Chutes: End game

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kfsone
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Chutes: End game

Post by kfsone »

The combination of increasingly complex recipes and faster belts can make some configurations get kinda ugly, and one of the things that always pops into my head when I think of belts is chutes.

We have some machines that need their input belts rebalancing, but there's not a lot of room to do it. And the gap between the machine and the belts (for the loader) I feel like I'm failing as an engineer to solve something.

TL;DR: Chutes would be like a single-belt wide splitter combined with a loader, so they will put items from one side of the belt into an adjacent machine/box/etc that has capacity for the item.

These should be costly to research and expensive to build, which could perhaps justify having them upgradable to a smart version that can let you choose to send every second item when the destination has capacity.
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by Cribbit »

So it's a 90 degree loader that can only load from one side of the belt?

I don't really see how this is different from a loader, or why we need it over inserters.

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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by kfsone »

Spacing and reducing the item count as the factory is getting so much larger.

All of the options on the left compact down to the 3x4 layout on the right.

Image

(yeah, I know I screwed up on the left most one, YKWIM though)
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Koub
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by Koub »

I think tools that are a a contraction of several others in one piece of machinery like you're suggesting would somehow take the flavour off Factorio.
I mean, if I want to be lazy in my designs, Why bother adding a new item ? make assembling machines accept belts as inputs (as they can do for pipes).
Factorio - Why bother with a splitter loader inserter.jpg
Factorio - Why bother with a splitter loader inserter.jpg (10.48 KiB) Viewed 4816 times
Moreover, if you exclude the "moral" aspect of it, you waste a whopping full side of an assembling machine for that.With inserters, you can have 3 inputs by side.
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by eradicator »

I concur with Koub. The OP suggestion is basically "I want to reduce the complexity of my factory, to reduce the complexity of my factory!". But complex factories are the whole point of factorio. Loaders are already way more boring both visually and mechanically than inserters. By the same rational you could also demand that inserters be 0 x 3 tiles in size, because you only use two sides in a beacon-sandwich-build and the other two are wasted.
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by kfsone »

Koub wrote:
Fri Sep 28, 2018 5:33 am
I mean, if I want to be lazy in my designs, Why bother adding a new item ? make assembling machines accept belts as inputs (as they can do for pipes).

Factorio - Why bother with a splitter loader inserter.jpg
Moreover, if you exclude the "moral" aspect of it, you waste a whopping full side of an assembling machine for that.With inserters, you can have 3 inputs by side.
If I read this correctly, you're saying that you dislike this both because you believe it is lazy but also because it's harder to use?

As I said, I want it for "Spacing and reducing the item count as the factory is getting so much larger".

It expands the repertoire of configurations you can use. It's certainly not "easier".
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by kfsone »

eradicator wrote:
Fri Sep 28, 2018 5:57 am
I concur with Koub. The OP suggestion is basically "I want to reduce the complexity of my factory, to reduce the complexity of my factory!".
No, "Spacing and reducing the item count as the factory is getting so much larger". But it also opens up - at the end game - new layouts and configurations.

I have to assume neither yourself nor Koub actually gave this any thought, because this thing has to be hard up against the destination, and that very much puts it in the way. However, in exchange, it grants you some very different configuration and space options, and given that UPS becomes an issue as you scale up your factory, some reduction of the item count could be helpful, but your old blueprints and patterns aren't going to help you with this, you'll actually have to apply some thought to incorporating it.
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by eradicator »

kfsone wrote:
Sat Sep 29, 2018 6:48 am
I have to assume neither yourself nor Koub actually gave this any thought, because this thing has to be hard up against the destination, and that very much puts it in the way.
Yea yea, blabla, "i assume" blabla. As every other guy ever who thought that his idea was "the best solution ever" and everyone who doesn't understand it just hasn't thought about it enough. Is it really that difficult to understand that other people might have other opinions? I could tell you how to implement this right now, because i have infact had that idea years ago. But i won't, because i don't like the idea. UPS is not the holy grail for which everything else should be sacrificed. And if you have space problems simple build larger, the map is infinite...
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Re: Chutes: End game

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eradicator wrote:
Sat Sep 29, 2018 10:05 am
Yea yea, blabla, "i assume" blabla. As every other guy ever who thought that his idea was "the best solution ever"
This is referring to yourself? I'm pretty sure I haven't said or implied that.
eradicator wrote:
Sat Sep 29, 2018 10:05 am
UPS is not the holy grail for which everything else should be sacrificed. And if you have space problems simple build larger, the map is infinite...
If English is not your first language, then I humbly apologize. "Spacing" and "space" are from the same word root but they mean different things.

As for having different opinions, one of the beauties of Factorio is that there is no, one, "correct" way, and that includes what you choose to do in terms of scaling beyond a certain point, and I happen to desire the option to have some very different patterns become available at the end game because otherwise it's just a case of math+blueprints.

I spend very little time in these forums, I search for the question or idea I have and usually find it without needing to post, so I've no idea what hot topics or debates you are basing your interpretation of my post on.

But please continue with your abstract-based assumptions, I'm curious how long you'll maintain a 0-streak.
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by eradicator »

kfsone wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 2:13 am
eradicator wrote:
Sat Sep 29, 2018 10:05 am
Yea yea, blabla, "i assume" blabla. As every other guy ever who thought that his idea was "the best solution ever"
This is referring to yourself? I'm pretty sure I haven't said or implied that.
Summary: You think it's perfectly fine to tell other people their answers imply they didn't actually think about what they're writing (can you get any more rude without using actual swearwords?). But for some reason can't see what you're implying about yourself by saying that. And you also have a serious problem with free-speech because you imply that if someone tells you about that they should get banned. Intriguing.
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Re: Chutes: End game

Post by Koub »

[Koub] Please people, argueing and defending your ideas is cool, but no personnal attacks or fighting.
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