Factorio Forums

Simply put, hiving a few mid-late game research nodes that increase the crafting speed when crafting in your pocket.
I feel like late game it takes too long to craft stuff.

TuckJohn wrote:Simply put, hiving a few mid-late game research nodes that increase the crafting speed when crafting in your pocket.
I feel like late game it takes too long to craft stuff.

Well, you're not meant to hand-craft anything much. Still, mods exist that offers tech research to speed up hand-crafting.

Factorio is a game about AUTOMATION, not hand-crafting. The sense of the game is to avoid hand-crafting!

I cannot be sure, but I bet my tomatoes, that it won't come into vanilla.

I see your position clearly. I amuses ting only a slight increase in crafting speed, nothing like levels of assemblers.

Keep some assemblers on hand. When you want to craft something on impulse, drop them down and use them.

bobucles wrote:Keep some assemblers on hand. When you want to craft something on impulse, drop them down and use them.

That what I alread do

@ssilk, what about instead of research, there was a power-suit component (made from assemblers?) that increased your crafting speed

Good idea. That brought me to one way, that might work: If you research a component (like a new power suite device), which USES some items to craft faster. For example it USES modules, "eats" them up, like fuel. That would make sense. Maybe there are better mechanisms like that?

Don't misunderstand me: For other games it would be a cool idea, but when the sense of a game is, to automate nearly everything, how can you enhance the game-play, if you make the opposite easier?
It can only be a temporary fix, something, which points the player to the right solution, something, which explains him without words: Don't craft yourself!

ssilk wrote:Good idea. That brought me to one way, that might work: If you research a component (like a new power suite device), which USES some items to craft faster. For example it USES modules, "eats" them up, like fuel. That would make sense. Maybe there are better mechanisms like that?

Don't misunderstand me: For other games it would be a cool idea, but when the sense of a game is, to automate nearly everything, how can you enhance the game-play, if you make the opposite easier?
It can only be a temporary fix, something, which points the player to the right solution, something, which explains him without words: Don't craft yourself!

Tbh I still don't understand why this "use assemblers" for everything style of play is.. kinda forced upon others in threads that talk about hand crafting.
I do understand that you are meant to automate a lot but it doesn't mean you are forced to automate everything. And there are things you don't need to automate - especially when playing with mods.

And from discussions around here I get the feeling that hand crafting is shunned upon so no improvements to it will be made. Fortunately we have mods for people that like different play style.

To be fair, if you're hand crafting a lot it's because you failed to automate something. Logistic bots make any item fairly easy to automate. Place an assembler, the inserters, set up the red and blue chests, and let the bots do the rest.

Really the worst part of setting up a logistic "everything else" factory is programming the blue chests. IMO instead of picking every individual ingredient, you should be able to state the final item(s) and let the slots arrange themselves. Grabbing enough goods for 5-10 products is usually enough buffer for the assembler.

bobucles wrote:To be fair, if you're hand crafting a lot it's because you failed to automate something. Logistic bots make any item fairly easy to automate. Place an assembler, the inserters, set up the red and blue chests, and let the bots do the rest.

Really the worst part of setting up a logistic "everything else" factory is programming the blue chests. IMO instead of picking every individual ingredient, you should be able to state the final item(s) and let the slots arrange themselves. Grabbing enough goods for 5-10 products is usually enough buffer for the assembler.

First thing - you made assumption you actually have logistic bots and network. Thats not given - and I do play a lot of complex mods with increased science costs so it can take long to get to a point where you can afford a big bot network.

And why do you think I have failed to automate something?
It's a simple balance thing - there is a lot to do and I chose to increase my smelting throughput for example instead of making factory for Mk 3 mining drills for example.

This is the part why I'm a bit confused - it seems that approach where you hand craft some things that you need less often from intermediates is as you wrote "failure to do something" instead of a choice. For me it isn't but I see it's not a popular way.

orzelek wrote: Tbh I still don't understand why this "use assemblers" for everything style of play is.. kinda forced upon others in threads that talk about hand crafting

I do understand that you are meant to automate a lot but it doesn't mean you are forced to automate everything. And there are things you don't need to automate - especially when playing with mods..

Well, my suggestion won't force you to use assemblers. I would also be strictly against that. Nobody should be forced to play in any style.

But, well, perhaps my thoughts are coming from all the newbies, which come here from minecraft and say "oh, we need faster crafting". they need something to learn, that it is really different in Factorio.

So I think it's a good idea to give "hints"; here: don't craft everything yourself.

And from discussions around here I get the feeling that hand crafting is shunned upon so no improvements to it will be made. Fortunately we have mods for people that like different play style.

Last year we had a discussion about the stack sizes, they had changed to a decimal system. Many where really pissed and said, that is needed and when I asked why, they answered, because they need to split ammunition into equal parts. And I answered that is just stupid to fill ammunition into the turrets by hand, it's much easier to make a belt and fill some in a chest and let the inserters do the rest, the afford will pay back after the second refill. And with the last update into that direction the devs made it even more difficult to split up stacks - just because it is not needed in Factorio. I think it goes into a different direction.

So I ask now: explain it to me: what kind of play-style? What is the target of such a style and what is the fun about it? Maybe I can learn new things.

Tbh I was also splitting stacks for turrets - still do at the start then the chest and belt goes up.

As for the play style - I don't find it fun to build an assembly machine that will work for 5% of time to construct few buildings with all the alloted belts and complications. I prefer to have all the intermediates on hand and construct the buildings on the spot when needed (and where). Only buildings I'm automating are those that you really need to mass produce (solar panels for example) or they can't be handcrafted (fastest belts).

What I'm more interested in is playing around with mass production that goes then to science and after that it's sats production currently. I tend to spend a lot of time (to much time;)) on optimizing item flow, upgrading and then planning/constructing new production chains. Thats why I play with bob's mods mostly - they do require making a lot more complex chains. Looking forward also to new DyTech metallurgy since it has similar goals.
And hoping that when we need to build in space there will be actual need to make factory much bigger - doing it just to have it is not that fun

The reason I crated this thread was because of the crafting time it takes to craft oil refineries. and other things that you need on-the-go that are not important enough to set up production for.

Peter34 wrote:Well, you're not meant to hand-craft anything much. Still, mods exist that offers tech research to speed up hand-crafting.

they do? where?

bobingabout wrote:

Peter34 wrote:Well, you're not meant to hand-craft anything much. Still, mods exist that offers tech research to speed up hand-crafting.

they do? where?

This is the one I'm using now with tweaked down costs:
Crafting speed research

TuckJohn wrote:The reason I crated this thread was because of the crafting time it takes to craft oil refineries. and other things that you need on-the-go that are not important enough to set up production for.

This.

There is really no need to set up factories to craft 2 refineries or something else that you need one or two. You will spend more time setting that up than save on crafting speed as only the best assembler crafts faster than the player. And even then it's only 25% faster.

But hey, you'd spend more time researching the speed than crafting those two refineries anyway.
Though why those take so much time to create compared to other factory component buildings is a mystery, yes.

Adil wrote:But hey, you'd spend more time researching the speed than crafting those two refineries anyway.

Its not just the refineries though; needing an extra few turrets and mining drill for an outpost, as another example.

Adil wrote:But hey, you'd spend more time researching the speed than crafting those two refineries anyway.
Though why those take so much time to create compared to other factory component buildings is a mystery, yes.

But it's not the player doing the researching, with proper automation all player has to do is click and say 'research this'. Then every time you have to craft something you will benefit from this technology.