Friday Facts #128 - Back down to earth

[aRatNamedSammy]

i love the loader idea.. i know i will use inserters and all as well.. but main storage and train station will work way better with that

[flamingtomato]

The loader imo only makes building efficient setups less interesting. Trying to get stuff in and out of containers atm is a cool puzzle, and not something which should be ruined by a perfect, simple pre-made solution. It doesn't expand your options, it shrinks them down to just one: the loader. I think however, that there are a few good ways of doing something like this, which have been suggested already:

- Make them need lube. This is a very cool idea, because it means setting them up will be tricky -> inserters will not be phased out, it makes setting it up more rewarding and cool, and it makes use of a relatively useless resource. Also works thematically. Lastly this would phase them in naturally at a good point in the game, making them appear slightly after you got oil setup, so you can then go back and, if you wish, redo some old layouts with new tools. Also this would make them appear just in time for trains, and having to get lube around to train station to get a smoother load/unload is awesome.

- Do the hoppers thing. Basically just add use an item which goes in between a belt and an inserter and allows you to use the stck bonus. A hopper could be placed above a belt, and then an inserter could put stuff into it, benefitting from the stack bonus. This hopper would then distribute those items onto the belt. You could also have a reversed version. Not perhaps as interesting as the lube thing, but a very flexible and simple solution which doesn't eliminate inserters and isn't as strong. This integrates very well with the rest of the game imo

- Do packaging. Allow you to package goods with assemblers/dedicated packers and then send them around in a package. This solves a lot of throughput issues and is very potent, but requires a lot of effort to setup, and still makes use of all kinds of cool setups. Also feels very thematic. This is however a big change/feature and would need a lot of work and could be done in a lot of different ways, but personally I think this would be favourite solution. It would interact very well with so many other mechanics, it would make belts a lot more powerful and require a bunch of extra delicious puzzling to get setup properly.

[ssilk]

I see such a loader for for those cases:

1. More compressed setup for train-stations. There are already some suggestions here.

2. As a bridge for Belt Transport System <-> Logistic System. Something where you can either put in items from belt into a logistic provider (or storage) or something where you can collect items from a requester (logistic system) into the belts. Not both at the same time!

3. As a part of some kind of slow storage and/or sorter. It was often mentioned: "warehouse". For me a warehouse does exactly storing and/or sorting items. This loader is a part of that. The idea behind that is for me, that it is not possible to load AND unload at the same time. See above. You can either load or unload and the switching between both states needs time. For whatever reason (for example you need to reverse the loader?).


Comment to point #1 and #2:

The overall idea for that can be seen as "Changing the transport media". For #1 from belt to train. and for #2 from belt to logistic system.

It's fun to play around with the changing of transport media and optimizing that type of transport; it's challenging enough to become a new subgame. I've played some hundreds of hours to be sure to say, that this type of game is quite challenging. But I need to say, that for the logistic part we need some other elements to enable better control over the item-flow. That will bring in even more complexity.

Comment to point #3:

My thoughts are going into a direction that you need to use circuits to do that "changing of direction".
- Detection of state (overflow or lack of items? Enough items stored? ...)
- Is minimum time for one direction reached? So that it doesn't switch back and forth all the time.
- Handling of some kind of mechanics: I think to some "plattform" where belts and loaders can be built on. The platform has a mechanic which has two (?) different positions. Depending on position of that platform it has different functions (deoendend on what you have built on it) and can work as a switch for belts.

Now it become too off-topic.

[timesinker]

i dont think i like the idea of this loader.you are alone on this planet - and for a long time inserters are your only homies if you want so. they give life to your base,more than belts,assemblers or furnaces do, they are creatures although they have only one arm.later on ,its your robots that crowd the place. inserters rock. if i need faster loading or unloading, i ask bob.

[MeduSalem]

[...]you are alone on this planet - and for a long time inserters are your only homies if you want so. [...]

This made my day.

[Nova]

Well, the loader will also look like some more interesting thing - that grey box is only a temporary image. ^^

@torham: I would say even more expensive, not 2 circuits but 10 or even more. This thing should be so expensive that players really think about using it. It's the same for express belts.

But we also have to think about this: Why should player use the high-tier loader? There's are reason people use express belts and that kinds, because using more normal belts requiers much more space, but 2 low-tier loaders only require slightly more space than 1 high-tier loader.

[faloun]

I wish this board had a voting feature - there are so many great ideas floating around here.

[Fatmice]

To the detractors, you should know there are already mods that do this or accomplish part of this. Namely,
Terminal chest, (loader): viewtopic.php?f=87&t=4715
Slipstream chest, (loader/unloader): viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7121

This is simply to point out that when there is a will, there will be a way. Kovarex is almost a year too late, in some sense.

But back to the idea. I'm for it.

[CartesianBear]

It makes sense to me as a very expensive late-game tool to help with building the rocket (or potential future late-game content).

You could potentially make it available earlier at reduced functionality. Without any modules, it would perhaps be as effective as a single fast inserter (or maybe two). Make the player fill it with level 1 speed modules in order to saturate a yellow belt, level 2 for a red belt, and level 3 for a blue belt. That way the player could build and start to use them earlier (around when Logistics System comes online, perhaps), but they wouldn't be game-breaking. The use of modules, and a suitably high base electric consumption (5x-10x a fast inserter, perhaps?) would provide a sufficient tradeoff to make them useful in edge cases, while preventing the factory being completely taken over by them.

[pyrolytic_tungsten]

I like the loader and I would certainly find it handy for mass storage. I don't like the idea of it consuming lubricant because that makes it tricky to use at outposts. Its use should be restricted to chests.

[ironchefpython]

-1 To loaders in the base game. I'd be okay with adding an API in Lua that would allow mods to create such a device.

Feedback on a couple of the other ideas. I like the hopper. I'd general-case it as a 1x1 version of a belt that acts as a FIFO "buffer" to hold a half-dozen items in place. As items flow along the belt, they would get stuck in the hopper until it was full of 6 items, at which point each time an item entered the hopper, another item would flow out. Inserters would add and remove items from the hopper using their stack bonus.

I love the idea of lubricant being a consumable resource. I would love, love, love the idea of there only being a single type of belt. Sections of belt are upgraded from normal to fast by placing an adjacent device that consumed electricity and produced bonus belt speed (torque?). Sections of belt can be upgraded to express with a device that consumed electricity and lubricant and produced extra bonus torque.

If there's a desire to add features to belts, I'd really like to see the splitter get some extra functionality. I'd like to see two more modes to the splitter (that could be activated with modules). The mixer module, which would flip the sides of the belts, and a separator, which would split the sides of the belts. Example:

Code: Select all

                             S  
1111  M  2424          1111  E  1313
2222  I  1313          2222  P  3131
      X                      A
3333  E  4242          3333  R  2424  
4444  R  3131          4444  A  4242 
                             T

[Garm]

Loader as modified inserter is definitely a NO in my opinion - easy to spam, which will make inserters obsolete.

I can see loaders as "warehouse"-type structure - taking a significant space structure that works as a large chest while having a IN and OUT gates that can be linked to belts. Possibly limited to 2 or even 1 such gate.


- large space required makes it harder to spam as well as limits its use.

- Maintains usefulness of inserters as specifically usefulness of inserter upgrades:

- Eases up train unloading without making it too easy: Multiple inserters can work at once due to warehouse size as well as benefiting greatly from inserter upgrades.

[testasdf]

Another idea:

Change the loader to a loading buffer and an unloading buffer, which can only load / unload from containers very fast, but cannot connect them with transport belts. You still use the traditional inserters to do that.

To make it useful, it should either be much bigger, or work like transport belts which only extend to a fixed distance (thinking of something adjusting their heights automatically).

Pros:

• It doesn't replace the transport belts. So it doesn't obsolete most part of the factory design.
• It can be available for both loading and unloading, and for every kind of container. This is pretty good for the "sandbox" genre.

Cons:

• Sadly I'm not exactly sure whether it would be better than using bots.
• A very big inserter bonus might already just work like this. But you may just make the research depending on the inserter bonus to "explain" that.
• For the limited distance transport belt version, the filter logic and its underground version might be awkward, and it's unlikely you could route lubricant to that anymore.

I don't like the idea just making loaders expensive. If the players can usually afford the loaders anyway, nothing has changed. Otherwise it's penalizing some players in a way that they can't explore the whole game, and make it quite unmotivated before the end game if all those things would be redesigned anyway.

I also liked the hopper idea. But this and the hopper can both be implemented.

[SpartanYoda117]

The loader sounds amazing, please do add it.

[rnorris]

I love the loader idea. It would be great for builds where you need a bunch of compressed belts side-by-side without the (enormous) space required to compress/decompress the belts at either end with chests/inserters. As for balancing them, probably having them cost blue circuits/lubricant and run with power requirements of a level 2/3 assembler would make them sufficiently expensive so that you only use them where you absolutely need them.

[jacob021302]

In my option, the loader is just an overpowered inserter that takes challenge away from the game. If this is added, please make it extremely late game and cost quite a bit of materials. Oh and it has to have a good texture and animation.

[AntiElitz]

A BIG NO to the loader - It's pretty much a 10 times faster "fast inserter" - that is so broken that it reminds me of bobsmod in the late game. However you should enable it for mods and get it this way for the players that like the idea.

[Bacchanalia]

Super keen on the loader, but only for smart chests (make it high tier) and unloading wagons. Current train stations work, but look reeeeealy derpy IMO.

Just had another thought - perhaps a train station addon which is a specialised loading or unloading platform which has it's own storage, and can feed/be fed like a loader? Something along these lines:

[MalcolmCooks]

Loaders are a big no from me! Yes, even fast inserters are not fast enough most of the time, but solutions to loading and unloading saturated belts are nevertheless pretty easy. Perhaps what is needed to condense these setups in late game is a kind of superfast inserter that does the same job as a regular inserter, and not a magic loader/unloader. Or, larger size of chests to allow more inserters to work on a single chest. The hopper idea does make sense as to how it would work, but... functionally I can't see how it would be any different from the loader, so no to that as well. The point is, like others have said, taking away the need for complex builds, and thinking about the best way to implement things with your limited set of components, takes away all value in the gameplay. Even if it was a very costly item it wouldn't balance out that loss.
I would really like bigger chests, though. Or a new class of large containers (both in physical size and storage space).

[betu]

Hi all, in my opinion is much better idea of the hopper,

Bacchanalia' idea is great too!!

excuse me please but I think this loader is a bit unrealistic,

new type of loader has no explanation as material enters or exits from the chest or to the chest, as in the case of inserters

this is out of the broad outlines of realism that has the game (and so far I really like)


is just my point of view, thank you.