buildings are no longer items

[Thales7]

problem: items become entities are no realistic and recycle isn't possible

suggestion: the build is construct as the ingredients are put in the "ghost protect build"*
*like the the robot command construction

example: a assemble machine would be make with 5 incinerators, 10 gears, 10 iron plates, 20 trusses. So the play click in assemble machine and choose a place to put. And position the Engineer (the protagonist) near to "ghost project build" and put the ingredients in project window (like the build was ready). so, when all ingredients are put in window, the engineer star to work, so appear a animation of engineer welding until the build are ready. The same form, when the build are deconstruct, the play get the ingredients, not the building's item. The same for robots, the logistics delivery the ingredients and the constructions construct like in engineer animation.

[Lubricus]

That works in games like Rimworld where there is lots of "pawns" that you command. In Factorio it's only you that can do stuff so the assembly of the assembly machines must be possible to be automatic and done in assembly machines or it would be very tedious. And the game is about automation and to optimize it, not realism.

[fiery_salmon]

are no realistic

utterly irrelevant

[sparr]

are no realistic

utterly irrelevant

Not at all. OP wouldn't be the first to suggest some way to prevent the player from walking around with a thousand locomotives in their backpack. An "adventure mode" scenario would work a lot better if the player couldn't carry arbitrarily large objects around with them, and was forced to construct things on-site.

[gsezz]

benefit:
- more realism (irrelevant)

disadvantage:
- less difficulty if bots take over the assembling part
- less production lines to build
- in general less things to do in the game
- even more bots (a lot more...)

And is this "bots can assemble buildings from intermediate products on site" thing even more realistic? I don't think so. It's just the unrealistic compromise other games make.

[Hannu]

This would add more boring routine work than interesting game mechanics in current game. If time were a resource in the game, it would be more reasonable to make building process realistically slow. But that will not change in this phase of game developing and I think that in any case most players would be against it because time managing would increase complexity and micromanaging into the game.

[Deadlock989]

There isn't the remotest chance that a change this deep in the game mechanics is going to be made at this stage.

I'm reminded of Space Engineers where you spend literal hours welding a million rivets only to have some random glitch or RNG calamity wipe it out in seconds. No thanks.

[McDuff]

The only way this kind of thing would work is if we got construction robots from the start. Pretty sure that in order to make this change happen you'd basically have to write a whole new game.

[Engimage]

No. Just no.

[Thales7]

Ok, so no. But if is used more intermediaries, a system of production like a car production line with the think be craft on a rail, maybe a form to use belts, robots and rails in form more specialized?

[dood]

I mean, if buildings had a C&C style construcion animation when being built, that would be kinda cool I guess but it would also murder the vram and the startup loadtime which is already way too long.

[Engimage]

I will give you some more extended reply.

1. At this point game will not undergo any major changes. This is why devs will generally ignore such ideas for now. Maybe in Factorio 2.0 if one will ever happen they can think about this.
2. Currently Factorio lets you build/rebuild/move everything easily. This is a heaven of perfectionists you know. And making building/moving things any harder will make people feel much worse.
3. It will take away necessity of automating much stuff. And this is bad.

While your idea has some benefits and we have seen one working fine in many games (like Space Engineers for example) it will not fit into Facrtorio at this point both mechanically and conceptually.

[Tiggy]

I think that Factorio's methods to make large objects are a bit too simple. You can craft a train in your inventory and carry it around! I think that certain objects, and we could start with trains, should only be constructed on a production line and should not be things you can pick up and put in a chest. A train, for example, could require you (at its simplest) to build a train track and then assemble it as a series of modular chunks (maybe you could even use better ones). First go on the wheels, then the boiler and engine, and so on. There should be a sense or weight and undertaking to building large stuff - even if it is still kept rather easy for needed items. If you prefer a more advanced route or want to automate car or train production, a second idea would be to have a kind of large slow (or stop/start) convener belt called an assembly line that takes the object past many different input arms that feed it parts. That way you can actually watch big objects get built, fueled up, and sent whizzing off around the track!

For large stationary machines, like the steam turbine, you could build them in place using scaffolding. In any case, I really think there are certain things - like the oil refinery, that could do with being broken down a little more so we get to build them part by part.

In any case, I hope you like my idea!

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older topic with similar suggestion.