Factorio Forums

I have a minor suggestion that would make my life easier at least. So most items can be "upgraded" in place. For example, wooden boxes can be upgraded to iron, steel, or smart boxes in place for example. Yellow belts can be upgraded to Red Belts or to Blue Belts as well.

I'd like to request that belts can be upgraded into splitters. I dunno how hard this would be to implement (mainly: I recognize that splitters are physically larger than the item they're replacing), but it'd make "tapping" a line a little bit easier. A major routine in my games is to "remove belt then place splitter". Life would be a little bit quicker if that could just be "place splitter to upgrade belt in place".

Basically put the in the same fast replace group.

I'm not sure: You can currently fast-replace only items of the same size (which makes somehow sense?).
On the other hand I don't know how many hundred times I thought to fast replace splitter (or underground belt) and vice versa.

ssilk wrote:I'm not sure: You can currently fast-replace only items of the same size (which makes somehow sense?).

I don't know why is there such limitation.

Related thread, with a lot of players already wishing for that feature:
allow replacing belts with splitters ☸ [Ideas and Suggestions ‹ Forum-Ready Suggestions]

hitzu wrote:

ssilk wrote:I'm not sure: You can currently fast-replace only items of the same size (which makes somehow sense?).

I don't know why is there such limitation.

Another limitation of the current implementation of fast replace groups is that they are always working both ways. You can upgrade basic transport belts with faster/express belts without problems and you can also downgrade them, in that case it's a good thing. But when it comes to replacing belts with splitters only one direction might be desired, it would be a bad idea to allow transport belts to replace splitters when trying to upgrade the belts of a main bus that has lots of splitters inbetween.

ssilk wrote:I'm not sure: You can currently fast-replace only items of the same size (which makes somehow sense?).

Perhaps not. I've seen images of people replacing warehouses (large) with storage chests (1x1) and then show the resulting items spreading everywhere. I don't know if warehouses being a mod interacts with this in any way.

mooklepticon wrote:

ssilk wrote:I'm not sure: You can currently fast-replace only items of the same size (which makes somehow sense?).

Perhaps not. I've seen images of people replacing warehouses (large) with storage chests (1x1) and then show the resulting items spreading everywhere. I don't know if warehouses being a mod interacts with this in any way.

You've probably seen this image: https://imgur.com/W8Dyz9X
Warehouses from the mod come in different inventory sizes but with the same grid size so they are fast replaceable with each other causing the item spill, but it's not possible to replace them with smaller/larger (grid size) storage chests.

I tested it just now with a small mod that put the splitter into the transport-belt fast replaceable group, but the splitter stayed red when trying to build it over a transport belt.

daniel34 wrote:
I tested it just now with a small mod that put the splitter into the transport-belt fast replaceable group, but the splitter stayed red when trying to build it over a transport belt.

If I had to guess, perhaps it's because they weren't in the same place? (given that they're different sizes, it may not be possible for them to be in the same place, ever.)

Can you replace a splitter with a splitter going the other direction?

mooklepticon wrote:

ssilk wrote:I'm not sure: You can currently fast-replace only items of the same size (which makes somehow sense?).

Perhaps not. I've seen images of people replacing warehouses (large) with storage chests (1x1) and then show the resulting items spreading everywhere. I don't know if warehouses being a mod interacts with this in any way.

Hm. So what we can say now is this: Sometimes it makes no sense to downgrade an entity.
Implementing this would make sense; some kind of "fast-upgrade" instead "fast-replace".

Edit: I added a new list: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=30575 Fast Upgrade (Belt->Splitters, Small Chests -> Bigger Chests... etc.)