Factorio Forums

AmpsterMan wrote: Therefore, as it stands, the game gives you a grave period where you can build stuff in your pocket. But eventually rewards you for automating stuff and having shipped you via robots.

This is very true. And about the post about this being a convenience feature, that is also very true. I dont think that an extra 50% crafting speed will make a new player want to craft all of their logistics robots in their pocket, but saves a lot of waiting around when waiting for underground pipes to be made.

Something else to point out- I was doing a playthough with just the crafting speed research mod, and reilised something: about at the point in the tech tree that you unlock red belts, the crafting speed upgrades that are researched makes the yellow belts able to be crafted (almost) as fast as you place them down. effectively, red belts only took a little longer then the yellow ones do in vanilla. At that point, it made more sense to just use the red belts, and (effectively) the extra crafting speed helped you up the tech tree.

TuckJohn wrote: but saves a lot of waiting around when waiting for underground pipes to be made.

Which is a signal that you should automate those, rather than waiting around. Those are certainly a staple that I normally automate as soon as I can afford to.

Frankly, the only things which don't justify automation are on-off items, such as power armor, tanks, and cars. I wouldn't even include all the possible modules for power armor, since Mk 2 shields and batteries require enough sub-assemblies that automation makes sense.

For things that should only really be made once, a better solution isn't to boost the speed of hand-crafting across the board, it's to make the time for those things negligible on an individual basis. Which for the most part is already true.

Gus_Smedstad wrote:

TuckJohn wrote: but saves a lot of waiting around when waiting for underground pipes to be made.

Which is a signal that you should automate those, rather than waiting around. Those are certainly a staple that I normally automate as soon as I can afford to.

And I should always carry around an entire stack of underground pipes and pipes for the case that I need them? I dont think so. I tend to like the extra inventory space.

TuckJohn wrote:

Gus_Smedstad wrote:

TuckJohn wrote: but saves a lot of waiting around when waiting for underground pipes to be made.

Which is a signal that you should automate those, rather than waiting around. Those are certainly a staple that I normally automate as soon as I can afford to.

And I should always carry around an entire stack of underground pipes and pipes for the case that I need them? I dont think so. I tend to like the extra inventory space.

I don't find the inventory space the problem so much as the logistic request space myself.

That said, It takes up one slot out of, what, 60?

TuckJohn wrote:

Gus_Smedstad wrote:

TuckJohn wrote: but saves a lot of waiting around when waiting for underground pipes to be made.

Which is a signal that you should automate those, rather than waiting around. Those are certainly a staple that I normally automate as soon as I can afford to.

And I should always carry around an entire stack of underground pipes and pipes for the case that I need them? I dont think so. I tend to like the extra inventory space.

how about a stack of normal pipes. Most of the crafting time is in creating those.

TuckJohn wrote:And I should always carry around an entire stack of underground pipes and pipes for the case that I need them? I dont think so.

So that's the tradeoff you've decided to make. Instead of giving up one inventory slot for pipe, you choose to wait around while hand-crafting them. Your choice, but something you could easily avoid if you wanted to. Giving up one inventory slot is trivial, even if you think it's a horrendous burden.

I do tend to keep only the pipes rather than the pipe-to-ground, since the crafting time from pipe to pipe-to-ground is very short. Now and then that means I have a large demand for pipes as I make a long pipeline with repeated pipe-to-ground pairs, but that's not a huge burden because pipe manufacturing is automated and bots start bringing more pipe to me as soon as I start crafting.

Gus_Smedstad wrote:

TuckJohn wrote:And I should always carry around an entire stack of underground pipes and pipes for the case that I need them? I dont think so.

So that's the tradeoff you've decided to make. Instead of giving up one inventory slot for pipe, you choose to wait around while hand-crafting them. Your choice, but something you could easily avoid if you wanted to. Giving up one inventory slot is trivial, even if you think it's a horrendous burden.

I do tend to keep only the pipes rather than the pipe-to-ground, since the crafting time from pipe to pipe-to-ground is very short. Now and then that means I have a large demand for pipes as I make a long pipeline with repeated pipe-to-ground pairs, but that's not a huge burden because pipe manufacturing is automated and bots start bringing more pipe to me as soon as I start crafting.

but the clutter....
I kindof see your point though. I am just arguing from the perspective that If I carried 1 of every item I would not have any room for raw materials.

If you look at the intermediate products you're likely to use routinely, that's Iron plates, copper plates, steel bars, gears, electronic circuits, advanced circuits, and pipes. That's 7 items. Most other intermediate products are things that craft quickly and disappear (iron sticks, wood planks), you'll need rarely (stone bricks, engines, processors) or which you'll use in automation (plastics, sulfur).

EDIT: it's worth noting that the "use rarely" stuff also frequently benefits from or demands automation. The examples I gave (bricks, engines, processors) are all things you can't craft by hand. It's just that you don't carry it around all the time, you either grab it from a chest when you need it (early game) or ask robots to bring it to you (later game).

I think hand crafting is a bit against the spirit of the game, but still, why not. Even as much as +400% speed isn't going to make a difference to the total crafting power of a base. At most you'd save the trouble of placing a few single assemblies for rarely used products, but this isn't actually an interesting challenge at all once you have logistics bots.

I do want more logistics slots to be able to request building items, useful intermediaries, and my various combat supplies.

Gus_Smedstad wrote:If you look at the intermediate products you're likely to use routinely, that's Iron plates, copper plates, steel bars, gears, electronic circuits, advanced circuits, and pipes. That's 7 items. Most other intermediate products are things that craft quickly and disappear (iron sticks, wood planks), you'll need rarely (stone bricks, engines, processors) or which you'll use in automation (plastics, sulfur).

EDIT: it's worth noting that the "use rarely" stuff also frequently benefits from or demands automation. The examples I gave (bricks, engines, processors) are all things you can't craft by hand. It's just that you don't carry it around all the time, you either grab it from a chest when you need it (early game) or ask robots to bring it to you (later game).

While thats true, of the 60 slots, I'd probably reserve 5-10 for copper/iron. Another 2/3 for steel. 3 EC, 1 AC. Perhaps 4 for transport belt. 1 for Underground and 1 for splitters for whatever tier I'm working on.
And all the other things I want to carry around. 4 types of inserters. Pocket bots. Previous tiers of Belt/Splitter that I've replaced. Thats half of the space taken. And if I craft something with excess intermediates (copper cable/Iron sticks etc) that adds up too. Never mind spare ammo, turrets, power poles and tonnes of other items that fill up my inventory.
Not including assembly machines or anything else I'm working on.

The point I'm getting at, I'd rather have an inventory half full of raw resources with the potential to be anything I need without massive delays, rather than carry around a stack of Pipes for the off chance I'm going to be working with water/Oil products.
My example is based on the idea that I'm mid to late game and I'm at an oil outpost and am 3-5 underground pipe short. I don't want to have to run back to where I may or may not have automated it, when crafting would take the same time but I'm standing around being bored.

I'm +1 for researchable increase to crafting speed. Not over the top, start early for an easy sense of achievement (10-25%?) with later increases.

PiggyWhiskey wrote:While thats true, of the 60 slots, I'd probably reserve 5-10 for copper/iron. Another 2/3 for steel. 3 EC, 1 AC. Perhaps 4 for transport belt.

That's really excessive. 5-10 for copper/iron? Unless you're playing with a mod, you're unlikely to need more than 2 each, tops. I can see 2 stacks of steel, but 3? And 3 stacks of electronic circuits is huge, it's difficult to exhaust even 1 before bots replenish your supply. Set just one of those 9 or so slots aside for pipe and your problem goes away.

My point is that while inventory space is always at a bit of a premium, we're only talking about one, maybe two slots at most if you automate the stuff that is currently costing you time, because you're probably already carrying 4-5 of the basic 7 items. If you can't find those slots, odds are you're carrying much more of something else than you actually need.

PiggyWhiskey wrote:

Gus_Smedstad wrote:If you look at the intermediate products you're likely to use routinely, that's Iron plates, copper plates, steel bars, gears, electronic circuits, advanced circuits, and pipes. That's 7 items. Most other intermediate products are things that craft quickly and disappear (iron sticks, wood planks), you'll need rarely (stone bricks, engines, processors) or which you'll use in automation (plastics, sulfur).

EDIT: it's worth noting that the "use rarely" stuff also frequently benefits from or demands automation. The examples I gave (bricks, engines, processors) are all things you can't craft by hand. It's just that you don't carry it around all the time, you either grab it from a chest when you need it (early game) or ask robots to bring it to you (later game).

While thats true, of the 60 slots, I'd probably reserve 5-10 for copper/iron. Another 2/3 for steel. 3 EC, 1 AC. Perhaps 4 for transport belt. 1 for Underground and 1 for splitters for whatever tier I'm working on.
And all the other things I want to carry around. 4 types of inserters. Pocket bots. Previous tiers of Belt/Splitter that I've replaced. Thats half of the space taken. And if I craft something with excess intermediates (copper cable/Iron sticks etc) that adds up too. Never mind spare ammo, turrets, power poles and tonnes of other items that fill up my inventory.
Not including assembly machines or anything else I'm working on.

The point I'm getting at, I'd rather have an inventory half full of raw resources with the potential to be anything I need without massive delays, rather than carry around a stack of Pipes for the off chance I'm going to be working with water/Oil products.
My example is based on the idea that I'm mid to late game and I'm at an oil outpost and am 3-5 underground pipe short. I don't want to have to run back to where I may or may not have automated it, when crafting would take the same time but I'm standing around being bored.

I'm +1 for researchable increase to crafting speed. Not over the top, start early for an easy sense of achievement (10-25%?) with later increases.

That is exactly where I am standing, on just about everything.

Also, you have to keep in mind that there are beginners playing the game that are not on the forum and/or don't know about this thread. All of these opinions are (probably) from people that have at LEAST 50-100 hours into the game already. Beginners would probably like and enjoy the crafting research more then veterans.

That is arguing with unknown unknowns. You don't know how much there are and how much of them would like it.

It's also not the case that if - let's say - 80% of all forum members vote for it, that the devs will implement it.
This poll reflects only the majority of the community.

There is a good pinch of common sense and thinking of far game development targets, before the current way will be changed.

ssilk wrote: This poll reflects only the majority of the community.

I think that there is a false assumption. There are many more casual players (who still enjoy the game and love it just as much) who don't come here to the forum to discuss it, and their polling choices might not line up the same way as a player who is more involved with the game forum. I think critically that many of the players here on the forum would vote against crafting speed research, whereas the more casual crowd might like to have this option open to them.

Klonan wrote:

ssilk wrote: This poll reflects only the majority of the community.

I think that there is a false assumption. There are many more casual players (who still enjoy the game and love it just as much) who don't come here to the forum to discuss it, and their polling choices might not line up the same way as a player who is more involved with the game forum. I think critically that many of the players here on the forum would vote against crafting speed research, whereas the more casual crowd might like to have this option open to them.

In my experience, the majority doesn't care enough to say anything, neither for or against. They just want more content.
However, a long time ago during my time in WoW (both as a guild officer and regular member) I realized that you simply CANNOT make decisions guessing what the silent majority wants. You have to go by the data you have, wherever you can get a hold of it.

I am in the option-selection camp. If you consider a lot of the debate in this thread, it could just as easily apply to resource abundance. Resource abundance is utterly customizable in vanilla, and the game is better for it.

The most brutal part of starting out is getting those first few hundred or so resources. There is a minor hiccup rushing to blue assemblers, since you need them to make circuits very early. Beyond that, hand crafting is no big deal. Anything that you need a lot of can be easily mass produced, and if you can't produce it right away you can at least work out some intermediates.

Manual crafting speed just isn't that important. The only time you would need it is late game when bots can slam down blueprints, and that's easily solved with suit modules.

I think the crafting speed is about right. I wouldn't mind an option to research a faster crafting speed, but it wouldn't make it much faster than it is now.

I think part of it is planning what you need and start to craft it ahead of time if you are not going to automate it, but with that said I think that plays into wanting a larger inventory and inventory belt.

TL;DR
I'd like to have a increase in crafting speed, but not as a incremental research "Crafting speed I - XX" but a crafting module for you armor.
The module would be build from assembly machines
They increase the amount of simultaneous crafts by one each
They require energy to function, if you run out of power the normal suit based assembler takes over once it's finished its job
They craft as fast as your suit based assembler.

This would improve the speed of batch-crafts (eg 100 copper wire) but would be useless if you want to build a single item.