New Branch: Chemicals

[FrozenOne]

As you probably head to implement it somehow in the future, let me share my vision. I tried to make it relatively easy to implement, but who knows.

1. Oil fields - frequent in deserts, displayed by leaking pools looking similar to coal, or in shallow water as oil spill

2. Oil rigs - powered by electricity, placed on oil fields or in reachable water, pumps oil through standard pipes

3. Oil refinery - takes electricity, oil though pipes, iron/steel, creates barrels of refined fuel

4. Barrels - used to fuel cars, diesel (faster than coal) locomotives, create flame thrower ammo, used in later science packs/chemistry/rocket related things

5. Diesel aggregate - small machine that creates electricity burning fuel, starts as a backup if no other power is available, can be used to power things far from home electric grid

By adding this branch you basically enlarge the game by one quarter, add new tech level after coal to aim for, fix nonsense like coal car, and it should not be that hard to take more than a few days of work...

[ficolas]

Oil
I don't want to ripoff the buildcraft oil concept completely (http://minecraftbuildcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Oil), but I like it a lot.
It would add another use to pipes, add new concept, and provide intermediate energy source when coal is not enough.
Processing oil to fuel or other products as in build craft would be nice, and in addition, the fuel could replace coal usage in car, or in flame-thrower recipe and similar places.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... hp?f=9&t=5

[FrozenOne]

Ye I thought i saw it somewhere. But i wanted to point it all out simply and compactly.

[rk84]

...fix nonsense like coal car...

mayby first car could use wood?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas

[SilverWarior]

By adding this branch you basically enlarge the game by one quarter, add new tech level after coal to aim for, fix nonsense like coal car, and it should not be that hard to take more than a few days of work...

Yes this would open the whole new brach to lots of new products. I would realy like that to be implemented.

As for the easines of implementation. It laregly depends on the current implementation of pipe systems. I remember readin in one of the threads that creating loped pipe sections could lead to some unusual behavior. So I suspect that current implementation might not be the best one.

[Grey]

Hi, in order to get more exciting game content... have you thought about a larger chemical industry branch?

Starting with Oil Rigs through pipelines into cracker and chemical reactors? So in the end you can build vast refineries to feed your needs in diesel fuel for locomotives and cars, but also getting the possiblities for maybe dyes or plastics of different types, which maybe in the end enable special armor types or poisonous ammunition.

Some needed devices would be electric pumps, "smart" valves, chemical reaktors, liquid tanks, wagons for liquids, barrels(for getting the liquids into the inventory system),...

Would be cool to see some ideas because its alone a large amount of content able to fill a game itself ^^

[Balinor]

I like the idea behind this. Maybe not the exact items you are suggesting but in general this would give a nice amount of content and additional building options.

[ssilk]

Makes time for experimentations. Put two different items into a reactor and look what comes out. You see directly if the experiment was successful, cause otherwise the reactor explodes. This could be real fun and reminds me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_and_the_Big_Fight
as developer I would hide some Easter eggs here...

[Grey]

Yeah, some influences of "alchemy", maybe someone knows from the smart phone would be possible.

[MF-]

And we are back to including SpaceChem in Factorio

[ssilk]

Well, I played that very much in the last weeks. I admit it's fascinating! But for a game like factorio it's much too complicated. Too much like a puzzle, the orientation is important, too much "time-doesn't-matter"... but - well - I can really thinking about integrating this "low-end-assembling-of-molecules" into a factorio in 2 years or so, not yet. If then there are enough gamers left, which pays this...

Currently I think playing with combinations of items could be a fascinating mod.

[slpwnd]

Another good idea. In one of our "brainstorm sessions" we talked a lot how to give a new dimension to the whole game. And this is sort of what came up. Definitely not an explicit puzzle-like approach like in the SpaceChem (though I like it a lot). More like combining liquids of different concentrations using pipe system. Still in the "idea shaping phase" (like many things).

[ssilk]

Would make the pipes really useful.
Without knowing anything, I see converters, two pipes came in,one out for the processed material. Put in process-energy either with coal or hot steam (a third pipe came in). Or perhaps you need to cool it (if not it makes booom ) then one cool water-pipe came in and steam comes out (can be used for powering).
Could be rather tricky to make for example diesel out of oil, because there are many extraction-steps.

[Cordylus]

As the Slpwnd said: it really gives a new dimension to the game.

Implemented in 0.9.0

EDIT:
Merged two topics about almost the same suggestion.