Factories that can produce more than one item!

[redlabel]

Hey,

So today I was thinking it would be nice if you could have factories that can make more than one thing. Not at the same time but essentially switch from one thing to another on their own. Perhaps using circuits.. Lets say you can set a primary product and a secondary product. Circuit could check for number of items on the chest and switch to the next item?

I think that does not require a mod and it could be an interesting addition to vanilla... Perhaps make it so only blue factories and above have the capability? I think it would be one more reason to use circuits..

EDIT to add suggestions from my other comment:

1) Have "tabbed" factory menus that let you control both products being made. It will default to product one and you don't need to ever click on second tab if you don't need it.
2) When you remove a tab or change product in it you get the materials for the previous product back like it happens with regular factories.

[Yoyobuae]

It's more complicated than you think.

Furnaces can already switch between smelting iron/copper/steel/stone. If tried making a furnace that can switch between all those things you'll run into the same kind of problems a dynamic assembler would.

[redlabel]

It's more complicated than you think.

Furnaces can already switch between smelting iron/copper/steel/stone. If tried making a furnace that can switch between all those things you'll run into the same kind of problems a dynamic assembler would.

Oh wow I did not know you could do that... Oh well I see what you mean.. But with factories is not quite the same.

Here's a few additions to my suggestion:

Add "tabs" to the factory menu, so when you open it you see by default primary product and you can optionally click on the secondary product tab (and back) to navigate the menu of the other thing.

Both "tabs" would work as independent factories. In essence two factories in one. Maybe these factories could use twice the materials to build? And when you switch production in one of the tabs you get the products on that tab back like you would in a regular factory.. I hope I make myself a bit more clear..

[Yoyobuae]

Makes no different, there are still issues with "one machine making two kinds of items".

Suppose the machine is configured to make both, electronic circuits and copper cables. Now suppose an inserter can pick from a belt which has both, iron plate and copper plate. The machine first is making copper cable, so the inserter picks up a copper plate, but before the inserter can place it in the machine, the machine "decides" to make electronic circuits. Now the inserter is stuck with the wrong thing it's its hand.

Or suppose the copper wire is backed up, so the machine "decides" to make electronic circuits. But now there are unneeded copper plates in input slot, and not yet collected copper wire in output slot. How to get rid of them? Delete them? Via some inserter?

Basically every suggestion about "one machine, makes many kinds of items" turns into endless discussion about solving problems like the above. Devs have also mentioned that Factorio is not designed with the "one machine, makes many" paradigm in mind.

There's, of course, mods which allow doing it anyway. But you'll have to solve problems like the above yourself (via circuit network, and a lot of it probably). That's precisely what I did:
https://youtu.be/cGfAFxHplnE

But in the end decided it's just way too much effort to setup for little benefits. It's better to just make many machines for the many steps, that still allows to do fun things anyway (see other videos in my channel ).

[redlabel]

Perhaps this issues with unused item left in the inserter should be solved by the devs somehow.. Although I imagine it is not easy to do. At least to reduce the possible conflicts to the point where you don't really need extra circuits..

[ssilk]

This is already possible and can be modded, while the integration is not 100% (cause of many problems, that arise, if you dig a bit deeper. Parts of that are explained already here (page 3): viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41644 Waste production Mod/Development proposal
And so it explains also, why it isn't used in vanilla.