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So i was walking around setting up my science factory realized that crafting by hand is really slow, especially when you are making a bunch of underground belts and splitters by hand. I know that eventually you are supposed to just auto craft everything but i find it pointless to set it all up to craft when i could craft it in my inventory. But the only problem was that it was really slow to craft it all by hand.

So i propose that we get some speed modules (for the modular and power armor) to increase the speed of hand crafting. i suggest that there be three tiers each possibly give a 25% bonus, 50% bonus and 100% bonus. these would act the same way as the regular speed modules used for machines such as miners, except that it would be fitted into the modular armors and gives a bonus to manual crafting. each tier would use a certain amount of power supplied by modular power generators (portable solar panels, portable fusion reactors and such) each needing a substantial amount more than the last.

My apologies if this is already a suggestion, i searched for a while with no similar suggestions.
On top of that i also apologize if this is somehow written wrong in any way (breaking any rules, or formatted wrong) or if it is entirely in the wrong place, I'm new to the forums and don't have a complete understanding of how it works.

I've thought about posting this suggestion as well. But instead of a handcrafting-speed-module, it would make more sense if it were, similar to a portable roboport, a portable assembly machine.

Then you could use some interesting mechanic, like the following: Say you have 3 of the portable assembly machines, with a crafting speed of 1, and queue up 10 items. You handcraft the 1st, and the assembly machines craft the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Essentially that means you multiply the number of items crafted at once, but don't modify the speed.

If you then want to craft a single speed module by hand, it will still take 15 seconds. If you want to make 4, it'll also take 15 seconds.

There is https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Klonan/C ... d_Research if you want to increase your crafting speed.

The reason it takes a while to craft complex items by hand (especially higher-tier modules) is because you are supposed to automate the production of these items. Yes, you are able to craft them manually if needed, but doing so takes time usually better spent on setting up the production of these items in the first place.

I can actually see having that mod in the base game, especially when using the new infinite research possibilities with diminishing results.

daniel34 wrote:There is https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Klonan/C ... d_Research if you want to increase your crafting speed.

The reason it takes a while to craft complex items by hand (especially higher-tier modules) is because you are supposed to automate the production of these items. Yes, you are able to craft them manually if needed, but doing so takes time usually better spent on setting up the production of these items in the first place.

I can actually see having that mod in the base game, especially when using the new infinite research possibilities with diminishing results.

I've been using it, and it doesn't really fit the basegame imo. Why should handcrafting become faster? It makes much more sense to equip something, like Exoskeletons, to make you faster.

Xeanoa wrote:I've thought about posting this suggestion as well. But instead of a handcrafting-speed-module, it would make more sense if it were, similar to a portable roboport, a portable assembly machine.

Then you could use some interesting mechanic, like the following: Say you have 3 of the portable assembly machines, with a crafting speed of 1, and queue up 10 items. You handcraft the 1st, and the assembly machines craft the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Essentially that means you multiply the number of items crafted at once, but don't modify the speed.

If you then want to craft a single speed module by hand, it will still take 15 seconds. If you want to make 4, it'll also take 15 seconds.

I see, this would be an interesting addition, although thinking about it, having extra research (objects? things?) would make a lot of sense and would be easier to implement although i don't see the research alternative to be very balanced.

edit:grammar

You're meant to setup assembling machines to craft things.

If you don't want to do that you suffer with the slow speed.

Rseding91 wrote:You're meant to setup assembling machines to craft things.

If you don't want to do that you suffer with the slow speed.

Yeah, we all know, and we all do that, for stuff that needs to be produced continually.

However, it's still much more convenient to handcraft things on the go as you set up a new part of your factory (and faster), than doing the math every time to calculate what you need, collect that, and bring it with you, only to find out you missed something.

Also, it's a lot less tedious than to place an assembly machine, (two inserters, two chests,) select a recipe, put materials in it every time you need something than to just press the handcraft button if you only need a few pieces.

But if handcrafting were faster then why bother automating anything? You could automate components and just fill your inventory, then craft whatever you need when you need it. It would discourage automation.

My first few games I would just focus on progression and not set up production for anything. Need 50 mining drills, eh I'll handcraft them and do the rails while I'm waiting. On each individual occasion it is easier to handcraft than to automate, but all together it's better to automate it. Making handcrafting faster will push players further from wanting to automate anything.

There are few things you would want to handcraft, the power armour and its equipment comes to mind which takes a little while but you can always do other stuff while it works. Of course the components are another story, the engines and modules of course should be automated as you'll probably use them later too and it's relatively simple, not to mention a lot faster.

I don't really get the OP's logic though. We should be automating everything, but sometimes it's more convenient to handcraft so handcrafting should be made faster for these few cases where it's already more convenient...

Why not leave it up to the player if they want to automate or work by hand? It's a sandbox game, after all.

You already have construction robots, logistic system and assembly machines to automate building. A little boost to handcrafting to give the player another option surely wouldn't hurt.

Currently, the method to disengage players from it is by making it annoying, tedious and consume orders of a magnitude more time. Instead, the game should make the player notice the benefits of automation more heavily. The blueprint library is one step in that direction. But handcrafting shouldn't recieve such a high penalty.

Handcrafting doesn't have a penalty, until you get T3 Assemblers it's actually faster to handcraft. Even the T3 is only 25% faster, the main advantage is you can put down hundreds of them crafting simultaneously.

As I said if you pre-produce the components in Assemblers and just handcraft the final product, it's quite tolerable. Most annoying is anything needing more than a few Iron Gear Wheels as I don't bother carrying them around but if that's the way you want to play then have an Assembler drop a few hundred in a chest for you.

This just goes completely against the design of the game. By the time you have 500+ logi bots you should never have to craft again, just build one assembler for every item in the game, filter inserter limit them to output no more than 20-2000 depending on the item, and every time you want something you can fetch all you need from thin air. You need lots of something out on the rim? Build a car, or make power armor mk2, and you'll have a lot of capacity for long distance shipping.

In the early game, you may not have bots, but you can still make assemblers just for your own use for intermeiates. If you have personal assemblers for wheels, inserters, green/red circuits, belts, and pipes, you'll find that crafting whatever you need takes almost no time at all. It's not the end products that kill your crafting speed, it's not having stacks of the intermediates for personal use. Maybe the game should hint more heavily at that, but it's an interesting lesson to learn yourself.

You can, of course, also craft end products with assemblers and just feed them by dumping ingredients into a chest. I tend to build electric furnace assemblers when making the switch just because they take so long to craft.

Why would you need Filter Inserters...? Assemblers only produce one product, so there's not really anything to filter.

Hah, you're right. I'm still thinking of filters as smart inserters which were the only ones that could connect to the logistic network and have conditions xD

Personally I think hand crafting needs to be slower. Make it equal to the tier 1 or tier 2 assembler.

Nich wrote:Personally I think hand crafting needs to be slower. Make it equal to the tier 1 or tier 2 assembler.

Well, that is taste. Taste belongs to balancing.

So i was walking around setting up my science factory realized that crafting by hand is really slow, especially when you are making a bunch of underground belts and splitters by hand.

They are actually not slow to handcraft if you have the ingredients but they can be slow to hand craft because they need iron gears and handcrafting those together with the ubelt/splitter takes time.

possible solutions:

- At the very least: handcraft a hundred or so iron gears during your idle time when you are not handcrafting something.

- Preferrably: Automate iron gear production asap and put the gears in a box where you can easily find them when you need to make underground belts or splitters.

And why not: Just automate ubelts and splitters and put them in boxes where you can go get them when you need them. Wooden boxes are usually more than enough. Maybe further limit the boxes to 5 stacks or so. The earlier you do this the easier it will be to play the rest of the game.

Xeanoa wrote:I've thought about posting this suggestion as well. But instead of a handcrafting-speed-module, it would make more sense if it were, similar to a portable roboport, a portable assembly machine.

Then you could use some interesting mechanic, like the following: Say you have 3 of the portable assembly machines, with a crafting speed of 1, and queue up 10 items. You handcraft the 1st, and the assembly machines craft the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Essentially that means you multiply the number of items crafted at once, but don't modify the speed.

If you then want to craft a single speed module by hand, it will still take 15 seconds. If you want to make 4, it'll also take 15 seconds.

I like the idea of a Portable Assembler. Put it in your armour like the Portable Roboport, open a menu and pick out a list of things you want made, and how many of each. The more you have in your armour, the more things you can have being made for you at once. Would be particularly useful for dealing with the aftermath of an attack.

Heck, you could build two sets of whatever armour you have unlocked so far and have one set outfitted with mainly Portable Roboports and Portable Assemblers for use with setting up outposts and repairing damage and another outfitted with mainly shields and laser defences for when you're taking the fight to the biters.

Well, I think I need to say at this point, that I don't see much chance that this is implemented, cause it has a very low gameplay-value.
Cause: Factorio is about automation - that is one of the game-cores - and this suggestion does the exact opposite, it brings more micro-management to the player.

The suggestions about faster and slower crafting are about 1:1, so I think this is the right way to keep it as it is and let the modders to the rest.
https://mods.factorio.com/?q=crafting