What do you think about ideas of "assembly line" ?

[Kegereneku]

Hello, newcomer here.

What do you think about idea of "assembly line" ?

I haven't followed the development of factorio for a long time, so I don't know if that idea was shot down (a lot), I searched in the suggestion forum and only found this topic.
So I'm going to make a new thread, but first I wanted to ask everyone if you see something make it a dead end (beside, I hope, the fact that it is the basic gameplay with bigger conveyor)

like:
- it have to stay compatible with handcrafting (for compatibility)
- it would use a lot of space and not produce at the same pace.
- it have to be compatible with as much as possible
- it have to be compatible with rail size.
And it mustn't be too easy to get around it.

My take on the WHY BOTHER? side:
- It would look good and use a lot of space.
- It give a framework for items and vehicles that should not be (easily) crafted or carried by hands.
- It allow to spread large amount of component over several "steps" of a instead of adding all of it at the same time and place.
(yes the above could be done with factory as well, see below)
- despite the similarity, the size and linearity should create a different challenge as you cannot transport the product easily (by bot) and you still have to get the components to each factory.
- some mods add more vehicles and consumable, this would be a solution for them to go big.
- having to manufacture on the Macro scale rather than the micro scale have its own interest. We've had for a while the ability to to spaghetti factory, I think of this as sausage within the spaghetti.


Here is my first draft. (sorry I didn't find a way to collapse it)

Spoiler

TL;DR

2x2 assembly line for items, vehicles and products that should require a lot more space or resources (it stay compatible with handcrafting).

What ?

Picture:



- 2x2 assembly-line structure (alternative: 2x4 so inserter can aligned along the lines)
- 2x2 line conveyor
- 1x2 inserter/filter

Probably a lot of new arts, vehicle can have rotation so I'm hoping a stripped version of the finished model without wheels can do.

details:
- Item on the assembly line can be picked up and placed by hand.
- Player can walk on assembly without problem (No OSHA compliance)
- The 1x2 inserter is also used to manage size gap and misalignment

Why ?

- It would look good and use a lot of space.
- It give a framework for all items and vehicle that should not be (easily) crafted or carried by hands.
- It allow to spread large amount of component over several "steps" of a instead of adding all of it at the same time and place.
- despite the similarity, the size and linearity should create a different challenge as you cannot transport the product easily (by bot) and you still have to get the components to each factory.
- Some mods add more vehicles and consumable, this would be a solution for them to go big.
- Having to manufacture on the Macro scale rather than the micro scale have its own interest.

What could go wrong?

As I kept idea compatible with handcrafting, I see no UI-friendly solution to prevent players from converting the product back to small-stack and move them by belt.


Future possibility:
- 100% hand-free manufacturing and transport of vehicle.
- special class for larger item.
- Train wagon built only for those large unstackable item.

Thank you for opinions.

[FactorioParadox]

All your doing is adding in a bunch of intermediate products that can only be used for one thing, which is just complexity for the sake of realism. Also, it would be inconsistent with other recipes.

[Engimage]

I do not see anything good added to the game with this. Only inconsistency.

[Kegereneku]

All your doing is adding in a bunch of intermediate products that can only be used for one thing, which is just complexity for the sake of realism. Also, it would be inconsistent with other recipes.

I asked for criticism and I knew that it doesn't look significantly different, but if we followed your logic Factorio would not exist.
What's the point of gears? What's the point of pipes? why not skip all theses intermediates products that are used for only a few things when we could use their price in Iron plate who can be used for more?
Look at Factorio mid-product a few of them aren't used for many things. (That's why I put the rocket silo as example, it have 3 unique parts used for it)
And I never said you couldn't use the same frame for multiple designs. In fact doing so increase the chance that modder reuse the first frame for their modded vehicle.

My 2nd picture show a clear difference in how you would make your factory.
Normal factory emphasize the combination and transformation, the goal is to get all of the 2,4, 6 recipes. That's what cause the spaghetti part of most factory. I'm not saying to change that.
The point of the assembly line is to focus on supply and order, instead of producing lot of small thing you are trying to produce big things faster.
Since you can have the same ingredients required at different step: do you split the components bus and have it run along the assembly line? or do you have the product go (which can be done on a single line shared by multiple products since the filter exist) to a place were said components is easier to supply.
The simple fact that it can be a shared assembly line would make it go very well with circuit network to regulate the traffic.

This idea is open to any change or rework.
Another idea was to suggest a "product-centric" gameplay where (once created) it's the product that accept X or Y components at any assembly-line which supply it. I didn't start with this because it a radically different gameplay that have nothing in common with factorio. I might a make sketch of that one.

I do not see anything good added to the game with this. Only inconsistency.

Could you expand over this?
Right now we are used to see large structure casually stacked in our inventory or carried on small belt. The goal isn't to change that but to have them at least produced like they are big structure.
(edit: in essence any large scale building remove inconsistency)

Edit: picture

[SuicideJunkie]

Gears and pipes are used in multiple recipes or as end products in themselves.

As far as I can see what you're talking about is a switch from parallel to serial assembly.
Instead of having three assembly machines working for 3 seconds each to produce 3 products, (averaging 1/s), you'd be having 3 assembly machines all working on the same product sequentially for 1s each, to produce 1 item after 3 seconds and each subsequent item 1 second later.

Factorio's stock gameplay is mostly built around massive parallelism at the smaller scales, and a giant rocket assembly line (more of a tree really) at the larger scales.

My circuit factory in Bob's mods is quite assembly line-ish, but I feel that's because I haven't broken up the factory properly.
It goes from a greenhouse feeding wood into the system, around to making resistors that are plugged into boards down the line before being shipped out.
I probably should simply have wood shipped out from my main farm to a carbon factory, and in the end have resistors and bare boards delivered in vast quantities to turn into populated circuit boards.


I think you could make a mod out of the idea. The two main features you'd need as I see it:
1) Alternate recipe chains for most objects which involve combining just two things at a time so they can be done in assembly machine 1s
2) Make higher level assembly machines cost far more. Assembly 2s needing blue circuits and 3s needing modules and robots perhaps?

At some point you'd still abandon the assembly lines for the magical land of logistic robots, but it sounds like most bases do that anyways once they get large.

[Kegereneku]

I wouldn't call that a switch as it only concern a few of the biggest items.

But yes, this is a occasion to bring more serial assembly into the game, eventually you always max out and just copypaste new bus line, with serializing we could find another gameplay solution.
I must insist this isn't the only interest. The fact that it take a lot of place and cannot be minmaxed directly would change completely the layout of factory.
It wouldn't remove things, you'd still make bus and cook spaghetti, but the assembly line would require it's own design and because of the place it take, you either make the factory bigger or you use train to carry the components in mass, the sheer amount of components being an attempt to reign out drones.

The goal isn't to make just a bigger factory in 3 parts either. Sure the most basic design would be that.
But you could realize one part of the process is always slower than the others, or "frame22" require two time frame-1 so the only way is to produce them by two in a timely fashion.
yadayada...you'd be working around it and trying to save place by using the same line for frame at different states or storing incomplete frame until an arrival of component.

Ideally you would decide when and where the product receive some of the components. However I don't know if Factorio code is compatible enough to make it worth it, so I insisted on frame being component of the next frame.

I suppose one of the NO GO I look for, is that many players might not like the change. (like turning engine production into big multiple step process so you don't need to use them by batch of 20)

[Koub]

Pushed to the extreme, you'd have a huge facility into which you'd provide raw ressources, and it would spit out Rocket carrying a satellite whenever the ressource requirement would have been met. It would remove much from the game I think.
Factorio is all about making things with small elementary simple steps, more than having complex batch-like operations processed in a single long operation.
If you're into old school dev, it's more a RISC vs CISC thing, Factorio being RISC.

[Kegereneku]

Koub, I don't see what in your first phrase differ from what we already play Factorio for. You can already brute force rocket with simple design that you copypasted a lot.
Also, I believe I gave enough material to image why it wouldn't lose anything or become too hard/easy. Every part can be balanced just as is the game now. The assembly-line process can be made to use raw or complex components as before.
As for Factorio being "all about small elementary simple step", building drone and blueprint is also all about increasing production in a single operation that took a lot of complex step.

The main difference is that your factory design will change to include bigger infrastructure

and this will be new codes that only the developers can guess if it easy to maintain and worth the extra effort

.
I like to believe the idea also boost trains because as it get bigger you are more tempted to build a separate factory for large product and transfer the product by trains.