Yes it definitely does. Ever tried organizing 40 belts of material? It is much more difficult than organizing 10 belts of material. The difficulty of balancing and ensuring maximum flow through the belt system increases with the number of belts. So if you need fewer belts, it only makes sense that ...

You guys are still trying to match belt and bot throughput. That's never going to work if belts don't have unique advantages. Adding stacked belts just increases throughput. It does not make belts easier to deploy or give any advantages that bots don't have. Choices are made primarily in two ways, s...

2. I think it should be obvious that logistics bots are an evolution past belts. to me, they should be better overall. And there is the reason why the developers think bots are unfun. If you introduce a player to a game mechanic, then turn around and say that mechanic is entirely obsoleted by a mec...

- Nerf bots through simple stat changes to make belts seem better. - Change bot mechanics to increase overall difficulty. - Buff belts to increase competition. Regarding #2, add a minimum distance between roboports. Increase number of charging ports to compensate, as it's abysmal to begin with. Add...

No, it isn't. The whole point is resource management... Factorio is a resource management game. Saying resource costs doesn't matter is saying the whole point of the game doesn't matter. Tell me how Factorio isn't a resource management game... The short description on Steam says Factorio is a game ...

I really don't understand how the game is pushing you to use bots when you don't want to. The push felt by some is because there is possibility offered by the game that v0.15.40 belts cannot reach. This alone wouldn't be an issue, as the entire reason for v0.16 is to make sure the belts can reach s...

Connectable assembler A late-game, one-recipe assembler that attaches to and outputs to other connectable assemblers, such that its output is automatically transferred to directly adjacent connectable assemblers. Why is this different from a faster inserter? Late game, especially with the new belt-...

Yes, it's OP, and with it, endgame content is less of a challenge. But that's normal : it's the endgame content. Logibots and logistic network are endgame content. If they were less powerful than the belts or on par with the belts, it would be unfair. Since bots are a late game item, they should to...

I see my point hasn't been understood yet. Application of game theory is fundamental to both design and use of systems. There is nothing that cannot be viewed in terms of game theory, as math is the fundamental language of the universe. At the point at which one can effectively evaluate the state of...

I'm deeply convinced perfectly balancing classes in a game is impossible, unless they are basically identical. Please see the current state of Diablo 3. Factorio, on the opposite, is not such a game. You don't have to balance that finely belts and bots (or whatever vs whatever) so they are perfectl...

Part of understanding which side of a debate is more or less correct is understanding both sides. Every single pro-bot player uses the same arguments. Quantity of bots per roboport, research level, power usage, initial investment, ups, fun. I don't see a single such person conceding a single point. ...

There's at least one thing that we can do to limit bots without adding entities, a metric ton of programming (collision), changing other entities, or adding useless wait times. Add a hard minimum distance between roboports. Most new players aren't going to dump two roboports directly next to each ot...

This is comparing apples and oranges. Factorio is a single player creative problem solving game in which one constructs factories. It's not a competitive game. Balance is important as I have already said, but it is less so than a competitive game. In Factorio choices need to be valid at some point,...

Factorio is not a competitive game, but a creative and problem solving one which also greatly benefits from a sense of discovery and progression. As such, balance considerations do play a small part in Factorio, but are far less significant than in other games, such as counter-strike where players ...