Factorio Forums

this is split off from

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=75618 Replace the equipment grid with a surface

— ssilk

My biggest question is one of performance- if you replace the inner workings of every machine with it's own mini-surface, you'll implode the UPS.

2nd concern is how "deep" does it go? Is there nested surfaces within surfaces?

3rd concern is a concept of scale- At each layer, you'll need to descale a machine by, say 100x. So you can't shrink your nuclear reactors into a surface and export the gigawatts.

4th is upgrading machines. It's hard enough right now but asking players to write recursive blueprints sounds like a stretch.

My first concern is: how should I play with that? I mean, it is cool, but what should be done here? Just another Factory in a Factory makes not so much sense and equipment grid is compared to that just simple and straight forward.

The OP speaks about 95% of idea and 5% suggestion. But to make it more a suggestion, you need to put on some flesh on it, adamwong.

Edit: I read my post and I think it’s not so clear. I mean there are already some ideas. But to make some playable things out of it we need a a very detailed description of what’s going on when playing with that or a specific implementation - preferably as a mod - because discussion might get quite theoretical.

through a combination of mods, it is possible to make meta-factories. But there are somethings that I can't accomplish with a mod- an entity with dynamic properties. Or maybe this is possible and I just don't know how?

I would love to put together a playable demo but I will need an entity that can be re-configured at run time. AFAIK, no such thing exists.

post is off-topic — ssilk

I think I can mock something up but I will need some hooks and an agreed upon starting place. (I'd like to include modules in this discussion, because they are like a tiny, very specific equipment grid)

So what I need from the devs is an entity- any entity that uses modules or an equipment grid- with the appropriate hooks to modify it's characteristics dynamically. If I were to start with the absolutely most simple case, I would ask for a crafting machine that I can directly control it's productivity, energy, speed and pollution.

post is off-topic — ssilk

@ssilk: Please split all those off-topic necro posts into a seperate thread. This topic is about changing how the equipment grid works, not about

adamwong246 wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:08 pm

replace [...] every machine

post is also off-topic — ssilk

@eriadicator you’re right, but moving them to where? I would need to delete it. I found that a bit to hard. Instead I tried to mark the posts.

@adamwong: please try to keep a bit more on topic. I mean we are here for fun, off-topic is sometimes very fun and everyone is welcome to live out his own kind of ADD. But the topic dictates what to talk about in general and your track record of sidewalking is long.

I don't understand forums.

If I wanted to have a discussion about replacing-modules-and-equipment-grids-with-surfaces, where would be the correct place to have that discussion?

post is also off-topic — eradicator

adamwong246 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 24, 2021 3:13 pm

If I wanted to have a discussion about replacing-modules-and-equipment-grids-with-surfaces, where would be the correct place to have that discussion?

Just make a new thread "Surface-based dynamic crafting machines" or whatever title you like?

ssilk wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:17 am

@eriadicator you’re right, but moving them to where? I would need to delete it.

Splitting off-topic parts of a thread into a new thread happens all the time in FFF or release threads, not sure why you'd need to delete anything? (except for these meta posts about what to do...)

adamwong246 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 24, 2021 3:13 pm

I don't understand forums.

If I wanted to have a discussion about replacing-modules-and-equipment-grids-with-surfaces, where would be the correct place to have that discussion?

Here is fine, but you were talking about:

adamwong246 wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 22, 2021 3:39 pm

through a combination of mods, it is possible to make meta-factories

adamwong246 wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:08 pm

if you replace the inner workings of every machine with it's own mini-surface, you'll implode UPS

Still off-topic, so I choose to split this off, because it dilutes the whole original thread.

Americanpatriot made two good examples, why it was off topic, but parts of the post where on topic. I’m sorry.
@eradicator That’s also why I had scrupels to split it to a new thread.

@adamwong forums are not chats. The main difference is, that users don’t want to spend much time reading, but will spend more time to make a qualified answer. Because there are long gaps between the posts.

What’s the right place? it’s based on what you want to talk about. Am I in the right Board? Does the topic match? Want to talk about modding problems then go to the modding-board. Want to talk about kind of different topic (did you read the the thread?) make a new suggestion, where you explain also the changes to this suggestion.
Before you press “submit” ask you the question: does this bring this thread forward?