V453000 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 3:37 pm
The original assumption that "there is no way to share it with a mall" is utterly exaggerated.
So, my diatribe on games development and realigning the “push to 1.0” was meant to point this out...but I probably didn’t do a great job of it.
As another said in previous pages, if I look back on my first couple of factories I didn’t build with a separate “goods” array (sorry, I dislike the term “mall”) and science areas.
In fact, most of what I did was either leech off production lines into chests (I actually still do this in early- to mid-game for a few things...but I use circuit conditions to be a bit fancier). I very much dislike hand-crafting things I know I’ll need moderate quantities of. Even then, my standard “rails” setup is a single blue assembler, set to a stack-limited chest. Generally with the top row available. So I think that gives me 2000, but I don’t exactly recall. What I do recall is thinking several times (even now) that those rails fill up that chest surprisingly quickly.
I feel like most new players likely still do that. There is a
huge learning curve to Factorio (another thing I tried to point out). My current play style is nowhere near my first few factories. In fact, I realized I only launched a rocket in perhaps 2 of my first 5 or so factories. I started over a few times when I felt like I could do things a whole lot better.
I feel like new players are likely to not understand the factory demands for science. A likely consequence is that they don’t have a perfect ratio science setup, nor the sustainable raw production to support one.
This means science is going either be very slow (resource starved) or unbalanced (way too much iron, not enough copper). Either way, this leads two natural thoughts: scoop up a bunch of stuff on the line, or leech stuff you need into chests. I think the first time one would do this is for belts and inserters.
So I think it is a
very natural thought to get to this science that needs a metric crap-ton of rails and do exactly what the devs assume: either leech rails from science (if it is uneven) or build a separate area for rails.
I think a “mall” is a pretty advanced realization.
Even a lot of “starter bases” use a fairly compact design with built-in “buffer stations”. A normal, pretty easy first shot at this is to just stick a buffer chest between the output “inserter” and the belt. Extra points if one realizes they can stick a green/red wire on the inserter between the chest and belt and set it to only enable when rails > 400.
I don’t think the typical new/casual player is going to be too upset by this realization. Oh well, my science will stall for a minute while it refills my rails now I want to try to build a train to that patch of ore clear up there. (And they are going to spend a lot of time getting that first (or tenth) rail line functional.)
An argument here would be that the chest might not fill properly after you take a bunch of rails out, if you don’t have a circuit condition. This is true...but then you just temporarily turn (or remove) the inserter if you have immediate need of more rails. (This cleanly transitions into “well this is a pain in the butt, there has to be a way to automate this..,then one hopefully finds the circuit network.)
The other, pretty easy first shot is to know you can “vacuum” up stuff on a belt. I think it is pretty easy to build an extra long belt which contains a buffered amount of a product you might eventually want. The game teaches you this pretty early when you run a bunch of iron out of a smelter. I’m guessing a lot of newer players vacuum up metal plates, gears, pipes, or circuits early on.
I certainly don’t think it is unlikely to be able to get an early, low-experience version of this science up that still allows you to grab a bunch of rails when you need them.
I think it takes quite a bit of Factorio experience to realize a full-throttle science setup. And before that, science is unsteady enough to easily have a leechable buildup of various goods.