Factorio Dev Tracker

Yes, but the difference is, that they can be used together, without any change in behaviour. Consumption machines can use different levels of energy based on activity (one fully beaconed assembler uses way more than assembler full of efficiency modules for example). So the problem with entities is little bit more complex, but solvable.

For performance, it is always best to have as few blocks as possible, as blocks (parts of blocks actually, as junctions split it even more), are the steps the pathfindiner is using to find the goal.

This is because of simplification, the pathfinder is using the already existing block structure for itself. But it would be reasonable to build special data-structure for pathfinding, where only junction points would divide individual steps, which would greatly reduce the comlexity of the search in real-life scenarios.

Wait a second ....

...

My brain is trying to figure out the reason why it can't work.

Eh? Derp?

Obviously, it would change the behaviour in some ways, but maybe not in ways that would matter. It might be weird for some bigger entities like roboports, which can charge up and discharge. So a lot of roboports in a big network sharing their buffer would mean it takes much longer to run out of energy completely, but maybe it doesn't really matter that much.

For small buffer entities like inserters, assemblers or laser turrets, they have buffers, but just for technical reasons, and we want them to slow down or shut down in a coordinated way when there is not enough electricity anyway, so a shared buffer wouldn't matter.

This would be a problem once we want to independtly update entities at the same time, but in this case, the buffers could still be split based on the group in which the entities would be updated.

And as you suggested...

There is still quite a big reserve when it comes to both train movement and repathing, it just wasn't usually that much time consuming in our saves, but with the additional improvements, it is just a question of time before it does. Can you post a link to the save (or the forum with the save?)

The construction robots (only kind of robots relevant to this), upate every single tick whenever enemies are around. This keeps the behaviour around enemies consistent, but keeps the performance boost when enemies are not around (which is usually almost always).

yes

Not really. The 300% productivity is only achiavable in the very late end game with limited number of recipes. The overall boost from all of the bonuses available combined is enough. We don't need to break the game by semi-forcing productivity beacons everywhere.

You might be right. Because you are generally expected to build bigger in the expansion. But definetly not so much bigger, if you just want to progress.

I tried to steer the game design into a direction where if you compare the end state you had (all (nauvis) research finished), things should be ok because:

1) You finish all nauvis only research faster compared to vanilla

2) The rocket is cheaper and simplier compared to vanilla

3) The planets are effectivelly an alternative to progress compared to the infinite research, which should be more fun.

4) You can build "relatively" small if you want to just finish the game, there is one tester who finished in 37 hours by trying to go as minimalistic as possible (some semi/exploits were used, which we want to patch, so it will be more), but it still wouldn't be crazily more. We finished our MP playtrhough with very seldom use of quality, so we kind of proved it is far from necessary.

Obvious...

quality science packs doesn't make sense indeed (one if the reason is, that there still will be normal production all these quality ingredients are supposed to support). But quality ammo or fuel has bonuses. I didn't try it with ammo, but quality fuel allows train acceleration and max speed to be increased a bit. And since trains generally don't eat that much, and fuel isn't that expensive, it is a reasonable thing to do in the end game stage of the game.

It works similarly as with logistic network. Landing pack has logistic requets which can be satisfied by the set of platforms (working as passive provider chests) currently on orbit. It is not teleported, but transported by a capsule with a delay

There is a mod for that: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Building_Time

Don't forget about the productivity researches (only available for specific set of items, but still important)