Mill Faster Production Not Available

For the last 4 days it seems as if I am no longer getting benefit from the 50% mill time reduction even though I still have enough credit.
Has there been a change that I may have missed?
Kindly advise.

 

I was thinking the same thing, but somehow I figured that the shown milling times are already reduced by 50% and therefore don't change when activated.....
Power Feed for example shows a milling time of 4 hours 30 minutes, that is clearly already reduced by 50%......of course without considering the cloud row. That effect only shows (or doesn't) when the mill is active...

P.S. And I can say this only for Power Feed, because that's currently the only feed I produce....everything else you can only check or verify by jumping from the Mill to the FAQ and back....and back.....pretty annoying way to kill time.

 

Mine was showing 9 hours and the total time for 17 Powerfeed is 153 hours. Surely something wrong. Previously it was around 76 hours...

 

Hello Bhodho,

Please be so kind and post a screenshot of the mill's status showing these times.
​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

Hello Bhodho,

Thank you for the screenshot. As you can see if you compare the times, there is a huge difference from your current milling time of 17 units of power feed, to the full time in the next slot; Your mill subscription ends in 66 hours, so the last 20 hours of the first batch will be milled without this effect applied, and the other 2 batches of 17 will not be reduced at all since the subscription ends before they go into production.

I hope this makes sense. Can I help you further?
​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

The first batch reported a mill time of 106 hours. Is that normal?
From the screenshot can you see that it is +/-90hours to completion yet 16% has been done. Yet 50% should be 76.5 hours. There is a bug there, can you see???


QUICK RECONCILIATION:
If you take the initial 107 hrs reported for first batch (90hrs remaining /84% remaining), and consider that it is now at 90 hrs means I have gone for 17 hrs.
If you add that to the 66 hrs remaining you get 83 hrs total from beginning of the batch.
This was sufficient to mill first batch within time limits of 76.5 hrs at 50% faster production.
However, now it is showing that I am way out of limit. 90 hrs to mill with 66 hrs remaining.
What happened to the other hrs???

 

Hi Bhodho
The batch would take 76.5hrs if the subscription ran for the full batch. But as you only had 90hrs left on your subscription when you started, if you take that away from 153hrs that leaves 63hrs, adding the 45hrs (half of 90hrs) gives a total of 108hrs.

Does this solve the mystery?

 

Your reconciliation is wrong.
If I had 90 hours, and full batch needed 76.5 hours why should it show 107 hrs? I thought 90 hrs could accommodate 76.5 hrs. Is that not so? So why wasn't it so?
Kindly explain that...

 

As explained, the normal time is 153 hrs, as you only had 90 hrs remaining. So only the 90 hr portion was halved. Leaving 63 hrs that was at standard time. 63+45=107.
The mill will only reduce half the production time whilst it is active. 90 hrs is only sufficient time to mill 10PF, which it did in 45hrs, the remaining 7 units require 63hrs

 

Neon-Lights: I am sorry to say that your explanation does not seem to make sense to me.
Why?
Because if your workings above are correct then there is no time reduction. Kindly provide answers to the questions below especially the one highlighted in RED:

1. I had 90 hrs remaining, and covered by buff, right?
2. The remaining 63 hrs are not covered and so are normal right?
3. So half of the covered is 45 hrs, right?
4. Add to it the normal we get 108 hrs right?
5. What happened to the other 45 hrs that were saved?

From how I am seeing it then there is no saving at all. In fact, I seem to have lost 45 hrs of the time reduction.

1. How many items will be milled in the 90 hrs (10?) or the reduced 45 hrs (10?)?
2. How many items will be milled in the remaining 63 hrs (7?).
3. At the reduced time effect of the buff how many units would I have been able to produce in the 90 hrs (20 or 10?)
4. How many will I currently produce in those 90 hrs (10?)

Where is the saving???

But 45 hrs of those 63 hrs still have a buff active (time savings from the first 10 milled as you explained before). Why penalise them and apply the standard rate? They do not fall outside the BUFF effect, do they? In fact, and in my view the remaining 7 units can be milled whilst the BUFF is active...

 

Hello Bhodho,

To be completely honest, I am a bit confused by your explanations, and I am unable you answer your questions because the production is treated as a full batch, not individually per power feed unit, so we cannot tell you how many units are produced in a certain amount of time, because you have to see the batch as a whole, all 17 units as a total. But to try to answer your RED question, hypothetically, doing the math, we could figure out that in this batch, in 90 hours, 15 units would be produced - considering that you would have 18 hours left after that not affected by buffs, which would produce 2 more units - however, this is irrelevant and hypothetical, since productions are finished all together, not individually anymore.
I will try to break it down step by step and I hope I will make sense - if not, I apologise.

So, what we know is the following:
1. Milling 17 units of power feed should take you 153 hours - based on the other 2 slots - which is correct. 10% reduced milling time (by the rune) of 10 hours is 9 hours. 9 hours x 17 # 153 total hours.

2. You have started the production on 2015-04-19, at 18:24:40 CEST.

3. Your Mill subscription is active until 2015-04-23, at 12:24:25 CEST.

4. The reduction is applied only for the feed produced while the mill subscription is active.

Those are the facts. And now, the math / calculations - uh oh!

A. When you have started your production of 17 power feed, you had 3 days and 18 hours of mill subscription left, which means 90 hours.

B. Since the buffs only apply now for the time when they are active, in your case, for 90 hours, you will have 90 hours of production affected by the subscription, and the remaining of 153-90 = 63 hours, not affected. This means that your production becomes 50% out of 90 hours = 45 hours + 63 hours of production (not boosted) = 108 hours.

Therefore, the subscription reduces the 153 hours production time to 108 hours of production, and the subscription will end 18 hours before the first batch is finished.

C. This verifies your screenshot. Your screenshot was taken between after 16%, and you had 90 hours and 30 minutes left.
16% of the production (108 hours) is 17.28, so you should have had left 108 - 17.28 = 90.72 hours, meaning around 90 hours and 43 minutes left, which is indeed between 16% and 17%.

Hopefully this helps too a little visualising it:

​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

Teddy.Bear: Do you agree that there are 45 hrs that you are not explaining what happened to them?
Why is the second 90 subscription line not starting same time that I began milling? Why is it starting 45 hrs later? What was happening in those 45 hrs? Nothing?
From my understanding, the last 45 hrs of my subscription were added to the 18 hrs of normal and considered as normal, which is robbery.
How many units can you mill in 90 hrs of the subscription?

So is there 50% reduction when you can only produce 15 units? That means the normal mill time is now 12 hrs/unit instead of 10 hrs/unit. I still maintain, the first batch should have been produced within the 90 hrs. Anything we say apart from this is just trying to justify a faulty system/calculation rather than admitting that there is need to sort out what is wrong. Just my view.
---
Side note: 90 hrs of subscription is equivalent to 180 hrs of normal time. Think about it from that end, then you will see why I maintain that 153 hrs is within the time I had, whichever way you look at it.

 

Hello Bhodho,

With all due respect, I do not agree - 45 hours are not lost, but reduced of the total time. However, I do see your point and I hope you see mine too So I will now leave the Team clarify this because both maths seem correct.

Conclusion: (I might be wrong, but this is how I see it)

Step by step logic: In little over 90 hours of subscription, for as long as the subscription is running, you could make
- 10 units of pf (90h reduced to 45h, so 45 hours left of subscription)
- plus 5 units of pf (45h reduced to 22.5h, leaving 22.5 hours of subscription)
- plus 2 units of pf (18h reduced to 9h, leaving 4.5 hours of subscription)

So, it looks like you should get 17 units of superfeed in 90 hours.

However, if you start the production of 17 units in one batch, you will produce them in 108 hours. Math works though: Normally, the production of 17 units would take 153 hours, from which 90 hours are affected by the subscription, so 90 hours of production are reduced to 45, added to the remaining time which is not reduced by the mill, 63 hours, makes it exactly 108 hours.

18 hours difference is quite a bit so I will wait for clarifications on this mater I will update you as soon as I have an answer.

In the mean time, this reminded me of a joke

A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he’s lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
The man below says: "Yes. You're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."
"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.
"I do" replies the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but It's of no use to anyone."
The man below replies, "You must work in management."
"I do," replies the balloonist, "But how'd you know?"
"Well", says the man, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault."

PS: it's because what we both say looks correct but is of no use to any of us
​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

EUREKA!!! That is what I have been saying all along. This batch should have been produced well within the buff time, with some time remaining...

Well, to me it's of use because:

• It highlights the inherent problem in the buff (mill reduction time subscription) especially after the recent changes. Someone needs to interrogate the system's correctness.
• The Buff should not work backwards as I think it is. It should have applied the reduced time to the units up until the applicable buff time (90 hrs) is exhausted and then work out the remainder. If that was done, again, I would have accommodated this batch within 90 hrs.
• I was robbed, simple.

Unless we acknowledge the facts, surely this will be of no use to anyone.

 

All I can do is wait for an update I've got no further comments until then - fingers crossed it is a bug.

Best regards,
teddy.bear

Update:
Hello Bhodho,

Thank you for your patience while waiting for an update.​

It looks like the system is supposed to run on the calculations I have described. The percentages are applied to the total time, not to each unit individually, so what does this mean? While the Mill subscription is active for weeks, there will be no problem and nothing affects this. However, when the Mill subscription is closer to running out, milling smaller batches, for which the total initial time (no buffs) is shorter than the subscription remaining time, is more advantageous.

For example: If you have 1 day of subscription left, and you want to mill 4 units of power feed:

1. Total milling time is 4 x 10 = 40 hours;
2. The rune reduces it with 10% to 36 hours;
3. The 36 hours are buffed by the subscription for 24 hours, so 24 hours will be reduced to 12 hours of production, and the remaining 12 hours (36-24) will be not affected, leading to a total of 12+12 hours = 24 hours for producing the 4 units.

If you mill them in smaller batches, for example 1 - 1 - 1 - 1, you will have each power feed unit milled in 4 hours and a half, so all 4 units will be ready in 18 hours.

So, this issue appears only when the milling process catches the end of the subscription, the rest of the times the reduction is the same for both large and small batches - and this is how it is supposed to work, due to the percentages being applied to the whole batch.
​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

That's great. Wonderful.
Thank you...

 

I know it's not what you wanted to hear and I am really sorry. I have double checked this with the Team to be sure the real problem is understood - towards the end of the subscription, smaller batches bring in more units milled.

I will include another example which points out the effect on one unit:

1.1x Power feed with Mill Subscription Buff, Rune, Valentines Cloud Row Buff (the remaining time of buffs are higher than the production)

a.Calculation: 10h – 10% (rune) = 9h – 50% (Mill Sub Buff) = 4h30m – 10% (Cloud Row Buff) = 4h03m (final production time)
b.Explanation: All Buffs are working in a row and depends of their activating time – the buff which has been activated first will also be calculated first (the rune will always be calculated before the other buffs since it is a permanent running bonus)​

2. 1x Power feed + Mill Subscription Buff, Rune, Valentines Cloud Row Buff (Mill Subscription has a remaining time of 5h)

a.Calculation: 10h - 10% (rune) = 9h – 50% (Mill Sub Buff for 5h) = 6h30m – 10% (Cloud Row Buff) = 5h51m (final production time)
b.Explanation: The Mill Subscription Buff is not affecting the whole 9h since it has a remaining time of 5h and the half (50%) of that is 2h30m. Therefore the 9h will be reduced by 2,5h.​

Best regards,
teddy.bear

 

Thank you...

 

On behalf of all who assited, you're welcome

~~NFQ - closing thread~~