Factorio Forums

I have a group that would be happy to test loaders as a mod on a private headless server.

why not make the loader only work going in a single direction like how inserters can take items off the side of the belt the loader can only take off the front and put on at the back that would make it fairly balanced in my opinion

Zimme2579 wrote:why not make the loader only work going in a single direction like how inserters can take items off the side of the belt the loader can only take off the front and put on at the back that would make it fairly balanced in my opinion

Actually, inserters take items from any position on the belt, they just have priority points. That's why when item flow is faster than inserter - it'll take only from one same spot.
Inserters have limitation on putting items onto belt, and on prewiev, heavy inserter does it exactly the same as normal inserter.

so getting back on topic , is there ny updates as to whats going on with the belt loader chest thing in the OP ? cos i do want.

If the goal here is to let belts compete with robots late game, I think the real solution is a nerf to bots. While belts take careful optimization of space and layout, bots just require you to built a bunch and then forget about any kind of base layout optimization, for one simple reason - they don't take up space, so any number can be delivering to a given chest at the same time, and they never get in the way of each other. I would propose that bots take up space, forcing them to navigate around each other and limiting the number you can use effectively in a given area. I imagine technically this would be a lot of work for the devs, but I think it's the clearest path towards keeping the challenge interesting once you get to where you can produce bots by the hundreds.

Selvek wrote:If the goal here is to let belts compete with robots late game, I think the real solution is a nerf to bots. While belts take careful optimization of space and layout, bots just require you to built a bunch and then forget about any kind of base layout optimization, for one simple reason - they don't take up space, so any number can be delivering to a given chest at the same time, and they never get in the way of each other. I would propose that bots take up space, forcing them to navigate around each other and limiting the number you can use effectively in a given area. I imagine technically this would be a lot of work for the devs, but I think it's the clearest path towards keeping the challenge interesting once you get to where you can produce bots by the hundreds.

Or decrease roboport's bot launching speed - much easier in technical sense, nerfs bots quantity in tigh area. Thus if one wants more bots - he has to build more ports, occupying more space.

The loader should be added, but VERY expensive, to make it more balanced (uses power, need possibly even speed module tier 3s)

I think the loader should only load chests, and only do ores.

This solves the problem of the loader being too good and obsoleting inserters in many situations. Also, inserters picking up ore is unintuitive/unrealistic. It makes a lot more sense for the ore to fall off the end into a container. Things like sulfur could be included too. But things like plates, circuits, barrels etc. can't just be dumped in a box, they need to be neatly packed and organised which is why inserters make more sense for these items.

I don't believe that this is overpowered in it's current form. However, as stated by others, this definitely must be balanced carefully. I still would like to see this in the game.
Possible "nerfs" for the unloader could include
---Only pulling from chests or simple inventories
---"High power usage?"
---A more difficult "shape" to complicate placement
---Its late game
Just some quick thoughts while writing this.

It would be massively useful to do an unload function from a container, but it should not be used to load per se, other than say a rail car (hopper idea) that would allow for very fast loading into boxes/warehouses at railyards, but inserters to complete the other work.

It seems everyone has different ideas for completely arbitrary limitations that make no sense.

My vote is hell yes on the loader idea except please make it work for trains. I LOVE trains but unloading is WAY too slow. Even with modded arms.

SuperMar1o wrote:My vote is hell yes on the loader idea except please make it work for trains. I LOVE trains but unloading is WAY too slow. Even with modded arms.

Uhm, you might want to go read the patch notes for 0.13

Zeblote wrote:It seems everyone has different ideas for completely arbitrary limitations that make no sense.

Welcome to game design.

Hell, welcome to politics.

I think that the loader for trains is a little bit overpowered. I think the loader is good for situations like mining, where you wanna mine and you like the idea of a buffer, so that maybe your miners are relatively slow at certain times, this way you can load up a chest and then the troughput is still high, I think that, inputting into machines and trains is a bit much. Stack inserters look like a much better solution.

gixbit wrote:I think that the loader for trains is a little bit overpowered. I think the loader is good for situations like mining, where you wanna mine and you like the idea of a buffer, so that maybe your miners are relatively slow at certain times, this way you can load up a chest and then the troughput is still high, I think that, inputting into machines and trains is a bit much. Stack inserters look like a much better solution.

way to necro! stack inserters were added in .13...6 weeks ago

Definitly YES for loader.

Maybe even add another tier of belt like "extreme compression belt", that has the same speed as express but has 4 (or more) times more compression (can have 4 items in one tile in a "pile"). But it has limitations - inserters cant take items from it (only place + only stack inserters can place on it, maybe even specialized high cost\high power consumption inserter), to take items you need to first decompress by specialized splitter ("decompresser" that has 2 outputs - one decompressed output, from which inserters can take stuff and load into factories, and one compressed), to make it more balanced. So belts wont become obsolete in lategame. Having more than 4 belts of the same material feels not rewarding at all compared to logistic robots. They are faster, allow more compact and nobrain designs, allow more features (like smelters alterating between copper and iron is much easier with robots, no need to think where to locate your factories, just "somewhere near"). Using belts is not alternative to robots at all now. Yes, they need more energy but solar panels are kind of no-brain too, just make a blueprint, copy it, done.

(also there can be a VERY high cost "compresser device" that just takes for belts in and compresses them into this "extreme" kind of belt).

Another "solution" (not really) is just nerf logistic robots (cost or power usage increased 5-10 times).
Logistic robots aand logistic chests should be a solution for a rare resources that require a lot of materials (and you dont want that materials to pile on belt) like high tier modules etc, and not be no-brain used for everything from ores to rockets.
Construction robots are fine in my opinion.

How about just add another stack inserter type like "wide stack inserter" that will operate double or same amount of items that stack inserter can. But main thing is it will fill both sides of belt like loader do? It will not be so fast as loader so question about overpowering going away, whole idea will stay same, and tech tree do not need rework in this case.

wexyourass wrote:How about just add another stack inserter type like "wide stack inserter" that will operate double or same amount of items that stack inserter can. But main thing is it will fill both sides of belt like loader do? It will not be so fast as loader so question about overpowering going away, whole idea will stay same, and tech tree do not need rework in this case.

Yo do realize this topic is very old, don't you ? I'd advise you to make a suggestion in the Ideas and Suggestions Subforum (even if I doubt there will be another kind of inserters in the future).