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The concept here is that much of what you build would require maintenance to continue to perform efficiently.
Maintenance is performed by construction bots & sometimes requires materials.

Example-
Express Belt: (Lube + Iron Gear Wheels)
1. After x number of entities pass across belt, belt requires maintenance from construction bot as well as additional lube + iron gear wheels
2. 1st bot grabs a barrel of lube from logistics network and travels to belt. Services belt then applies lube. Once done, bot deposits empty barrel into log network and returns to roboport.
3. 2nd bot grabs iron gear wheels from logistics network and travels to belt. Services belt and installs iron gear wheels. Once done, bot deposits iron scrap (replaced worn iron gears - can be smelted back into iron plates) into log network and returns to roboport.
4. Eventually belts performance will suffer if not maintained (blue belt performs as if red and then as if yellow)

I could envision a system like this being applied to most of the logistic/production items especially those that have lvl 2-3 upgrades like belts, splitters, inserters, assemblers, as well as power generators, vehicles, & gates. (Anything with moving parts and some things without like solar panels.)

This has beed discussed several time, each time with the same result
Use search, you will find pages worth of angry discussion about maintenance

This has been discussed many times in forums of Factorio and other technical games. Unfortunately overwhelming majority of players hate all management things and it will certainly be never implemented in stock game. However, I hope that on some day devs could implement modding interface which would allow adding of reasonable and realistic like wearing and breaking behavior to entities for those who likes micromanagement. In my opinion such management tasks would fit perfectly in Factorio and would give much very interesting and entertaining elements especially in end game when straightforward production of one product becomes boring.

aka13 wrote:This has beed discussed several time, each time with the same result
Use search, you will find pages worth of angry discussion about maintenance

Whoops. My bad.

Hannu wrote:Unfortunately overwhelming majority of players hate all management things

Very poor way of putting it, Factorio is all about management but what this is suggesting is just legwork. In the early game it will force you to occasionally go around all your machines with a repair pack (waow such fun) then you get construction bots and aside from having to ensure TOTAL roboport coverage you forget about it entirely until you start your next game.

A similar thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35354 Things should break


I would not say this suggestion is not useful or finished (discussed to the end), but there needs some more flesh on it, cause otherwise it is in Factorio just a resource-sink and much work for the player without any motivation-factor.

The summery of things requiring maintenance:

Things decay or break, so you have to fix them. This is a pain in the backside.
So you build a roboport with construction robots to automatically maintain things for you.
The decay is now a non-issue and might as well not exist.

Deadly-Bagel wrote:

Hannu wrote:Unfortunately overwhelming majority of players hate all management things

Very poor way of putting it, Factorio is all about management but what this is suggesting is just legwork. In the early game it will force you to occasionally go around all your machines with a repair pack (waow such fun) then you get construction bots and aside from having to ensure TOTAL roboport coverage you forget about it entirely until you start your next game.

thats your opinion, to me the game is about playing with my legos and seeing what kind of spaghetti i can make.

every time something breaks down, its not something i look forward to fixing, rather its something that annoys me and gets in the way of what else im doing. especially long term failures like oil production.

bobingabout wrote:The summery of things requiring maintenance:

Things decay or break, so you have to fix them. This is a pain in the backside.
So you build a roboport with construction robots to automatically maintain things for you.
The decay is now a non-issue and might as well not exist.

If a maintenance system consisted only of your bots flying around with repair packs I wouldn't like it either. I understand that making something good happen is generally more rewarding than preventing something bad from happening so maybe maintenance is not a great idea. However I like theorycrafting so here are some things I wrote down for the fun of it. Maybe something will actually be good.

1. No maintenance in early game. Must come into play only when it can be automated.
2. Having bots earlier in the game might be a necessity for any maintenance system. FFF 160 mentions early game robots (personal) as a needed change. Perhaps more than just personal early game bots are worth exploring?
3. If maintenance systems require more infrastructure (In my example for belts, lube barreling and scrap metal smelting) it could be rewarding for the player to plan, build, and then watch in the same vein as the rest of the game.
4. Maintenance shouldn't just penalize but also buff. Perks for keeping a well maintained factory.
4a. Perks could be module/beacon like in nature
4b. What if instead of there being different lvls of belts/assemblers/etc. there were just the base items but they would upgrade in performance via the maintenance system? (i.e. belts move at red speed when serviced with gears, blue speed with lube).
5. Perhaps a maintenance system would be a better alternative resource sink than what is currently implemented. IMO the current resource sinks are an interesting topic. Tier 3 modules require more copper than the statue of liberty. Advanced belts move faster because the extra gear wheels. Duh. Same case for the circuits. Instead of bulk base resources advanced items could require more advanced materials. (more ores for vanilla?)

That's all for now

One of the problems with requiring maintenance though is... Most people do not want a constant pain in the backside adding into the game that they constantly have to deal with, impeding further progress. They just want to get on, and build, and automate everything. If you don't have a system where people can just automate then ignore it, a lot of people will shout and scream.

Therefore, whatever decay, repair, maintain systems you add into the game, needs to have a fully automated option down the road to allow you to continue without having to constantly give it attention, I mean, that's part of the purpose of the game, "Automate". It doesn't have to be construction robots with repair packs, that's just the most obvious.

Putting all that into consideration.... Why even have a maintenance system at all? because by the time you've build the auto-maintenance system, you forget about it, and it might as well not exist.


I've been looking at it from your position before, yeah, adding things that damage might be cool... DyTech v2.0 for Factorio 0.9.8. solar panels. They used to decay over time, and require repairs. it was a pain in the backside, so you just built roboports with construction robots to deal with it, at which point it might as well not be there.

DyTech for 0.10.x did not include this feature. I wonder why.

Deadly-Bagel wrote:

Hannu wrote:Unfortunately overwhelming majority of players hate all management things

Very poor way of putting it, Factorio is all about management but what this is suggesting is just legwork. In the early game it will force you to occasionally go around all your machines with a repair pack (waow such fun) then you get construction bots and aside from having to ensure TOTAL roboport coverage you forget about it entirely until you start your next game.

It depends how it would be implemented. Lazy implementation would be boring and predictable. In my opinion assemblers should last several hours with normal load (without modules) so that player would be well in mid game and robot phase when first assemblers would begin to break. In my opinion breaking would be best if it gave player a possibility to get more throughput or less work and thinking at the cost of some risks. It would not be simple "health" which decreases to zero and then the machine break. But there could be some risk per time unit which depends on health. Health could affect to production time etc. Player could have option to set speed of machine (for example low 75 % speed and 50 % wearing and breaking probability, medium 100 % everything and high 125 % speed and 200 % wearing and breaking probability)

But in any case this have been discussed many times and there is no one solution for everyone. Some players like unpredictable things and risk management in games and most people seem to hate.

bobingabout wrote:Putting all that into consideration.... Why even have a maintenance system at all? because by the time you've build the auto-maintenance system, you forget about it, and it might as well not exist.

You can ask same question about Factorio and all video games. Why do some things in virtual worlds and then forget it and buy a new game. It is entertainment and different people like different things. I do not see straightforward building of automated rocket launching facility at any way more interesting than automation of maintenance system of such factory. Maintaining could be much more complex and technically interesting - and rewarding - task.

Another idea would be to require "maintenance parts" to operate at 100% efficiency after a specific amount of time. If ignored, productivity drops to a minimum, let's say 50%.

To keep up the 100% effeciency, it would require the following (for example):

assembling machine 1 requires 1 repair pack after every 60 minutes of work.
assembling machine 2 requires 1 repair pack and 1 electronic circuit after every 60 minutes of work.
assembling machine 3 requires 2 repair packs, 1 advanced circuit and a drum of lubricant after every 60 minutes of work.

stone furnace requires 1 repair pack after every 60 minutes of work
steel furnace requires 1 repair pack and 1 steel plate after every 60 minutes of work

fast transport belt requires a repair station with repair packs if longer then/after every, 50 pieces of belt.
express transport belt requires a lubrication station if longer then/after every 50 pieces of belt.



In this case it is manageable early-game without requiring a lot of attention, but mid-/late-game it's a bigger task to supply every part of the factory with "maintenance parts".
I could see this maintenance as an option when creating a world/game. If not, I need to learn how to make a mod that can do this. (or find somebody that can help me )

Deadly-Bagel wrote:

Hannu wrote:Unfortunately overwhelming majority of players hate all management things

Very poor way of putting it, Factorio is all about management but what this is suggesting is just legwork. In the early game it will force you to occasionally go around all your machines with a repair pack (waow such fun) then you get construction bots and aside from having to ensure TOTAL roboport coverage you forget about it entirely until you start your next game.

don't forget you don't have repair pack until you get steel processing, that means, if not properly balanced, you will spend early game not "repairing" things, but replacing things. put plainly, early game will be painfull experience of rebuilding stuff over and over.

wearability makes sense only if games is designed in mind of it since start, adding it later always breaks things in more than one way.

Hovel wrote:Another idea would be to require "maintenance parts" to operate at 100% efficiency after a specific amount of time. If ignored, productivity drops to a minimum, let's say 50%.

Idea: Instead of dedicated "maintenance parts" or repair packs, have modules take damage as used.

When they break, they'd leave a broken module board which would have to be extracted and replaced(the machine would stop until the broken board is removed) but that can be recycled into a level 1 module of that type.

This way, you get to either run everything at base level for free(during the early game, say) or pay the upkeep cost to get more out of your machines.

I'm not totally against that idea but it would need to be a loooong time, otherwise productivity modules are literally going to be worthless. For example they take, what, 3,000 iron/copper and nearly 400 plastic, so they need to generate at least that just to break even. Given their huge initial cost and build times you would want them to generate an average of 10,000 resources but then how to balance that between recipes?

As Mexmer said, it's all well and good in theory but adding it at this point in development is just going to break everything.

My current opinion: As many things in Factorio a maintenance needs to have a side-effect. Something additionally, something, that makes it worth implementing.

Take for example the the many usages of inserters. Or belts. Something similar is needed with this. Just "repair" is not enough, not worth enough to implement it, cause it is just another drain, like lasers, walls, repair packs.

I've always wanted an "overdrive" feature on things, for when a slower model just isn't fast enough, but the next level is overkill. For example, with prod. modules the green circuit ratio is 14:15, giving a 6% stutter so adding a second factory is not appropriate, or when a blue inserter gives a slight stutter, but a stack inserter is idle 70% of the time. If you could "overdrive" the entity, making it say 10% faster, but loses HP and needs to be maintained, it could be interesting. It could be implemented as an optimisation, like beacons, where you only want to have one where it affects the output of 3+ other entities, instead of a flat upgrade like modules.