Upgrades on everything

[GreatAlucard]

I'm was not sure on which topic to post this since this is a thing with many of the mod's modules so I thought it would be better to create a new topic.

It's about the constant necessity when building a certain item to have the previous version of it in the recipe, having this happen once is ok, obviously, twice is fine but almost not (as in an MK3 having the MK2 on its recipe), the issue is when items go to higher levels and creating even one requires a massive list of items, sure, later in the game they are all plenty, but nevertheless it takes a lot of unnecessary time to build them, why would a steel steam engine need the iron one to be built, and why would the titanium one need the steel one in turn, admittedly this works very well with intermediary products, circuits as an example, and they in turn are fine as is.

The main problem created by this is that it makes the path to the endgame more linear, and prevents the player from directing his efforts into a specific path, also prevents any focusing on a specific material, the good part of it is that it keeps all minerals relevant through the game, but this feat would be better invested on alloys that could be on the recipe, and of course, circuits already use most of early game minerals.

On modules I'm on the fence about, its a major harassment to build higher level ones but they're not really mandatory for anything so It's way less of a problem.

I would like to hear other people's opinions on this and maybe Bob's version of the story too.

All in all, excelent mod, definitely my favorite compilation on Factorio, keep up the good work

[bobingabout]

I do actually agree that in many cases, upgrading from a MK1 to a MK2, to a MK3, to a MK4 etc doesn't make a whole lot of sense, by the time you get to MK4, there's probably not a lot of the MK1 left, if anything at all..

There is however one simple reason why I used this model... it is based on the base game model.

As a general rule
an item, resource, component etc will be made directly at it's final state.
An entity (Factory, Vehicle etc) will follow the upgrade rule instead, upgrade from MK1 to MK2 to MK3 to MK4, as is the case with the base game.

In some cases, it can make sense, in others it simply doesn't. I basically just followed a model, based on the base game.

It's also one reason for my change to the electronics. The base game's upgrade system, which in this case basically consisted of throwing more of the same resource at it in increasing quantities didn't make much sense, so I replaced it with an ever increasing complexity system instead, to produce what is effectively 5 tiers of board (the first tier is the no research required tier, and is the board for the second tier, so there's only actually 4 full tiers, which correspond nicely to 4 levels of science pack)

[GreatAlucard]

The thing is, in the base game it never goes past what is equivalent to MK3, and the only things that do go there (on final products) are factories, logistic items (belts, splitters, underground belts and inserters) and the modules, most other things don't really have an upgrade or do not rely on the previous versions (Armor as an example goes up to power armor 2 without ever needing the past versions, same thing for power poles, although they serve different purposes both later versions are clear upgrades over the wood and copper one, electric furnace doesn't need past furnaces either), the difference is that these items get used A LOT, and as such it is worth to actually automate their production.

Its not a bad design gameplaywise needing the past versions of something in the sense that it keeps you resource hungry, but it does become a slog when trying to build lategame simple items, mainly pumpjacks, chemical stations, storage tanks, eletrolysers, boilers, steam engines and so on, differently from logistic items, as much as you use them later in the game, it is just not worth it to automate their production (and each version takes between half a minute and a minute to build a single one), I don't know if it is possible but that same effect would be reached if there was an alternative recipe for such items that required the base materials for past versions of itself but not the actual past version of itself to get built, which would both make more sense (although the usage of better materials and not needing past versions at all would make more, with the drawback of making some past materials irrelevant, admitedly) and significantly cut down the time needed to build them, cutting it from about 3 to 4 minutes per item on average (for MK4's which is where most items stop) down to around 1.

For modules this is not the case really, intermediary products or science packs are not a problem either since the amount used warrants automation on possibly all cases, but for most production buildings it does feel like it would be more natural and probably an improvement.

[bobingabout]

I do get what you're trying to say here, Alternate recipes are one step that could help.

But I think one of your points not to automate is actually a point to automate. it would take 4 minutes to make a MK4 by hand, if you craft the MK1 etc first. This is true. If however you automate it, although it would take 4 minutes to produce the final product, you can churn out 4 within that time once the factory is running, because at any one time you have a MK1, MK2 and MK3 being built for the next ones while your MK4 is being built. So with machines you may use a lot of, like the assembly machines, it is a good idea to automate it. Even less commonly used machines like the chemical plants would be worth it, but I can see your reason not to do it with rarely used machines like steam engines, and boilers.


But yes, from a realism perspective... I'm going to use a steam locomotive as an example. You have an original design, several intermediate designs, and a final design that were all produced over the span of 30 years. At those end years when you have the MK4 design of your locomotive, when building a new one, you'd go straight for building the MK4 design, you wouldn't build a MK1 and modify it up to a MK4, just because that's what you did with the first one you built.