Conveyor Belt Router

[Hyena Grin]

I also like the idea of the funnel to switch and combine lanes onto one side. I'd use the heck out of that also, for example, when you have mining drills dumping onto both sides of a belt, and you want to shift all the ore to one lane so that you can start dumping coal onto the second lane. Or you have a line of assembly machines dumping products onto an inconvenient side of the belt. Yes there are ways to do this using perpendicular belts, but for those of us looking for more elegant, less space-intensive designs, these kinds of VERY BASIC production line mechanisms would be wonderful.

For the rest: Tell me a good reason. Currently I see no reason to have for every function an extra item, cause you need to produce that item, which cludders then your inventory. And all you need is to think and place some belts/splitters/undergrounds. I see a need for having this knowledge better shared, but not in the alpha-version.

Because it makes sense. I'm not suggesting every single possible function have its own object. But in a game that has a rather huge number of options (even just for inserters alone) it seems like an oversight to not include these extremely rudimentary and helpful organizational tools which are pretty much the bread and butter of any production line.

As for 'cluttering inventory,' what is this inventory clutter your speak of? Do you regularly walk around with multiple stacks of splitters? I know I don't. When I need one I make one. When I've used it, it's gone. Not to mention there's a huge amount of inventory space anyway, and creating huge amounts of additional storage is a mouse-click away. I'm not concerned about that.

What I am concerned about is having to twist the arm of the game mechanics in order to accomplish something which every factory in existence can pull off with a solitary piece of metal. I consider things like conveyor splitting and funneling to be fundamental to the design of a functional production line. You have made it clear you don't think so. I'm not sure we will come to an agreement on the matter.

[just_dont]

Assuming we would one day get a 1x1 lane splitter unit, all sorts of "funneling designs" will become no larger than 3x2 schematics. In other words, pretty compact. Even currently they are 4x4 (or 4x6 at most, if you use "large" version of lane-splitting trick), so they are compact enough.

("Enough" in my book equals to a design no more than 4 cells in size, because any such design could be then "traversed through" via underground belts. Designs larger than than may become very problematic in some cases, as they can block some unrelated belts from running through)

Applying arguments such as "it's real-life dumb" will get you nowhere. Because it's a game, and in game it's the quality of gameplay that matters, not "real-life" comparisons. For example, it's incredibly NOT real-life-ish that your belts just move on their own. But it has lots of gameplay reasoning, making belt system behave "like in real life" will complicate things to the point of being unfun.

There always will be mods for things such as this (currently we don't have those because belt transportation is heavily locked in the game's core and is not accessible to LUA scripts, but this situation will change some day).

[Hyena Grin]

Assuming we would one day get a 1x1 lane splitter unit, all sorts of "funneling designs" will become no larger than 3x2 schematics. In other words, pretty compact. Even currently they are 4x4 (or 4x6 at most, if you use "large" version of lane-splitting trick), so they are compact enough.

I disagree. It simply isn't necessary to require the player to set aside 4x6 space for a task which by any common sense could be accomplishied in a 1x2 (for a lane splitter) or a 1x1 (for a funnel mechanism). It's clunky and doesn't add to the gameplay at all. Once you have figured out how to strong-arm the existing mechanics into getting this behavior, there's no challenge in repeating it ad-nauseum. It's just a clunky, glitchy, space-intensive, and over-engineered design.

Applying arguments such as "it's real-life dumb" will get you nowhere. Because it's a game, and in game it's the quality of gameplay that matters, not "real-life" comparisons. For example, it's incredibly NOT real-life-ish that your belts just move on their own. But it has lots of gameplay reasoning, making belt system behave "like in real life" will complicate things to the point of being unfun.

It's funny, but I would make a similar argument to you. Do you really, honestly believe that strong-arming the existing mechanics to perform extremely rudimentary production line tasks is somehow improving the gameplay? Because I don't. And I definitely don't think the player should be required to use what amounts to a glitch, or otherwise use objects in ways they were not remotely intended, to accomplish a rudimentary task. That by itself should be enough reason to find another solution.

There always will be mods for things such as this (currently we don't have those because belt transportation is heavily locked in the game's core and is not accessible to LUA scripts, but this situation will change some day).

So far, two of your objections of hinged upon assumptions about what may come in the future. Not only does this make them very unreliable objections, but I frankly disagree with the rationale behind them. The crux of the gameplay and challenge is setting up efficient and robust production lines. It does not improve gameplay in a meaningful way to force people to use unintuitive, glitchy, space-intensive designs in order to unreasonably complicate what ought to be a very simple task.

The game is called Factorio. It is a game about building factories. There are a number of existing objects and game mechanics which stray from this core premise, but lane-splitters and lane-funnels are not among them.

[just_dont]

It's funny, but I would make a similar argument to you. Do you really, honestly believe that strong-arming the existing mechanics to perform extremely rudimentary production line tasks is somehow improving the gameplay? Because I don't. And I definitely don't think the player should be required to use what amounts to a glitch, or otherwise use objects in ways they were not remotely intended, to accomplish a rudimentary task. That by itself should be enough reason to find another solution.

I'm all for a lane splitter. Because using underground belts for it is indeed a glitchy mechanics usage.
But a funnel? Nope, you can make a simple funnel design out of simple belts, or a balanced funnel out of a splitter and belts; and all these designs are quite compact already. No separate "funneling" unit is needed.

[ssilk]

Because it makes sense. I'm not suggesting every single possible function have its own object. But in a game that has a rather huge number of options (even just for inserters alone) it seems like an oversight to not include these extremely rudimentary and helpful organizational tools which are pretty much the bread and butter of any production line.

Lets say so: It makes yet sense for you, cause you are new to the game. Search for "splitter" and "ssilk" as author...

As for 'cluttering inventory,' what is this inventory clutter your speak of? Do you regularly walk around with multiple stacks of splitters? I know I don't. When I need one I make one. When I've used it, it's gone. Not to mention there's a huge amount of inventory space anyway, and creating huge amounts of additional storage is a mouse-click away. I'm not concerned about that.

Well, you should. In the later stages of the game you have so many stuff you need to carry around, that you need to think what's important and what not. My inventory is then full with stacks of one item, all different stuff I really need.

What I am concerned about is having to twist the arm of the game mechanics in order to accomplish something which every factory in existence can pull off with a solitary piece of metal. I consider things like conveyor splitting and funneling to be fundamental to the design of a functional production line.

Well, somehow fundamental. But form follows function as I always say, when the discussion comes to that point. There are so many tricks, that are need to be discovered first! We - as the players - need to think, what we can do with the stuff, the devs give us. Not the other way around.
For example I saw today this https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 636#p23636 . This is completely new for me. We are in the alpha state. We don't know how to play this game and it is a basic principle of this game-development, that new stuff is introduced only, if really needed to play the game or to introduce new mechanics. New types of whatever splitter, underground belt and so on are not needed yet. And I mean yet. And I said "yet", not "never"!

You have made it clear you don't think so. I'm not sure we will come to an agreement on the matter.

Well. We don't need to and I don't understand you eager in that. We both don't decide that.

But let it say so: For me it is much more important to have new content; multiplayer, more functions for the circuit network, a somehow modified logistics to enable transporting stuff to and from far outposts. And many things more, see the roadmap. And I can live with a underground belt, which has more functions as obvious.

[DrNoid]

For example I saw today this https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 636#p23636 .

With a side-splitting function on the splitter + a funnel, that could be done in 2x3 instead of 4x4 (or 4x6) and be a lot clearer...

[ssilk]

Hm. Space is not the problem. I know some games, where that is important, but not Factorio... (ok, maybe for the support challenge, but this is also a reason to change it not yet, cause this changes the balancing of that levels)...

... and clearness: This is one of the games, where the first plan never survives. Look at all the savegames in this forum, clear design? In most cases it is chaotic, but it works. Ok, some can create clear and good plans, but then they use in most cases whole belts. Or it is just looking good, but working bad... I make it, that it works, and later I break all down and rebuilt it. And I prefer more and more to use whole belts for one item, because I know I need it later... this chaotic design is one point, which make the charm of Factorio.

Again: This is not needed yet. I want more content instead of new types of belts, that just replace already existing solutions.

[drs9999]

... and clearness: This is one of the games, where the first plan never survives. Look at all the savegames in this forum, clear design? In most cases it is chaotic, but it works. Ok, some can create clear and good plans, but then they use in most cases whole belts. Or it is just looking good, but working bad... I make it, that it works, and later I break all down and rebuilt it. And I prefer more and more to use whole belts for one item, because I know I need it later... this chaotic design is one point, which make the charm of Factorio.

Again: This is not needed yet. I want more content instead of new types of belts, that just replace already existing solutions.

+1

[Hyena Grin]

Again: This is not needed yet. I want more content instead of new types of belts, that just replace already existing solutions.

Have you considered that maybe the suggestions forum is not just a place for you to post about what you want and don't want?

This is a good, valid suggestion. A sensible suggestion, and presumably not very hard to implement, since both tools would manipulating pre-existing game mechanics. I'm glad someone else made this thread, because I specifically signed up to this forum to make it myself before I went looking to see if someone already had. So it's obviously something I would very much like to have in the core game. Other people obviously feel the same.

You've already made your point. Several times over. Now maybe try letting the developers make their own decisions.

[slay_mithos]

Just so you know, there are a lot of suggestion that come from people not fully knowing the game, that don't want complex builds when they can suggest a 1-tile entity that would do the same.
Many of them are about belts and the current splitter.

The devs made it clear on a few thread earlier that they do not want to introduce things that only have specific usages, when relatively easy to build contraptions exist.

Ssilk is a moderator, as far as I know, and he prefers an approach of explaining the "why" rather than just a "no" or a link to an other similar topic.
I guess it sometimes doesn't work.

[Puzzlemaker]

... So yeah, a non-hacky way to separate sides of a conveyor belt would be nice, especially if it's just a mode setting for a splitter.

A funnel would also be nice, since it would simplify crazy conveyor belt shinanigans, but not necessary.

...

[ssilk]

Ssilk is a moderator, as far as I know, and he prefers an approach of explaining the "why" rather than just a "no" or a link to an other similar topic.
I guess it sometimes doesn't work.

well, I try to not mixing the moderator role with my personal opinion. I hoped, they read thru the forum, before beginning to post. But this time I should have made it sooner:

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 908#p20908

If someone is willing he/she can write a short article about this (<10 lines), I will put it into announcements for this board. It should make very clear, that we (forum users) don't want suppress suggestions, but useless discussions. Can link also to this article to show what happens.

[Carflashen]

Hi,
If you check Quill's stream 2/4 at 20.30m he makes a T connection and all the cole goes to the left side of the belt.
He misses it, but it might be a nice trick to use.
Don't know if this is usefull or not.....
Cheers from Holland

[slay_mithos]

Hi,
If you check Quill's stream 2/4 at 20.30m he makes a T connection and all the cole goes to the left side of the belt.
He misses it, but it might be a nice trick to use.
Don't know if this is usefull or not.....
Cheers from Holland

Well, that's basically the way to force specific things on a specific side of a belt.
I'm pretty sure the tutorial missions cover it, or at least show it in action.

[ssilk]

See also this links:

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... port_belts
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ort_system

And all other linked stuff...

[MF-]

Again: This is not needed yet. I want more content instead of new types of belts, that just replace already existing solutions.

Have you considered that maybe the suggestions forum is not just a place for you to post about what you want and don't want?

We've been through such discussions about variations of "lane-blocker, lane-merger, lane-splitter" just so many times.
I admire his patience about mostly-duplicite suggestions.

I agree that it was not clear when the previous consensus was parroted to you, though.


@glitchiness: I guess you'd want a different graphics for the belt-to-ground?
And unability to walk through the solid part?
That was also AFAIK considered in the past, but made the factory too annoying to navigate.

[filippe999]

I support this idea, and add:
the router will be a 1x1 space that will be customizable so that you could select select if all items are filtered to the left or all to right, But i don't support the idea of such device to be so power consuming, it's basically a hopper when you think about it

[CobraA1]

I think it would be a good quality of life change. If they want to make it higher tech, that's fine, but I don't see how that would justify leaving it out of the game altogether.

In my current opinion it isn't needed, cause there are always (!) solutions without any changes to the current available items possible.

Strictly needed? No, but would be an improvement nonetheless.

I used that now ... hm ... 10 times would be too much...
I understand, but see it from the practical side: I don't see much usage for splitting up lanes, I could find only a handful of situations.

Well, I think I would use it quite often in my designs, and I've had the desire to do so quite often. We don't all design factories the same way .

I've had to do it sometimes using smart inserters, although that does take a bit of space (5x2 in my design).

I do consider adding more quality of life and "smart" items to be good for advancement in games, especially at higher tech levels. Other than nostalgia, I don't really see what the obsession is about keeping away from obvious improvements.

[Garm]

I think it would be a good quality of life change. If they want to make it higher tech, that's fine, but I don't see how that would justify leaving it out of the game altogether.

In my current opinion it isn't needed, cause there are always (!) solutions without any changes to the current available items possible.

Strictly needed? No, but would be an improvement nonetheless.

I used that now ... hm ... 10 times would be too much...
I understand, but see it from the practical side: I don't see much usage for splitting up lanes, I could find only a handful of situations.

Well, I think I would use it quite often in my designs, and I've had the desire to do so quite often. We don't all design factories the same way .

I've had to do it sometimes using smart inserters, although that does take a bit of space (5x2 in my design).

I do consider adding more quality of life and "smart" items to be good for advancement in games, especially at higher tech levels. Other than nostalgia, I don't really see what the obsession is about keeping away from obvious improvements.

I do not believe it would be an improvement.

1. It will make more low tech designs obsolete. In similar way players usually bypass gun turrets completely and aim for laser ones same will be done with such router.

2. I believe it is against basic concept of factorio playstyle: Game revolves around most basic tools, that when built together can achieve many different results. please watch this to understand what I mean. Your suggestion adds more complexity to the game without adding much depth (and from my view even reducing it)

3. Amount of "benefit" it would provide compared to developer time would be much smaller compared to other not yet implemented things.

4. There is no point of reducing space-price of construction. In fact Factorio uses space needed to build as an effective balance mechanism. Your suggestion will do nothing but make this balance worse.

[Gammro]

I'd just like to say that I'm with Garm on this. To me, it doesn't really add to the game. And I didn't even know about the splitting technique before this thread.