Friday Facts #128 - Back down to earth

[Zourin]

I asked for this ages ago. Glad to see it come around. It's not OP. We've just gotten used to a very inefficient solution for putting things into and out of a storage unit.

1. It should attach to the end of the belt (like an underground connection), thus it can't be run in parallel like Inserters without more space and splitters (extra cost).
2. No sorting/smart function. That's what Inserters/bots are for. These are just for bulk storage of presorted (or unsorted) items. It shouldn't handle complex loads.
3. Just one speed that has a throughput around 2-3 fast inserters. It shouldn't naturally saturate a belt (say, 1/2 yellow throughput?)

[FlyHigh]

I have to agree on a No for the loader and I think most of us agree on the reasons why. It is a devise that does not add to the game and, as pointed out in the topic, makes loading and unloading trivial. It also renders inserters obsolete as it gives a 1 to 1 ratio of unloading.

As it stands, the belt balancing and ratio-playing has been tremendously simplified already with the curved belt fix. The loader would further take complexity away.

As a rule of thumb i think the ratios of stuff should rarely be 1 to 1 because this eliminates the need to 'play with things'. You just hook it up at never tend to it again. This should not be the way of Factorio.

[kaovalin]

I think we should have these. The idea is not OP. We already have trains, robots, and multiple tiers of belts. Anyone wanting to artificially challenge themselves can ignore all three of those features and have a purely yellow belt setup with just burner inserters, wooden chests, and yellow belts (no splitters).

I very much disagree with supplying these lubricant persistently as a means to balance them. If that's the case, why doesnt everything in the blue belt tier require constant lubricant because "its speed is OP"? I do agree they should be filled via inserters. These are clearly for converting the item transfer speed of inserters to the throughput speed of belts. I think everyone was just freaking out and saying no because they looked like a complete solution that would eliminate the need for inserters late game. Even the people against the idea seem to not mind them if they convert from inserters to belts. This is a sorely needed niche that has led to ridiculous setups to work around up to now.

[Pappus]

Hi there,
I thought I would come over and give you free feedback on wether that thing might be overpowered or not. I don't see how. I am pretty new so I didn't do a lot with trains yet, I am starting the migration of my first base to get a cooler one independent of coal with nicely setup processing for everything. When I say nice, what I really mean is requester chest -> assembly -> provider chest /no worries.

If anything I think the loader/unloader should already be in the game with the reason of things falling off the belt instead of magically one lane stopping while the other is fine.

My first attempt of getting green/red science automated failed horribly - why? Because I tried to get everything in a nice line and finding the correct ratio. With little options to finetune crafting speed it was met with failure relatively swiftly.
Second attempt was pretty easy. Tiny strips of belt here and there (could also do chests with max input) and suddenly 3 green and red factories are running constantly and surprisingly outputting such a crazy amount of science pack that researching becomes actually annoying. Think about next thing... research done... click.... research done....

I'm sorry but a meager 3 red/green factories shouldn't overproduce against 8-9 labs. I would have liked to see a way to upgrade a single lab to a double, but that is more an aesthetic thing. In the end labs will be chained anyway and getting stuff from a full belt into them isn't exactly a challenge either so I would have preferred 1 big lab anyway back to the main point.

While figuring out oil I basically teched every green/red thing. Of course I tried to get a nice setup going for blue, but I got bored of chopping down trees everywhere the ultimate design seems to boil down to chain several intermediate factories and just haul everything to the next step - there is no beauty in that.

A nice factory to me would have clean output coming out as long as supplies are steady. Where I carefully increased/decreased every step of the way to make it fit. I did my blue processing thing manually since going once and supplying a chest with a couple of thousand green/red chips is actually easier than coming up with a design that makes it work with pipes everywhere. Especially since you need to pipe it from the top. I mean the design basically would have boiled down to !fitting! the belts - nothing else.

The gist of it is with steam engines (again a strange construction of just chaining it) I teched up to robots. Alien attacks are rather minor so for me the question starts like why even stress with a train? They transport like 600 and those quantities are simply not really needed, because you don't need that many products for a science pack. Okay I didn't do silo yet, but ultimately 20 furnaces for iron/copper met my needs including for processing units.

Edit: Additionally I would love to see the loaders supplying into factories. That way the beauty of your design bringing a good ratio of stuff via said belt is amplified.

See the version of factorio I am suggesting is one that forces you to grow your factory as it develops over the current version where you can just slap 30 of everything in a line and it will conveniently stop once the...belt ends....

[Degraine]

Speaking as the person who wrote Slipstream Chests, I wholeheartedly approve of the loader, of course.

It'd be a relief to see a version of it that properly attaches to belts, and doesn't rely on a kludgy unique chest entity, but something compatible with every type of chest in the game. That makes sense to me. Making it a 2x1 entity throws a wrench into super tightly efficient layouts, and frankly I think it looks cool. The existing methods of bulk transporting items from chests to belts or belts to chests never really sat well with me. Inserters going from chests/belts to machines or back is fine, but plain old belt<->storage interaction deserves a bit of love, considering how robots tend to overshadow the most iconic game mechanics once they're introduced. You know what else makes belt balancer setups obsolete? Robots.

Make them consume some power, of course, but that's about all I'd do. The suggestions about constantly supplying them with lubricant or petro gas are ridiculous, nothing else in the game requires anything resembling that, not even those horrifically squealing cogs in all the assembling machines I've built.

I suggest the official name be 'chute'.

[Drury]

As it stands, the belt balancing and ratio-playing has been tremendously simplified already with the curved belt fix. The loader would further take complexity away.

I get your point, but are you seriously implying glitched corners contributed to game balance? Come on. There are better ways for game developers to torture people than to rely on something as primitive as bugs.

[Zeblote]

As it stands, the belt balancing and ratio-playing has been tremendously simplified already with the curved belt fix. The loader would further take complexity away.

Good. Belt balancing sucks anyways.

I want to build large factories, not micro manage every belt intersection!

[Fatmice]

Good, high praise. Belt balancing is overrated. Speaking of which, who needs belts when I have hordes of fawning bots.

[Lupoviridae]

My suggestion is to simply not make the loaders operate so fast. Make them slighty faster than fast inserters. This means players will still need splitters to use them. They should also use less overall energy, and at a constant rate to make them energy-superior. This will look really cool, and be a niche function (large-scale storage loading/unloading) that still requires creativity.

Just imagine a line of chests with this capillary-like branching of belts feeding in and out, it would look just like a human circulatory system.

[Klonan]

To be honest,
I think people would be having the exact same reservations as if splitters were never in the game. You'd have to split using inserters! Its part of the fun of the game! Splitters just trivialise the logistic trouble of splitting a belt, which makes them overpowered, and they don't even need electricity? Splitters over powered, and they dont add anything we cant do already.

I've been thinking a long time about this, and i think i have figured out one possible solution.
I think it was someone in one of the earlier pages who came up with the idea,
But in essence its like this,
The loader is a 2x1 'chest' which automatically either inputs from a belt, or outputs onto a belt, I was thinking it could do so at half the belts speed
So for instance a 'Basic loader' unloads at half the speed of a basic belt.
I feel this balances it somewhat, as then you'd need two of them for a full belt, and a splitter, effectively making a full belt setup 3x2.
The loader wouldn't require any electricty, but to move items into/out of the loader, you'd need inserters.

So for buffer storage, you'd need input loader, inserter, output loader, which i think would look cool, and also involved the inserters as they are, and doesn't overlap in function.
For train unloading, you have a inserter direct from the wagon into the loader, which then puts onto the belt.

I feel this achieves all the goals of the loader, which not making it eclipse the inserter in function

In pics, combinator is loader

Example pictures

Simple buffer storage (half belt input/output)

Full belt buffer storage

Train unloading with loaders

Train loading

Another way of unloading

Simple storage for belt ends

Simple output buffer

Input and output buffers

Simple self-storage (like for gears for players)

Simple way of putting things on belts (like if you want to burn wood)

Bigger buffer storage

Sorting with smart inserters

Inline buffer storage

Another way of doing buffer storage

Some balanced input/output buffers

Any way these pics were just after like 10 mins of experimentation,
I can only imagine what people will figure out to do with these

[Ojelle]

^THIS, i vote for this! Really nice!
Just by making it either loading or unloading the total "OP'nes" is gone.

Edit: damn, would this be in 13? I'm going to hate you if it takes long now you got me warm for it

[sillyfly]

For train unloading, you have a inserter direct from the wagon into the loader, which then puts onto the belt.

I think this will make loaders/unloaders miss most of their usefulness. Part of the appeal, for me at least, is having away with the awkward and (IMHO) stupid-looking rows of inserters in train stations. I really hope you will consider having a train loader/unloader (or hopper, or however you want to call it).

[atomic_peach]

New guy from Steam, here, so while I haven't played long enough to reach end game I still feel like I've seen enough streams/videos to understand it.

I would agree that the idea in the blog would be overpowered and would have said no, but the new concept of the loader as part of the chest and only working one way would be a great addition. I feel this concept would only add to gameplay and allow for new ways to optimize factories and other lines. I would say "yes" to this new loader concept.

Thanks for such a great, actively developed game. I hope to pitch in more effectively as I put more hours into the game!

[Klonan]

For train unloading, you have a inserter direct from the wagon into the loader, which then puts onto the belt.

I think this will make loaders/unloaders miss most of their usefulness. Part of the appeal, for me at least, is having away with the awkward and (IMHO) stupid-looking rows of inserters in train stations. I really hope you will consider having a train loader/unloader (or hopper, or however you want to call it).

Well it will still decrease loading/unlodaing times,
The only reason people use long rows of inserters is because of the limitation of inserters placing onto belts one at a time,
I think with the loader you wouldn't have to have huge rows unless you' want to, and it will still simplify the train station designs considerably

For example unloading setups like this could be used

[AliceTheGorgon]

Another vote not to have loaders/unloaders as depicted in the blog post.

I like the general concept of being able to make inserters faster for belt operations, but maybe go with some sort of inserter with a large scoop that is slower but puts/takes multiple items onto/off a belt. Perhaps with upgrades similar to the insterter stack bonus, but for scoop size so it can scoop more items at once when dealing with belts.

Edit: Nevermind, I retract my objection. To have a line of assemblers fed with these would also require more spliters and belts than inserters would, so I think it's probably more balanced than I initially thought.

[Linosaurus]

I've been thinking a long time about this, and i think i have figured out one possible solution.
I think it was someone in one of the earlier pages who came up with the idea,
But in essence its like this,
The loader is a 2x1 'chest' which automatically either inputs from a belt, or outputs onto a belt, I was thinking it could do so at half the belts speed.

Yes! This would be a great addition. Would make belts much more useful late game, and let me keep forests of inserters around. I like forests of inserters.

So for instance a 'Basic loader' unloads at half the speed of a basic belt.
I feel this balances it somewhat, as then you'd need two of them for a full belt, and a splitter, effectively making a full belt setup 3x2.

For a full blue belt you'd need 8ish inserters but this really is not a problem. 8 is a good balance point in between the one loader in the original suggestion, and 38 inserters you need today (if my testing was done correctly).

(Possibly good) ideas:

• Inserters should be unable to put items in the input buffer (and vice versa for output), to avoid creating a 2x1 chest. Such a chest would be very useful, and should therefore be considered/balanced separately.
• Don't actually add yellow and red versions. They are not useful early on before stack size bonuses, and would clutter up the item list. Just add one version you unlock with blue belt research. (I leave it as an exercise to the reader to make it work visually with a belt setup of any color.

[Klonan]

• Inserters should be unable to put items in the input buffer (and vice versa for output), to avoid creating a 2x1 chest. Such a chest would be very useful, and should therefore be considered/balanced separately.
• Don't actually add yellow and red versions. They are not useful early on before stack size bonuses, and would clutter up the item list. Just add one version you unlock with blue belt research. (I leave it as an exercise to the reader to make it work visually with a belt setup of any color.

I think the 2x1 'chest' would be balanced in that it has less storage than 2 1x1 chests, I was thinking the loader itself only has like 10 storage spaces, less than the 16 for a wooden chest, so that its useful, but not useful as a standalone chest.

I think the yellow red version would be alright, their usefulness in the early game isn't to be underestimated, and they would become more useful as you research stack size. I think locking the loader behind late game research is unfairly limiting what can be done with it in the early game.

[Kalabint]

Hi, here are my 2 Cents:

I think something like this:


Is a bit overpowered, because it doesn't need more space than this Solution here for the chest loading and deloading part and it makes things much more easier than this Solution here:

I think, a part of Factorio is, experimenting, how things work, and how to solve them as good as possible, and when the Materials are limited, the Solutions become a bit more creative...

Here is a closer look on the Loading Part

And deloading Part

But it would also save me the mess of all this above.

*Edit:

This setup is capable of taking almost 2 Express belts in, and something arround 1 Expressbelt out

[Zeblote]

You've just shown why they're a great idea - so we don't need to build that garbage in your last images.

[AliceTheGorgon]

You've just shown why they're a great idea - so we don't need to build that garbage in your last images.

We already don't have to.

That image was a setup designed to move items with chests and inserters faster than transport belts can move them.

Loaders and unloaders wouldn't make belts move faster, and so some people would still want to build setups like that.