16.15 It is possible to "upgrade" a splitter with a belt

[mpgoodwin2]

Actions:
Place a line of standard conveyor belts
Place a standard splitter in the line of conveyors
Equip a stack of express conveyors in hand
Upgrade the standard conveyor by clicking and holding the mouse and using the ASDW keys to move along the conveyor

Expected result
The standard conveyor belts are replaced with express versions, The splitter is left alone

Actual result
All entities are replaced with express conveyors.

This is fairly annoying as I usually upgrade long production conveyors by having a stack in hand and running along, "dragging" the stack on the old conveyor. Now all splitters get replaced too, which messes up my factory.

Of note is that underground belt entrances and exits are replaced too, and that fast conveyors will in the same scenario only replace the underground entrance/exits, but leave the splitters alone.

[Zavian]

That's a new feature of 0.16. (Personal I view being able to fast replace whilst moving/dragging to be the wrong decision).

See viewtopic.php?f=23&t=54987#p323863 . Also viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54676 and viewtopic.php?f=6&t=56306 .

[mpgoodwin2]

It then works inconsistently between normal, fast and express belts and underground belts too.

I still think it seems odd that you can replace an entity with something completely different... Should you then also be able to replace an assembling machine with an inserter or upgrading inserters should then be able to replace a long handed inserter with a fast inserter, or vice versa?

Martin

[otobot1]

I'm not a fan of this change either. I can't think of a single time I've found it useful, and it's CONSTANTLY a problem when upgrading belts. You accidentally move your mouse one tile too far and replace an inserter covered with ore, and then you have to change the item in your hand to a splitter and swap that back in, ending up with even more ore in your inventory.

[Zavian]

Another way to "fix" this is to integrate something like Upgrade Planner into the base game. That way people wouldn't need to manually upgrade belts (at least once they had construction robots). Atm manually upgrading belts in vanilla is a pain, because all too often you replace a splitter or an underground with a belt.