I... I don't get it. No matter how many times I read, I can't see a problem. You can make a separate factory for each component you need. You can attach enchancers to ones you need in larger quantities. You can link a factory to Storage hold as additional input point. You can also link it the other way around and filter-in output blocks, so that all output might get dropped into one or several Storages. You can link an Activation logic block to one or more factories and storages to stop their functioning or avoid power drain when out of materials...
You're saying that "you'd have massive inputs for every resource from your faction and then enough factories to make just about anything, but those of us who don't salvage our entire lives...". Those of you who don't salvage your entire lives does not need to produce 30,000 wedges and do not need the suggested thing. You just need more factories. You can buy them for few hundred bucks or make them out of some scrap.
I seriously do not grasp the problem here. Is there really a problem or it's just that you are lazy person?
The problem is when you have to produce odd numbers of singular objects such as computers or pentas. It's not a laziness thing so much as a quality of life thing, imagine having to produce only 18-20 penta blocks but excessive numbers of a much more common block so as basic hull or basic wedges. Now if you need 500 wedges and 20 pentas leaving that alone by itself produces an even number of each(before enhancers).
The need to micromanage is simply
too high as is. It's not an issue with creating another factory to specifically do something. That isn't a problem at all.
Picture the following example...
Blueprint for a ship:
1 x core
1 x AI
1 x faction
257 x black hull wedges
18 x black hull pentas
4 x black hull corners
38 x black hull tetras
2 x cannon computers
64 x cannon barrels
12 x thrusters
20 x reactors
112 x shield capacitators (typo it should be capacitor but someone mispelled it ingame)
30 x shield rechargers
For the most part you can let the wedges run, but the core, AI and faction block will all require you to sit there for a moment to produce each one. The pentas and tetras require a much greater time frame and unless you really want to produce, connect, and reconnect each of the specific factories here it's going to be a hassle. In fact it's almost as much of a hassle to produce and setup all the enhancers needed as it is to sit there and wait. This is especially true when changing blueprints, now you have to reconnect another entirely different enhancer setup for every single factory.
Don't get me wrong, if making just one blueprint over and over again, enhancers work just fine, once setup you can run it all and forget about it. But if you change the blueprint...ouch.
Setting up a huge logic system to control this is also not a reasonable solution, not everyone can figure that out. Quite frankly needing large quantities of base materials is not necessarily as uncommon as you might think, even among smaller builders(and setups) any reasonably sized ship will need quite a large chunk of base mats that require time.
Imagine for a moment you are playing minecraft and needing to create a redstone
super-computer for every minor task such as mining a block or punching a tree, it detracts from new gamers experience and prevents people from really digging in. Since making ships is sort of well... the whole point, having complicated setups for simple stuff is a bit... stupid.
If you can figure out how to setup everything to stop automatically after a
certain number of produced items(as in not empty mats but created mats) by all means release a video and i'll link it here. It'd be nice to have a variable setup that can control production, although admittedly it'd be much a nicer quality of life improvement to simply have an easier to use control block, especially for people who have never seen vids on this website or simply can't figure out the logic system.
ltmauve I would love to see this integrated into shipyards themselves, it reduces the number of controls we need to effectively produce a ship on automatic which is basically the idea behind a true "factory"
