Ability to choose underground belt direction

[n7m6e7]

TL;DR

A key to press to change between placing the entrance or exit

What ?

Currently, you must place the entrance (belt goes INTO the hood) to an underground belt first, then place the exit (belt comes OUT of the hood) you cannot place a lone Underground Belt Exit without placing an entrance first. I wish to simply place underground belt exits wherever I wish, without having them autoconnect to other entrances or exits.

Why ?

When I first started this game, I, like many players before me, suggested a "beltdivider" before being told that you can set up a belt divider using a splitter, and an underground belt. Which is fine, but the size is rather irritating. (2x4, , though practically 2x6) especially for making more compact designs. By allowing exits to be built alone, and not auto-connect, it reduces to a comfortable 2x2 , and would also allow for more complex "belt braiding" and other techniques in the future.

[JohnyDL]

Place underground belt and then rotate it, that reverses the direction whether it is stand alone or part of a pair auto connecting is part of the puzzle so you can't belt braid with one colour for 100% speed

[n7m6e7]

Place underground belt and then rotate it, that reverses the direction whether it is stand alone or part of a pair auto connecting is part of the puzzle so you can't belt braid with one colour for 100% speed

But you cannot place an exit, facing opposite an exit. (Forgive my lack of pics, on my phone.) Like, I want exits to be back to back, so I can have a 2x2 lane splitter. But I cannot. .

[eradicator]

I don't see how you can build a lane splitter within 2x2, even with using different belt colors to achive what you're saying. Also this is not currently moddable because the corresponding properties of underground belts are read-only. If you feel very lucky you could ask a dev on IRC if it's possible to make LuaEntity.neighbours and LuaEntity.belt_to_ground_type moddable. But i fear the chances are slim to none.

beltsplit.jpg (40.41 KiB) Viewed 5896 times

Also the devs have often times mentioned that they do not want to "simplify the puzzle" simple because someone finds the current version asthetically unpleasing.

[JohnyDL]

There did used to be a mod that did something similar viewtopic.php?f=87&t=3657

[eradicator]

There did used to be a mod that did something similar viewtopic.php?f=87&t=3657

Item collision on belts has been removed ages ago.

[JohnyDL]

That says a lot if the Devs removed the ability to make this mod function they're hardly going to add it anything in vanilla now that does the same task

[Jap2.0]

That says a lot if the Devs removed the ability to make this mod function they're hardly going to add it anything in vanilla now that does the same task

Not necessarily - the removal was completely unrelated to this mod, I believe it was for optimizational purposes.

[n7m6e7]

I don't see how you can build a lane splitter within 2x2, even with using different belt colors to achive what you're saying. Also this is not currently moddable because the corresponding properties of underground belts are read-only. If you feel very lucky you could ask a dev on IRC if it's possible to make LuaEntity.neighbours and LuaEntity.belt_to_ground_type moddable. But i fear the chances are slim to none.

beltsplit.jpg

Also the devs have often times mentioned that they do not want to "simplify the puzzle" simple because someone finds the current version asthetically unpleasing.

Huh. Didn't think to use different colored belts.

But the second one you posted is the mythical 2x2. I was refferring to the splitter, and 2 underground belt exits cluster. As the items exit left and right. Using one color, it adds 2 to the width.

[eradicator]

Huh. Didn't think to use different colored belts.

You should google "belt weaving"

But the second one you posted is the mythical 2x2. I was refferring to the splitter, and 2 underground belt exits cluster. As the items exit left and right. Using one color, it adds 2 to the width.

First and second method have exactly the same dimensions, only that the first method works with same-color belts...

[JohnyDL]

They're not quite equivalent inside lanes filled vs outside lanes but you only need to add 2 belts/1 length to make the middle one single colour simply move the blue underground right one tile and everything after it to match and then add 2 belts in the freed up tiles (where the blue underground was and where the red side is now shorter than blue)