Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

[MiiNiPaa]

the proposed heavy-inserter is a flat improvement over normal inserters

I assumed that heavy inserter is researched after fast inserter, so the choice is fast vs heavy, which is not so clear. If you add increased resource cost for building and power cost for operations, in addition to potential flaws already discussed you can make heavy inserters viable only for mass unloading/loading from compressed belts.

I am actually fine with heavy inserters being able to only unload stuff into belts in addition to loaders for putting stuff into containers.

[sillyfly]

I don't see how it's not clear, unless the heavy-inserter can't move as fast as the fast-inserter. If that's the case, the fast-inserter will have corner cases in which it is better than the heavy one, but for most cases the heavy inserter would be a flat improvement (that is - whenever it's supposed to grab a single type of material, and the belt is fairly well loaded).

[SteelWolf300]

To be honest, vertical and horizontal difference is not an issue and in some cases is part of puzzle. With that we have choice to make longer station with more inserters or shorter that require less space. Don't take away that possibilities.
The main issue is wagons position that don't fit grid and in my opinion that should be fixed.

+1

[MiiNiPaa]

It looks like it works with normal inserter speed. I understand that it is only a prototype, but I think it should remain this way. Maybe make it even slower, but add a multiplier to inserter stack size for unloading.

Fast inserters are still good when you want to pickup items for assemblers from mixed belts. When transfering items between containers. When picking up items from express belts, where slow inserters often fails.

[Hexicube]

The heavy inserter looks like a great alternative, but I have a couple of suggestions regarding it:

1. When collecting items, it should ALWAYS wait until it's full before moving, which means regular inserters are still useful when throughput is low.
2. There should either not be a smart heavy inserter, or it should operate at the same speed as a normal inserter instead of a fast one.

I also feel like there should be a few additions on the belt side of things, to allow for rapid sorting of belts. The two options are bot networks and smart inserters, neither of which are reasonable for high-throughput systems. Once something like a splitter with sort functionality is in place (there's a mod that does it), belts should be able to fully compete with the convenience of bot networks, even if that splitter was in some way limited.

[deemer]

I don't think the train needs the same number of load/unload stations vertically as horizontally. The worst that means is you need two blueprints for load/unload stations. It would be nice to introduce just a little bit of stretching so that the trains have a regular pattern of inserter positions. I am always a little bit bothered by the fact that the inserter positions are aligned a bit differently on each car, and some cars have an extra one.

Regardless of all of that, heavy inserters are a great idea, and they could make vertical train stations competitive again for ores. Would you consider making heavy inserters move twice the stack size when moving between inventories (i.e. 2-10 items per movement, depending on the stack size bonus)? Two fast inserters, some steel, and a red circuit seems like a reasonable recipe to me.

[MiiNiPaa]

Would you consider making heavy inserters move twice the stack size when moving between inventories

It looks like a bad idea, because it would undermine fast inserter usefulness even more. I think that use case for heavy inserters should be mass (un)loading from belts and they should be balanced around that and be not as good in other roles.

[Neok]

Another option to counter the train problem is to make train station tiles, that are linked with the train stop.
A train would be able to be (un)loaded in that station but it does not matter how long the train is (like in transport tycoon).
This could also be a great addition to the game if you can make double track stations where you dont have to unload each track individually but unload the station instead.
Probably easier said then done, but then it doesnt matter much if the train is a bit longer/shorter in another orientation.

To clarify, I dont mean a station that magically (un)loads the trains, but to allow ervery inserter connected to the station to interact with the whole train thats currently stopped there. The station itself would not have a storage.

[sillyfly]

I have created a heavy-inserter vs loader poll. Please participate viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23386

[Martc]

When you are improving the production statistics, it will be also nice to add battery charge graph (percentage) to power network statistics. Because now only way, how to check if your battery amount is sufficient, is to wait to daybreak.

[ratchetfreak]

Here is a radical idea, if you changed the grid spacing to something a bit wider than high (even if only in a 1.2 ratio) then the train stretch won't be that noticable. You can even keep most of the artwork; just let the buildings extend above the 2x2 spot it occupies.

The only problem then is that "high" buildings will block the view of the row of tiles behind them.

[kovarex]

Here is a radical idea, if you changed the grid spacing to something a bit wider than high (even if only in a 1.2 ratio) then the train stretch won't be that noticable. You can even keep most of the artwork; just let the buildings extend above the 2x2 spot it occupies.

The only problem then is that "high" buildings will block the view of the row of tiles behind them.

That would mean redoing most of the factorio graphics, like rails, transport belts, terrain, most of the buildings, pipes etc.

[Ghoulish]

It is now possible to click the alert icon to open the map to the location of the alert.

Can this functionality be added to issues with trains? Out of fuel etc.

[The Phoenixian]

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

I think it comes down to looks, in large part.

Ideally, I'd want to see something like a gantry mounted inserter or bridge crane, as those two items seem like they'd be visually suited to picking up a whole load and moving it in bulk.

With the realities of a small graphics department however, I'll content myself with a reskin. Not because it is best, but because it is necessary.

[LCCX]

The heavy inserter concept seems like a good, practical step forward from the loader concept. Could we also have a "double inserter" then which would pick up and place items on both sides of a belt? I think that would cover all the use cases that a 2x1 loader block with a belt-like input and a belt-like output could have done.

[LCCX]

Another option to counter the train problem is to make train station tiles, that are linked with the train stop.
A train would be able to be (un)loaded in that station but it does not matter how long the train is (like in transport tycoon).
This could also be a great addition to the game if you can make double track stations where you dont have to unload each track individually but unload the station instead.
Probably easier said then done, but then it doesnt matter much if the train is a bit longer/shorter in another orientation.

To clarify, I dont mean a station that magically (un)loads the trains, but to allow ervery inserter connected to the station to interact with the whole train thats currently stopped there. The station itself would not have a storage.

Ideally, I'd want to see something like a gantry mounted inserter or bridge crane, as those two items seem like they'd be visually suited to picking up a whole load and moving it in bulk.

With the realities of a small graphics department however, I'll content myself with a reskin. Not because it is best, but because it is necessary.

+1 eventually, these sound fun, but not for 0.13; probably too much artwork.

[LazyLoneLion]

Here is a radical idea, if you changed the grid spacing to something a bit wider than high (even if only in a 1.2 ratio)...

That would mean redoing most of the factorio graphics, like rails, transport belts, terrain, most of the buildings, pipes etc.

But it will be for good.
Not to say that now factorio graphics is ideal and perfect and couldn't be changed anyway.

[The Phoenixian]

Here is a radical idea, if you changed the grid spacing to something a bit wider than high (even if only in a 1.2 ratio)...

That would mean redoing most of the factorio graphics, like rails, transport belts, terrain, most of the buildings, pipes etc.

But it will be for good.
Not to say that now factorio graphics is ideal and perfect and couldn't be changed anyway.

Honestly, I think that the issues that Factorio's grid size gives shows off why some of the later 2d RTSes (Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 foremost in my mind)switched to a diagonal perspective.

That said, it's always worth noting that the fact that something already sort of works is often reason enough to keep doing it instead of changing. Even if the change is absolutely better, the effort needed to make it may not be worth the cost, even disregarding the possibility of issues that only present themselves only after making the change. See the running gag that was Duke Nukem Forever's indefinite development, or even Valve Time: Every time something fundamental changes, even if for a very excellent reason, it means that an awful lot of work must be done to bring everything back up to where it was before.

Even Factorio itself has run into this with a few aspects of it's development, like multiplayer: The issues with descyning required a huge amount of bug fixing and that ate up massive amounts of dev time. I know a guy who complained about the time investment, though admittedly that was because he specifically was a dev with a very, very pronounced "maximize bang for buck" philosophy.

So yeah, If Factorio 2 were started today, I'd champion for a different grid alignment (maybe not diagonal, but something different). As it stands, it's likely far too late to invest the effort needed for that without wasting months or years and better to just make the current system work.

[Natas_Dog]

No mention of a fix for crashing on autosaving

[Yttrium]

I had questions about the loader but I can defnitely live with that inserter, It closes the gap between bots and belts without being too OP or too easy to use.

I've always liked belts and inserters more than bots and this could bring inserters back.