Factorio Forums

Dear Factorio Staff
Thank you very much for the great work that went into getting the game out.
Recent addition of the auto underground built functionality is extremely useful.
This, combined with the information on the "belt system" which allows for multithreading, should enable the engine to know that when dragging a belt underground from point A to point B, with belt between A and B being in the same direction, but not connected to it, should NOT replace the belt if it is not connected to the belt it is replacing. In all other instances, it should replace this belt as of current behavior.
Say you have a 2 belt bus, with an underground split-off on the outside of the belt, so you need to go underneath.
(blueprint for the first part) When dragging an underground belt either from left to right or right to left, directly below the existing underground belt, the design become fluked.
(blueprint for the result) In case this isn't clear, I can provide screenshots as well.
Above blueprint is the result of dragging from right to left.
Kind regards
SteveMacGyver

SteveMacGyver wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:54 pm

Dear Factorio Staff
Thank you very much for the great work that went into getting the game out.
Recent addition of the auto underground built functionality is extremely useful.
This, combined with the information on the "belt system" which allows for multithreading, should enable the engine to know that when dragging a belt underground from point A to point B, with belt between A and B being in the same direction, but not connected to it, should NOT replace the belt if it is not connected to the belt it is replacing. In all other instances, it should replace this belt as of current behavior.
Say you have a 2 belt bus, with an underground split-off on the outside of the belt, so you need to go underneath.
(blueprint for the first part)

kovarex mentioned lately the feature isnt meant to be intelligent in any way and these requests are out of scope.

Thanks for the tip, ptx0.
It is unfortunate, but understandable after final release, even though I think that after all the logic and intelligence that went into coding this in, it is a shame that the functionality would be classed as unimportant, out of scope or otherwise ignored, as this is in my humble opinion, not the way this feature is supposed to work.

SteveMacGyver wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 07, 2021 12:06 am

Thanks for the tip, ptx0.
It is unfortunate, but understandable after final release, even though I think that after all the logic and intelligence that went into coding this in, it is a shame that the functionality would be classed as unimportant, out of scope or otherwise ignored, as this is in my humble opinion, not the way this feature is supposed to work.

i could be wrong. i re-read your request and maybe it is simple enough that it makes sense for inclusion. ignore my nay-saying.

Simpler test case. It seems clear that it just considers all belts going the other way as replaceable. IMO this is a real bug.

When placing an underground over other belts without using the smart drag feature, it only replaces straight belts going in the same direction which are not connected to anything else.
I would expect the smart belt dragging to behave the same .

The logic would be far from simple to not break any other expectations.
The logic would probably be something like "disable fast replace when smart belt building and obstacle was encountered".
The personal conclusion is, that I will wait for my next playthrough, to see how important this corner case feels, and if it feels worth doing, to test what kind of other problems will this logic bring.
Until then, it is considered to be minor issue.