Conveyor Belt Router

[CobraA1]

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.

Making low tech designs obsolete - don't see the problem with that? Natural progression in most games is like that.

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.

So we're suggesting a basic tool, which replaces a complex and mentally burdensome design which involves hackish behavior.

please watch this to understand what I mean.

Yeah - I watched it, and have now started to believe you should watch it. A strange, hackish trick adds complexity to the game, but does not add depth. Having to look at a wiki for the right tool for the job is not a meaningful choice. In fact, it adds to the mental burden of the player, because the player now has to memorize a specific layout to achieve a desired result, which is not desirable.

Your suggestion adds more complexity to the game without adding much depth (and from my view even reducing it)

Having a hammer in my toolbox doesn't make building a cabinet more complex. In fact, it's quite the opposite: I can focus on the important task of building the cabinet instead of finding a way to drive a nail.

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.

I don't really care if the price is high - it could be constructed as a tradeoff of price vs space, if desired.

You think the balance is bad, and would be made worse? Do explain.

I will note that I'm going through the campaign first, and that is taking a while. I have some cursory knowledge of more advanced things via the wiki, but have not gotten to the point where I can try them myself yet. Right now, it does seem everything needs to be large, and I'm terrible at optimization and making things take up a small amount of space.

[Garm]

Making low tech designs obsolete - don't see the problem with that? Natural progression in most games is like that.

Problem that it would make them obsolete from the beginning of the game

So we're suggesting a basic tool, which replaces a complex and mentally burdensome design which involves hackish behavior.

Whats more complex and mentally burdening? having 4 basic tools, that in different combinations do whatever you desire, or having 1 complex tool for each task? Because really this discussion isnt about this problem in particular, but about this type of suggestions in general.

Yeah - I watched it, and have now started to believe you should watch it. A strange, hackish trick adds complexity to the game, but does not add depth. Having to look at a wiki for the right tool for the job is not a meaningful choice. In fact, it adds to the mental burden of the player, because the player now has to memorize a specific layout to achieve a desired result, which is not desirable.

Exactly! currently all tools are easy to memorize because they do very basic tasks. even if you dont read about them on wiki its easy to guess what belt, inserter or even splitter does. These kind of suggestions add more and more tools to the game which would eventually turn into same problem modded minecraft has now: theres literally tool for anything, but players end up keeping wikis always open to constantly refresh their memory about what this particular tool does.

Point of this game isnt about making a ton of items, it isnt about learning names and functions of 100+ different machines that vary only so slightly. its about making anything you need from most basic tools possible.

Having a hammer in my toolbox doesn't make building a cabinet more complex. In fact, it's quite the opposite: I can focus on the important task of building the cabinet instead of finding a way to drive a nail.

But we already have a hammer, and nail, you are offering me a new tool that looks like hammer with nail taped to it, and maybe measuring tape glued on the side.

I don't really care if the price is high - it could be constructed as a tradeoff of price vs space, if desired.

I do. And price can never be too high unless its absolutely stupid. problem is - the resources in this game are super cheap. world with normal ore distribution would allow you to finish the game without expanding even. (in my current world there is about 2 million copper and 1.5 million iron spawned near start location)

Space is expensive!, even though you can expand the price of taking that space grows exponentially (walls turrets, cables, power plants, more belts, trains, avoiding obstacles, chopping trees) most of the game revolves around space management, while resources are merely a small setback.

You think the balance is bad, and would be made worse? Do explain.

I will note that I'm going through the campaign first, and that is taking a while. I have some cursory knowledge of more advanced things via the wiki, but have not gotten to the point where I can try them myself yet. Right now, it does seem everything needs to be large, and I'm terrible at optimization and making things take up a small amount of space.

As mentioned before - you can't balance these two, they are apples and oranges of this game. You need both at certain levels and you cant substitute one for the other.
everything doesnt need to be large - it simply needs to do the work it is required to do. Extra tools to simplify the process are nothing more than cheats to ease gameplay - while it would make it easier playing it now - it will diminish enjoyment of future games. I say this as someone, who finished the storyline long time ago and invented many of the common solutions personally simply because they weren't on wiki yet. Trust me enjoyment from taking the problem and solving it yourself is much greater, than feeling when you craft another item in game, splitter or router.

Look at KSP fr example. Docking is hard, but when you do dock for the first time you feel like king of the world...if KSP had integrated MechJeb with autodocking I' would've never experienced that feeling.

[Simes]

To my mind, if the belt-to-ground didn't have the "glitch" that enables this design, this discussion would be taking a very different direction. I think that the design of games should be based on the premise that there aren't weird glitches and unintended behaviour. I also think that tying this particular idea to the general concept of "not adding unnecessary things" is a mistake, because this is a feature that is only deemed "unnecessary" because there's an exploitable glitch that allows the same behaviour. There should be a strong line drawn between what's possible by design and what's doable by accident.

But we already have a hammer, and nail, you are offering me a new tool that looks like hammer with nail taped to it, and maybe measuring tape glued on the side.

If you can't see that the belt-to-ground glitch is the tool which is made of other inappropriate tools glued together...

[filippe999]

What are the stance of the game developers about the belt-to-ground and splitter trick?

[Drury]

What are the stance of the game developers about the belt-to-ground and splitter trick?

Over a year ago it was deemed an unintended feature.

"Over a year ago" is the key here...

[ssilk]

I try to see this discussion from "outside" and as neutral as possible: There are good logical reasons for both opinions. But it is set, that the devs don't want it now. I mean we can discuss here years, if it isn't implemented, the "conservative fraction" will always win. Watching it so, everything is said since a week or so.

And with my sight as moderator I must say, that, if the discussion is going on, I need to move it out of the suggestions-board, because it's not about any suggestion.

[Tenebrous]

A device (or new use for an existing one) that splits the two lanes of a conveyor makes sense in the real world as well as in game - I'd love to have one added also

[tralala]

A device (or new use for an existing one) that splits the two lanes of a conveyor makes sense in the real world as well as in game - I'd love to have one added also

+1

[CobraA1]

Problem that it would make them obsolete from the beginning of the game

Well, I didn't specify which exact tech level they'd appear at. Kinda assuming things a bit here?

Whats more complex and mentally burdening? having 4 basic tools, that in different combinations do whatever you desire, or having 1 complex tool for each task?

I'm sorry, the tool proposed is complex?

Are we talking about the same thing here?

I thought I was talking about a splitter, that splits two sides of the belt in a simple fashion.

These kind of suggestions add more and more tools to the game which would eventually turn into same problem modded minecraft has now: theres literally tool for anything, but players end up keeping wikis always open to constantly refresh their memory about what this particular tool does.

My problem was never really knowing what a tool does, but rather the recipe to make it. I'm not in complete agreement with the recipe system in Minecraft, because it doesn't really seem to scale well.

Minecraft also suffers from a severe lack of in-game documentation - it does in fact bother me that you have to go to wikis and such to find crafting recipes.

Although I did leave Minecraft shortly after release - it didn't really keep my interest.

I really don't think Factorio's basic tools are anywhere near the level of having so many it's hard to keep track of, at least at the tech levels I've played.

You're playing the hyperbole / slippery slope card here. We're not asking for 100+ more machines to be added. You're being disingenuous with the request by drawing an artificial and arbitrary line where you're essentially saying "only what's already in should exist, and no more."

But we already have a hammer, and nail

I think we don't. And I really don't see how the entire metaphor you gave applies, sorry.

I do.

Then we make it cheap .

You need to argue about something other than the price, because I am flexible either way. You don't have a valid point, because I never said I was gonna stand on a certain price. You invented that straw man to make me wrong somehow.

Any way you argue about the price, I can always argue "okay, we set a different price then." I have no vested interest in any particular price. Price is merely a straw man here.

problem is - the resources in this game are super cheap.

Cheap, but limited. Running out of ore in a field is, from what I can tell, a reality in this game.

Space is expensive!, even though you can expand the price of taking that space grows exponentially (walls turrets, cables, power plants, more belts, trains, avoiding obstacles, chopping trees) most of the game revolves around space management, while resources are merely a small setback.

Which makes the tool proposed actually make a lot of sense, since it is a way to manage space.

As mentioned before - you can't balance these two, they are apples and oranges of this game.

So if the relationship is a demonstrable straw man, why did you even bring it up? You're not being very coherent here.

Extra tools to simplify the process are nothing more than cheats to ease gameplay

False.

Trust me enjoyment from taking the problem and solving it yourself is much greater, than feeling when you craft another item in game, splitter or router.

I'm not suggesting we take the need to solve the problem at an earlier tech level away - we can, after all, place it at a higher tech level, where the focus is more on large scale design and optimization rather than designing individual components.

Look at KSP fr example. Docking is hard, but when you do dock for the first time you feel like king of the world...if KSP had integrated MechJeb with autodocking I' would've never experienced that feeling.

MechJeb is horrific at docking. I find it more reliable to dock manually. But that's kinda beside the point here.

With KSP now having a proper tech tree, in career mode you don't automatically have the entirety of MechJeb's functionality out of the box anymore.

In my own career mode, I haven't unlocked automated landing yet. So what do I do? I land my ships manually. Later in career mode, I'll want to focus on larger goals and objectives and not focus so much on the minutia.

Learning to dock for the first time gives great satisfaction. Docking for the 1000th time is mundane. After you've learned to dock, you've lost the "king of the world" feeling. I'm not sure what the problem is with opening up better tools if you design your tech tree carefully.

[Elfface]

I'd like to see this as a function of Splitters. Maybe not basic splitters, but certainly some sort.

Actually, just a 'logical splitter' would be pretty great. Smart Inserters can do the job too, but it's clunkier, so maybe make the smart splitter available after them. A splitter that you can tell Pipes: Left, Cogs: right for example.

as for the underground-glitch, it's nice to have for now, bit it is a glitch. This means it'll either be fixed or made canon. If it's fixed, so be it, if it's made canon, what's wrong with it being a different object?

[JoeSchmoe]

A device (or new use for an existing one) that splits the two lanes of a conveyor makes sense in the real world as well as in game - I'd love to have one added also

+1

+2

[DrNoid]

Making low tech designs obsolete - don't see the problem with that? Natural progression in most games is like that.

Problem that it would make them obsolete from the beginning of the game

So we're suggesting a basic tool, which replaces a complex and mentally burdensome design which involves hackish behavior.

Whats more complex and mentally burdening? having 4 basic tools, that in different combinations do whatever you desire, or having 1 complex tool for each task? Because really this discussion isnt about this problem in particular, but about this type of suggestions in general.

The current solution is a lot higher-tech than what is proposed here. Even the current splitter is more complex than what is proposed here. What we want is a simple piece of metal that pushes one lane off the side of a belt. doesn't get more low-tech than that. The current splitter is a lot more complex, since it has to grab objects and move them over an other lane onto a new belt.

It would make a lot more sense to have a level 0 "splitter" that is just a simple piece of metal that pushes one lane off the side of a belt. Can work with any belt speed, so you don't need 3 versions of it. The current splitter can be researched later, since it is a lot more complex.

[ssilk]

Because really this discussion isnt about this problem in particular, but about this type of suggestions in general.

It would make a lot more sense to have a level 0 "splitter" that is just a simple piece of metal that pushes one lane off the side of a belt.

I don't see there any sense in this discussion anymore, because the standpoints are clear, but not comparable. With my experience, discussing this longer will not change anything, but will work out the people and make them leaving this fine forum. But we (the forum members) need your ideas!

So my second try to stop discussion here!!

Put your brain power into some more useful discussions and let the devs decide, if and when we get that sometimes or not!

PS: Because of that I made also this suggestion: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =28&t=3443