Re:Learning Solver Design: Automating Factorio Balancers
by Xinti on Saturday January 04, 2025 @01:47PM
(#42596750)
Solve it with an SAT solver, or solve it with a random heuristic—either way, you’re dealing with a trivial belt-laying puzzle that any standard constraint tool can handle. The fact that you found a 34-lane weave is neat, but it’s basically a re-skin of solving simple combinatorial constraints. Sure, it proves Factorio can be used for demonstrations of off-the-shelf solvers, but it hardly reflects a ‘deep’ puzzle worthy of computational bragging rights. The real irony is that these same SAT-based methods can also optimize bin-packing, scheduling, or any other standard NP problem with more interesting constraints. Factorio’s belt weaving doesn’t add enough genuine complexity to stand out—it’s basically the same problem in a different costume.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2NKK_2v4jiE&lc=Ugx5goGzTGz-z1g8t...
Search:
“ @Jodmangel 2 weeks ago I wrote a quick script to find the longest belt weave with an SAT solver. It finds your 32-tile bridge, but also a 34-tile one:
The circles are the "external" belts and the squares the 34 "internal" ones. No longer solutions exist (unless I messed up the script, obviously).”