Factorio Forums

olafthecat wrote:A tinsy bit of Necro going on here.

No.

Lilly wrote:I've looked into what it takes to turn this into a mod. I found that it can be done, but only as a proof of concept, or in a very limited fashion. The biggest problem is drawing the belt lines and animating the buckets.

One approach is to bake the belt lines and buckets into a single animation, however, the ropeway would then be limited to fixed directions, and if you want hanging ropes, then also limited to fixed distances. Each station will simply keep a list of what is in transit towards that station and when it will arrive. This requires the least amount of lua code and thus will also work for big factories, however you can't see the contents of each bucket while they're in transit. There are still a few issues to resolve, such as what to do when output is blocked, or when the line is deconstructed.

For more freedom in pole placement, the ropes can be drawn as beam entities (the copper/red/green-wire drawing cannot be used here), and the buckets as car-entities. The problem here however, is that every bucket's movement has to be controlled with lua. Worst case, this means updating every bucket every tick and thus there's a limit to say 10.000 buckets per factory before you get serious frame rate issues. This can be alleviated somewhat by setting their direction and velocity and only updating them when they make a turn, which will be a bit more complicated to implement in lua. This approach allows for some interesting functionality though, such as detaching the buckets from the ropeway and offloading them onto belts, or vice-versa, using belts to load them into the station, where they will be attached to the ropeway.

I've made picture of what buckets on belts looks like:

I think that could turn out to be very fun and interesting. Please post something here if when you finish it.

I should really get into lua sometime...

olafthecat wrote:A tinsy bit of Necro going on here.

OP referenced this thread in the thread on the latest FFF: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=56218&start=160#p331077. It makes sense to further discuss this topic here than in the FFF-thread, because there it is downright impossible.

Lilly wrote:

olafthecat wrote:A tinsy bit of Necro going on here.

OP referenced this thread in the thread on the latest FFF: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=56218&start=160#p331077. It makes sense to further discuss this topic here than in the FFF-thread, because there it is downright impossible.

I dont believe this kind of system would solve the bot issue. The issue is bots are op, and no one is going to be happy when their favorite/only strat gets nerfed/straight up replaced.

That being said, if ropways were implimented, it would be a nice way to deliver goods throughout the mega factory, without interfereing with the existing belt spaghetti and machines. A middle ground between belts and trains.

But ultimately its pointless currently, as bots are better in every concievable way, so long as you have the energy and resources.

n7m6e7 wrote:

Lilly wrote:

olafthecat wrote:A tinsy bit of Necro going on here.

OP referenced this thread in the thread on the latest FFF: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=56218&start=160#p331077. It makes sense to further discuss this topic here than in the FFF-thread, because there it is downright impossible.

I dont believe this kind of system would solve the bot issue. The issue is bots are op, and no one is going to be happy when their favorite/only strat gets nerfed/straight up replaced.

That being said, if ropways were implimented, it would be a nice way to deliver goods throughout the mega factory, without interfereing with the existing belt spaghetti and machines. A middle ground between belts and trains.

But ultimately its pointless currently, as bots are better in every concievable way, so long as you have the energy and resources.

I view this as something that could be introduced earlier than requester chests, and allowing the devs to move requester chests to after the rocket launch. If requester chests were later in the tech tree, this could fill their role for low volume items where it's not worth routing lots of belts. Also I don't read twinsen ass saying that bots are so overpowered that they need to be nerf. Instead I think he is saying bots are so easy to use, that people are just falling to the habit of automating everything using a blueprint of requester->assembler->provider. He seems to think (and I agree) that automating everything on that one standard pattern is less interesting than using belts. He also seems to view Factorio current progression as encouraging people to pay like that. Now part of that is might be bots are overpower especially when compared to belts, part of that is probably also because bots are the newest and latest toy to play with and people think they are the endgame solution to everything, but a big part of it is that bot based construction is just so simple to just blueprint more of anytime you want to expand production. That leads to people building without considering how to plan for short bot paths, where their design should have roboports, and then complaining that bots are broken and need to be smarter. For an example see viewtopic.php?f=6&t=55521.

Jap20 wrote:No.

Lilly wrote:OP referenced this thread in the thread on the latest FFF: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=56218&start=160#p331077. It makes sense to further discuss this topic here than in the FFF-thread, because there it is downright impossible.

So, a bit of backlash from that, ah well.
I didn't realize that that was mentioned, since I haven't read it yet.
Still prefer my idea though.

olafthecat wrote: Still prefer my idea though.

We never said that only one can happen.

Jap2.0 wrote:We never said that only one can happen.

Neither did I.
I just prefer my idea more.
The Ropeway Conveyer is innovative, however.
I could see them working together, somehow, but they are both a solution to the same problem.

I've been pointed to this discussion thread. There's many names for ropeway, cable car, seilbahn, téléphérique, aerial tramway, cableway, funitel, gondola, that its difficult to search well on the forum. Hopefully this will help!

I recommend an interesting website that explains the different technologies of cable systems. http://gondolaproject.com/learn-the-bas ... d-transit/

I could see how ropeways could make a belt bus system more powerful. If each container could dump its contents directly down into assemblers without inserters, could that start to rival the power of bots?

Also, "Ropeway conveyer" reminds me of this

100% down for this. A new type of transport system with it's own quirks and puzzles to solve...

The jump from using simple belt transport to high tech flying freaking robots was always strange to me. A middle of the road (non-train) transport system would feel more genuine.

n7m6e7 wrote: I dont believe this kind of system would solve the bot issue. The issue is bots are op, and no one is going to be happy when their favorite/only strat gets nerfed/straight up replaced.

That being said, if ropways were implimented, it would be a nice way to deliver goods throughout the mega factory, without interfereing with the existing belt spaghetti and machines. A middle ground between belts and trains.

But ultimately its pointless currently, as bots are better in every concievable way, so long as you have the energy and resources.

That's exactly why we should do ropways!
if implemented with turns, auto routing, requesters/providers as has been suggested in this thread, ropways will work exactly like a low-volume logistic network.
And that is arguably what Factorio needs - keep the flexibility of logistic bots, but prevent their overuse for high throughput.

voddan wrote:

n7m6e7 wrote: I dont believe this kind of system would solve the bot issue. The issue is bots are op, and no one is going to be happy when their favorite/only strat gets nerfed/straight up replaced.

That being said, if ropways were implimented, it would be a nice way to deliver goods throughout the mega factory, without interfereing with the existing belt spaghetti and machines. A middle ground between belts and trains.

But ultimately its pointless currently, as bots are better in every concievable way, so long as you have the energy and resources.

That's exactly why we should do ropways!
if implemented with turns, auto routing, requesters/providers as has been suggested in this thread, ropways will work exactly like a low-volume logistic network.

Whoa. I believe "auto routing" and "requester/providers" are part of the problem. You dont need to plan a route to ensure goods go from A to B, the system takes care of it. You dont need to balance the distribution of goods, the system takes care of it. I feel it would fall back into the mindset of "let the bots handle the logistics. " Only itll be the conveyor.

I think they should act like mini-trains. You tell them where to send the goods, and they send bucket after bucket from point A to Point B.

I'm imagining it as if the current bots could only deliver goods between connected roboports. And the ports themselves have an input side and output side.

n7m6e7 wrote: Whoa. I believe "auto routing" and "requester/providers" are part of the problem. You dont need to plan a route to ensure goods go from A to B, the system takes care of it. You dont need to balance the distribution of goods, the system takes care of it. I feel it would fall back into the mindset of "let the bots handle the logistics. " Only itll be the conveyor.

One aspect will be different thou: the throughput of the system will be limited.

Here is how I suppose a game could be played if automatic ropeway were implemented:
When I build the main factory, I use belts because they have the most throughput volume.
When I want to build something quick, or prototype a section, or experiment with an item, I throw a couple of machines together and connect them with requesters and providers.
It is quick and dirty, but it works for low volume production.
But once I want to increase the production of this experimental factory, I face a dilemma: ether I increase the number of ropeways for an increased number of cable cars, which requires more and more space for less and less gain, or I redo the whole ropeway setup to conveyors.
Just increasing the number of cabel cars (a.k.a. bots ) won't give me infinite throughput anymore.
And it is key.

Does it make sense?

The image that you have supplied would be cool to have...
That isn't a conveyer though, don't even know what it is to be honest.
However, it another effective solution to the same thing, so it should be taken into account.
I like it!

After reading the two BOTS VS. BELTS FFF's, I think I understand what the devs are trying to achieve. The idea is that all of these forms of transportation complement each other to the achieve the overall goal of max throughput without one technology removing the need for the need for the other. At the same time, nobody wants their favorite technology to be nerfed. I believe that using the Ropeway Idea + Palletizing (stacking) on Belts comes the closest to solving that problem, and I have a proposal for how to implement it.


Each mode of transportation needs to have a couple strengths and a couple weaknesses that are covered by another form of transportation. This is shown in the first picture (spreadsheet).
-Regarding the Ropeway
---- Train throughput must beat Ropeways after a certain point. My thought is that a fully upgraded Ropeway does not exceed the throughput of 2 fully loaded train cars over a given amount of time (because I think many people usually have trains with 3-4 train cars. At least I do.).
---- Fully upgraded Ropeways + Palletized belt should beat fully upgraded Logistics bots in terms of throughput by a reasonable amount (25-33%)




P1
- Increasing the Ropeway speed or density of buckets by 33% should have the same effect. Whichever is more CPU efficient or looks cooler could be implemented.
- The Ropeway hub would also have its own inventory (warehouse) I did not show it in the picture so I will list it here to show what I think it should be.
----Base -- Holds one stack in inventory to be unloaded or palletized.
----Lvl 1 -- Holds 1/3 of a Train car worth of inventory to be unloaded or palletized then unloaded.
----Lvl 2 -- Holds 1 1/3 of a Train car worth of inventory to be unloaded or palletized then unloaded.
----Lvl 3 -- Holds 2 Train cars worth of inventory to be unloaded or palletized then unloaded.
- One stack would be 100 iron plates, 50 bricks etc... I thought about increasing the number of stacks by 1 as an upgrade, but doing that would quickly overpower trains unless speed or bucket density was reduced drastically.




P2 (please excuse my lack of artistic skill)
- If a fully upgraded logistics bot can carry 3 items at a time, then perhaps a fully upgraded pallet can carry 4 or 5 items at a time. I believe this would solve the "Bots are 2-5 times more efficient than belts" problem. A bot cant carry a pallet of items, and a fully loaded and palletized belt can carry more than logistics bots.
- Logistics bots still win at 'Ease-of-use' and connecting opposite ends of the base easily and connecting the logistics system to the player.




P3
- Palletized items are then de-palletized (in an assembler) and loaded into an assembler to make the next item. The empty pallets can then be carried via belt or logistics bots back to the Ropeway hub or palletizing assembler for re-use.




P4
-This should be a relatively minor adjustment that needs to be made as trains dont loose that much throughput over distance because they are so fast. However, this must still be controlled so that it doesn't eventually become more beneficial to move material over long distances via Ropeways instead of by train.
-Technically someone could build a bunch of short Ropeways with hubs that feed each other, but I think this would be kind of tedious and would leave trains to still dominate long distance transport.

A couple extra notes.
-I've seen a couple people mention moving certain upgrades past the Rocket research. I dont think this is a bad idea. Maybe both the 3 item upgrade and the last significant speed boost should be moved after the rocket as well as the ability to palletize. This wouldn't be nerf so much as an incentive to work with all modes of transportation more before getting some of these mega-throughput upgrades.

Conclusion
I think that Ropeways with palletizing would be an elegant way to balance out Factorio and make everyone happy. There's no perfect solution to the problem, but I think this one is pretty dang cool. Go Ropeways!

So. I was watching Satisfactory news and found out they plan/already implemented this type of system in the game. We should really consider making something like at least as a mod.

I'm Factorio there is no above because it's 2D.

Satisfactory is from ground on planned as 3D but there are still no ropeways.