[member="LLP-850"]
Your signature is creeping me out.
I think the problem with the factory and technology/ships in particular is the drift in attitude relating to it from writers and judges in particular.
In theory the factory should be used to balance unfair and rare items and prevent them causing RPing issues. Rare and unique crystals, armour able to withstand lightsabres, spaceships with cloaking shields. It should be used for items which are both potentially disruptive and sufficiently rare so as not to require much manpower to judge.
Instead, the tech factory in particular has become the place where everything that is going to be used in an RP must be submitted. Indeed it is becoming expected by both writers and judges that everything they see in an RP must have a rubber stamp on it, or they will call it out. This quibbling, this incessant need to categorise everything is why the factory is closed. It has become a sickness, a crutch which judges and writers have come to rely upon. It has also been a convenient way to discourage (intentionally or not) spontaneity since one must go through a dev thread, a submission and an approval by two pairs of hands before something can be used. This takes, usually, multiple days at least.
The factory has become a prop for too many. When it comes back I hope it is used for what it was intended for; to police game-breaking items, not to submit mundane and trivial items just so they are there as a pre-emptive strike.