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Comment by bcrosby95 | Hacker News Reader

The major difference between Factorio and software is you can't refactor in Factorio. Your options are to spaghetti or start fresh. You can't really pick and choose good pieces of your layout because of physical restrictions and the game is a giant math equation, and you want inputs to match outputs at every step of the way - if you don't have the space to do this you don't have the space.

It's like if in the software world you could greenfield, waterfall, or spaghetti. There is no agile in Factorio, which is broadly accepted as most commonly the best way to develop a piece of software.

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You can absolutely refactor in factorio...in fact you have to refactor as you get access to better technologies. Just like software, refactorability is largely dependent on how well you design your base at the beginning. If you leave plenty of room for expansion and compartmentalize different production areas, it makes it extremely easy to upgrade with minimal disruption to the factory. And also like software, if you don't put any thought into the design at the beginning, it will probably be easier to start from scratch than try to redesign on the fly.

Ultimately how well your base is designed is completely based upon what things you need to produce in the future, what their inputs are, what their outputs are, what those outputs will be inputs into, and in which quantities you need to produce all of this stuff.

These are all things a new player has no clue about. All you're really saying is an experienced player that has done enough researching and equation balancing (X miners feeds Y furnaces and a line of belt can support Z miners) ahead of time should be able to design a base that doesn't require too much demolishing. And presumably, not overdesign in unnecessary base components.

It assumes perfect knowledge.

The closest to refactoring in Factorio is the ability to use bots to tear down and build blueprints. But you get that ability long after it would first be useful - that would be around when you get plastics, which easily triples the size of your base.

Ultimately how well your program is designed is completely based upon what features you need to develop in the future, what their parameters are, what their return values are, what those return values will be arguments into, and in what scales you need to run all of this stuff.

These are all things a new programmer has no clue about. All you're really saying is an experienced programmer that has done enough researching and equation balancing (X algorithms feeds Y threads and a processor can support Z cores) ahead of time should be able to design a program that doesn't require too much changes in the future. And presumably, not overdesign in unnecessary micro optimizations.

It assumes perfect knowledge.

The closest to refactoring in programming is the ability to use IDEs to remove dead code and do code generation. But programers learn about IDEs long after they would first be useful - that would be around when you get to integrations, which easily triples the code base of your program.

Everything you mentioned is also true about programming

But you can refactor... you can clear away everything and you get back 100% of materials

Demolishing your base and building a new one is not anything like refactoring.

Why not? You clear out the part you don't like, and build anew

No, code refactoring does not fit perfectly in this analogy. And your ability to do so is somewhat dependent on how you build. But I think all those factors are simply part of the puzzle in refactoring a factory

It's exactly like refactoring. You can replace a component that does something with a different structure for accomplishing that. Of course, if the system was tangled, then you may need to refactor other components first (read: relocate them to give room). The structure of the base around something is going to place limits on the refactoring. If the base is so horrible that you decide to gut it entirely, it's just like a rewrite.

The efficiency of "refactoring" in Factorio is like refactoring code using notepad while typing with your toes and you're only allowed to compile the source once you're done. Which is to say: on a completely different level!

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