[MOD 0.16] Bulk Rail Loaders

[Cadde]

Where did you get those combined chest graphics?

Mergable chests / Wide chests : https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Atria/WideChests

[SuperSandro2000]

Where did you get those combined chest graphics?

Mergable chests / Wide chests : https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Atria/WideChests

thx. Only found modular chests.

[immortal_sniper1]

bulk loaders dont work with py raw ores raw coal

[Therax]

bulk loaders dont work with py raw ores raw coal

This should be supported now in 0.5.6.

[Therax]

There have been several requests for a version for fluids. While not part of the Bulk Rail Loaders mod, you can use my Pipelayer mod to make some very compact, very high throughput fluid stations:

https://gfycat.com/dizzyjollyarmyworm

[Hyratel]

Had a thought: the Cargo Ships mod ( https://mods.factorio.com/mod/cargo-ships ) has HUUUUUGE inventories for the ships, which are reskinned trains. due to a gap in the API, any train can run on any track, or in this case, ships can run on train tracks - AND on Bulk Rail Un/Loaders. It's possible to do some very careful finessing to place a small peninsula of land to place the BRU/L on in line with the Cargo Ships Waterway, but it would at least feel less cheesy if there was a designed/designated Bulk Ship Un/Loader. Presently, the only way to Un/Load the ships is with Long-handed inserters, which takes for-dang-ever and maxes out at about 2 or 3 red belts' worth, which is painfully slow, due to the need for 1 water tile of clearance for the ships on either side of the waterway

[Therax]

Had a thought: the Cargo Ships mod ( https://mods.factorio.com/mod/cargo-ships ) has HUUUUUGE inventories for the ships, which are reskinned trains. due to a gap in the API, any train can run on any track, or in this case, ships can run on train tracks - AND on Bulk Rail Un/Loaders. It's possible to do some very careful finessing to place a small peninsula of land to place the BRU/L on in line with the Cargo Ships Waterway, but it would at least feel less cheesy if there was a designed/designated Bulk Ship Un/Loader. Presently, the only way to Un/Load the ships is with Long-handed inserters, which takes for-dang-ever and maxes out at about 2 or 3 red belts' worth, which is painfully slow, due to the need for 1 water tile of clearance for the ships on either side of the waterway

The Cargo Ships mod page shows use with short (fast, stack) inserters, so you might try that for now. I can look into adding graphics for a dedicated ship quay, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

[MoiAimeBien]

The mod use alone or not, prevent to save filter in cargo wagon, with blue-print.

With 0.17 you can now save train and filter, with BP.
But when I use the mod, if I want to create a BP with filter, it doesn't save it.
The train is build by robot, but no filter at all

[Therax]

The mod use alone or not, prevent to save filter in cargo wagon, with blue-print.

With 0.17 you can now save train and filter, with BP.
But when I use the mod, if I want to create a BP with filter, it doesn't save it.
The train is build by robot, but no filter at all

This looks like a gap in the Factorio API. Meanwhile I have fixed it in v0.6.1 for blueprints without any BRLs, but if the blueprint contains a Bulk Rail Loader, you will still lose any cargo wagon filter settings until the API is improved.

[MoiAimeBien]

Ok thanks for the fix.
But your other mod miniloader have the same bug.
I already post it.

[GrumpyJoe]

I really like this mod and im using it alot. Thanks for all the work!

minor not-really-a-bug story

I couldn´t reliably reproduce it, but i had some wierd "works mostly, but sometimes messes up" thing in my 0.16, short before 0.17, base.
Sometimes it didn´t keep the circuit network connections and my LTN got abit messed up.
I think it was only when bots placed it, pipette-building was ok.
Since i knew it, i just had to look at when the station after bots built it and manually connect color wires, not a biggie.
Since i now returned to your mod, i wanted to check that and couldn´t find anything unusual. So far so good

What i now noticed is, the chest part of the loader/unloader is connected to a network, even tho when no cable is connected on the externals.
Since its only "read content" it must be the "chest" part connected to red and green wires, leading to the connectable loader building, as thats showing when connecting the wires to something and activating "show circuit network numbers" debug option

loader.png (81.51 KiB) Viewed 6297 times

That leads me to something i always wanted, since im using LTN and combinators to make mixed provider loading useable.
Would it be possible to have 2 connection entites, like LTN has in its input (lamp) and output (green constant combinator), to set inserter filters and at the same time read from the "chest"?

Im wondering if you even need networks leading out of the sprite(?) (im guessing here, not a modder) when nothing is connected.
Couldn´t you make the "building" a chest type that´s not connected to something by default? No idea if lots of unused connections cause updates at all.
And have a different (maybe yet to add) part of the visible entity be the stack inserter controller?

LTNs output doesn´t show items at the requesters station´s output (unloader station) because it should be 0 when finished, reading the schedule (i guess its outputting a 0, but you cant see that)
You have to filter chest outputs, if getting mixed item loads. Having filtered inserters is not important at the destination.
That means the request would only be neccessary at the loader.

However, some people might want to prevent items from unloading, if something went wrong.

Im not a programmer, but i made a working little mod. I can read code, depending on the author more or less good enough, so anything to help that and take some work from you i can and will do.


Thanks for reading a wall of text
I´ll now open the files and try to understand what you did

[Therax]

I couldn´t reliably reproduce it

That has been my experience too, although I’ve seen rare reports of issues I’ve not been able to isolate the cause.

Would it be possible to have 2 connection entites, like LTN has in its input (lamp) and output (green constant combinator), to set inserter filters and at the same time read from the "chest"?

It would be possible but I’ve made the balancing decision to not support filters for BRLs. They’re already fast, compact, and cheap. The main cost is that you need separate station platforms for different items. You can always filter or sort when extracting items from the BRL’s inventory.

Im wondering if you even need networks leading out of the sprite(?) (im guessing here, not a modder) when nothing is connected.
Couldn´t you make the "building" a chest type that´s not connected to something by default? No idea if lots of unused connections cause updates at all.

This is possible, and I did it for Miniloaders. But that approach turns out to be complicated, messy, and prone to bugs. It roughly doubled the total amount of code in Miniloaders, if not more. BRL follows the approach of always connecting the chest to the inserters, and it’s been a far better method IMO.

[Broskev]

Hello there!

It seems that you can load only five different item types into the wagon at the same time. I am trying to setup a station that feeds all products from Angel's hydro refining setup into the same loaders and sort it elsewhere. When the train comes, only the following items make it into the wagon even though there is enough space there: Crushed Stone, Slag, Blue Geodes, Iron Ore and Copper Ore.

Nickel Ore and Silicon Ore always stay behind and will not be loaded even if there is enough space in the wagon.

I hope I made myself clear

[Therax]

This is a fundamental limitation on filter inserters. I advise you to set up stations that handle a maximum of 5 products per cargo wagon. Note you can have more than 5 item types per train, as long as they are segregated to different wagons.

Alternatively, change the mod setting to “any,” which uses regular inserters instead of filter inserters, so it’s not subject to the 5 item filter limit.

[Broskev]

Thank you for the answer, Therax. I was actually able to find this in a code and tried to change the filter_count to 10, but then it threw an error So I figured there is a limitation.

I will probably change to "any", but will keep extra care to adhere to the "ores" limitation in my setup so I don't feel like cheating

[mrvn]

Hello there!

It seems that you can load only five different item types into the wagon at the same time. I am trying to setup a station that feeds all products from Angel's hydro refining setup into the same loaders and sort it elsewhere. When the train comes, only the following items make it into the wagon even though there is enough space there: Crushed Stone, Slag, Blue Geodes, Iron Ore and Copper Ore.

Nickel Ore and Silicon Ore always stay behind and will not be loaded even if there is enough space in the wagon.

I hope I made myself clear

Do you have filters in your wagons? Because when all the Slag is loaded the filter should change to load Nickel Ore too for example. But if there is still slag in the loader but the wagon filters prevent loading it then it never gets removed from the intserters filter. And the game limits filters to 5 items.

You could use circuit logic to limit the amount of each item that gets put into the loader so it only holds one wagons worth of stuff. Then all should get loaded.

[enchant]

I've been using the rail loaders for over a year without any problems. I just started a new game (no changes since my last game), and for some reason, the loaders aren't working. I'm manufacturing gears and they're filling the loaders, but when a train stops in the station, nothing gets loaded into the cargo wagon. I've definitely got the loader lined up properly with where the car should stop. I feel like I've got to be doing something stupid, but I really can't figure it out. What could possibly cause this?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 1709790537

Edit: Just for the heck of it, I manually loaded some gears into the cargo wagon and it refuses to unload into the bulk unloader at the other end of the line.

[Therax]

Did you change the mod setting to “any?” Gears aren’t in the set of items that are permitted by default.

[enchant]

I had NOT changed the mod setting to "any". It was ore only. Sadly, that didn't fix the problem. However, I tried pumping iron ore into the loader and that did load into the cargo wagon.

This kinda makes no sense to me, as I don't think I've ever used them to transport ore. I've transported a lot of iron/copper/steel plate.

[Therax]

Did you change the option on the main menu or in-game? If you change the option from the main menu that only affects new saves.