Version 0.16.16

[dee-]

I think people exploring space should use metric units

Indeed. The USA is the only country in the world without serious metrication plans and even the NASA has switched to metric.

I's quite a shithole nation regarding metrification...

[Jap2.0]

I think people exploring space should use metric units

Indeed. The USA is the only country in the world without serious metrication plans and even the NASA has switched to metric.

I's quite a shithole nation regarding metrification...

We tried once...

[Caine]

I's quite a shithole nation regarding metrification...

Well yes, but not entirely without reason. Switching to metric is not without cost and the USA is still the economic powerhouse in the world. No country will have higher switching costs.

[bobingabout]

here's a few belt achievement ideas.

1 mile machine: Place a belt that covers 880 tiles (assume each tile is a 2 yards long)
If I could walk 500 miles: Items travelled 500 miles via belt.
Now you're thinking with splitters: use a splitter to Prioritise left and right for input and output, and apply a filter. (the new stuff they showed off in FFF)

I think people exploring space should use metric units

Also, I think that each tile is ~1m, which is about 1 yard.

The reason I went with 2 yards, is because the width/height of a tile is about the same height as the player, and the average person is about 2 yards tall.
No issue of just using 2 metres if you'd prefer.

A kilometre is a lot easier to do though, because that would be 500 tiles long, vs the 880 for a mile.

[blavek]

I think people exploring space should use metric units

Indeed. The USA is the only country in the world without serious metrication plans and even the NASA has switched to metric.

I's quite a shithole nation regarding metrification...

We use the metric system sometimes and the Imperial system sometimes. We learn both in school. Rule of thumb Science is done in metric. Weight is usually imperial, ground distance imperial. Drinks seem to depend on size, with smaller denominations of soda in ounces, but larger ones as 2 or one liter bottles. Alcohol has the metric values on them, but we refer to them by other names. 1.75 L is handle, 750ml is a fifth, 375 is a quart and half that is a pint. Liter bottles are liters though.

Its a safe bet that we will not switch to km for distance on the ground or in air anytime soon. Changing the signage alone on the roads and highways would be an exorbitant fee. There are 4.2 million miles of road in the US. which is 6759244.8km.

[Caine]

We learn both in school. Rule of thumb Science is done in metric.

Doesn't this create a gap between scientists and non-scientists? I can imagine that those that do not use metric regularly completely lose the feeling for it. I would expect that this would create a "metric is hard" mentality.

but we refer to them by other names. 1.75 L is handle, 750ml is a fifth, 375 is a quart and half that is a pint.

WTF? Why introduce a name for everything? That sounds needlessly confusing to me.

[Jap2.0]

We learn both in school. Rule of thumb Science is done in metric.

Doesn't this create a gap between scientists and non-scientists? I can imagine that those that do not use metric regularly completely lose the feeling for it. I would expect that this would create a "metric is hard" mentality.

but we refer to them by other names. 1.75 L is handle, 750ml is a fifth, 375 is a quart and half that is a pint.

WTF? Why introduce a name for everything? That sounds needlessly confusing to me.

It is needlessly confusing. Also, I've never heard of handles and fifths, and I thought quarts and pints were imperial.
It's confusing here.

[SQLek]

Your discusion kinda remind me this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4bmZ1gRqCc

[bobingabout]

"A pint glass is a form of drinkware made to hold either a British ("imperial") pint of 20 imperial fluid ounces (568 ml) or an American pint of 16 US fluid ounces (473 ml). These glasses are typically used to serve beer"
568/20*16=454 not 473, which means not only are the pints different, but also the fluid ounces too.

And that's just one example. It's almost a shame that Imperial fluid measurements are almost non-existant anymore, the only cases you normally encounter are pints for beer (or any pub drink really), and occasionally gallons used in industry, EG, a 45 gallon drum is a standard container, which is also known as a 205 litre drum. (which is 54 US gallons)

At least American and Imperial weight are the same. Except America is missing a unit. I weigh 12 stone. how much is that in American?

[5thHorseman]

At least American and Imperial weight are the same. Except America is missing a unit. I weigh 12 stone. how much is that in American?

I think it's 5 feet, 3 hogsheads.

[bobingabout]

At least American and Imperial weight are the same. Except America is missing a unit. I weigh 12 stone. how much is that in American?

I think it's 5 feet, 3 hogsheads.

It can also be said to be 6 quarts. (like quarters... quarters of a hundredweight... which is 112 pounds. these numbers make brilliant sense, right?)
A Stone is 14 pounds, as 12 stone is 168 pounds.

[Koub]

I just love these discussions about imperial units (on a side note, also love discussing about Farenheit temperature scale), especially because I'm in a country where the metric systemis has been used for over 300 years, which makes life so easier and gives a subject to make fun of (except that so much of the contents of Youtube is made by people who use the imperial system with their ounces of butter, their pound-feet of torque, and their mile per gallon fuel consumtion), but I think we could slide back on topic couldn't we ?

[Bokkie]

Alcohol has the metric values on them.

Is there really anything else you need to mesure?

[Aru]

edit: Nevermind I figured it out, mostly, everything is fixed except that it insists on using the config.ini in the game folder instead of the %appdata% one, even though everything else is once again %appdata%.

Trying to update from 0.13 to 0.14 royally screwed up my installation, and I've been trying to fix it without losing everything ever since. Sadly, thus far I have been forced to clear my config files because it said they were broken (from game folder and %appdata%, though I made backups first). The real problem now is that factorio isn't loading saves or mods or who knows whatever other crucial things from %appdata%, instead it wants to use the the install folder. How do I fix this?

[Aru]

I see three different changes to the splitter behavior. 1] The memory is reduced from [-5,5] to [0,1], I approve. 2] The memory is now separate for each lane instead of shared, this alone makes splitter sorters impossible and also forces compressed inputs to alternate between lanes on each output belt, I approve. 3] Alternation between output belts is now independent of item type, I disapprove.

And, initial output still defaults to the same belt every time as it did before, I disapprove though this is mostly aesthetic.

"To simply alternate every item to each output belt while considering all items to be the same type, that is the worst behavior, there's no reason to do that. ... Either it should be entirely random, or it should alternate each type between each output belt (then only the first of each type should be random). I'd rather have the latter; why introduce this random element when you can easily alternate between outputs, producing an even distribution? Ultimately, a random output will trend toward an even distribution anyway, but is more, well... random in the short term.

I'm okay with the way it works now. Though, a memory of 5-6 per type instead of 1 per type is not a very consequential aspect."

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19114&hilit=belt&start=40#p169462

It looks like I reached a similar conclusion long ago, that the intended benefit would be achieved if the number of items remembered for each type was only 1 for each outgoing belt. And what you've changed it to, alternating without respect to item type, is what I once said was even worse than just making it random. (Because, at least random still prevents any patterns in a mixed input from manifesting as artifacts in the belt split.) Sure you still have the same number of items on each belt, but it's inferior for it to be independent of type like that. It was made this way in the first place for a reason. In particular, it is superior when you have mixed items on a lane. And making it random, simply trends in the long term to what having a memory of 1 for each type would additionally achieve in every short term.

There is also another, unrelated change with this patch which "fixes" this somewhat cosmetic artifact:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19114&hilit=belt#p123107
but it's a totally separate change and though it was an inconsequential problem, this fix can be applied to the old per-type behavior too. This change, is making each lane have separate memory, instead of a shared memory for the entire belt. This also makes splitter sorters impossible, even if it were to retain the type-specific alternation.

So in summary, my vote is for reinstating the old splitter behavior, but have it only remember which belt the last item of each type was sent to, rather than the last 5 to 6 items of each type (depending on which output belt). And randomize between the two belts separately for each type when the splitter is first placed, instead of defaulting every type to the same belt. And, make this memory separate for each lane instead of shared between the two, so that we don't get aesthetically offensive behavior as in the final link (nor splitter sorters). *(That is, this makes splitter sorters impossible, DESPITE the sorters remembering which belt each type was last sent to.)

Relative to the new behavior, this means alternating between output belts for each separate item type, and randomizing the first choice for each one (the latter isn't important, it's just more pleasing).

[TheRaph]

So in summary, my vote is for reinstating the old splitter behavior, but have it only remember which belt the last item of each type was sent to, rather than the last 5 to 6 items of each type (depending on which output belt). And randomize between the two belts separately for each type when the splitter is first placed, instead of defaulting every type to the same belt. And, make this memory separate for each lane instead of shared between the two, so that we don't get aesthetically offensive behavior as in the final link (or splitter sorters).

Relative to the new behavior, this means alternating between output belts for each separate item type, and randomizing the first choice for each one (the latter isn't important, it's just more pleasing).

Disagree!
The old behaviour makes no sense at all. The new behaviour is what new player will expect from this kind of device: A stupid mechanical "one item left ... one item right". I personally hat learned about "strange sorting function" of old splitters long time after I launched my first rocket.

An if you like to sort things by splitter you are welcome. The devs had stated that there will be some kind of sorting splitter. There you may set filters for an item you like. And that's intuitive.

[blavek]

We learn both in school. Rule of thumb Science is done in metric.

Doesn't this create a gap between scientists and non-scientists? I can imagine that those that do not use metric regularly completely lose the feeling for it. I would expect that this would create a "metric is hard" mentality.

but we refer to them by other names. 1.75 L is handle, 750ml is a fifth, 375 is a quart and half that is a pint.

WTF? Why introduce a name for everything? That sounds needlessly confusing to me.

It is needlessly confusing. Also, I've never heard of handles and fifths, and I thought quarts and pints were imperial.
It's confusing here.

A fifth is roughly a fifth of a gallon if I recall correctly and handle I can only assume comes from the fact their is a handle on the side. Most likely both names started during prohibition as a way to talk about alcohol. Quarts and pints are imperial units however the smaller bottles of liquor are often referred to with this names regardless of how much fluid is actually in them or I have my milliliters wrong as its been over a decade since I worked in a liquor store.

As for a gap who knows. I think mostly science is done in metric to align with everyone else. But in daily life it is pretty irrelevant. It would be nice if more things were metric because who knows how many tablespoons are in a cup? Whats more frustrating though, is I have an american built car, Half the bolts are metric. I need two sets of tools to do work on the car. In some cases on the same part one bolt will be imperial and the others metric.

[dasiro]

Its a safe bet that we will not switch to km for distance on the ground or in air anytime soon. Changing the signage alone on the roads and highways would be an exorbitant fee. There are 4.2 million miles of road in the US. which is 6759244.8km.

switching out all speedometers in cars will be a lot more expensive, dunno how many vehicles you have rolling around, but it's probably a lot
also: 4.2m seems pretty low for such a big country, although we have one the densest road-networks here in Belgium

[Aru]

So in summary, my vote is for reinstating the old splitter behavior, but have it only remember which belt the last item of each type was sent to, rather than the last 5 to 6 items of each type (depending on which output belt). And randomize between the two belts separately for each type when the splitter is first placed, instead of defaulting every type to the same belt. And, make this memory separate for each lane instead of shared between the two, so that we don't get aesthetically offensive behavior as in the final link (or splitter sorters).

Relative to the new behavior, this means alternating between output belts for each separate item type, and randomizing the first choice for each one (the latter isn't important, it's just more pleasing).

Disagree!
The old behaviour makes no sense at all. The new behaviour is what new player will expect from this kind of device: A stupid mechanical "one item left ... one item right". I personally hat learned about "strange sorting function" of old splitters long time after I launched my first rocket.

An if you like to sort things by splitter you are welcome. The devs had stated that there will be some kind of sorting splitter. There you may set filters for an item you like. And that's intuitive.

Simply making the memory separate for each lane, as it is now, is enough to make splitter sorters impossible.

The feature to distribute items by type prevents certain scenarios where mixed items on a lane causes a factory to repeatedly stop working and require manual intervention, despite the input ratio being matched to the consumption.

It also prevents patterns in the input from manifesting as artifacts in the output. There are many ways the new behavior still allows some patterns in the input, which can occur through many natural, accidental means, to manifest in very uneven distributions of types on the outgoing belts. But if it remembered which belt each type went to, this too would become impossible, and the incoming distribution of types would be reflected in each outgoing belt, regardless of input patterns.

All we really needed to do to stop splitter sorters and prevent artifacts was to separate the memory for each lane. Randomizing initial output for each type, additionally removes one other esoteric artifact. Reducing the memory to 1 per type, simplifies things somewhat, removing an unnecessary complication. They implemented two of these changes, reducing memory to 1 and separating it between each lane, but they also made it type independent which I think brings no advantages and even brings a little bit back of the tricky artifacts which we want to minimize.

[TheRaph]

It also prevents patterns in the input from manifesting as artifacts in the output. There are many ways the new behavior still allows some patterns in the input, which can occur through many natural, accidental means, to manifest in very uneven distributions of types on the outgoing belts.

I've had a hard time to understand what you mean (consider English is not my native language ).

But if it would work like you describe (as I understand ), the following setup may not work anymore. Do you like to output copper-iron-copper-iron on each side instead?

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