Apologies if this has been suggested before, I just had to get the idea out of my brain to make room for other things... The factory bothers me (it always has), it's a magical resource dump that has very little realism to it, so I suggest a change to the way its presented in game and it uses existing mechanics to its advantage for the most part... I'm no artist, so please forgive my crude artwork... and yes I was in Reforged Creative while taking these the idea is aimed at Vanilla... so ignore the hotbar, its irrelivant to the subject anyway Current: Magical F2 button menu takes resources and just magics the ship into the universe... Pro's Easy, it exists, it works. Cons's Immersion breaking Can't make any lore for it. Unrealistic. Admittedly not final. My suggestion; Requirements; A working base One or more Container Controllers New Block: Factory Interface New Block: Construction Array Description & info; Factory Interface An internal console looking thing (like the repair console, but constructiony) Deconstructer style interface to Blueprints menu Has source container and destination Assembling Array options Power it on or off option Sensor / Signal logic compatible Size: 2x1x2 (W,D,H) Not airtight Limit of 1 per base CPU: 32,000 HP: 200 Mass: 25.5t Energy In/Idle: 1.95 kW / 10 W Construction Array Visually similar to Repair bay Must be external (and have build space above it) Not airtight Must be powered to complete construction. Perhaps project grey/silver bounding box around construction area Size: 1x1x1 (W,D,H) Limit of 2/4 per base? CPU: 250,000 HP: 500 Mass: 50t Energy In/Idle: 45 kW / 0 W Other options; Tech levels? T1 version only builds SV's and HV's T2 version builds CV's, SV's and HV's T1 version could be installable on CV's too. Pro's to this; Solves the magical F2 button problem. Makes building ships from Blueprints require a base. Could add T1 / T2 for faster building Uses Logistics to build Blueprints Factionable, factory stations could be a tasty war target... Con's Means you have to manually build your first base/sv/hv (thats not a con really) Construction could be stopped/resources lost if base powered off or is destroyed (not a con really either, defend or plan better...) Might not work well for space bases... Anyway I've rambled enough... vortensis
Yes this is how it's been envisoned but ... it doesn't work for all bases, how do you build a base blueprint if you have to have a base to build it ? Do you build a temp base to build the base on it then it somehow let's you place it somewhere close (within a radius) ? I think there are a couple solutions to this each with their own pros and cons: Either a terrain placeabale that let's you access the BP factory interface but you would lose all the benefits of the factory being physical like having it tied to the logistics system and having the materials needed physically stored which rather defeats the purpose. Or have it that only ships (HV/SV/CV) can build bases, you'd have pretty cool gampelay possibilities with big factory ships designed to build bases, the bigger the bases the more ressources and energy required to build them so the bigger the ship needed to build them, major con tho is early game you wont be able to spawn a base first, you'd have to go HV/SV then BA, but you can't have HV/SV without a BA so you either manually build a base or a ship in order to have a factory, so bottom line is your first build would have to be manual like you said in your proposition.
Prehaps, since we already have a portable constructor, we can have a portable factory? It could only be able to build a HV BP, and you could then continue from there.
I like the factory, especially after playing through the first part of the game over and over. The tedium can build on one’s nerves, and I feel like the factory helps alleviate a lot of this. For more emersion I just don’t use the factory and build everything from scratch. I feel we already have too many things that have been changed to drag out time in game, without needing to add more steps.
Many times, indeed. Realism alone is definitively not a mandatory criteria for any game feature. Game already has enough constraints and limits, if one desires so the factory can be forced to require a base to spawn a blueprint, in the gameoptions.yaml. .
The only thing I would like to change is how they materialize. Two other games I play (Planetbase & Surviving Mars) build from BPs, no scratch builds. You place the "ghost" of the BP and rotate it as desired. Robots deploy to the site, tools in action, as the BP gradually rises from the ground up. It's neat to watch. Maybe, due to the nature of EGS, it wouldn't work here, I think a Factory Ship, complete with robot workers, might be a cool way to achieve this. Again, it may not be viable here and I am the last person to want to complicate this game further. It's just a thought.
Actually, when you repair a ship on the repair block, you can see blocks gradually fix themselves one at a time, so maybe EGS could do something similar to that for BP: spawn an aura and have blocks appear one at a time as the structure progresses.
I have always love/hated the BP factory. Of course in the future there will be very cool CAD, and you will be able to give resources and a BP to some sort of robot and see your dream come to life! I'm not so grossed out by going to creative mode, building something cool. then making it in world. I do like the idea of some kind of physical entity in the game that you use. I'm ready to build my base. I have the appropriate level, and a ton of various mats. So I go to a factory and wire it all up, as you say. But when I want to spawn it, I can spawn the base exactly as we do now, within a range of the factory (love the factory ships idea). What if it was a swirling cloud of nanites doing the work? My two cents.
You're right. I noticed damaged blocks re-inflating. I can't recall about replacing missing blocks for "repair to template" or whatever it's called. I'll have to take a look. It does give hope.
The more I think about the factory ship, the more I like it. It could be a damaged POI, perhaps fallen from MS Titan. I don't know. I do know it's really cool to watch the little buggers do their thing and I would love to see it here in some fashion.
How would the factory "live building" decide which device or block to represent first, or in what order they should appear? See next questions : - would these "spawned" blocks be destructible, or would the whole build be somewhat "protected" until completed ? - what would happen if the "factory representation" (block or structure) gets attacked during a build ? How would this impact the state of the ongoing build ? The OP mentions "plan better" but how can players plan against random attacks ? How would this work in multiplayer/ PvP ? What would prevent strong factions to make new players unable to build anything because of restrictive requirements and constant attacks not allowing any blueprint to be completed ? What would be the performance impact on PCs to have all these additional structures and animations on multiplayer playfields, where structures are already limited ? How does this help with base cluttering on playfields, when actually players can spawn a ship without needing to also make a base that will serve no purpose afterwards ?
I see no technical reason why it wouldn't work in EGS, this is more of a rework of the factory than a do over, main difference is the construction would happen in the word. A simple set of rules like bottom up (wouldn't look great if top down), left to right ... I would say it should be destructible, someone else will say absolutely not, the eternal debate between punishing\forgiving that will never be resolved, in the end it's a design decision that will have to be made by the devs or we'll end up with the inevitable make it an option . It would simply halt construction ? until repaired, I don't see any other repercussion. There's no mention of a factory rework in their "rough" roadmap for this year so I think it's pointless to (re)discuss this topic, especially that it already has been debated to death, some of us like this idea, I also liked the CPU idea (the original, Geostar's design) but the implementation of EGS was nightmarish, so I'd honestly prefer the magical factory over another absurd "sans queue ni tête" implementation of this feature, I guess what I'm saying is careful what you wish for.
I can see the outrage from here : a ship under construction, not completed, already requiring repairs. Attackers could attack the build, not the factory itself. Such features get very small analysis when proposed, and the game testers suffer the consequences, and it's a lot of time wasted for Eleon. I, too, prefer the magickal factory to some sketchy proposal that can generate more problems that it solves.
What about the shields ? the base's shield will protect the ship under contruction and vice versa if a ship is building a base, besides the factory is de facto a repair bay so it will simply repair the damages itself after/if you fend off the attackers, so all you'd lose is some additional materials. Well, it's up to them to really think about all the possible issues and potential problems before they dive head first into production, I mean we just offered many possible solutions at one sitting, a well thought out design can prevent most if not all flaws and edge cases and provide some great gameplay options, like imagine big shipyards with all kind of ships being built, or a giant colony ship descending from atmosphere to build your first outpost on a planet, it's a hell of a lot more thrilling and rewarding than just a let me poop this star destroyer out of nowhere, but again there is a galaxie between our ideas and what they do with them.
It's very hard to satisfy a group of players when they don't even agree among themselves on what they really want, and throwing the ball back to Eleon to think about it for them. I also realize that players would have to stand by the factory for hours to prevent what actually happens often with other crafting devices that simply stop in the middle of a task when players go too far. Building would also stop if players leave the playfield.
Let me try to clarify a couple of points: 1. The robot builders don't place individual blocks or components. They appear at the perimeter of the "ghost" structure and simulate welding and other tasks in place. 2. The structure materializes like a veil being lifted gradually instead of all at once. It is still fast, just not instantaneous. As for being "protected" until complete, not necessarily. As I said, referring to the other games, the build time isn't that long. If there was an attack on the build, I suppose the build would be interrupted and whatever % of resource used would be lost. Or not. Or we just leave things as they are and I wait to see what kind of a job they do on the crosshairs this time. MP is another matter which I cannot speak to having no experience nor any interest. If that's the killer, so be it. Still, it would be entertaining to watch. I'll just settle to watch 'em on Surviving Mars.
I would love to see factory/blueprints implemented in a much more immersive way but does seem like a challenge to do so in a way that's fun and not too inconvenient. I think a working and more robust economy would have to be implemented before we can treat blueprints and ships as commodities outside of the raw materials needed to collect.
