Friday Facts #128 - Back down to earth

[sillyfly]

...and that's one of those cases where immersion is at odds with game balance, because it's not really all that realistic for a Loader to require those kinds of mats ...

Speaking of game immersion - how would someone building all of these complex machines won't come up with a simple hopper, like the kind used to unload trains on Earth for 100+ years now?

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This. Sometimes I just stop and watch the machines work, there is something relaxing about it You would have to make the loader animated, like the assembly machines are, with bits moving around...

I think if it is implemented, it is a given that it will be animated. And I think it is extremely important that if it does end up in the game, it can never replace all of, or even most of, the inserters.

[skudd3r]

For the loader prototype

• Limit the loader to crates and trains
• Requires Power

[ske]

Makes belts (and trains) more relevant in comparison to robots in the late game.

Or you could nerf the robots by giving the chests a limited throughput by introducing a little delay to make them at most as fast as one fast inserter taking items from a belt ( viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20059 ). Also limit the number of active robots per chest to avoid network congestion.

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Having this new item 1x2 gives it a very small size. Furthermore, loading/unloading chests laying around is kind of limited usefulness in my opinion. Much more interesting would be to directly (un)load assembly machines. The graphics could integrate with the assembly machine.

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Instead of chests, we could load "containers" which could be moved around. In extension to this idea I could think of a whole set of new "heavy" equipment (let's call chests containers here):

• The heavy inserter moves containers around.
• The heavy belt transports whole containers.
• The containers waggon moves them by rail.
• The heavy robot shaped like one of those army helicopters transports a container from one place to another. (Still, keep throughput much lower than land based equipment.)
• The heavy furnace/assembly machine for bulk processing takes whole containerloads of items like iron ore and outputs containerloads. (Then increase the amount of ore we need to process for one plate by 10x.)

Obviously the heavy equipment would be bigger in size (4x4 or 5x5?) and consume more power but provides much higher througput per area. Limiting containers to one kind of item (one single huge stack) might be necessary and also makes sense.

[Kewlhotrod]

yes yes yes, please a loader, give us something to change our strategies and concept builds.

constructive edit, make them require a ton of materials because they do some rather strong, for example having a line of temp/buffer storage would be awesome but so strong, but giving us the option to manipulate the resources in multiple ways should be added to the game regardless I think.

[fregate84]

Postby Peter34 » Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:57 pm
starholme wrote:
I'm personally a big fan of the 'hopper' idea. Place a hopper over a belt, hopper can hold up to the inserter stack size bonus, will fill any empty belt spaces.
So you still get/need to use inserters, but the stack bonus becomes more useful. Have the hopper a single item that can be placed on any speed belt.
I like this idea a lot more than the Loader!

Agree. hopper is the solution. And we can have 2 type. Belt into a hopper (but 1 stack size, so it's not a chest) and hopper to belt.
In the 2 cases, we need inserter to move hopper to hopper, hopper to chest.

And it should be a T3 tech for me, unblock at blue belt level.

[silver_26]

at kovarex...

I maby have found some kind of bug...
I have 2 monitors.. don't know if that's due to the bug...

but when I am ingame and press Print Screen...
and I open the "picture " in paint...
the picture is taken when the game is paused .... like when you press Esc THEN take the print screen...

I can only do this when I have the game open and press on my 2nd monitor and then print screen
only then I do not have the " Esc " pause window

[ivesen]

I like the loader, it would make it less of a hassle to have massive production lines like I normally end up with, I don't understand why people call it OP though, I mean... it's not like space is a huge premium most of the time, and 8 inserters or so probably do the same. I do agree that it should only be from storage to storage though, and that it should medium or high tech and expensive.
The tiered system isn't a terrible idea either

and maybe have a texture that wasn't made by a 5 year old

[Ohz]

I vote no, and love most of the propositions and debate is going on here.

This one is a very inspiring:

or even, could consume lubricant in order to work ?

[ske]

I think if it is implemented, it is a given that it will be animated. And I think it is extremely important that if it does end up in the game, it can never replace all of, or even most of, the inserters.

It wouldn't necessarily need to be animated if it is kind of an entrance to/exit from an assembly machine or other big storage building.

Yes, it should extend gameplay instead of making it trivial. Some recipies could go from moderate amounts of items to very high amounts in order to give an counterbalance. Furnaces could produce 1 plate and 9 stone for an input of 10 ores. Huge electric furnaces with belt inputs for ore and belt outputs for stone could have a reicpe that takes 1000 ore to activate.

[selkathguy]

yes yes yes, please a loader, give us something to change our strategies and concept builds

No strategy involved with the loader demonstrated. It is superior to all other alternative methods as it stands.

Entities should provide convenience or performance, never both. An item can use existing performance and add convenience (splitters), or use existing convenience and add performance (beacons), but never add both of these concepts into one item, it will always be overpowered. The loader as it stands generates new performance (taking items out at full speed as fast as a belt can handle, already better than even the fastest inserter) AND generates convenience by loading both sides of a belt for you, automatically balancing it. In terms of game design I have to oppose this entity in its current state.

[Kewlhotrod]

yes yes yes, please a loader, give us something to change our strategies and concept builds

No strategy involved with the loader demonstrated. It is superior to all other alternative methods as it stands.

Entities should provide convenience or performance, never both. An item can use existing performance and add convenience (splitters), or use existing convenience and add performance (beacons), but never add both of these concepts into one item, it will always be overpowered. The loader as it stands generates new performance (taking items out at full speed as fast as a belt can handle, already better than even the fastest inserter) AND generates convenience by loading both sides of a belt for you, automatically balancing it. In terms of game design I have to oppose this entity in its current state.

if it consumed lube every time it pumped out something, would that be less OP? also it would add something to the list of what lube is used for, which currently isn't very much. it would work if it was pure late game.

[Animar]

Loaders, well yes.

I can see them replace a some belt systhems, yes. But that hasn't to be a bad thing and could be somewhat countered by ramping up the build and power in use cost for un-Loaders and also only let them function with chests, no in and out of factorys or Cargo Wagons. In terms of being overpowered, yea thy kinda but Robots are way more overpowered. For example Trains, load their goods into active providers and you are good do the same thing with only belts and inserters you have to make some ridiculous large builds to get a decent throughput. Even worse when you have mixed cargo wich has to go throu some sorting, wich I love to do but is often limiting your capabilities if you are not using Robots. Another no brainer Input chest-Factory-Outputchest new product added no belts at all. I belive you get the point. As of now we don't "realy" have a fast direct way for items from or to belts, tis gap should be closed. And I would prefere a 2x1 stucture over an insane fast inserter (Like Bob's mod) for that job.

And for all that people that are wining they are to easy, you don't have to F... use them. Just like I don't use logistic robots at all.

I belive thy can add to the game just nicly, if done corectly.
* Only let them interact with chests (no other inventorys at all).
* NO filter items otions.
* Costly to craft and or high power demand.
* Lock them behind some midgame research.
* Also no full belt compression.
* And do not consider making them 1x1.

[Tinywar]

Yes for loader

[sillyfly]

Entities should provide convenience or performance, never both.

That kinda rules out logistic bots, in their current state. They are much faster and much more convenient than belts and inserters.

[DasMonzta]

you have 99% steam rating. And the few people voting negativ, miss lategame content and a goal of the game.
So "Never touch a running system" -> no to loaders.
Plz get some lategamecontent.

[torham]

... AND generates convenience by loading both sides of a belt for you, automatically balancing it. In terms of game design I have to oppose this entity in its current state.

This is so true. With 2 loaders and a chest in the middle, you would get 100% perfect balancing of the belt. and all that within the single tile wide space of the belt.

[Kewlhotrod]

also, how is this a considered a con?

Another entity that has to be produced.

how is that bad thing? .. we're factorio players man.

[[DegC]RubenGass]

The loaders are actually quite interesting and I can see the issue it might present in terms of balancing. I don't think it would be massively overpowered if it would be placed at the end of the Red&Green science or one of the first Blue sciences. I would vote to let the loader only unload onto belts or load into trains. If you could also unload into regular chests, it would be just too overpowered. As an alternative, you could also let the unloader unload at the maximum speed of a yellow belt.

[selkathguy]

Entities should provide convenience or performance, never both.

That kinda rules out logistic bots, in their current state. They are much faster and much more convenient than belts and inserters.

I disagree that bots are more performant than belts. Belts will always be far more efficient than bots, especially for long ranges where the number of bots you need to have gets insane. It is possible to just have a million bots, but the bot network generates other problems inherently, like the need for power and the need to place roboports and for them to be in range to connect to each other, also bots being stationed in suboptimal roboports and have to travel long distances to pick up the material, amongst others. Bots are fine imho. They are for convenience.

[Brunel]

First: wow what a game! long time lurker also lucky engineer for some time, but honestly didn't feel the need to actually register to the forums until I got some NAY!-s to say.. (sorry I am lazy)

I just want to also say, I also think the loader would have a net negative impact, overly simplifying the load handling designs.
Also on the balancing side: you can't really balance endgame equipment with cost, as by the endgame, only a truly ridiculous cost would have any weight to it (we have a complete factory by then, more often than not with pretty heavy throughput), and balancing with tech is also not that good, as you only have to research a tech once, and that's it, in the context of a 100 hour factory, it does not really make all that much difference.
Finally the "only allow it to load/unload from xy" brings the problem of not being intuitive. Among many things Factorio does right is that it is intuitive, many times have I thought to myself "how cool would it bee if it also worked this way" tried it, and BAM! it worked good times now that would be kaputt with these kind of limitations :/

Now, to give one alternative, and I am sure other people thought about it: If we want belts to be competitive with stack size bonus buffed drones and trains, why not also give the belts stack-ability?
It would require no new entity (but you could also do it with a new one, working like the packager mod)
More importantly, it would not diminish the optimization puzzle, but would bring new areas to optimize, I for myself already see magical contraptions made of inserters, chests and belts, transforming a multi lane mining field output into a single compressed and stacked transport belt.

It would even tidy up the mess of wooden chests that are between two inserters, only to preserve the stack size bonus between the jump.....

What do you think about this? I am sure it could be refined even further

Also, didn't even notice the tech tree was so complicated, it mostly always just went the way I needed it, but now I can appreciate a coming tech tree display