Factory Remake

[lupoCani]

The increasingly not-so-recent factory update came with some improvements, most notably the removal of the impossible-to-remember recipes. However, I believe that while it was a step in the right direction, it was also a bit too far.

I suggest we return to something more similar to the previous system, but with a few notable changes. Since I never really got a good grasp of the details of the old system and as such not exactly how it differs from mine, I'll just write down the whole thing.



The factory controller would be the most major addition, and would replace the current random recipes. You would select a block in it's Gui, and it would tell any factories to which you link it to manufacture it. Furthermore, it will tell you what items the factory will require to deliver the desired product, (which will never vary) to keep the issue of memorizing recipes eliminated.



The manufacturing blocks would be the core of the mechanic. There would be a few of them, each with a separate purpose, such as one to alter hardness, color and shape of hull, one to put together circuitry components, one to process organic materials into colors and proteins, etc. Not to many though, five or six at most.

The input block could be entirely removed, and replaced by the ability of factories to selectively pull items from linked plexstorages.

Input enhancers could work as usual, there's not much about them that needs altering.

Mineral processing blocks, which I am not certain were removed, could altogether be replaced by a mineral processing factory.

And that's about it. I'm open to criticism, so post ahead.

 

[omelet]

the current factory is an improvement over what it was, not just because it doesnt require a cheat sheet.

is it really that important that the recipes are fixed for ingredients? the current recipes are not completely randomized anyways. one good thing about the current system is that even though people generally need the same types of products in mass quantity, there is more variation to what resources they require making it so we are not all wanting purple rock to make shields e.g. This also leads to interesting thing when stringing together factory inputs in a large factory, it can require resource management and balancing to not starve some inputs based on the recipes you have.

Also, i like how the recipes level up in production, making the recipes themselves a commodity.

i do like the idea of a manufacturing block maybe for the high level components. it could be programmable (possibly using the cubatom system interface) to turn natural ingredients into proteins, chips, bottles, or paint, and then that would feed into other factory inputs that made missiles etc. like there is now. Another idea is to just make it so the recipes require high level minerals for the unnatural recipes, so you would have to use refine recipes.

 

[lupoCani]

I do understand the point of adding some variances to the manufacturing sytems, I suppose my main objection is that it\'s either that or item properties, (currently, we have both) and faced with that coice I believe the former is to be sacraficed.

The recepies as a commodity does have desireable aspects, but they\'re mostly only relevant on larger multi-faction survival servers, which exist in no abundance.

As for the rest, it seems interesting, could you elaborate?