Idea Some advanced transport belt

[Zehir]

Hello, I have some idea for advanced transport belt. I think it can be found at the same time as the underground. A picture is worth a lengthy explanation. Do not hesitate to post a question

Advanced transport belt Design 1.0

Sans titre.png (148.66 KiB) Viewed 19157 times

[Hanse00]

You could have done a search first to see I've already suggested two of those, and added yours to that thread instead of making a new one :p
That said, I like the best that splits things 50/50, but must of the others don't completely make sense to me.

[MF-]

Left and right blocks are already in.. If you agree that that underground belt trickery is a feature

[Mysteria9]

Left and right blocks are already in.. If you agree that that underground belt trickery is a feature

Considering the devs seem to have fixed the unreliability regarding that, yes! And I love it.

[kovarex]

The half is already in the game since 0.2.9 and it is called splitter
It has little-bit different shape but it is what it does, it splits the belt into left/right belt and preserves the left/right side of items on the belt.
Some example of it's usage is here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=8&t=405

Edit: The reverser is piece I really wanted as well, but I'm not really sure about it.
We need to think really well before adding new piece, we need to ask these questions:

• Does it add functionality that is very hard (or not possible) to do other way?
• Doesn't it make something that requires planning too simple to solve?
• Isn't it too specialised? (Our mantra is: easy to learn, hard to master, 100 specialised factory pieces aren't easy to learn)
• Is it elegant and easy to understand? (Easily visualised)
• Is it fun to use?
• Is it easy to setup?

The problem with the reverser is mainly the 2nd point, the fact, that you need to plan ahead (what is on left/right) gives some strategy.

Anyway, in the future, when we are not sure if the piece is not mistake to do, we will try to make the mod support good enough, that it would be possible (and hopefully easy) to make with mod. That way we can see how it works before officially adding it to the game.

P.S. Don't get me wrong these ideas are nice, and certainly all worth considering, I'm just used to think critically about all ideas (regardless if mine or others).

[Nova]

I don't like the whole kind of "tricks with transport belts". I think they look bugged, glitched or just not "right".

An example:

way of evening incoming materials on two lines on a transport belt

aufteilung.png (112.42 KiB) Viewed 19105 times

Of course we could use some smart combinations of the existing transport belts, but does this look good? No, i don't think so. Building a factory is like programming with HTML, or just art: If it looks terrible, then it is no good solution and should be cancelled.


Reverser: I didn't need it yet, but there could surely be a intended use.
Left / right block: Useful for the end of an "smelter line": The coal will be further transported to the copper smelter, while the iron ore stays behind to be only used in the iron smelter. (As example)
Double: Well... I don't know if this should be implemented. Someone else should tell his/her opinion on this. ^^
Half: We got the "splitter" already, but maybe would this be an alternative.

Some other advanced transport belts. All names are just temporaly. A native English speaker should invent some better names, not a German native speaker, which can only speak enough English to converse in a forum with some terrible mistakes. ^^ (Correct me if you want. )
Even distributer: Distributes all incoming materials evenly on both lines of the transport belt.
Left / right merger: Merges all materials on the left/right side of the transport belt. (Two items, left and right, would have to be implemented.) (Was suggested in another thread.)


All "special transport belts" could have to be researched. But first we should discuss, if this advanced features should be implemented. After that we could talk about the way of constructing them. ^^

[Hanse00]

I do get your point, however I would like to point out that that specific setup can be done a lot easier.

[Nova]

Yeah, i have noticed this improvement too. But if the incoming material is sometimes on the middle of the belt, it has to be at least the first construction. You can see the disadvantage of you transport belt in the second picture. (Could be solved with another transport belt trick, but that would make the belt even larger.)

transport belt.png (436.82 KiB) Viewed 19071 times

[Mysteria9]

I don't like the whole kind of "tricks with transport belts". I think they look bugged, glitched or just not "right".

Building a factory is like programming with HTML, or just art: If it looks terrible, then it is no good solution and should be cancelled.

I strongly disagree. A big part of the charm with this game is to manage things like this, in my opinion.

[Nova]

Well, then we have to find a solution for this disagreement. ^^

[rk84]

Well, then we have to find a solution for this disagreement. ^^

Custom textures. Mayby make the cover part bigger? I believe current ones are just temporary textures to make it able release content with good pace.

[Hanse00]

Yeah, i have noticed this improvement too. But if the incoming material is sometimes on the middle of the belt, it has to be at least the first construction. You can see the disadvantage of you transport belt in the second picture. (Could be solved with another transport belt trick, but that would make the belt even larger.)

Fair enough, this is starting to not be smaller than your design, but you could still at least fit in in a 2 wide space.

No matter where the item is on the input belt, it'll get sorted properly for the output (and on top of that, I don't know about you, but I don't tend to ever be in a situation where I have something on the middle of the belt)

[MF-]

Same here, I only rarely get stuff in the middle.
And If I do, I can remedy the fact somewhere on the line.

[Nova]

It needs at least 3x2 tiles of space, sometimes even 4x2 tiles.

Items are on the middle of the belt if an inserter or an electric mining drill drops them and the transport belt leads directly away from the object. (Of course you can change the placement on the belt in most cases. Just saying.)

I understand the principle of "finding and discovering" of new conveyor circuits, but maybe we could connect this with something like the crafting table from minecraft: It would be possible to create a small object, which can contain a bigger conveyor circuit. But i think this would be too much work for such a small thing. ^^

[MF-]

I don't see much reasons for miniaturizing belts.
The items would stay the size they are.

And you can zoom out if you want things to get smaller.

[Nova]

I mean just to have a 4x2 conveyor circuit inside a 2x1 / 1x1 object. Just for saving place and don't have this ugly "trick belts" to see. But like i said, i think this would be too much work for such a small thing. ^^

[Hanse00]

Honestly I think space management is a large part of it, it is for me at least, trying to get what you want in the least possible space.
At the same time, like mentioned by kovarex, it's simpler to make and learn 1 object, and try using it different ways than learning to use 10 different track objects.

[ssilk]

Most of this is implemented. The rest will never be implemented.