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Nomifactory Guides

Valid for Nomifactory v.1.2.2

How overclocking GTCE Machines works

This guide is written based on the analysis of GTCE code, specifically the calculateOverclock function. Feel free to check it out yourself.

Overclocking is a ability of GTCE machines to execute recipes faster at the cost of spending more energy. A recipe can be overclocked as long as the recipe’s base EU/t is less than a quarter of the machine’s voltage (which is 32 for LV and quadruples with every tier of the machine). Here’s a tier table for reference:tier spreadsheet That means an LV machine can only overclock recipes of <=8 base EU/t. An HV(512V) machine is able to overclock recipes of <=128EU/t once, of <=32EU/t twice and of <=8 EU/t thrice. Per each tier of overclocking the recipe’s duration decreases.

The actual decrease is as follows: 1) 2x per tier, if the recipe’s base EU/t is 16 or less. 2) 2.8x per tier otherwise.

After all the overclocking, if it’s not an integer, duration is rounded down(but can’t go below 1 tick) in the first case and up in the second one.

Note that it means that the amount of energy required for the recipe is doubled in the first case and multiplied by about 1.429 in the second. Overclocking is energy-inefficient, so you have to decide when you want to use it. Every single-block GTCE machine has a button that toggles whether it is allowed to overclock. Multiblocks overclock whenever they can - their tier is dependent on the energy hatches you use in their construction (the controller’s GUI states the current voltage tier). There is a limit: a recipe can’t be overclocked such that it’s duration becomes less than one tick(1/20th of a second). Also: a recipe being <=2EU/t doesn’t give another tier of overclocking, for… reasons.

Some examples:

  1. An EV(2048V) Macerator macerating ore(12 EU/t base drain, 20s base duration). The recipe is overclocked 4 times to 768 EU/t(12->48->192->768). Therefore, the recipe’s duration will be 8 times lower than normal(2.5 seconds), but the total energy expenditure will be 2.5s20(ticks per second)768=38400 EU, which is 8 times higher than the base expenditure(4800 EU).

  2. Centrifuging Naquadah dust for Naquadria and Enriched Naquadah. Base recipe is 320 EU/t(HV) and 160s(3200 ticks), 1024000 total EU. In a ZPM Centrifuge, it overclocks 4 times to 81920 EU/t, ~52.06(3200/2.8^4) ticks (rounds up to 53t) (2.65s) duration for a total EU of 53*81920=4341760 EU. This is ~60 times faster than the base recipe, for 4.24x the energy per operation. Note: this is a useful recipe (arguably the best way to get naquadria), and you want to use a high-tier machine for it as it increases the byproduct amount (see the byproduct guide for details).

  3. This calculation by Neeve of the required freezer numbers per cryogenic distillation tower (link to a discord message)

Bonus My questions about overclocking to Archengius, main developer of GTCE, and his answer:

my question at the GTCE discord

answer

See also: Overclocking calculator