Friday Facts #221 - 0.16 is out

[otobot1]

I do agree that compressing with undergrounds is unintuitive and doesn't make sense. I did like it though, just because it allowed many builds (especially very tight beaconed builds) to be much tidier and elegant than is possible with sideloading or splitters. But I do see the valid argument against underground compression, so I can live with it not being in the game.
But I do think sideloading compression needs to be in the game. Splitters are bulky and expensive, which would be a problem early-game. Having to choose between spending thousands of iron on splitters to compress my furnace outputs, or having tons of smaller, uglier furnace stacks isn't good. And on top of that, I don't know if this ever got fixed, but it used to be the case that inserting directly onto a splitter wouldn't always compress the belt properly. If that's still the case, and you need to insert onto a belt that then feeds into the splitter, makes the bulkyness problem of splitter compression even worse. Needing a 2x2 area of splitter/belt just to add the output from one assembler to your item belt is terrible and will make building large, fully beaconed builds pretty difficult. Maybe impossible.
As someone earlier in the thread said, no sideloading means the game basically screams at you to use bots, because building end game production lines with belts will be messy and irritating.
Also, without sideloading you won't be able to effectively use a perpendicular underground to split off one lane from your belt. That's an important thing in many of my builds that lets me keep things tidier.

tl;dr: I liked underground compression, but whatever. But please FIX SIDELOADING COMPRESSION.

[Avezo]

• By tragically allowing the player to trivially compress a belt with a few inserters, the underground belt trick makes factorio too easy

Here's the thing though - why such basic part of the game shouldn't be easy in the first place? I could understand if the problem was some part of later game, but it's almost the most basic part of it and I can't see any reason for it not to be as easy as possible.

[Jedai]

I think compression via side-loading may be nice but if it isn't reinstated, I think the idea proposed by some of creating a new "compressor" item would be even better : it would be a 1x1 belt replacement, costing a bit more than a belt but less than a splitter and it would have three input and one output, it would simply count the item in (from the input or inserters) and release them as compressed as possible with a slight delay. This way it would be at least as UPS efficient as a splitter and would constitute a natural break in the belt optimization logic. That would make it easy to fix the old builds : just put a compressor on the last few insertion sites as you would have put an underground belt in the past, and one where you were sideloading to compress.

I just find it pretty intuitive that inserters can't fully compress a belt, it's already the case in reality, if you want good compression you have to introduce some timing system and discrete placement of items.

[Nexarius]

I really liked the belts but with no sideloading there is an even bigger reason to not use them in the lategame and instead use bots.

[golfmiketango]

Can't we all just get along!? This conveyor seems to achieve full compression without resorting to side-loading or the underground trick:



Perhaps this is what is called for.

[Nexarius]

Can't we all just get along!? This conveyor seems to achieve full compression without resorting to side-loading or the underground trick:

[video]

Perhaps this is what is called for.

Now we just need that in the game !!!

[KepperMIEM]

Thanks for the update.

Information of pollution was removed from all entities(except boiler) on map. Is it correct?
It was usefull information.

[SiC]

What's all this about manually preparing t-shirts? One would think you guys would have automated the shit out of that by now.

[Hertzila]

Thank you for the update! Now to wait for all the mods to update as well...

Regarding belt compression, I think sideloading should still compress, or at least retain compression. A fully compressed two-laned yellow belt should fully compress into one red belt lane. Helps keep the footprint and clutter to a nice minimum.

With insterters, I'm undecided. As a feature, inserters not being able to fully compress is kind of unintuitive and the player needs to actively discover or learn about the other compression mechanics to solve it. It's a neat bit of gameplay progression, though.
Another issue with inserters + belts is that bots basically always overtake them, even with compression tricks. Maybe there could be a tech upgrade that allows inserters, or at least stack inserters, to fully compress belts as a mid-to-late-game tech, if they won't do it by default? It won't prevent the bots from overtaking belts but it might push the point it happens a bit further away.

[mathturtle]

Regarding compression:

The underground compression trick always felt kinda cheaty and unintiuative to me.

But that said: IRL inserters are connected to timing systems so that they place onto belts *in a perfectly compressed way*. Now I suppose I could build that timing system with the circuit network... but if you require circuit network setups to use belts you'll make a lot of people give up on belts. For your average player you just nerfed belts. I think inserters should look at the items ahead of them on the belt (at least a few belt lengths) and only place their held item at locations that would be fully compressed (integer multiples of the item size along the belt). You can make this a tech if you like (I kind of like this idea: make it after circuit network in the tech tree but don't make players have to build the circuit network setup themselves). I also like sideloading compression: again I feel it is appropriate on the fun vs. realism tradeoff.

I feel like in making 0.16 you spent a lot of time on the belt optimizations so players could build bigger bases with belts. But then you took away the mechanics that players needed to build anything big with belts, and made belts less powerful. Unless you re-enable some method of easy belt compression I think your belt optimizations are going to be useless.

[pleegwat]

How about a new item ('loading funnel'), needing a belt and some iron, which inserters can insert onto to achieve compression. Unlike the suggested 3-to-1 compressor, this would only work with items inserted into the funnel.

An inserter would insert into the funnel (holding up to 2 unstacked items, one per side of the belt). As soon as there is the slightest gap in the belt, the item from the funnel is inserted and the incoming belt is 'held back'.

[Avezo]

I were thinking about inserters more and although I don't like the idea about compression research in itself, it might go along well enough with my other thoughts on them - there is too many of them, they feel bloated. Why can't there be one basic inserter (and one long-handed) and one smart inserter, which can be upgraded up to filter stacker through research? Since there might be big gap between basic and smart inserter in such case, why not introduce loaders into base game already to fill it? Though, for love of god, make them one-tile long and maybe make some smart loaders (even more late game) 2-tile long.

[aober93]

Sideloading still works. Just not sideloading onto a faster belt, but why would you?

I prefer the optimizations more than the things gone. The underground compression trick is debatable, i think one should give it a chance. I used it, but there are other ways. I guess its only splitters or sideloading. If the sum takes away performance for all users, its a bad trade imo. If its marginal, yes please put it back.

And there never was an inserter compression thing.

[mcvey]

Compression:
Sideloading should remain as it is used extensively with splitters
Inserters are fine not compressing, and the underground trick should stay removed as this behavior should be consistent on all belt types
Logistics:
Providers priority should be:
Active>Storage>Buffer>Passive
Request priorities should be:
Requesters>Buffer>Storage

this seemed to be what that diagram in the FFF indicated.

[Jap2.0]

My opinion on belt compression is that splitters and sideloading should work, but not inserters or underground belts.

[Avezo]

Here is what you eventually get without inserter compression:

Just multiply it by needed amount of furnaces. How exactly does it feel intuitive, especially in early game when it matters the most since there are no bots? I'm not even sure if it compresses properly without CC mod updated.

One more thing...

See those few items at the end of unused exit of 'merger' splitter? This triggers my OCB so much that I simply can never accept splitters used in such way. I surely can't be the only one. And surely, with amont of OCB and aesthetic freaks playing this game, such issue can not get by.

[Nexarius]

Those 2 items at the end of splitter without a belt always bothered me too.

[Avezo]

Those 2 items at the end of splitter without a belt always bothered me too.

Depeniding on algorithms, they might've been even more than what's seen... AND it boters me even more TOO!

[isaac868]

Removing compression via undergrounds, Yes!
Removing compression via sideloading doesn't make as much sense to me as the items are actually being forced onto the belt.
Regular Inserters shouldn't compress belts in my opinion, however it kinda makes sense that stack inserters could be able to.

[Vader]

I expected belts to be compressed automatically with both inserters and side loading, I even didn't think that they could be "not compressed" until read about it. The belt compression is not intuitive mechanics, I imagine that noone actually designed it this way, it just happened that after implementing we got sometimes not fully compressed belts.

I agree 100% with this comment.
Both inserters and side loading should compress. And note that compressing inserters would mean undergrounds would also compress.