Yes, sort of like making cement out of rocks. So if that's the case it would be nice to have something like a grinder that can make this stuff more rapidly. Well, that's true of steel plate though too. In real life you cannot make steel plate by just hammering iron ingots flat, you have to melt it to liquid and mix in carbon (as well as traces of vanadium, manganese, tungsten, and other things depending on the alloy). It is strange that you even make glass out of elemental silicon. You would make electronic components out of that, sure. But it takes a huge amount of energy to refine rock/sand into reasonably pure elemental silicon. Turning it back into glass would require heating it back to about 1000 degrees and then burning it (oxidizing it back into silica). I think the resource should really be called "silica" (SiO2) which is basically quartz. And it should look like quartz rocks, not like the refined silicon you see at semiconductor manufacturers. This can be easily turned into glass, and can be refined further into the silicon required for electronics. As it is right now the game doesn't make sense, because there is literally no such thing as a "silicon mine", you simply do not find elemental silicon in high concentrations like you would copper or silver. Elemental silicon is extracted from sand or gravel. What I would do if it were up to me: Rename the existing "silicon" resource to "silica" Change the ingots to look like a pile of quartz crystals Increase the ratio of rock dust to silicon crystals to 5:1 or lower Allow silica to be converted to glass plate at a ratio of about 3:10, maybe not quite the yield of iron to steel plate, but much closer Add a new component called "refined silicon" which looks like a shiny cylinder of silicon like you see during semiconductor manufacturing Allow silica to be converted to "refined silicon" at a ratio of about 10:1, and make it sort of slow to reflect higher energy use Consider introducing a machine like a "silicon refinery" that can convert silica, or rock dust, directly to refined silicon at a faster rate than a constructor can Things made of glass use "glass plate", electronics use "refined silicon" I think this would feel a lot more realistic without introducing a lot of complexity. Basically, I introduced one extra intermediate component which constructors can make automatically, so it doesn't make people's lives more difficult. But it makes the production mirror real-life a bit better, in terms of the actual materials and process. It also increases the yield for glass substantially, which is realistic because right now 1 iron ingot can make 5 steel truss blocks whereas it takes 1 silicon ingot to make a single window which seems way off.
Well considering you re going to turn the ingots to components anyway, whats the point? Also it is the first iteration of the deconstructor. We don't you how it is going to evolve, hence the purpose of this thread.
Recycling components to resources, to make DIFFERENT components... does make sense, and is very useful. I don't need a cargo box full of steel plates, when I can use all that iron for other things. Same for other components, electronics, wires, cables, etc etc. I do not consider the factory as any sort of 'solution' either, so don't even bring that up The deconstructor was developed quite a bit, its not really the first iteration. My comments internally were pretty much the same about it, but they made a public thread for which I thought I would drop them as well to see what the general public thought. But, seeing how no one is in any agreement to my concerns, I'm going to drop it, and forget about the deconstructor as a useless device. Eleon basically had the same stance of "not gonna improve it, its fine as is". So I will bow out of this conversation now as I'm just 'one'... my singular opinions do not matter against the whole.
TLDR : It is like they took the script for the multitool or multituret as it is applied on a POI with no core and adapted it to work on a device where you drop the devices and you get components. Otherwise if you get ingots mining becomes kind of obsolete.
Well, I saw the deconstructor as "semi-realistic": namely that it disassembles things back to parts, as opposed to melting them down. So I don't think it is a problem that it goes back to steel plate. I just think the furnace ought to be able to melt it down further, because if it can melt iron ore into ingots, why can't it melt steel plate into ingots? As others have pointed out, most things made of iron actually have steel plate as an intermediary and therefore are not made out of an even number of ingots. So going back to steel plate, instead of ingots, makes sense. What is inconsistent is how some things using erestrum and zascosium go back to ingots, instead of erestrum gel or zascosium alloy. But I think that's probably more a problem with the original recipe of the item requiring ingots instead of the intermediaries, rather than a problem with the deconstructor.
It really depends on how fast mining is and what amounts of mineable resources exist, and how much energy is consumed mining vs deconstructing. If the goal is to not make mining obsolete, then the solution would be to have fewer large POIs, especially on the starting planet, and perhaps make those harder to crack with early-game weaponry; simultaneously, there would need to be many more ore veins at various depths and a better speed progression for mining technology. Of course, potentially a simpler solution is to just increase the input power of the deconstructor by a lot.
If to have a Deconstructor at all, it should have been able to deconstruct to what level you want; device > parts > ingots > ore/raw Could even had a "reverse" button on current Constructors (and Furnace), scrapping the DeC.
What @StyxAnnihilator wrote is a nice idea to keep as many people happy as possible. I will remind again that in case it produces ingots will make mining less desirable. Everybody would storm POIs to salvage them and use the Deconstructor to make ingots. Further if one wants to switch a CV with a better one, then all is needed is to salvage the old one and make ingots for the new one. Of course some mining will still be needed for the excess needed ingots.
On deconstructor - if i had it my way, I'd make it _only_ produce ingots, at a 75% rate. Think stripping/breaking down and melting, like kids in poor countries do with our computer junk... On fuel issues associated with deconstructor - since I discovered biofuel can be used for powering everything except for the drill and building tool, I am on a deforestation mission anyway. I power everything with biofuel, have a portable constructor running logs 24/7, go on a HV logging trip like once a game week. There is still enough forests to last me a while. I supplement it with solar for bases, et voila! only spending promethium for those drill and builing tool ammo. All this _before_ deconstructor even comes into question. And yes, this is doable from lvl1.
If using a battery/fuel_cell system (several suggestions on that) then both solar and bio and ore types could be used as ways to make and recharge, giving different charge times and effect (and such). Then can put those in the DeC too, enabling transformation to better ones.
I could imagine a "single-currency" "energy cells" ... would be made out of any existing types, keeping let's say 98% of source energy and also requring a bit of iron, copper and oxygen, as well as energy media itself. Think insulated container with superconductor coil in liquid oxygen. Throw in a bit of plastic for realism. And stop this biofuel madness - at least make me grow corn/wheat and mine a bit to be able to convert.
I love this thing! Finally have a means of disposing of the 20+ T2 Assault Rifles I wind up finding raiding Zirex facilities. Now if it could just recycle Night Vision Goggles....
