Are you building an item mall?

[Honorable_D]

Are you making a mall in this game? That is to say, automating the production of...production buildings? Assemblers making assemblers, miners, smelters, insterters, accumulators, etc.

I've got all basic items automated like iron gears and copper frames all the way up to blue cores currently...but the thought of trying to automate production of all non-intermediate items got me turning away. Too much space and belt routing needed.

With the crafting speed upgrades research and just carrying around a full stack of intermediate items, I don't really think it's worth it. Then again while I have blue core automated, I am still pretty early on in the game...things could change.

[Dyc3r]

Originally posted by Dragorin:

Originally posted by Xuhybrid:

You would be an idiot to not make a mall since you get double output from assemblers compared to hand crafting. I just wish you could limit storage capacity of storage in a reasonable manner.

Yes, something other than a peace of grass in every slot you want to block would be helpful.

The further I progress, the more I find myself wishing for some sort of disposal tool would be incredibly useful -- possibly even moreso than belt or inserter improvements.

It seems like there are a lot of things that get produced considerably faster than they're consumed (like kindlevine extract). It creates a choke point, and belts lock up.

Though I do wonder if thats an efficiency issue. I have a biobrick generator that serves my current factory, but it's production crawls because I think I just don't use the fuel quickly enough. I wonder if an item mall would mitigate that at all -- fund more places to use resources so the rhings generating them have less down time.

[Felony McShiv]

I'll def have one later on. For now though I'm hesitant to invest too heavily since I don't really know what I'll want/need in the future (only started making blue cores now) and the nature of how early in early access the game is at right now. Once we have an item sink or be able to destroy excess, and a limit feature in the storage boxes Ill be more inclined to start cooking up mall designs.

[Xuhybrid]

Originally posted by Felony McShiv:

I'll def have one later on. For now though I'm hesitant to invest too heavily since I don't really know what I'll want/need in the future (only started making blue cores now) and the nature of how early in early access the game is at right now. Once we have an item sink or be able to destroy excess, and a limit feature in the storage boxes Ill be more inclined to start cooking up mall designs.

Bare minimum you want production of each intermediate product. Even if you handcraft from there, the efficiency and craft speed is much higher.

[barbrady123]

I'm starting to (with this latest rebuild I'm working on now)...yes in terms of "time" it isn't worth it, but this game does something that makes it worth it, doubling the efficiency. Not a big deal early on but now that I'm building a lot of Mk 2 machines, stack inserters, etc....it's nice to get everything for half price. :)

[Dyc3r]

Originally posted by Xuhybrid:

Originally posted by Felony McShiv:

I'll def have one later on. For now though I'm hesitant to invest too heavily since I don't really know what I'll want/need in the future (only started making blue cores now) and the nature of how early in early access the game is at right now. Once we have an item sink or be able to destroy excess, and a limit feature in the storage boxes Ill be more inclined to start cooking up mall designs.

Bare minimum you want production of each intermediate product. Even if you handcraft from there, the efficiency and craft speed is much higher.

The problem I keep facing here, though, is the excess byproducts.

Creating plantmatter frames, for example, generates a ton of kindlevine extract runoff that I can't seem to consume fast enough, so the machines get backed up before they're able to produce anything efficiently.

Like, I kind of agree with the "not yet" approach, because certain planned features completely negate some of the belt/inserter magic folks are using currently (like vertical lifts).

I've kind of found myself shuffling my "mall" around -- building production for the things I need to unlock tiers, and then just repurposing machines for the next tier.

From an early access standpoint, that's given me a good sense of "it would be cool if...", and its really exciting to see the devs in here basically saying "yep. That's on the list"

[Xuhybrid]

Originally posted by Dyc3r:

Originally posted by Xuhybrid:

Bare minimum you want production of each intermediate product. Even if you handcraft from there, the efficiency and craft speed is much higher.

The problem I keep facing here, though, is the excess byproducts.

Creating plantmatter frames, for example, generates a ton of kindlevine extract runoff that I can't seem to consume fast enough, so the machines get backed up before they're able to produce anything efficiently.

Like, I kind of agree with the "not yet" approach, because certain planned features completely negate some of the belt/inserter magic folks are using currently (like vertical lifts).

I've kind of found myself shuffling my "mall" around -- building production for the things I need to unlock tiers, and then just repurposing machines for the next tier.

From an early access standpoint, that's given me a good sense of "it would be cool if...", and its really exciting to see the devs in here basically saying "yep. That's on the list"

Smelt kindlevine extract next to the output. Don't be like me and ignore it until you have 2 chests full of it lol.

[squib]

i'm not sure I would call it a mall. I'm also not making a bus. I am however manufacturing absolutely everything. It's paying off as I just unlocked the freight elevator. Handcrafting 200 water wheels and 500 accumulators by hand....no thank you. I am also at the point of a bit of factory rework as I've unlocked better items and I overlooked a few things I should have probably mass produced. Victor already has a 3 story factory, I intend to go ten stories at the elevator....massive farms! Minimum of 100 grow boxes per species....mud! I need more mud!!!

[Firestorm]

Originally posted by Dyc3r:

The problem I keep facing here, though, is the excess byproducts.

This appears to be intended with the plant recipes which is one aspect where Techtonica departs from your standard factory games. Creates a challenge with a bigger scope than normal, so I like it in that sense.

Once you get to the point where you really want to scale up, I suspect you'll want to dedicate a factory area to kindle/shiver extract, plant frames, and a limestone/plant matter sink into biobricks for smelter fuel all in the same area. Make mining chargers and shiverthorn coolant there too. Then ship out the coolant, plant frames and kindlevine extract to other production areas as needed, likely via monorail.

Hopefully it auto-balances itself in the large scale to a better degree, or if it doesn't, you can manually fix all your production lines in one place. We'll hopefully get the extra factory parts needed to fully auto-balance this kindlevine & shiverthorn production area at some point.

[Dyc3r]

Originally posted by Firestorm:

This appears to be intended with the plant recipes which is one aspect where Techtonica departs from your standard factory games. Creates a challenge with a bigger scope than normal, so I like it in that sense.

Yeah, i would agree with that. When I say "problem" in that regard, it's definitely more of a fun challenge than an issue. It's a puzzle I want to solve, which is a point for the devs for sure.

Looking at the various recipes and such, it definitely feels like some code I haven't cra ked yet, and every step I take closer to that goal has been really satisfying.

In so many games, if I needed to delete a base and start over, I would be really irritated, but something about how Techtonica does it makes the "fresh start" really satisfying. Ive cleared all the belts and machines from my floor like 4 or 5 times because its genuinely fun to try something new.

[Firestorm]

Originally posted by Dyc3r:

In so many games, if I needed to delete a base and start over, I would be really irritated, but something about how Techtonica does it makes the "fresh start" really satisfying.

Not sure where you're at with tech, but a piece of it might be that you're making a new factory to solve an evolving challenge as opposed to just upscaling or rebuilding to incorporate a new doodad that gives 10% more speed or something.

Grappling with the byproducts on the plant recipes forces you to expand your concept of production chains or factory management, which changes how you make your factory.

Then you unlock limestone ore enrichment and the whole smelting logic and limestone sink part of your factory evolves on you again.

I've done ore enrichment in Krastorio 2.0, and the limestone enrichment split with smelter fuel management split with plant byproduct sinks in Techtonica is a different beast, at least conceptually at the moment.

Haven't directly tackled it yet and I don't plan on tackling it until monorails are fixed. Ideally, I'd want Priority Splitters before then too, but I sort of doubt that's showing up soon. Might take a break for a patch or two before I do ore enrichment in the end.