Factorio Forums

After getting myself (fukken cancer) registrated, I'm gonna release my idea on this forum.

So, what I want is a chance of my machines breaking on me. Which means like a 1% chance every day or something. What does it mean? The machine still exists & is still connected to the electricity network, jet it doesn't work anymore (like it gets stuck on an ore or something). And the only way to make it work again is or replace it or repair it.

This can be used very broad & gives a nice tweak to the game that your set-ups needs moderating. (and I think it's easy to implement, no?)

Welp, I hope I see something break in the future on me haha. Grtz

This suggestion comes up like once a week.

I'm pretty sure it won't be implemented. Think about it, what does it accomplish? What gameplay benefit does it offer? Early game, you'll just be tinkering with the layout of something and suddenly wonder why half your factory isn't working, science not progressing etc. Oh look it's because you've got four Electronic Circuit assemblers and two of them are broken, build assemblers and replace them. It's a nuisance.

Later in the game, presumably these machines would be replaced by construction bots. So you just put roboport coverage everywhere and make sure you have a supply of assemblers. Now it might as well not be there at all.

The only real effect this has is to force you to set up a train to supply outposts with any machines that might break, which basically involves loading machines into a train and sending it to every outpost periodically. Again, it's just a nuisance to set up and you have to remember to add every new outpost to this train.

So while at a glance it might seem like a good idea, it's not.

From game design perspective it is an awful feature. It punishes the player for building ever larger factories. Counter-intuitive to the core of the game.

I like the idea, in principle, but agree with the others that it would probably only end up being a nuisance. Therefore, I don't think this feature should be in vanilla Factorio. It should only be available as an optional mod.