Modular Buildings

[MatthewJMimnaugh]

TL;DR

Be the designer of your own, very specific buildings.

What ?

This is a bigger request and would require a lot of programming, but buildings with varying size would be interesting. For instance: furnaces. We currently have 2X2 or 3X3 models, but what about more? I’m not talking 4X4 or 5X5 specifically, but rather a system where players build corners and fill in the rest like 2X7 or 4X10 etc. The idea is that the larger the area (the more internal space can be dedicated to furnacing) the more efficient it would be by way of “large batch” furnacing. Right now, most materials are put into the furnace to be processed one at a time. With a larger furnace, the idea would be to smelt larger numbers at once.

Large Furnace.jpg (216.96 KiB) Viewed 3839 times

When the player has access to a steel furnace, crafting could pop up a schematics screen and the player could be tasked with creating the building to their specs, using 1x1 square components like: exhaust/smoke stack (certain number are required per square), storage (the maximum number of units to be smelted at once), and heating element (speed at which one unit is heated). The idea is to make the smelting process take a lot longer, but balance that against being able to batch smelt. Simply design the building and the schematic generates a resource cost.

This could apply to multiple buildings. Steam engines, boilers, and solar panels (with built-in power as seen below) are obvious choices on pure scalability or quality of life. Even belts could be widened to a 2X1 or 3X1. The ultimate limitation is whether buildings in their current implementation (notably their animations) could be broken up and spliced back together in a way that makes visual sense.

SolarPole.jpg (146.24 KiB) Viewed 3839 times

Sure, this exists as a mod already in instances of specific buildings, but the appeal is the capacity to create a specific building to your own situational needs. What's more, there's one particular application that I think would serve as the centerpiece: the Algorithmic Assembly Machine, which is an assembly machine that can follow a multi-stage design plan, where square footage directly correlates to how many stages. Essentially, the current research determines how many components can be used in a recipe (in assembly buildings 1, 2 and 3), while a new branch of the research tree would determine how many stages could be stacked. Sure we can already do this with a tangle of conveyors, power lines, and such, but that is so inelegant for end game; imagine being able to allocate research to be able to build a huge building that takes raw resources in and pumps engines, high-level research, or other complex recipes out. Building components would include: assembler (2X2?), storage(1X1), Input/Output (like where fluids can come in/go out), processing (determines number of stages and requires more resources), and others.

Why ?

That added little bit of customization that allows for peak efficiency.

How ?

A new schematics menu.

Some math for figuring out efficiencies (probably something based on adjacency bonuses in building components)

Tweaking of animations so that they can be modular

Calculation of resources/dependencies for a new branch of a research tree

Hover over flowchart for what is being built

Building stats (does it have one big health bar or does each little piece have one)

Your thoughts

Let me know what you think

[Skeletpiece]

SolarPole.jpg

I like the solar panel with its own pole.

[mrvn]

The fatorissimo mod kind of gives you this. You place down a factory building and then can connect belts, pipes or chests to the outside and inside you build your complex assembler setup. That way you can make a factory building that takes iron pates and copper plates and outputs red science packs. You can even pick up the factory and place it somewhere else.

Only thing that's lacking is to be able to design one such factory and then blueprint them including the insides.

[lilstrip]

YES, Devs, add this please!

I think it could be optimized and simplified by simply making it so any module you place down would merge like pipes, they could share the same code and would be just as useful!

[Horatio]

Great idea. I would like more of the same train. Install a turret, solar panel and drone station on one wagon

[Hannu]

In my opinion it would be possibly a good idea, if it was well thought and balanced. But this seems to be clearly out from Factorio's basic philosophy, which is to build complex system from small set of basic building blocks. I do not believe devs get interested in this, but I would maybe try if there was a mod.

[lilstrip]

well isn't the game suppose to be enjoyable to most people and not just the devs? if the devs just dismiss this because they don't want to do it and not because it wouldn't make the game more fun there's an issue :3

I would really like to see something like this since it would allow the creation of bigger structures so imo it would add alot to the game especially when doing petro chemistry, it would be nice to have much bigger refineries and larger fluid yanks!

[MakeItGraphic]

Love this idea too, would think it would help with ups, less entities updating when they merge into one. Max size would be like a chunk or a bit less.

The mega base is real! Connect 4 assemblers together with the same recipe to merge them. Or have a new merge tool, you'd have to research different sizes of stuff.

[mrudat]

How many mods do pretty much this, let me count the ways.

Omnicompression is probably the most comprehensive version.

Bob's and Angels' both include some much more compact buildings; I suspect that even with the added complexity, the same throughput requires fewer entities.

There are three or four mods that just do bigger power production.

Whistle Stop Factories probably counts as well.

There's at least one mod that combines adjacent buildings into bigger buildings while keeping the same graphics.

There are at least two mods that attach a power pole to each entity that interacts with the electrical network so you don't need to place power poles.

All of the mods basically add new entities in the data phase, which get unlocked as you progress through the game.