One of the hardest skills in StarRupture is knowing how many machines you actually need. Build too few and your factory starves. Build too many and you waste power, space, and materials. This guide uses the recipe rates in the current dataset and tells you where a live tooltip has to replace a fixed ratio.
Why Ratios Matter
StarRupture machines have fixed cycle times. Each machine produces at a set rate (Items Per Minute / IPM). If your upstream machines can't keep up with downstream demand, you get a bottleneck. If your upstream machines produce too fast, you get overflow and storage bloat.
The goal: production rates match at every stage of the chain.
Key Production Ratios
Do not use one universal excavator-to-smelter ratio. The current Ore Excavator record lists 5 MW, a Training Level 2 unlock, and node output of 60 / 120 / 240 per minute for impure, normal, and pure nodes. The Smelter page says to size the line from that tooltip, not from a fixed 1:1 rule.
Open the Production Calculator after you read the node tooltip. The ratios below are the verified Fabricator and Furnace recipes in this dataset.
| Recipe | Machine | Inputs | Output rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Titanium Rod | Fabricator | 1 Titanium Bar | 30 rods/min |
| Titanium Sheet | Fabricator | 1 Titanium Bar | 60 sheets/min |
| Wolfram Wire | Fabricator | 1 Wolfram Bar | 30 wire/min |
| Wolfram Powder | Furnace | 1 Wolfram Bar | 90 powder/min |
| Rotor | Fabricator | 2 Wolfram Wire + 2 Titanium Rod | 10 rotors/min |
| Stator | Fabricator | 1 Wolfram Wire + 2 Titanium Housing | 20 stators/min |
| Standard Ammo | Mega Press | 18 Basic Building Material + 4 Wolfram Powder | 200 rounds/min |
A normal 120/min ore node is not the same planning problem as an impure 60/min node. Count smelters from the live output, then use the recipe rates above for the next machine.
Identifying Bottlenecks
Visual Signs of a Bottleneck
- Starved machine: Machine idles, animation stops, inputs empty → upstream is too slow
- Overflowing storage: Outputs fill up, machine stops → downstream is too slow
- Power brownout: Everything slows at once → not a ratio problem, a power problem
Bottleneck Diagnostic Steps
- Watch the busiest machine for 30 seconds
- If it idles: count input IPM vs. machine's required input IPM
- If it overflows: count output IPM vs. downstream consumption IPM
- Adjust machine count or use the Calculator to verify
Buffer Strategy
Perfect ratios are theoretical. In practice, use storage depots as rate buffers:
- Place a Storage Depot V1 between every major production stage
- This absorbs minor rate mismatches and prevents cascade shutdowns
- Buffer size: at least 1-2 minutes of production capacity
Related Tools
- Production Calculator — Calculate exact machine counts for any target IPM
- Machines Database — Power consumption and throughput for every machine
- Corporations Guide — Understand which machines unlock when