Friday Facts #128 - Back down to earth

[Ojelle]

or / and maby optimization for mega bases... caz im down to 22 Ups / 25 FPS

I think that is more a priority then the loader

Can you provide the save? I will definitely do some optimisations in the spare time.

I'm at 35ups/fps
At some point I only had 25ups, If i remember correctly that was when my base had a larger resource income. At this point its not fully loaded. If everything is right, my file is attatched

And I'm against the loader in the form you present it. Half the fun is trying to cram enough inserters around assembling machines/trains etc
But if you add it, make it as pricy as MK2 armor. But even then...
And half as performante: just add two + one splitter and you got a full belt again.
Or you could limit the loader to one item type per loader. If it gets something else it doesnt move it.
Edit: didnt read the entire post, so might already have been said

[MeduSalem]

Also concerning the people who would favor the Loader requiring Lube for operation...

That is something quite a lot of the items/entities should be requiring already, not only the Loader. Especially in their more advanced forms. Many of them should be requiring Lube constantly to operate at a faster speed.

Intersting idea. Assembly machine 2+ needing Lube to become faster than assembly machine 1. What would assembly machine 3 need also? Maybe some processing unit for faster coordination. In this case an "Effect transmitter" could be renamed "Control computer" which supports some assembly machines.

Well I had it like this in mind:


Assembling Machines/Furnaces/Chem Plants/etc should all be requring more Lube the faster they have to work (when pushed by Modules/Beacons) or otherwise the machine degrades and burns out due to wear and tear. An optional connection on the assembler could let one pour lube inside them.

For that I would actually remove Assembling Machine 2s and 3s, and just have ONE universal Assemlbing machine, but it could be upgraded almost endless (either with research or additional module slots, or whatever), if you actually have the electricity and lube to power such a ridiculous fast assembler.


Same goes for belts/splitters/underground belts.

I would have removed Fast/Express belts a long time ago to reduce the amount of items and rather have attached an "Belt-Control"-item to each belt that let's the player control the beltspeed of all belt tiles connected to one another. Then you could ramp up the belt speed as much as you want, even with modules or a beacon that boosts the Belt-Control Item. The belt control item would also be the place where one dumps the lube into and the amount required is depending on how many tiles of belt are connected to it and how fast you set them to move.

With no Belt Control Item attached to a belt all belts are working at basic belt speed. Or it could be researched or something, but at some point further speed would require lube or otherwise it would destroy the entire belt.


But it would fundamentally change the gameplay, and would require substantial amount of balancing of the Robot network as well because otherwise people would get sick of belts even faster. It's something I would definitely try to experiment with if I would know how to mod.

[Drury]

I like the idea of fueling it with lubricant because I love every idea that involves attaching pipes to things to make them work.

It's something that is practically unused if we omit chemical plants and certain assembler recipes.

[HumanAbyss]

I've read through most of the thread, and here's my solution to the Loader being OP.

Use the loader explicitly as a "Loader", as in it can only take things from a belt, and run them into a chest, or a automated factory. The loader would no longer be used to empty a chest, or have anything dropped into it. It's sole purpose is to be at the end of a conveyor belt to allow mass transit of your goods into storage containers, smelters, factories, etc. This takes away it's multipurpose uses. It's now a "belt cap" so that trains can be loaded quickly and efficient like real life, so that our factories can get a large shipment of goods, say Gears or Iron Plates all at once, somethings need plenty of those resources, this seems like a method of helping that out.

This method also makes use of the aforementioned Hopper/Loader system by just re purposing what we've already been shown. A hopper loader system in real life loads a container, to load a conveyor belt, to drop into something else. This is essentially that. As a "Belt cap", using this at the end of a given belt would allow it to dump at a high capacity. Now, the other element of this that balances it out, is that it would be a tiered addition. There would be a Belt Level 1 version, Belt 2, Belt 3, just as all our current tech is divided. The lower tier versions of them would have to be balanced to be just more expensive than a row of several inserters but balanced to be just slightly slower, so that it's always a trade off. At the low level, you're always using more materials to accomplish the same thing, slightly slower, but far more space efficiently.

At tier 2, and tier 3, the same thing would have to be attempted. At t3, maybe make them require lube to run so we have to divert piping through our base to supply them.

[Yttrium]

About the 'Loader",

Pros:

• 1) High throughout support for belt loading/unloading.
  2) Makes belts (and trains) more relevant in comparison to robots in the late game.
  3) Train stations could be more compact and faster to build.
  4) High capacity storage based on belts would be easier to build and more useful.

1) I think making insane loading unloading stations with inserters and splitters is half the fun, That item could ruin the whole challenge to make A good compact unloading/loading station.
2) Trains are always relevant in late game, Robots are only OP if you use solar panels, This makes me believe solar energy should be nerfed in some way.
3) See 1.
4) Buffer storages in factorio is NOT a good tactic,
Buffers can be destroyed by biters,
Are difficult to remove once placed and filled up,
Cause pollution, Miners have to run for longer to fill everything up creating more pollution early on.
Only extends the inevitable ( your time is way better spend building outposts than making buffers) PLUS, Every belt, furnace and assembling machine stores materials.
Completely replaces inserters, If this Item works on chests, Why not assembling machines? (This sparked an Idea, why not only use this Item for trains, similair to how coal in real life unloads.)

Those are my complaints but my main issue is that new players will make giant buffers because of this item and not realise how bad of an Idea that really is.

[Cazadore]

Loader: yes, if:

It is the same lenght as/of a traincart.
is only as fast as a full line of slightly slower fast inserters.
needs power and lube to run at full speed.
has a high power demand for the specialized mechanism.

Must be placed ontop a row of belts.
which would need to be implemented that we can place stuff ontop of belts.

Has a medium/high ressource cost of at least red circuits and steel and belts.
could be split in three tiers like the belts are.
but requires extra research.
im always for more stuff to reaearch.

Needs to be balanced properly that it doesnt take away from using inserters.
if space is at a premium you can use un/loaders.
otherwise use inserters ?

My few cents.

[VexVirus]

No to the loader

[Gouada]

I don't have the time to read everyone else's opinions right now but here are my thoughts:
Use the loader or a similar entity to fill and empty trains or other large containers. Suppose that the loader needs enough items to pull from so that it may fill at least half a belt or so. This would restrict the loaders to large transfer operations as assembly machines for example don't create items that fast.
Either way, I believe that trains need a much better solution than rows of inserters...

[dee-]

Loader? I'd vote no as it completely cuts away a whole section of the gameplay. Late game or not, it just feels like a cheap cheat.

[azurelinctus]

I say yes for the loader, perhaps though it could be a 2x2 and actually be a chest with an inserter? I have often thought of a 2x2 chest and an inserter that can spin around to any of the 8 possible belts that surround it, which would be selected by the logistics system like smart inserters. I don't think that the loader or anything like what it would be would be over powered, if used as a late game item and being costly the piece would be balanced. I don't think it would supersede the other inserters, with a 2x1 vs a 1x1 there would always be a place for a 1x1.

I use primarily belts and have a large set up with a 4 lane main bus of copper, iron, circuits and 2 for red circuit, gears and plastic. I see a lot of people saying it would ruin the gameplay of balancing for people who do this, I completely disagree. I would like to do more with my base and get even more production because that is my gameplay, expanding to increase production. If the item is late stage this would give more gameplay to people who rely on belts and have large set ups. I would like to see a new belt, underground and splitter added also.

[JellyVeggie]

No to the loader/unloader, as it is right now, nor as has been suggested (use lube, make expensive, etc); and definitely not now.
The inserter/belt system is fine as it is.

If anything, I'd rather it expands into a new system: Make chests movable by belts (much like how you can move a car around in the belts), with a crane (an "inserter" of sorts) capable of placing said crates in and out of the belts; plus crate wagons. Thus the loader would become a packager of sorts, kinda like how the assembly fills and empties crude barrels: keep it stocked with crates when packaging, take out the empty crates when unpackaging, all this with inserters.

---

EDIT: Just found out that ske already proposed something like this:

Instead of chests, we could load "containers" which could be moved around. In extension to this idea I could think of a whole set of new "heavy" equipment (let's call chests containers here):

• The heavy inserter moves containers around.
• The heavy belt transports whole containers.
• The containers waggon moves them by rail.
• The heavy robot shaped like one of those army helicopters transports a container from one place to another. (Still, keep throughput much lower than land based equipment.)
• The heavy furnace/assembly machine for bulk processing takes whole containerloads of items like iron ore and outputs containerloads. (Then increase the amount of ore we need to process for one plate by 10x.)

Obviously the heavy equipment would be bigger in size (4x4 or 5x5?) and consume more power but provides much higher througput per area. Limiting containers to one kind of item (one single huge stack) might be necessary and also makes sense.

Will have to agree with the "heavy duty" belt, it does sound nice; although the heavy duty furnaces and assembly machines would detract from the packaging/unpackaging I had in mind...

Anyway; this should be left for some future update, rather than .13

[jorgenRe]

I think a loader would be nice for unloading mainly lots of ores and other bulk items which can take a "hit".

[Powderking]

Congratulations for the great Steam start!
Never had a shadow of a doubt, love your work!!!

I'm very much looking forward for the loader. In my late games my single problem is the managing of throughput between roboport regions. I usually use several requester chests at the border, a fast inserter per chest in between two regions and an active provider chest per inserter on the second border.

If I leave two squares in between two regions and having a loader connecting directly two chests, does it mean I will get infinite throughput? I would very much love that
Do you consider a container as every entity like assembly machines, chests, belts, trains, cars, tanks? Can the loaders be programmed? Ooohhh, the futur is so bright

Can't wait to check out the new train stuff as well!
Thanks again for your AWESOME work.
And I am very much looking forward to hear your plans in the future. Fancy 3D graphics, more vehicles, oponents, places, mechanics?

You are great guys!!!
All of you, the developers especially, the modders, youtubers, and the whole community!

[roothorick]

-1 on the loader.

I think a better way to push lategame away from robots is to make the stack size bonus apply to belts too.

When an inserter gets one item it wants from a belt, it'll wait to collect more items, until either it has collected its maximum stack size, or after some timeout, say, one second for burner/basic/long, and half a second for fast/smart. The timeout resets for each item picked up. Not sure if it should be able to collect different types of items in the same stack when moving to a chest or another belt.

When putting items on a belt, it'll drop its stack of items one after another on the belt without moving, before returning with an empty hand (claw? whatever).

How quickly they can drop their stack on the belt depends on the type. Burners are, well, just slow; basic and long inserters can achieve maximum density on a standard belt; fast and smart inserters can max density on a fast belt. (Inserters won't be able to actually saturate a belt because they're not placing items while cycling.)

To buff inserters further, add an express inserter. They're unlocked by Logistics 3, are made from a fast inserter and an electric engine unit, and take 64kW while running (and like all other non-burner inserters, 400W while idle). They're twice the speed of a fast inserter, and can drop their stack fast enough to achieve max density on an express belt. There's no smart version; to get that wicked speed, you need to plan your supply lines to have the right things going to the right places right from the start.

If that's not enough, the key to balance here is to make the logistics bots not scale well. They need to be effectively incapable of high volume. Perhaps each roboport could have a limit to how quickly it can dispatch bots, low enough to make it incredibly unwieldly to achieve high volume throughput. 5-10 bots per second would probably do it. Worse, the closest roboport with idle (not waiting to launch) bots is always assigned a given request, regardless of its backlog. You can game this a little by shuffling bots around... with inserters (and the circuit network).

This makes them for practical purposes just as effective at their intended purpose of carrying small quantities to/from awkward locations (and players/vehicles), but they lose miserably to inserters and belts for volume. They're also a bit more spaced out, enhancing that "buzzing hive" feel.

[kovarex]

If it where to be addded like shown in the news it's highly OP (no matter how expensive the recipe is, that's only a one time investment) and takes away a lot of the puzzling aspect.
I made a quick layout of what i think could be a middleground in a way, if some sort of running cost (power, lubricant!) is addded and let's us still enjoy synchronized inserter movement:


The underground belt/wooden chest is the (un)loader as a 1x2 item, the chest could have 1 slot, effectively limiting it to one type of item.
Throughput/compression of it would need to be balanced, i don't think full compression with only one of those is a good in that case, something lower.
Depending on the direction of the belt connected to it, it acts as an loader or unloader.
It adds a bit of convenience as it fills both lanes of a belt, but should still require some thought to balance multiple outputs from a long train.

Oh, now I finally understand, the (un)loader would have the chest integrated in itself. So it would still work as a way to improve throughput form container to chest and reversed, as it would still use and require the inserter stack size bonus, but it would be no longer useful to be abused as balancer and the speed would be still limited by the inserter. I like this idea. It would actually reduce the amount of things in the station.

[Zeblote]

If you don't add the loader, can you improve inserters so they align items on the belts?

People keep saying here that inserters are fine for unloading on belts but they aren't, they just make an uncompressed mess.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19540

[Koub]

First of all, congratulations for your success on Steam. But to be honest, it's not THAT surprising, is it ? Factorio's totally worth it.

Now to the loader thing ...

Tbh I'm not fond of the loader the way it is presented. It makes me feel the same way as a "win now" button. I'd rather see boxing/unboxing technology to help throughput.

However, I like the idea of hoppers/loaders, which can be convenient and visually badass to load trains with ore/coal/stone, without being overpowered.

[roothorick]

I just thought of another way to potentially balance it:

It outputs items at a constant rate. They will happily flood any production building with items. If it is blocked from outputting an item (either due to there being no space or because the output doesn't accept that kind of item), it jams, and will do nothing until it is manually reset. For convenience, you pick up any item in the loader as part of clearing the jam. (If its input is empty, it simply waits. It consumes the same amount of electricity whether moving items or not.)

Therefore, their primary downside compared to inserters is in flexibility. Inserters intelligently choose item types their output will accept, and will automatically recover from the system getting backed up. Loaders don't. They're effective at loading and unloading trains with a little finesse in the circuit network, but incredibly unwieldly to feed production buildings with. (It'll also encourage new players to start playing with the circuit network.)

[frustbox]

People are against the loader, nobody provides a reason why. "It's OP because I think it is." Please explain. To me it doesn't harm anything.

Ultimately item flow is limited by crafting speeds of assembling machines, furnaces and miners. The challenge of the game is getting these things right and saturate belts with those. Loaders would not replace inserters because they would be limited by the speed of assembling machines (both putting things in and taking out). Assuming that they are bigger than inserters and cost more energy, they would not be a reasonable replacement for inserters.

The more I think about it, the only reasonable application I see is for loading/unloading trains, when items come in bulk. That and maybe more efficient load balancers, at which point in time you probably already have the traditional balancers in place (because it's a late game item), you could replace them at additional energy cost, or just not bother.

Yea, I still don't see the possible drawbacks and overpowered everybody seems to be afraid of. Maybe someone can argue the case why it would be OP.

[Alvin853]

If it where to be addded like shown in the news it's highly OP (no matter how expensive the recipe is, that's only a one time investment) and takes away a lot of the puzzling aspect.
I made a quick layout of what i think could be a middleground in a way, if some sort of running cost (power, lubricant!) is addded and let's us still enjoy synchronized inserter movement:


The underground belt/wooden chest is the (un)loader as a 1x2 item, the chest could have 1 slot, effectively limiting it to one type of item.
Throughput/compression of it would need to be balanced, i don't think full compression with only one of those is a good in that case, something lower.
Depending on the direction of the belt connected to it, it acts as an loader or unloader.
It adds a bit of convenience as it fills both lanes of a belt, but should still require some thought to balance multiple outputs from a long train.

Oh, now I finally understand, the (un)loader would have the chest integrated in itself. So it would still work as a way to improve throughput form container to chest and reversed, as it would still use and require the inserter stack size bonus, but it would be no longer useful to be abused as balancer and the speed would be still limited by the inserter. I like this idea. It would actually reduce the amount of things in the station.

This sounds like a good idea, and make it work only with ores, coal, stone, that way they feel more like bulk materials and we have the hopper/feeder style suggested earlier in this thread.