Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

[monkeymissile]

What about a train specific inserter? Something that's around the same length as the train wagon and loads at the same rate horizontally or vertically.

[DaveMcW]

Btw only question: how would be backward compatibility handled re: vertical/horizontal standardization of trains? What I should (not) do in my current map to make it 0.13-ready?

Use only horizontal stations, because they are closer to the planned 6-1 spacing.

[Nemoricus]

I don't envy the dev team the challenges of making the trains the same length in both directions. Whatever solution they come up with is still going to be a compromise...

And to be honest, I much prefer the loader. It has clear uses in high throughput situations, while not being useful for loading or unloading assemblers. Also, the heavy inserter looks like it has problems with what its intended behavior will be when dealing with sparse/fully compressed belts. Specifically, I'm wondering how prone it would be to stalling/locking up in those scenarios.

[ske]

Did it ever cross your mind that stack size bonus does not make sense at all?

[WTMike24]

I didn't see anyone mention it previously, but I really appreciate the Steam account linking functionality. After seeing what the forums have to offer I was wishing I bought it here instead, but steam linking means I get the best of both worlds.

[The Phoenixian]

As someone who was concerned about the loader, I can say without reservation that I fully support this new inserter type. It meshes well with the current build system (which it obvious would) and no matter how it works in the specific, I imagine advanced users will find that uses for other inserter variants, even if they become more niche.

As odd as it sounds, the one issue I do have is the map scroll change.

The reason being that I use the keyboard for scrolling, which seems like it would be less natural if it centered on the mouse.

Still, I'm aware of just how small my particular issue is as a portion of the playerbase. (Wouldn't even use it myself were it not for the wear on my ancient mouse.)

Thanks for yet another excellent dev blog. (Though, can it really be said to excel if that high level of quality has become typical?)

[maniak1349]

It is now possible to click the alert icon to open the map to the location of the alert. The map now zooms towards the cursor rather than the center of the screen. It is also possible to right-click and drag to move the map around.

Thats is pretty much every feature of the map I have dreamed of. Thank you!
The only one other thing I wanted from the map screen is ore/faction highlighting.

[Bariz]

I fiddled around with the train thing myself in Blender. While the stretching still quite obvious, I think using some quadratic easing makes it a much smoother transition. (It looked like the GIF in the FFF used linear interpolation, as it size seemed to 'bounce' when it went horizontal.)

With grid: https://imgur.com/sEEWcoZ
Without grid: https://imgur.com/evqdoIV

This looks very good and natural in my opinion (nice work btw). In the post, the rubbery feeling could be amplified because of the uneven area (12 squares by 11), same length of squares horizontally and vertically would make a significant difference.

The solution by manipulating the gaps seems a bit weird to me. It doesn't look right. Like it is mentioned it the post, "the game uses an dimetric projection at an angle of 45 degrees", and the screen should feel the same way, if you look at something at a different angle it may look longer/shorter depending on the angle.

When mousing over a robotics network, it is impossible to see all of the items! A quick fix might be to just let players scroll over the list to see everything.

Yup, I would love to see this fixed.

[dee-]

Personally I' not a big fan of the new heavy inserter, for me it feels a bit... hackish.

Makes me feel more in favor for the loader (which I voted down last time), if it is implemented more like a ramp/hopper system and works only for raw materials (ores) and not high-tech stuff (like dumping television sets down a ramp)

The trick with the gap is clever 6+1 works for me as my stations ARE already 6+1 An animated gif with the expanding gap would have been nice to get an impression how that would look but it sounded like you're not there yet.

Party on!

[lancar]

I like this new version of the loader. It makes more "sense" in the way that it uses already existing game mechanics in a new way, rather than a completely new one.
It just needs some fancy graphics now to make it really stand out from the other inserters, and sell the concept that it can deploy many items at once onto a belt. The other inserters, while transporting many items at once from container to container, still LOOKS like they're only lifting one, but since you never see actual material being deposited inside the chests it doesn't break immersion.

Perhaps on the inserter "claw" you would see a pile of (for example) plates being reduced as it deploys them on the belt, and the pile filling up as it collects?

[V453000]

Hmm, it brings me to think why don't normal inserters have this function for stack size bonus.

[Supercheese]

Hmm, it brings me to think why don't normal inserters have this function for stack size bonus.

That's... yeah, a good question.

[kovarex]

Figuring out where to place stations relative to your inserters is too fiddly. I'd like to see some sort of preview or markers for where engine and railcar boundaries will be when you're placing a station.

The plan is, to draw markers on the gaps when you build anything near the rails headed to a train station.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

Loader:

I was initially sceptical about the loader, but my thinking has been becoming more "modular" as I start to flowsheet various factory ideas. If I have a module of a few assemblers (say a red circuit assembly of 16 assemblers, plus 2 copper wire assemblers) I need to be able to control export from the module at full flow, so using inserters would suck.

Ideally there would be a means of stopping the export belt( right now I just manually cut it) and if loaders would facilitate this then I might be all for them now .

Train length:

Train length issues at station do seem to be a product of the decision to use an off-vertical projection for the graphics. Personally I am not offended by having shorter trains in the vertical and I would hate to see you break the game trying to fix a minor quibble like this. Apologies to those who think its a major quibble though )

[roidal]

Iam wondering if (and how) the logon from the Game would be secured?

Can we be sure that the password get encrypted by a proofed encryption/protocol before transmiting?

[LazyLoneLion]

If the display grid is square, then every item in the game seems higher than wider, isn't it? Including belts, for example.
Maybe it really shouldn't be square display grid then?
(Maybe it shouldn't be horizontal+vertical, but diagonal instead, but that's probably too big for a change)

[MiiNiPaa]

every item in the game seems higher than wider, isn't it? Including belts, for example.

It even changes dimensions as you rotate it. It is just not noticeable on small square buildings which can only be rotaded 90°.

[Neok]

Imho the example with the gap would probably look the best and work but it would be more awesome if you would actually fix the vertical positions without taking away inserters from the horizontal.

I am still curious about the 'rubber example' because it takes 2 curved tracks to make a turn to vertical it might not look as silly as it does when it rotates around itself in the gif. The travelling motion might hide most of it... not sure though..

Cant help but think that the problem is much more related to the chosen size of the entities then something else.. Would the problem be much smaller if the locomotive would be a 2x2 tile entity, and the wagons 2x2 flatbed wagons, to match the 2x2 from the track... would think this would make each seperate entity shrink or grow less when going horizontal to vertical and give us even more flexibility on how big a train is.

[qfeys]

I would prefer the loader over the heavy inserter, given that it is correctly balanced. Also remember the idea of the loader having a running lubricant cost. This combined with the larger size of the loader would make it awkward to place, in contrast with the heavy inseter, that would simply be a flat upgrade over the fast inserter.

[sillyfly]

I would prefer the loader over the heavy inserter, given that it is correctly balanced. Also remember the idea of the loader having a running lubricant cost. This combined with the larger size of the loader would make it awkward to place, in contrast with the heavy inseter, that would simply be a flat upgrade over the fast inserter.

True. The main point against the loader, as I understood it, was that it would trivialize designs, because it's a flat improvement over an inserter. The different footprint alone made this point moot.
On the other hand, the proposed heavy-inserter is a flat improvement over normal inserters, so I don't see any reason not to only use it once you get it (same way as many players don't bother with normal inserters once they have fast inserters mass-produced).

So in the loader vs. heavy-inserter debate, my vote goes to the loader.