Dynamic Range and Cost for underground transport

[filippe999]

Hello fellow colonizers;

So, i had an idea to improve the current system of underground transport belts to something more useful. Don't you find annoying when you're building a long line of pipe-to-ground system that you have to resurface the pipe every 10 blocks? wouldn't just be better to simply build a line directly to the place where you want said pipe to go to? Well, what if instead of spending 10 pipes to build then, or 4 belts to build the underground belt entrance and being limited to said range, you could get the cost based on how long you want the line to be, i mean, you would spend 2 pipes to make a pair of pipe-to-ground items, but you could extend this line to as much as you want, limited only by how much pipes/belts you have in your inventory, this way the lines could extend to any range and greatly increase the flexibility of the underground systems, often times i wish i had a transport belt that could run straight under my solar panel fields without having to resurface every 4 blocks.

One problem this could cause is, since the pipes/belts don't resurface midway like they are now, you could end-up struggling to find a way to tap into said line of resources to feed your auto-crafting machines or add another supplier to this underground line, the way to solve this, would be to have an item, that would scan the underground and display on your screen the lines and which material they are transporting to where, kinda like an ESP, but for underground systems, just to help troubleshooting a line or what i said above.

Thanks, Filippe999

[ssilk]

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=3370
This is understandable after looking on it a while!
Imagine that with underground belts, which are longer than now. No longer understandable.

[Molay]

Imagine that with underground belts, which are longer than now. No longer understandable.

I suppose that, to the person who designed it, it will still be understandable with longer belts. Harder for other people, sure, but that's not too important most of the time.

As to the idea itself, it could be useful in some circumstances, although I very rarely find the need for longer belts personally. Sometimes I just miss 1 length or so, but it suffices to move some stuff around in that case.

This might get put somewhere very late on the development list imo, like if there is "spare time at the end"?

[Garm]

I suppose that, to the person who designed it, it will still be understandable with longer belts.

No way, its all moving and dizzy so I end up forgetting what goes where in less than 5 min.

About length: I am fine with current one since it allows 2 belts simultaneously underground in same area. Longer length belts while somewhat more easy to build with would suffer from "heres the end, I have no idea wheres beginning" syndrome, as well as "I disassembled the underground belt 200 blocks long full of ore, now entire map is covered in ore and my PC dying from lag". The pre-building system has mild case of "I measured how long i need this particular belt, but by the time i made enough resources i forgot the length again"

[Teurlinx]

I like how the transport belt length forces you to think about better solutions. I do wish however that the transport belt could be stretched for one tile, maybe even half a tile to tunnel under a train track bend. Make the cost of the belt extension prohibitive, or make it so the caps of the underground entrance can be placed on the 'far ends' rather than the 'close ends'.

[filippe999]

I suppose that, to the person who designed it, it will still be understandable with longer belts.

No way, its all moving and dizzy so I end up forgetting what goes where in less than 5 min.

About length: I am fine with current one since it allows 2 belts simultaneously underground in same area. Longer length belts while somewhat more easy to build with would suffer from "heres the end, I have no idea wheres beginning" syndrome, as well as "I disassembled the underground belt 200 blocks long full of ore, now entire map is covered in ore and my PC dying from lag". The pre-building system has mild case of "I measured how long i need this particular belt, but by the time i made enough resources i forgot the length again"

Well the belts are made in a straight line and when you hover over then they display to you where the line begins.

[Garm]

Well the belts are made in a straight line and when you hover over then they display to you where the line begins.

I meant more like "i can't see where it begins because it does outside for the screen".

[ssilk]

The discussion to this post should be continued at

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=3609

If you want to answer this post:
- when it depends this post only, continue to the link above!
- when it depends to the subject, continue here.

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So, i had an idea to improve the current system of underground transport belts to something more useful. Don't you find annoying when you're building a long line of pipe-to-ground system that you have to resurface the pipe every 10 blocks? wouldn't just be better to simply build a line directly to the place where you want said pipe to go to?...

We had that discussions with "levels" in many different forms already (in depth and in height, for bridges, for sky, for the robots and so on).

The devs already stated, that Factorio is a game, where everything you can do should be visible on the map. I called that "WYSIWYP" (what you see is what you play). Exceptions are the ALT-mode and the debug-mode.

So in my eyes this is not an option now.

[sniperXPrime]

The underground belts can be scanned by holding another underground belt in hand and facing it to be an exit then you can just walk along the line to where you want to place your new entrance.