Read by Council Shipyard Automation

[timethatswasted]

I recently figured out how to make an assembly line using shipyards and the new pickup rail system. You can even make a shipyard that will auto load ships into a carrier.

BUT I would really like to make ships without making every single block.

What I propose is that you should be able to link the shipyards computer to factories that will auto-produce the blocks the shipyard needs.

It could be chained in the same way factories are chained now. The shipyard would tell the factories what to produce and the factories would pull the required ore from a connected storage.

You would still need to set up a traditional factory system, you just wouldn't have to manually change all the production outputs and baby sit then to make sure you don't produce too many. I mean who hasn't accidentally made 10000 beam computers.

This would help reduce waste and be very helpful for new players.

The current system has simply become too cumbersome and is a huge annoyance.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I've definitely seen this suggestion somewhere before, not sure if it was in chat somewhere or as part of a larger suggestion thread. We are in need of a less tedious factory system especially now that we have fleets. I was fine producing the items I needed for an occasional ship but now that I am building an entire fleet it's a lot harder to stay on top of the resources I need.

 

[splatthecat]

Yes, this has been suggested before but it is worth pushing these ideas as it gives the developers a gauge as to how much players want them to be added.

Shipyards being able to communicate with a set of factories and say "make me 502 grey standard armour" and the factory bursts into life.

I have done it with my drones by having a number of storage modules that call exact numbers of materials to make a drone. Set the timing as close as possible to the pull tick of the shipyard and when you go to make one you activate the first storage module that pulls everything you need in one go. The next ones pull exactly what they need. It is complicated but I was building one or two different types.

Using the rails a real production line can be made and if it was possible to use logic to undock a constructed ship...even better!

 

[timethatswasted]

I know I have seen the suggestion before as well, but couldn't find it.

I can't imagine this would be an impossible thing to add in either. It would be the shipyard going through the item list one item at a time and telling the factory to make it.

I guess where it gets complicated is when an item requires multiple step like with armor. The factory would have to tell another factory what to do.

Another way to do it would be to have the shipyards calculate the raw resorces needed and just have the blocks kind of "poof" into existence.... That's a little too simple for my tastes, but would be the easiest.

 

[Nickizzy]

I've definitely seen this suggestion somewhere before, not sure if it was in chat somewhere or as part of a larger suggestion thread. We are in need of a less tedious factory system especially now that we have fleets. I was fine producing the items I needed for an occasional ship but now that I am building an entire fleet it's a lot harder to stay on top of the resources I need.

Yep. I think you were in it. Remember the thread about using raw resources in shipyards to build ships or shipyards requesting blocks from the fsctories(I couldn't find it).
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I recently figured out how to make an assembly line using shipyards and the new pickup rail system. You can even make a shipyard that will auto load ships into a carrier.

What is this? Gime gime gime. That sounds really practical and cool.

 

[timethatswasted]

Yep. I think you were in it. Remember the thread about using raw resources in shipyards to build ships or shipyards requesting blocks from the fsctories(I couldn't find it).
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What is this? Gime gime gime. That sounds really practical and cool.

It's really just a matter of over lapping a pick up point and some pick up rails into your ship yard. When you undock the ship from the ship yard it will snap to the pickup point and move along the rails.

You can take it a step further and dock your carrier to a station and overlap it's pick up point with the end rail of your assembly line. Have your assembly line set to undock the ship when it gets to the end, and it will snap to the carrier and be loaded up.

So yeah, basically entity to entity rail transfers are already possible.

 

[Nickizzy]

It's really just a matter of over lapping a pick up point and some pick up rails into your ship yard. When you undock the ship from the ship yard it will snap to the pickup point and move along the rails.

You can take it a step further and dock your carrier to a station and overlap it's pick up point with the end rail of your assembly line. Have your assembly line set to undock the ship when it gets to the end, and it will snap to the carrier and be loaded up.

So yeah, basically entity to entity rail transfers are already possible.

Ooh.. Nice. That would work so well with drone bay repair and reconstruction.