So this thought came to me. Expand the crafting stations that employ a thrall, to automatically craft, when possible.
This can already partially be done by setting up a queue with materials on hand.
But I’m thinking more the ability to designate a chest next to the station, to hold materials, that the thrall will utilize to craft certain things.
It’s mainly for stuff you use a huge amount of. Such as steel bars.
You drop a steel bar into the auto-craft slot of the station.
The thrall will begin auto-crafting steel bars so long as at least one of the following conditions are met:
- Fuel is available in the station inventory or storage inventory.
- Steel Bar materials are available in the station inventory or storage inventory.
In this case, you could add a chest called Smelter Inventory, for the station to draw from.
I’m not sure whether this crafting would still work if you were a long distance from the station itself. But even if it only worked while you were in a certain area around your base, to have it work while you were around would cut down on some of the micromanagement.
Essentially there would be one auto-craft slot per station. And a bit of immersion because it makes it seem as if the thralls are doing stuff on their own.
As a safeguard, if one of the two conditions is not met, the autocraft shuts off until you restart it. So it would not constantly run a check on the engine, if the materials ran out.