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Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:26 am
by bobingabout
vanatteveldt wrote:The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.
Agreed.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:51 am
by Klonan
bobingabout wrote:
vanatteveldt wrote:The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.
Agreed.

Yep, a gameplay inconsistency is far more serious than a graphical one

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 10:29 am
by RobertTerwilliger
bobingabout wrote:
RobertTerwilliger wrote:
tehroach wrote:any object that is smaller than 4x4 can hide the inconsistency, try using a mod that uses 6x6 ie the warehouse mod and everything will become apparent to you.
Rocket silo is 9x9 or so. Works well in any direction though.
They also often hide it by including the height of the building in the height of the grid. Look at the roboport, the base of the structure is actually 4x3, but it still takes a 4x4 tile spacing.
So what? It works, looks nice enough. Who needs more? Even what is "more" actually? 32x23 grid? Real 3d? No way. Maybe in Factorio2, but not earlier.
When strategies were 2d (and not only strategies) they all used "height included in size" trick, and it was not so long ago, and no one had trouble with that.
Anyway it's only visual, but trains have physical inconsistency, which is different.
vanatteveldt wrote:The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.
Amen.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 10:43 am
by ratchetfreak
RobertTerwilliger wrote:
bobingabout wrote:
RobertTerwilliger wrote:
tehroach wrote:any object that is smaller than 4x4 can hide the inconsistency, try using a mod that uses 6x6 ie the warehouse mod and everything will become apparent to you.
Rocket silo is 9x9 or so. Works well in any direction though.
They also often hide it by including the height of the building in the height of the grid. Look at the roboport, the base of the structure is actually 4x3, but it still takes a 4x4 tile spacing.
So what? It works, looks nice enough. Who needs more? Even what is "more" actually? 32x23 grid? Real 3d? No way. Maybe in Factorio2, but not earlier.
When strategies were 2d (and not only strategies) they all used "height included in size" trick, and it was not so long ago, and no one had trouble with that.
Anyway it's only visual, but trains have physical inconsistency, which is different.
vanatteveldt wrote:The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.
Amen.
Factorio also would never have had any problems with it if they never included trains. However the trains show exactly why including the height of buildings in the tile footprint is a hack.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 2:58 pm
by RobertTerwilliger
ratchetfreak wrote:Factorio also would never have had any problems with it if they never included trains. However the trains show exactly why including the height of buildings in the tile footprint is a hack.
Factorio won't have this problem, since it is being solved right now, so not a big deal.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 3:30 pm
by alan2here
wjessup wrote:... You can easily win without even going through the extra trouble of ...
There is a win condition of launching the rocket, but you also "win" Factorio when your factory design in perfect, as well as conforming perfectly your sense of aesthetics and whatever you want to do with this factory, and you have fully explored all of the games systems. This, and I use the last word of this sentence literally, takes forever.

Also Factorio is far better than a AAA title :)

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:18 am
by tehroach
vanatteveldt wrote:I use the warehousing mod a lot, and I have no problems with it, it's always 6x6. Sure, the topmost inserters on the side look like they are above the building, but you get used to that. Most importantly, I just blueprint designs around it and plop em down.
I use the warehousing mod in all my games and personally think that it should be made part of vanilla,
However the problem that I wanted to point out is not with the warehouse, just that the current problem involving the 45 view angle of Factorio is easily spotted there.
bobingabout wrote:They also often hide it by including the height of the building in the height of the grid.
Look at the roboport, the base of the structure is actually 4x3, but it still takes a 4x4 tile spacing.
This highlights my point that the problem of different V to H sizes is inherent to every thing in Factorio,
The Roboport is a good example of how the smaller objects are not as susceptible to the error translating into a placement issue.
RobertTerwilliger wrote:Rocket silo is 9x9 or so. Works well in any direction though.
Rocket silo is another good example of how this hide fools people; as they can be perceived to be mostly underground their height can therefore be easily hidden.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:02 am
by Hicsy
Even lengths or granular placement of train stations to enable bi-directional train stations:
Images

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:15 am
by bobingabout
Hicsy wrote:Even lengths or granular placement of train stations to enable bi-directional train stations:
It would do that too, yes. the reason for so many smart inserters in the station is clearly to illustrate the fact that they can't be lined up.
Also, the current plan of wagon length is 6, plus a 1 tile coupling... kind of makes the length 7, meaning.... a train with an... even number of cargo wagons still wouldn't line up when entering the station from the other end... This "Forced to a 2x2 grid" thing is quite annoying.
Even because, 6 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 6 (assuming the engine is 6 too, moot point for this example) adds up to an odd length, and therefore doesn't fit on the forced multiple of 2 grid.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 3:53 am
by tehroach
Klonan wrote:
bobingabout wrote:
vanatteveldt wrote:The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.
Agreed.
Yep, a gameplay inconsistency is far more serious than a graphical one
But is introducing a graphical inconsistency worth it, especially when it only solves a small sub-set of problems that relate to the train-stations

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:12 pm
by Kotu
I prefer the heavy inserter to the loader, I was thinking of posting a similar idea a while ago. Rather than being a heavy inserter, i would prefer it if the stack size upgrades applied to all the inserters. This would give each inserter a mini storage of whatever the stack size is upgraded to and would allow the inserter to work like a shovel whereby it either lets its cargo slide onto the belt or it scoops up whatever is on the belt.

You already get something similar today with pick and place machines where surface mounted components are routed through the arm meaning it can continuously place without having to do a pickup.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 3:31 pm
by RobertTerwilliger
Kotu wrote:You already get something similar today with pick and place machines where surface mounted components are routed through the arm meaning it can continuously place without having to do a pickup.
I think picture attached may give a good idea for devs how to make graphics for it :idea:

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 5:24 pm
by Kotu
not quite the same as what I wrote, but a similar idea for speeding up the inserter process:

video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8qkaTsr2_o gives an idea.

This is for SMT, but a scaled up idea would work too i think, something like the inserter as it is now, but the end of each arm would have multiple fingers (each finger would be a stack size upgrade) that can do independent pickups meaning less time moving back and forth.

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 6:14 pm
by darkfrei
fff133:
The first solution we thought about, was to just stretch the train secretly as it is rotated. But as the difference is 41%, it would really not be hideable and it would make it look like it was made of rubber.
For this picture: https://eu3.factorio.com/assets//img/bl ... n-test.gif

ImageImage
Image

First car have factorio deformation 1.41, another two have correction for perspective deformation. What looks better?

Can you try to make in-game vehicles with this solution? viewtopic.php?f=135&t=26190

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 7:20 pm
by AlexTheNotsogreat
I think measuring the train model by the base of the train is what you should've done. You would measure by the base, and keep that at 8 blocks length, then place the whole model on top. Try that when you can, and see how it works

Re: Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:18 pm
by darkfrei
AlexTheNotsogreat wrote:I think measuring the train model by the base of the train is what you should've done. You would measure by the base, and keep that at 8 blocks length, then place the whole model on top. Try that when you can, and see how it works
Collision box of this car have no deformation (but in vanilla), why cargo-wagon have problem with this? It's easy to make some rotation square with permanent equal sides of it.
Image
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