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Electronic circuits are a great example of "it doesn't really matter because for 99% of players the factory won't fall apart due to this decision." In practice
by munchbunny 6y ago
Electronic circuits are a great example of "it doesn't really matter because for 99% of players the factory won't fall apart due to this decision."
In practice it can go both ways. Many of the production chains that take green circuits as an input require such low quantities that 1-2 assemblers is more than enough, so the marginal complexity of trickling them to where they're needed is low. And they only require the two basic input resources that are needed almost everywhere, so the alternative of making them on site isn't that complex either.
However, if you are trying to do a megabase (where you keep playing post-endgame and basically scale for the sake of scale), your green circuit demand shoots through the roof, and you will end up sinking half of your basic materials into making green circuits. At that point the plumbing itself becomes so complex to maintain high throughput that centralizing green circuits is an economy of scale decision. Additionally, the production ratios (number of assembler units you use for each intermediate product) will change, so it's easier if all of the green circuit production is in one place than to make individual changes in a lot of places.
Green circuits are distinct because (1) they don't save that much space compared to the basic materials you input to make them, and (2) demand for them is modest at first, but becomes a primary bottleneck if you're going for scale, and (3) their inputs are resources you need almost everywhere, so they're already there anyway. Most of the other resources for which you consider centralizing production, you do it because you save a ton of bandwidth by centralizing, or because demand is always high, or because the inputs are more complex to move (such as fluids).
In practice demand for green circuits is so huge primarily because of demand for blue circuits, so I will often make all circuits offsite and ship them in. The 20+:1 compression ratio you get from moving blue circuits offsite is a much bigger win.
- a1369209993 6y ago> However, if you are trying to do a megabase [...] it's easier if all of the green circuit production is in one place As you allude to later, it's not really about green circuits for a megabase. Since blue circuits require 24 green circuits (20 directly and 2 for each of 2 red circuits), your huge demand for green circuits comes mainly from blue circuit production. It makes sense to centralize blue circuit production, so most of your green circuit production should be right next door, which is both on-site and centralized. But the green circuit production that isn't feeding directly into blue still doesn't really matter whether it's on-site or centralized.
- infogulch 6y ago"Green circuits locally or centrally?" > it doesn't really matter because for 99% of players the factory won't fall apart due to this decision "Do I Need Kubernetes?" > it doesn't really matter because for 99% of developers the infrastructure won't fall apart due to this decision Factorio and Software Engineering :)
- munchbunny 6y agoAbsolutely, Factorio has so many parallels to software engineering. My buddies have joked that you can tell how someone writes code from how they play.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y agoI wonder what they would say about my factory style. I tend to have a whole bunch of belts running from west to east, each belt carrying one type of item. When I want to add a new product, I put a splitter on each belt that carries and ingredient, with the second output branching down under all the belts carrying other products until it reaches a vertical line of assemblers. The output of those assemblers combines to a new belt that continues east. The main factory ends up looking almost triangular [0], with vertical strips of assemblers dangling off the hypotenuse. One of the advantages of this approach is that scaling is simple, just add more assemblers and faster belts! Though it's possible to eventually reach a point where even the fastest belts can't carry enough products. In that case, you can just add another vertical strip of assemblers with separate inputs. [0]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/741107040079970314/742097859842932796/unknown.png?width=783&height=643 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/741107040079970314/...