Friday Facts #269 - Roadmap update & Transport belt perspective

[simonalsn]

Very nice work so far, still my most played game ever.
Just want to point out that we are still waiting for the spidertron!

[mrvn]

Do items still move faster on the inside of a curved belt?

I know the inside has less distance to cover so at the same speed the inside items should pull ahead. But that's not how belts works. The items are placed on pieces of the belt and the pieces move carrying the item. So in a curve the inside of each piece runs slower and the outside faster to compensate for the difference in distance. The graphics clearly show them being compressed and stretched in curves. So items that enter the belt together should leave the belt together no matter the curves.

[Koub]

Do items still move faster on the inside of a curved belt?

Thankfully, both sides of a belt go at the same speed, so no need to add higher tier belts on each corner to keep throughput
It used to be necessary, and it was a real pain in the ass

[mrvn]

Do items still move faster on the inside of a curved belt?

Thankfully, both sides of a belt go at the same speed, so no need to add higher tier belts on each corner to keep throughput
It used to be necessary, and it was a real pain in the ass

Do you mean they move at the same speed or that they enter/leave the curve at the same time? Because the former would be wrong.

[Gergely]

Do items still move faster on the inside of a curved belt?

Thankfully, both sides of a belt go at the same speed, so no need to add higher tier belts on each corner to keep throughput
It used to be necessary, and it was a real pain in the ass

Do you mean they move at the same speed or that they enter/leave the curve at the same time? Because the former would be wrong.

Curved belts have the same throughput as straight ones. Both inner and outer lane. That simple. (All though items spend a shorter amount of time on the inner lane of a curve for obvious reasons.)

[Amarula]

Looking at all this "chaotic" belt movement gives me motion sickness

I am so sorry to hear that the new belt graphics movement triggers motion sickness for you. I know another person who suffers from motion sickness triggered by graphics in another game, and it is really awful. Hopefully it won't be too much work to add in options to turn it off so you will be able to continue to play.

[Godmave]

One way to remove the unlogic of circular belts having a back lane in the new sprites would be to let the corner pieces stay unconnected separate belts. So only straight belt gets merged into one "piece"

[meganothing]

I would have found it more convincing when then undergound belt is only half the size of it tile so no special gfx needed and it is then clear at first view that it could be loaded ......

Exactly. Visually it would give a hint to new players (and even to some old, I avoided using sideloading for a long time for the simple reason that it always looked like it couldn't work).

Alternative might be instead of a rectangular cut only for sideloaded u-belts there could be a curved cut in all u-belts. Think Sidney opera style

[Jürgen Erhard]

Like.

But… the concrete still looks wrong. "It's the way it is and it will stay that way". Sure, but it's still just *wrong*. For reasons that have been said dozens of times.

Oh, and will the inconsistencies/illogicals get fixed? Like, having a personal fusion reactor only? That takes *ONLY* 250 processing units and nothing else, just so it's "expensive". It uses nothing that you'd actually expect, no containment, no actual (starter) fuel, nothing.

Gah, not even a mod for it?

[Hannu]

Oh, and will the inconsistencies/illogicals get fixed? Like, having a personal fusion reactor only? That takes *ONLY* 250 processing units and nothing else, just so it's "expensive". It uses nothing that you'd actually expect, no containment, no actual (starter) fuel, nothing.

Gah, not even a mod for it?

What you would suggest. And how it would improve the game, if player had to collect bunch of different stuff before building? Or even build some kind of temporary assembling setup to produce fusion reactor. Typically player build less than 5 fusion reactors and it has no effect in the game what it would need. Essential thing is expensive research and somewhat high cost in advanced products which gives first reactors some value. But actual building of fusion reactors use some parts per million of resources processed in long game, bot player's time and materials in game world.

But yes, it is illogical and I would replace out of place fusion reactor with RTG made from processing units and U-235. U-235 is not used in real RTGs but it would not give any value to the game to introduce a new highly refined end game product in vanilla game. Complex mods, like Bob's, could of course replace it with Pu-238 or strontium, or whatever else they use in real RTGs, and more complex production chain because of complexity, but vanilla philosophy is to keep number of items limited.

[mrvn]

Do items still move faster on the inside of a curved belt?

Thankfully, both sides of a belt go at the same speed, so no need to add higher tier belts on each corner to keep throughput
It used to be necessary, and it was a real pain in the ass

Do you mean they move at the same speed or that they enter/leave the curve at the same time? Because the former would be wrong.

Curved belts have the same throughput as straight ones. Both inner and outer lane. That simple. (All though items spend a shorter amount of time on the inner lane of a curve for obvious reasons.)

And those "obvious" reasons would be wrong. They do not match the graphics or how such belts work in reality.

The belts are made of separate parts that are connected at the middle. Items are placed on those parts and carries along. In a curve the parts rotate causing the inside to move slower and the outside to move faster. That also applies to the items carried on the parts. So if two items are on the same part on the two lanes and enter a curve they will also exit at the same time on the same part.

Visually in a curve items on the inside move slower and a squished tighter together while items on the outside move faster and are spread out more.

[Tekky]

As a bonus, the underground belt structure has a variant which shows a hole when you side-load into the underground belt.

Although I find it good that the game offers a possibility for splitting both lanes of a belt, some players (myself included) consider side-loading of underground belts to be an ugly exploit. It is counter-intuitive that you need an underground belt to accomplish this. In my opinion, it would be better if a programmable/configurable splitter offered this functionality instead of an underground belt.

Related discussion threads:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=56248 Shouldn't unmerging a belt be as simple as merging it?
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48047 Underground belt lane splitting, anyone else hate it?

Although the new graphics make this exploit significantly less ugly, it still feels like a counter-intuitive exploit to me.

[Ranakastrasz]

Love everything except the part where ug belt sideloading is completely official now.

But we have splitter filters now so i can just ignore it all.

[Nightinggale]

Splitting the sides by using underground sideloading isn't obsolete. Filter splitters will only work if you only have one type of item on each side of a belt. There are cases where you can have multiple different items on a belt. For instance when using crafting combinators and they change the production, the input can go into the combinator, which can then work as either chest or logistic chest. If the first, an inserter will move everything onto a belt. This means you can get a belt with "whatever was the input for an assembler", which then needs to be sorted somewhere down the line. That's just one example of a not farfetched mixed content belt. I'm sure we can find other examples if we really look for them.

Sideloading can also be used for merging rather than splitting. Imagine a row of assemblers. They all output to the same side of a belt. Rather than going from A->B, the belt goes A->B<-A. B is then a merging point, which can be sideloading due to space restrictions. Removing the ability to sideload would increase the space required for this setup by one tile. Not much, but it's more than 0 and could matter if there is shortage of space.

Last but not least: we all have the option of just not using it if we don't like it. Not using a certain feature is not a valid argument for removing it from the people who actually use it. It's not like you play against an AI, which will use it against you.

[Oktokolo]

Love everything except the part where ug belt sideloading is completely official now.

It is completely official for some years now. Devs always made it pretty clear that lane splitting by underneathies is not a glitch or bug.

[Tekky]

It is completely official for some years now. Devs always made it pretty clear that lane splitting by underneathies is not a glitch or bug.

Well, originally, it was a bug (or at least a completely unintended side effect). See the original bug report thread for further information:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=198 (note: images have since been removed from bug report thread)

I find it understandable that this glitch was not fixed at that time, because it also allowed for a useful feature. However, what I don't like is that this feature has still not been reintroduced into the game in an intuitive manner, using a different entity (for example with a configurable splitter).

[Koub]

(note: images have since been removed from bug report thread)

No : Images have been removed from Imageshak. That's what happens when people host their files on random hosting sites instead of uploading them to the forum

[eradicator]

(note: images have since been removed from bug report thread)

No : Images have been removed from Imageshak. That's what happens when people host their files on random hosting sites instead of uploading them to the forum :)

The internet has a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot

[Oktokolo]

Well, originally, it was a bug (or at least a completely unintended side effect). See the original bug report thread for further information:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=198 (note: images have since been removed from bug report thread)

Thanks for digging out that thread. So Underneathie-splitting is now confirmed to be an official feature since 2013-03-01, declared by Factorio developer slpwnd.

I find it understandable that this glitch was not fixed at that time, because it also allowed for a useful feature. However, what I don't like is that this feature has still not been reintroduced into the game in an intuitive manner, using a different entity (for example with a configurable splitter).

I guess, they decided to already have enough entities dealing with transporting stuff around (there likely are only that many different inserters because they don't want to slow down placement of them by introducing the need for configuration).
But it should be possible to create a UPS-friendly dedicated lane extractor abusing a speed-modded inserter with invisible arms picking from one lane only (the famous Miniloader uses two of them and works pretty well).

[Ranakastrasz]

Well, originally, it was a bug (or at least a completely unintended side effect). See the original bug report thread for further information:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=198 (note: images have since been removed from bug report thread)

I find it understandable that this glitch was not fixed at that time, because it also allowed for a useful feature. However, what I don't like is that this feature has still not been reintroduced into the game in an intuitive manner, using a different entity (for example with a configurable splitter).

Exactly. It was a bug, obviously a bug, but useful. I never liked it, and used a splitter varient mod that let you manipulate lanes, back when that was important.

Then belts got optimized, and collision-based belt manipulation became impossible. Smart inserters, now Filter inserters were still an option, but throughput was an issue.

Stack filter inserters fixed that, along with stack upgrades.

Then we got filtered/programmable splitters, which fixed the whole thing.

Now however, the graphics have been changed instead of the mechanic being removed, so it is obvious that the mechanic is here to stay. Other mods did that, but it was unofficial.

So I was just pointing out, that while I still disapprove, it is completely official now, as they made a change that specifically says it is considered intentional now.