Factorio Forums

TL;DR

A smart placement mode which makes belts automatically rotate at corners when placing them without releasing the mouse.

What ?

Better than many long words, I could easily add an edited gif to show what I mean by smart placement:

Why ?

It's kind of annoying and unnecessary to keep releasing the mouse, pressing the R button, and then continue building the long belts in the Game,
Here's the "unedited" gif I had, notice how I have to press R 3 times at the right to get into the orientation I want.... If I tried to do the placement like my suggestion, it just looks like this which can't be much useful in-game:

Very related :
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38283

Something like the rail planer mode could be useful too.

Click at the start of the belt with shift, move the mouse to the finish. A ghosted belt will appear (if possible) going from start to finish. Click to place belt.

Same idea for pipes. And for a gold start add support for underground belts and pipes. Or does that make the game too easy?

Use the shortcut Shift+R for opposite rotation of the belt.

Mod for smart belt placement:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/belt-brush

(See Koub's link for belt-planner.)

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Neomore/ ... elt-Laying
and
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/automatic-belt-direction

I've tried the 2nd one, and in practice it ended up mostly getting in the way in the very common situations where I did NOT need it - not sure if that issue can be solved...

RamiTech wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2019 8:19 am If I tried to do the placement like my suggestion, it just looks like this which can't be much useful in-game:
Factorio-Failed-Placement.gif

I disagree: this is exactly like I build my bus(es) -- both the main bus, and smaller parallel belt lines that provide high throughput for ores etc.

I doubt that you build your belts perpendicularly to their direction...?

BlueTemplar wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2019 1:08 pm I've tried the 2nd one, and in practice it ended up mostly getting in the way in the very common situations where I did NOT need it - not sure if that issue can be solved...

This was my experience with all the mods: they were not able to Do What I Mean consistently, because what I meant was dependent on more than just "which way I dragged the mouse" - they would minimally have to be willing to reshape the entire belt at the end of the process, and even that might not be enough.

BlueTemplar wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 8:13 am I doubt that you build your belts perpendicularly to their direction...?

I think he means he builds 4 parallel belts.

I place 4 parallel belts like that and then blueprint the rest of the bus.

mrvn wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 3:19 pm

BlueTemplar wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 8:13 am I doubt that you build your belts perpendicularly to their direction...?

I think he means he builds 4 parallel belts.
I place 4 parallel belts like that and then blueprint the rest of the bus.

Not sure if it helps, but Picker has the ability to automate that in one of the mods. Set the width, get ... IDK what the internals are, but placing multiple parallel things, and rotation like blueprints, but without the making a blueprint manually part.