Factorio Forums

----- joined ------ ßilk --------

Right now, the fact that inserters always place on the far or left side of the belt constrains some designs, especially early game. It would be really helpful to have this be a programmable option on the inserters.

The options should be "far vs. near" and "left vs. right". Depending on the inserter's orientation, you should only see one pair of options.

See also the post(s) before. As much as this is wished, I don't see a big chance, that this is implemented.

Indeed it is several times stated, that handling these type of problems is part of the game.

lol its so easy to track when a new batch of people buy this game

I hope I get help, if they go to Steam.

ssilk wrote:
I hope I get help, if they go to Steam.

My dear ßilk, I would be surprised if you'll like most of the crowd the steam release will bring... Maybe we all are in dear need of help then

It seems like a simple idea but how about when you build an inserter you can click on it like a smart inserter (although this would apply to all inserters) and it would give you the option of which side of the belt you want to insert on, or even potentially if you want the inserter to pick up from the left/right side of it. This would give the inserter much more flexibility and more realistic options for factory creation.

Outdated/Not implemented:
Assign Near/Far (or Left/Right) on Inserter ☸ - https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =71&t=3629

Related threads:
Dual lane inserter - https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=6245
IDEA: Interserter Lane Choice - https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14819

Moved. See linked articles.

Goal

Add new features

Situation

It is annoying that sometimes you have to build mazes to place or take an object from a certain side of the conveyor.

Decision

Add new settings to the manipulator. ↴
ㅤ

Some people would argue that this is part of the challenge of dealing with belts and inserters.

I'd be one of those people. Lane selection would trivialise part of the fun of the design process.

Inserters take from both lanes, so apart from some corner cases that is not really an issue, is it?
Putting things on a specific lane, that's where you have mods for. I do like the challenge of limits, similar story for there not being long fast inserters.

Limitations make the game more interesting. Forcing the player to get out of a difficult situation.

However, expanding the player's capabilities also makes the game more interesting. At the same time, letting the player's imagination run wild.

-1, the base inserter logic is a good constraint to provide interesting and complex designs. Giving inserters too much power makes them one dimensional, with no possibility for unique use cases. If you want to change the inserter lanes, use a mod. I use QAI because I wish to use diagonal and cardinal inserters. I turned off lane switching and non-cardinal direction input. They give enough room for creativity, without too much room as to become boring. I might even limit it to 180 degree turns in a future playthrough because it keeps more of the challenge.