Factorio Forums

I know the devs are in the works for optimizing combinators but i don't know if they are considering this - maybe this was suggested before - but i did not find anything in the "frequently suggested" section:

If you have a bunch of assemblers or furnaces and want to use combinators you have to make one primary decision:

Are all assemblers controlled by on combinator network as a whole (All receive the same signal) or do you want every assembler controlled by it's own combinators (would be much more dynamic).

All controlled by one combinator network:
+just one central combinator hub
-you have to make sure that every assembler (and other entities interacting with that assembler) is in the same state, so that no assembler hangs "midstate"

Every controlled by it's own network:
+indivual configuration
+dynamic load balancing or such
-extreme size growth

Imagine a eletric furnace which is 3x3=9 tiles in size. Adding a combinator just rapidly increases the space:
+1 combinator: 11
+2 combinators: 13
+3 combinators: 15
+4 combinators: 17
+5 combinators: 19

For some tricky logic you need much more combinators. But even at 4,5 combinators you doubled the size of a single furnace(-block)

My suggestion would be to reduce the size of the combinators. I know that 2x1 combinators are that size so you could easily identify input and output and it would be hard to use a 1x1 combinator. So my suggestion goes further:

One Entity as a "Combinator Board" (size 2x2 maybe) that could be stacked with components. The most work would be to implement the ui for the combinator board - but i think it would be worth it - combinators are generally choppy to use currently (I know the devs are aware of that).

FunMaker wrote:One Entity as a "Combinator Board" (size 2x2 maybe) that could be stacked with components. The most work would be to implement the ui for the combinator board - but i think it would be worth it - combinators are generally choppy to use currently (I know the devs are aware of that).

Ill call this controller simply "The Black Box" and it should be able to get away from the classic logic board breadboard, instead run simple LUA code you type with some basic special factorio specific function sets etc…
would require players to involve in programming ^^

Gertibrumm wrote:

FunMaker wrote:One Entity as a "Combinator Board" (size 2x2 maybe) that could be stacked with components. The most work would be to implement the ui for the combinator board - but i think it would be worth it - combinators are generally choppy to use currently (I know the devs are aware of that).

Ill call this controller simply "The Black Box" and it should be able to get away from the classic logic board breadboard, instead run simple LUA code you type with some basic special factorio specific function sets etc…
would require players to involve in programming ^^

Well i am all for that. But i know that the devs have to make a decision here:
Keep it "iconfied" that non programmers can handle it
or just lua vim textboxt to make everything possible.

I like the idea,
Also, Wube needs to hire Zach from Zachtronics so he creates something along the lines of this for factorio http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210
With that...I would be doomed to never return to everyday humanity.