[MOD 0.16] Bulk Rail Loaders

[Therax]

Getting this when I try to create new blueprint of random items. This time burner turbine from AAII. Any ideas?

This is the same error Adalonus was reporting earlier: Bulk Rail Loaders is having trouble locating the blueprint item. Best guess at the moment is an unexpected interaction with PickerExtended reported here. If you have a reliable way to reproduce, and can send me a save and steps of how the error happens, I will try to fix it in Rail Loaders, and/or help Nexela change PickerExtended, if that turns out to be the cause.

[SqFKYo]

If you have a reliable way to reproduce, and can send me a save and steps of how the error happens, I will try to fix it in Rail Loaders, and/or help Nexela change PickerExtended, if that turns out to be the cause.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ffe18msdcpxed ... t.zip?dl=0 clean game with only rail loader.
Steps to reproduce:
1) Place the stone furnace in the ground
2) Click the blueprint library (B)
3) Move the bp library out of the way, but leave it open
4) Click new blueprint
5) Select the stone furnace
6) Crash to main menu

While testing I noticed that if you close the BP library in step 3, it doesn't crash.

[Therax]

While testing I noticed that if you close the BP library in step 3, it doesn't crash.

Perfect! I didn't even realize it's possible to create a blueprint while you have an open GUI on screen. Reported as a core factorio bug. I can put a workaround into the next version of Bulk Rail Loaders.

[necrogami]

This occurs when loading or unloading with 5Dim's train cars.

[Therax]

This occurs when loading or unloading with 5Dim's train cars.

This should be fixed in v.0.2.3. Thanks for the report!

As requested, it is now possible load/unload multiple item types with a single loader/unloader. You can only do this if the mod configuration option is set to allow Bulk Rail Loaders to handle any kind of item. Enjoy!

[steinio]

Hi,

has anybody an example how it should be connected for LTN?
The Loader fills the train wagon until full, probably because there is no signal connector for the amount to load...

Cu, steinio

[Vas]

The loader locks in the first item it sees of a supported type. If you want to change what item a loader is handling, mine and rebuild it. Note that if the mod options are changed to allow loaders to handle any type of item, the locking behavior is also disabled.

From the mod's page, this doesn't seem to be good.

When I go into map options to see if I can turn off the locks, it shows that I can set it to plates and any. I don't want loaders and unloaders to handle anything at all except ore. I don't want to toggle it to allow non-ores.

However, the game is locking these loaders and unloaders to a single item, like stone. Making it impossible to use with Ore Chaos, because I have a mixed cargo train that is supposed to deliver everything to one station, but your loaders and unloaders refuse to accept anything more than one single type of ore. I can't turn it off, and its made my rail network impossible to use.

[Therax]

The loader locks in the first item it sees of a supported type. If you want to change what item a loader is handling, mine and rebuild it. Note that if the mod options are changed to allow loaders to handle any type of item, the locking behavior is also disabled.

From the mod's page, this doesn't seem to be good.

When I go into map options to see if I can turn off the locks, it shows that I can set it to plates and any. I don't want loaders and unloaders to handle anything at all except ore. I don't want to toggle it to allow non-ores.

However, the game is locking these loaders and unloaders to a single item, like stone. Making it impossible to use with Ore Chaos, because I have a mixed cargo train that is supposed to deliver everything to one station, but your loaders and unloaders refuse to accept anything more than one single type of ore. I can't turn it off, and its made my rail network impossible to use.

The lock is not a restriction I added to make the mod harder to use, but a necessary compromise to keep the impact low on your base's UPS.

The ore-only restriction is implemented with hidden stack filter inserters under the covers. There is not a UPS-efficient way to constantly update the filter settings while a train is parked at an unloader. Setting the mod to "any" uses stack inserters instead of stack filter inserters, which obviously can't be limited to only pick up ores, but also don't need to have their filters set.

You have a couple of choices to solve this with the mod as it is:

1) Set the option to "any," and then by honor system don't use rail loaders & unloaders at stations that handle non-ore cargos.
2) Use miniloaders or stack filter inserters and a separate buffer to unload your trains.
3) Use filter inserters or splitters at your mining site to sort ores into different cargo wagons. If your first wagon is always iron ore, the second copper ore, etc., the lock won't pose a problem.

[Therax]

has anybody an example how it should be connected for LTN?
The Loader fills the train wagon until full, probably because there is no signal connector for the amount to load...

Bulk Rail Loaders work at the granularity of the cargo wagon. It's not intended to stop them from loading or unloading a full wagon. The circuit connectivity is for reading the contents of the loaders to allow LTN to generate shipment orders when sufficient items are available/demanded, not to enable mixed or partially filled cargo wagons.

[Vas]

1) Set the option to "any," and then by honor system don't use rail loaders & unloaders at stations that handle non-ore cargos.
2) Use miniloaders or stack filter inserters and a separate buffer to unload your trains.
3) Use filter inserters or splitters at your mining site to sort ores into different cargo wagons. If your first wagon is always iron ore, the second copper ore, etc., the lock won't pose a problem.

1) Honor system only works in single player.

2) I decided to instead remove the mod. I liked the buffer these provided, because it gave a large storage that was right on the rails, but since there was no way to make it work for ores only and not lock to one ore, I just use the loader mod and warehouses even though not as realistic or interesting.

3) Wouldn't work with bob's mods, considering there are so many ore types its virtually impossible.

But yea, I went ahead and picked up everything and removed the mod now.

[Gnorm]

I am currently on a server running version 0.16.18 build 35139 win64 steam version. This is a great mod and we would like to base some of our station designs around it, but we're getting a "not multiplayer save/load safe" error. Any thoughts if it does require the newer 0.16.22 version which I see it was tested with, or could this be a multi-player issue. This started happening after upgrading from v0.2.3 of the mod to v0.2.4. Below is the exact error the client returns which prevents joining the game unless the server is restarted. People can then join, but the error message may return a couple hours later when trying to join the game:

Cannot join. The following mod event handlers are not identical between you and the server. This indicates that the following mods are not multiplayer (save/load) safe. (see the log file for more detail):

mod-railloader

Update Feb 9th - Upgraded server to latest Factorio 16.22, and having same issue above.

[Therax]

Cannot join. The following mod event handlers are not identical between you and the server. This indicates that the following mods are not multiplayer (save/load) safe. (see the log file for more detail):

mod-railloader

Version v0.2.5 is now available with a fix for this issue and some reported crashes when the mod is set to accept "any" items in rail loaders. Let me know if this works for you!

[Anson]

I'm writing this, having just installed (but not yet used) this mod :

The ore-only restriction is implemented with hidden stack filter inserters under the covers. ... Setting the mod to "any" uses stack inserters instead of stack filter inserters, which obviously can't be limited to only pick up ores, but also don't need to have their filters set.

i once saw a mod that allows changing the number of filters for filter inserters.
at that time i didn't care for details and ignored it completely, but maybe you could somehow change your hidden stack filter inserters to accept five types of ore?
that still wouldn't be a universal solution (eg for all the bobs+angels ores etc), but should be good enough for 5 vanilla ores.

it also might be useful mostly for unloading "any vanilla ore", since on loading inserters (and thus also the bulk loader) might get stuck with partial "handful" of one type when the next train wants to load another type. but that would be up to users how to handle filling them, and it would be not much different from your current use of (hidden) normal stack inserters and their problems when "any" is selected, but still leaving the option to more easily switch between different ores instead of manually mining and rebuilding the bulk loader.

There is not a UPS-efficient way to constantly update the filter settings while a train is parked at an unloader.

shouldn't the "set filter" functionality of filter inserters and stack filter inserters from vanilla game already be UPS-efficient?
why can't that be used, thus being able to select by wire which type of items are unloaded with bulk loaders ?
of course, i don't know how you have hidden the inserters in the bulk loader and how easy or complicated it is to connect a wire to those functionalities that the vanilla inserters have by default.

edit: reading, thinking, and reading again helps :-)
your description says "Loaders are circuit-connectable chest entities, ready for use with Logistic Train Network."
as such, they are already connectable as chests and would need a second connection for the inserter functionality, which is a lot more complicated (if possible at all).
the bulk loaders might get an additional connection by automatically placing some kind of constant combinator to which users could connect a wire for setting the filters. but besides being a bit ugly and having another item ouside of the bulk loader, that would also be rather complicated and it's more important to make the bulk loaders and all their connections work flawlessly with blueprints.

ps: if i could wish for additional ores besides the 5 vanilla ores, i would ask for ice ore (on my waterless world), for bulk transfer of those tons of dark uranium, and for several other kinds of fuel (cut wood, cellulose, charcoal, etc) :-) but restricting myself in a SP game when selecting "any" should hopefully be no problem either ...

[smeagol001]

so im wondering why arebt u using the full 6 wide of a trainwagon?

[tuplex]

Nice mod, it really cleans up the train stations, and I think is more realistic for bulk goods. I have two requests: a) please make the loaders and unloaders six tiles wide, rather than four, and b) please add Omnite to the ores list for Omnimatter support (I already modified bulk.lua for my own use, but it would be good to have the support built in).

Thanks!

[Therax]

edit: reading, thinking, and reading again helps

It sounds like you've arrived at approximately the same place I have while developing the mod. The tradeoffs of simplicity vs. features are difficult to judge, but I think in this case simplicity, as well as maintaining consistency between vanilla and heavily modded maps wins out.

ps: if i could wish for additional ores besides the 5 vanilla ores, i would ask for ice ore (on my waterless world), for bulk transfer of those tons of dark uranium, and for several other kinds of fuel (cut wood, cellulose, charcoal, etc) but restricting myself in a SP game when selecting "any" should hopefully be no problem either ...

Ice Ore is supported natively. I can't find a mod for "Dark Uranium." Are you referring to vanilla U-238?

I would not add the vanilla raw wood or cut wood items, because they are too bulky to fit through a grate designed for granular material, and they would also be damaged by a long fall. Remember that cut wood is used to make chests, small power poles, and in Bob's Mods, circuit boards, so they need to be in reasonable condition after unloading.

Cellulose (I presume in the form of Cellulose Fiber from Angel's Bio Procesing) and charcoal seem reasonable to add.

so im wondering why arebt u using the full 6 wide of a trainwagon?

a) please make the loaders and unloaders six tiles wide, rather than four

The loaders work via invisible inserters, so the cargo wagon cannot be fully covered, or there is no tile left for the inserter to interact with the wagon. I'm considering some ways to make it possible to interact with the loader with 6 inserters or loaders per side, but it may take a while before that feature is available.

b) please add Omnite to the ores list for Omnimatter support

I can change this for the next released version.

[Anson]

thanks for the answer.

edit: reading, thinking, and reading again helps :-)

hehe, years ago, we used to call that RTFM (read the fine manual), but i haven't heard that expresion for quite some time now.

... ice ore, dark uranium, other kinds of fuel (cut wood, cellulose, charcoal, etc) :-) ...

Ice Ore is supported natively. I can't find a mod for "Dark Uranium." Are you referring to vanilla U-238?
I would not add the vanilla raw wood or cut wood items, because they are too bulky to fit through a grate designed for granular material

• ice ore : nice
• dark uranium: to not mess up the isotopes, i always say raw/dark/bright uranium for the vanilla uranium.
• wood: reasonable, although probably nobody would put stacks of entire logs in a boiler or a burner inserter. what fits in them should also be unloadable through the unloader grate :-)
  problem is that "raw wood" in factorio is used generically for high quality logs (for boards, etc) as well as some amount of low quality fuel (wood pulp, pellets, etc IRL).
  btw: similar applies to iron and other items too: iron plates in factorio are not only nice clean plates to be used directly for other high quality items, but also larger or smaller bars (granules, also usual for plastic!!!) to be crafted into other items later, or generically for "processed iron" in contrast to iron ore which still contains mostly rock
• plastic: mostly not transported as large plastic plates but as granules which fit unloader grates and can later be "heat-molded" into final products
• Cellulose: no, not from angels, but from bio industries - together with Wood Pulp, Cellulose, Charcoal, Cokecoal, crushed stone, as well as fertilizer, ash and seed (not seedlings), although some of these items rarely are transported by train, but only used locally
• asphalt (asphalt roads) and all kinds of concrete (various mods): probably depends on whether we think of pre-fabricated plates (then they should be handled like iron plates), or raw semi-liquid variant that is poured on the floor and thus should better be transported with special tank wagons (but there are no heated or rotating tanks in factorio)
• titanium ore (from FactorioExtended)
• and even more items (almost an endless list) :-) like fibers, pellets, etc from angels/bobs, other treefarms, and other mods

but as i already wrote: if people want more items than you reasonably will add to the mod, they always can use "any" and then need to stick to some self imposed limits (at least in SP games).

[Therax]

Version 0.3.0 is now available through the mod portal.

Major changes:

When set to a filtered setting (ore, ore & plates), loaders and unloaders check for valid items every time a train arrives at a station, instead of locking permanently. Due to how filter inserters work, only up to 5 item types are accepted at a time, so you're still out of luck if you roll into a station with a cargo wagon with 12 kinds of ore in it. This should still make it much more convenient to build multi-ore stations that do sorting after unloading.

You can now build chests adjacent to loaders and unloaders to provide additional access points for inserters or belt loaders. Now you can get 12 belts of throughput into and out of each cargo wagon. Note that with 12 blue belts, the limiting factor becomes how quickly you can get trains into and out of your stations! You can also place logistics chests for direct integration with your bot network instead of or in addition to using belts. If you are using belts, I recommend restricting your chests to hold only 1 stack via the red X, to limit how much your unloading gets out of balance.

12belts.jpg (49.94 KiB) Viewed 7943 times

[kkaikorea]

Version 0.3.0 error

Error while running on_configuration_changed: __railloader__/configchange.lua:35: attempt to get length of global 't' (a nil value)

[crazyguy98]

Version 0.3.0 error

Error while running on_configuration_changed: __railloader__/configchange.lua:35: attempt to get length of global 't' (a nil value)

I am getting this same error but only with games that were saved with version 0.2.4. New games or opening saved games that never had Rail Loaders works normally.