Factorio Forums

robyoublind wrote:

Klonan wrote:Maybe that is just a typical main bus design because underground belts could always bridge 4 belts?

The UG yellow belt still has 4 tiles between ends. Usually the main bus is planned early in the game, and it's a lot of hassle to switch it to wider groups of belts.

And groups of belts that are powers of two feel more "natural" to the game: a connection of two pairs of UG belts is two tiles, splitters are two tiles, balancers look nicer for 4/8/16 belts.

Klonan wrote:Maybe that is just a typical main bus design because underground belts could always bridge 4 belts?

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:The express underground belts are prohibitively expensive. It really depends on your use case.

When trying to cross distances, they may out od above ground belts, but I use them in my factory as a method of compression. I can get 2 rows of electric furnaces operating from 3 spaces apart with no structures outside the formation by using lots of underground belts. Bumping up the cost really punishes these designs.

It would be nice if underground belts were an item used per square, rather than just the entrance and exit. That way, proper balancing could be done between use cases.

neoc wrote:Did you even read my calculation? They are cheaper than using express transport belts on the same tiles.

Lav wrote:

neoc wrote:Did you even read my calculation? They are cheaper than using express transport belts on the same tiles.

I'm pretty sure you haven't examined the arguments of the other side properly.

How often did you use maximum underground belt distance even in 0.14? How often did you simply use UG belt to cross a single tile? How many uses were for intermediate distances?

When you charge the cost of 11 tiles for crossing a single tile, that's called prohibitively expensive. Not only fast belts are 8 times the cost for 2x speed, but then you also have to pay 7x the cost to cross a single tile.

function my_underground_belts()
    data.raw.recipe["fast-underground-belt"].ingredients =
    {
        {"underground-belt", 2},
        {"fast-transport-belt", 12},
    }
    data.raw["underground-belt"]["fast-underground-belt"].max_distance = 11
    data.raw.recipe["express-underground-belt"].ingredients =
    {
        {"fast-underground-belt", 2},
        {"express-transport-belt", 18},
        {type="fluid", name="lubricant", amount=40},
    }
    data.raw["underground-belt"]["express-underground-belt"].max_distance = 17
end
my_underground_belts()

neoc wrote:

Lav wrote:

neoc wrote:Did you even read my calculation? They are cheaper than using express transport belts on the same tiles.

I'm pretty sure you haven't examined the arguments of the other side properly.

How often did you use maximum underground belt distance even in 0.14? How often did you simply use UG belt to cross a single tile? How many uses were for intermediate distances?

When you charge the cost of 11 tiles for crossing a single tile, that's called prohibitively expensive. Not only fast belts are 8 times the cost for 2x speed, but then you also have to pay 7x the cost to cross a single tile.

The solution for this problem is to increase the lengths of red / blue belts to match 2 / 3 times the base distance of yellow undergrounds. And before 0.15.7 you could achieve this with Longer Underground Belt (Aligned). Now this mod needs an update to deal with the extra 40/80 wheels added to the red/blue undergrounds. For now I just hacked it myself:

Code: Select all

function my_underground_belts()
    data.raw.recipe["fast-underground-belt"].ingredients =
    {
        {"underground-belt", 2},
        {"fast-transport-belt", 12},
    }
    data.raw["underground-belt"]["fast-underground-belt"].max_distance = 11
    data.raw.recipe["express-underground-belt"].ingredients =
    {
        {"fast-underground-belt", 2},
        {"express-transport-belt", 18},
        {type="fluid", name="lubricant", amount=40},
    }
    data.raw["underground-belt"]["express-underground-belt"].max_distance = 17
end
my_underground_belts()

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:You seem to be stuck on the traveling vast distances use case. This is NOT a solution to the sudden sharp increase to cross a single tile with express underground belts.

By the way, using underground belts to less than their full distance is much, much more common than using them at exactly full distance. Hurting everyone so only 1 use case is nerfed is not how things should go (although, it's the only way currently possible). They should make underground belts variable in cost, and that would not be hard to do ( mechanics simular to this are already found in the railway system).

In response to asking the developers to spend time so that my one design is not nerfed as hard, I would like to point how that many people use simular designs, and make designs based on underground belt compression (both space compression and items on belt compression). This is creative engineering, a principle at the heart of the game. I am sure that the developers want to be encouraging this, not discouraging.

FactorioBot wrote: Show 0.7% in the uranium processing recipe instead of 0.0 for uranium 235. This generally works for any recipe that gives less than 1 of anything.

neoc wrote:

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:You seem to be stuck on the traveling vast distances use case. This is NOT a solution to the sudden sharp increase to cross a single tile with express underground belts.

By the way, using underground belts to less than their full distance is much, much more common than using them at exactly full distance. Hurting everyone so only 1 use case is nerfed is not how things should go (although, it's the only way currently possible). They should make underground belts variable in cost, and that would not be hard to do ( mechanics simular to this are already found in the railway system).

You don't need blue belts at all for furnaces, and it is very easy to build without undergrounds. If costs for building furnace factories are "prohibitivly high" with the current recipes, your design is faulty.

In response to asking the developers to spend time so that my one design is not nerfed as hard, I would like to point how that many people use simular designs, and make designs based on underground belt compression (both space compression and items on belt compression). This is creative engineering, a principle at the heart of the game. I am sure that the developers want to be encouraging this, not discouraging.

Did you see my code? Just mod the costs to your likings. It's fine if vanilla only covers the most obvious way to do things. If you want to do more exotic stuff either pay the price or mod vanilla.

neoc wrote:You don't need blue belts at all for furnaces, and it is very easy to build without undergrounds. If costs for building furnace factories are "prohibitivly high" with the current recipes, your design is faulty.

searker wrote:

neoc wrote:You don't need blue belts at all for furnaces, and it is very easy to build without undergrounds. If costs for building furnace factories are "prohibitivly high" with the current recipes, your design is faulty.

You do if you aim to get a fully compressed belt without using splitters / merges since inserters cant fully compress normal belt - only underground ones.