I found it just easier to mine more iron/copper and let the belts fill up rather than fiddle with the wires. I didn't experiment with them enough though.

In my biggest game I had 12 factories all pumping out blue research as fast as they could, all without wire signals.

If it needed to be powered and cost more than 3 filters and a belt, then it would be interesting. I like the idea of it taking up less space and working faster, but yeah, it's not really needed at the moment. Half the fun of this game is working out how to use what we have to be most efficient. Too ...

This idea sounds awesome. I really want something to build besides research factories, and a colony would make it awesome. Farms could deplete the fields and colonist domes could take heaps of resources (more than even blue research). And you would have to expand the farms just to keep up with more ...