Gunpowder Vs Stack -- Is It Worth It?

[OneManStanding]

I can make 3000 Gunpower in 50 minutes on a chem station in the standard way. Or I can make 3 stacks (again, 3000) and save 600 of each resource, but it'll take 90 minutes - an hour and a half, nearly twice the time. I elected to use the former as pickaxeing 3000worth of coal and nitrate takes only a minute or two. I'm playing solo, so advancing perks which make this a better trade off might be out of my range for a bit. But surely any perk which reduces crafting time on workbenches would benefit the standard route anyway.

 

Does it pay off...?

[Vaeliorin]

It depends how quickly you need it.  I'll set up 10,000+ to craft and just let it cook while I do other things, but I usually don't need it right away.  But I usually have 2 chem stations, so one will be kinda permanently cranking on gunpowder and the other will be for whatever else I need (usually glue, I almost never need to make gas.)

[theFlu]

It seems like one of those things where "if you got the time, why not". And if you ain't got the time, you're probably doing something wrong 😛 Then again, if you go for a miner build, getting that extra 25% is pretty easy, so I wouldn't judge either way.

[Krougal]

Yeah, it is really situational.

Time is money, especially in this game.

Unless you start crafting it before you need it, and you don't need the chem station to make something else in that time, and then you can be patient.

Or make more chem stations.

So really, it's good to have options and which makes more sense at any given time can change.

 

[Riamus]

Yeah, it gives you an option that you can use depending on your needs.  Saving resources is great and if you have time, why not do so?  If you don't have time, then don't bother saving resources and just get stuff done quickly.  All depends on your needs at the time.