Factory/Storage block connections overhaul

[Daykin]

Hello everyone.

I've never liked the inability to build factories on spaceships. Of course it makes some gameplay sense, I guess, not being able to just build everything on your ship. Encouraging the player(s) to setup stationary bases, stuff like that. But I hate arbitrary restrictions. Instead I like some form of in-game logical reasoning to encourage the desired behavior.

Instead of magically appearing, inter dimensional tubes that appear between factory blocks and/or storage blocks, why not require a contiguous series of tube blocks, from the source to the sink(s)? This makes planning factory setups a bit more reasonable than it is now. And it has the benefit of requiring more space for the exchange tubes, so using a space station would be ideal for any large factory undertaking, while not necessarily preventing you from doing some processing on a ship as well.

Also somehow transferring items between different ship/station entities would be nice too. Secondary transfer tube docking?

 

[ltmauve]

Instead of magically appearing, inter dimensional tubes that appear between factory blocks and/or storage blocks, why not require a contiguous series of tube blocks, from the source to the sink(s)? This makes planning factory setups a bit more reasonable than it is now. And it has the benefit of requiring more space for the exchange tubes, so using a space station would be ideal for any large factory undertaking, while not necessarily preventing you from doing some processing on a ship as well.

I like this idea, but I don't think it'll work very well. If the storages don't need the pipe blocks, then they can be made obsolete by using storages next to every factory. And requiring storages to use the pipes is just plain annoying, as most people who build survival stations will tell you, one of the first things you do is add a storage next to each entrance and set up your factories to pull from the entrances into the main system. Makes things a lot easier. Requiring piping for that would just be tedious.

Also somehow transferring items between different ship/station entities would be nice too. Secondary transfer tube docking?

Hopefully being done by linking to the rail/docker and stopping the ship on the linked rail block. Has been brought up before, and some form of it is planned.

I've never liked the inability to build factories on spaceships. Of course it makes some gameplay sense, I guess, not being able to just build everything on your ship. Encouraging the player(s) to setup stationary bases, stuff like that. But I hate arbitrary restrictions. Instead I like some form of in-game logical reasoning to encourage the desired behavior.

Also planned in some form. Factories will be addable onto ships but with some restriction.

 

[Daykin]

I don't believe I explained myself well enough. Any sort of item transfer would require tubes. Factory to factory, factory to storage, storage to storage.

 

[ltmauve]

I don't believe I explained myself well enough. Any sort of item transfer would require tubes. Factory to factory, factory to storage, storage to storage.

Then as I said, I don't like that. We don't have any other sort of connective block. All of our connections are wireless, and it means we don't need to worry about having to thread all these connector blocks around each other.

And really, what does it add to gameplay?

 

[Daykin]

Then as I said, I don't like that.

I like this idea, but I don't think it'll work very well.

I was trying to explain how you misinterpreted what I was saying, since you seemed to like the idea. And right now, there is very little gameplay in factory design in stations. It's very sandbox. This would add some gameplay elements in design, instead of throwing everything down and magically connecting it all.

 

[kiraen]

It's the magical connections I don't like. It's visual clutter that I go out of my way to hide. Same for logic.
I'll take the added work and space requirements of this idea, since it'll be better then what I have to do now.

 

[Creodor]

I agree that physical connections would be preferable and also supply a balance for factories on ships. Ships, unlike stations, are limited by size and mass in terms of speed/power/etc balances so having to work with physical connections will force you to choose between different systems, especially speed and turning.

The other thing they'd help deal with is preventing us from having a horrifying unmanageable mess of those fake tubes. Once a factory is setup right now, especially one that's compacted, it's next to impossible to figure out what's going on if you happen to forget. The other issue to me is that without connections to sort out, it makes factories less *satisfying* to make; they're just something you slap together however you can rather than something you spend real time working to perfect. Plus, it makes filters more natural feeling; right now setting up a filter type system is pretty frustrating and requires a ton of clicking and typing that just feels repetitive and frustrating.

 

[Valiant70]

We have GOT to have some kind of physical tube block. These magical connections are just goofy.

Requiring piping for that would just be tedious.

Actually it sounds interesting and fun to me.

And really, what does it add to gameplay?

Immersion, fun, aesthetics, etc. In a nutshell, quite a lot. Sorry, man. I think you're in the minority on this one. Try convincing a minecraft mod author to throw out pipes in favor of magical wireless connections with cute little ribbons stretching between machine blocks. It won't happen because people would quit using the mod. Pipes are a superior solution for gameplay reasons.

 

[Daykin]

Immersion, fun, aesthetics, etc. In a nutshell, quite a lot. Sorry, man. I think you're in the minority on this one. Try convincing a minecraft mod author to throw out pipes in favor of magical wireless connections with cute little ribbons stretching between machine blocks. It won't happen because people would quit using the mod. Pipes are a superior solution for gameplay reasons.

Exactly! Right now it's so easy to setup a factory for every block in the game a solo player can do it within a few hour. Another if they want to make it neat and balance production rates for everything. This really is bare minimum currently. Factories and connecting tubes should actually take up space! There should be logistic problems in the process of design! And when factory blocks are permitted on ships there should be trade offs like Creodor said, and this would definitely provide it, instead of some arbitrary factory-ship limitation.