1-1 belt balancer

[Albijoe]

I propose a "belt balancer" item which is as wide as one belt, which will balance or equally spread belt traffic across both lanes of a single belt.

The point: if something is needed frequently, it should be intrinsic to the game instead of requiring construction. If something is needed frequently, it should be easy to use, rather than awkward.

I feel the current belt balancer constructions, especially at the most basic level / one belt, are more difficult to build than they should be and take up more space than they should for something almost required.

How it would work: the belt balancer would be similar to a splitter, or even exactly using the splitter logic. As an ideal, the balancer would take each lane of s belt and send its items on alternating lanes. One lane would become staggered, and two lanes would become interwoven. With this same ideal, a perfectly interwoven belt would be unwoven by another balancer.

As I said, the point is not new functionality but making the construction simpler and more efficient in space. I see potential for new functionality as a nice side.

[Koub]

The point: if something is needed frequently, it should be intrinsic to the game instead of requiring construction.

This does not make sense : I frequently need assembling machines with inserters on the side, that's not a reason to add assembling machines with integrated inserters. Same thing with burner + 2 steam engines, and many more "things I often do".

Factorio's philosophy is more like "few items, but you can do anything you want with them", instead of "numerous items, each for a single use".

This should remain in the mod real, which is good, as there are already mods that do that :
https://mods.factorio.com/query/single% ... rsion=0.17

[darkfrei]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Lane-Balancer

[Darinth]

I don't see a need to make a 1-tile lane balancer. I actually enjoy having to find the space to place them. What I would like to see is the ability to place down a blueprint and in the process automatically order deconstruction of everything (including my own structures/belts/etc...) that are in the way. This would simplify putting down balancer blueprints by automatically deconstructing belts in the way.

[Albijoe]

This does not make sense : I frequently need assembling machines with inserters on the side, that's not a reason to add assembling machines with integrated inserters.

A very interesting point, and I will not completely refute it. But if this is the case, why have nuclear power and turbines? Why not just allow for more steam engines? Why not have the lowest level of assembler do everything researched, instead of limitations and multiple tiers? Why have trains, when belts and pipes can perform the same task simpler, as long as you construct it?

To me, Factorio has a fundamental goal of allowing efficiency, flow, and ease of scale. The posts regarding balancers I read seem to lack flow and ease of scale, and the size of these things seem to point to some level of lack of efficiency. At the fundamental level, I feel it is not space efficient to need more space than an assembling machine to balance a belt, even in it's most simpler form.

With that said, I count myself as a logical newbie at Factorio. I am not to a megabase level. I will leave my arguments at this and enjoy any further responses

[Koub]

An all-in-one integrated balancer is just a convenience thing. Nothing one can't do with the current items available in the game.
Nuclear power opens a whole new content (mining drills requiring fluids, new processing, enrichment process, depleted cells reprocessing, new logistics, building constraints, ...).
I see an item dedicated to belt balancing as a "lazy" item. It just removes part of Factorio's puzzle.

Bear in mine all this is my personal opinion, and it's fine not to agree with me. However, the devs have already expressed their desire not to bloat the game with more items than necessary, and especially on the belt part, so don't be too hopeful .

[Deadlock989]

Any fix-it-for-me all-in-one machine which kills off creative options using the other tools in the game is very unwelcome to me. See also all the threads about magic train stops, trains with ESP, trains that are also robots, robots that are also trains, belts that have "infinite speed", beans that are also peas etc.

Mind you, belts should only have had 1 lane in the first place.

[Tekillaa]

Hello,

trying to make a belt balancer (or use evenly each side of a belt)is one of the first puzzle/difficulty of the game, to my PoV, this need can easily be solved with a good use of your belt distribution, and if the need to balance remains, people are use to set pattern for a 1 belt balancer https://factoriocheatsheet.com

For me, trying to make a good use of both sides of a conveyor belt is in the core of the classic game and the item you asking for just crush this part (which is fun to me). If you got some difficulties to solve those problems, or you dont want to have those problem to solve, you should take a look into some mods.

Create one item to just do this is not truely necessary for my Pov, maybe a feature on the actual splitter. You can try the mod mini loader https://mods.factorio.com/mods/therax/miniloader

Here you can see why the loader (and maybe any idea near from loaders) stay in a mod https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-128
We need to be carefull on how we manage to make the belt side balancing, our productivity depends on a good distribution, it's part of the game, and the item that you asking for seems to be a (too powerful for me) shortcut for a vanilla save (game without mods), at least for the game start.

In conclusion, for me, i can see loaders or item like you asking for available only for the late game (space science pack research maybe?), only when the player know how to do without first? But in the early game, truely too much overpower.

Have fun! Factorio is Awesome