Maintenance

[techno_letsgo]

As you know, your machines at the factory run non stop with no problems. They will do so for days, months, even years! But let's change that.

Ever so often, you need to maintain your machines. This will also give a new use to lubricant! Anyway, all things will have a new healthbar, for maintenance. For every 5 uses (changes per machine) The machine loses one Maintenance point. For early Maintaining tools, the player will use water. Water Irl is terrible for doing the job, so ingame doing so will make the machine lose some health, which the player can easily fix. Next will be just plain crude oil, which still does the job, just less efficient then the final way, lubricant.

This also coincides with my Burnout idea: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 80&t=14534
How? When you don't maintain a machine it will burnout.

[ssilk]

What does this idea add to the game-play? I mean: It's just making things more complex, no new game-element (you already need to repair things).

[bobucles]

This really sounds more like a challenge mode. Challenge modes are good! They force a different style of thinking.

If factories decay from regular use, this means you need a strong constructor network to repair stuff on a regular basis. Anything beyond a tiny base would be infeasible to maintain by hand.

If factories decay from environmental damage, this means you need to build in safer areas or reduce pollution. Productivity modules would be a serious problem maker if it forces you to use repair packs non stop!

[Tinyboss]

It seems like it would make the early phase of the game more tedious while changing almost nothing about the late game, where early changes to late when your whole factory has roboport coverage.

I wouldn't necessarily be against it if it was designed so that we could mitigate the problems with clever designs, but if it's just a durability bar on assemblers, I don't think it adds much of interest to the game.

[codewarrior]

I think there's some merit to the idea, if you frame it as a positive instead of a negative: Instead of having machines wear out, allow them to have a small bonus for being properly lubricated.

The early game is unchanged. Upon the discovery of Oil Processing, a "Lubricant Pack" tool is unlocked, made from Lubricant. Applying this tool to a building will increase its speed (or productivity, power-efficiency, etc) by a small amount, say 5-10%. This should be a straight bonus, rather than a trade-off like the blue and purple modules. The building will then have a "Lubrication" bar that decreases as it uses up the tool.

By adjusting the amount of Lubricant required to make the tool, you can entice players toward the choice of producing more heavy oil using basic Oil Refining instead of Advanced. This also offers another use for Lubricant, which is essentially only used in large amounts on the blue transport belts.

If the Lubricant Packs can be applied to buildings using Inserters, you then have the option of using requester chests to only lubricate some of the buildings, rather than just allowing the 'bots to lubricate everything willy-nilly.

[lancar]

I think there's some merit to the idea, if you frame it as a positive instead of a negative: Instead of having machines wear out, allow them to have a small bonus for being properly lubricated.

The early game is unchanged. Upon the discovery of Oil Processing, a "Lubricant Pack" tool is unlocked, made from Lubricant. Applying this tool to a building will increase its speed (or productivity, power-efficiency, etc) by a small amount, say 5-10%. This should be a straight bonus, rather than a trade-off like the blue and purple modules. The building will then have a "Lubrication" bar that decreases as it uses up the tool.

By adjusting the amount of Lubricant required to make the tool, you can entice players toward the choice of producing more heavy oil using basic Oil Refining instead of Advanced. This also offers another use for Lubricant, which is essentially only used in large amounts on the blue transport belts.

I like this line of thinking. Have the machine get a small bonus due to less power lost due to friction in the bearings.
You'll need to be able to specify which machines can receive these packs from the logistics network, though. Otherwise you'll run out of the stuff way too fast.

Either that, or have certain machine speeds be gated by lubricant. Such as: you cannot boost the machine over +50% speed without applying lubricant packs as well.
This would encourage you to expand your production into more assemblers to get a higher output, rather than moduling everything, It'd still be possible to get that tier3 assembler going at 300% speed, but it would cost you more than just free* energy.

*solar panel power

[ssilk]

I like this idea and should be implemented so:

- New module: Lubricant-module.
- If you insert it into a device it will raise speed and efficiency, but it takes lubricant for doing that. It works basically like the productivity module, but in reverse.

[Tinyboss]

I like this idea and should be implemented so:

- New module: Lubricant-module.
- If you insert it into a device it will raise speed and efficiency, but it takes lubricant for doing that. It works basically like the productivity module, but in reverse.

So we would pipe the lubricant into the assembler? Would we get an extra pipe input for recipes that already require materials via pipe?

Or does the module require lubricant to make, and get consumed gradually?

[ssilk]

No, I mean the module uses the lub. But so small amount, that an extra pipe for it would be stupid. All it takes is a barrel of it, which can be placed into the device, into the module. It's not part of the recipe. It extends the module slots by 1 (for the lubricant only).

I mean this works not well before we have some ability to place modules in devices by the bots. The same way lubricant should be placed.

Hehe. And when the lubricant goes out and the module is not removed, well, THEN the device might crash (constantly decreases health).

[bobucles]

Factorio seems to follow the ethos of "things just work", and if things are set up badly, they just "don't work as well". Following that line, a bonus "lubricant" module would be functional as long as the device keeps getting lube. When it runs out, the benefits of the module are put on hold. Note that I don't say "go away", because a productivity module has partial production that would need to be put on hold.

Using more than a dozen modules like this can put a serious dent in your lubricant supplies! A player can have hundreds of working smelters and assemblers, but it would be unfeasible to get enough lubricant for every single one of them. A player can't even focus on full lubricant production because oil can not be reverse cracked and basic refining gives the most possible. The kind of bonuses that a lubricant module gives would have to be pretty special and likely restricted to small parts of a factory.

[safan]

I would prefer the maintenance only for the solar panels. Since they are now drop and forget and way too overpowered. If you need to keep them fine by cleaning them every few days, you have some disanvantages to them. You need to produce the cleaning material and they need to be covered by roboports.

[lancar]

I would prefer the maintenance only for the solar panels. Since they are now drop and forget and way too overpowered. If you need to keep them fine by cleaning them every few days, you have some disanvantages to them. You need to produce the cleaning material and they need to be covered by roboports.

Again, something that would tie this well into Weather Effects.
Dust storms or polluted rain ruining your solar panel input, making them require maintenance to clean up or suffer reduced energy production.