Version 0.16.16

[Tekky]

Honestly, to all those who want the unintuitive black magic powered splitters :
https://xkcd.com/1172/

That's a good one.

[Zavian]

Hey splitter based sorters were cool. And isn't doing cool things part of what makes factorio fun ? If they needed to go to fix a bug that's one thing, but removing them because some people found that behaviour unintuitive is another. It might still be the right call, but removing a cool feature shouldn't be done without due consideration.

[Tekky]

Hey splitter based sorters were cool. And isn't doing cool things part of what makes factorio fun ?

Yes, I agree. However, I am still very much in favor of the change in splitter behavior.

The problem is not that the behavior of splitters has changed, but rather that the existing basic building blocks no longer allow for an efficient belt filter, unless you are willing to place many filter inserters (which is bad for performance/UPS and takes room). Therefore, in my previous post, I suggested that the basic building blocks get expanded, for example with a loader that also supports filtering.

[Caine]

Honestly, to all those who want the unintuitive black magic powered splitters :
https://xkcd.com/1172/

As an Emacs user, I can relate to that one

Yes, I want the black magic. I was using it to trickle-feed my factories and keep my belts empty (personal challenge).
I used splitter networks to distribute inputs round-robin to factories (which works great as long as recipes don't require multiple inputs of the same type).

Now, I must (and will) design a different solution for that. It sucks, but to be honest, I understand and even somewhat agree with the decision even though I do not like it. Life will find a way. Perhaps splitters should be controllable by the circuit network as a way to make this possible again. But I think it is too early for such heavy handed workarounds and solutions. Let's give the community some time to adapt.

I am a bit worried with the tendency of losing cool features since version 0.16 (first the split fluid wagon and now this), though I get it from a point of view of increasing understandability and mass appeal. The developers are going for easy to learn and difficult to master.

[Corion]

About underground belt lane splitters...
IMHO, to make lane splitting the best way is add item of 1x1 tile size that will have 2 input belts and 2 output belts next way:

I like this idea. It's simple and versatile.

[rldml]

Honestly, to all those who want the unintuitive black magic powered splitters :
https://xkcd.com/1172/

i understand your message, but which options are left in vanilla to sort two lanes of a belt? I really don't know.

Black Magic Splitter-Sort was not a funny thing (and at least it's a good thing it is fixed). But i think we need an alternative in vanilla for this function.

[Gergely]

Honestly, to all those who want the unintuitive black magic powered splitters :
https://xkcd.com/1172/

Then why the hell don't they fix this?!?!

Answer me!

[golfmiketango]

Changed splitters so they work more intuitively. The left and right lane splitting is now completely independent.
The decision whether item goes to left or right output is now independent of the item type.

Per-item splitting was the way to distribute belt contents independent of input patterns. It was one of the delights in Factorio, one of the subtle quirks that didn't matter until it really did, and turned out to be exceedingly useful.

Losing the alien artifacts improved the game overall, because the killing just got tiresome, but it cost something too. There was a real tristesse to the situation you found yourself in before, where now the game world is more bland, more generic. But the gameplay cost for setting up that situation was at least articulable: a real gameplay penalty was paid to avoid an arguably even bigger one.

This change doesn't improve the game at all. People who don't pay attention to how splitters work never noticed this subtlety. People who _did_ pay attention to how splitters work could do clever and useful things. There was a distinct reward to paying attention to subtle details. That reward's gone now. The game world got more bland, more generic, and for what?

I'm guessing, for this:

Fixed that consequtive splitters could uncompress compressed belt. (55645)

I think it's fine. Item sorting is lacking in belt logistics right now, but this needs to be "sorted out" some other way.

Removing the splitter item memory just makes sense and probably is a UPS-friendly decision. Who knows, the new mechanism may permit other hacks. Haven't tested yet and too busy today. But if the patch delivers on fixing splitters I'll be more than happy.

[edit: I suppose fixing is in the eye of the beholder since for some applications this constitutes breaking splitters. Above I'm talking about the way balancers were completely broken throughout 0.15 and early 0.16; my point is, if this was somehow caused by the splitter item memory I think I'm glad to see it go (admittedly I never made a habit of exploiting that so I have no skin in the game)]

[quyxkh]

Honestly, to all those who want the unintuitive black magic powered splitters :
https://xkcd.com/1172/

So "half of everything goes on each output belt, regardless of lane" is an "unintuitive" rule for a splitter, now? Somehow the deduction that that means half the iron goes on each output belt, and half the coal, and half of each and every thing else, is too hard to understand? For a player base expected to understand that "everything" signals operate by the formal-logic rules for universal quantifiers rather than the idiomatic-English interpretation that says "everything" can't mean "nothing"?

[DarkyPupu]

It's just better now, thanks !

[Engimage]

Everything is kinda calling for Loaders. Crying I would say.

[deef0000dragon1]

0.16 has officially become the release of "remove as many options as possible" for me. You have broken belts, barrels, talked about breaking bots, and now splitters, removing what was a perfectly functional part of the game, only because you believed that it was not a good thing for the game. Only because you as the devs want us to play your one way. I dont like the way that this is headed. This game SURVIVES on having options. A major reason that this game has been played by so many for so long is because you can play one map one way, and then have another map played completely differently, hundreds of times over. Even within the same map, you can do the same task 20, 200, 2000 different ways. Except now, that number is getting smaller.

So what if it was not the exact way that things were supposed to work, the job of a splitter was to make things go in one of 2 directions. Lane specific or not, it did that job. Having the extra little bonus that, if you put some effort and time and work into it you could get an in line belt sorter out of it was not wrong. It has NEVER been wrong to get a little extra something out of putting more work in. Beyond that, if you didnt want to use the feature of the sorting, you DIDNT HAVE TO. Now, its not a choice of if you can or not, its "YOU LITERALLY CAN NOT USE THIS THING BECAUSE WE[devs] SAY SO", which is bull.

Dont pull things from the game like this. Find out WHY people are using it, and make it obsolete instead. With barrels, people use them because the current fluid system is asinine and broken. Dont break their capacity and all the current working builds that people have put SOO much time into. Make the fluid system functional instead, THEN balance. The same is true for bots. Why are people spamming bots? Fix the system, then nerf. Again for the splitters, why were people using the splitters like this? solve that problem of why, then remove what you consider a bug. Belt compression: Why are people using undergrounds to compress? Because things should be compressing naturally maybe? find out why, solve that problem, then remove the "bug".

You claimed over the holidays that you felt you were in the final stage of ballancing/polishing the game. you're not. You still have many things that need to be completely re written, and aren't just a numbers ballance.

[Engimage]

It seams that splitter changes did effectively break classic lane balancer because of sideloading issue.

So now all I am waiting for is fixing sideloading.

[m44v]

Now the splitter will not split compressed belts into left and right lanes, fixing that is for the best. The magic sorter was unintuitive and nobody knew how to make one without a blueprint.

[Vxsote]

0.16 has officially become the release of "remove as many options as possible" for me. You have broken belts, barrels, talked about breaking bots, and now splitters, removing what was a perfectly functional part of the game, only because you believed that it was not a good thing for the game. Only because you as the devs want us to play your one way.

While I agree with the conclusion that there should be a native belt-based sorting solution in the game, I think you're over-reacting here and jumping to conclusions about the devs' intent. The belt changes are still being worked on, the fluid logistics were silly overpowered, the discussion about breaking bots was only an explanation of different philosophies, and clearly stated that bots were not going to be broken. Note that the splitter change is listed as a change, not as a bug fix, and you seem think they see it.

And I can give you at least one non-intuitive downside to old splitter function. Intuition says that you should be able to send a loaded red belt into a splitter and get two loaded yellow belts out (being that they are half the speed) and have full throughput - but that wasn't how it worked, and I'm sure caused frustration more than once.

So, as fantastic as the dev team on this game is, I think they have more than earned the right to change something (especially in an experimental version), if and when "only because they believe that it was not a good thing for the game" applies. Of course we give them our feedback about what we like and don't like, because they do listen and make a better game in the end. But I think your rant is out of line.

[Zavian]

And I can give you at least one non-intuitive downside to old splitter function. Intuition says that you should be able to send a loaded red belt into a splitter and get two loaded yellow belts out (being that they are half the speed) and have full throughput - but that wasn't how it worked, and I'm sure caused frustration more than once.

Errr what? I don't recall ever having that type of problem? What version are you referring to?

[FasterJump]

It's nice to see improvements for belt compression.

[m44v]

And I can give you at least one non-intuitive downside to old splitter function. Intuition says that you should be able to send a loaded red belt into a splitter and get two loaded yellow belts out (being that they are half the speed) and have full throughput - but that wasn't how it worked, and I'm sure caused frustration more than once.

Errr what? I don't recall ever having that type of problem? What version are you referring to?

I don't recall that either, only the problem of lane unevenness. viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16801

[Zavian]

And I can give you at least one non-intuitive downside to old splitter function. Intuition says that you should be able to send a loaded red belt into a splitter and get two loaded yellow belts out (being that they are half the speed) and have full throughput - but that wasn't how it worked, and I'm sure caused frustration more than once.

Errr what? I don't recall ever having that type of problem? What version are you referring to?

I don't recall that either, only the problem of lane unevenness. viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16801

But you don't even get that problem when splitting one red into 2 yellow belts.

[Vxsote]

And I can give you at least one non-intuitive downside to old splitter function. Intuition says that you should be able to send a loaded red belt into a splitter and get two loaded yellow belts out (being that they are half the speed) and have full throughput - but that wasn't how it worked, and I'm sure caused frustration more than once.

Errr what? I don't recall ever having that type of problem? What version are you referring to?

I don't recall that either, only the problem of lane unevenness. viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16801

But you don't even get that problem when splitting one red into 2 yellow belts.

Yeah, you're right, I think I was misremembering something and described an imaginary problem. The lane unevenness is what I really meant, which can lead to throughput issues without a balancer, but not in the way I described.