Deconstruction efficiency

Deconstruction efficiency is a research term used for production planning based on normalizing machine outputs and inputs to a 60-second cycle. With this view enabled, each building’s production and consumption are expressed as the amount produced or consumed per minute, which makes it easier to compare different facilities at a glance.

The important point is that this does not change the actual speed of the building. A Blast furnace still produces 8 molten iron every 20 seconds, not 24 after 60 seconds of operation. The 60-second display simply shows that the same cycle repeats three times within a minute. This is especially useful when comparing chains such as Blast furnace output to a metal casting facility’s consumption, because both numbers can be read on the same time basis.

Using the 60-second view, a Blast furnace that produces 24 and a downstream building that consumes 12 can be matched cleanly: one Blast furnace supports two consuming buildings. In general, when production and consumption values are written as per-minute amounts, the ratio can be reduced to a simple building count.

• If production is 24 and consumption is 12, the ratio is 24/12 = 2, so one producing building supports two consuming buildings.
• If production is 24 and consumption is 20, the ratio is 24/20 = 1.2, which cannot be used directly because building counts are not fractional.
• In that case, the common divisor can be used to find a clean ratio. For 24 and 20, the greatest common divisor is 4, giving 24/4 = 6 and 20/4 = 5. This means six producing buildings pair with five consuming buildings.

This approach is useful whenever a production line must be built without fractional machine counts. By reducing both sides to their greatest common divisor, the resulting layout becomes easier to scale and much easier to plan.