[MOD 0.16] Bulk Rail Loaders

[enchant]

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.

Sigh. Thank you.

Any idea why this might have just started happening to me? I definitely didn't change it. I loaded a saved game and the loaders were successfully handling copper plate, wire, green/red/blue circuits.

[mrvn]

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.

Sigh. Thank you.

Any idea why this might have just started happening to me? I definitely didn't change it. I loaded a saved game and the loaders were successfully handling copper plate, wire, green/red/blue circuits.

Load the game and check the setting. It must be set to "any" in your savegame. But the new game use the globaly set value which is probably ores.

[enchant]

Both main menu and the one in my latest save game were set to ore only. They're now both set to any.

[AnarCon]

Got this crashmsg when loading a autosave

[helican]

Fantastic mod, have been using it for some time now, but today the loaders stopped working for iron plates I was carting about. I read through this post and learned of the mods settings option that required a change to a drop down menu for ore, ore/plate, any. I changed the setting and it has no effect on the loaders, they will still not load plates or anything except ore.

I entered the saved game, changed the setting, saved the game, quit the save, re-entered the save, the setting was correct (any), I set up a small test loop and the loader will not load plates. The unloaders work fine.

What could I be missing?

[Therax]

Fantastic mod, have been using it for some time now, but today the loaders stopped working for iron plates I was carting about. I read through this post and learned of the mods settings option that required a change to a drop down menu for ore, ore/plate, any. I changed the setting and it has no effect on the loaders, they will still not load plates or anything except ore.

I entered the saved game, changed the setting, saved the game, quit the save, re-entered the save, the setting was correct (any), I set up a small test loop and the loader will not load plates. The unloaders work fine.

What could I be missing?

Loaders and unloaders use the same item logic, so it sounds like the setting is working properly. This means the most likely reason is that your loaders are positioned incorrectly. Because the loaders are so tall, the sprite placement isn't always exactly intuitive. Double check positioning, and if that isn't the problem, post a save or a screenshot and I can take a look.

[helican]

Save uploaded. Thanks for being willing to look at this. If it positioning i'll kick myself as I have run into that before and am fairly OCD about it.

EDIT: Apparently there was an error uploading the save file. Its 34mb. Do you have an alternative method to getting it to you?

[helican]

Kicking myself, repeatedly. Positioning...

[csduff]

Kicking myself, repeatedly. Positioning...

I love this mod, and I used to have the placement problem too. That's why I make a station horizontally, then make a blueprint for a loading station and an unloading station. Then I just rotate to the alignment that I need. Saves with aligning, especially if you have a significantly large station.

[zOldBulldog]

When this mod first came out I was looking for a clean, fast and balanced load/unload mechanism to replace the huge contraptions I was using. But the limitation to just ores made it unusable for my purposes.

Today I was browsing and saw that you added a setting to do just what I need! Time to take a second look!

[Therax]

I believe the setting was actually there since the very first release, but glad you’re back to give it another try. Let me know what you think!

[Hyratel]

I've been using these as a "dirty hack" for the fact that the ships in the Cargo Ships mod are bonking HUGE, and as such, take intolerably long to un/load with just inserters (even max-bonus stax). however, because the Boat in that mod is much smaller, the Secret Inserter that BRL uses sometimes hits the "Engine" instead of the cargo compartment (Wagon). it appears that the BRU/Ls are 4-way directional, but there is no clue-in visually whether it's using the Secret Inserter on the N<->S or E<->W. it doesn't matter for vanilla and vanilla-compatible trains, because a standard 6 tile wagon covers both ends of the loader. Pictures for clarity:

Unloader with the Inserter facing north, and a Boat pointed south



Unloader facing south, Boat pointed south

[Therax]

Thanks for the report. There is code that’s supposed to force “south” facing BRLs to use the “north” positioning instead, and similarly “west” to use “east,” but there’s a bug there. I’ll work on a fix.

[zOldBulldog]

I believe the setting was actually there since the very first release, but glad you’re back to give it another try. Let me know what you think!

I tried it and am now using it. Here is what I noticed (with both the fresh perspective and misconceptions of a new user of the mod) and some suggestions to make it even better (assuming that it can be done) :

- Positioning the loader/unloader on North-South rail feels a bit strange, mainly due to the rail 2x2 nature and fitting this in the right position. It might "feel" more natural if instead of placing over empty space we placed it over existing rail (the mod taking care of removing the previously placed rail segments and reestablishing the connection). I have not yet tried East/West orientation, so I can't comment on that.

- I noticed the massive capacity of the chest element of the loader/unloader. I remember a thread mentioning that chests with a large number of slots cause UPS problems. Something about having to check every slot. Since this is mainly for bulk ore handling, I might suggest treating the storage portion as a huge single slot (at least in the use case of a single ore, or as a setting option) . I believe it should be possible since the mod Compressing Chests seems to be doing it (unless I misinterpreted it).

- A bulk loader already behaves as a large chest and inserters. Why not make it behave as having a few more inserters so that you can connect belt directly to it. I am using it with Miniloaders but it feels wrong to use Miniloaders or inserters to feed a bulk loader/unloader. Or does it already expecting belt up to the loader/unloader and I am using it wrong?

- Some of the "best practice" designs of LTN (mod that many people using bulk loaders are likely to also use as they fit the same mindspace) require using filter (or stack filter) inserters (for example as Tuplex shows in this tutorial) to ensure loading the right amount onto the train: https://youtu.be/a3ujEdPfGHk . As the bulk loader/unloader behaves like a combination of a large chest and stack inserters... you might want to add the behaviors and configuration ability of a filter inserter to them. Because of this issue I ended up using the unloader but not the loaders.

[Therax]

- Positioning the loader/unloader on North-South rail feels a bit strange, mainly due to the rail 2x2 nature and fitting this in the right position. It might "feel" more natural if instead of placing over empty space we placed it over existing rail (the mod taking care of removing the previously placed rail segments and reestablishing the connection). I have not yet tried East/West orientation, so I can't comment on that.

Older versions of the mod did this and it was indeed very handy when hand placing BRLs. Unfortunately it made robot construction and deconstruction unreliable and unintuitive since robots were never meant to handle multiple entities placed in the same position, which is why I switched to the current system.

- I noticed the massive capacity of the chest element of the loader/unloader. I remember a thread mentioning that chests with a large number of slots cause UPS problems. Something about having to check every slot. Since this is mainly for bulk ore handling, I might suggest treating the storage portion as a huge single slot (at least in the use case of a single ore, or as a setting option) . I believe it should be possible since the mod Compressing Chests seems to be doing it (unless I misinterpreted it).

This is possible only through Lua scripting, which would cause more UPS problems than it solves by making the chests smaller.

- A bulk loader already behaves as a large chest and inserters. Why not make it behave as having a few more inserters so that you can connect belt directly to it. I am using it with Miniloaders but it feels wrong to use Miniloaders or inserters to feed a bulk loader/unloader. Or does it already expecting belt up to the loader/unloader and I am using it wrong?

I am following the philosophy of having simple components that do one job well. I personally like having loaders to fill a BRL’s buffer.

- Some of the "best practice" designs of LTN (mod that many people using bulk loaders are likely to also use as they fit the same mindspace) require using filter (or stack filter) inserters (for example as Tuplex shows in this tutorial) to ensure loading the right amount onto the train: https://youtu.be/a3ujEdPfGHk . As the bulk loader/unloader behaves like a combination of a large chest and stack inserters... you might want to add the behaviors and configuration ability of a filter inserter to them. Because of this issue I ended up using the unloader but not the loaders.

You can use combinators to send the “Disable railloader” signal to control how much to fill a wagon with LTN (e.g. Everything <= 0). Filtering capability is not needed when BRLs contain only a single type of item, as intended.

[mrvn]

- Some of the "best practice" designs of LTN (mod that many people using bulk loaders are likely to also use as they fit the same mindspace) require using filter (or stack filter) inserters (for example as Tuplex shows in this tutorial) to ensure loading the right amount onto the train: https://youtu.be/a3ujEdPfGHk . As the bulk loader/unloader behaves like a combination of a large chest and stack inserters... you might want to add the behaviors and configuration ability of a filter inserter to them. Because of this issue I ended up using the unloader but not the loaders.

For LTN you have to make one station per item. For mixed stations you have to stick with buffer chests or warehouses and filter inserters. He won't add a filter option to the loader.

[zOldBulldog]

- Some of the "best practice" designs of LTN (mod that many people using bulk loaders are likely to also use as they fit the same mindspace) require using filter (or stack filter) inserters (for example as Tuplex shows in this tutorial) to ensure loading the right amount onto the train: https://youtu.be/a3ujEdPfGHk . As the bulk loader/unloader behaves like a combination of a large chest and stack inserters... you might want to add the behaviors and configuration ability of a filter inserter to them. Because of this issue I ended up using the unloader but not the loaders.

For LTN you have to make one station per item. For mixed stations you have to stick with buffer chests or warehouses and filter inserters. He won't add a filter option to the loader.

Yes, also... conceptually, if you are going to use a bulk loader there is not much of a logical reason to limit a train to less than full wagons.

In the end what I really needed was more of a condition than a filter. I had a single item type, and the LTN related comparison wasn't even with the contents of the bulk loader but between the requested amount and the train contents. The use of a filter was just the mechanism used by the tutorial I was following in order to turn the loading on/off.

Once I understood Bulk Loaders and LTN a little better I realized that I could use a different condition and did not need a filter.

The only thing that is a little unusual is relying on Disable Loader signal instead of having the normal Enable/Disable condition in the loader UI.

CONCLUSIONS:

1) There is an excellent opportunity for a Factorio YouTuber to make a tutorial for how to use LTN with Bulk Loaders (and maybe Miniloaders to feed the bulk loader).

2) Bulk Loaders/Unloaders would be even better and feel/look more natural if they were enhanced to incorporate the Miniloaders functionality so that you would simply connect the belts to them without additional inserters or loaders... just like with real ones.

[mrvn]

- Some of the "best practice" designs of LTN (mod that many people using bulk loaders are likely to also use as they fit the same mindspace) require using filter (or stack filter) inserters (for example as Tuplex shows in this tutorial) to ensure loading the right amount onto the train: https://youtu.be/a3ujEdPfGHk . As the bulk loader/unloader behaves like a combination of a large chest and stack inserters... you might want to add the behaviors and configuration ability of a filter inserter to them. Because of this issue I ended up using the unloader but not the loaders.

For LTN you have to make one station per item. For mixed stations you have to stick with buffer chests or warehouses and filter inserters. He won't add a filter option to the loader.

Yes, also... conceptually, if you are going to use a bulk loader there is not much of a logical reason to limit a train to less than full wagons.

In the end what I really needed was more of a condition than a filter. I had a single item type, and the LTN related comparison wasn't even with the contents of the bulk loader but between the requested amount and the train contents. The use of a filter was just the mechanism used by the tutorial I was following in order to turn the loading on/off.

Once I understood Bulk Loaders and LTN a little better I realized that I could use a different condition and did not need a filter.

The only thing that is a little unusual is relying on Disable Loader signal instead of having the normal Enable/Disable condition in the loader UI.

CONCLUSIONS:

1) There is an excellent opportunity for a Factorio YouTuber to make a tutorial for how to use LTN with Bulk Loaders (and maybe Miniloaders to feed the bulk loader).

2) Bulk Loaders/Unloaders would be even better and feel/look more natural if they were enhanced to incorporate the Miniloaders functionality so that you would simply connect the belts to them without additional inserters or loaders... just like with real ones.

I use a arithmetic combinator to compute "requested - train content" and then emit a Disable Loader signal when "anything <= 0".

[zOldBulldog]

@mrvn, Exactly what I ended up doing

[mrvn]

I would prefer to enable on "everything > 0" so manual trains don't get loaded some goods before the disable signal comes on. Have to think about this. Maybe just needs the wires to be turned around or something. I don't want to add a third combinator just for the few times I drive a train manually.