Idea: Factories

[Pinkishu]

I don't like this idea. Imo you don't need a "factory" building

Make your production line, put stone walls around, put input chests, done there you have your factory
Yeah, you need to care about wiring, but thats like half the point of the game imo
Yeah you can't "compact" it as much maybe, but space is mostly infinite (except if you make it non-infinite)

And yeah it would enable you to make "Blueprints" and re-use stuff and such, but so would a blueprint tool for normal builds.

[ssilk]

Make your production line, put stone walls around, put input chests, done there you have your factory

Then you can make it so. There is nothing that hinders you.

Hm. I repeat some of the arguments, which are eventually hidden in this thousand lines of post, maybe it makes it more clear:

The most important idea is not the factoriy-building, or what is inside. The idea is, how others will make factories. How can I learn Factorio without watching others? As you can clearly see in this forum it is complicated to show others your ideas. You need to make screendumps, upload megabytes of maps or replays. This will never work in a more open community. So, the idea is, to make it small, make simple, small puzzles, make it a own game in game.

The second idea is removing this puzzle-element out of the normal gameplay. I like this puzzling, but not in the game, in danger, when hundreds of monsters come. This is frustrating. You make errors, you cannot think, you will never have clever ideas, how to make something work, if you are in hurry. So this enables to split this game. One game is that you can think about a new type of factory, which is faster/more efficient, more balanced, with special side-effects and clever energy-management. A puzzle like game. Save your effort, maybe you can load own creations. And the other is the dangerous fight against masses of monsters, where you need to bring it to run as fast as possible, because I think we have seen only some small monsters hordes, but how cool would it be, if they come to thousands? What parts will survive? You need to be much, much faster than now, to survive such a horde.

The third is game-speed. I see Factorio as a great multiplayer game and there should be a gigantic tower-defense-like mod. But not if the simple game needs about an hour to come to a level where you can begin to built massive defenses. This is just boring. Factories are just one element of it; it takes some minutes to build a green-potion line and here it will be available within seconds.

Yeah, you need to care about wiring, but thats like half the point of the game imo

Wiring is like so many things in this game nice, but not, when you need to make it bigger and bigger. Wiring of wired wires. Bad idea.

Yeah you can't "compact" it as much maybe, but space is mostly infinite (except if you make it non-infinite)

It's not the space, it's practicability. Is here anybody, which managed to build a valuable blue-potion assembly-line within less then 5 Minutes? More than 6 blue-potions per minute? It shouldn't need longer!

And yeah it would enable you to make "Blueprints" and re-use stuff and such, but so would a blueprint tool for normal builds.

Believe it or not, but blueprints like in the blue-print-mod are cool, but they have so many exceptions, that you cannot compare one blueprint to another. One needs 14x20 fields. The next 20x14 for the same function. Does it match? No! Never! The blueprints will be incompatible, you can't use it for your layout. The possibilities are so endless, that the chance that 2 players build a more or less compatible assembly-line is near zero.

This is the fourth idea: A factory is nothing as a frame, some standardization. Some habits will come: the first input should be normally used for iron-ore, or the second output are stuff, which is overproduced.

This is the fifth idea: Upload your blueprint to a server, others can like them or not and discuss the item-flow. No better way is thinkable, if you want to put some of the in-game-elements online.

[Balinor]

I have to disagree with the factory idea as it is also. While I see larger assembly machines would be a good idea, and that input from a conveyor belt would work well with this, it should all be on the main factory screen in my opinion as I see that fitting in with the current design better.

[ssilk]

I have to disagree with the factory idea as it is also. While I see larger assembly machines would be a good idea, and that input from a conveyor belt would work well with this, it should all be on the main factory screen in my opinion as I see that fitting in with the current design better.

Well, I saw that. I quote from the first post:

"I think in the first implementation of a factory you right-click on a factory and it opens a window where you can make here everything what you can do on the map. But I mean it could be a very cool wow-effect when you open a factory and see the inside in scale 1:4 working and you zoom in and see how everything in this little factory works as outside. I think this would be an eye-catcher."

And MF- suggested a game: SpaceChem ( http://www.spacechemthegame.com/ ). I swear i didnt know it before. I tried it out and bought it, it's brilliant. Many ideas in this game. SpaceChem is much more a puzzle game then Factorio, it's really complicated and the time factor when creating something plays a big rule (it would be like if an inserter has nothing, which it can grep the factory will fail), but what can be taken from this game is the minimized and schematic outside-view of the factories (see http://www.spacechemthegame.com/screenshots/ss3.png vs. http://www.spacechemthegame.com/screenshots/ss4.png) and the "jump to the next factory of this output"-buttons on the left and right when you are in a factory.

[ssilk]

What I also learned from SpaceChem is, that rotating the inside view, so that it matches to the outside orientation, is maybe a problem. See this pic: http://www.spacechemthegame.com/screenshots/ss4.png
You see, that the inputs are always left, the outputs are always right. This is because of the above mentioned "standardization"-thought. It is difficult to compare something, when rotated!

Perhaps a "router" (search for it) should be not an option but a default?

I add another idea to this routing-idea: how, if someone can configure the position of the outside input- and output-doors? Then the inside is fully independent from the outside. I think this makes sense, even if it isn't completely logical. But then the factory don't needs to be rotated, you just move the doors.
This has also the advantage, that the factory building can then be much bigger than 6x6, because you can move the doors. (Indeed it can be inside as big as outside, or even bigger... Possible but I mean that 20x20 is too large for that early objects on the map; factory of four factories? Cool...)

[drs9999]

The most important idea is not the factoriy-building, or what is inside. The idea is, how others will make factories. How can I learn Factorio without watching others? As you can clearly see in this forum it is complicated to show others your ideas. You need to make screendumps, upload megabytes of maps or replays. This will never work in a more open community. So, the idea is, to make it small, make simple, small puzzles, make it a own game in game.

I do not get that, where is the difference between uploading a screenshot from a "outside" assembly-line and a screenshot/data from a "inside"-factory setup?

The second idea is removing this puzzle-element out of the normal gameplay. I like this puzzling, but not in the game, in danger, when hundreds of monsters come

I like this idea. Make blueprints of "inside" factory-setups "off"-game and import them later in the game.

It's not the space, it's practicability. Is here anybody, which managed to build a valuable blue-potion assembly-line within less then 5 Minutes? More than 6 blue-potions per minute? It shouldn't need longer!

Why it should not take longer?! The game still called factorio, so main-objective of the game is to build factories. Of course it should be time-consuming to build nice-working setup.

The third is game-speed. I see Factorio as a great multiplayer game and there should be a gigantic tower-defense-like mod. But not if the simple game needs about an hour to come to a level where you can begin to built massive defenses. This is just boring. Factories are just one element of it; it takes some minutes to build a green-potion line and here it will be available within seconds.

So this means that you will reach "the end" (rocket-defense) of the game in lets say 1-2 hours right now. I can think of two results. First is that it needs a LOT more stuff that can be done after rocket-defense and with a lot I mean an enormous ridiculous large amount of things. The other result is that factorio becomes a casual-game that can be completed in 1-2 hours. I have no problem with casual games, but I play them once maybe twice and then I forgot about them and also I would never pay for one ( ok I bought game dev tycoon, but I expected much more then I finally got).

[ssilk]

The most important idea is not the factoriy-building, or what is inside. The idea is, how others will make factories. How can I learn Factorio without watching others? As you can clearly see in this forum it is complicated to show others your ideas. You need to make screendumps, upload megabytes of maps or replays. This will never work in a more open community. So, the idea is, to make it small, make simple, small puzzles, make it a own game in game.

I do not get that, where is the difference between uploading a screenshot from a "outside" assembly-line and a screenshot/data from a "inside"-factory setup?

I quote:
"It should be not too complicated to make a storage-format (zip?) for factories, which includes a picture, some text, the perquisites/requirements, the used items and which doors are used for what. Much less complicated than storing whole maps, or making pictures of you map like now."
In other words: I don't need to make screenshoots, just save the factory. How would it be, if the game automatically uploads the factory to a "factory-cloud"? You can choose, if you want to make it public. The website knows the format and can make thumbnails, makes the input/output items searchable, you can link to it or to the pics from a forum like this. The other players can comment and rate it. Much easier to discuss.

to #2: I like this idea. Make blueprints of "inside" factory-setups "off"-game and import them later in the game.

you found the most useful idea. I mean I like sandbox, but how cool is it, when you can play with others and can only use the blueprints of the other cop-players? (this idea is not ready yet)

It's not the space, it's practicability. Is here anybody, which managed to build a valuable blue-potion assembly-line within less then 5 Minutes? More than 6 blue-potions per minute? It shouldn't need longer!

Why it should not take longer?! The game still called factorio, so main-objective of the game is to build factories. Of course it should be time-consuming to build nice-working setup.

Gnaa. I would like to play it for an hour or maybe for two, but not for 4 hours - that's too stressy. I played the sandbox several times now and I get faster every time, but I doubt that it is possible to come to a massive blue-potion-production in less than 2 hours. Totally impossible, if the map is not "ideal". With speedup I mean, that the game should be about 4-6 times faster than now. You can make it slower afterwards if you need it. But it should be possible to shorten the way.

to #3: So this means that you will reach "the end" (rocket-defense) of the game in lets say 1-2 hours right now. I can think of two results. First is that it needs a LOT more stuff that can be done after rocket-defense and with a lot I mean an enormous ridiculous large amount of things. The other result is that factorio becomes a casual-game that can be completed in 1-2 hours. I have no problem with casual games, but I play them once maybe twice and then I forgot about them and also I would never pay for one ( ok I bought game dev tycoon, but I expected much more then I finally got).

No, no, no. You must differ between multi- and singleplayer. For singleplayer it can take much longer. Mods, more items stuff, a better game target, a "endless" play (?); there are already some things in the game. But for a game which I want to play after work together with others, a round with 2 hours is ... pfff... exhausting. And the chance that someone leaves the game is high. Some may choose this, but most want to play shorter. Like in other games I assume there is a configuration-screen for a multiplayer-game. (I think of buttons like "15 minutes" to "2 hours" and this preselects for example a matching research-tree and sets everything up so that you can change the details)
The point is: currently it isn't possible to change anything, it is not possible to play faster.

[ssilk]

I posted, that factories should be available to research with red- and green-potion only. After playing this some times the last days I think this is too much - they should be available with red-potion only (I think 50 to 100 are enough). Otherwise it takes too long, because green-potion is in some situations relatively complicated to create in a high rate.
A blueprint for green-potion should be included. This is a very nice, relatively clear and important game target and will the player force to reach it as fast as possible, which means in this case to expand the iron production.

[drs9999]

"It should be not too complicated to make a storage-format (zip?) ...

Fair enough. it is hard to remember everything you wrote, because it is so much

you found the most useful idea. I mean I like sandbox, but how cool is it, when you can play with others and can only use the blueprints of the other cop-players? (this idea is not ready yet)

Yeah my thoughts included MP as well. For MP just a simple changeable option "share blueprints between ...[friends;enemy;none]".

Gnaa. I would like to play it for an hour or maybe for two, but not for 4 hours - that's too stressy. I played the sandbox several times now and I get faster every time, but I doubt that it is possible to come to a massive blue-potion-production in less than 2 hours. Totally impossible, if the map is not "ideal". With speedup I mean, that the game should be about 4-6 times faster than now. You can make it slower afterwards if you need it. But it should be possible to shorten the way.

There is a save/load game function if you have not noticed. Nah just kidding
With faster you mean what? The game-mechanics ( e.g. belt-speed) or the player-progression during game?
If the last one then adjustable options on starting a new game (SP and MP) can handle this (e.g enable all techs; ressources/items to start with)
Also using imported factories will result in a speed-up, because you just have to make them once.
If first one I just say that I like how it is now

You must differ between multi- and singleplayer. ...

So to discuss that the most important information is missing. What kind of MP will be implemented. Will it be just "skirmish"( reach tech, amount of ressources before the other team does; annihilation of the othe team) or more MMORP/ Minecraft-like so the game progresses if at least one player is connected, this is more sandbox-orientated and it do not exclude "skirmish"-mode.
Anyway what I was trying to say in the last paragraph is that it makes no sense to discuss MP-features when we have absolutly no clue about MP at all (except that it will be implemented at ome point).

[ssilk]

Fair enough. it is hard to remember everything you wrote, because it is so much

No problem. When I'm keen on it I can make an aggregation over this thread.

So to discuss that the most important information is missing. What kind of MP will be implemented. Will it be just "skirmish"( reach tech, amount of resources before the other team does; annihilation of the othe team) or more MMORP/ Minecraft-like so the game progresses if at least one player is connected, this is more sandbox-orientated and it do not exclude "skirmish"-mode.

VERY good question. This is an own thread. For me it's even not clear, what should happen after researching everything. On the other hand in sandbox-mode, the game can last forever?! Or are the scenarios all? But I'm sure there will be something sometimes.

Anyway what I was trying to say in the last paragraph is that it makes no sense to discuss MP-features when we have absolutely no clue about MP at all (except that it will be implemented at ome point).

Of course, but some times they will (I hope). And there are common things, which are usable in every case.

[ssilk]

I made many thoughts about this idea. I think I found now a new point.
How about this: A factory is only one peculiarity of a wider concept, I name it "hall".

There are much uses for "halls":

- the home ( https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=972 ) with a portal-chest ( https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=886 )
- container- or storage-stations ( https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 3&start=10 )
- robot-stations ( https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=972 )
- train-stations
- sorting-halls and belt-dividers
- electric generator halls and of course
- factory-halls.
- I mentioned this idea also in conjunction with bridges ( https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 1095#p7744 )
- Ideas for more usages?

The commonalty of the hall-types are, that they have an "inside" which works (more or less) identical to the "outside" (the map).
The outside and inside have contact-points (or contact-lines!), better described as "doors". A door exists in the in- AND outside and the inside door can have another orientation, than the outside.

This means, that the inside hall can have a different size, than the outside because the inside is on a different map, than the outside. This is useful for the factories-idea but also for many other stuff, like described above.

I've some ideas over the above uses:

The home: This is the item you built in the beginning to mark the spot. It has an entrance, so you can walk in. Inside in the middle is the portal chest, which mirrors the players inventory. You can now built some stuff here to put items in (through some doors) to the portal chest or pull them out the chest, so that your inventory is filled with the stuff you need.

Robot-station: Is like a mix between the home and a factory; robots are built inside and they are also programmed there. They walk inside only on their ways. It's much easier to program the robots, if they know, that they are inside of their station or outside. And for the inside you can have some special stuff, for example something, which refills the robots with coal.

Train-station: Is interesting because the inside can be of course the same size, as the outside and the outside can look exactly like the inside. This is something like the blueprint-mod, but much more standardized.

[tbarros]

Hi guys,

first of all i am new to the forum and just bought the game very recently. (about a week ago) finished the campaign and i am on my first free play (9h and counting, first crisis = low on coal) and just wished i bought the higher pack instead of the furnace attendee

i have to admit after playing minecraft with some ideas taken from another game (i was addicted to concepts of building a launch zone and my own , sonic 3) i found myself in a world of pain very quickly:
the level of detail and control of your machinery could take hours if not days until you would reach the point of automating a couple of things special high level energy management
(>>nuclear reactor<< anyone?)
of course once you got to the point of fully automating production and having a couple of quarries the game was just about changing the position of the quarries and your pumps and build whatever you wish.
then the fun part for me begun as i would slowly change the terrain to a factory like base. (no grass inside my walls with some traps laying around just for the heck of it )

then by magic of youtube and stumbling across the game on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/GamersDissent) i decided to give it a go
after the demo i was like "yup!", bought the game on the middle tier as the videos i found on youtube were not updated with the new bitters (yay zerglingss!!!)

now as a new player i still have a lot to learn and glad i kinda arrived in a stage where theres enough to keep me busy until 8.0 but not too overly complicated
love the pressure that the biters give to the player as it isnt a case of walling myself in and i can totally forget about the "neighbors". i always have in the back of my mind that the little pest will become bigger and badder over time so that 1layer of walls and a few turrets here and there might not be enough on the long run

but even on the rather large and safe area that i managed to wall in i had quite a few dilemmas, specially with "how should i build it". its great that the game gives you freedom to build wherever you want but i kinda miss the feeling of "designating" areas for one purpose. whenever i look at my freeplay and look at my base i cant help but to shrug..

ok, maybe i am a newbie but the first dilemma that i had was "ok so i have learnt from the 2nd campaing that 15 boilers and 8 steam generators are enough to hold a starting base of operations. so on a free play lets try for 20 boilers and 15 steam generators"... lets say that as a new guy i decided to just lay 20 boilers on a single line, roll a conveyor belt and appropriate inserter and voila! the thing that stroke my mind was "would it be great if i had smaller places where i would heat up the water and provide to the specific line of steamers" (also this strategy is proving bad later in the game when i have 20 steam generators, having power shortages because coal wont reach all the boilers)

i wont go into each specific dilemma that i had while trying to learn but i was really wishing for a way "designate" a contained area which would do a specific job.

so to come back again to the idea of factory\hall, i think this will open the game to an alternative of how to build your base.
i am seeing this game going to the point where you can chose what kind of energy producing scheme you want (renewable, non renewable, safe, not safe)
we already can chose how to transport things around.

also i dont think this would change the game.
if you decide to lay every piece of machinery around and the biters would break your walls you would have much more time to handle the situation than if you had a couple of factories that overall would have less health than all the machinery inside.

think of multiplayer too, will you take the path of having most of your machinery inside factories that are easy targets? or stick with the old school method of occupying a large area that will hinder the destruction of your base?

and for non-fans of wires... oh god the wires... i am not very found of having certain areas of my base filled with poles and a ton of wires... for me not eye appealing and kinda confusing, for wire fans, well they still have the old way of playing with everything at eye sight.

again i strongly think this will open a new path that the players can take to develop their bases. and hope we can see this on a update also if possible could the devs give us some kind of mid-late game mobile base! (this would act exactly as a hall that we could take quite far and deploy a new remote bases, maybe like an hoovercraft? an idea would be from the movie Avatar, just check the shuttle or even the other military hovercrats)

anyway TL; DR;

hope this will be an option in game!

[FreeER]

Honestly, unless you want to make your factories smaller/neater I'm not sure I see the point of the halls/factories etc...At the most I could see having 'portals' (late game ships or maybe actual teleportation portals...) of some sort that take you to another world (planet/continent?) and allow you to build and send the items back and forth. But even so it seems like it'd be a decent amount of code for the the devs to implement (and with infinite worlds it also seems unnecessary)

[ssilk]

When I wrote that all, I had many reasons to go for factories and not to blueprints.
- I thought, that it isn't possible to compare two blueprints
- blueprints cannot be exchanged
- the "exchange points"are not compatible
- rotating and mirroring is a problem
- and - as you - I found that it would be good to compress the space a bit. Make more "areas" which are useful for one distinct task.

All that I found to be not so important and if I had to choose, then the blueprints and not the factories.

Ps: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=1575

[FreeER]

When I wrote that all, I had many reasons to go for factories and not to blueprints.
[snip]
Ps: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=1575

Yeah, saw that and your post was a bit older. To be honest I was replying more to tbarros

[ssilk]

That's clear, and my answer was also for him. I begun writing yesterday, saved it as draft and continued and forgot that others could have answered.

[FreeER]

forgot that others could have answered.

[Math3vv]

- no wiring needed. Inside the factory everything is connected to multichannel-wires.

what if i need more then 2 channels ? like this : https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=1606

i think ther sould be 4 poles in every corner to put wires to or have make electric poles placeable in the factory hall to put wires on

[FreeER]

- no wiring needed. Inside the factory everything is connected to multichannel-wires.

what if i need more then 2 channels ? like this : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1606

the quote that you quoted said multichannel-wires, not dualchannel. I'm assuming that would mean far more than 2 (or even the 8 that 4 poles would give)