Factorio Forums

Sorry if this isn't the right place, but this question is more for players about what they prefer, rather than for other modders to provide help.

I've made some modified splitters, that take output left and right lanes on to separate belts (image with usage examples). As they're slight tweaks of regular splitter behaviour, the crafting recipe is just a splitter and 0.5 seconds. In the absence of any means of uncrafting or alternative recipes, I have made them such that when picked up, they drop a regular splitter, so they can be converted back and forth, if a little clumsily.

My question is, do you think it's better this way, or should I just do them the regular way (once crafted, they stay crafted)?

Some of these items are pretty cheap to produce, so I don't think there is a reason to "unproduce" them. There's also a mod for recycling stuff, but that's a whole separated discussion. If you end up with too many objects that you don't use, just put them into a chest and shoot it.

Basically, I think it comes down to consistency. If you place "object A" down and later picks it back up, I would expect it to still be "object A". To have things morph around seems weird. Sometimes it is necessary, but those are just edge cases.

Good question. Personally I think it is better to so it the regular way, ie have it still be the modified splitter when you drop it or pick it up. As Johan said, I would expect and prefer item A to still be item A even once I drop it/place it and then pick it up again.
Also sense your splitter technically does something different than a normal one, I think having a slightly different crafting recipe would be good to differentiate the two. Either a little more expensive, or just a little different but about the same overall cost.

Hope this helps!

I see what you mean, I guess these splitters are distinct enough that they should stay separate.

I started on this path because when I made a side inserters mod, it was the only way possible way to switch directions. I think it's still better for the inserters at least to drop the regular versions when mined, as they have the same general function as the regular ones: pick up an item from position X, drop it at position Y, whereas these splitters have the function of separating inputs rather than duplicating them.