Idea: Factories

[ssilk]

This is the result of some other ideas:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=5&t=986 - about how a wagon can be used as wide chest
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=985 - about autobuilding
Then this was great inspiration:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=27&t=992 - a factory line
For me also a good inspiration was the combinator in Reason. http://www.propellerheads.se/products/r ... combinator
Their concept shows clearly, that a "device of devices" has more potentiality, than just a heap of devices without differentiating what is inside and what outside.
And then of course the ideas of how factorio could be made faster in the suggestions-board.

This is just a sort of idea, a vision and I want to know, if there are things I forgot.

So this is the idea: A factory is a new item, which is 5x5 fields big. It has five input doors on the left and five output doors on the right (can be rotated of course, but I keep this orientation for explanation). You can connect a belt or a pipe here. No inserters are needed for input/output material.
When you open the factory, the inside is shown, the factory-hall. The hall is bigger than the outside, because you can built much more dense than outside of the hall (no better idea yet)... I found, that 20x20 should be enough to create the most important factorio assembly-lines. I think for making huge amounts of blue potion you may need 2 or 3? But who cares?

You can built inside the factory exactly as outside with some exceptions:
- no poles needed. Everything in the factory is connected to the energy-conversion module.
- Also no light is needed; if powered there are lights on the roof.
- no wiring needed. Inside the factory everything is connected to multichannel-wires.
- the provider, requester and storage chests aren't working like outside (no logistic robots inside the hall)
- solar cells won't work here (or only with very low output)
- radar either
- no weapons (when the factory is destroyed, everything inside is also destroyed).
- no items can lay on the ground, they will be cleaned up (destroyed or put into a special place in the factory)

Inside the five input-doors are visible on the left and the five outputs on the right (you see if it is a belt or pipe and which kind of item is already laying here). You also see the default electricity converter module (see down for modules). Everything else is empty in this factory. Your job is now to create machines inside the factory. In general this means, that you connect the input and the output in some more ore less intelligent way and assemble things on the way. There are some ways to built:
1. Just build it like everything else.
2. Use autobuilding, just say where everything should be, let the logistic-robots deliver the real machines (they deliver it into a special place in the factory and from there it is put on the right place, perhaps with a crane on the roof?).
3. load an existing "blueprint". Now you will see what it should look like (in transparent) and you can fill it with real machines yourself. There is maybe a list of all the stuff, needed to built the machines in the factory and a button "built all" and then it is built and while that you can begin to place the items.
4. like 3, but you can put the needed stuff into the special place in the factory and the factory places the rest itself.
5. like 3, but let the logistic robots fill it with real machines like in 2.

Maybe there are more ways... they aren't important! It is now important, that you can built everything like normal inside the factory (see exceptions above) and that you have something like blueprints. Because then you can create assembly lines, iron melting, energy production, capacitor arrays, research labs within seconds instead of minutes and this is needed.
Modules: For things which produces much steam/smoke it is eventually an idea, that you need a chimney-module. Instead of electricity you can have a backup-power module which can work with coal. Or you can turn the whole factory off to spare energy for more important things. If you want to measure the inside stored things or want to use wiring-data from the outside you need some wiring-modules, which converts the data between the networks. Much more ideas here...

Here the pros of this idea:
- it brings factorio extremly forward into a direction, where you can think over strategies over exploring and not over optimizing material-flow. But the optimization-way keeps open. I really mean it is much more open than before, because it is much more difficult to create a factory (not assembly line) which works under all circumstances good and doesn't store too much or too less itself.
- It speeds up the gameplay; the middle phase of the game needs much more speed and it is easy to research factories, then built the first factory and load a blueprint and "fill out" the needed items. With more research it speeds up much more.
- This makes it for new players also much more playable, because they don't need to get too deep into all details. And if, they can look how a blueprinted factory works in detail.
- Logistic robots will become have more sense, because you can use them for building.
- A much cleaner flow of material, a much more dense way of building.
- the factory supports the most used map-layouts I saw: belts of iron- and copper-plates in one direction for example. Now you just built a factory over the two belts and you can handle the complicated stuff inside or load a blueprint, which does it for you..
- When closed, the factory needs not much drawing (only for steam? BTW: I think you can write on the roof to see, what it produces inside). So, when zoomed out, the game should speed up. When opened, only this factory must be drawed. So this should scale much more than now.
- it is downward-complatible with the current game.
- I think it doesn't change the gameplay, it keeps the most interesting parts as they are and when they begin to get boring you can choose the abstraction or keep as before or find some very new way.
- it brings the "factories" into the game. I mean, its name is factorio and there are no factories?
- 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. (Hm. factories in factories?)
- create all simple items in a factory, so that the logistic robots can catch it for building.
- Blueprints can be shared much easier than whole (EDIT: 'll get this in sometimes) maps. I like the blueprint-mod but I think working with something like blueprints is much easier with some fixed frame or defined inputs- and outputs like such a factory.

Some cons:
- It is complicated. I know that it sounds like "everything is already here", but in reality it will be complicated to program this.
- the players will maybe find ways to corrupt the sense of the gameplay with it.
- maybe the searching and loading of the right blueprint can get complicated. I don't have a better idea than standardizing the "doors" saying door 1 is always for iron-plates, door 2 for copper-belts etc. The same standardization exists in the music: Stereo is always a left and a right channel. Another solution is maybe a router-module which can "route" an external door to the right internal door.

So, what do you all think?

[MF-]

Interesting. It reminds me a lot of http://www.spacechemthegame.com/ .

You would have factory components in storage chests and factories would request them when needed. I think that's a brilliant idea.
Those factories then could then export their state and let another factory replicate this one. Also brilliant (and also found in spacechem)

I am not sure that merging all circuit network into one is a good idea.
I think there still should be some tiny wiring poles for circuit networks, perhaps with only one insulator thingy. Just a "wiring stand" or something. (If anything, it wiring a good visual aid + doesn't introduce new mechanisms)

I am worried about gameplay, though. I guess I would end up with an empty world with 2-3 factories (Oh well, I guess that's OK. Noone forces me to used them. My world would be deserted and "worthless outer shell" just as in spacechem) The benefits for giant setups (replication) seem to clearly outweight my potential issue.
I guess they should be slightly less efficient to make sure that players that don't need them won't build them.

Perhaps they could vary by the internal space size (the bigger would consume more power, because the resources need to be more compressed / downsized.

One more important rule: no factories inside factories (or perhaps again somehow balanced by the "downsize/compression field generator power)

[Arakasi]

Perhaps they could vary by the internal space size (the bigger would consume more power, because the resources need to be more compressed / downsized.

From my experience there is usually rule, that the bigger consumes more power, the smaller consume less.

Newer version of CPUs with smaller size of transistors and the entire chip has smaller power consumption.

But definitely there should be some kind of balance, for example extremely expensive building such factory or special components inside.

Idea is fine but I expect it as very high tech feature where only the richest guys can afford it.

[MF-]

Sure, more compressed processors consume less power, because they operate with fewer electrons.
But here you can't reduce the electron count. Well.. unless you want to produce scaled-down products ...


@ssilk
I also think, that this would also be a good idea if there were >10x more recipes than now, which would simply allow you to "zoom out" when you reach this tier and start producing even more complex items.
Sounds like too much of creative work creating the items, recipes and recipe names, though.
I think I would actually like that.

[ssilk]

I am not sure that merging all circuit network into one is a good idea.
I think there still should be some tiny wiring poles for circuit networks, perhaps with only one insulator thingy. Just a "wiring stand" or something. (If anything, it wiring a good visual aid + doesn't introduce new mechanisms)

I thought, a factory has its own network. Like in reality, the factory isn't directly coupled to the "Internet", it needs a device for that. And the internal network is multichannel, which means you can add a module into a chest that routes all insides to channel A and an inserter has a logic module, connected to channel A and works, if ... Foobar. I tried to avoid cables inside the factory, cause it needs poles. I like the poles, I like the wires, but as mentioned sometimes, I think they need too much time, when making bigger structures. And in reality you won't find them in high density areas, cause of this.

I am worried about gameplay, though. I guess I would end up with an empty world with 2-3 factories (Oh well, I guess that's OK. Noone forces me to used them. My world would be deserted and "worthless outer shell" just as in spacechem) The benefits for giant setups (replication) seem to clearly outweight my potential issue.
I guess they should be slightly less efficient to make sure that players that don't need them won't build them.

Well, the first 1/2 to 2 hours of gameplay won't change. I think factories should be researched (in sandbox. This "hangling" from the bottom to the top is not nearly outbit. I think the players will find ways to speed it up a lot.) and it should take some resources. But I think it should be reachable with red and green potion only, the target is speed and in the first phase it means increasing production to it's limits. After researching factories, the target changes slighly. Now the resources will go out, you need to expand, search new resources, you can rebuilt the hole factory much faster, the hole new technology you can research with blue-potion makes much more sense but will cost so much resources... the game changes from pure fight against the nature to a exploration game (exploring surroundings and technology ... and the final game target). You don't need to care so much about optimizing, you get time to run around. Blue potion production line is built within some minutes instead of an hour (I need such long for it).

To the efficiecy: The factory needs of course energy, the building itself needs power plus all the stuff inside, plus extra modules. Plus it is slightly slower because it takes more time to drive the resources to the assemblies, because the inside space is bigger, than the outside. I calculated this and it is indeed so, that the delivery of the first item needs about 1-2 secs more. After the first delivery they are the same speed. If this is enough? Dunno, if not we can add a "door-time", entry and exit of items will cost some time. I won't like to slow down the assembling, because why should an assembly work slower in a factory? I want the player to create interesting factories that he can reuse and share with others, it doesn't make sense to penalize them with slower production, so that everyone can say "Oh, yes, interesting factory, but this line of assemblies is much faster". That won't work.

Perhaps they could vary by the internal space size (the bigger would consume more power, because the resources need to be more compressed / downsized.

I played around with some thoughts about size. I found the size of 20x20 very useful for nearly everything. I wont make it much bigger nor much smaller. The idea behind this is, that the players can compete in building the most efficient factory. See https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... p?f=8&t=98
We can talk about the number of doors. I think five is more than enough. I found 2 to less and think 3 is the minimum. 5 is just the size of the factory and this enables it to put it just over a belt.

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.

One more important rule: no factories inside factories (or perhaps again somehow balanced by the "downsize/compression field generator power)

Hehe, yes, that will cause only problems. See the Combinator in Reason: The users requested it many times that it should be possible to combine Combinators, even if in discussions it was clearly showed, that this will lead to very uncool side-effects. But it's fun to think about... maybe a super-factory, which can contain 4 factories in a line? And it's a philosophical question: isn't the universe working like this? Machines of machines of machines recursively creating themselves? I like this idea, I would let this open and let the player decide and I guarantee that they will play with this idea.

I also think, that this would also be a good idea if there were >10x more recipes than now, which would simply allow you to "zoom out" when you reach this tier and start producing even more complex items. Sounds like too much of creative work creating the items, recipes and recipe names, though.

Hm. Maybe after researching factories "blueprints" must be researched and then you need to research "standard layouts" for some kind of the always needed stuff to learn some kind of "standard-assignment of the input- and output-doors". Then you can research "own layouts" and you can load and store every layout you want. The game can bring a big library of working layouts and you can download new libraries. The Combinator in Reason works like this and it is a really great concept.

But you're right: When you reach this level, a hole bunch of very complicated stuff could be opened, oil-production-lines, the hole theme of energy-production, communications, scanning maps, more versatile robots and such stuff. Perhaps "Running factories", to bring them more near to the place, where it is needed (Rails and such stuff).

Hm. This brings me to the question, what happens, if I pack the factory down in my inventory. I would prefer that it remains as a special item with all including machines. Or maybe a special item must be used to transport it? A "transport-module", flies factories through the air like in Starcraft?

@Arakasi:
I won't have factories from beginning, but also won't have them at the end of the game. I think they should be introduced after about 1 hour of sandbox-game when you managed to produce enough red and green potions to research this. For the player I think this is the most important first target in the game. And - to come back to one of my arguments - what is Factorio without factories? I mean the game is really astonishing from beginning; think to the wow-effect for new players, when they first achieved to build the first factory and begin to divine that this is only the first stage of development.


Some more ideas:
- The "things getting old" idea will make more sense. Inside of a factory you can replace everything in time.
- An assembly-module can change the program of assemblies in time. So you can have something like a program: "produce 10 of this, then 4 of that and then 1 of this" and the results of the steps are stored internally in a chest or so.

[MF-]

Input belt sides can also split up into individual belts, fixing up the sizes..
(one belt enters a door outside, three belts are provided inside (left, right and "middle" lane - for the sake of easy way of merging them back to one)
Or perhaps the items could actually be bigger in the factories, taking whole belts?

[ssilk]

Splitting: With a routing-module... yes... cool idea.
Bigger items: Sounds logical but this will make the inside and outside game completely different and I'm not so sure, that this is a good idea.

[tonberrytoby]

I don't like this, because it screws up the scale of the game even more.

The factory itself is much too small in a normal game. At least how I am playing.

When I get a factory of size 1, then I have the following areas roughly:
1 part Factory.
1 part Smelting.
1 to 2 parts mine.
4 parts power generation.
2 parts railway station.

The factory itself should be much much larger to give the game a realistic sense of scale. Further miniaturizing it will make for some very stupid looking bases.

[MF-]

Well.. he hasn't excluded furnaces, as long as the factory module has a chimney.

[tonberrytoby]

Well.. he hasn't excluded furnaces, as long as the factory module has a chimney.

I was thinking more of a railway station building. Tracks are just so enormously large in the game.

[MF-]

Well.. he hasn't excluded furnaces, as long as the factory module has a chimney.

I was thinking more of a railway station building. Tracks are just so enormously large in the game.

You probably mean "assembling machines so small compared to the rest" (even those trains are pretty small compared to the characters)
Look up a nearby train around you and stand next to it. Compare to a screenshot from factorio..

[tonberrytoby]

Well.. he hasn't excluded furnaces, as long as the factory module has a chimney.

I was thinking more of a railway station building. Tracks are just so enormously large in the game.

You probably mean "assembling machines so small compared to the rest" (even those trains are pretty small compared to the characters)
Look up a nearby train around you and stand next to it. Compare to a screenshot from factorio..

For large overland trains that pull 30 wagons, yes. There the character is to scale to the engine and to nothing else.
For the kind of train that would be realistically used by someone like the character, they could be much smaller:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/d ... E-Loks.jpg

The Problem starts if you look at a actual steel mill, factory,coal power plant or a mine. There you can see that the railways should be much smaller. This is especially obvious if you use the new characterless mode.

And even if the size was realistic from a gameplay perspective it is even worse.
Trains are much more annoying to set up then everything else in the game. Primarily due to their massive size.

Actually, has anybody ever posted a video or screenshot of someone using a train to pull resources with an expandable setup? Or does nobody actually use trains?

[MF-]

I definitely would, if I could
o run them on demand, triggering their departure using circuit network..
o run them on (solar) electricity.

[ficolas]

I think that trains need to be modified a bit, there is a problem with trains and games, irl traims are to transport masive amounts of people/resources in looong distances, but in factorio, factories are like from a city, to a near city, no to a different country.

[ssilk]

I recommend for more discussion over size and scale this thread: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=1018

And to get the curve: The size of a factory is currently 5x5 because i thougt it must be bigger than an assembly. I think up to 8x8 it is also ok. But the inside shouldn't be much bigger or smaller.

EDIT: I misswrote "should", I really meant "shouldn't" - the size of about 20x20 seems very ok for me now. Of course I can think about a bigger inside, if the size of the items get also bigger.

[nours77]

salut

Could you added drone wood cutter, than those who book chest chest but those of the tree cutting and reduced the timber in a safe or a worm factory that needs ironing. It would be useful to automated production of electric power pole.

[ssilk]

Could you added drone wood cutter, than those who book chest chest but those of the tree cutting and reduced the timber in a safe or a worm factory that needs ironing. It would be useful to automated production of electric power pole.

Some discussions about robots (aka drones) have been made. Here for example https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=964

[MF-]

I didn't understand the question. I have, for example, no idea what to expect from "book chest chest"

[ssilk]

I mean he/she wants robots, and distinct between those, which "book" (put the stuff into a chest) and those which cut. With "worm factory" I mean a "warm factory" aka furnace is meant.

[MF-]

Oh, how did you ever guess that? (And why do you write "I meant" ?)