Inline Assemblers

[BylliGoat]

So one thing that kind of throws me off is the fact that inserters can pull and insert right through the walls of buildings. It makes sense for gameplay reasons, but one thing that I think would be cool is to have belt fed assemblers for single ingredient components like gears and cables. The building would be probably 2x3, input on one side, output on the other, with like a stamping machine type animation. I just think it'd be very aesthetically fitting and satisfying.

[ssilk]

So cause you don't like to have inserters over walls you want to have assemblies feeded by belts directly?

[BylliGoat]

Right. So essentially the building would have a belt running through the center of it. For example, iron plates could be split off the main bus and fed into the back of an inline assembler, iron gears are produced and output out of the front. No break in the belt.

Edit - To be clear, I don't believe this would work well for all assemblers. Only single ingredient components like cables and gears.

[MalcolmCooks]

Problem: belts have a much higher throughput than assemblers need. The game is based around being able to supply many assemblers from a single belt. If you had belts feeding directly into assemblers than the iron plates would stack up in front of the assembler. It would end up with the best situation being having a splitter take off from the main belt and feeding into the assembler, which would functionally be no different than inserters, the only differce is the aesthetic of it. Plus the difficulty of properly merging multiple belts would get annoying.
There were similar discussions like this when the devs suggested an instant belt loader/unloader that could load items into a chest as fast as the belt could supply them - eventually this became the stack inserter.

[BylliGoat]

Problem: belts have a much higher throughput than assemblers need. The game is based around being able to supply many assemblers from a single belt. If you had belts feeding directly into assemblers than the iron plates would stack up in front of the assembler. It would end up with the best situation being having a splitter take off from the main belt and feeding into the assembler, which would functionally be no different than inserters, the only differce is the aesthetic of it. Plus the difficulty of properly merging multiple belts would get annoying.

Well yes, belts move faster than assemblers, but if you're splitting the belt to make iron gears anyways than what is the difference? The belt would be backed up regardless.

A single iron gear assembler can supply six red science assemblers, so that's a 3x3 assembler, inserter arms on each side, belt of iron plates for input, belt of gears on output. That's a 5x3 area for a single ingredient component, potentially larger based on belt management. With an inline assembler, it's a 3x2 building that doesn't require anything else.

Sure, this would be less viable late game when everyone is using drones I suppose, but if you only need the one assembler, why take up that much space?

Edit: Another advantage over a single assembler is that it would output to both sides of the inline belt. A single assembler will only output to the far side of an outside belt, unless you wrap that belt in on itself again, which is more space wasted.

[MalcolmCooks]

A single iron gear assembler can supply six red science assemblers

ten, actually

I see your point, but after initial science setup, people usually want to mass-produce basic components like iron gears at very high rates. So they would have 10 or 20 iron gear factories taking from a single belt, and putting onto a single belt. Inline assemblers would actually complicate that

[BylliGoat]

A single iron gear assembler can supply six red science assemblers

ten, actually

I see your point, but after initial science setup, people usually want to mass-produce basic components like iron gears at very high rates. So they would have 10 or 20 iron gear factories taking from a single belt, and putting onto a single belt. Inline assemblers would actually complicate that

Well I just learned I need to rework my red science!

But to address your second point, yes, I recognize that many people feed common components to their main bus, this would be better suited for localized production.

That said, they could potentially be built in a line against a perpendicular belt to take advantage of the belted output, but still feed them with inserters off the main bus.

[Deadly-Bagel]

This sounds like an awesome development to be done in a mod because I don't see this (nor would I personally want it) getting into the base game. It breaks consistency and is only circumstantial at best, would confuse newbies with yet another machine that appears to do the exact same thing, plus how exactly does it benefit anything? Not like you could plonk assemblers down next to each other and have them feed down the line so you'd have to have a belt in between them - or an inserter which we can already do.

[Gertibrumm]

So one thing that kind of throws me off is the fact that inserters can pull and insert right through the walls of buildings. It makes sense for gameplay reasons, but one thing that I think would be cool is to have belt fed assemblers for single ingredient components like gears and cables. The building would be probably 2x3, input on one side, output on the other, with like a stamping machine type animation. I just think it'd be very aesthetically fitting and satisfying.

In real life this is exactly how things are done. one belt, assembly and production machines and ovens and curing tempering ovens, acid baths and so on are all on one belt.
For this to work in factorio, the assembly machine would have to take only two iron plates and let all the other plates pass, but where does it put the finished cog? on a second belt? on the same belt? does it have to be removed by an inserter?

[ssilk]

Well I add this to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=30589 Factory Streets / Star Wars like robot factories / Frame Mounting / Modular Production