Factorio Forums

Hello,
I know the trick to swap/split lanes of a belt with the underground belt trick.
But I don't use it.
Why? I feel like it's an exploit, like cheating. I feel like it's an ugly way to solve a problem.
Mainly because the art of the underground belts looks like they cannot to that:

That is my feeling.
So, I think you shouldn't remove the "trick", but you could "open" this part of the underground belt where items can pass through.

Yes, this is without any doubt needed.

Agreed. As it is, it is very unintuitive why items can enter from one side of it but not the other; they are equally blocked by the hood.

Though, it's hard to imagine a new art solution for this. Feel free to post your ideas (pictures can help)
Maybe create a little gap (20% of the size of a plastic bar) would be enough
Maybe the openned side could be something like this Or a metallic "cat door" Also you could have the new art active only when there is a belt connected to it

I would much rather that they update the graphics than remove this feature. Especially considering it could break many designs.

As I re-read this thread I saw, that my answer could be misunderstood. Of course I thought: Yes, the underground belt needs a change: We need a new graphic for it. I use this "trick" some dozen times in each factory and it is extremely useful.

Yea, I assume the devs intentionally designed this underground belt ability. This is why they won't create new type of belts (such as a divider one)

Pretty strange imo. I mean there are so many features that could inherit this and yet an underground belt is suposed to do this? ....... I would suggest that this could be given to the belt scanner, which then could block a chosen/set up side of the belt. This would help the usage of 1 belt for 2 different items. Just insert a hatch at the end of the scanner that comes down or opens ("activates" on condition) and its good. I do see the urge for nice tricks by the devs, but when everything else gets so realistic even with networks and combiners, why the need for this? An 3x4 area for simple lane swap also seems kind of silly, especially when its not the only belt where this needs to happen.

Well, you can always look at real life

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Admittedly, all too large, but Belts turn faster than cars. So, one lane goes up (visually at least) crosses, over, while the other one crosses over. Also need those blocks that can block item pathing, or else those custom splitters which did the same, back before Belt optimization.
Or you could make a 1 lane splitter than swaps sides, and both it and the regular splitters are customizable like circuit network config. Lock individual lane. Map x input to y lane. Etc.

FasterJump wrote:Though, it's hard to imagine a new art solution for this.

Excuse my quick and dirty image manipulation.

That is exactly what I think about.

5thHorseman wrote:Excuse my quick and dirty image manipulation.

Yea, it could also be a rectangle openning: I agree that's it's a bit odd that underground has this ability, but it's devs choice, it allow to have a minimal number of belt types in the game.

And I think with this kind of image change most players will find this trick themselves.