The section on multithreaded belts hits on my biggest complaint with this game: I don’t like that the belts are multi-lane, I wish they were smaller and single-lane.
I’ve tried to get into Factorio twice in the past but I always eventually run into some annoying issue where oops, I need resources to be on the other lane of a belt, or a grabber arm that should obviously be able to reach something isn’t, or something of that ilk, and I now need to scrap and rebuild my entire design.
At that point, I feel less like I’m building a factory and more like I’m working around the game engine, and it just immediately kills my interest in going further.
Smaller and single-lane as in individual half-width belts that can be placed independently? I think it would be more of a pain to play with, because now only would you now have separate left- and right- belt items, but also have more complex rotations to be able to convert one belt into another at a corner. Eg to convert a right-belt going east into a left-belt going south, you need to rotate just the tip of the right-belt, not the whole right-belt.
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>I need resources to be on the other lane of a belt
A single splitter and a little space around it can swap a belt around if you need to. Or better yet, find the place where you're mixing the two items on the same belt and make the change there.
A ╗
╠══ A/B
B ╝
A ══╗
╔═╬═ B/A
╚═╣
B ══╝
(The ╬ in the second diagram is a crossing of belt and underground belt.)
For single-item belts where everything's on one side and you want everything to be on the other side, it's even simpler.
═╦╗
A/- ═╝╚═ -/A
-/A ═╗╔═ A/-
═╩╝
The ╦ and ╩ are a vertical belt feeding into the side of a horizontal belt. Because the horizontal belt has another horizontal belt to its left, the point where the vertical belt touches it does not make a corner.
To each their own, but I find it an interesting dynamic. I’m having a hard time understanding the problem, but the game does have a learning curve. Suggestions: The majority of my belts carry one item. The remainder carry only one type in each lane. Those are neatly merged at the beginning, and consumed indiscriminately at the end. That is, the consumer wants both items so they can be transferred by one inserted. I never pack a belt to save on belts or space.
I’d hate for this to be the nit that stops a person from going deeper into this amazing game.
I’ve tried to get into Factorio twice in the past but I always eventually run into some annoying issue where oops, I need resources to be on the other lane of a belt, or a grabber arm that should obviously be able to reach something isn’t, or something of that ilk, and I now need to scrap and rebuild my entire design.
At that point, I feel less like I’m building a factory and more like I’m working around the game engine, and it just immediately kills my interest in going further.