Better Production statistics

[Erfar]

So, I;m a big fan of auto/sim games and this FFF just brock my heart
https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-408


Right now bigest issue with Factorio Production tab is that it provide double info that actualy kinda useless.

Let's image situation, You open production tab and see that base produce 200 gren circuits and consume same 200 GC.

What that mean?

It could mean 4 situations:
• You produce 200 and consume 200 because you perfectly mathed you way (All good)
• You produce 200 because you could only consume 200 and you actual production capacity is 500 (Amazing you should conmsume more!)
• You produce 200 because you haven't thin that you will need more (lol) and now your few assemblers work 24/7 to do what they can
• You produce 200 because you have not enought copper to have fully suplied you 500 GC production.

ALL those situation will be showed as 200/200.
And only time where they could be different is when I burn through buffer or fill buffer.

What should be shown in addition to production/consumption
1. Potential production
2. potential consumption
3. current stock (how much those things exist in universe/on belts/in chest/wagons/logistic network accessable etc.)
4. Extra: "pin" items in production stats

As example from game of Anno 1800

You could see how much pruduction building poduce (Green) and consume (Blue) item, you could sort list by difference, you could filter items by name and type and you could group production on differen islands (in factorio terms - planets).

Right now Factorio production bar is filled relatively to choosen item. So if I make 1000 iron and 10 copper, I will see that 100% of filled iron bar and 1% filled copper bar. It should insted be % of potential consumption/potential production.

[mmmPI]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=111774

TL DR : doesn't provide useful information when player do not intent to have all their machine running 24/7 which is the case in most game, at least in the mall, and every other thing where the buffer are full.

[FuryoftheStars]

To add to mmmPi's (and the linked thread) response(s), these kind of stats are only meaningful in the context of where all of your production feeds to all of your consumers. In Factorio, you can segment things out in varying ways, like rows of one producer feeding ten consumers or ten producers feeding one consumer, which you can't do in games like Anno.

And "current stock" is meaningless here, too, for the same reasons plus you can very easily have thousands of belt segments loaded with the product, and/or dozens+ of steel chests maxed out with it.

These stats would, imo, only be meaningful if you could select a section of your base and then get these stats from only within that selection.

[Erfar]

Current stock is useful in dynamic, so you could check are your stock of X growth or shrink over tim
Any intentional underfeed assemblers you also could keep in mind in simplified version, or add for example filter on recepie in consumption stat. Like "check Green circuit consumptin for producing red circuits"

Anyway those changes would be much better then curren situation of eternal consumption=production as ONLY production info you get (and you still get that info,so amount of info you get increase)

And the reson why I quote Anno, is because in anno you offten have balancing between multiple production systems. And only anno stat issue is absence of decimal point, whyle factorio production tab I find useful only to check biter nests in fog of war.

[FuryoftheStars]

I would disagree with the idea that it can only be better to have these stats as is in game. Without the ability to specify a specific subsection of your factory to pull the stats from, then this is just extra noise for anyone who isn't building just everything feeds everything and/or runs full on. The idea of "just keep the parts that are intentionally underfed in mind" is laughable here, sorry.

I'm also skeptical of the game being able to track what is on belts without an impact to ups for the "current stock" levels.

[Erfar]

I would disagree with the idea that it can only be better to have these stats as is in game. Without the ability to specify a specific subsection of your factory to pull the stats from, then this is just extra noise for anyone who isn't building just everything feeds everything and/or runs full on. The idea of "just keep the parts that are intentionally underfed in mind" is laughable here, sorry.

I'm also skeptical of the game being able to track what is on belts without an impact to ups for the "current stock" levels.

So what player should get form "Production 200 Consumption 200" that production screen show now? I have provided you 4 situation what those stats could show and all of them are VERY different.

All you say is "I can't use that information that you requre so that is why I think this is bad decision"

BTW if you so scare about "But my mall will make statistic wrong and I don't want to keep it in mind" just add "Exclude from production statistic" checkmark for such assemblers. Problem solved. Now your assembler that craft 1000 nuclear reactors are not included in stats.

[FuryoftheStars]

Without the ability to specify a specific subsection of your factory to pull the stats from [...]

If the devs can find a way to do that without hurting game performance, then great. Otherwise, you're not gonna convince me on this.

[Erfar]

It could be recalculated not every tick, but for example as once per minute. Or even be option in settings. Like "advanced performance metrics" that you could just turn off to save your UPS at hyper-late game.

[FuryoftheStars]

That's... not a hyper-late game issue. I don't think you understand just how differently this game handles everything compared to games like Anno.

[pleegwat]

These stats would, imo, only be meaningful if you could select a section of your base and then get these stats from only within that selection.

Allowing to do that dynamically would require storing statistics for every assembler individually. I highly doubt that'd ever be viable. Allowing users to select specific areas to keep statistics on sounds similar to statistics combinators, which I'm sure have been suggested before.

[Illiander42]

And the reson why I quote Anno, is because in anno you offten have balancing between multiple production systems. And only anno stat issue is absence of decimal point, whyle factorio production tab I find useful only to check biter nests in fog of war.

Anno only has the equivilent of one assembler per item type, no belts, no inserters (which also hold items) and only one chest for each item type.

Completely different situation.

[Erfar]

And the reson why I quote Anno, is because in anno you offten have balancing between multiple production systems. And only anno stat issue is absence of decimal point, whyle factorio production tab I find useful only to check biter nests in fog of war.

Anno only has the equivilent of one assembler per item type, no belts, no inserters (which also hold items) and only one chest for each item type.

Completely different situation.

Anno 1800 has more then one "assembler" per item type, those that are included union specialist allow you to produce items in alternative ways, and those alternative ways still count in production stat. (for example gold that are produceble by farms)

Anno also has "inserters" of time gap of item travel from warehouse to production building or from production buiilding to to warehouse (or between prduction buildings)

AND factorio already track every single item that exist in universe in the game. You could check this. Throw trash on ground, save the game then load the game. every item will be in place

[mmmPI]

If you want to know the stock, you can show "production" and "consumption" for the last 1000 hours, and do a subtraction

[Illiander42]

AND factorio already track every single item that exist in universe in the game. You could check this. Throw trash on ground, save the game then load the game. every item will be in place

You know they do a whole heap of memory tricks to make items on belts not devour your CPU, right? They don't even look at most items on belts most ticks except for rendering.

[Erfar]

If you want to know the stock, you can show "production" and "consumption" for the last 1000 hours, and do a subtraction

or you may add substraction fuction to game engine.