This paragraph isn't really relevent, so skimmers, just scroll down to the numbered portion of this post.
Currently, factories are very hard to work with (to me anyway).Sometimes, because of the way that they immediately craft whatever they have in their inventory into stuff, it can be hard to impossible to make an automated setup for an item without creating any extra parts that are not needed. One example of this would be a hull factory. I tried to make one, but I kept getting tons of SD2000 Flux Coils and not that much hull. I looked the coils up on the master recipe list page, and it turns out that the SD2000 Flux Coils are made with 5 Plextanium L1. The recipe for hull aslo uses Plextanium L1, but instead of five, it just uses one. My factory doesn't have any factory input enhancers, but was making both the hull and the flux coils...so the previous container (a factory input) must have been pumping out six Plextanium per cycle. I checked it's inventory to see if it was, and sure enough, the amount of Plex was dropping by six every five seconds. I decided to do a test, so I grabbed a factory input module, some L2 ore, and a Mineral separator. I connected the two devices and put the L2 ore in the factory input module. For some reason, this time, the factory input was only pumping out one L2 ore per cycle--not six, like it was previously. I'm mentioning this because I could have worked a way around the problem if the amount of ore pumped out was always a constant number, but it wasn't, so i'm really confused. Also, in my hull factory setup, I had a bunch of rock in the factory input, and the rock was being pumped out at a high enough rate each cycle for 500 of it to be wasted on Science Bottles. But that's enough of my sad story--now for solutions to this factory issue:
1. Add to the gui of each factory block a search bar. This search bar could let the player search through all the things that the factory block that they are accessing can make, and then they would be able to choose a few. Then, when the factory block had stuff selected, it would wait until it had the materials needed to make all the items selected, and then it would make them all. This would be a solution that might make factories too easy and not technical enough, so I have included a second suggestion.
2. Move all the recipes that overlap and are crafted using the same device to different devices. I spent like 30 mins trying to find a way to say that (idk why), so love me if it made sense. If it didn't, here is an example to help you out: hull (which requires two items to craft), uses the same materials that SD2000 Flux Coils do (which require one item to craft), and so in order to stop the recipes from overlapping (as they are currently crafted using the same device, the particle press) the hull recipe would be moved to a different/new factory item, like one of the Schemadynes. Hopefully you get it now. I would prefer this change as it organizes things more and it keeps factories challenging, but maybe more simplicity is needed.
Currently, factories are very hard to work with (to me anyway).Sometimes, because of the way that they immediately craft whatever they have in their inventory into stuff, it can be hard to impossible to make an automated setup for an item without creating any extra parts that are not needed. One example of this would be a hull factory. I tried to make one, but I kept getting tons of SD2000 Flux Coils and not that much hull. I looked the coils up on the master recipe list page, and it turns out that the SD2000 Flux Coils are made with 5 Plextanium L1. The recipe for hull aslo uses Plextanium L1, but instead of five, it just uses one. My factory doesn't have any factory input enhancers, but was making both the hull and the flux coils...so the previous container (a factory input) must have been pumping out six Plextanium per cycle. I checked it's inventory to see if it was, and sure enough, the amount of Plex was dropping by six every five seconds. I decided to do a test, so I grabbed a factory input module, some L2 ore, and a Mineral separator. I connected the two devices and put the L2 ore in the factory input module. For some reason, this time, the factory input was only pumping out one L2 ore per cycle--not six, like it was previously. I'm mentioning this because I could have worked a way around the problem if the amount of ore pumped out was always a constant number, but it wasn't, so i'm really confused. Also, in my hull factory setup, I had a bunch of rock in the factory input, and the rock was being pumped out at a high enough rate each cycle for 500 of it to be wasted on Science Bottles. But that's enough of my sad story--now for solutions to this factory issue:
1. Add to the gui of each factory block a search bar. This search bar could let the player search through all the things that the factory block that they are accessing can make, and then they would be able to choose a few. Then, when the factory block had stuff selected, it would wait until it had the materials needed to make all the items selected, and then it would make them all. This would be a solution that might make factories too easy and not technical enough, so I have included a second suggestion.
2. Move all the recipes that overlap and are crafted using the same device to different devices. I spent like 30 mins trying to find a way to say that (idk why), so love me if it made sense. If it didn't, here is an example to help you out: hull (which requires two items to craft), uses the same materials that SD2000 Flux Coils do (which require one item to craft), and so in order to stop the recipes from overlapping (as they are currently crafted using the same device, the particle press) the hull recipe would be moved to a different/new factory item, like one of the Schemadynes. Hopefully you get it now. I would prefer this change as it organizes things more and it keeps factories challenging, but maybe more simplicity is needed.