier to sustain.
| Input route | Output / cycle | Craft time | Output / minute | Facility power |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 1 x Jincao | 2 x Carbon | 2s | 60/min | 5 |
 1 x Yazhen | 2 x Carbon | 2s | 60/min | 5 |
 1 x Buckflower | 1 x Carbon | 2s | 30/min | 5 |
 1 x Citrome | 1 x Carbon | 2s | 30/min | 5 |
 1 x Sandleaf | 1 x Carbon | 2s | 30/min | 5 |
 1 x Wood | 1 x Carbon | 2s | 30/min | 5 |
What the throughput difference means
The two Grass routes that output two Carbon every two seconds provide 60 Carbon per minute from one facility. The other four routes output one every two seconds, or 30 per minute. For a 120-per-minute target, the faster routes need two furnaces while the slower routes need four.
That does not prove the faster route is always better. It proves that it uses fewer furnaces for the same Carbon target. The next question is whether the chosen Grass input is available at the necessary rate and whether using it here displaces a more important production chain.
Compare the whole chain, not one row
A route comparison is incomplete until its input is expanded. If one input is gathered directly and another needs planting, seed collection, liquid supply, or additional processing, their total facility and power costs can differ even when the final furnace recipe looks similar.
The same principle applies to shared materials. An input that appears cheap in isolation may already support medicine, food, or another priority target. Combining targets in one calculator plan exposes that competition; separate calculations can hide it.
Manual raw-material toggles are useful for scenario testing. Mark an input raw when you already have a stable external supply, then remove the toggle to see the full self-sufficient factory cost. The difference between those two plans is the value of your existing stock or supply line.
A repeatable selection workflow
- 01Set the required output rate before comparing routes.
- 02Calculate how many facilities each candidate needs for that same rate.
- 03Expand the inputs and compare raw demand, intermediate facilities, and power.
- 04Check whether any input is shared with another target in the same plan.
- 05Override the recipe only after the whole-chain tradeoff is visible.
Compare the raw recipe rows
The database lists all six Carbon routes with their inputs, outputs, timing, facility, and power data.