[A13] A2B: conveyor belts & co. [v0.13.2]

[nmid]

awesome. A11!

Quick question, is there any way to limit the loading radius for the loaders?
I had to do a lot of mm with priorities to ensure my colonists didn't try loading the loader from the other extreme side of the map... or even from the end point to the starting point.

I don't want to do a horseshoe conveyor build as it turns out to be expensive in materials + space + power.

[1000101]

That was asked for before and it can't be done.

It's a core haul job driver, it's no different than any stockpile or storage building.

There are plenty of mods to help with the materials and power issue.

As to space well, they are mobile storage delivering directly to work tables, they are as space efficient as it gets in that respect.  The difference is that instead of having huge stockpiles, you have conveyors which are stockpiles with their own haul jobs.

[nmid]

I had asked before as well, but as I'm not a coder I guess the earlier response went over my head :p

I was hoping that A2BCorp could come up with some way of making it more .. usable (for me)

(also, I had a mental block in trying to understand what a core haul job driver was the 1st time around... now I'm just reading it as a non-coding term and it sorta makes sense :p)

Anyway, thanks for replying.

[1000101]

I had asked before as well, but as I'm not a coder I guess the earlier response went over my head :p

I was hoping that A2BCorp could come up with some way of making it more .. usable (for me)

(also, I had a mental block in trying to understand what a core haul job driver was the 1st time around... now I'm just reading it as a non-coding term and it sorta makes sense :p)

Anyway, thanks for replying.

No worries, "the squeaky wheel get's the grease."  Unfortunately, these aren't the people that can grease that wheel. 

For that, you need to put a request into the suggestion forums to Tynan about how the WorkGiver_Haul works.  Specifically, a request for a range limit, possibly attached to the storage settings like item filters and quality.

[Ninefinger]

I am not 100% sure but it seems that everything is working for A11b except for the Belt texture.

[Thorbane]

How do the underground belts work?

Shouldn't this be working?

[Mj64]

I think the undertakers need to be right up to the wall, and you don't need the two coolers. One's usually enough.

[1000101]

@Thorbane:

Oops,  your setup is correct.  It's a power detection bug in the undertakers when in slide mode.  I've got this fixed at my end and will upload a fix soon.

Thanks for reporting it!

@Mj64:

Undertakes can be anywhere in a room (or outside) like any surface belt.  You require undercovers to go under tables, walls, etc.

[Goldsmyths]

UndertakerMode image not loading and red texted the debug log.
Some red text from teleporter and selector.

And the thing that killed it for me. It froze in cold temperature (-50C outside).
Great idea though, much like bringing Rimworld and Factorio together.

[A2Bcorp]

v0.11.2:  Alpha 11b Update

This optimizes and addresses issues with the underground components, including fixing the slide power issue.

Also adds French translation by kaptain-kavern.

[Vas]

I believe that there should be underground belts that turn, or that it should just detect the entire underground network as one single network.  I wanted to place an underground conveyor from my out of base trade beacon where traders drop off goods outside my shields and the underground belts take the supplies to my base and spit them out for my logistic droids to sort and stash way.

[1000101]

can you make an under ground curve and selector too

I believe that there should be underground belts that turn, or that it should just detect the entire underground network as one single network.  I wanted to place an underground conveyor from my out of base trade beacon where traders drop off goods outside my shields and the underground belts take the supplies to my base and spit them out for my logistic droids to sort and stash way.

No.

Okay, that's a bit harsh It is a fair suggestion, but my answer is no, not in the main mod (unless the other A2Bcorp members manage to convince me otherwise). If someone wants to code this as an add-on, then sure, why not. This is what add-ons are for.

But I personally still aim at keeping the main mod as small as possible. Underground belts are useful as they are and already fully serve their purpose: to allow your colonists to cross the belts, etc ... adding underground curves and selectors only expands the amount of choice (and clutter), but doesn't add any new functionality. And so far, I have always been very reluctant top add anything redundant ...

Long story short, the A2B corporation will welcome with open arms any code suggestions for implementing underground curves and selectors as an add-on. But I won't code this myself ... I can't speak for the other A2Bcorp member of course ...

Corning in underground belts could be possible with some small changes to the code.  The code which detects which lift powers an undercover belt would become more complex and potentially introduce lag though.

If it was implemented, I see it as this:

No new components are added, undercovers would redirect to either "left" or "right" (relative to flow of items on the belt) depending on the connection.  The problem and therefore limit is that you would only be able to have simple corners (no "T" junctions AKA merging or splitting) as the belt wouldn't know which direction to send it.

The reason for this is how the cross-over aspect works.  The undercovers do not have predetermined direction input and output directions ("flow"), it's dependant on the belt which transfers the item to it to also encode the flow.  This allows the cross-over connections to properly send items straight across.  Introducing cornering is simple enough as there would only be one "alternate" and when outputting it would update the encoded item flow.  A "T" junction would cause problems as it wouldn't know which way to send it since the, as stated above, undercover belts are inherently directionless.

As to adding new components such as mergers, selectors, etc, this would clutter the architects tab and as noone pointed out, the idea is to maintain a simple core mod and use add-ons to add additional functionality.  The other problem is, it becomes that much harder to maintain your conveyor network when you can't see what orientation your belts are when they are under everything.

That being said, I have given thought as to being able to remove the cover from underground components to allow colonists to retrieve items from them when they go offline.  This would be a gizmo button on the undercover components to "Remove" and "Replace" the "access panel."  Removing the access panel would impose a heavy pathing cost for pawns (like the surface belts 1000) and would only be available if nothing was on it (ie, can't remove the panel under a wall or work table).

So, tl;dr, cornering is a possibility, anything beyond is not really practical.

[Vas]

Well I did only suggest cornering.  I don't want underground T junctions and all.  Underground belts can't be complex like that or items get jammed a lot.

I'm not sure how the code works, I thought at first, it would detect how many is attached to it, so if I built 50 underground belts attached to one entrance and one exit, it would do a scan when I click to turn it on, and determine that there are 50 connected to it between it and the other end.  It would then store this in one of the two ends or both or whatever.  Have you seen that air mod?  With air ducts?  It gives a network ID to air ducts that act like conduits.  You might consider that same thing.

Anyway, I found out after it can only do straight lines, which sucked for me.  So you're saying it would be too laggy to use the code to just detect how many is connected, delay the item by x conveyors / speed of conveyors, and just spit it out on the other end?  Then having code tell the individual segments to notify the ends that it has been damaged beyond use anymore after a certian point and must be repaired before the network can go again?  Even if you were to add a new button to both ends that says "Scan network" to detect them all to see if it's proper and be required to do this if one of the belts reports damage to stop the flow?

There is also that network idea I mentioned too.

[1000101]

That was sort of how it was first implemented but it was changed so the underground components use the same belt mechanics as the surface components.  The only difference is how the manage pathing and that undercovers don't directly consume power.

As to power, if an undercover isn't registered with a lift, it looks in each of the four directions (NWSE) until it finds no more undercovers or an active powered lift.  If it finds a lift, it registers with it.  When a lift goes offline (or is destroyed) it tells all the components registered with it (undercovers and slides) that they need to find new lifts to draw on (well, slides use no power but without a lift they won't come online).  So, cornering is a simple addition in this respect.  When I updated the code to work like this, the idea was to optimize when and how often undercovers and slides look for an active lift.  If they are registered and the lift they are registered with is online, they don't look at all.  Cornering in this aspect is relatively easy to handle.

You are very right about jams though, during my stress testing for the last update, I managed to jam everything up in a variety of configurations.

[Vas]

So what about using the network ID?  The air duct mod (which I'm likely about to stop using), lets you link items in a network ID even the things that are "above ground".  I'm not sure how it works, or how the conduits in it qualify.  But every different item was able to connect to the same network and work like that.  It was just way too slow to be realistic for me.  A big ass vent in my room barely able to keep it above freezing when the main room (intake) was 70F?  Yea, I can't find this realistic.  xP

Anyway, it used an interesting method really, that might be able to work for the conveyors, that way if you build a new part next to another one, it just connects to the network ID and there is no need for scanning all the time.  Just throwing it out there though as a possibility.

In the method you mentioned, I hope you don't intend to make an "Underground corner" item, I prefer less items.  I think it would be just fine for the underground cover to drag in each direction and "automatically corner" those areas.    Not with a new item, but yea. I think you know what I mean.