Factorio Forums

In the wiki we have the "* network"-pages. The idea is very nice... on the first view.

The longer I work with it, the longer I mean, "network" is not a good matching definition. It leads into the wrong direction.

Some reasons:
- I mean it's a very German definition (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerk) and even that doesn't match exactly, what it is.
- A network in English is something different ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network ), but not what we mean.
- Even when I take a wider definition as "graph", I've problems to follow the definition.
- was not my idea. (no just a joke, that's of course not a reason!)

My conclusion: Networks in factorio are based on graphs. Very well matching is for example the electric network. But in the end we have something, which is pressed into a definition.

So I played around with other names and the best matching is "System". See that definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System
Much better! It's already used somewhere in factorio. I mean for the "logistic system".

Maybe not all must be changed? Maybe for some networks we need different names than "system".

But because it is a big change in the wiki, I want to ask for comments, critics (is it really needed? I mean not yet, this is a long term task of course!) better ideas, help...

Main pagel
Im not really acquainted with this because im not english, im spanish, and in spanish the literal translation to network makes more sense.

For what I have read in the links you have placed there yea it makes more sense with system (even more when looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_system and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_network)

Corrected. TNX

I think it should be changed.

Electrical Network makes sense to me, I am from the USA. A quick google search also shows a major difference:

Electrical system shows a bunch of schematics:
https://www.google.com/search?q=electri ... 36&bih=706


Electrical Network shows the power grid:
https://www.google.com/search?q=electri ... 6&dpr=1.25

Network is fine, as it better grasps the concept of how it functions. When I see 'network', I can easily grasp that it's a number of directly connected objects (whether it's by wire or by the Bots logistics wireless)

When you talk about systems, you're talking about collections of similar 'networks' that may not be directly connected to one another.

For example. I have two power plants, both physically disconnected (no direct wire linking). They are two seperate networks. however, in one place I have two substations, one from each network, and share an accumulator bank as a failover measure. Combined, they are a system, individually, they are seperate networks. just like how trains bridge individual logistic networks to form a larger logistic system.

Wiki can be good for information, but dictionaries are great for defnitions. They have similar meanings, but aren't always interchangeable. The one that would stand out the most is that both can be nouns, but only network can also be commonly understood as a verb.

"Transport network" and "crafting network" aren't even real things.

Edit: What about renaming them to "Item transport", "Crafting", "Electricity", "Railway", "Logistic bots", etc?

@imibis: removing the whole "network" is in my eyes a good option, because it doesn't bring more information, makes only the links longer.

@all: well, we don't need to rename everything, perhaps wie should consider each name extra? For example: electrical network, circuit network - ok. But the logistics is for me more a system. What do you mean?

oh yes, please remove the "network" namings. They do not make very much sense neither in English nor in the german translated wiki pages. A "Elektrizitätsnetzwerk" or "Flüssigkeitsnetzwerk" sound really clumsy to me

Some days have been gone. I'm tell you my current thoughts.

A system:


A network:

(The translated names in the pic: stitch, node, edge from left to right)

Well, so we have those entries on the wiki-main-page. What I think about it:

Transport network: is a system, very clear boundaries
Crafting network: neither network, nor system, just crafting
Logistic network: network because very virtual, unclear boundaries
Circuit network: looks also like a network, even if single parts of them are systems then.
Liquid network: clearly a system, like transport
Electric network: network! But same as with circuits: one electric network is a system.
Railway network: just railway
Robotic network: the problem is, that logistic and robotic overlaps. I would like "area".

Well, it's my current thought. Current! New input welcome, because I'm far from feeling, this is it.

For your thinking: Some articles must be splitted/rewritten/joined. I think currently also, that the networks on the main page are very artificial. I see more the doing: transport, electrical supply, production...

Examples: Crafting is the doing for me. Currently it's items, which is more or less useless, because crafting is about changing. The items needed are "production" or "mining"...
Transport system, logistic network and railway belongs to transport.
Storages as I currently describe them are storage systems.

crafting is definitely a network

sys·tem
ˈsistəm/
noun

1.
a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole, in particular.
a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network.
noun: system; plural noun: systems
"the state railroad system"
2.
a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method.
"a multiparty system of government"



By the second definition, "you build assembly machines, set their recipes, put ingredients in and take results out" is a system, and a particular group of assembly machines is both a system and a network.

@sparr: Yes, this is the "crafting tree". Tree, because look at it: It's a tree... But it has in my opinion nothing to do with how crafting works in general. Must be explained of course, but - well - there are mods etc, which can do that completely differently.
@imibis: I mean it like so, thanks.

I'm really thankful to every response, because this subject is really complicated and somehow boring, but very important.