Factorio's "circuits" mechanic could implement neural networks pretty directly since the components can do 32-bit logic and arithmetic (integer only). It'd be pretty straightforward to implement a multi-layered neural network with a ReLU activation function.
Agree. Just based on the previous comments, it sounded like the goals was a "belt only" type of design. Figured there might be interesting functionality with variable belt object density arriving at a location being a determinant.
