Factorio Forums

Hello, I made a forum account on purpose so I could ask this.
I think I read some months ago, like in May, June or July 2018 that the assembly machines were going to have the item limits removed, meaning that we could craft a recipe of 3 or more items in whatever assembly machine type, 1, 2 or 3.

Now, after not playing factorio for almost a year, I remembered to try this feature and reinstalled the game, only to be surprised that it was still the same.

I searched the friday facts and could not find what I thought I remembered. Am I imagining things?
Thanks!

They talk about the assembly machine restrictions removal here https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-266

FFF 266 wrote: Assembling machine ingredient limit removal

The idea behind this mechanic was that better assembling machines can use more complex recipes. But the reality is, that there is not really a clear connection between the number of ingredients and the complexity of the recipe. Since it was yet another thing that had to be explained somehow, we decided to just remove it. The only real downside is, that the achievement "lazy bastard" will be much less of a puzzle, but we still consider it to be worth it.

The change will be in 0.17 which afaik will be released in ~January.
They talk about the release of 0.17 here https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-269

FFF 269 wrote: We will release this during January 2019, we will announce it more precisely in advance.

Oh! Now I know how I missed that... I didn't notice the second column.
Thank you for the refresher!

Doctor_Goose made a mod specifically so people could try it out. I disagree with the change because the ingredient limit progression made an interesting gameplay mechanic. It doesn't have to be realistic or accurately reflect the now mysterious concept of "recipe complexity" to be a good gameplay feature. I disagree with all of the changes announced in FFF#266, Mining Hardness removal because it overcomplicates what modders need to do to gate their technologies, and may disable the ability to hand-mine new ores and entities you weren't able to at the start of the game. The worst is removing the axe to the extent that modders can't even put it back. The update seems to reflect a sea change in the attitude of the development team, that they're MGTOW no longer caring about the players who put the food on their tables and the modders who pile on layers of free content. The discussion on the announcement thread is disheartening, and would certainly put me off buying the game if I were new to it today.