I've got two ideas for options that might make the factory a heck of a lot less cheesy and more satisfying for players looking for such. First is the option to allow only whole, contributory blocks to be added to the factory towards a blueprint. Second is the option to delete excess materials from the factory upon changing playfields. If one attempts to construct a ship from a blueprint using blocks that are actually present in said blueprint, they will find it a difficult experience bordering on hostile. There is no simple, direct method of finding out what blocks a blueprint contains. The best a player can do is leave their survival game and lookup the CPU stats in creative for a rough list of blocks in certain categories, and even then this list is imprecise. This unsatisfying busywork eventually drives a player back to using raw ingots and random blocks. This in turn wrecks progression by allowing players to make blocks without the required tech unlocks, or even the right types of constructor. With the current factory, even an HV constructor is capable of making interstellar CVs. A desirable alternate option would be to have the blueprint factory list and accept only the blocks needed to construct a ship instead of the raw ingots. This would push players towards building proper infrastructure for constructing and storing ship components. It would also make tech unlocks a lot more meaningful. Even with this correction, the blueprint factory is subject to myriad other misuses. These range from a totally secure storage method for hauling loot to a storehouse of siege engines. Many people have used these exploits for so long, they have stopped even recognizing them as such. For those of us that still do, I think the cleanest way of curtailing these problems without damaging the factory's intended functionality is to empty it completely after each completed ship is spawned in the world, and every time a player changes playfields. This purge includes both completed ships and leftover parts. The purpose is to greatly reduce the factory's capability as a secure storage medium without impacting blueprint manufacturing. With this option on, players scarfing down every block and component they can get their hands on, storing them in the belly of a Factory Stuffer blueprint, and later regurgitating whatever ships they need on cue simply could not happen. Instead, players would have to deliberately gather or manufacture and store a specific ship's worth of parts before placing them in the factory and starting the production timer. Used together, these two options would greatly increase the value of practical logistics. The ability to produce ships quickly would depend less on rote values in a configuration file and more on player skill at building and planning. A lot of ideas for replacing the factory have been put forth. Most of them would require months upon months of work. Adding those two options would do much to correct the worst issues with the blueprint factory without requiring such an extensive overhaul.
I agree with part one of what you suggest, having a list of all the parts would be ideal. And only allowing full blocks and equipment would definitely make it a much more immersive experience. However, I strongly disagree with the idea of it spitting out parts and completed ships when changing playfields. There's been many times when my math is off and I think I have enough of a certain material to complete my workshop item but it turns out I'm missing like 20 Erestrum or something. If I have to warp, your idea of deleting excess materials would puke out into the void all the time, effort and materials I'd put into making all the parts? Nope....just nope. Also, I keep a small completed SV in my factory at all times so if I'm out scouting around or mining and get ambushed, I can always spawn in a baby SV and make my way back to wherever I launched from. Having that deleted after a warp would be annoying to say the very least and game breaking if I'm a warp away from home. Especially if my miner has a belly full of raw ore I just gathered. My suggestion in lieu of "the purge" would be once an item is selected from the workshop, it's locked. You can only place parts & pieces for that selection until it is completed...not necessarily spawned, but built and ready to go. That way, the workshop can't be used as a storage facility for all parts, just ones actually required for that build. If for some reason you change your mind and want to build something else, an unlock feature would return your parts to selected cargo container(s) and only if you have storage capacity to hold it all.
Well, the second option is something of a hardcore one. It pretty much disables the ability to use the factory for mobile storage for players wishing to change playfields. What first inspired it was talk of full loot pvp and equipment on respawn options. Obviously you can't have full loot if you can just stash everything in a big factory blueprint. Even in pve, the factory is often pressed into cargo duty. Anyone who's completely torn down a large POI can tell you about the considerable cargo space required to haul and store it all. As far as spare ships go, isn't that supposed to be what home spawns are for? Venturing out into hostile space is supposed to be a calculated risk. The old wisdom in EVE Online was to never fly what you can't afford to lose. There's a rush from knowing there's real consequences if things go wrong, and having a spare starfighter in your pocket kinda diminishes that. So for people who want to commit to that rush, I figure taking factory storage out of the equation is a good way of facilitating it. Plus it wouldn't matter while you're still stuck on the starter planet and could probably use a break.
Yea, I'll be the first to admit when dismantling a big POI I'll use the factory for a resource dump. I shouldn't but it's there...ya know? That's why I totally agree with your first statement, make the parts you need and only the parts you need. I don't PVP or play on a server so I don't know how it's used in those instances. And yes, having a pocket SV does kind of negate the dangers of space and the risk of having to respawn at base, build a new SV and then try to find your old one for the goodies it holds. However, I'm long on age and, some days, short on patience so being able to pop out that little SV allows me keep my sanity and keep playing if drones spawn on top of me and decimate my poor vessel. Your rush is my rage quit....lol. All in all though the factory does need a good overhaul...however they do it. I know it's been stated for a long time now that the factory as it stands is just a placeholder for the finished product so it'll be interesting to see how they create it.
I agree some updates to the factory could be made, but I am not a huge fan of complicating the input/output itself. I dont see the factory as "storage" as once something is in there, it cant come out unless its something that is being built. It is far more like an investment. What I would prefer is if there were a factory "block" that had to be created and placed, similar to the repair bays we currently have. It would prevent the "Oh, I have a capital ship in my back pocket" effect we have now where a ship can materialize anywhere. Perhaps even have a SV/HV/CV block with different requirements to craft. This would also encourage players to build multiple facilities as they would, perhaps, want to build a ground vehicle bay, a hangar bay for small craft, and perhaps a space dockyard for the larger vessels. As it is, the factory is a completely voluntary part of the game, so I see really no need to complicate things much more. A lot of players already spend hours in creative crafting and designing their own ships, no reason to force more time to be invested in these players getting to enjoy their creations, or stifle creativity because they are concerned with finding specific single elements or devices. And as far as using factory blueprints from other players, most of the larger ships already cost hours worth of scrounging around and mining asteroids to load the factory, and depending on the server/settings even more hours waiting for the ship to complete. There is already a built in benefit of dropping in completed parts over ingots in that this reduces the overall production time. Which when spawning ships with 10-20 hours "cooking time" makes a huge difference. (at least in MP where the sleep timewarp isnt an option). In survival games there is always this balance that needs to be met between a mindless grind, and a reward for ones work. In my current MP experience there are some players with dozens of different vehicles ranging in size from massive carriers capable of carrying CVs down to small woodchoppers. Micro-managing the factory even more seems like a needlessly time consuming exercise. On a personal note which applies to just my opinion, I love the factory just as it is. It suits my personal playstyle rather well. I enjoy scrounging bearings and rocks early on to bring in my first scouting/survival HV/SV, and then using it to gather the goods for my starter CV so I can get out of the system. In the later game, I see it almost like my "score" where I can look and see just how much I have gathered and what I could afford to build, should I want to. I love seeing one of my favorite builders release a new awesome ship so I can then rush to the game and spawn it with the materials I already have as opposed to having to start new grind for each ship I may want. I dont really mind the "magical poof" of a new ship much because I feel it is a reward for the hard work of finally getting that neo, or zasc, or erestrum. Or clearing hard POIs for matrix/bridges.
The factory is only voluntary if you're willing to design a new ship every time you need a new one. If you want to use ones you've already designed or picked from the workshop, the factory is your only option. I'd love to have a physicalized method of blueprint production so we can build shipyards to produce new spacecraft, but that would take a complete overhaul of the factory. These optional tweaks would be a lot simpler and faster to get working in the meantime. At least you've have to build a base with constructors and storage enough to handle all the parts for a new ship. And since you're adding all the remade blocks in at once, the actual production timer will probably be zero.
Part of my point was that if someone designs a ship, they have sat there and spent a considerable amount of time building it. Then they have to spend another considerable amount of time collecting materials to build it. Compounding those two time sinks with making the materials even more difficult to source seems unnecessary and overly time consuming and grinding.
First, forcing any new structure on a playfield just to get a blueprint "done" is a bad idea, especially for servers. It bloats playfields that already have structure limits for no good reason other than "immersion" in a context that doesn't even call for this. Why players can accept that ships vistually "appear" in a system after warping, or that teleporter exist, but they can't accept that the Galactic FedEx can deliver a ship where needed when needed, if the waybill was duly paid... that is beyond me. Especially knowing that the more "fluff" we add, the less the game behaves...
If you consider design and production to be work rather than gameplay, you probably wouldn't use these options. You probably aren't using CPU or mass & volume either. I imagine factory/repair and constructor speeds are set to instant as well. This means ships will be a means to an end you'll never have to spend a lot of time thinking about, and can instead focus on fighting and exploring. It's one of the game's strengths that Empyrion's difficulty settings can flex to support this experience. By default, the factory's production time already has an embedded time sink. It's a literal timer, in fact. You can get around it by producing a bunch of O2 tanks and similar blocks in an array of constructors. But if you're going to cheese that, you might as well make it interesting by producing the blocks a ship actually needs. Except there's no way to know what those blocks are by looking at your blueprint list. So your only real option is to shove anything and everything you can find into the factory and wait hours for ships to build. It's no wonder people agonize so much over taking them into danger and risking their loss. It's not about immersion. Its about gameplay. Building a factory BA to make ships in interesting and fun. Bunging piles of ingots and waiting is not.
I have been playing this game long enough to know how the factory works, don't worry. But I think the first reasonable step into "immersive factory" could simply be to have the devices and blocks requirements be exposed precisely so players know what to make/ salvage in advance. We can not direct "roleplaying" so if players feel they "need" a physical setup to be "allowed" to get their ship, they're free to do it. But as far as asking for "features", anything that "enforces" a gameplay style or additional steps not really required has less chances to make it in the game, if it requires adding code to something already flaky. Making a list of devices and blocks doesn't change code, it just asks for data that is already there.
Well, presentation and execution are always going to create some kind of experience. Roleplayers simply enjoy writing in the little details that turn that experience into a story. So long as the game doesn't significantly obstruct them, they'll be happy using the game to make their own fun. My concern is entirely with the mechanical experience itself. NOTHING is more frustrating than knowing there's a problem I can solve, and being unjustly denied the information I need to do so. That's how the factory feels right now. If I make a ship from scratch in survival, I have to build all the blocks myself using my own infrastructure and tech unlocks. It takes more time, but it IS something that takes skill, and therefor can be interesting and fun. Using the factory instead lets people using existing designs, but it routes around the need to also design/build/fuel/defend any infrastructure. You're strongly encouraged not even build any infrastructure to if you don't have to. Any resources going into a base (at least early on) are actually detracting from your progression, not helping it. The optimal path goes against interacting with a large portion of the game's systems. That's not good. Bare minimum, we need that parts list on the blueprint menu. If players can take that list, build all the blocks on their own, dump them all the factory, and instantly spawn the ship (because all those blocks killed the timer), that would about enough for now. I wanna make that ship, not pay ingots to have someone else make it for me while I wait. If it's my own constructors that are taking too long, then at least I can design a better constructor array. The option to disable putting raw ingots and random junk in could be a helpful middle ground between the current cheesiness and disabling it entirely, as is done in some playfields in scenarios. It fixes the material progression problem by simply correcting the factory. If you have to build all the blocks yourself anyway, there's no material difference between making a ship designed in survival and one designed in creative. I think the purge option is important if you really want to have mass & volume on your world. Factory stuffer blueprints bypass it entirely, after all. If people are going to blast entry holes and undermind POIs to knock them out almost without a fight (which is right, proper, and should be done), they should at least have to risk bringing in a big freighter after the shooting has stopped to carry away the loot and salvage. Call it hardcore mode for logistics.
