Remove or Miniaturize Circuit Networks

[Player 1]

Just to be perfectly clear: This thread is a suggestion. It is reposted since I've been prevented from arguing for the old suggestion. I hope that that is sorted out by now.
You'll find that the reasoning is a bit different for this suggestion, since I've now spent several days discussing this on Steam.

The short of it, is that I want circuit networks removed from Factorio, preferably to a standalone mod. (This means the red/green wires and all the combinators.)
Alternatively, I want them scaled down to micro size, and put on circuit wafers in custom created modules - something that I'm aware would take lots of work to program.

The reasoning for this is mainly realism. There has never been - nor will there ever be - any real world buildings dedicated to doing things like adding two and two together. It may look fine to kids with no understanding of logic gates, but to educated people, it does look ridiculous. We are supposed to run a factory - not a circuit wafer. Also, if we are supposed to build the circuitry ourselves, then what are those green cards that we're shoving into everything? What are on those?

I quite like the alternative idea of the player being able to build custom modules out of similar components - logic gates on a wafer area - to do things like turn off a mining rig when it cannot output, or to forego output in favour of speed. (The older modules that we have now, would need to be removed too in this case.) These things should override the DEFAULT function of the building, so that it's useful but not NECESSARY to build them, just in case you find circuitry to be too complicated to deal with.
Alternatively we could do away with modules completely, and have the player rearrange the components inside the building itself.

[bobingabout]

If you remove the circuit networks, it will make a lot of people angry, it took long enough to have them added to the game in the first place.

Also, red and green wires have existed long before the circuit network, as long as I've been playing you've always been able to connect A to B and have a simple decision from it.

Having said that, having each type as a different "Building" is a bit bulky. you want to make a logic circuit? well... you need an acre to do it in! Yeah, a bit outlandish.

A better solution is your miniaturisation suggestion. Have one building that is multipurpose, then when you open it, have a grid (similar to the modular armour) where you can add different gates, and draw your circuit in there. That way with just 1 tile, you can create what you'd currently need a few dozen to do.

[Phillip_Lynx]

... NECESSARY ...

Just nitpicked this out of your ideas, wich I find not bad, to get an answer from someone who knows .

I do not see in any description / word of devs / etc, that circuit networks, logistic networks and combinators are NECESSARY to build a factory and launch the rocket (see my posts in your review).

By now you need no such things. There are selfimposed challenges to launch the rocket without these things. And, as I said, I see no word, it will be necessary in the future either.

So, if you do not like the combinators (for realism or fun) simply ignore them .

Maybe a dev can confirm, that these things would never be NECESSARY.

[Twinsen]

Although I don't usually feed the trolls, the obvious thing I need to say is this:
The circuit network you see now in game is a very small portion of what's to come. It's more of a test for combinators, they can't really control anything other than lamps and pumps.
You are clearly not seeing the bigger picture of how powerful it is to control and fine-tune most of the machines in your factory.

If you want a real-world comparison to combinators, take a look at Programmable logic controller: "used for automation of typically industrial processes, such as control of machinery on factory assembly lines, light fixtures, etc".

[bobingabout]

If you want a real-world comparison to combinators, take a look at Programmable logic controller: "used for automation of typically industrial processes, such as control of machinery on factory assembly lines, light fixtures, etc".

PLCs, yes, I've seen, but not used one.

I'd much more likely program a PIC or a PAL, and on combinators, I would say they're much closer to a PAL than PLC or PIC.
PAL is Programmable Array Logic. You can't do an awful lot with a PAL, but you can design an 8x8 NAND gate circuit with one, including some quite complex sequencers.

There has never been - nor will there ever be - any real world buildings dedicated to doing things like adding two and two together..

As for real world "Building to add two numbers together"... try looking up information on the first calculator, or the first computer. those things were room filling machines.

Seriously, your phone can do more than what a computer could do 10 years ago, a phone from 10 years ago (minus the phone part) still had more power than computer from 10 years before that. Look back about 60 to 70 years, and what your calculator can do these days, would have taken a machine that filled a warehouse. 7MHz was a standard in 1988, it was only since then that the 8086 series, specifically the 80386 started with leaps of speed increases. your PC is likely 500 times faster than the equivalent from 25 years ago, and will have about 10000 times the memory.

[Player 1]

If you remove the circuit networks, it will make a lot of people angry, it took long enough to have them added to the game in the first place.

My personal disgust for these people aside, they don't need to be angry if you move it to a separate mod, which they can download. The devs could even sell it to the people who wanted it (and probably give (for free) that mod to users who already have the game, so that they won't be angry due to that). Then everybody can get what they want: We get a bloat free game free from feature creep, and they get their surreal little circuit sandbox world.

Also, red and green wires have existed long before the circuit network, as long as I've been playing you've always been able to connect A to B and have a simple decision from it.

Wouldn't the wires be the circuit network?
I still don't get why we'd have to have wires. Gates are right now (before 0.13) opening and closing automatically, and mining rigs emitting pollution even when mined ore is stuck inside them, is just sloppy programming. Micromanagment of ore distribution seems like players would want to cover up poor factory design to me.

A better solution is your miniaturisation suggestion. Have one building that is multipurpose, then when you open it, have a grid (similar to the modular armour) where you can add different gates, and draw your circuit in there. That way with just 1 tile, you can create what you'd currently need a few dozen to do.

That's also a solution: Some kind of a control station. For example, I wouldn't really mind a control booth next to every gate, as long as it's the size of a single control booth.

---

I do not see in any description / word of devs / etc, that circuit networks, logistic networks and combinators are NECESSARY to build a factory and launch the rocket (see my posts in your review).

I've just answered that in the review comment section:

The thing with feature creep is that it creeps:
Currently circuit networks aren't mandatory. It's merely bloating the interface.
In update 0.13, it will start to creep into the gameplay, being required to open or close gates, being required to manage power. You can still leave a building running for now, but in order to make power management useful, they will have to rebalance power drain so that it will be cumbersome to avoid. You can still remove a piece of wall to get through a wall, but using the gate is easier, and so on.
However, whether or not they're mandatory is a moot point, since either you end up with bloat in the form of useless stuff, or these things being unavoidable.

So, if you do not like the combinators (for realism or fun) simply ignore them .

Once you won't be able to ignore them, they'd be so integrated into the game that going back would "be big too big of a deal" or "make too many people angry". The problem will grow bigger if we ignore it.

Maybe a dev can confirm, that these things would never be NECESSARY.

Yes, I'm curious too.

---

Although I don't usually feed the trolls,

Well, if you want to call over 60% of all Factorio players trolls, that's up to you. You may have some degree of fan support in these local forums, but on Steam there seem to be a lot of frustrated people who share my opinion, judging by how many people found my critical review helpful. ...but it's really not a matter of popularity to me. Final Fantasy is popular and I'd still like to have it banned from game stores due to how unrealistic it is.

the obvious thing I need to say is this:
The circuit network you see now in game is a very small portion of what's to come. It's more of a test for combinators, they can't really control anything other than lamps and pumps.
You are clearly not seeing the bigger picture of how powerful it is to control and fine-tune most of the machines in your factory.
If you want a real-world comparison to combinators, take a look at Programmable logic controller: "used for automation of typically industrial processes, such as control of machinery on factory assembly lines, light fixtures, etc".

As long as the final feature ends up being as small as a PLC, I'm content with it. ...but let's be honest here: It probably won't. A real world PLC is inserted into a factory. It's basically the circuit wafers needed for its construction.


---

As for real world "Building to add two numbers together"... try looking up information on the first calculator, or the first computer. those things were room filling machines.

Those things were big because they were programmable and digital. The sensor that somehow automatically detects the number of items and ore clumps inside a chest, is way more complex than the tiny analog transistor used to calculate if it should "send a signal" or not. You could hold the first transistor in your hand.

Seriously, your phone can do more than what a computer could do 10 years ago, a phone from 10 years ago (minus the phone part) still had more power than computer from 10 years before that. Look back about 60 to 70 years, and what your calculator can do these days, would have taken a machine that filled a warehouse. 7MHz was a standard in 1988, it was only since then that the 8086 series, specifically the 80386 started with leaps of speed increases. your PC is likely 500 times faster than the equivalent from 25 years ago, and will have about 10000 times the memory.

Yet we have small programmable AI drones hovering through the air over these buildings. Can you see my problem with this?

[ShizukaMiyuki]

-snip-

Question though, why is it so hard to ignore? I rarely use it, and not bothered by it, are people really starting to degrade to the level stupidity to ignore something that doesn't affect the game-play massively? did you factor in the silent people or dare I say majority to your discussion on steam? most people avoid the steam forums, as most of the time steam forums is a cluster fuck of brain dead idiots, most of my friends have the same opinion, the reason why they ignored the steam forums in the first place.

[The Phoenixian]

To expand on Twinsen's note:

One of the most useful parts of the circuit network is that it allows you to throttle or stop production once a certain goal is met.

Even today there's good use for it, as it allows you to have limited storage for oil products without complicated setups.

That turns these clunky abominations that are the elder pressure regulators,

Factorio Pressure Bias Example.png (480.8 KiB) Viewed 9666 times

Factorio Pressure Regulator Example2.jpg (119.57 KiB) Viewed 9666 times

(and yes, I did use these and similar machines quite frequently)

Into a simple wire, tank, and pump. Even beyond the original machines it replaces, you can use either additional wired pumps or combinators to create AND and OR logic chains. If you want to, say, 1: Keep producing oil, 2: Keep a mimimum reserve of light oil and heavy oil, and 3: ensure that you have enough petroleum gas you can set up logic to send fluid to cracking or solid fuel when

1: You have too much of any one type and your tanks are getting full.
OR
2: You have a shortage of light oil or petroleum gas.
AND
3: You are NOT running low on the oil you're converting.

---

But for a future scenario, imagine if you have robotic aircraft, let's say combat bombers, which must be produced in a factory and, like in many traditional RTSes, require a dedicated landing strip.

In order to ensure that you don't run out of landing strips but also keep a full complement of aircraft, you can use a combinator setup to detect when your planes have been destroyed. Attaching a clock and detector to the landing pad so might tell you when it's been gone on a bombing run longer than is actually possible for instance.

Likewise, you might have another circuit network setup to assign the bomber to go to the next free landing pad.


Similarly, one could have automatically produced tanks, and C&C style ore harvesters with similar restrictions to ensure that you have a full compliment but do not overproduce and that they go to the regions where they are needed upon creation. (A forward mining depot so they can receive orders on which mining patch to mine and defend for instance.)

-----

As far as the size of the machines goes. I'm perfectly content with this as it stands. Yes it's "Unrealistic" but IMO Realism is mainly worthwhile in the ways it can serve gameplay. In this case a large physical size of these machines serves gameplay better than perfect realism as it creates a small puzzle aspect to placing the pieces. Yes, it's not a lot of space. But it's there and it means that you need to think about placement and optimizing for space efficiency, with the allocated space requirements increasing as logical operations become more complicated.

[Evan_]

I don't get it how can the presence of a feature he doesn't use annoy someone. Do combinators take that much screen real estate on the crafting panel?

I dislike solar energy. I don't use in my own singleplayer games, as I'm no fan of it's 'deploy and forget' nature. But it would be unthinkable for me to moan about it and ask for it's removal, even if the vast majority of the playerbase would agree with me (and they don't). But that's not even the case with circuitry.

It's fun! I could do soooo deep tinkering in the production lines with it - regardless of how few parts it can actually affect in the current version. I guess it isn't just me who'd love if it got more features. Yes, the current size of a more complicated setup is huge - especially in a world where tiny smart drones fly around doing logistics and building. That's totally not realistic. But that game isn't a simulator where such details have a similar priority as enhancing gameplay.

All and all, you are asking the devs to do extra work, that would make the majority of players do their extra work of using an extra mod, while splitting the types of multiplayer servers even further. You ask this in order to have 5 less icons in your construction panel. I'm tempted to use an adjective here.

[Player 1]

Question though, why is it so hard to ignore? I rarely use it, and not bothered by it, are people really starting to degrade to the level stupidity to ignore something that doesn't affect the game-play massively?

It's hard to ignore for two reasons:
1. Players won't know beforehand how much circuit networks are a waste of time. They'd have to study these things in every possible way, in order to conclude that.
2. However, starting with 0.13, circuit networks will slowly become impossible to ignore.

did you factor in the silent people or dare I say majority to your discussion on steam?

I can't factor in people who merely glance at my review. All I can assume, is that the ratio is the same for them too. (The ratio is now closer to 50%, now that it's become known to the forum people. It used to be something like 27 positive, 7 funny, 0 negative, and I'm being really nice to them when I factor in funny votes as negative.)

most people avoid the steam forums, as most of the time steam forums is a cluster fuck of brain dead idiots, most of my friends have the same opinion, the reason why they ignored the steam forums in the first place.

I don't consider the Steam reviews to be part of the Steam forums, and I consider Steam users to be the average game buyer, whether they're idiots or not.
...but I think it's the opposite: People who would want realism in their games, show that they're used to understanding what they experience, as opposed to idiots who will accept anything with the reason that "it probably makes sense somehow".


---

One of the most useful parts of the circuit network is that it allows you to throttle or stop production once a certain goal is met.

That's already built into the system: Things automatically stop producing things once the belts/tanks are full. I like this away of handling things.
...and if you REALLY want to stop production of something, you can just remove an inserter, or a piece of belt. I've never found myself thinking to myself "Gee, if only I had one of those 'combinators' right now, then that would solve my problem.", because I already know how to solve my problems without ad hoc solutions.

Even today there's good use for it, as it allows you to have limited storage for oil products without complicated setups.

I've never wanted to fill a storage tank only half way. ...and if I wanted to limit my storage, I could just remove a tank. There are even two ways of draining a tank before you remove it: Either cut off the in flow by removing a pipe, or use a small pump.

That turns these clunky abominations that are the elder pressure regulators, into a simple wire, tank, and pump.

...or just a power line and a small pump. You don't need pressure to be turned on or off, and if you want that, you can just remove the power wire or replace the pump. I've always assumed that the large pumps provided an infinite amount of pressure, but if I ever run out of ingoing pressure, I can just build and place another large pump.

Even beyond the original machines it replaces, you can use either additional wired pumps or combinators to create AND and OR logic chains. If you want to, say, 1: Keep producing oil, 2: Keep a mimimum reserve of light oil and heavy oil, and 3: ensure that you have enough petroleum gas you can set up logic to send fluid to cracking or solid fuel when

1: You have too much of any one type and your tanks are getting full.
OR
2: You have a shortage of light oil or petroleum gas.
AND
3: You are NOT running low on the oil you're converting.

...or you can rig it up so that it's always producing what it's capable of producing, and set up the system so that the ratio between cracking plants, oil processing plants, in flows and out flows, are just right.

Do you see now, how the circuit networks have kept you from actually solving the problems you had with production flow?

But for a future scenario, imagine if you have robotic aircraft, let's say combat bombers, which must be produced in a factory and, like in many traditional RTSes, require a dedicated landing strip.

I can only recall Starcraft, where the carrier drones landed perfectly fine on their own.

In order to ensure that you don't run out of landing strips but also keep a full complement of aircraft, you can use a combinator setup to detect when your planes have been destroyed. Attaching a clock and detector to the landing pad so might tell you when it's been gone on a bombing run longer than is actually possible for instance.

I really doubt that there will be robot bombers in Factorio, but if there were, I don't think there would be any challenge to flipping a switch to set a strip to automatically bomb the surrounding area. That's a tremendous first world problem.
Besides, we are already automating drone networks perfectly fine, without having to play dumb in order to shoehorn in circuit buildings. You can currently set a chest to automatically supply drones as they run out. Why not link it to a bomber drone in flow, if you want that?

Likewise, you might have another circuit network setup to assign the bomber to go to the next free landing pad.

Now you wish to make part of the AI programming manual as well? Do you really think people would buy such a game, if they knew that you'd end up having to program AI:s? That's not what they sign up for. They sign up for building things that automate. They sign up for managing production flow.

Similarly, one could have automatically produced tanks, and C&C style ore harvesters with similar restrictions to ensure that you have a full compliment but do not overproduce and that they go to the regions where they are needed upon creation. (A forward mining depot so they can receive orders on which mining patch to mine and defend for instance.)

If you want only thirty ores to be produced, put down a mining rig, link it to a chest, and use the red X in it to set the maximum limit to 30. ...or you can have a requester chest request 30 ores. It's really not hard to solve these problems.

Yes it's "Unrealistic" but IMO Realism is mainly worthwhile in the ways it can serve gameplay. In this case a large physical size of these machines serves gameplay better than perfect realism as it creates a small puzzle aspect to placing the pieces. Yes, it's not a lot of space. But it's there and it means that you need to think about placement and optimizing for space efficiency, with the allocated space requirements increasing as logical operations become more complicated.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're a really poor puzzle solver if you require complexes to solve things that I can solve with a minimum of components.


---

I don't get it how can the presence of a feature he doesn't use annoy someone. Do combinators take that much screen real estate on the crafting panel?

I've already answered this, but if you want further reading, here are some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bloat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_creep

I dislike solar energy. I don't use in my own singleplayer games, as I'm no fan of it's 'deploy and forget' nature.

The difference is that solar energy makes sense. Spacious solar farms do actually exist, and they exist to limit pollution, which in turn is needed to diminish the attacks on the base.
If you are opposed to "deploy and forget", does this mean that you don't like solid fuel solutions either? ...and isn't a factory an entire "deploy and forget" solution? Isn't the entire game about deploying and forgetting, as opposed to crafting things by hand?

But it would be unthinkable for me to moan about it and ask for it's removal, even if the vast majority of the playerbase would agree with me (and they don't). But that's not even the case with circuitry.

Letting local popularity decide the direction of your project, is a sign of weak management, especially if that group doesn't represent your customers. Let's say that I wanted to be able to grow marijuana in Factorio. Would I pitch that idea to a bunch of different sites devoted to marijuana, you'd find yourselves on the recieving end of popularity, and then you would be appealing to it breaking game concepts and what not. ...and I bet that the pot smokes don't have anything better to do than to hang around on forums and like weed, just like you don't, so they'll stick around on the forum for sure. Popularity doesn't equal quality.

It's fun! I could do soooo deep tinkering in the production lines with it - regardless of how few parts it can actually affect in the current version. I guess it isn't just me who'd love if it got more features.

Hey, weed is fun too. ...and you know what else sells? Sex. Porn. Naked chicks everywhere, that gets it on with factory machines. ...that you can of course ignore if you want to.

Yes, the current size of a more complicated setup is huge - especially in a world where tiny smart drones fly around doing logistics and building. That's totally not realistic.

These drones don't fly around powered by magic. They fly around powered by science fiction propulsion systems that is at least possible, given that we have drones and AI programs in the present day. Some players expect the setting to at least be coherent.

All and all, you are asking the devs to do extra work,

That's their own fault, really. They programmed all that code that they need to unprogram. They tried to sneak this feature in, by slowly introducing it, and they can slowly un-introduce it.

that would make the majority of players do their extra work of using an extra mod,

You mean the majority of the forum users, at the most. That's why you hang around here, I imagine: To exchange huge circuitry plans with eachother.
...so the rest of all the Factorio players, will probably just sigh from relief that you're gone, really.

Just like some jews still remember WWII, some of us don't want a repeat of what happened to Minecraft. Minecraft could have become a great game. It could have been the FarCry 3 it set out to be. ...but then redstone happened. ...and then Peaceful Mode happened. ...and then the next thing you know, you see Minecraft being taught to small children in schools.

while splitting the types of multiplayer servers even further. You ask this in order to have 5 less icons in your construction panel.

Like I said, and Twinsen said: Five icons is only the beginning. Read the roadmaps.

[Evan_]

Players won't know beforehand how much circuit networks are a waste of time.

Funny, I thought that's the very purpose of playing videogames. I wonder how the miniaturization you suggested in the op would fix this 'problem'. (That one is a really good idea btw, hope it will happen at a point.)

[ShizukaMiyuki]

-snip-

Question though, why is it so hard to ignore? I rarely use it, and not bothered by it, are people really starting to degrade to the level stupidity to ignore something that doesn't affect the game-play massively?

It's hard to ignore for two reasons:
1. Players won't know beforehand how much circuit networks are a waste of time. They'd have to study these things in every possible way, in order to conclude that.
2. However, starting with 0.13, circuit networks will slowly become impossible to ignore.

1) and that's the games fault? just because a player doesn't see how circuits can help them doesn't mean its useless, I like how your so ignorant about this, you can use circuits to optimize resource production and consumption, for example I want an assembler to stop once X amount of product is produced, I want a refinery to start refining oil once oil reaches x amount, a game is not responsible for a persons ignorance, and unimaginative thinking.
2)and that's a bad thing? expanding the circuit network will only help itself, people will start to see how useful this can be to them, may it be for fun or just for optimizing factory material consumption.production, the more this feature expands the more useful it will become therefor making it a viable feature to learn, just like Rail Systems.

did you factor in the silent people or dare I say majority to your discussion on steam?

I can't factor in people who merely glance at my review. All I can assume, is that the ratio is the same for them too. (The ratio is now closer to 50%, now that it's become known to the forum people. It used to be something like 27 positive, 7 funny, 0 negative, and I'm being really nice to them when I factor in funny votes as negative.)

there, the statistics of your review are not at all accurate, don't use an inaccurate statistic to combat a factor which requires at least some level of accuracy, 27 people isn't 60% of the player base of the game

most people avoid the steam forums, as most of the time steam forums is a cluster fuck of brain dead idiots, most of my friends have the same opinion, the reason why they ignored the steam forums in the first place.

I don't consider the Steam reviews to be part of the Steam forums, and I consider Steam users to be the average game buyer, whether they're idiots or not.
...but I think it's the opposite: People who would want realism in their games, show that they're used to understanding what they experience, as opposed to idiots who will accept anything with the reason that "it probably makes sense somehow".

sorry but how is Factorio realistic in anyway? A man can carry multiple rocket platform capable of launching satellites to an orbit in his pockets and go on without even eating or drinking water.... get off your high horse, and think about this feature in more depth.

[imajor]

The reasoning for this is mainly realism.

What about the player running around with oil refineries and diesel engines in its pocket?

[kovarex]

stop-liking-what-i-dont-like.jpg (73.83 KiB) Viewed 9009 times

[Phillip_Lynx]

stop-liking-what-i-dont-like.jpg

Kovarex, can you tell if combinators etc are NECESSARY for future factorys or not? I think this is the main point of player1 (and for me somehow too, since i did not get the grip of them).

[Klonan]

stop-liking-what-i-dont-like.jpg

Kovarex, can you tell if combinators etc are NECESSARY for future factorys or not? I think this is the main point of player1 (and for me somehow too, since i did not get the grip of them).

A lot of things in factorio are not necessary,
Many players don't use trains,
You don't need power armour to finish the game,
Cars are a waste of time? This isnt a driving game after all
Efficiency modules aren't used for anything? Shall we remove them
Lots of people dont use substations, should we take them out?
Solar panels aren't used by everyone, maybe we should make them a mod?

The list goes on.

There is a lot of things in the game,
And it's perfectly fine for players to ignore them entirely
But we wont start taking things out and dismantle the entire game into mod sections, just so players can pick and choose exactly what sort of game experience they would like.
That would make it more complicated and less intuitive for new and existing players to find and use functionality in the game.

So this suggestions has a very slim chance of ever being implemented.
If you would like, you can write a mod to disable the recipes and items, so that you would not have to look at the disgusting circuit network stuff.

[Phillip_Lynx]

stop-liking-what-i-dont-like.jpg

Kovarex, can you tell if combinators etc are NECESSARY for future factorys or not? I think this is the main point of player1 (and for me somehow too, since i did not get the grip of them).

A lot of things in factorio are not necessary,
Many players don't use trains,
You don't need power armour to finish the game,
Cars are a waste of time? This isnt a driving game after all
Efficiency modules aren't used for anything? Shall we remove them
Lots of people dont use substations, should we take them out?
Solar panels aren't used by everyone, maybe we should make them a mod?

The list goes on.

There is a lot of things in the game,
And it's perfectly fine for players to ignore them entirely
But we wont start taking things out and dismantle the entire game into mod sections, just so players can pick and choose exactly what sort of game experience they would like.
That would make it more complicated and less intuitive for new and existing players to find and use functionality in the game.

So this suggestions has a very slim chance of ever being implemented.
If you would like, you can write a mod to disable the recipes and items, so that you would not have to look at the disgusting circuit network stuff.

Klonan, I am aware of this. And I do not use, what I do not want or understand. (PLEASE do not look at my railworks )

AND i sureley do not ask to REMOVE anything.

The question is, will the combinators be NECESSARY. If yes, bad move, if no, great, I ignore them .

[edit]
player1 states, that combinators are a must have to open gates. If you can only open gates with combinators, it is bad. If you can open gates without combinators it is great.
[/edit]

[edit2]
In my opionon the combinators can be completly ignored now and in all updates which will come, but player1 has another view. So I only ask to verify if i can ignore the combinators all time up to 1.0
[/edit2]

[edit3]
And I will surley do not mod them out. At some time I would like to understand them and to make fancy things like the game of life or tetris by my self . But my goal ist to make wizardry 1 with factorio
[/edit3]

[Klonan]

The question is, will the combinators be NECESSARY. If yes, bad move, if no, great, I ignore them .

Nope, they will never be necessary, everything will work as it works now, but we are just adding additional functionality to the current circuit network

[Phillip_Lynx]

The question is, will the combinators be NECESSARY. If yes, bad move, if no, great, I ignore them .

Nope, they will never be necessary, everything will work as it works now, but we are just adding additional functionality to the current circuit network

THANKS

I hope this will clear this up .

[MalcolmCooks]

I understand your point, but I think there are explanations for why the tech in Factorio is so strange.
First, there is no sillicon processing in game. miniturised electronics work only through semicondictors, which appear to be non-existant in factorio*. I imagine that the circuitry in Factorio is actually very macro-scale, such asthis eletromechanical lift controller. You'll be quite amazed at the capability of purely mechanical systems as well, such as old mechanical calculators (several examples can be found on youtube channels like numberphile and standupmaths), and it's even possible to build binary calculators out of dominoes.
Anyway the tech in Factorio is very ad-hoc, as it needs to be if you are to bootstrap yourself up to automated industry from hand tools in a very short time. Imagine that the basic green circuit boards are something like the lift controller linked above: huge slabs of macro-scale circutry, and the size of more advanced devices like combinators makes sense.

*an argument can be made that the plastic bars in factorio are semiconductive, because of their use in advanced circuits and processing units, though as far as I know all semiconductors we use are sillicon or germanium based, not carbon. Is it even possible to create carbon semiconductors? Anyhow, sillicon is extracted from rocks, so if it were in Factorio, I would expect it to be a stone-based resource.