Re: Half Belt Splitter
Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 5:48 pm
I hate when suggestion subforums turn into a circlejerk about how completely perfect the status quo is, and damn anybody who has any idea that changes the game. Sigh.
robhol wrote:I hate when suggestion subforums turn into a circlejerk about how completely perfect the status quo is, and damn anybody who has any idea that changes the game. Sigh.
Can I suggest you to look at this thread or this one?Gammro wrote:A level of conservatism is often found in gaming communities that have been established for a while. This can be seen by the "at least 100 hours" comment made by ssilk, I don't support this. A new player can often bring a fresh look on things that we've accepted as-is. However, I truly believe that this idea in particular is not something I want in my game, and rather have the developers spend their time on things I do like.
In the end I don't make any decisions, but I can try to influence them, exactly like you are doing. That's why I voice my opinion here.
I want to comment this. I mean it not so exact! But when I see some suggestions which are obviously made, because not knowing differently, then I would really say: go on playing and when you really understood come back. The 100 hours is 5-10 more or less normal games. 100 is good to memorize. Maybe 50 would be better... But that's not the point.Gammro wrote:A level of conservatism is often found in gaming communities that have been established for a while. This can be seen by the "at least 100 hours" comment made by ssilk, I don't support this.
Sure! I really want it. This is important.A new player can often bring a fresh look on things that we've accepted as-is.
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Your argument is undermined by the very video you posted. In it it is stated that depth isn't depth if it isn't available to the players, if it isn't something the player is able to make a concious choice about. And can tell you right now that the splitter+underground solution, while clever, is unavailable to the vast majority of players. It simply doesn't occur to them, because those elements aren't designed to function that way. The only available solution is using smart inserters as a filter, and that's a very ugly solution to such a simple problem.Gammro wrote:Ok, first off, whatch this video on depth vs. complexity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU
This is needed to understand what I mean by depth and complexity, and how my opinion formed.
The way I see it, this is adding a part that is specifically designed to do something you can already do in the game, except it's now made into one block. This does increase the complexity of the game, because you now have to learn the function of yet another building block. But it also makes the previous option obsolete, removing the depth added by using the base game mechanics to your advantage. I know some people think this is an exploit because it's not intended, I don't. I think it's a solid piece of engineering and using the mechanics given to us by the game to our advantage. I think non-intended game mechanics are signs that there's depth beyond what's explicitly given, and that it's a good quality a game can have.
They do work. In fact, it is the only purpose I've really found for them. From a pure depth-vs-complexity view I'd rather add this item and remove smart inserters. I think that would cause more interesting gameplay than the reverse situation we currently have.Garm wrote:Why everyone is concentrating on underground hack when smart inserters can perform similar function in legit way?
I don't have a solid opinion for or against this idea of one-belt split, the need haven't arose for me to use a device like that yet, but I do understand why it is demanded so often.Garm wrote:Why everyone is concentrating on underground hack when smart inserters can perform similar function in legit way?
khh wrote:They do work. In fact, it is the only purpose I've really found for them. From a pure depth-vs-complexity view I'd rather add this item and remove smart inserters. I think that would cause more interesting gameplay than the reverse situation we currently have.Garm wrote:Why everyone is concentrating on underground hack when smart inserters can perform similar function in legit way?
Agree 100%. Smart inserters are the core of the game.Garm wrote:Are you serious?
smart inserters have a humongous amount of uses.
They can allow you to send 3+ items on a single belt. In fact my personal record was 20 different items on a looping belt.
They can let you mine mixed ore fields and then separate ores by type onto separate belts
They can work with logic network allowing on demand boiler systems.
They can allow extensive routing systmes with 100% precise custom splits.
They are huge blessing in mixed cargo trains allowing not only custom loading and unloading, but loading/unloading at same time.
They can fill a single line of a belt with custom pattern of items
They are logic gates!
and this is just tip of the iceberg....
That is depth!
No it's not. There are other ways. For example, entering another belt from the side, using 2 belst run in paralell and smart inserters, (If your factory clogs, you have an entire different problem, which in turn can be fixed by some chests acting as buffers)Hyena Grin wrote:If your intent is to fully separate two lanes of a belt, the only way to do this without the potential to gum up the works is to use a loop and two smart inserters. That way anything that is missed will end up cycling around to be picked up again. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to transfer both lanes of a linear belt onto a loop and still maintain the two-lane setup. So you need to start your 'system' with a loop, or use an additional two smart inserters before the loop, to separate a dead-end belt onto the loop in the appropriate lanes. On the whole, this becomes a rather large, energy inefficient, and problematic design.
That's what you and the people here aren't getting. Factorio is not an easy game, and it wasn't meant to be so!!!Hyena Grin wrote:So no, I don't think that a loop + 4 smart inserters is a good stand-in for something which should be easily accomplished with one tile and little to no energy cost.
Exactly my point. It is not meant for you to have a 2x2 factory. The idea of this game is to FORCE you to expand, and to find the way for everything to work automated and without clogging.Hyena Grin wrote:Maybe there are other designs using smart inserters which are error-proof. But that's not really the point. If someone can show me a design which uses two or less smart inserters (not underground belts) and requires no more than 3x3 tiles then they might have an argument. Anything more than that is, in my opinion, not really a solution for such a simple problem. It's an over-engineered, energy inefficient mess that cannot be replicated frequently without a serious drain on energy and space, for performing a task which should be incredibly easy to do.
Wellcome to Factorio! THIS is what the game is all about! That's the beauty of it, and if you spend a few extra hours playing it (IDK if 100h, but 20 or 30 maybe) you'll come to realize it!Hyena Grin wrote:That is, I think, where the frustration lies. There is this enormous gap between how simple a task belt separation ought to be, and how complex and over-engineered the proposed solutions are.
How many of those factories are in another world, and have lasser turrets around and get attacked by aliens?Hyena Grin wrote:You cannot walk into a factory without seeing a belt separator in some form or another. Sometimes they are complex things and sometimes they are literally just a metal sheet which divides a belt into halves, but they are never as ridiculously over-engineered as are required in the game.
He means that you'll realize that there are a handfull of situations where you'll use only one side of the belt for one thing, and the other for another.ssilk wrote: [...]when I see some suggestions which are obviously made, because not knowing differently, then I would really say: go on playing and when you really understood come back. The 100 hours is 5-10 more or less normal games.
Sedado77 wrote: Again, I wasn't against this before, I even sugested it!: In THIS THREAD and also in THIS OTHER.
Then I played Factorio, watched some LP's (OfficialStuffPlus is GREAT) and discovered to my surprise that I WAS WRONG
Just go and play a little bit more. If in a week's play you still think the same, come and say it again. But you probably won't.
Sedado77 wrote:Wellcome to Factorio! THIS is what the game is all about! That's the beauty of it, and if you spend a few extra hours playing it (IDK if 100h, but 20 or 30 maybe) you'll come to realize it!Hyena Grin wrote:That is, I think, where the frustration lies. There is this enormous gap between how simple a task belt separation ought to be, and how complex and over-engineered the proposed solutions are.
Then you should actually be in favour of removing the current splitter. It is a very complex, specialised thing yet its function can be implemented by chaining 2 very simple operations together:Sedado77 wrote: Exactly my point. It is not meant for you to have a 2x2 factory. The idea of this game is to FORCE you to expand, and to find the way for everything to work automated and without clogging.
I think a lot of the splitter discussions that keep popping up are fundamentally caused because the current splitter violates the "simple tools that do 1 thing, and do them perfectly" idea that Factorio is based on, yet we miss the simple tools that are actually the basis of its functioning. And in most cases the current splitter doesn't actually perform quite as we would like it to. Lets look at the current use-cases for the splitter (if I miss one, please post, with how you would solve it with the above two mentioned simple tools):slpwnd wrote:... philosophy of Factorio when you are supposed to work out your solution from simple components...
IMO, you're not giving any new functionality AND you're replacing only 1 entity with 2... there (again, IMO) is nothing of what you say, you can't do with splitters as they are: (I'd post screenshots if I could, but I'm @work and internet security doesn't allow me)DrNoid wrote:Sedado77 wrote:Wellcome to Factorio! THIS is what the game is all about! That's the beauty of it, and if you spend a few extra hours playing it (IDK if 100h, but 20 or 30 maybe) you'll come to realize it!Hyena Grin wrote:That is, I think, where the frustration lies. There is this enormous gap between how simple a task belt separation ought to be, and how complex and over-engineered the proposed solutions are.Then you should actually be in favour of removing the current splitter. It is a very complex, specialised thing yet its function can be implemented by chaining 2 very simple operations together:Sedado77 wrote: Exactly my point. It is not meant for you to have a 2x2 factory. The idea of this game is to FORCE you to expand, and to find the way for everything to work automated and without clogging.Individually those two operations are easier to understand than the current splitter, yet by combining those two you can cover all functionalities of the current splitter.
- The lane splitter (a simple piece of metal that pushes one lane off the belt)
- The lane re-balancer. (takes the input lanes, and outputs the items neatly distributed over the output lanes)
I think a lot of the splitter discussions that keep popping up are fundamentally caused because the current splitter violates the "simple tools that do 1 thing, and do them perfectly" idea that Factorio is based on, yet we miss the simple tools that are actually the basis of its functioning. And in most cases the current splitter doesn't actually perform quite as we would like it to. Lets look at the current use-cases for the splitter (if I miss one, please post, with how you would solve it with the above two mentioned simple tools):slpwnd wrote:... philosophy of Factorio when you are supposed to work out your solution from simple components...
- A belt with 1 lane filled needs to be split in two: 1 re-balancer to put stuff on both lanes, followed by a lane-splitter. This doesn't even need the complex "lift items over a lane to the other belt" functionality of the current splitter.
- A belt with 2 lanes, filled with the same stuff, needs to be split in two belts, each with only 1 lane: 1 lane-splitter, done. In this case it's even simpler than the current splitter, since that puts stuff on two lanes.
- A belt with two lanes of different things needs to be split in two belts with two lanes of different things: 1 lane-splitter, each side followed by a re-balancer and another lane-splitter. Then 1 underground belt to swap the places of the middle two belts, and finally you have the left-two merge and the right-two merge. This is the use-case the current splitter was made for, yet it is still pretty easy to do with simpler tools.
- A belt with two lanes of different stuff, need to be split into two belts, each with only 1 type: 1 lane-splitter. This use-case requires the ugly underground-belt trick at the moment.
- A belt with stuff mostly on one lane (that fills up too much) needs to be spread better over both lanes: 1 re-balancer. For re-balancing purposes the current splitter only works well if one lane is completely empty. If both lanes have things, the split-and-merge trick doesn't work very well.
- Merge stuff from two belts onto one: A T-junction of belts, with a re-balancer if need be. I have never used a splitter for this.
It's not about using less tools, it's about using simpler tools with a much clearer behaviour. The current splitter is a black-box with some weird behaviour, which is why you can not see what happens on the inside. Combining simpler tools is better than using a complex tool, as stated by a dev.Sedado77 wrote: (... A lot of repeating what I said...)
IMO, you're not giving any new functionality AND you're replacing only 1 entity with 2... there (again, IMO) is nothing of what you say, you can't do with splitters as they are: (I'd post screenshots if I could, but I'm @work and internet security doesn't allow me)
For Reference: I put "side A/B" for the output sides of the splitter and "X/Y" for the input.
(... More mostly repeating what I said ...)
As you see, in 6 cases, you only made 1 simpler.
For the rest, we already have the tools for doing them.
Let me just explain the simplicity of the splitter. All "weird" behaviour you claim happens, stems from this basic behaviour, making them very logical results:DrNoid wrote: It's not about using less tools, it's about using simpler tools with a much clearer behaviour. The current splitter is a black-box with some weird behaviour, which is why you can not see what happens on the inside.
Using simpler tools makes all use-cases simpler (where simpler means more predictable & easier to follow), because you can actually follow the individual items.
If there's time between items that get inserted(so no items at the same time on the input), this is very clear. This is a result of the above stated rule. If the 1st item is on the left side of the belt, it would be sent to output 1. The next item, regardless of on what side of the belt it's on, gets sent to output 2. So when you send items in a perfect ratio, all items on the (in this example) left side after that are at the odd(1,3,5,7 etc) point where the inserter will send it to output 1. And all the items on the right side, will be input at all even(2,4,6,8 etc.) points where it will be sent to output 2.A belt with 1 item-type on it, perfectly balanced on both lanes (left-right-left-right, etc.). Split that and I would expect two belts with perfectly balanced lanes, yet that is not what happens.
This is not possible, the splitter doesn't look at what is inserted. So with the exact same input pattern, the same output would happen. My suspicion is that the belts are filled in this example, versus empty(ish) in the previous one.But if you split a belt with two item types on it (f.i. metal left, copper right), in the exact same pattern (left-right,left,right, etc.), you do get the expected output.