Friday Facts #266 - Cleanup of mechanics

[bobucles]

unlocking another "tier" of the same thing (just a bit faster) is barely a "progress" or any meningful value for the game experience in my opinion.

Tiered structures still create new production chains to play with. A T1 assembler requires only a few steps, but the T3 requires many more steps and a lot more technology to produce. That's okay. That's perfectly fine for a game about sewing together a chain of increasingly complicated recipes. As the recipes and factory continue to grow, it's not outlandish to demand tougher and better infrastructure to go with it.

I don't think it's a great idea to have higher tier assemblers and then eliminate the hard reasons for upgrading them. The early push to T2 is absolutely driven by the hard limitations of T1 being pretty useless. However at the same time players will naturally gravitate to superior T2 goodness all on their own. T2 assemblers are so all around "meat and potatoes" good that they can take the factory all the way to rocket launch. There is no explicit reason to hit T3 assemblers other than to get more because MOAR.

There are a few of ways to make tired system more clearly pronounced. The most obvious upgrade is to give better base stats. T2 builds faster than T1, and T3 builds faster than T2. It's a simple upgrade, but it's more of a soft encouragement to use better things. Another option is to create a unique upgrade that the previous tier doesn't have. For example T2 can handle all fluid recipes (barreling is dual-ingredient recipe), which is a clear new type of ability over T1. T3 has no unique advantage over T2 other than superior module capacity. That module capacity makes them so superior for beacon builds that you'd never make a serious T1 or T2 beacon factory. The bias for T3 beacon bases is so huge that you could even remove the beacon ability from T2 and T1 assemblers, yet barely change how players build factories. Just some food for thought.

[Reika]

I maybe shouldn't have upvoted without explanation. I'd like to offer fluid temperature as a substitute sacrifice for things mentioned in this FFF because it's not modeled accurately enough to add much "puzzle". You use turbines with heat exchangers and steam engines with boilers because that's the only thing that makes sense. There's no trade offs, no room for other interesting options. You do it because the temperature forces you to. Having nuclear steam vary in temperature is cool, but IMO not enough to justify the UPS hit.

Power generation mods - including Bob Power and my own Geothermal - rely on fluid temperature to work. Removing features just because the base game does not extensively use them is a good way to ensure that you do not see much in the way of modding, period.

The more I think about it, the more I think 3 different assambler types should be just gone. And then:
- Streamline all base crafting times to 1 across assemblers, chemical plants, refineries, etc. (that curls tooltips too!)
- Make additional module slots a research (baseline being zero)
- Remove energy cost of using modules in assemblers, so they act as a higher speed version of assembler(s)
- Increase power consumption of beacons to compensate
- Remove lab speed research, their speed would be increased solely through modules too

Continuing the train of thought here: Replace the different versions of chests, belts, inserters, machines with a single version of each plus research upgrades.

Going further: Bots could be replaced with a global chest. Lossy pipes could be replaced with global fluid storage. Lossy power lines with a lossless global electricity network.

Adding value and visualizing progress: Research upgrades could be replaced with unique buildings. I.e. the iron age castle. If you build your first generator, you get access to electric items.

streamline mining . good.

don't stop at uranium. Please make no exceptions.

Do the narrowing in one oft the next refinement steps. e.g. Centrifuge

the refinement is specific to the uran process and the ore mining is generalized.
Idea behind: the ore is mixed with dirt in it's natural finding


Ok. you will have more mined ore and halfs the transportation. But in my opinion the whole uran process has so few machines involved in the refinement process. So if more uran refinement machines are needed maybe the costs should be halfed as well.

And I thought the ideas people were talking about yesterday were bad...

[Avezo]

unlocking another "tier" of the same thing (just a bit faster) is barely a "progress" or any meningful value for the game experience in my opinion.

Tiered structures still create new production chains to play with. A T1 assembler requires only a few steps, but the T3 requires many more steps and a lot more technology to produce. That's okay. That's perfectly fine for a game about sewing together a chain of increasingly complicated recipes. As the recipes and factory continue to grow, it's not outlandish to demand tougher and better infrastructure to go with it.

The same thing can be achieved with different kinds of "assemblers", i.e. simple recipes made in assembler, more compicated in chemical plants, which are bit more difficult to make, then most difficult in rocket silo. Or something like that - to be honest I think recipes in general need rebalancing.

It's weird that the only "tiered" item in the game like that is an assembler, everything else seems just fine with a single "tier".

[Néomorphos]

Factorio has a incredibly well done core, which is all about automation. Here, simplifications are good (basicaaly all). But, when you look around to see what else than automation Factorio has, then you see... well... not a lot. Imo, Factorio should leave itself some space for further updates. For example, the map has for only use to search for the biggest ore patches and clean bitters. You could do so much more! Have some caracterized biomes, have some commercial interactions with aliens (as mentionned in an FFF), have some stuff growing outside of player's control...
As a whole, Factorio could spread in many more directions to make the player interact more with environnment, with aliens, etc... (But shouldn't spread in too many directions obviously). Polishing is good, and it is good that it is done now. But it shouldn't kill existing directions of playing, neither all directions of developpment.

[quyxkh]

Yah, seems to me the right solution to that misunderstanding is just make mining with the pickaxe in hand _also_ work.

I don't agree. If the player is trying to do something the wrong way, it probably means the game didn't clearly present how to do it the correct way.

Having the game temporarily and invisibly auto-equip your axe from your tool slot for you is such an obvious nice feature and introduced so early we're not even aware it's happening, but then, why should the auto-equip be invisible? My answer: because stuff like this is beside the point. But that's still what's happening: the game's auto-equipping tools and weapons when they're obviously what you want to use.

But why should holding a pickaxe in your hand to mine resources be considered wrong? I don't think it should be, I think it's a perfectly legitimate, unambiguous act. You don't _have_ to do it that way, but there's not much question what you're trying to do.

[MisterDoctor]

Factorio is a hybrid puzzle/power fantasy game. The puzzle lies in the math, limitations of various things like AM ingredient limits, and the reward for creating and solving puzzles of your own within the tools and limitations supplied by the game (like an in-game video decoder). The power fantasy is building the biggest factory with the best numbers the fastest.

This hybrid nature has split the player base, and the easiest tell between the two is how they see bots fitting into the game. A power fantasy type sees anything that slows down their arrival at the bots as a bad feature because, for them, the game doesn't start until bots are unlocked. So mining axes and ingredient limits in AMs are pointless because they don't matter to bot play or hinder bot play which hampers the power fantasy. To them, a good change is any change that makes it easier for the numbers to go up faster.

I can see this as being similar to (or the same thing as) the age-old power-gamer VS role-player conflict.

one side sees restrictions as just being in the way of having fun
the other side sees restrictions as a part of what enables the fun in the first place

IMO the first group is simply ignorant of the role that restrictions and limitations play in enabling the experience. not even power gamers want to play every game with god-mode enabled. if you enjoy your min-maxed character, it's *only because* you know that your knowledge and decision making has overcome the limitations your character might otherwise have had. you wouldn't have wanted the limitations to just be removed, you just want to be able to overcome them yourself with little to no effort.

------------

for me, and for the assemblers, the thought process is way more interesting with assemblers having different amounts of inputs.

currently the thought process can go like this:
I need to make A, which requires B, C, D, and E, so that means that As need a Yellow building
Bs only require F and G, so they can be in a grey building, but then that means that the yellow buildings will be X amount faster, so I need to take that into account as well
Cs, Ds and Es, can all be in blue buildings, so I'll have to account for their speed difference as well.
maybe some or all of the lesser recipes will use higher tier buildings than they have to to account for the speed difference, or maybe I'll use less of the Yellow buildings, who knows. the point is that is an interesting flow of decision making.

removing the limitation, my thinking becomes:
I need to make A, which requires B, C, D, and E, and I don't have to give any thought AT ALL to building tier, except for speed ratios.
so everything starts with grey buildings, only upgraded if I happen to need something made faster
BORING

[eradicator]

[...]
This hybrid nature has split the player base, and the easiest tell between the two is how they see bots fitting into the game. A power fantasy type sees anything that slows down their arrival at the bots as a bad feature because, for them, the game doesn't start until bots are unlocked. So mining axes and ingredient limits in AMs are pointless because they don't matter to bot play or hinder bot play which hampers the power fantasy. To them, a good change is any change that makes it easier for the numbers to go up faster.

[...]
IMO the first group is simply ignorant of the role that restrictions and limitations play in enabling the experience. not even power gamers want to play every game with god-mode enabled. if you enjoy your min-maxed character, it's *only because* you know that your knowledge and decision making has overcome the limitations your character might otherwise have had. you wouldn't have wanted the limitations to just be removed, you just want to be able to overcome them yourself with little to no effort.

Exactly. Without a mountain, you can not climb the mountain. If you can not climb the mountain, you don't get a feeling of accomplishment from standing on a grass plains. People who demand to remove the mountain to make it easier to climb do not realize the contradictory nature of their requests.

for me, and for the assemblers, the thought process is way more interesting with assemblers having different amounts of inputs.
[...] removing the limitation, my thinking becomes: [...] I don't have to give any thought AT ALL to building tier, except for speed ratios.
so everything starts with grey buildings, only upgraded if I happen to need something made faster
BORING

That's already how the game works though. If you limit yourself to using only the slowest assembler that can get the job done that's strickly a self-imposed limitation. There is no inherit reason to not use tier2/3 assemblers everywhere without thinking onc you have automated their production. Asm 3 is superior to 1/2 in every aspect except production cost.

[Mike5000]

Rythe correctly notes that the early game has been neglected over the years but even so the initial burner tier, the subsequent electric/AM2 tier, oil processing, trains, and bots are the five interesting aspects of the game. (Factorio has no real end game and I derive no satisfaction from plonking down beaconed blueprints in a megabase until I can't stand the diminishing UPS.)

Burners and stone furnaces and then AM1 are exciting first steps on the long road to automation - although AM1 should be burner-powered, there should be burner labs, and electricity should be a much greater challenge.

The electrical tier is then faster and can do more things. Yay! And then .... drudgery.

Click run click run click run click run click run click.

Plonk down a hundred, a thousand, a million of those same little miners and smelters. Until you get bots this is just mind-numbing tedium.

Factorio needs another tier of miners and smelters before bots. The miners should be at least 4x4 and the smelters should have similar throughput. There is nothing edifying or exciting or realistic about running around plonking down a couple hundred miners and smelters with identical inserter patterns and repetitive power poles.

[Avezo]

To add up to bloat removal proposals, I also think that at least some of different inserters should be made into just single one with custom settings like stack size, filtering, speed, etc. unlocked through research. That's what they all basically are - the same item with different setting options, would make sense if it was resembled in crafting menu.

Being able to set it up to be long-handed 12-stack fast arm would be cool.

[MisterDoctor]

Asm 3 is superior to 1/2 in every aspect except production cost.

right k, I guess I was assuming that there was an advantage to using grey instead of yellow. it seems that currently blue is the least energy efficient and yellow the most. not sure how I'd fine tune that. there is still a cost/benefit ratio to using yellow, though, due to the cost.

[bobucles]

The same thing can be achieved with different kinds of "assemblers", i.e. simple recipes made in assembler, more compicated in chemical plants, which are bit more difficult to make, then most difficult in rocket silo. Or something like that - to be honest I think recipes in general need rebalancing.

That is another valid approach. The Seablock mod (which is largely a pile of all the big mods) takes it up to eleven by using dozens of different facilities to sort out hundreds of recipes. It could definitely be argued that factorio crams too many recipes into the simple assembler. Most of the other facilities (refinery, chem plant, centrifuge, even smelters) only have a handful of recipes to play with. What they're doing becomes much clearer by the simple fact that they have very few options.

Is that important? Is that necessary? I don't know. Factorio might benefit from breaking up the assembler's huge list of recipes into smaller units. Something like a garage (to build vehicles) or a dedicated chip fab or a barreling facility or weapon fab might be good. Or maybe the assembler should just have a window on the side?

[Rythe]

Burners and stone furnaces and then AM1 are exciting first steps on the long road to automation - although AM1 should be burner-powered, there should be burner labs, and electricity should be a much greater challenge.

...

Factorio needs another tier of miners and smelters before bots. The miners should be at least 4x4 and the smelters should have similar throughput. There is nothing edifying or exciting or realistic about running around plonking down a couple hundred miners and smelters with identical inserter patterns and repetitive power poles.

+1 to this.

I should have spent a bit more time on my post. Because Gray is Burner tier and needs to reflect that via AM and Research starting as burner powered. I'm even mixing up Gray and Blue Tiers (burner vs electricity) by habit (partly that burner inserters weren't able to fuel themselves via coal line at one point which made fueling them and burner drills a straight up manual chore which obfuscated the automation process).

[dood]

What happened to the idea of making personal bots available earlier?
They're the direct replacement for pickaxes after all.

[Avezo]

What happened to the idea of making personal bots available earlier?
They're the direct replacement for pickaxes after all.

They made their research available earlier, but it didn't help much since they are still gated behing flying robot frames, which require batteries, which require almost entire oil processing to be already set up.

Wish they just removed flying robot frames and let us make construction bots directly from green circuits and engines or something like that.

[Kirona]

I have to agree with others in protesting the changes to the assembler. It not only provides a clear marker of progression, but it gives players a sense of the "complexity" of products. Given that this has been a mechanic for so long, I'd also bet it's impacted the actual recipes of a ton of items, both vanilla and modded - what easier way to "gate" access to an item than to involve more ingredients, and maybe block it from being hand-crafted? I personally do use MK1 assemblers pretty far into the game - simple things that I need made, but not in high numbers, get an MK1 assembler. If I need a huge amount of something (green circuits, anyone?) they get the fastest machines I can build. If I need to use the least amount of power possible to craft items, they get an MK1 early-game or an MK3 late-game (MK1 uses 180kW per second of crafting time, 90kW*2 because 0.5 speed, MK2 comes in at 210kW per second, and MK3 comes in at 168kW). The only point where I'll really "just use one for everything" is once I've gotten to MK3, because of their increased power efficiency and speed, but even then I don't actually do that because the MK3 is more expensive to build in the first place.

As for changes to fuel and fuel efficiency, I'm concerned, like many others seem to be, over how this will impact fuel consumption overall. Boilers may run at 50% efficiency, but many other burners - cars, tanks, trains, burner inserters/drills, etc. - have other efficiency ratings, some of which are already 100%. Are their power consumption levels going to be adjusted to match the new energy ratings of fuel items, or will they suddenly become much more inefficient? As others have mentioned, is this going to make steel furnaces almost entirely useless, or will they be adjusted to still be more energy-efficient than electric furnaces at the cost of needing fuel provided directly? This will also affect the number of belts needed to feed anything that was already at 100% efficiency, or anything that isn't at 50% efficiency. ONLY the belt setup to feed boilers will be unaffected.

For mining hardness being removed, I would like to propose that you implement another value to ores, in order for modders to easily "gate" access to resources in a unified manner. If every modder has to come up with their own solution, that could lead to tons of mod conflicts and contradictory systems. Even if this value is unused in the base game, it would be of immense value to modders, much like you're leaving in the fuel efficiency value and just changing it to 100%. Other than that, I very much support simplifying mining calculations. Currently, I always just have to go online and find someone else who's done all the math for me, rather than figuring it out myself.

I don't know many mods that use the pickaxe slot, and those that do could easily convert their own custom-speed pickaxes to speed boosts, much like you're talking about doing with the steel pickaxe. That said, others have already brought up the issue that doing this reduces the function of "iron sticks" even further, leaving it in only 3 recipes. I'm gonna say I also support either removing them entirely, or finding a decent reason for them to exist beyond just forcing me to put a second assembler next to the one crafting my bulk rails or refined concrete. Though speaking of, why oh why do I need iron ore for basic concrete? I don't even begin to understand that.

On damage resistances - I had no idea so many entities even had damage resistances, and I honestly ignored them - I knew that lasers bypass armor better than bullets, but all that did was make me even happier to switch from normal turrets to laser turrets. Which I mostly did to stop having to figure out how to supply 100+ turrets with ammo without using the bots I hadn't unlocked yet. It'd definitely be good to keep them moddable though, and allow modders to add new damage types. Some mods make extensive use of the system currently in place, and it'd be a shame for them to fall apart now.

[ske]

But since when are power lines lossy?

They aren't lossy right now. It's a global electric network teleporting the resource "electricity" without additional consideration or complexity required.

The fluid network is almost the same. Only in some cases you need to think about the throughput of your pipes. You rarely have to think hard about it.

[ske]

A puzzle needs something non-obvious to be a puzzle. A drop in replacement of AM2 if AM1 is not good enough is NOT a puzzle, there is no brain-activity necessary for this.

If they had different sizes (e.g. 2x3, 3x3, 3x4) it would be a nice puzzle.

You two don't understand what the puzzle style in Factorio is. There's not a hard limit to space. Assembling Machines are success buckets, so changing their shape/size doesn't really mean a whole lot besides maybe forcing the player to design in the largest size they'll end up using.

I think there's several aspects/levels to the puzzle style of factorio. Space puzzles are one of them. Space is virtually unlimited, true, just like resources and electricity and basically everything except the player time. But it's not always so unlimited. Being able to play "tetris" with different assembler sizes would make for a few nice designs where each assembler generation provides an unique benefit. For example the 3x4 would be slower than two 2x3 but it can handle more complex recipes.

In the games that I've seen there is never enough space. It always ends up getting cramped. So, somehow, for me and many others, space IS constrained.

The puzzle is 'How do I get my factory to produce this?' It's part logistics chain (getting enough resources to where said resources need to go in a timely fashion) and part organizational puzzle (how do I fit this production line into my factory in a way I like?). Players can add any constraint they like (certain levels of output, design efficiencies) to increase puzzle complexity organically. This organic nature of the puzzle complexity is a lot of Factorio's appeal, where bots are almost like turning the puzzle complexity off.

The logistics are another level of the puzzles.

I agree that bots are a killer. Too powerful. Too convenient. Expensive, yes, time consuming to get running, yes. Would they make sense in a campaign? Probably yes, that could be done. But in free play they kill the game.

The ingredient count for a recipe is roughly puzzle complexity (chaining via intermediate products). You have to expand your factory so that it can get x number of things into the new success bucket(s) under your personal set of constraints. That's the puzzle.

The "personal set of constraints" works for some players. For others it doesn't. Many players like to have an external set of constraints to solve. One that is wisely chosen so that a satisfying solution can be found in limited time.

The other thing this Cleanup of Mechanics phase is doing is highlighting all the underutilized aspects of Factorio. Wube is taking an axe to things they never got around to fleshing out and that lost potential is part of the outcry, along with losing aspects that modders did get around to fleshing out for them. It really is a shame that there's only two mining facilities that you start with and the whole resource collection side remains simple in the vanilla game. This simple works for vanilla, more or less, but these underutilized and perhaps incomplete features are turning into a bit of a sore spot when trying to make a cohesive experience.

Factorio started with a stronger sense of player conquering the environment via pocket factories. That's also where the early mining with pickaxes is important. It helps shape the feeling of conquering the environment, but as development progressed over the years, the player vs planet feel got diluted and downplayed because, while the pocket factory side kept getting refined and expanded, the environment never developed apace so the game became about launching a rocket because that was the quasi-ultimate factory output and not because the environment gave you a reason for it.

"Cutting is shipping." - you have to cut down features without mercy to deliver a polished product. Right now the benchmark for me would be a satisfying campaign. That is the game that's being shipped. The multiplayer/sandbox parts are extra. That's how I would see it right now.

The multiplayer/sandbox parts could be repaired later. They go hand in hand with the modding community who develop nice maps/mods/games using the capabilities of the engine.

Trying to do everything at once and satisfying all types of customers at once was never a good idea. Communicating clearly "we're doing the campaign now" and "we're taking the proverbial axe to all things that are not necessary for the campaign" would send a strong signal about what's happening and set the expectations accordingly. This would be the stage where you can actually ship a polished product. Everything would depend on the campaign and its designer. The story must be proper and the execution excellent. It might take another year or more and it might not be public development as to not spoil the masses prematurely. The engine itself is solid and I think the campaign levels would be properly tested and polished before release.

All the other things would be post 1.0 as they are developments that never end. You would have to say "the freeplay mode will suffer until 1.0 is shipped, we will break the freeplay as you know it right now - but we will get back at it after 1.0, improve it again and we will provide features A/B/C for it." This could calm the waves a bit and I trust the team that they actually deliver on this promise.

[ske]

Before you continue that train of thought, ask yourself if the game losing its magic isn't the normal process of playing a game for hundreds of hours and knowing every corner of it. Vanilla Factorio did most things right because it hooked x thousands of players for hundreds of hours, look around how few games can make that claim. That nearly all players become bored eventually is unavoidable and modding the only recourse. Changing the vanilla game to provide new kicks for veteran players might be possible but always has the danger of making it unsuitable as the entry point for new players.

Your suggestions seem to streamline things to make it easy for veteran players to get to their mega factories but which keep a new player busy (for example upgrading belts, inserters and assemblers to level out supply lines is what gets new players into the game)

I think the campaign is the key. It will make or break whatever will be released as 1.0. In the campaign levels you can pose appropriate constraints on the player under which the solutions will make sense. The levels themselves will be puzzles where the game is just a tool.

You are probably right that I've grown out of the exploration phase. Now I only open up the game to play some new map or after some new release but not for solo freeplay. I've tried some design ideas that are incompatible with how players usually play in multiplayer games. Been there, done that, finished.

I could say this is how games are. But it is not always like this. Some games provide you with joy seemingly without end. Chess for example. Chess has something that factorio doesn't. I think that this "something" could be replicated in factorio by very carefully selecting the properties of some base items such that there are many different good solutions to do something and you always try to find another one. Having overpowered items/upgrades kills this property of the game.

For example the normal inserter stack size bonus kills all fine balancing with belt and inserter speed. I basically gives it a huge turbo boost that is applied to every inserter on the map. When you leave in this stack upgrade I would vote to kick out the normal and the burner inserter and even the "stack" inserter because that upgrade is too powerful and you only need one type of inserter. I can see where the inserters and the upgrades came from but right now it doesn't make much sense to me. It totally kills any fine balancing and well thought-out micro-design.

[T-A-R]

Again to hard to keep short:

TLDR:
>I understand the end product should snap as LEGO, but simplification seem not to be leading to more consistency or logic clearness. >Factorio is about ending in a mess in your very own way, according to your own rules. The current functions should be tweaked for implementation rather then removed to prevent the finished Factorio feeling hollowed out (sold as NPE).
>This " notion" feels senseless for modders and their hours of work.
>No registered download for a player does not mean no value(i appreciate the option).
>Some further questions/alternative suggestions.


Current thoughts:

I loved it to feel, after 2K+ hours of playing vanilla, that i feel still not ready to do mods like Bob, but i definitely intend to do them "after the next one". But having the option to add a (almost) infinite layer of complexity is great mind dizzling and the core strength of Factorio. In Factorio ideally your brain should (is) be the limiting factor in playing, the point where it is too much to process. You' ll end up in a spagetti/rail mess anyhow. Every player has his own limit, how far he can/want to go enjoyably. Independent of being hard/complex or easy/simplified. Compare end games of old SNES Simcity and Cities Skylines here to get a picture.

Modding and (optionally used) functions always were a great feature of the game, and partly slammed out the game in a single friday as a accident for a great NPE.

I'll send my bag of (heart shaped) gummies to Bob this week! I mean; he clearly shows the purpose of the intended functions, and that these are appriciated by players. I think the modding community should deserve their own reply, for all the work what is done and planned. Even when this is "just in early acces" it is a rather surprising plot twist.

And what do we get out of it, more performance?? Release date? Or is it only for the NPE? In that case i suggest you remove signaling and logic wire too.

Trainsignalling and combinators are thinks not everybody understands, but those are what this game makes so great.
I cant make a picture of the described target audience for these changes.
I mean all these current players learned everything even without a shiny tutorial. You already sold a million copies that way! All these little things give different options to how you play your Factorio: This game is a sandbox, we set the challenges ourselfs, and want to be as creative as possible.

You' re serving a niche market with Factorio, if we didn' t like complexity we wouldn' t play a game about complexity. Things like mining speed and assembler tiers are great and should be used better (like Bob is doing) so they make enough sense that people will understand it.

Modders is where development of Factorio ideally would end after official abandoming, when you devs chose your next project. Keep modders on board; we all want a "Dutch train set" 20 years after release for Factorio (aka post release active community like OpenTTD)


-If you remove the pickaxe please explain why there are 3 weapon slots in the same filosophy. And why everybody has a chest with a unharmed pistol in his base.

-How are these people you mention in the mining video supposed to shoot in Factorio?
>They are playing factorio now, so its the wasdxcv-problem

-Now you end with 3 machines basicly doing the same thing, in different speeds (why not doing that as the pickaxe " solution")
> Redivide recipies to the different tiers (just give them 3 tech level (sold as required crafting precision or something like that), that would also increase the playability of the lazy bastard achievement (which is a great one, imho the most noble way of playing Factorio). Not the most efficient, but mind dazzling nontheless.

-Would the axe problem exist if we had enough logic slots?
> Then we all do a grey crafting machines for pickaxe production, later upgraded by a steel axe assembler and a logistic box, I have never seen those, which is sort of strange. Not necessary to manage, but a nice option for increased efficiency (more automation). The inventory slots (ammo and pickaxes) should be simply secured by logistic bots, that would save slots in logistic inventory too. Target is automate everything, right?

-What if grey assemblers can run on fuel to give a good distinction and use on its own (might add 1 ingredient)?
>Well?

-You cant chop a tree with bare hands in seconds, you definitly need a pickaxe for that!
>A hi tech infini-axe could also serve the problem without removing the mechanic of a tool. Its core question of the game, how to resock yourself in low and high volume parts, manual of automated. (logistic slots most of the times too costly compared to manual crafting.) Chopping trees with a pickaxe was a great meme (even sang about ):(

[LydianLights]

I don't know about removing the assembly machine craft limit completely... I feel like the early game will become too easy if you can build everything with LV1 assemblers. It's a nice mini-milestone when you get blue assemblers and can get started on green science. Personally I feel like it would be a better idea to leave LV1 assemblers as-is (2-item crafting limit), and just remove the crafting limit of LV2 assemblers. The LV2 limit hardly ever comes into play anyway (only preventing automation of Oil Refineries early on) and I would be glad to see that go.

I'm super excited about everything else though! It's amazing how Factorio continues to somehow get better and better no matter how good it already is!