Separated production recipes

[Václav]

Many years ago, I played Industry Giant. I played it few months and then I returned to games like this - because there were some features making game difficult in its special way. But there was one else feature I would like to see here: as far as simply, it can be called separated recipes.

Base:
As time goes and new goods for production appear, not only new factories appear, but also some ones (except mines) may be reset to produce another goods (but other may go on production original good). And these new produced goods (of course) require different resources.

So, lesser count of factories is needed to produce more goods.

Current situation:
Here, as long as I play, factories may produce all goods or nothing. Very simple. But I cannot say how much real it is. And of course, still it is better than in (Open)TTD and Transport Giant (there are some other very interesting features) where is very simple chain one resource - one product that neglects need of other resources for production of some goods.

Extension description:
I don't know exact situation across all paksets, but if I am not wrong, most factories produce only one good even if they require more goods for it. So, why don't to change it.

After change, there could be (for example) three canneries on map:
1st: canned peaches
2nd: canned fishes
3rd: canned pork meat

So, each cannery would accept iron (or steel or any else metal) and own canned food. I think that this would be very good feature. Because current situation that cannery needs not only iron but also all three canned foods for production, is not much good. And probably mostly in this case it is not much realistic.


Well, some people can say that there are canneries that produce not only canned meat, but also canned fruit or vegetables (cannery producing only one type probably would end own existence very soon). But it happens at least on separated production lines. And they really don't need fruit to produce canned vegetables or canned meat.


So, each cannery could get own resources - and let's say that each good would have own priority for production. So, if resources for more goods would be available, factory would prefer production one good - and other ones would wait until end of production of previous good.

[Vladki]

Yes this would be very nice - an option to specify boolean logic (AND, OR, etc.). Not only for canneries, but also for textile factories. Example:
Textile factory: (Wool OR Cotton OR Flax)
Cannery: (Fruit OR Vegetables OR Fish OR Meat) AND (Steel OR Plastic OR Glass)

A further improvement would be a "booster" input, that would work similar to electricity. Typically coal, for older factories, that had their own steam engine to run their machinery, that was replaced by electric power in modern times. Or fertilizer for grain farms, or grain for chicken farm, etc...

[Leartin]

These two posts give me very different ideas of what's wanted.

1) "RECIPES"
Rather than having Input and Output of goods defined by the factory, you'd define them in a seperate "recipe" object. Factories would only name the recipes that they can use.
To stay with the example, "canned_fish", "canned_peach" and "canned_pork" would be recipe objects, the cannery factory would refer to those recipes.
Whenever a new end consumer is buildt and requires a new producer, the game would check if a recipe exists that produces that good, and if so, if a factory exists on the map that allows for that recipe, such that it could be expanded rather than a new factory buildt.
I'd assume that seperate recipes in the same factory would virtually function as if they were different factories linked to all the same stations, except gaining the same boost from pax, mail and electricity.
Removing a recipe would be akin to removing a factory, so unless Standard becomes a feature that lets factories close, I don't see it happening for recipes either, for the same reasons.

Though to be honest - the exemplary cannery doesn't make too much sense for this. I'd think it more sensible for a factory that produces several goods, as basing that production on recipies allows to choose whether two products are made in parallel or are different production cycles.



2) "GOOD GROUPS".
Basically a good that is not it's own thing, but a reference to several goods. good groups would only need names and a list of actual goods that belong to it.
The textile factory, for example, might require "fiber". "fiber" isn't a good, but a good group, and as such, it would state "fiber (wool, cotton, flax)" in the factory.
Naturally, only input can refer to a good group, while an output has to be a specific good.
(I'd make it a point not to have it be defined as part of the factory. This way, if one were to plant hemp, they could simply add hemp to the fiber-object and have all fiber-consumers accept it at once, including add-ons.)

[Vladki]

I like the "good groups". It works also partially now. Farms in most paksets produce grain, vegetables, fruit and livestock, instead of specific kinds like: wheat or barley; cabbage or tomatoes; apples or oranges; cows or sheep, ...  So a groups like fiber, "things that can be canned", "packaging materials", would make sense. This would allow to distinguish (e.g. wheat from barley) if desired and mix them if not.