Artisan Archive

Hi all... this recent uproar over the closing of the 1000 item manufacturing schematic exploit (see Development Forum, and please leave your arguments there) got me thinking about new functionality for factories that could help ease the burden for those who have been relying on it (as well as the rest of us). I posted a summary of this on the above-mentioned discussion, but felt that a more detailed account would be more appropriate here. I won't claim to be the only one to have thought up these ideas, I just wanted to mention them here for discussion in light of current events.

First, a little story to walk you through my vision (fantasy):

Bob the Medic wants to make 100 Health Wound Medpacks. He knows that he'll need 100 BECs, 100 CRDs, and 100 SDSs to do so. He gathers all the necessary resources for his project together and creates manufacturing schematics for the three components. Then Bob inserts *all three* of the schematics into the factory and accesses the factory's shiny new Job Queue. He tells the factory what order he wants the parts made in, and how many he wants. For now, he just wants 1 of each. He waits a few minutes for the factory to do its thing. Then he removes the finished BEC, CRD, and SDS from the output hopper and uses them to create a manufacturing schematic for the final assembly. After committing to the creation of the schematic, the prototype is salvaged. All *resources* used in the assembly are lost, but the *components* are reclaimed. That allows Bob to place those parts into the input hopper of the factory and insert his final schematic. He goes back to the Job Queue, queues up the last 99 pieces of each component, and finally the 100 final Medpacks. Bob then logs off for some much-needed sleep, while his factory manufactures the rest of the components, and then uses them to manufacture the final product without his intervention (since the factory now looks at the output hopper for components if it can't find what it needs in the input hopper).

(End fantasy)

Points of note:

• Job Queue: I've seen a few people mention this. It would be an extremely useful thing to have. Even if none of the rest of this is implemented, this would allow people to create most (yes, I know... but not all) parts in two runs... one run for the components, and one for the final assembly. That equals less "babysitting" of factories.


• Use of output hopper as auxiliary input hopper: In combination with the above would let people do a little extra work up front to be able to run an entire multi-component (even multi-level) product in one run.


• Salvage of component parts: I actually think this is a reasonable thing to allow for even hand-made parts (forfeit raw resources and XP to reclaim components), but that's a different discussion. As it relates here, this would alleviate the loss of material for those manufacturing parts requiring large quantites (8-10+) of identical parts. Since they might only be able to make 10 items off a single schematic, having to lose all the components for one can be a significant loss. Plus, then Bob can make 100 medpacks instead of 99. I like round numbers.

My suggestions... feedback welcome.