Things should break

[nuhll]

Hi,
i think it would be cool if things break after a long time beeing used. Like machines trains and so on.(wouldnt make more work, because robots will repair anyway)

[Deadly-Bagel]

But then what's the point? It just becomes an annoyance until you get the tools to deal with it, then it might as well not be there at all.

[nuhll]

It should be a late game thing. But it should only slowly happen. Would not annoy bc repair bots do it anyway and since it only happens slowly it should also not fuck your outposts up.

If you ask why, so i could also ask how could biters kill towers made out of stone?

[aka13]

It's kinda a mechanic which will add nothhing of value. I mean, earlygame, if you sa y it should happen so slowly that it does not matter, it will not influence gameplay at all. Lategame it will just add constant ressource drain, and an annoyance about constantly busy robots. Not sure how this benefits anything, or makes stuff more interesting.

[IV]

It could maybe be interesting in the end game. It should not happen in the early game, that would be annoying. Two things that could be interesting:
- In the end game it could force the player to set up a fire extinguishing system near his chemical facilities, so not everything burns down (chemical facilities would spontaneously catch fire and it would spread).
- Certain parts of an object (mining drill) could break requiring replacement: crafted from one repair pack and some part. For a mining drill you might need "gear replacement" [gear+repair pack], "circuit replacement" [circuit+repair pack],... This would force the player to set a small scale production and distribution of such repair items.
(To me both of these sound more like mods and not so much like a vanilla feature.)

The following mod is planning to add disasters viewtopic.php?f=93&t=26910

Also, if things just randomly break and require a bit of time to be repaired by bots would be a problem for very carefully balanced designs that expect everything to work. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing.

[nuhll]

Yeah, thats how i meant it.

[aka13]

It would move factorio towards micromanagement as in Rimworld. THe whole idea is that as you progress through the game, you have to micromanage less and less stufff, and rather plan globally, long-term wise. The breaking down, fires, and other random events, which can not be prevented would simply damage large factories, while having almost no influence on small ones. If you have a factory as big that you have a train loop to move around it, you just physically can't deal with "events", and if something automatic takes care of events its simply a ressource drain.

[nuhll]

You dont have to manage it yourself, your robots do the dirty work, you just have to make production for the resource what ever it is called mikrocontroller repair kit what ever

What you dont understand?

Okay, your logic also means remove biters, because its an event and you can deal automatic with it, so remove it.

I hate random disasters, but e.g. if you drain too much energy or if your oil gets attacked, it would make sense it explodes e.g

[ssilk]

The forum discussed this idea several times. To make long things short: there is not much added game-value.

Cause Factorio is about automation and not micromanagement it would just be another resource-drain.

[nuhll]

So, remove biters asap.

It would perfectly make sense if factorios with modules would break after a certain time...

[Hannu]

I am sure that it would be possible to do by ways which add significantly game value. At least in certain play styles. Health could affect to the speed of entities and probability that they break completely. Then player should make decisions in trade off situations. Should he repair the miners in declining mining outpost or let them be and build a new outpost in better ore deposit. Or should he use modules if it would make wear significantly faster. There could also be more complex and expensive repair stuff for higher tier entities. Player should automatize manufacturing and delivering them. At least I feel the end game much more interesting if I have several varying resource flows and trade off situations between them instead just one mathematically optimized rocket production line. It would not be a problem in early or mid game or speedruns if the wearing time was tens of hours, but it would be important thing in late game megabases, which tend to develop towards boringness after couple of hundreds of hours. If devs think it is too complicated for stock game or casual players they could consider how much resources it would need to make it moddable option.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Biters are a dynamic part of the game, they force you to balance your production goals with military research, plan expansion with biters in mind, and set up comprehensive defences so your factory doesn't get eaten. There is however an option to turn them off, or at least non-aggressive, for those who don't want the hassle.

Requiring repairs simply requires you to drop roboports down everywhere - wait don't we all do that already? Except now you require 100% coverage. Having mining drills and the like break and require more than a standard repair pack would make for some interesting logistical challenges, I somewhat agree with that, however I speak with experience. A newbie would struggle to make sense of and plan for it while trying to come to grips with the rest of the game as well.

[ssilk]

It would perfectly make sense if factorios with modules would break after a certain time...

Maybe that makes for you perfectly sense, but I would ask "Why?"

I miss the reason in this suggestion.

[nuhll]

Biters are a dynamic part of the game, they force you to balance your production goals with military research, plan expansion with biters in mind, and set up comprehensive defences so your factory doesn't get eaten. There is however an option to turn them off, or at least non-aggressive, for those who don't want the hassle.

Requiring repairs simply requires you to drop roboports down everywhere - wait don't we all do that already? Except now you require 100% coverage. Having mining drills and the like break and require more than a standard repair pack would make for some interesting logistical challenges, I somewhat agree with that, however I speak with experience. A newbie would struggle to make sense of and plan for it while trying to come to grips with the rest of the game as well.

YOu dont understand me.

im dont want to mining drills break or walls or liket his. E.G. I want machines which produces more then they should (modules) to break because they work more as they were supposed to be

Also it wont effect early game and it wont hurt newbs because they most probably not using modules... and it would probably balance the over exess use of modules.

If they work faster as they should do its more likly they get damaged.

[nuhll]

I am sure that it would be possible to do by ways which add significantly game value. At least in certain play styles. Health could affect to the speed of entities and probability that they break completely. Then player should make decisions in trade off situations. Should he repair the miners in declining mining outpost or let them be and build a new outpost in better ore deposit. Or should he use modules if it would make wear significantly faster. There could also be more complex and expensive repair stuff for higher tier entities. Player should automatize manufacturing and delivering them. At least I feel the end game much more interesting if I have several varying resource flows and trade off situations between them instead just one mathematically optimized rocket production line. It would not be a problem in early or mid game or speedruns if the wearing time was tens of hours, but it would be important thing in late game megabases, which tend to develop towards boringness after couple of hundreds of hours. If devs think it is too complicated for stock game or casual players they could consider how much resources it would need to make it moddable option.

Yeah. Thats what i mean. It should not be needed for "noobs", but if you squeeze every % of the machines in the 101% perfect builds, then it can happen they break. Thats the downside from make everything perfect.

[Hannu]

It would perfectly make sense if factorios with modules would break after a certain time...

Maybe that makes for you perfectly sense, but I would ask "Why?"

I miss the reason in this suggestion.

Some players like more complex logistic challenges and manage tens of processes. If your play style is achieving predefined (by you or devs) objectives in relatively straightforward ways, you would probably not understand why micromanagement and insane complexity can be so fun for somebody else. Varying conditions, wearing and breaking of entities, hundreds of intermediate products forces player to think, plan and manage more intensively. I think that devs should at least consider how much work adding of complexity would need and how many players would probably enjoy it.

Mods which increase complexity to higher order of magnitude are relatively popular. Bob's, Angel's, and many more. Unfortunately, limits of the game core prevents modders to make enough complex and realistic production chains. Most of such things would be relatively simple to program into the game, for example this would not need much more than couple of variables in entities and recipes (high resolution health, wear per manufacturing cycle or second, some multipliers for modules and different tiers), and event which could be called after ever manufacturing cycle and decrease health according to modders will. Energy consumption and pollution per recipe instead of entity would be another simple change. They would not modify stock game at all, but would give many modders and players much more possibilites to get more interesting and entertaining game.

[aka13]

Micromanagement is not insane complexity. There is nothing complex about adding a production line for the said repair kit, and plop down more roboports. I agree that maybe multiple ways to refine, multiple ways to produce stuff, intermediate products would add spice to factorio in a minecraft-GT kind of way, which I absolutely love, but even GT always avoided "LOL IT BROKE JUST BECAUSE" kind of ressource wasting. It would not add anything of value, just force you to place more roboports.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Yes but the game is confusing enough for new players, and if it's nothing to worry about until endgame then again there's nothing to do since your robots will do it for you.

Modules have their own downsides, usually heavily increased power consumption. It's always more efficient to add more machines than it is to add modules, the only exceptions being in limited areas and productivity modules. Also having them break your machines would be pointless because it would just permanently tie up a construction bot while it constantly repairs it, no increased complexity or challenges or anything just a bit more of a resource sink.

[ssilk]

Maybe that makes for you perfectly sense, but I would ask "Why?"
I miss the reason in this suggestion.

Some players like more complex logistic challenges and manage tens of processes. If your play style is achieving predefined (by you or devs) objectives in relatively straightforward ways, you would probably not understand why micromanagement and insane complexity can be so fun for somebody else.

This is arguing with false assumptions and imputes, that I don't have fun with complex logistics.

Varying conditions, wearing and breaking of entities, hundreds of intermediate products forces player to think, plan and manage more intensively. I think that devs should at least consider how much work adding of complexity would need and how many players would probably enjoy it.

That are the arguments that explains, why modding is so successful: A minority of gamers can play "their" game.

But what we are speaking in this board is about suggestion of the majority of players. This is, cause Factorio needs to be in the end a successful game and a commercial success of this game is also a success for the players of this game. So the clear and objective line between a suggestion that should come into Vanilla or not is this. And if I take that as the yardstick then I objectively need to say (also as moderator trying to avoid useless discussions): "Guys, nice idea, but not for vanilla Factorio. Or not yet, make a prove of concept first!"

Mods which increase complexity to higher order of magnitude are relatively popular. Bob's, Angel's, and many more. Unfortunately, limits of the game core prevents modders to make enough complex and realistic production chains. Most of such things would be relatively simple to program into the game, for example this would not need much more than couple of variables in entities and recipes (high resolution health, wear per manufacturing cycle or second, some multipliers for modules and different tiers), and event which could be called after ever manufacturing cycle and decrease health according to modders will. Energy consumption and pollution per recipe instead of entity would be another simple change. They would not modify stock game at all, but would give many modders and players much more possibilites to get more interesting and entertaining game.

That are even more arguments for implementing this as mod first.
- Mods are popular: Nobody would come to the idea, that Bobs mod should be implemented into vanilla.
- Factorio will be added more complexity, see the 5 latests FFF's.
- Most things are simple to implement: Even more a reason for a mod.
- Energy consumption and pollution per recipe: That has been suggested multiple times. For better modding!
- More possibilities for modding: Yes, but implementing THIS into vanilla doesn't mean, that other modders would profit. No, it's the opposite: Why should the devs add modding interface, if the reason is already implemented? So this is also an argument to implement this suggestion as mod.

[GlassDeviant]

This is better as a mod than as part of the basic game.

To the average player, it will be just one more thing to manage which may lead to the game becoming tedious, as it already does occasionally. To a newbie it will add too much to the learning curve. Heck I still encounter moments where I am thinking, "okay, what do I do now?" and I've been playing on and off for a couple years, or nearly that.

This is not the sort of game where months and years go by quickly, though they may seem to at times. Wear and tear is not a major factor at this time scale, at least not for the average piece of equipment. Consider airport luggage belts, which go years and even decades with only minor maintenance. This is 20th century tech in a futuristic environment.