Recognized Raw Resources used in Shipyard BP Construction

[Kilim]

i like this suggestion and i can't wait until schine finds a way to tackle the issue it addresses

 

[lupoCani]

The primary suggestion, shipyards eating resources directly, I must oppose as automagical. Shipyards are for building, factories are for manufacturing. While it would be somewhat balanced resource-wise if there was some inefficiency, it would still blur the lines of functionality in the game.

The idea than shipyards would automatically set external factories to produce what they need, I'm all for. This is just better block interaction, and a very practical one too.

 

[Ithirahad]

The primary suggestion, shipyards eating resources directly, I must oppose as automagical. Shipyards are for building, factories are for manufacturing. While it would be somewhat balanced resource-wise if there was some inefficiency, it would still blur the lines of functionality in the game.

The idea than shipyards would automatically set external factories to produce what they need, I'm all for. This is just better block interaction, and a very practical one too.

...Also unnecessarily complicated, potentially buggy (and hard to fix), and maybe even laggy with sufficiently large factory arrays. Inefficiency's fine, thank you very much.

 

[lupoCani]

C/V-ing a couple of factories to a shipyard block is complicated now?

Really though, specific functionality is a bad thing. We can't go around fixing everything with a mechanic of it's own. This game is supposed to be a sandbox, not a list of specialized mechanics, each allowing one specific thing to be done.

The issue here is lacking supply management. The solution is to enhance our ability to manage, and automate, our supplies. Creating a specific feature for building ships faster, at the cost of resources, is plastering over the issue rather than fixing it.

 

[Ithirahad]

I don't mean complicated to use, I mean functionally complicated for the game to do.

For each block requirement entry in the full list for the ship:

Check all linked factories and storages for the required block, take as many as needed (or as many as possible if there are insufficient blocks)
If there are still not enough:

Check each factory in the set of linked blocks; if there is one of the right type to craft the block in question, and it is not currently running:

Check the factory's linkages. If it finds a storage:

If the storage has the right ingredients for the needed block:

Run the factory until the block requirement is filled or the ingredients are gone from the storage​

Otherwise, for each ingredient:

Check the next storage/factory/other block inventory linked to the shipyard.
If it's there:
Transfer to the factory
If not:
Go to the next linked storage/factory/other inventory
If none can be found:

Check the recipe library and see if the ingredient can be crafted.
If it can:

Find available factories of the right type
Try to craft the block
If it works:

Continue until materials run out or sufficient ingredients are crafted for the amount of required blocks to be crafted in turn​

Else:

Check if the ingredients for the ingredient(!!!) can be crafted by the same method...
​

...And even here, I think I must've missed several steps (in other words, I presumably wrote in bugs somewhere). Never mind the fact that with all the networking and other things it's not even this simple, I don't think... It would be a lot easier if the shipyard just looked up recipes for each block, calculated total capsule, mesh, and composite costs, and multiplied them all by, say, 1.5.

As for specific functionality, the problem isn't lack of supply management, it's that it's a pain in the ass to repair or replace ships so nobody wants to fight anyone anywhere. A simple system would fix that.

 

[HolyCookie]

I'd like it if NPCs would manage the factories for you, automatically switching the factories functions to build the correct parts. Mainly just so I could head into a factory and see them at work.

You might be able to do that if they make it possible that you are able to set your NPCs route, then just let the factories do normal work and the NPCs are there for the animation. I don't know if that is already planned tho.

 

[Nickizzy]

The fact that you can write that out by yourself right now means I could be done, if it's just inefficent I would only use shipyards to build ships.

 

[Ithirahad]

Personally, I fail to see the issue with that. Having to craft up massive stores of blocks (or have a shipyard algorithmically do it for you) is silly anyway, IMO; I'd not mind ores becoming a (partial) replacement of what credits were designed to be back in the day, but this time not broken like the credits system was.

 

[Valiant70]

Or just have the option of linking factories to the shipyard computer and allow it to automagicly craft missing blocks.

This is the best solution.

 

[HolyCookie]

This is the best solution.

don't know if it is the easiest tho :P

 

[Gonzalo]

oh my god, i wish this suggestion was implemented!!!!
i agree with ithirahad, the simplest solution seems to me to be the best

 

[Criss]

I am marking this as recognized as I do not know the full details as to how we will implement future changes to shipyards and factories. There will however be better factory management in the future, as well as better integration with shipyards. This should help with automated construction even if it is not what you had in mind.

 

[Nickizzy]

don't know if it is the easiest tho :p

I think a way to reduce lag with it would be to have a new block that would act as a "conductor" block. Slave it to a storage, factory, shipyard, shop, or any block with an inventory and slave a factory to the conductor(Storage>Conductor>Factories<---Notice the plural!).

The conductor would have a setting like AI, and would have these things:
A dropdown with "maintain"(keep x amount constantly in master slave), "supply"(give master slave any items it requires[as with shipyards or factories]), and "give"(give master slave x amount every tick seconds if it can).

A variable number input for the x in the settings above

A variable number input for the seconds between ticks in the give setting, and maybe also the tick on which maintain and supply check values.

An on/off toggle that could be activated by logic.

Maintain setting would be for always having a spare 10,000 shield blocks no matter what, or keep a certain stock of blocks in your store.

Supply would be sorta be for this thread, it could be used to automate colored advanced armor/multilevel crafting recipies and building ships a lot easier.

Give would allow role play and faction settings where you could have shops that would slowly regenerate, role play reasource gatherers, investments, and giving new faction members a small amount of stuff every day, without you and them having to be on.

If not connected to a conductor, the storage makes no big calculations.

My 33 lines!

Edit:love the "about" giph by the way HolyCookie! Good luck with the council

 

[jstenholt]

I am marking this as recognized as I do not know the full details as to how we will implement future changes to shipyards and factories. There will however be better factory management in the future, as well as better integration with shipyards. This should help with automated construction even if it is not what you had in mind.

This is good to hear. Just as long as we get something different than the way it currently works I'll be happy because honestly, the current system is straight up bad.

 

[Kilim]

I am marking this as recognized as I do not know the full details as to how we will implement future changes to shipyards and factories. There will however be better factory management in the future, as well as better integration with shipyards. This should help with automated construction even if it is not what you had in mind.

You play EVE online correct? I like how it is there. It's quite simple making a ship, get all the ores and the blueprint, shove it all in the industry tab and boom, your ship is their after it has finished it's job.

Me and many other people HATE to have to do multiple non-repetetive tasks to achieve every individual block when getting them for your ship. Personally I'd just like to mine and know "aha, I have enough ores to produce my ship", I RTB, gives the resources to the factory/shipyard and it slowly, after a bit of wait, makes the ship.

 

[HolyCookie]

I think a way to reduce lag with it would be to have a new block that would act as a "conductor" block. Slave it to a storage, factory, shipyard, shop, or any block with an inventory and slave a factory to the conductor(Storage>Conductor>Factories<---Notice the plural!).

The conductor would have a setting like AI, and would have these things:
A dropdown with "maintain"(keep x amount constantly in master slave), "supply"(give master slave any items it requires[as with shipyards or factories]), and "give"(give master slave x amount every tick seconds if it can).

A variable number input for the x in the settings above

A variable number input for the seconds between ticks in the give setting, and maybe also the tick on which maintain and supply check values.

An on/off toggle that could be activated by logic.

Maintain setting would be for always having a spare 10,000 shield blocks no matter what, or keep a certain stock of blocks in your store.

Supply would be sorta be for this thread, it could be used to automate colored advanced armor/multilevel crafting recipies and building ships a lot easier.

Give would allow role play and faction settings where you could have shops that would slowly regenerate, role play reasource gatherers, investments, and giving new faction members a small amount of stuff every day, without you and them having to be on.

If not connected to a conductor, the storage makes no big calculations.

My 33 lines!

Edit:love the "about" giph by the way HolyCookie! Good luck with the council

Why add a new blocks? All we need is old blocks with extra features when i said not easy to make something i mean not easy for the devs. Making an block in between doesn't reduce that. If you want to suggest something, always try to keep blocks to a minimum (my opinion)

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Another approach could be to have blueprints simplify what parts they need. For example instead of so many wedges, tetras and pentas you just need so many blocks of the right armour type (ie basic, standard or advanced) and some paint, the shipyard will do the rest. Likewise with decorative blocks. Basically the player would still need to set up the correct factories for making the correct type of Hull, as well as weapons etc, but not for literally every single type of block.

It keeps an amount of complexity to make ships feel complicated, and keeps players thinking about what minerals make which part. But it cuts the amount of different block types a shipyard would need down from literally hundreds to maybe a couple of dozen tops.

 

[SchnellBier]

OHHHHHHHHH

Factories linked to the shipyard? YES PLEASE.

I would prefer that it auto-ques for construction in factories linked to it rather than deleting raw resources and spawning in blocks.
So if you have a shipyard with only 1 factory of each type and no factory enhancers, it will only be pulling 3 blocks per tick.

But if you have a couple thousand factory enhancers, you will be set.

It would actually make me like using shipyards, right now they mess up wireless logic blocks, inner ship remotes, display screen outputs, and docked turrets when using shipyards.
Currently too much of a hassle, but if the process was significantly streamlined like this, AMAZING.

I´ve probably never seen a single idea in the suggestion forum that I want more than this. This would make building and repairing ships with blueprints so much easier and at the same time it´s rewarding to build a base with a huge factory section!

What I also like to add is that the shipyard shows what ressources and how many are missing. This way you can get an idea what to mine.

 

[Nickizzy]

Why add a new blocks? All we need is old blocks with extra features when i said not easy to make something i mean not easy for the devs. Making an block in between doesn't reduce that. If you want to suggest something, always try to keep blocks to a minimum (my opinion)

Really just to make it more of an upgrade and an optional thing, you could see the other uses as well, like Roleplay and maintaining shops(past the 50,000 limit, you could make shops reset macet capsules back to 20,000 every day, taking any extra macet capsules into a storage, any less than 20,000 from te storage to the shop).
Likes to have everything block based, having a new block do the things and not just a new popup thing. You could make an upgrade costing credits, but I like it better through material upgrades than just credits.

 

[HolyCookie]

Really just to make it more of an upgrade and an optional thing, you could see the other uses as well, like Roleplay and maintaining shops(past the 50,000 limit, you could make shops reset macet capsules back to 20,000 every day, taking any extra macet capsules into a storage, any less than 20,000 from te storage to the shop).
Likes to have everything block based, having a new block do the things and not just a new popup thing. You could make an upgrade costing credits, but I like it better through material upgrades than just credits.

dunno, having factory enhancers as upgrades would be okay too right? xD I always try to come up with the least amount of work for the dev team, this way they can put as much work into the awesome features that need more time. I guess from here on schema will create its plan. I do agree, having upgrades cost credits is boring, luckily they've never done that.