Assembly Lines

[deadboy]

Assembly lines: so heres a new one (I think) how about we have assemly lines? here are the projects:

Assembly line (worker based):
10000g steel
5000g iron

hammer
screwdriver

Or you can have;

Assembly line (machine based):
25000g steel
15000g iron

hammer
screwdriver

Now to explain what they are. If you set up a project (just like any other project) on an assembly line, it will produce ten of that project in the same time and resources as it would for one. The difference between machine and worker is that worker takes 10 people to operate and put everything together, whereas machine takes 1 just to oversee that all of the parts are working properly

What do you think? I figure this will help the growth of actual large scale worthwhile industry

[Rusalka]

Iron, steel, rubber, copper, plastic and other things not implemented yet. I't isn't easy to build a machine which can replace 10 people. I think such technology is good for a cantr's future.

[deadboy]

Yeah sure, feel free to fiddle around with the resources needed

[Sho]

Iron, steel, rubber and copper are very much implemented.
But that's not the issue - if something is a good idea in terms of balance, codability and playability, realism takes a back seat. This has always been so, and this, if codable (I don't have a clear idea whether this could be done), would be a very good thing.

Basically what I think we're getting at here is that there should be a way to make things in bulk - ten bone knives as a single project, for example. There may or may not be a cost savings in materials or time. There may or may not be the requirement of a machine, either to run the project on or as an on-site requirement (like an anvil). But even if there is no savings and a special machine is needed, this will make it much easier to run a large workshop.

If codable, I'd like to see this be implemented as an addition to the manufacturing menu, where instead of just making one object you can make many, using an input box. If there is no assembly line on site, an error message will come up. Obviously this option will only work for unnamed, holdable objects - tools, weapons, semi-finished products and the like.
The resulting project will take X times the resources, X times as many semi-finished objects, the same tools, and an amount of time that is roughly X times normal for a small batch but decreases towards a smaller multiple of X as X increases (example: (X+1)/2X, which starts at 1 for X=1 and approaches 0.5X as X increases).

[Rusalka]

Iron, steel, rubber and copper are very much implemented.

Of course they are. i meant other, not yet implemented resources beside iron etc.

Idea is ok. Of course there should be specyfic matrix for every serie of products, which has to be manufactured at first.

[Sho]

Of course there should be a specific matrix for every series of products, which has to be manufactured at first.

It could be done that way. But it seems an unnecessary frill - it wouldn't add anything but realism, and probably (unless I'm missing something here) make this harder to code (you'd need to add a new category of manufactures - "Assembly Line Molds" - which would have as many entries as all the other categories combined) and to use. It might give RD another chance to try to promote trade by making molds require special resources, but that could just as easily be put in the assembly line materials.

[formerly known as hf]

It's not yet possible to have minimum participants for a project. That was brought up some time ago, and as far as I know, is not yet implemented.

An automatic assembly line would be good, but it's at such a level of techonogical sophistication that it just wouldn't fit with Cantr.

We don't have industrial smelters yet, or large scale textile making machines, and so forth.

Automated assembly lines have only been around in the last half of this Century. They're prerequisites are computers, prigrams etc. Having an automatic assembly line would indicate that Cantrians have entered the age of the computer chip, the printed ciruit board and the computer, something which is clearly not the case.

Manual assembly lines I would like to see. There have been numerous suggestions of factories or other things that would need a minimum number of workers. Until minimum workers is implemented, it wouldn;t make much sense.

[Rusalka]

Automated assembly lines have only been around in the last half of this Century. They're prerequisites are computers, prigrams etc. Having an automatic assembly line would indicate that Cantrians have entered the age of the computer chip, the printed ciruit board and the computer, something which is clearly not the case.

I have to disagree. First assembly lines are much older, and worked without chips and all other electronics. First machines were much more primitive of course, but in my opinion, the technical level is still to high for Cantr.

[deadboy]

Yeah, you can build helicopter engines, they are pretty advanced, so why not assembly lines? they have been since the 1920's/1930's with Henry Ford and the like in big buisnesses

[deadboy]

Oh yeah and to Sho my idea of setting up the project is to click on the assembly machine, and then that will bring up the manufacter list, you pick the item like normal and then it builds 10 for the same time and resources as the project usually would, as there is no change in names I would assume this wouldn't be all that hard to code

[formerly known as hf]

Ford's assembly lines were still relatively labour-heavy.

The main obstacle for their implementation isn't whether or not they 'fit' Cantrian tech level, but the fact that it's not currently possible to set a minimum required number of participants for a project.

It would be wrong for one persojn to be able to run an assembly line.

[Pie]

I have a BETTER IDEA!!!! You see, it will work like this. The machine will be a tredmill(or somtin like that) and one person will just do the project, but with two people AND the tredmill, the project's time will be really decresed alot, and with three or four people... WHO!!! THATS FAST!!!!

[Rusalka]

Or maybe the assemble line will be a complilation of different machines? There will be for example 3 standpoints, every single position will require a different skill to be opearted....

[Tv_remote]

I think that having a person run assembly line would be hard, because there are very few people who would be satisfied playing Cantr if they just sat around an assembly line all day. Then again, if the project could get done fast enough it probably wouldn't be too hard to find a buch of people willing to spend a little time to make like 5 or 10 hammers at a time.

[Sho]

There are plenty of characters who do nothing but work on one repair project after another, or gather resources for years on end. That won't be a problem.