<story><title>Factorio and Software Engineering</title><url>https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/factorio-and-software-engineering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kentonv</author><text>&amp;gt; a certain component (electronic circuits) was being produced in 4-5 places. I eventually replaced them all with one centralised production array to simplify the factory.&lt;p&gt;Nah, electronic (green) circuits are high-volume but low-complexity to build. They are a good example of something that should &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; be produced centrally, because if you do, you have to invest a lot in high-volume transport to get them where they need to go. Much better to build dedicated electronic circuit factories wherever they are specifically needed.&lt;p&gt;Silly analogy to programming: Microservices. It makes sense to have a microservice to perform, say, user authentication, which is complex and only needed occasionally. It does not make sense to have a microservice to implement printf formatting, because you&amp;#x27;ll be calling it way too often and it&amp;#x27;ll waste a ton of network bandwidth. Better to import a string formatting library into each service.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cortesoft</author><text>Nah, as others have pointed out, green circuits are used everywhere. Since they meet that requirement, the only thing else to ask is, &amp;quot;Do the materials take up more or less space than the item produced?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For green circuits, it takes less transport to move the green circuits than to move the materials to make them, so you should make them centrally and distribute the circuits.&lt;p&gt;Copper wire, on the contrary, is used in many things but takes up more space than copper plate, so you should make it locally.</text></comment>
<story><title>Factorio and Software Engineering</title><url>https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/factorio-and-software-engineering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kentonv</author><text>&amp;gt; a certain component (electronic circuits) was being produced in 4-5 places. I eventually replaced them all with one centralised production array to simplify the factory.&lt;p&gt;Nah, electronic (green) circuits are high-volume but low-complexity to build. They are a good example of something that should &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; be produced centrally, because if you do, you have to invest a lot in high-volume transport to get them where they need to go. Much better to build dedicated electronic circuit factories wherever they are specifically needed.&lt;p&gt;Silly analogy to programming: Microservices. It makes sense to have a microservice to perform, say, user authentication, which is complex and only needed occasionally. It does not make sense to have a microservice to implement printf formatting, because you&amp;#x27;ll be calling it way too often and it&amp;#x27;ll waste a ton of network bandwidth. Better to import a string formatting library into each service.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeappell</author><text>Gonna disagree there: green circuits (and their descendents) are needed often enough and in high enough volumes that it absolutely makes sense to bus them. I&amp;#x27;ve got four full lanes being almost completely consumed, much by red circuit production.&lt;p&gt;Certainly if you need a very small volume in one specific location and already have copper and iron present you can slap down an assembler making copper wire and another making the circuits, but that&amp;#x27;s generally far less space efficient than just pulling them in from the bus.</text></comment>