Factories have me completely baffled.

[Tassyr]

So I've been trying to figure out factories since I'm making a shipyard. I know I've always played creative up til this point and am building the thing in creative, but I want to make a 'proper' shipyard that can generate resources as well as build.

Thing is I have no f*cking clue what I'm doing. Factories have me completely baffled, and the explanations I keep getting are 'here, take apart this station I made' which... doesn't help me. The tutorials on the wiki are several updates out of date, so I'm really lost.

Can anyone help explain how they work, how to set one up, and such? Do I need a factory for each freaking block? Do I need one for each color of block? Do I need one for each type of block (Wedge, hepta, tetra, corner?) or.. what?

 

[StarWars1981]

The factories are as follows: Basic, Standard, Advanced.
Basic factories handle things like basic hull, or the first steps in crafting usable materials from raw materials.
Standard ones have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT options, there is NO OVERLAP between factories; these have more advanced or useful systems.
Advanced factories have the most advanced ones out there, like jumpdrive modules and such.
First things first: you need a capsule refinery to refine your mind ores into capsules. A micro assembler is used for other things, mostly for me it's used for scrap metal and composite or whatever those two are, but it's helpful.
Set them all up for building advanced ships. You'll have to feed them manually through all the steps. Depending what you want, you'll need to read through all their lists of recipes (it's in-game, in their menu when you press R on them, find it, it's labeled) and find the ones you want.

Some recipes of note: Hull goes to Standard Armor goes to Advanced Armor and you can't cut steps. REMEMBER: When you want a color, craft it until you get to the final "block" (the cube one) that you want, of any grade armor, THEN COLOR IT, BEFORE making it a wedge/hepta/tetra/decagon whatnot. There's no way, currently, to set up an automated factory system - factories do not have an auto-pull system, so even though you can leave 30 of them running (provided your station/planet has the power supply reqs met) they won't continue to mass-produce as long as possible. You can set up a one-way partial automatic system by having storage blocks pull the finished materials from factories, but because factories cannot pull their raw materials to continue producing, it's a partial system.

If you need any other help, the wikis, though out of date, are still all relevant for the factory parts. Those have not changed, I don't think. StarMade Wikia is currently accurate on factories and materials, though it may not include ALL the blocks for any recent additions (I can't think of any but whatever).

 

[Dr. Whammy]

To keep things relatively simple, I like to use the following process.

For your refineries...

1) Place a storage block and slave some cargo space to it. Set it to auto-pull "capsules" (there's a sub-category for them), "alloyed metal mesh" and "crystal composite" (you have to type these in or search manually. Set the pull amount to 99999.

2) Place a capsule refinery and a micro assembler. Activate both then slave some factory enhancers to each to increase their efficiency.

3) Hit the "C" key on your storage then hit the "V" key on the capsule refinery and micro assembler. Now, all your freshly processed resources will go to storage while leaving the raw ores, crystal shards and scrap to continue processing.


For your factories...

1) Place a storage block and slave some cargo space to it. Set it to auto-pull every sub-category except "capsules", "alloyed metal mesh" and "crystal composite". Set the pull amount to 99999.

2) Place your basic, standard and advanced factories then slave some factory enhancers to each to increase their efficiency.

3) Hit the "C" key on each factory then hit the "V" key on the two storage modules. Turn on auto-pull. Now, your factories will take resources from storage so they can build your product.

4) If you want your finished products to automatically go back to storage, you can hit the "C" key on your second storage then hit the "V" on each of the factories. Your factories will pull from storage to build a product, which will be returned to storage when completed.

If you have trouble remembering the recipes, color is a good clue on what resources are required on many of the basic craft-able items (white crystals for white light, green asteroid, for green paint, for green hull. You can also type the part of name of an item and loo up its recipe.

I hope this helps...

 

[StarWars1981]

Wait, so factories CAN auto-pull???Dang, I wish I'd known that! Time to build a new factory!

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Wait, so factories CAN auto-pull???Dang, I wish I'd known that! Time to build a new factory!

Yes. You can use the same process for shipyards as well.

One thing to watch out for. You can set your storage to "use as personal Cargo" so you can move items around more easily however, if you are building with items that are subject to auto-pull, the factory, shipyard, refinery, etc. may snatch the item from you for use as production ingredients, even if the item is in your hotbar. It usually doesn't 'break' anything but it can get annoying if you're not paying attention.

 

[Tassyr]

So wait. Is one huge factory preferable to several small ones? Can you say "build six of this" or does it just build while it has the resources?

 

[Sgtwisky]

it will build as long as it has a supply of resources to build from.

My current setup works as follows:

1. I have a rail to land my miner on, which is connected to a "Raw Resources" storage. All items from my miner are collected into it.

2. I have a capsule refinery that pulls from that storage, and creates the basic materials I need for crafting. Those materials are then stored in a separate "Base Material" storage which pulls from the refinery.

3. All my factories (basic, standard, advanced) pull from that storage.

4. I have storages that pull out general types of blocks from my factories. One storage for hull's one for systems ect.

5. Each factory is connected to the storage it could need to pull from, in order to produce whatever it is I want that factory to produce.

6. One last thing is to have all your storage pulling everything but the base "Raw resources" from the first "Raw Resource" storage. This is to cover me in the event that I harvest any overheating ships. Their parts then wont just sit in my raw storage but will be transferred to the correct storage.

 

[terra mining corp.]

you can also link your factories in a chain by using "c" and "v", and can link different amounts of enhancers for build quantities.

 

[Edymnion]

My setup is a Master Inbox that pulls from my ship via the rail.

My capsule refinery pulls from the Master Inbox, as do each of approximately 20 storage chests that auto-sort everything into specific places (there's a hull/armor box, there's a weapons box, a support systems box, a lighting box, etc), including one that I leave for my working storage space.

There is an intermediary storage box that pulls only scrap out of the master inbox that the micro-assembler pulls from (so that it doesn't try to recycle everything that lands in the master inbox, like raw ore/crystal).

Then a Refined Materials storage that pulls everything out of the refinery and the micro-assembler.

I then have four sets of factories set up that pull from all of the storage containers, each set of factories having a different number of enhancers on them (so one set is basic, no enhancers at all, one has 9 enhancers per factory on it so that it produces at 10x capacity, one at 100x, and one at 1,000x).

My factory layout will likely become obsolete if we ever get the long promised ability to set specific amounts for a factory to produce, but in the mean time it serves me well in letting me build bulk amounts without having to take too long.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

So wait. Is one huge factory preferable to several small ones? Can you say "build six of this" or does it just build while it has the resources?

A huge factory (1 factory with a bunch of enhancers attached to it) allows for mass production. A big refinery/micro assembler is a good idea if you don't like waiting for your minerals to process before being able to build at the factories .

I tend to build 3-6 basic factories, each with 400-800 production and 1 standard and 1 advanced factory of similar size. It creates a slow controlled burn that doesn't instantly deplete my stock but doesn't take days or even hours to finish. Others might want to make 10000 blocks in a single production cycle so they can build a capital. You'll need to experiment with what works best for you.

As far as controlling/limiting production; The factories will continue to build until they either run out of resources or you "deactivate production". Currently, the only way to tell a factory to produce a specific amount of an item is to turn off auto-pull then add the ingredients manually. So, to "build six of this" you must add the ingredients required for ONLY "six of this".

 

[Lukwan]

Overview:
Factories require materials, power and 'linked' storage with dedicated cargo-spaces to handle the 'production-run'
Each factory-block can be told to 'pull' from the refinery or your Main-storage or from another factory.

Each Factory-Enhancer you link to a factory will produce an extra item in your Production-Run. (also drawing more power and requiring cargo-handling capacity (for that factory).

You link storage and cargo to factories and refineries using C-V

My production floor is like an assembly line. It starts with raw materials:
1) I set up a refinery at the start of the chain & dump all mining materials here. I have a 'Capsule storage bin that pulls from the refinery.
2) Continue the chain of pulls: Advanced Factory pulls from Standard & Standard factory pulls from Basic. Basic pulls from Capsule storage.
3) All factories will need to pull from Main-Storage & Capsule Storage as well as from the factory before it.
4) If pulls are not used to empty the factories they will reach their local cargo-capacity and stop producing until emptied.
5) If the production exceeds power or cargo-space available nothing gets made (but a message to that effect).
6) Main storage can pull from the factories to keep all materials in one place. (Forming one big loop. Also a good place to make a Shipyard-pull)
7) Filters can be set up anywhere to buffer the flow or pick out junk like scrap and leftovers to keep the system clear of debris. (I keep CC & AMM in their own large storage area.)

EG : Advanced armour gets made in the advanced factory. It pulls from the Standard factory witch produces standard armor. The standard pulls hull from the Basic factory which pulls Mats from Main storage and the capsule storage.

Rather than have separate factories do deal with different production numbers you can just keep your factory enhancers in a series of groupings (not touching). When you want to produce 50 items you Shift-link the factory to the 50-block of FEs. When you only need five you un-link the 50 group and link the 5-group.

 

[Tassyr]

I have a SERIOUS amount of power and space available. Combined with all the docked reactors I'll be generating about 30-40 e/Sec, and over 230m storage. Add to that the fact that I've got a half kilometer space that's as wide as most ships to fill, should I go for dozens of factories or only a few. XD

I'm filling the bottom half of that B-shaped segment with storage and factories.

 

[Madman198237]

One factory for everything?

 

[StarWars1981]

One Factory ... To Build Them All

Wrong place for the reference, but I thought it was good.

 

[Madman198237]

No, as in a factory for every single block in the game. So one for jumpdrive computers, one for JD modules, etc.

 

[kiraen]

Nah, you don't need one of everything.
A complex for lights can easily be reconfigured for any color. Likewise for the different levels of hull/armor. I usually have a simple set up off to the side I call my lathe for reshaping hull.
The only really dedicated factories you need are ones that you use a lot of. Like power and basic grey hull. After that, it just depends on what you prefer. I keep a dedicated complex for cannons and salvagers, but I don't bother with pulse or missiles. Hazard hull is useful, but I don't use it in large enough quantities to bother making a dedicated system.

It really boils down to one simple rule. If reconfiguring your factories for a specific block is getting annoying, make a dedicated complex. Otherwise, just stick to the three factories and adjust as needed.

 

[wanzer]

this is usually the layout I use
the number of cargo and enhancers varies



I use a separate cargo to take in materials so it automatically stacks it in the main storage when it pulls
the cargo and factory enhancers amounts are the units connected to the storage/factory/ship yard
the C and V how they are connected

 

[StarWars1981]

I think the best way to do it would be have a few straight-through setups; they constantly run, as you feed the correct raw materials in, they spit out basic things like jumpdrive setups (make ALL computers separately though), cannon/missile/beam (main weapons used), and advanced armor straight-through to that stage, because honestly, nobody uses standard on the heavy warships you want this for.
The thing is, your main storage doesn't attach to them. You just dump in the amount you want to the first storage setup, and then it goes right on through. Of course, every stage has another cargo module to autopull from the factory. This module contains every other necessary raw material for production of, say, standard armor, except what comes out of the hull factory. As that comes through, it then allows the factories to move on. This way, you don't have to go around and dump all the materials at all the different levels; the storages except the first one can simply pull what they require automatically, in small amounts, perhaps, or from a central store that you place stuff in when you want it used.
Here's a refinement: your armor line requires hardener at the grey hull to grey standard armor stage, so you place hardener (and all other req'd stuff for that stage) in a separate storage at the start of that line. Further down the line, the storage that needs standard hardener pulls it.

 

[CaptainTaz]

... Am I the only person who does the factories manually, makes two of each factory block + one refinery, then manually links how many enhancers I need (I have them in groups of 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000) before manually putting all the resources in from my inventory-linked master cargo?

I just find that to be the easiest way to get what I need, and not waste....

 

[wanzer]

i don't put them in manually but i do make use if the 10 100 surplus etc

i think its visible in the chart i posted