Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

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What should be changed to make loaders better?

Nothing, they're fine as they are
48
18%
They should have a running cost (lubricant, electricity, etc.)
113
43%
They should have limited interaction options (chests only, no train usage, etc.)
23
9%
They should only feed into containers, not pull out of them (but they can also feed into anything, such as assemblers)
14
5%
They should only be able to unload, and only from chests (Rename them to Chest Unloaders)
5
2%
They shouldn't be implemented
61
23%
 
Total votes: 264

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Lav »

Matthias_Wlkp wrote:IMHO it should be for loading only and interact only with chests and trains.
Sorry, but it sounds like you want to arbitrarily and illogically cripple loaders. Please elaborate what harm you think will come from allowing loaders to unload containers/wagons, and from allowing them to interact with buildings as well.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Krazykrl »

Stack inserters are ~766 items/min chest to belt, and ~1661 items/min chest to chest. You need 3 tiles for the current loader+feeder belt; where you would need 3 stack inserters (and quite a bit of compression and balancing overhead) for the same interface without loaders.

These are my suggestions for loaders:
  • High Electricity cost, and in-situ lubricant barrel emptying for the loader itself (with the possibility of pipe connections)
  • Have a single filter slot that cannot be configured via the circuit network
  • 1 output tile segment, which may be rotated between the 3 tile endpoint positions on one end of the loader
    5 input tile segments (the 5 that are not occupied by the output position)
  • Pulls from all adjacent tiles that have an inventory or are a belt endpoint (which requires the single filter slot)
  • Inserters dropping onto a loader should receive the full stack bonus (i.e. chest to chest)
    Being "insertable" would also be required if loader is consuming full Lubricant barrels
  • Max un-lubed throughput of the loader should be yellow belt speed (800 items per minute)
    Max throughput when fed lubricant in pipes or barrels should be the tier of the belt the loader is based off of
The power demand (and lubricant logistics) should be prohibitive. The main idea being a "zero size" inserter on the endpoint of a belt; but the drawback of extra supporting logistics with the potential to indiscriminately pull from any inventory (or belt end) touching the loader.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Zeblote »

More ideas for arbitrary and nonsensical limitations, I see.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Lav »

Krazykrl wrote:Stack inserters are ~766 items/min chest to belt, and ~1661 items/min chest to chest. You need 3 tiles for the current loader+feeder belt; where you would need 3 stack inserters (and quite a bit of compression and balancing overhead) for the same interface without loaders.
Has it occurred to you that you need all that compression and balancing overhead because inserters are a wrong tool for the job? A tool that players are forced to use because the proper tool for the job is not in the game.

The purpose of introducing a new tool is exactly because it's better than other tools for some jobs. If the new tool completely invalidated some existing tools, then it would be overpowered. But the loaders don't do that. They take over inserters and splitters in some designs and - most importantly - take over jobs that inserters have extreme difficulty to handle. But neither inserters nor splitters are obsoleted by the loaders - neither in their current form, nor if they're nerfed along more reasonable suggestions. Alternatively, if the new tool didn't have some unique purpose, there would be no sense implementing it at all. But loaders do have that purpose that no other tool can fulfill adequately - provide extremely high volume input/output.

But people keep insisting that because loaders dare to be better at least somewhere they're therefore absolutely overpowered and must be crippled to the point where nobody will ever use them as it would be idiocy.

That is not constructive at all.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Mehve »

Lav wrote:Has it occurred to you that you need all that compression and balancing overhead because inserters are a wrong tool for the job? A tool that players are forced to use because the proper tool for the job is not in the game.

The purpose of introducing a new tool is exactly because it's better than other tools for some jobs. If the new tool completely invalidated some existing tools, then it would be overpowered. But the loaders don't do that. They take over inserters and splitters in some designs and - most importantly - take over jobs that inserters have extreme difficulty to handle. But neither inserters nor splitters are obsoleted by the loaders - neither in their current form, nor if they're nerfed along more reasonable suggestions. Alternatively, if the new tool didn't have some unique purpose, there would be no sense implementing it at all. But loaders do have that purpose that no other tool can fulfill adequately - provide extremely high volume input/output.

But people keep insisting that because loaders dare to be better at least somewhere they're therefore absolutely overpowered and must be crippled to the point where nobody will ever use them as it would be idiocy.

That is not constructive at all.
Exaggeration. Inserters don't have "extreme difficulty" performing these tasks, they are in fact a perfectly suitable tool for the job. They're perfectly adequate for maintaining high throughput (although it takes more than 3 squares to do so). Suggesting that the vanilla game needs a magic box that loads/unloads, compresses, and even lane controls, while failing to do anything else new/unique, doesn't hold a lot of water for me.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Distelzombie »

Mehve wrote:Exaggeration. Inserters don't have "extreme difficulty" performing these tasks, they are in fact a perfectly suitable tool for the job. They're perfectly adequate for maintaining high throughput (although it takes more than 3 squares to do so). Suggesting that the vanilla game needs a magic box that loads/unloads, compresses, and even lane controls, while failing to do anything else new/unique, doesn't hold a lot of water for me.
Dude you need six stack inserter to empty a blue belt. This is stupid.
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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Mehve »

Really? A blue belt is moving 2400 items each minute, and you're complaining about having to use an entire six inserters to handle it all? Heck, you only need 4 to load a blue belt. That's a mild inconvenience at worst, not a hardship or stupidity.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Distelzombie »

Mehve wrote:Really? A blue belt is moving 2400 items each minute, and you're complaining about having to use an entire six inserters to handle it all? Heck, you only need 4 to load a blue belt. That's a mild inconvenience at worst, not a hardship or stupidity.
Could have changed with 0.15.
What is your problem with progress? This is the perfect case for progress. Just like stack inserter were a really good addition, or nuclear power, or tankwagons.
Actually this case we have here is identical with tankwaggons. Are you also against them?
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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Matthias_Wlkp »

Lav wrote:
Matthias_Wlkp wrote:IMHO it should be for loading only and interact only with chests and trains.
Sorry, but it sounds like you want to arbitrarily and illogically cripple loaders. Please elaborate what harm you think will come from allowing loaders to unload containers/wagons, and from allowing them to interact with buildings as well.
For me, a loader is a conveyor end, which dumps stuff into a container underneath. Like this:

Image

You can easily dump whatever you have on a belt into a chest, container, wagon - whatever it is, which does not require precise positioning.

Assembler, building, etc. on the other hand is more like a CNC machine, which requires precise positioning inside, like on the video below. You cannot simply dump products inside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPFoBQlZVIs

Sorting from a bulk container onto a conveyor is much more complicated - that's why I don't think it's arbitrary to have this functionality either limited or non-existent. Unless loading INTO a chest/wagon is simple and cheap as a belt, while unloading is expensive to build and costly to maintain.

[EDIT] Sorry, didn't realize how old this topic is...

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Mehve »

Distelzombie wrote:
Mehve wrote:Really? A blue belt is moving 2400 items each minute, and you're complaining about having to use an entire six inserters to handle it all? Heck, you only need 4 to load a blue belt. That's a mild inconvenience at worst, not a hardship or stupidity.
Could have changed with 0.15.
What is your problem with progress? This is the perfect case for progress. Just like stack inserter were a really good addition, or nuclear power, or tankwagons.
Actually this case we have here is identical with tankwaggons. Are you also against them?
The stack inserter is a little questionable, but it didn't actually eliminate any game mechanics, except possibly letting you get away with a smaller balancing/condensing array (but not eliminate it). Nuclear power introduced new mining techniques, RNG-dictated processing outputs, a recursive manufacturing process, and a constant fuel consumption behaviour that forces players to either account for it or accept wasting a lot of fuel. Those are examples of progress and increased gameplay diversity.

Loaders aren't progress. If they did something new or unique, or handled a currently awkward problem, then they would be. But they don't. They basically magic away a number of core game mechanics for no other reason than mild irritation, while failing to add any new dynamics or aspects. That makes them perfect for modding, but a poor candidate for the vanilla game.

And it's not the same situation as with tank wagons. While we can already duplicate what pumps do with assemblers and barrels, pumps and rail tankers actually make you give up a lot of functionality. You sacrifice storage density both on the train and on the ground, and you need to set up numerous storage tanks to get load/unload speeds that exceed what barrels can already achieve. Transfer speeds in pipes are far lower than barrels on belts, and balancing distribution in pipes is trickier than with barrels.

As awesome as the rail tanker and pumps may be, they're not arbitrary tools of convenience that are simply eliminating game mechanics. And since the new mechanic is nothing more than dumping liquid into and out of a container, there's no magic involved. Unlike the loader.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Distelzombie »

Mehve wrote: As awesome as the rail tanker and pumps may be, they're not arbitrary tools of convenience that are simply eliminating game mechanics.
Robots are.

Also loaders could be made to fill the whole belt. Then you would need to use inserters or another technique to use both sides of a belt differently.
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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by OBXandos »

I haven't read everything in this thread and I have never actually used these devices but I'll insert(or load :D) my opinion.

I don't have a problem with loaders existing in the game, but their use should be niche, like the long handed inserters or filter inserters. Loaders should only be able to feed into or out of chests or rail cars, something that is designed for bulk storage or transportation. They should require power just like an inserter, maybe as much as several stack inserters since they would be replacing that. Their production costs should be commensurate as well, approximately the cost of two stack inserters per level of belt. Lastly they should not have any sort of magical abilities inside the box. That means no sorting, splitting, lane directing, or compressing. These items are built for bulk loading and unloading.

Hopefully we get these items in the game, its always fun to play with new tools.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Mehve »

Distelzombie wrote:
Mehve wrote: As awesome as the rail tanker and pumps may be, they're not arbitrary tools of convenience that are simply eliminating game mechanics.
Robots are.
Another topic full of discussion, although for the record, I play bot-less :)
Also loaders could be made to fill the whole belt. Then you would need to use inserters or another technique to use both sides of a belt differently.
One UG section to block off the unwanted lane - done. Two loaders + 2 UG's + splitter = easy split lane setup.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by MeduSalem »

I have thought about the Loaders myself a bit ever since the Topic is becoming hot again...

I would like to work them similar to this:
handling-11.jpg
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handling-10.jpg
handling-10.jpg (168.64 KiB) Viewed 5405 times
06-Pile-stack-feeding-02-620x413.jpg
06-Pile-stack-feeding-02-620x413.jpg (88.02 KiB) Viewed 5405 times
BookletEntryImage.jpg
BookletEntryImage.jpg (64.36 KiB) Viewed 5405 times
2013226151947.jpg
2013226151947.jpg (27.17 KiB) Viewed 5405 times

With each belt side getting treated seperately (like in the first picture) and it would have an internal buffer stack for each beltside and the possibility to run the belt through underneath the Loader (like in the follow-up pictures, basically allowing to plop it ontop of a belt wherever you want and continue the belt before/afterwards) as the stack/feeding meachnism would then be branching off perpendicular to the 2x1 Loader. So the machines/items to be fed/taken from would have to be located to the side of the loader.


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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Wakaba-chan »

Loaders are too OP, I think. No one of listed options is able to balance it. To make alternative of loader, you can just make "Inserter Capacity Bonus" to be infinite research - so after some time, stack inserter will become working like loader, putting large number of items on belts consequently and grabbing them in the same way.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Lav »

I still don't understand what definition of "OP" people use when referring to loaders.

That in some situations loaders will be more effective than other devices is a given - otherwise there's no point introducing them at all.

I would agree loaders were OP if they completely deprecated some other tools in the game - but they don't, even in their current disabled incarnation.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Lav »

Update.

Since my last post I've actually seriously started a game with loaders. Didn't bother with mods, just added plain vanilla loaders via console.

Conclusions so far are as follows:

1. Loaders do not replace inserters ANYWHERE. I've reached production science, currently preparing to start on high-tech (after expanding resource mining/processing appropriately), all red/green/military science is already fully researched (still working on blue). Still not a single place where loaders would replace inserters. Not a single one.

1.1. Loaders allow player to create a chest-based storage system. Inserters can do that, but they're crappy for this purpose - to the point where most people don't actually bother creating major storage systems until logistic bots appear. Loaders bring that opportunity to an early game, though it's still inferior to bot-based setup (which is good, I guess?).

1.2. In production setups loaders are absolutely useless. They're simply too bulky and inconvenient for that purpose. The only place where loaders would theoretically replace inserters are contrived over-beaconised setups with a single factory surrounded by a dozen speed-module-3 beacons. They're also capable of delivering sufficient resources to assemblers working on certain recipes when playing with expensive recipes setting - assuming you actually do need to produce 75 assemblers per minute for some reason and have resource flow to match - sure, loaders will allow you that. In practical (not record-setting) setups though, loaders are crap.

2. The item loaders actually compete with is splitter, not inserter, and only in the role which is in no way related to splitter primary purpose: i.e. lane balancing. Surprisingly though, they're surprisingly inconvenient in creating fully compressed belts, again due to size and direction constraints. The only situation where they're useful for that purpose is when you already have a resource flow which is 100% enough for a fully compressed belt. If you bring in more resources, you end up with an overflow and no easy way to divert that overflow somewhere - and you have to do that without loaders, because doing it with loaders will result in output being split roughly 50/50 - hence no compressed belt for you.

3. At the beginning of the game, I added a hundred loaders by console. I only needed more after ~10 hours of gameplay. Meanwhile, I had to place a much larger amount of splitters, and to automate inserter production quite early because hand-crafting was getting too time-consuming.

4. On the other hand, I haven't yet seen a single practical proof of why loaders are somehow superior to inserters. Not a single screenshot of a setup where loaders superiority would be demonstrated in a practical scenario.

My conclusion is simple: most of the hype about loaders OP'ness is done by people who haven't placed a single loader in a real long-running Factorio game and base their criticism on raw theorizing and abstract theoretical setups that have no place in real gameplay.

Loaders are not OP in any way. They're a niche item, which doesn't invalidate a single already existing item in the game, and actually adds some new gameplay value. I have 12 hours of gameplay where I actually tried to concentrate on loader-based setups to attest for that.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by steinio »

Hi,

i fully agree with you.

Loaders are good for storage mods like Warehousing mod but in Vanilla i don't see a point, maybe if loading of trains get enabled.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Lav »

And here's the Proof of the Loaders OverPowerdness:

Image

Now anyone can see how using loaders in production setups is so much more efficient than inserters. They don't need power poles! You can save so much wood with them!

Also notice how carefully loaders distribute the cargo - both setups were given equal amounts of coal, but splitter/loader setup wisely prevented that coal from reaching farther smelters and dumped 50 coal into each early smelter instead. This way, your smelting setup will have a much slower start, thus helping the planetary ecology.

Of course, those misguided loader supporters will claim that this setup costs will be extraordinary even if loaders cost as little as a basic inserter. But what do they know? Surely loaders are OP anyway!

So much for inserters. Now, about the splitters. I took some time to create the most basic splitter and loader based setups for lane balancing, lane merging and lane splitting.
Designs
Some obvious conclusions:

1. The only place where loaders are more effective than splitters is the inline lane balancer. It can be fit seamlessly into practically any belt. It still costs 2 loaders and a chest against a single splitter - so even if loaders only cost 50% of a splitter, they're still less effective resource-wise.
2. Loader-based designs for belt splitting and merging require 3 loaders and a chest - against a single splitter - and generally take more space as well, especially when feeding belt location is parallel (due to the need to re-route the belt from the side). So splitter is the clear winner here.

So let's summarize: with loader cost about 2/3 of a splitter, and without any additional ridiculous requirements like lubricant use, loaders are still a niche item which only steals a single application from a splitter.

So much for OPness.

Now, if anyone wants to refute this, they're welcome to post their designs functioning in actual factories.

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Re: Loader Poll - Trying to get an idea of what the opinions are

Post by Omarflyjoemacky »

Lav wrote:And here's the Proof of the Loaders OverPowerdness:

Image

Now anyone can see how using loaders in production setups is so much more efficient than inserters. They don't need power poles! You can save so much wood with them!

Also notice how carefully loaders distribute the cargo - both setups were given equal amounts of coal, but splitter/loader setup wisely prevented that coal from reaching farther smelters and dumped 50 coal into each early smelter instead. This way, your smelting setup will have a much slower start, thus helping the planetary ecology.

Of course, those misguided loader supporters will claim that this setup costs will be extraordinary even if loaders cost as little as a basic inserter. But what do they know? Surely loaders are OP anyway!

So much for inserters. Now, about the splitters. I took some time to create the most basic splitter and loader based setups for lane balancing, lane merging and lane splitting.
Designs
Some obvious conclusions:

1. The only place where loaders are more effective than splitters is the inline lane balancer. It can be fit seamlessly into practically any belt. It still costs 2 loaders and a chest against a single splitter - so even if loaders only cost 50% of a splitter, they're still less effective resource-wise.
2. Loader-based designs for belt splitting and merging require 3 loaders and a chest - against a single splitter - and generally take more space as well, especially when feeding belt location is parallel (due to the need to re-route the belt from the side). So splitter is the clear winner here.

So let's summarize: with loader cost about 2/3 of a splitter, and without any additional ridiculous requirements like lubricant use, loaders are still a niche item which only steals a single application from a splitter.

So much for OPness.

Now, if anyone wants to refute this, they're welcome to post their designs functioning in actual factories.
Nicely done. I only use loaders on chests for simplicity sake. Not overpowered at all.
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