ThymineC wrote:

Hyperion wrote: I agree, assemblers should be smaller than modules, but what the assembler creates should be quite a bit larger than an assembler. This is in fact somewhat necessary, because if an assembler had to be larger than what it created and the production module larger than the assembler, the baseline production module would be the absolute largest thing you could build, and leads to a bit of a puzzle as to where the first production module came from...If we say reduced an assembler to say 5% of the product’s volume, you could have a 3000m^3 capacity production module produce an assembler for something that is 60,000m^3 (perhaps the percentage could be a researchable upgrade)

Oh, assemblers, my bad! I was thinking of production modules. Production modules will always be bigger than the object being produced, because they're produced inside of them. Assemblers will always be smaller than the object being produced, because they form the core of whatever's being produced.

i think there should be no strict relationship between the size of the assembler and the size of the produced object.

i imagine production modules being 2 different parts, an big empty bay with a few transfer beams on one or more sides and the actual factory building the parts that get transferred into the bay to be assembled by the transfer beams.
because thats pretty much consistent with what josh said, that big ships and stations are constructed externally through drones and transfer beams.

this would make a nice split.
you may assign some space of your ship as the "construction bay", basically assigning volume like a cargo bay.
and on top of that you install production modules that do the actual work.
so you may have an large bay, but an small production module, builting slowly but surely big things
or an small bay but large module, building small things very fast.

this would also allow to pool construction capacity inside a ship, where you may have multiple production modules assembling the same object in a bay.

so you'd have nice, easily understandable relationships between stats:
bay size -> maximum size of objects to be assembled
number of production modules -> maximum amount of objects you can assemble simultaneously
quality of production modules -> throughput of resources, aka how fast you can build

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

ThymineC wrote:

Hyperion wrote: I agree, assemblers should be smaller than modules, but what the assembler creates should be quite a bit larger than an assembler. This is in fact somewhat necessary, because if an assembler had to be larger than what it created and the production module larger than the assembler, the baseline production module would be the absolute largest thing you could build, and leads to a bit of a puzzle as to where the first production module came from...If we say reduced an assembler to say 5% of the product’s volume, you could have a 3000m^3 capacity production module produce an assembler for something that is 60,000m^3 (perhaps the percentage could be a researchable upgrade)

Oh, assemblers, my bad! I was thinking of production modules. Production modules will always be bigger than the object being produced, because they're produced inside of them. Assemblers will always be smaller than the object being produced, because they form the core of whatever's being produced.

i think there should be no strict relationship between the size of the assembler and the size of the produced object.

i imagine production modules being 2 different parts, an big empty bay with a few transfer beams on one or more sides and the actual factory building the parts that get transferred into the bay to be assembled by the transfer beams.
because thats pretty much consistent with what josh said, that big ships and stations are constructed externally through drones and transfer beams.

this would make a nice split.
you may assign some space of your ship as the "construction bay", basically assigning volume like a cargo bay.
and on top of that you install production modules that do the actual work.
so you may have an large bay, but an small production module, builting slowly but surely big things
or an small bay but large module, building small things very fast.

this would also allow to pool construction capacity inside a ship, where you may have multiple production modules assembling the same object in a bay.

so you'd have nice, easily understandable relationships between stats:
bay size -> maximum size of objects to be assembled
number of production modules -> maximum amount of objects you can assemble simultaneously
quality of production modules -> throughput of resources, aka how fast you can build

Well, yeah, a strict relationship between the object being constructed and the assembler would get annoying, but it would be kinda ridiculous if a Dreadnought assembler was the same size as a small missile assembler.

Idunno wrote: Well, yeah, a strict relationship between the object being constructed and the assembler would get annoying, but it would be kinda ridiculous if a Dreadnought assembler was the same size as a small missile assembler.

Well, theres a difference between possible and useful.
In theory you can build container freighters with a big enough hall, a power drill and a screwdriver.

Would it be a smart or fast way to do?
No

But why should we stop anyone from making dumb choices?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Idunno wrote: Well, yeah, a strict relationship between the object being constructed and the assembler would get annoying, but it would be kinda ridiculous if a Dreadnought assembler was the same size as a small missile assembler.

Well, theres a difference between possible and useful.
In theory you can build container freighters with a big enough hall, a power drill and a screwdriver.

Would it be a smart or fast way to do?
No

But why should we stop anyone from making dumb choices?

Elaborate. I'm half-asleep, and I have no clue as to what that has to do with my post.

the assembler can be as small as you want it to be, just dont expect a desktop assembler to build your dreadnought as fast as the proper shipyard sized one does

Cornflakes_91 wrote:the assembler can be as small as you want it to be, just dont expect a desktop assembler to build your dreadnought as fast as the proper shipyard sized one does

So the size of the assembler affects the speed of the build. I like it.

Separated assemblers and assembly rooms also mage a nice gameplay unification, we can unify internal and external construction.

Internal construction -> use a cargo bay

External construction -> use a transfer beam and "connect" to the ship/station in question

Cornflakes_91 wrote:Separated assemblers and assembly rooms also mage a nice gameplay unification, we can unify internal and external construction.

Internal construction -> use a cargo bay

External construction -> use a transfer beam and "connect" to the ship/station in question

External Construction is something that I hope to do someday.