Underground Belt and pipes on bottom cliffs tile

[mp0011]

Offseting "lower" belt segment by one tile part is totally optional, idea is valid also without this: Allow Underground Belts and Underground Pipes to be placed directly at cliff (only the bottom cliff tile).



Cliffs (vertical) are always two tiles wide, so Why not use on of it tiles (bottom one) to build underground inserter directly on it? It's just minor graphic change (just cut/mask half of it) and restrict possible directions (like with offshore pumps). Exactly same idea is valid for underground pipe.

Then, You can bend belt directly along the cliff side, with no space wasted.

Horizontal Cliffs are some harder (3 tile or 1 tile), but this also should be implementable. Diagonal cliffs maybe a problem...

[Caine]

Your rightmost underground exit is reversed

It looks pretty nice, but it is not a big one for me.

[mp0011]

I always play with some own rules, like never landfill, never destroy cliffs, and always adapt to the nature. My Factories are fitted and blended into nature, around lakes and Cliffs, so this feature (not hard to implement I guess) could be beneficial, and is quite natural - that's the way Underground Belts and Pipes works in real life situations - straight and up, or down and straight, not down and then up. It also allows to save some space, because You may bend belt just as it exit the cliff, without ugly 3 curved sections...

Your rightmost underground exit is reversed .

Its magic of photoshop combined with laziness of its user

[Impatient]

I think, if the offset was 2 tiles down for the lower connection, it would fit the perspective better. Looks great.

[mp0011]

I think offset is not possible to implement in a intuitive way.
Whec Cliffs ends, there would be possibility to "match" upper belt from two different lower belts, so there would be lot of quirks and inconsistencies...

[Impatient]

Yes, I just said "it looks great". I don't think that it ever will be implemented, as the factorio world is flat by software design. Cliffs are just blocking entities, which only can be removed by special means and have the cosmetic look of a height difference.

Factorio 2 will be 3D though and then it will be the time for your idea

[bobingabout]

This was suggested when cliffs were first announced, even before we saw them in game. Devs said back then that because it's just a wall, it's never going to happen.


Imagine if it was shifted, and then someone used cliff explosives to remove the wall, what then?

[mp0011]

THat's why I am not want to implement offset/shift/perspective correction. Would be great, but it's not necessary.
I just want possibility to build underground belts and pipes directly on the tile already occupied by the cliff.

BEFORE (ugly, unnatural, pointless, more space required):


AFTER:


Really, that is not much code required to implement this. Just new graphics for underground belts and pipes (merged into cliff or masked/clipped) and possibility to place it on the cliff tile, with restricted direction (always pointing toward flat tile - like the offshore pump)

P.S.
I know how Factorio cliffs works, I know everything is flat, and cliffs are just textures; there is no "upper" tile and "lower" tiles. Images are just for visualization purposes.

[Impatient]

Then the first and basic thing to find out is, if the game engine allows for 2 objects to be placed in the same tile on the map.

[mp0011]

Then the first and basic thing to find out is, if the game engine allows for 2 objects to be placed in the same tile on the map.

Yes it does. After upgrading boilers sizes they were overlapping each other, and still works...

[Impatient]

Sorry, forget my last remark. This isn't the modding section. Your suggestion is for a feature in the vanilla game.

[Caine]

THat's why I am not want to implement offset/shift/perspective correction. Would be great, but it's not necessary.
I just want possibility to build underground belts and pipes directly on the tile already occupied by the cliff.

To be fair, the offset is more visible in your original post than the overlap of cliffs and undergrounds.
So you highlighted something you do not really care about. That is the downside of proposing multiple things combined, people will "attack" the least feasible part.