Long-handed inserters should not be fast-replaceable

[sillyfly]

It always annoys me when I accidentally replace a regular/fast inserter with a long-handed (red) one by mistake.
Why should regular/fast inserters be fast-replaceable with long-handed ones? They can't be replaced and the system still be working without a redesign.

I think I saw a thread about it once, but I couldn't find it...
So anyone has an explanation why it is so?

[n9103]

Because they're in the same fastreplaceable item class.
I prefer they stay that way because it's one less manual mining that I have to do when I either switch belt layouts or when I accidentally place red in a blue/smart's spot.
TBH, sounds like you made (and keep making) a mistake and are looking to blame someone else, or at least make them share in it.

[sillyfly]

No, it sounds like you keep making a mistake and wish to have the game forgive you for it in a non-reasonable way.
You can as easily have a belt or a miner in the wrong slot, but you wouldn't suggest they would be in the same fast-replace group as an inserter, would you?

I am fully aware of the technical reason for why it is happening, I simply suggest it does not make sense. As you say - the only time you really want them fast-replaced is when you change something. More often than not you don't, though.
I don't consider it my "mistake" that I put a normal inserter and a long-handed one next to eachother, but missclick by a few pixels.

[sillyfly]

Ok, I feel I should apologize for my phrasing. It's just that it is not the first time you have replied in a rather personal manner, insinuating my suggestions or views are based on stupidity. I don't find that way very pleasant, but surely I should not have replied in the same manner. So I am sorry.

Now, allow me to rephrase what I said -
It is true that having long-handed inserters fast-replaceable with other inserters saves manual mining when changing layouts, but the same logic can be applied to making every single item in the game fast-replaceable with any other item. For instance - after I'm done mining an ore patch, I may wish to re-purpose the area for a factory, so having the miners fast-replaceable with assembly-machines would save me manual mining!
But clearly that wouldn't be beneficial. So as I see it, being in the same fast-replace group should be a determined by whether the items are truly interchangeable. It is clear that stone furnaces and steel furnaces should be fast-replaceable, as they do exactly the same thing, and have the exact same form-factor, so changing one to the other is a simple upgrade, and has no other repercussions.
As for pipes and boilers - they indeed do not have the same usage, but changing one to the other would hardly break anything, and more often than not you find yourself upgrading a power station, adding boilers where you used to have pipes.

As for long-handed inserters vs. regular ones - it is true they serve similar purposes, but in almost no case having one instead of the other does not change functionality. Changing from one to the other would almost always force you to change the layout around it as well.
Combine this with the fact that many times the two kinds are used in close quarters (e.g. - one putting ore into a furnace and the other coal, or feeding assembly machines from two lines with 3 or 4 ingredients), and in these cases changing one with the other would actually break the system, I think it would make more sense if they would not be in the same fast-replace group.

I would be happy to hear your thoughts about these points.

[danikov]

sillyfly, I think you're close to right about it being about form factor and commonality in construction. However, based on that criteria, making inserters fast replaceable with other inserters makes perfect sense due to the nature of their construction.

While in the common and most frequent cases it doesn't make sense to make such a change, it's not absolutely so and that lack of sense is down to intent, not possibility. There are infrequent rare cases when it may make sense and I don't see why that should be prohibited.

Surely the fact that they're fast replaceable makes it easier to reverse your mistake when you make it?

[n9103]

I often find myself preferring to switch which belt of a pair that a resource is carried on. I would even say that it accounts for more than 3/4/th of the times I swap a long or short inserter, with misplacement only being the remaining quarter.

Often, this can be attributed to the organic nature of pre-logistic factory design. (since post-logistic is largely modular.)
Sometimes one large/long production chain will crowd another, and it's preferable not to move the entirety of either for one or two tiles of space, so some belt tricks need to be employed, which often means being flexible with which tile is being picked or put onto.

It's also commonly triggered by resource depletion. (Faster to minimize turns, cheaper not to use splitters in excess to shift tiles, etc.)

Sorry if I came across too blunt, but your initial post came across as excessively whiny/entitled, as it requested that the game change around your actions (as opposed to learning what actions are preferable).
You're not the only one that's received a dose of my bluntness, (feel free to browse my post history ) but that's because the trend of making games easier, rather than expecting users to learn how to play better, is still too common for my tastes.
Probably most notably started back several versions when belts acquired the lane-correction behavior that eliminated the middle lane because it would jam up the belt in certain situations (u-turns mostly).

[sillyfly]

I share your opinion that games (Factorio included) should not be made easier just to fit the desires of some players. It bugs me as well when people make such suggestions.
I do not think this is such a case, though. It's more of a technical change, if anything. And I realize now my initial message may have come off as whiny. It's probably because I just came back from making a circuit factory, and missclicking a lot with those long-handed inserters.

Anyway, I realize we tend to play differently, your style perhaps making use of this feature, while mine mostly suffers from it (I tend to make my factories the way I like from the beginning, and frankly I don't like using logistic bots too much. Feels like cheating ).
Still, I'm glad to have this discussion, and maybe I can even find other people which share my opinion.

[LordFedora]

I don't know much about modding, but could you do this in a mod?

[sillyfly]

It's about as easy as it gets to do in a mod. My point was that I thought it made no sense, and was only so by mistake. Apparently at least some people prefer it that way. How about you?

[ssilk]

Modding is a good point. The five (six) inserters we have in the base game is just a tip of the iceberg of the possibilities inserters have. It makes much sense for me to quick replace them all, cause when you build them, I often re-decide the placing.

I use long arm inserters too seldom, to put them always into quick bar, so I can't mix them.

[sillyfly]

I use long arm inserters too seldom, to put them always into quick bar, so I can't mix them.

That's more reason not to have them fast-replaceable with others!

But I see I'm probably in the minority. It really does make much more sense (for me at least) not to have them fast-replaceable

[Blackence]

No, sillyfly is right. It makes no sense to replace a short-handed inserter with a long-handed one.

It never happened to me, but it really makes no sense. It's like fast-replacing belts with inserters.

The only argument in favour of allowing this is probably "it makes re-designing my factory easier", but then everything should be fast-replaceable with everything else (i.e. you can build everywhere and factorio automatically mines everything that would block the new building).

[Koub]

I must admit i would find logical to have all 1 tile reach regular inserters to be replacable among themselves, because they indeed have for most part isofunctionality :
- I want to replace my very early burner inserter by a regular inserter once I have switched to electricity ? Makes sense.
- I want to upgrade all my normal yellow inserters by faster ones, because I upgraded my factories/furnaces, and need mode throughput ? Hell yeah ! That makes sense.
- Want to change any of my 1-tile reach inserters by two-tile reach inserters (applies for the opposite too) ? Why would I want such thing, apart from redesigning my factory ?

I even question myself for the pertinence of replacing regular inserters <=> smart inserters : they are not technically equivalent in functionality, would it make sense to keep them fast-replacable one for the other ? There could be pro and against arguments, but I'd say OK to keep them that way, I don't find illogical to fast-replace fast inserters with smart ones when setting your logical network up.

But I see no case I would replace smart/fast/regular/burner inserter by a long hand inserter except for :
- correcting a misclick
- a redesign of the factory

That's why I agree with Sillyfly's suggestion.

[bobingabout]

Modding is a good point. The five (six) inserters we have in the base game is just a tip of the iceberg of the possibilities inserters have. It makes much sense for me to quick replace them all, cause when you build them, I often re-decide the placing.

I use long arm inserters too seldom, to put them always into quick bar, so I can't mix them.

Indeed, I added a lot in my mod, and that's still just a drop in the sea of the possibilities. I could easily have also added left hand and right hand 90 degree inserters, or even 3 tile inserters. by that point though, the configurable inserters are more ideal, and there's already a mod for that.

[katyal]

When I started playing I would lay my stone furnaces without any space between them with the fuel running between two rows and I'd lay my yellow inserters and then try to place the red ones like we place electric poles by holding the button down ...was kinda disappointed they fast replaced the yellow ones instead of just filling the gaps between them. It happened to me on two or three occasions but apart from that specific case it hasn't really come up in my game play. That being said though it does seem counter intuitive to me that long and short inserters fast replace each other and would support changing it.

[Peter34]

It just annoys me a lot that all Inserters belong to the same in-game category with regards to replacing each other. It should be split into two categories, so that long Inserters and short Inserters belong to different ones. Currently the vanilla game only has 1 type of long Inserter, but mods may add more, so it'd be best if instead of making longs a special case, they're defined as a category of their own in terms of what they can and can't replace.

[sillyfly]

I fully support this, as I have already suggested - https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=7857
But apparently some people don't. I suppose ssilk-bot will join the two threads soon

[Peter34]

The use case for me is most often when I set up lines of Furnaces, taking Coal from one Belt and Ore from another (or more often one Belt is pure Ore and the other is half Coal half Ore) and so I need to switch between normal Inserters and Long Inserters. That is where I sometimes accidentally replace one length of Inserter with another, when I have two Furnaces and I want to give each one a long one and a normal one.

There are other use cases, but this one is by far the most common, and is an excellent illustration of why I won't want longs and normals to be inter-replacable.

[MeduSalem]

It just annoys me a lot that all Inserters belong to the same in-game category with regards to replacing each other. It should be split into two categories, so that long Inserters and short Inserters belong to different ones. Currently the vanilla game only has 1 type of long Inserter, but mods may add more, so it'd be best if instead of making longs a special case, they're defined as a category of their own in terms of what they can and can't replace.

Really? You want to make an exception for that one inserter?

I actually find it quite convenient that they are fast-replaceable... for Furnace/Assembly lines this sometimes comes in quite handy when I misplaced an inserter accidently. Spares me to pick it up manually and place the other one instead. Or if I change my mind and want to swap positions of basic/fast/long-handed inserter to make the layout look a bit better. I'd hate to pick them up one by one.

For the sake... it's just an inserter. It's not like you replace entirely different not even related items or something.

[ssilk]

I fully support this, as I have already suggested - https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=7857
But apparently some people don't. I suppose ssilk-bot will join the two threads soon

Exactly Thanks for pointing it out.

The use case for me is most often when I set up lines of Furnaces, taking Coal from one Belt and Ore from another (or more often one Belt is pure Ore and the other is half Coal half Ore) and so I need to switch between normal Inserters and Long Inserters. That is where I sometimes accidentally replace one length of Inserter with another, when I have two Furnaces and I want to give each one a long one and a normal one.

I would find it much more useful to have a very limited "copy/paste" ability from beginning/very early, a clone-method, instead of reducing functionality.

See https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=4682 Planing, Cloning, Ghosting, Blueprinting and further...

Create one furnace with it's inserters, copy it, then clone as often you want.
Or clone it only once, next to the first, then replace the inserters of this clone (which is much easier, if they are fast replaceable! ), set poles, then mark it again and clone it as often you want.

In other words: the more the automation of building stuff is made easier, the less often you will place inserters, the less often accidentially replace them and the more often you REplace them.

There are other use cases, but this one is by far the most common, and is an excellent illustration of why I won't want longs and normals to be inter-replacable.

For me it's an excellent example to illustrate, that the most obvious solution is not always the best.