Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

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dog80
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Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by dog80 »

As i can see it a splitter is a machine where the items go *in then magic happens and then come *out... so why can you in this process take out or drop items from/into it? it doesnt make any sence
its kindof the same with underground belt but nvm

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Koub »

In French, we'd say "TGCM" (which would translate into "Shut Up It's Magic")
It would seem that a wizard did it :P
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by mrvn »

You can take out or put things into furnaces or assembler too. So what exactly is your point?

Afraid of getting your fingers caught in the mechanics of a splitter?

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by dog80 »

mrvn wrote:You can take out or put things into furnaces or assembler too. So what exactly is your point?

Afraid of getting your fingers caught in the mechanics of a splitter?
what? do furnaces / assemblers have a inputbelt mechanics too? didnt see that before

jokes aside

the point is that it is not intuitively understandable why you are able to drop/take from splitters/underground belt... it takes the step to "learn" that... and that is "confusing" .... and that is bad... ^^

any sane person would never come to the idea to drop sth on a splitter, how would that even work? - there is even a beltconnection already build in... so why would i want to drop sth on there with an inserter??? are you joking... (not you)

----

this would be a beginners tooltip "" as ::: Hey Player, did you know???? you can drop/take items on splitters/underground belt??? -- it doesnt make any sence at all but you can :DD want more tipps? -- uhh what? ok well good to know... are there any more special rules i didnt know yet? oh ... this is page 1/1000 ... uhhh man i just want to play the game...

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by mrvn »

Note: You aren't dropping on the splitter but on the part of belt before or after it. It also matters where you drop items with an inserter.
Last edited by mrvn on Mon May 28, 2018 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by dog80 »

mrvn wrote:Note: You aren't dropping on the inserter but on the part of belt before or after it. It also matters where you drop items with an inserter.
yes i know but when you look closely the small belt part is not even part of the square - so to me its just an indication where the belt should go

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by steinio »

Gratulations, another REMOVE something from the game thread.
How about removing all fun from the game?

The devs took several years to implemment all existing stuff with such passion and love and these days there are all this remove this and that shitty posts everwhere.
I recommend to shut up.
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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Selvek »

In my opinion the only problem with dropping things on splitters is that it's not obvious whether they will be dropped before or after the split. A graphical fix would probably solve this, similar to the graphical fix which gets brought up every so often to make it obvious why underground belts work as lane-blockers.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Hannu »

dog80 wrote:the point is that it is not intuitively understandable why you are able to drop/take from splitters/underground belt... it takes the step to "learn" that... and that is "confusing" .... and that is bad... ^^
Then you just do not put or take things from splitters. Problem solved. It should not hurt you if such functionality exists and someone else uses it.
this would be a beginners tooltip "" as ::: Hey Player, did you know???? you can drop/take items on splitters/underground belt???
Beginner can play very well without knowing. I played many games through and launched thousands of rockets before I noticed that it is actually possible. I try avoid it because, like you wrote, it does not feel consistent gaming. Despite of that I do not see reasonable to demand removing that functionality. It is not necessary to build anything and I know that many players use it in their buildings. There are and will be hundreds of unrealistic or unaesthetic (in my opinion) etc. "problems" in all games. It should be possible to handle them and find own ways to play. If not, I recommend to find some other hobby than videogames.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Hedning1390 »

I can place on everything. If I couldn't place on splitters then that would be the odd one out. That would get very confusing imo.

No, what should change about splitters is to make them consistent with belts, and preferably always place on the input side if possible.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Tekky »

I strongly agree with the OP that it should not be possible for inserters to interact directly with splitters and underground belts. In fact, over a year ago, I even created my own suggestion thread on this topic:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45466 Disallow inserters from interacting with underground belts

In that thread, I explained why I consider this "feature" to be an ugly unintuitive cheat.
Hannu wrote:
dog80 wrote:the point is that it is not intuitively understandable why you are able to drop/take from splitters/underground belt... it takes the step to "learn" that... and that is "confusing" .... and that is bad... ^^
Then you just do not put or take things from splitters. Problem solved. It should not hurt you if such functionality exists and someone else uses it.
I strongly disagree with this statement. As long as this functionality exists, everyone is forced to use it, if they want to stay competitive with other players.

In competitive multiplayer (PvP), my opponent will have an unfair advantage over me, if he can create more efficient layouts than me, by using ugly unintuitive "cheats" like the one described in this thread. Therefore, if I want to stay competitive with him, I am forced to use these ugly unintuitive "cheats", too. However, if the game prevented players from using these "cheats", then everyone could have a fair game without anyone having an unfair advantage.

Also, part of the appeal of Factorio is finding the most efficient layouts and comparing them to those of other players. In that respect, Factorio is a competitive multiplayer game, even if you do not play PvP. It is not fun to compete with other players who use ugly unintuitive cheats to gain an unfair advantage.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Hedning1390 »

Why are you so strongly against it? Both the underground and the splitter have naked belt parts where an inserter could easily place some items. And as said earlier inserters can place on everything, including the very much covered assemblers and furnaces, so it just makes sense that splitters and undergrounds are included.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Tekky »

Hedning1390 wrote:Why are you so strongly against it?
I have explained this in detail in my own suggestion thread to which I provided a link in my post above. Here is a quote of my most important post of that thread:
Tekky wrote:After spending a further several months playing Factorio, I must say that I find that this issue increasingly annoying.

Since Factorio is all about finding the most efficient and compact layouts, it would make sense that there should be certain rules in place which prevent players to "cheat" by doing absurd things, such as placing items directly into a splitter/underground belt. The graphics (and common sense) clearly suggest that it should only be possible to place items onto the belt before or after a splitter/underground belt, but not directly into it.

Because the game allows players to "cheat" in this way, it is my strong opinion that the game offers the players too much freedom in this respect.

Also, in my opinion, it causes the game's graphics to look ugly, when the game allows layouts which the graphics imply should not be possible.

Whenever I see someone use such "cheaty" and ugly layouts in multiplayer games, it breaks immersion for me every time.

I really like the current graphics. Therefore, in contrast to what I stated before, I am no longer in favor of changing the graphics to imply that such "cheaty" actions are possible. I am instead in favor of disallowing inserters (and miners) from placing items directly into inserters/underground belts.

As I stated before, I realize that this will cause many people's bases from functioning. However, this issue of backward compatibility could be resolved by introducing a less restrictive game mode (which is disabled by default) or by requiring users to download a mod which lifts these restrictions.
In short, in my opinion, either the graphics should be changed, or this functionality should be removed altogether. I believe removing the functionality would be best, because I really like the current graphics.

This would also make the behavior of underground belts consistent with the behavior of underground pipes. Currently, underground pipes do not allow any direct interaction from the side:
demonstration of underground pipe interaction from the side
demonstration of underground pipe interaction from the side
pipe.jpg (25.23 KiB) Viewed 4973 times
Why should it be any different with underground belts, especially since the graphics also imply that interaction should not be possible?
demonstration of underground belt interaction from the side
demonstration of underground belt interaction from the side
u_belt.jpg (26.04 KiB) Viewed 4973 times
Last edited by Tekky on Sun May 27, 2018 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by LukeM »

The top priority should be to make the game fun to play, and as Factorio is basically a puzzle game that means having mechanics that lead to interesting puzzles.

For belts, using underground belts to seperate sides of the belt is one of these mechanics, and I think removing this would make these puzzles a lot less fun, as it would basically force you into using inserters for everything rather than creating your own ways to get what you want where you want it.

As for pipes, underground pipes not allowing you to connect to the side is the mechanic that would lead to the best puzzles, as without it you would have to have large gaps between your pipes so they don't connect where you don't want them to, which would lead to much less compact, much more boring setups.

To conclude, if anything is changed then it should be the graphics as enjoyment should always come first, you shouldn't make a change that would make the game less fun even if it did make logical sense.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Tekky »

LukeM wrote:For belts, using underground belts to seperate sides of the belt is one of these mechanics, and I think removing this would make these puzzles a lot less fun, as it would basically force you into using inserters for everything rather than creating your own ways to get what you want where you want it.
I agree that being able to seperate the individual lanes of a belt is an important feature. However, using underground belt pieces for this is an ugly, unintuitive hack. In my opinion, it would be better if the game provided this feature using a different entity, for example a programmable splitter. This has already been discussed in detail the following threads:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=56248 Shouldn't unmerging a belt be as simple as merging it?
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48047 Underground belt lane splitting, anyone else hate it?

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Hedning1390 »

Tekky wrote:
Hedning1390 wrote:Why are you so strongly against it?
I have explained this in detail in my own suggestion thread to which I provided a link in my post above. Here is a quote of my most important post of that thread:
I read your post before making mine and you just complained about pulling through roofs, which doesn't make any sense, as I explained.

Your picture is deceptive too as it isn't clear that half the underground is not fully covered. In fact the underground blocking only half is imo one of the cornerstones of factorio belt design. It is part in the very famous lane balancer.

Belts and pipes are fundamentally different in that pipes flows and splits in any direction while belts are directional and needs splitters to split. They cannot be compared. Inserters cannot interact with any pipe, straight or underground.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by mrvn »

Also note that inserter / splitter interaction is already perfect. Use bobs adjustable inserters to play with this. If an inserter drops items before the spliter then they will be split to both output lanes. On the other hand if you adjust it to drop items after the splitter then they will only go to the side you drop them on.

So all that might be needed is to make the graphics clearer to show where the inserter will drop items. Showing that it drops items in the middle of the splitter is not right.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Tekky »

mrvn wrote:Also note that inserter / splitter interaction is already perfect. Use bobs adjustable inserters to play with this. If an inserter drops items before the spliter then they will be split to both output lanes. On the other hand if you adjust it to drop items after the splitter then they will only go to the side you drop them on.
It is nice that the splitter behaves differently depending on the drop location. However, the current implementation is not ideal, because there are still two problems:
  • The game does not force you to set the drop location to either before or after the splitter. By default, it drops the item directly on to the splitter.
  • It is not possible to adjust the drop location at all in vanilla Factorio. A mod (e.g. Bob's Adjustable Inserters) is required.
Therefore, I still think the best solution to these issues is to simply not allow inserters to directly interact with splitters and underground belt pieces.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Hannu »

Tekky wrote:However, using underground belt pieces for this is an ugly, unintuitive hack. In my opinion, it would be better if the game provided this feature using a different entity, for example a programmable splitter. This has already been discussed in detail the following threads:
I see your reasons in PvP gaming. However, in my opinion it is not enough good reason to change the game. Possibility to utilize splitters and undergrounds with unorthodox ways give more diversity in the game and more varying and interesting constructions. Ugliness is personal opinion and not good reason to change any game. There are no problems in technical or realistic sense. There are some length of free belt and real robot arm would be very easy to program to drop or take an item from free belt. Factorio inserters are very limited compared to real ones.

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Re: Remove ability to take/drop from/to splitters

Post by Tekky »

Hannu wrote:
Tekky wrote:However, using underground belt pieces for this is an ugly, unintuitive hack. In my opinion, it would be better if the game provided this feature using a different entity, for example a programmable splitter. This has already been discussed in detail the following threads:
Possibility to utilize splitters and undergrounds with unorthodox ways give more diversity in the game and more varying and interesting constructions. Ugliness is personal opinion and not good reason to change any game.
I fully agree with the first statement. However, I strongly disagree with the second statement. In my opinion, the behavior of the individual entities of the game should always be intuitive. It is not intuitive if entities behave in a way that the graphics imply should not be possible.

In this context, I think it is worth quoting something from one of the other discussion threads that I mentioned above:
Tekky wrote:
Caine wrote: Ideally we have a small set of simple components that interact in lots of interesting ways (which boosts creativity) instead of dedicated solutions to specific problems.
I fully agree with this statement. However, I would add that these simple components should always act in an intuitive manner. This is certainly not the case with underground belts, when used as belt lane splitters. It is rather an ugly hack.
This quote was taken from here.

In other words, having a limited set of simple components that can be used in creative, unorthodox ways is one of the great things about Factorio. However, in my opinion, these components should always behave in an intuitive manner. This is not the case if they behave in a way that the graphics imply should not be possible.

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