Electro-mechanical Paradigm

[quadrapod]

Right now there are three clear periods in factorio. There is the primitive paradigm, where you're collecting resources by hand; there is the burner paradigm, where you're using coal to smelt, harvest, and move resources around; and there is the electrical paradigm, after you get a generator going. It would be interesting in my opinion to have and electro-mechanical paradigm between the two, filled with big bulky slow machines that just drank energy from your big bulky inefficient generators, maybe some of them even requiring steam to produce the actual force as well as electricity for the control system. Of course eventually with the discovery of basic photolithography or something you could move on to integrated circuits and make the more compact, sleek, fully electrical, heavily automated machinery. But before then I feel it makes sense to be limited and would make progression feel a little more rewarding and dramatic, not just a different color of assembler.


I'm aware that the game is still in heavy development, and may look very different in it's final release but I figured that's why I'd throw ideas like this out there now.

[ficolas]

The character is a superawesome ingeneer that just by mining stuff with a pickaxe can make awesome stuff (if I could just make a chest that easy I would be awesome )
I find no need tor that phase since it isnt evolution, is just a guy that survives.
But I would like a more extensive burner (maybe steam) paradigm, since I find burner automation something pretty cool (I dont stop using burner drills, two burner drills facing eachother and two inserters that take out and then in the burner drill, so if the drill inv haves more than 4 coal it gives output, because coal isnt something realy newded)

[Zeeth_Kyrah]

I've found that for really taking out large swaths of resources early on, it's hard to beat a row of burner drills being fed from one side by a row of electrical inserters. The smaller operating area means you get more resources per unit area over time, even though burner drills run slower, at least until you research speed and/or production modules high enough to make the difference for your electric drills. The big downside is much higher pollution, the smaller downside is, once I switch to electric drills I have all these burner drills I'm not using anymore (inserters are easy to find uses for).

I think a steam paradigm would be fun to play with, though, both cleaner (confining your pollution to a smaller area) and logistically interesting (running pipes to your production fields).

[Hazard]

The problem with an electro-mechanical factory is that electricity is just that much more convenient and easy to handle compared to mechanically powering stuff, and if you've got some copper you can turn into a wire getting to electrical power from mechanical power is pathetically easy.