Why is a batch of 2 broadhead arrows +18 minutes, but a batch of 3 is +54 minutes on top of batch of 2? I have 2 NPCs that both have fab 5, survival >1 and lack archery 4. I understand nothing.
1h30 for 1 (10) arrows
1h48 for 2 (20) arrows
2h42 for 3 (30) arrows
One is encumbered, but I tried setting either to study from a book and the times (while increased) did
not change between them.
AFAIK encumberance doesnt affect npc’s like it does player characters (aside from obvious stuff like having your eyes covered with a welding mask lowers your npc’s vision range)
so… YOU have the ability to craft said arrows, and they’re assisting, but its taking longer to craft them than if you were on your own? am i understanding that right?
i dont think the overall craft time factors in current to end player stats does it? like if somehow you would be losing overall speed… if it does that might explain the time diffrence but i’m not sure. may also just be a number someone forgot to fix, bows have been untouched for a while.
I don’t think you understand it correctly.
The thing is that the second arrow companion 1 assisted with (after the first arrow the PC takes care of) takes an additional 18 minutes, while the third one the second companion deals with takes 54 minutes on top of that, while I (and, I assume, the OP) would have expected arrow 3 to add as much time as arrow 2 did. It can be noted that arrow 3 doesn’t quite takes as much time as doing arrow one immediately followed by arrow 3 by the PC, with a single NPC taking care of arrow 2.
i mean, i’m not sure if thats how it works… your character is the one doing the crafting so it should take just as much time to craft each individual arrow as the next, that lowered by the assistance the npc’s give…
like, you’re making arrows, so you whittle and shape the stick, partner 1 attaches the arrowhead and partner 2 fletches the arrow
by the bulk crafting’s approximation on time spent, it’d take less time to craft the arrows individually than in bulk… which it should be the opposite
I’m pretty sure that NPCs can only help you when you batch craft with >1 batch. So when making 1 attempt, it is only the player building. when doing 2 the NPCs help, reducing crafting time by 40%, resulting in a net 60% crafting time, which is a very small increase. all attempts beyond that however increase linearly, so this is just an artifact of the jump between no-help and help.
1: 1 time
2: (1+1) * 0.6 = 1.2 time
3: (1 + 1 + 1) * 0.6 = 1.8 time
4: 4 * 0.6 = 2.4 time
As you can see, the jump from 1 to 2 is much greater than the jump from 2 to 3, or any later jump.
I’m sorry, but you people can’t read. 
It also happens with starch(from cattails): 40 minutes, 48 minutes and 1h12 (72 minutes).
It functions more as expected (but still “wrong” for >3) with protein powder:
Honestly, if IRL I had two friends to assist then for an item that takes X time I’d expect that crafting a batch of 1 would take X/3, batch of two 2X/3, batch of 3 3X/3 = X for items that are bottle-necked by labour (like starch), or X, X, X, 2X, 2X, 2X, 3X, … for items that are bottle-necked by time (e.g. cooking). And of course X, 2X, 3X, 4X for items that are bottle-necked by tools (cooking something and only having 1 container for cooking). The actual time in-game fits none of this.
Looking back at the starch example, if I have 2 NPCs, then I have 3X labour points to spend. It takes X = 40 minutes for a batch of 1 starch from cattail rhizomes (see JSON) and it must take 120 labour points for all of them. However, it takes:
so what you’re saying is that rather than a 60% removal on time spent, its actually adding. so i’d say that’s a bug then XD
