Hard Drive/Alternate recipe analysis

Resource-efficient recipes
You should use these recipes when progressing towards the end game. These recipes are highly resource-efficient, they get the most product out of every single raw resource input. Or if not, they usually are to be used in conjunction with other alternative recipes to be useful as a 'group'. Sometimes, these recipes can be quite difficult to be set up due to their complexity, and usually, that also means you need to provide a strong power grid before using them. Besides that, you probably need a lot of building space.
 * Alclad Casing: Reduces Bauxite cost by 33% using Copper.
 * Cast Screw, Steel Screw: "Cast Screw" has the same ratio of Iron Ingots to Screws, but removes the need to make Iron Rods first, and produces 25% faster as well. Prioritize "Cast Screw" first for increased production speed. "Steel Screw" is ultimately more resource-efficient, producing nearly five times as many Screws per Iron Ingot when combined with "Solid Steel Ingot", at the cost of more steps in the production chain and requiring coal.
 * Caterium Computer: mixed with original recipe: The alternate recipe is preferred, however, Caterium can get used up quickly and this is where the original recipe comes in handy to make up for it.
 * Cheap Silica: Limestone is much more common than Quartz, and this creates more silica per Quartz deposit at the cost of increased power consumption and transport of Limestone.
 * Classic Battery: Cuts down Sulfur, is faster, doesn't need Alumina Solution to be provided and doesn't output byproduct Water. However, requires Plastic and Wire. When compared to the standard recipe chain, "Classic Battery" uses 50% less Bauxite and 40% less Sulfur, while using more Coal, Quartz, Copper, and Crude Oil. Use "Electrode Aluminum Scrap" with the byproduct from manufacturing Plastic for this recipe chain for maximum efficiency and to get rid of Coal.
 * Cooling Device: Halves the required Nitrogen Gas and replaces Water and Rubber with Motors. Slightly increases demand for power and Heat Sinks.
 * Compacted Coal: Not a real alternative, because it allows you to make a new item. Used for Compacted Steel Ingot and Fine Black Powder to improve resource usage and production speed, and mandatory for the production of Turbofuel using either recipe. Compacted Coal can be used directly in a Coal Generator to convert Sulfur into electricity but Turbofuel is more efficient overall, at the cost of being more complicated to set up.
 * Copper Rotor: Increased production speed and less Iron and power per part at the cost of adding Copper.
 * Diluted Packaged Fuel, Diluted Fuel: Adds Water to *triple* the Heavy Oil Residue -> Fuel conversion ratio. Combine with "Heavy Oil Residue" for extremely efficient Crude Oil -> Fuel conversion ratios. This recipe is part of a loop that maximizes the utilization of Crude Oil for power using "Turbofuel", and "Compacted Coal", or for Rubber and Plastic using "Recycled Rubber" and "Recycled Plastic". Non-packaged Diluted Fuel is all-round better, as it is simpler and more power-efficient.
 * Electrode Aluminum Scrap: Better conversion rate of Alumina Solution to Scrap and exchanges Coal for a minimal amount of Crude Oil.
 * Encased Industrial Pipe: Uses ~33% fewer Steel Ingots per unit, but produces 33% fewer beams per minute as well. Saving on steel is worth the additional Assemblers. Stators, Steel Rotors and many other recipes also use Pipes rather than Beams, which can simplify production.
 * Fine Black Powder: Requires less of each resource and power per part compared to the original recipe.
 * Fused Quickwire: Caterium is much more precious than Copper, so yes.
 * Heat Exchanger: Uses 20% less Aluminum Ingots (if combined with Alclad Casing), 25% less power and produces 33% more items per minute by adding Crude Oil.
 * Heat-fused Frame: Doubles crafting speed and reduces Aluminum Ingot cost by 25% but increases Nitrogen Gas cost by 28% by requiring conversion to Nitric Acid, as well as adding the requirement for Fuel.
 * Heavy Encased Frame: Requires slightly more limestone than the original, but is otherwise much more resource-efficient.
 * Heavy Oil Residue: Substantially improves the Crude Oil -> Heavy Oil Residue conversion ratio. Combine with "Diluted Fuel" for extremely high Crude Oil -> Fuel ratios, which can be used for very efficient Turbofuel or Plastic/Rubber (via "Recycled Plastic"/"Recycled Rubber") production.
 * Infused Uranium Cell: mixed with original recipe: The alternate recipe is preferred, use the original recipe to boost the production if Quartz and Caterium are insufficient.
 * Insulated Crystal Oscillator: A little bit of Crude Oil is worth it to save on Quartz.
 * Instant Plutonium Cell: Slightly reduces Non-Fissile Uranium cost, while greatly reducing overall per unit Uranium cost of Plutonium Fuel Rods by removing the Nuclear Waste allocation for Plutonium Pellet production.
 * Iron Wire: Removes the need to utilize Copper in many recipes, but is slightly less resource-efficient than the original. Can be used with Stitched Iron Plate for the most efficient Iron-only Reinforced Iron Plate production.
 * Uranium Fuel Unit mixed with original recipe: The alternate recipe is preferred, unless Crystal Oscillators are insufficient.
 * Polyester Fabric: Necessary to automate the production of Fabric and its products, such as Filters.
 * Pure Aluminum Ingot mixed with original recipe: Removes the need for Silica (Raw Quartz) and decreased power consumption at the cost of 25% fewer ingots from the same amount of Scrap. Quartz and aluminium are the most valuable resources, so the right balance needs to be found with these recipe (somewhere around 50-50, depending on your production scenario).
 * Pure Caterium Ingot, Pure Copper Ingot, Pure Iron Ingot, Pure Quartz Crystal, Wet Concrete: Substantial increase in conversion ratio by just adding Water. Requires using Refineries for ore processing, though. "Copper Alloy Ingot" may be "Pure Copper Ingot" until Copper Ore is fully utilized, due to production footprint and substantially reduced production speed per building.
 * Plutonium Fuel Unit: Produces 1.5x more Plutonium Fuel Rods per input Plutonium Cells, at the cost of very expensive Pressure Conversion Cubes.
 * Radio Connection Unit: Simpler setup than Radio Control System but uses more Caterium. Raw Quartz used is compensated by the Bauxite reduction.
 * Recycled Plastic, Recycled Rubber: More complex, but way better than original recipe. Use both along with Heavy Oil Residue and Diluted Fuel for extremely efficient Crude Oil to Plastic/Rubber production (~3 Rubber/Plastic per Crude Oil, compared to original 0.67 Rubber/Plastic per Crude Oil)
 * Silicon Circuit Board: More parts per minute, less power, and no Oil involved, at the cost of adding rare Quartz.
 * Sloppy Alumina: Slightly improves the Aluminum Ingot per Bauxite ratio (from 83.3% to 90%), while also simplifying the setup by eliminating the Silica byproduct.
 * Solid Steel Ingot: Produces approximately 67% more Steel per Iron Ore (if also using Pure Iron Ingot).
 * Steamed Copper Sheet: Half the Copper Ingots per Sheet just by adding Water. Requires processing in a Refinery rather than a Constructor, however.
 * Stitched Iron Plate: The most resource-efficient recipe. Combining with "Iron Wire" removes the need for Copper Ingots, at the cost of a very small reduction in raw resource efficiency.
 * Turbo Blend Fuel: Removes the need for Coal and saves Sulfur, but uses more Crude Oil due to requiring Petroleum Coke. Combine with "Diluted Fuel" for maximum efficiency. Compared to "Diluted Fuel" + "Compacted Coal" -> "Turbofuel", this recipe chain uses 66.7% more Crude Oil, 37.5% less Sulfur, and 72.2% less water. It has a drastically simplified setup due to no need for any "Compacted Coal" Assemblers or as many Water Extractors, and it requires less than half as many buildings. The severe reduction in buildings also makes it more power efficient than the equivalent "Heavy Oil Residue" -> "Diluted Fuel" -> "Turbofuel" chain. "Turbo Blend Fuel" is more resource-efficient because Sulfur is much scarcer than Crude Oil, and more valuable in higher-tier recipes, such as Batteries and Nuclear Power.
 * Turbofuel: Useful for pre-nuclear setup. "Turbofuel" is preferred over "Turbo Heavy Fuel", as it has a better conversion rate from Heavy Oil Residue. Combine with "Heavy Oil Residue" and "Diluted Fuel" for extremely efficient Fuel Generator supply, with the ability to run ~148 Fuel Generators (22,222 MW) from just 300 Crude Oil per minute.
 * Turbo Electric Motor: Useful for large scale Turbo Motor production. Removes the need for Cooling Systems (therefore, Nitrogen Gas) reduces Aluminum Ingot cost. However, requires some Caterium and more Steel.

Situationally useful, but not resource efficient recipes
You're probably going to use a few of these recipes during the mid-game. They may provide a small boost or even slightly worse resource conversion ratio compared to the base recipe, but their recipe simplicity, space compactness, or power reduction can prove them to be useful to save you in certain situations.
 * Biocoal, Charcoal: Useful if Coal is in shortage and Biomass and Wood are in excess. However, it is recommended to craft Wood into Biomass for other uses instead.
 * Caterium Circuit Board: Can be useful in mid-game, however Silicon Circuit Board is more efficient in the late game.
 * Quickwire Stator, Fused Wire: Useful in mid-game where Caterium is plenty. Take note that Caterium is a bit more rare than Copper, so in the long run these recipes will hurt your efficiency.
 * Coke Steel Ingot: A method to get rid of excess Heavy Oil Residue. Safety precaution such as an overflow system is recommended to prevent jamming the Oil production upstream.
 * Crystal Computer: Useful in mid-game where Quartz is still in excess. Caterium Computer is a more resource-efficient alternative.
 * Fertile Uranium: this recipe is slightly sub-optimal a maximum power nuclear system (see detailed analysis below). This may have a use when upgrading an existing nuclear power setup and Uranium is still available, but it produces more permanent Plutonium Waste per unit power produced then the standard recipe for Non-Fissile Uranium. This recipe is inefficient for a zero-waste nuclear power setup.
 * Iron Alloy Ingot, Copper Alloy Ingot: When paired together, they produce more ingots compared to separated production chains. In late-game, pure ingot recipes are more efficient. On their own, "Copper Alloy" is much more useful than "Iron Alloy", as Iron is more than twice as common as Copper, so effectively turning Iron into Copper is extremely useful mid-game.
 * Plastic Smart Plating: Involves Oil which is a limited resource, hurting its utility in late-game, but can be useful in mid-game as it is 5x faster and twice as efficient per Reinforced Iron Plate and Rotor used.
 * Polymer Resin: Greatly increases Crude to Polymer ratio and Polymer production speed, at the cost of Heavy Oil Residue or Fuel output. Can be useful for supplying a Polyester Fabric factory, but is substantially less efficient compared to the Recycled Plastic/Recycled Rubber combo for producing Plastic and Rubber (see above).
 * Instant Scrap: Although it requires Sulfur, its bauxite efficiency is tied with using both Sloppy Alumina and Electrode Aluminum Scrap for most efficient. Also increases power but decreases number of machines. Also allows for a slightly more simple setup than one using Alumina Solution; can setup the Sulfuric Acid 1:1 with the Instant Scrap Blenders.
 * Rigour Motor: Useful in mid-game. In late-game, Crystal Oscillators are to be spent in more important recipes.
 * Silicon High-Speed Connector: Uses Raw Quartz instead Caterium Ore. Useful for mid-game where Quartz is still in excess.
 * Compacted Steel Ingot: Can be used to reduce Coal demand, as it requires only 45% as much Coal per Steel Ingot, at the cost of requiring an equal amount of Sulfur and an Assembler making Compacted Coal for every 2.22 Foundries. However, Sulfur may be required for other, more important recipes.
 * Steel Rod, Steeled Frame: Useful if Coal is plenty. Steel Rod, in particular, produces 3.2x as many Iron Rods per minute for the same number of Constructors and produces six times as many Rods per Iron Ingot if using the "Solid Steel" alternative recipe, at the cost of requiring one Coal per six Iron Rods produced.
 * Steel Rotor: Shares the same types of ingredients as the default Stator recipe, which can significantly simplify the production setup. Utilizes less than half of the overall Iron at the cost of a little bit of extra Coal if combined with "Iron Wire". Faster production speed than the base recipe.
 * Turbo Heavy Fuel: Useful for pre-nuclear setup. Much simpler to set up than the normal Turbofuel recipe, however, it is far less resource-efficient. Additionally, the default recipe can be greatly combined with more alternate recipes that aren't compatible with this one.
 * Coated Iron Canister: Replaces Plastic with Iron Plates and Copper Sheets. Although it saves on valuable Crude Oil, Iron and Copper might be needed elsewhere.
 * Steel Canister: Replaces Plastic with Steel Ingots. Can be used if there is little Crude Oil and excess Steel.
 * Automated Miner: Useful if large amounts of Portable Miners are required, otherwise it is significantly cheaper to craft them manually.
 * Electric Motor: Similar complexity to original recipe. Saves on Steel using Caterium and Copper, which could make it useful based on raw resource availability.

Inefficient recipes
These recipes should generally be avoided as their disadvantages are greater than the advantages they provide, and they are not resource-efficient. They may still have good uses in niche situations, however.
 * Automated Speed Wiring: The complexity involved does not justify the speed boost.
 * Bolted Frame, Bolted Iron Plate: Improved production speed conserving power, but both are less resource efficient, which means less parts are produced in the end.
 * Caterium Wire: This removes the need for Copper Ore in Wire creation, but at the cost of rarer Caterium Ore. Fused Wire and Iron Wire (see above) are generally preferred.
 * Coated Cable, Insulated Cable, Quickwire Cable: All involve Oil which is a limited resource. The usage of Refineries also means they will eat away a good chunk of your power capacity.
 * Coated Iron Plate, Steel Coated Plate, Adhered Iron Plate: All involve Oil which is a relatively rare resource.
 * Electrode Circuit Board: This recipe will use up your Crude Oil quickly, but removes the need for copper.
 * Electromagnetic Connection Rod: Increased production speed comes at the cost of adding Crude Oil and increasing usage of Caterium (or adding Quartz if using alternate Silicon High-Speed Connector recipe).
 * Fine Concrete, Rubber Concrete: Limestone is abundant and there is rarely a good reason to use alternate recipes involving rarer resources.
 * Heavy Flexible Frame: Less Coal and Iron per item at nearly double the rate, but at the cost of adding Oil, which is a much rarer resource than either.
 * OC Supercomputer: There is no reason use so much aluminium to produce supercomputer.
 * Flexible Framework: Involves Oil which is a limited resource.
 * Seismic Nobelisk: Crystal Oscillators are used in more important recipes.
 * Crystal Beacon: The requirement for Quartz and Coal does not justify its speed boost. Also, the original Beacon recipe can be purely Iron-based if Iron Wire is used.
 * Electromagnetic Control Rod: Being faster and only saving one Stator, it adds the requirement for Manufacturers and the usage of Plastic and extra Cables or Silica, making it all-round worse over the default recipe.
 * Turbo Pressure Motor: Uses a lot of Nitrogen Gas, as well as increasing the requirement for most raw resources, especially Bauxite and Coal. More complex than the default recipe or Turbo Electric Motor, giving no reason to use it over either recipe.

Diluted Packaged Fuel cycle
This combination uses Heavy Oil Residue -> Diluted Packaged Fuel to increase the Crude Oil -> Fuel conversion ratio by 4.5x. Combining this fuel conversion with Compacted Coal to yield Turbofuel greatly improves energy generation, allowing a single oil node to supply over 11x as many Fuel Generators at maximum usage, compared to the normal Crude Oil to Fuel recipe. Even relative to directly using the Fuel produced by the Diluted Fuel combination, Turbofuel increases the number of generators that can be supplied by 2.78x, at the cost of requiring Coal and Sulfur input for the Compacted Coal. The final ratio is 148.15 Fuel Generators (22,222 MW) for 300 Crude Oil and 480 Sulfur and Coal per minute, which can be accomplished, via overclocking, off of a single Oil node of normal or pure quality, and a single node each of Sulfur and Coal at pure quality, or two each at normal quality, using Miner Mk.2s.

The Diluted Fuel recipe skips the packaging and unpackaging by mixing the Water and Heavy Oil Residue directly in a Blender, it is also more energy-efficient.

Recycled Plastic/Rubber
In addition to power generation, combining the above recipe with Recycled Plastic and Recycled Rubber will improve your ratio per crude oil. The idea is to have half the output of Recycled Plastic feeding the Recycled Rubber production, and vice versa. This does require the system to be "primed" which can be sped up by sending the full output of one side to the other initially. With the system equalized you can achieve 12 resources per crude oil ( [2.667 recycled plastic + 3.333 residual plastic] x 2 for the rubber ). The original recipes yield 0.667 resources per crude oil, plus the need to remove Heavy Oil Residue from the system for continuous production.

A major benefit of this recipe: If one resource of the combined recycler system is not fully utilized, the usable output of the other will increase as the unused side overflows. Thus, there is no need to build the system asymmetrically.

Uranium Fuel
The base conversion rate of Uranium to Uranium Fuel Rods is 100:1. Uranium Ore converts to Encased Uranium Cells at 2:1 and Encased Uranium Cells convert to Uranium Fuel Rods at 50:1. In total, this allows a single normal Uranium node (600/min using a Mk.3 Miner at 250%) to supply 30 Nuclear Power Plants, for a total of 75,000 MW of power. The alternate recipes Infused Uranium Cell and Uranium Fuel Unit drastically improve this ratio. Infused Uranium Cells convert Uranium ore to Encased Uranium Cells at a 5:4 ratio, and Uranium Fuel Unit converts Encased Uranium Cells to Uranium Fuel Rods at a 100:3 ratio. This increases the number of fuel rods generated by 2.4x, allowing a single normal Uranium node to supply 72 Nuclear Power Plants, for a total of 180,000 MW of power. This increases the maximum uranium power output from 262.5 GW to 630 GW (as of Update 4, there are 3 normal and 1 impure Uranium nodes on the map for a total of 2100 Uranium per minute).

Plutonium Fuel
The base conversion rate of Uranium Waste to Plutonium Fuel Rods is 225:1. The standard recipes for Non-fissile Uranium and Plutonium Pellets both consume Uranium Waste in a 3:1 ratio, meaning to fully convert all Uranium Waste, 75% should be allocated for Non-fissile Uranium and 25% should be allocated for Plutonium Pellets. Uranium Waste produces Non-fissile Uranium in a 3:4 ratio, Plutonium Pellets are produced in a 10:3 ratio (consuming 25% of the initial input Uranium Waste), Encased Plutonium Cells are produced in a 2:1 ratio, and Plutonium Fuel Rods are produced in a 30:1 ratio. When fully utilized, a single normal Uranium node produces between 300 Uranium Waste/min on the standard recipe chain or 720 Uranium Waste/min on the most efficient recipe chain, which respectively produce 1.5 and 3.6 Plutonium Fuel Rods/min.

The standard recipe chain maximizes the use of Uranium Waste and minimizes other resources required to create Plutonium Rods. This makes this recipe chain ideal for creating a zero-waste Nuclear Power setup (meaning all Plutonium Fuel Rods are deposited in an Awesome Sink and not used in Nuclear Power Plants). The alternate recipe chain for Plutonium Fuel is more oriented towards maximizing the production of Plutonium Fuel Rods.

Using all of the alternate recipes ("Fertile Uranium", "Instant Plutonium", and "Plutonium Fuel Unit") the conversion rate of Uranium Waste to Plutonium Fuel Rods is 75:2. However, "Fertile Uranium" requires input Uranium, which means some of the original Uranium harvested must be withheld without being refined into Uranium Fuel Rods. This fact, along with the limited amount of Uranium available on the map currently, makes this recipe sub-optimal for maximizing power. Using all of the alternate recipes for Plutonium Fuel Rods and Uranium Fuel Rods, except for "Fertile Uranium" produces the most Uranium waste-free Nuclear power possible, at 340 GW for a single normal Uranium node (160 GW of additional power from Plutonium) or 1190 GW (630 GW from Uranium and 560 GW from Plutonium) for all of the Uranium on the map. This recipe chain has a conversion rate of Uranium Waste to Plutonium Fuel Rods of 225:2.

This is as compared to a maximum of 1050 GW (286.4 GW from Uranium and 763.6 GW from Plutonium) for all of the Uranium on the map if "Fertile Uranium" is used in combination with all other alternative recipes. Fertile Uranium also produces more permanent Plutonium Waste then the standard recipe.

Alloyed ingots
Using Iron Alloy Ingot and Copper Alloy Ingot together can yield significant increases in both for the same input. Normal smelting yields one Ingot per Ore input. Iron Alloy Ingot increases yield to 2.5 Ingots per one Iron Ore, at the cost of requiring an equal amount of Copper Ore. Copper Alloy Ingot increases the yield to two Ingots per one Copper Ore, at the cost of requiring half as much Iron Ore. If used together, the net number of Ingots is increased by 2-2.5x, depending on ratios of usage between the two recipes.

Pure Iron Ingot and Pure Copper Ingot are still significantly better than these, if refineries are unlocked.

Solid Steel Ingots
Using the normal recipe, one Steel Ingot is produced per Iron Ore and Coal input. Using Solid Steel Ingot combined with Pure Iron Ingot can increase this yield to 39 Steel Ingots for 14 Iron Ore and 26 Coal input. This is 2.79x as efficient with regards to Iron Ore, and 1.5x as efficient with regards to Coal.

Compacted Steel Ingot combined with Compacted Coal can be used instead to ease the demand on Coal at the cost of overall yield (relative to the Solid Steel Ingot recipe) and Sulfur. It provides 10 Steel Ingots for six Iron Ore, three Coal, and three Sulfur. Relative to the normal Steel Ingot recipe, this is 1.67x as efficient on Iron Ore, and 3.33x as efficient on Coal. Relative to the Solid Steel Ingot recipe, this produces only ~60% as many Steel Ingots per Iron Ore input, but requires only 45% as much Coal *per Ingot* (at the cost of requiring an equal amount of Sulfur).

As part of the Heavy Encased Frame chain, use Pure Iron Ingot -> Solid Steel Ingot -> Encase Industrial Pipes -> Heavy Encased Frame to see the cascading effect of resource-saving. See Heavy Modular Frame for more info.

Iron Wire
Best paired with Stitched Iron Plate and default Beacon recipes to see its usefulness.