Underground Belt and undergroud-pipes cost by length

[FunMaker]

Hi,

i suggest to reduce the cost of the underground belt and underground pipes by a large margin and make the cost scale with length. The main goal behind this is that i don't think that the cost is too high in short-undergrounds(3-4 tiles) but the main benefeit would be to increase the undeground maximal length by a great margin (maybe 20 tiles or infinite) without going in to problems with balancing the cost of undergrounds.

Mid-Length pipes are horrible to drive through with the car. You might argue that i can change to trains. But the length where i have to use underground mechanics is far too short for effective train setup.

[Cabanur]

I like the idea, but maybe it's a bit hard to make it a feature into the game because of how building works in factorio.

Right now you craft an underground pipe and you are able to put it within a range of another already built underground pipe, right? you already have paid de cost before deciding the length.

What you suggeest would imply crafting underground pipes on-demand, as you build them in relation to how far from the already built pipe is. This would mean that sending the "build" order would actually require a "craft" order first, plus a delay (while crafting) and then, finally, the requested build happens. This delay while crafting the specific underground pipe to requested length is not an existing mechanic in the gane and thus would feel out of place.

It would also make blueprinting harder. Bots can't craft. Are you supposed to have stockage of each pipe length?

I would really like to be able to build an arbitrary length underground pipe, but I can't think of a way of making it happen without braking existing game mechanics.

[Ranakastrasz]

I remember a mod a while ago which had underground pipes, which were normal pipes that were literally underground, you could walk or build over them, and connected to above ground if next to what looked like an underground pipe. No idea how they did it, no idea what mod it was.

[malecord]

It's been a while that I was thinking about a way this could be implemented. Currently the problem is that the cost it fixed since is included in the underground item variant recipe.

Imho the best way would be to have underground belt/pipe item account just for that specific item, without including the regular item needed to cover the underground track (like 5 belts or 5 pipes). Then when used in practice the deployment would consume two underground items and also as many regular belt/pipes as necessary to cover the full underground distance, effectively making the whole cost proportional with the covered distance.

If underground items worked like that it would also be easier to include upgrade "underground distance" technologies (also much requested on the forum) since you wouldn't need to replace each underground entity on the map anymore. The only "problem" would be to have a way for robots to lay down the underground tracks. A possible solution could be to make the robots holding the regular belt/pipes items meet on the tile with the underground exit and make them deploy the whole segment in a single action once they are all ready.

[ssilk]

Hm. I see pros and cons

+ sometimes quite narrow for driving, also a problem with narrow built trains, pipes etc.
+ more fair "payment" for UG belts
+ when you make the UG belt longer the cost should scale with length

- "cost scales with length": different from current "payment", where you pay before you built.
- because of the length it's in very crowed places very difficult to see, where UG starts/ends
- not needed, cause everything works, game-play increase is low

Hm.

I think the game-play value can be increased a lot more, if we would be able to build belts like we do it with rails.

Example: Take belt, drag and if there is something between and you have UG belt! So instead of clicking 15 times to connect one side of my train station to the other, I need to click once.

Perhaps it costs one belt per 5 tiles. Would be fair somehow, cause currently the max length (between the entries) is 4. That would make the change downward compatible. Automatic build would make building belts much more comfortable. They might need research. I think this is needed, cause the UG belt has more uses, so there is a need to learn first how the ug belt really works, before we can built it automatic.

With this change the above changes can make sense: in short
- an UG belt costs the two entries and for each 5 tiles one belt. The cost for the UG belt can be reduced a bit.
- the length is somehow limited. I think 20 or 25 is the absolute maximum, more is difficult to see and is really not useful (or show the cases, where you really need that length)
- We have the possibility to build belts like we can build rails.

[Tinyboss]

I like the idea, but maybe it's a bit hard to make it a feature into the game because of how building works in factorio.

Right now you craft an underground pipe and you are able to put it within a range of another already built underground pipe, right? you already have paid de cost before deciding the length.

What if it consumed one unit for each tile of length (including the ends)? Lower the recipe cost and/or increase the yield, and let them stack to 200.

[mattj256]

make the cost scale with length

Factorio already has three tiers of underground belts. All you have to do is say that the max length of a fast underground belt is six and the max length of an express underground belt is eight. Or whatever. (This could be in vanilla or in a mod.)

Similarly, we could make three tiers of underground pipes. To make an extended underground pipe you need two regular underground pipes, four iron plates, and four steel plates. Or whatever. (Again, this could be in vanilla or in a mod.)

For what it's worth I like the challenge that comes with the current limitations. If I have to rip something up because I need to run a pipe somewhere, that's my own darned fault for not designing it better in the first place.

[FunMaker]

make the cost scale with length

Factorio already has three tiers of underground belts. All you have to do is say that the max length of a fast underground belt is six and the max length of an express underground belt is eight. Or whatever. (This could be in vanilla or in a mod.)

Similarly, we could make three tiers of underground pipes. To make an extended underground pipe you need two regular underground pipes, four iron plates, and four steel plates. Or whatever. (Again, this could be in vanilla or in a mod.)

For what it's worth I like the challenge that comes with the current limitations. If I have to rip something up because I need to run a pipe somewhere, that's my own darned fault for not designing it better in the first place.

On my side i am okay with it in tight-in-factory situations currently in game but in most cases you just widen the factory a bit to squeeze the additional belt in (but tha'ts okay).

In the open space it's just annoying to see "pipe up - pipe down".

Another approach would be to handle pipes like belts and make them walkable (would be nice to see railings on top of the pipes). Don't know how to handle driving on pipes

[FunMaker]

Sorry for Doublepost:

But the "produce while laying" problems is not a problem imho. If you have 20 Underground Pipes you may lay a pipe that is 20 tiles long. So there is no "produce while building" it's just that if i lay a underground pipe that more pipes are consumed. I know that there are other problems that we may come into (mostly belt but not pipe specific) but these problems can be handled i think.

[mattj256]

I decided to implement longer underground belts as a mod.
(Mainly because I knew I wanted to write a mod and this seemed simple.)

Basic underground belt: skip over four tiles.
Fast underground belt: skip over six tiles.
Express underground belt: skip over eight tiles.

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/mattj256 ... ound_Belts

[Harkonnen604]

I think UG belts were limited to 5 on purpose to bring more logistic challenge, esp. when you need to cross assemblers line.

[mattj256]

I think UG belts were limited to 5 on purpose to bring more logistic challenge, esp. when you need to cross assemblers line.

Yes, as I said earlier, I like the challenge of being limited to five tiles. The nice thing about mods is different people can play with different rules.