Hi! This is a simple, browser-based calculator I built for the game Alchemy Factory.
I created this primarily as a personal project to solve the math problems I was running into while playing (e.g., figuring out exactly how many Crucibles I need to feed my main production line, or how much fertilizer my herb farm actually consumes). It was also a fun experiment to see how much of the coding I could do using AI assistance. Started with Google's Gemini with Canvas, now migrated to Gemini via Antigravity.
You can use the live version here: [Launch Planner]
That's right, another community member, Jimhopper on discord, built out the Alchemy Factory Codex website in his spare time and is actively working on it still. You can find it [here]. Jim has done fantastic work on the codex and I highly recommend it. It isn't perfect and he's constantly updating it, and is making it better for everyone's use. The codex is a great resource and I use it myself. There are also a few other tools being built by community members out there, and you might find one that you like better. Go for it! I started working on this calculator/planner long before I knew about the codex. I see them as different ways to get to a similar goal. Nothing is being taken away from the codex site and you are welcome to use whichever tool, or both, as you see fit.
Nope! There's things I have yet to put into it and I have plans for more cool stuff but it all takes time
Nope!
At this point, yes usually but there are exceptions. There can be discrepancies if the recipe I have is wrong or if something changes in the game of course. In some complex scenarios you might find an error I haven't debugged yet, most commonly this is due to recursive loop calculations and the weirdness that can go on there. There are some things I haven't implemented with specific handling, like the World Tree related items, and the cauldron & paradox, but those are fairly advanced later game items I will get to later on.
Sure, but if you opt to fork the code it'd be nice if you attributed me and the work put in so far.
Feel free to send it to me. You can do a issue here in Github and I'll see it when I next pay attention and will see what I can do about the issue/suggestion. You can also pop onto the official Alchemy Factory Discord and post there. Usually I've been hanging out in the Codex channel
- Primary Production Chain Calculator: Pick a target item, set your desired output rate, and the tool will calculate the items you need to get there
- Shareable Production Chain Codes: Grab the chain-code and send it to your friend to show them how you set up your production chain. They can import the chain-code or you can just give them a link. Or just save the code for your own use and quick reference. Entire state of production chain is contained in the chain-code for repeatability.
- Self Feeding Fuel and Fertilization Loops: Using the Self-Fuel and Self-Fert toggles, the calculator will tell you what other sub-chains you need to build a factory module that handles its own fuel and fertilizer.
- Byproduct Recycling: You can toggle recycling on a per item type basis. No need to throw away useful outputs, get it back into the machine! The calculator will factor that in and update your build.
- Construction List: A running total of how many of each machine and the overall cost of your production chain. Now also includes highlighting so you can see which machines is making what item quickly
- Heat and Nutrients: Calculates and displays the heat and nutrient values both at each relevant item row as well as overall for the production chain.
- Profit Loss: Tells you how much the production chain costs you to run, or if the end item is sellable it'll tell you how much you could be making, assuming your customers are buying it.
- External Input Toggles: Have an excess of some item from another machine and want to feed it into your production chain? You can toggle any item to be an external input and the calculator will update accordingly, removing the internal chain for that item
- Swap Recipes: Any recipe that has an alternate version can be swapped out using a toggle on the row. Some recipes might be blocked if it would cause a failed recursive loop.
- Tiered Upgrades: Input your current research levels (Belt Speed, Factory Efficiency, etc.) to get accurate rates. All upgrades aren't available as some don't really apply to the calculator.
- Persistent Saves: Your settings and upgrade levels are saved to your browser's local storage, so you don't have to re-enter them every time.
- Database Editor: Includes a built-in recipe editor so you can fix problems if you find them or just see what the numbers are. Any edits made are saved in your local browser.
- Collapsible Everything: Each section can collapse and some sections have sub-components that can be collapsed to let you customize the view so you see what you want
Lots of things on my improvement list, they will get done in the order I randomly decide. Keep an eye on the changelog to see what has been tweaked since you last used the tool
- Make an actual "how to use this tool" kind of guide at some point.
- Add local saving for chain-codes so users can have a quick reference list of their favorites. Would rely on local browser storage or local file save.
- Rework external inputs to allow manual rate setting, in case you can only feed part of the machines input need for a row
- Sort out World Tree recipes and handling of Core
- Consider bringing back recycling by row instead of at an overall item level (will cause major logic change though)
- Allow output rate to be set by number of machines instead of belt load or raw number (though really... is it that hard to just drag the slider till top machine says "1"? Will get to this for convenience at some point)
- Update byproducts list to indicate which rows are creating say byproduct
- Improve production chain shaing code to be shorter (bitpacking probably)
- Add functionality to help find most efficient/productive recipe
- Add tiers to all items and implement tier locking for recipes to align more with what is available to a user at any point
- Add "Add item" functionality to recipe database editor
- Figure out how to nicely and fold in the option for Blast Furnaces (non trivial due to machine layout options)
- Maybe get images for stuff if it won't clutter the UI further
- Work on visual factory via modularization, allowing full factory planning to connect modules to each other
- Ability to package up a production chain (sharing codes will help) into a "module"
- Visual planner to allow connection of modules in flowchart style
- Handle module input/outputs and universal upgrades
- User customizable connections and rates between modules
- Drill through to see normal production calculator
If you don't want to use the web version, you can run this on your own computer:
- Download all the files
- Keep them in the same folder.
- Double-click
index.htmlto open it in your browser. - Go to town planning things. Enjoy your math!
That's it! No servers or installation required.