[MOD] (Alpha 8) A2B: conveyor belts & co. [v0.8.0]

[Rock5]

I did that too. While adding a few new mods (drag and dropping with right mouse button and selecting "Extract Here") I noticed that A2B scattered it's folders among my mods instead of having a root folder. It seems to be common practice to have a root folder in the zip folder so I suggest NoOne package future versions like this.

It would be nice if the unloader could just dump the items on the floor around it. Or maybe fill up a zone set up around it.

And you're not alone, this has been requested for a while. I might eventually make Unloaders drop items in a larger zone. But I'm flat out these days, so not anytime soon (and there's also a few things on my to-do list ahead of this). But if you want to contribute some code that does this, I'll happily merge it in

The thing about this is that it would be good in some situations but there are also situations where the current behavior is preferable. I have a conveyor belt supplying Potatoes to my cook who doesn't ever need to move while cooking except to recharge (hm... I should add a recharge pad under his cooking spot so he never needs to move).

I still have a problem though. While there are potatoes on the conveyor belt he can access them but if there is a gap in the potatoes and the drop point becomes empty he will usually drop a meal on the potato drop point. Then he wont be able to get at the potatoes anymore. I then have to unlock the door and send in a hauler to move the meal.

It would be really useful if it could be made so that you can take items right of the unloader. So if it gets clogged around the unloader you can still always take some of whatever the conveyor belt is supplying.

[SilverDragon]

I still have a problem though. While there are potatoes on the conveyor belt he can access them but if there is a gap in the potatoes and the drop point becomes empty he will usually drop a meal on the potato drop point. Then he wont be able to get at the potatoes anymore. I then have to unlock the door and send in a hauler to move the meal.

I usually have a container of some type blocking the cooking droids way out, One container allowed for meats, one for vegetables, and one for meals. So haulers bring raw foods for the cook, cook makes meals and slaps it back around to the containers, and haulers take them away. Works beautifully

[Rock5]

I don't use any hauler, usually, except for the haulers that put the potatoes from the farm on the conveyor belts. The end of the potato belt is right next to the cook cooking. The cooking bill is set up do drop the meals on the floor. The cook table is in the middle of a room with a trade  beacon right next to it. As the meals are dropped on the floor they spread out in a circle filling up the trade beacon area.

Actually I made a door between the cook room and the main beacon room where I locked in a hauler that unloads the conveyor belts. So if a meal drops on the potato unloading spot I can send in the hauler to move it without having to unlock any doors. Also when I open the cook room roof to trade meals with a bulk buyer and they drop stuff in the cook room, the hauler has easy access to move the stuff into the main beacon room.

[noone]

That sounds like a lot of meals ... I can see why you would be having issues spots o the floor getting busy and stopping your delivery chain. I have been thinking about making colonist able to pick-up items from the unloaders, but ended up making them drop things on the floor instead for a variety of reasons. I am not a big fan of having both systems enabled at the same time. While I can see why it would be useful in your case, I also know many more other examples where this would not be a good thing.

That's the beauty of these conveyor belts. They are polyvalent, and often you would wish for one or more tweaks, but often such tweaks would instead reduce how polyvalent the system is. Note that I am all up for upgrades in general, but I have doubts on that one ...

One suggestions that I could offer is to make the square in front of the Unloader a stockpile with no meals allowed. Or even better, make the area around the beacon a stockpile for your meals (minus the square in front of the Unloader) and set the recipe to bring the meals to the best stockpile. But I suspect you have already considered this option ...

[SilverDragon]

That's the beauty of STUFF. You need to figure out how to work around things instead of trying to make things fold around your work!

[Rock5]

I have been thinking about making colonist able to pick-up items from the unloaders, but ended up making them drop things on the floor instead for a variety of reasons. I am not a big fan of having both systems enabled at the same time. While I can see why it would be useful in your case, I also know many more other examples where this would not be a good thing.

I sort of suspected as much. Maybe you could have a switch that allows you to choose if it should drop the item or not. I understand you have been considering making the dropped items spread out on the floor. Maybe you could make the switch choose if you want the item to stay on the unloader and so stop the flow of items on the belts or drop the items in a circle around the unloader. As I've said, and you have too, different situations have different needs. So it would be good if it could do both. For example you could have the unloader dump stuff all over the floor near your beacon for trading or you could leave it on the unloader if it's supplied for a specific task. I'm thinking though that if it remains on the unloader then it should pass items over to compatible devices that uses the item. So if you have a machine that uses a resource the unloader should pass the items over. Similar to how if a loader is near an Ore Extractor (from MD2) the Ore extractor puts items on it.

One suggestions that I could offer is to make the square in front of the Unloader a stockpile with no meals allowed. Or even better, make the area around the beacon a stockpile for your meals (minus the square in front of the Unloader) and set the recipe to bring the meals to the best stockpile. But I suspect you have already considered this option ...

I already have a beacon stockpile set for meals surrounding the cook table mainly so that if I need to unlock the door a bunch of haulers wont rush in to move the meals. I already have a clear spot in front of the unloader so the hauler that shares the space with the cook will come in and move the meal if 1 gets dropped there. I don't use "move to best stockpile" because the cook can probably make a couple of meals in the time he would take to go to the edge of the meal pile and drop of the meal, especially considering he is a slow MD2 droid.

You have to understand, in previous colonies I used to have to have a cook for every 15-20 people cooking continuously. If I set things up so the cook doesn't need to move and cook only simple meals he can easily cook for 50 or more people. It's amazing how fast he can cook. Before using the conveyor belts (same colony) I had the cook table in the potato freezer in the corner closest to the potato farm. So haulers would continuously surround the cook with potatoes. So the cook rarely had to move to reach potatoes. He was going so fast that he had time to top up the meals to 50 after the morning rush and still have time to go do some sculpting. To me that's amazing.

[Redshadow]

Great job with this mod, Evul! But I've found something you could perhaps look into. Whilst I have this mod enabled alongside Mechanical Defence 2, crafting droids goes a bit nutty & fails to give the droids their appropriate textures, also after crafting a droid, there's' an unselectable lump of, what looks like Coal from MD2. If I scroll over this objet it comes up with 'Logistics Droid' or whatever type the droid is, I was just wondering if this somehow changed the crafting process, or how the item '*Insert Type of Droid Here* Droid' is handled.
I just remembered that it's also possible to spawn droids with EbD's Prep Carefully mod, and the droids have the same icon in the interface(a single Coal item)
Just wondering if you'd look into this and maybe post a compatibility patch, Thanks!

[wikusaurus]

is it impossible to make two or more line of conveyor to merge and become one line?

[1000101]

is it impossible to make two or more line of conveyor to merge and become one line?

Use a selector, it has two inputs and two outputs.  Select everything for output one and clear everything for output two.

[Rock5]

Just thought I'd share some observations.

   
• The textures need to be clearer;
  
  
        
  • Curved Belt - the dots make it look like there are lines opposite to the ones that are there, sort of like an optical illusion. Needs to be clearer. Maybe take the outer corner off altogether. A real conveyor belt corner wouldn't have a pointed corner like that.
  • Selector - The numbers could be bigger. Maybe have different colors for the numbers and arrows to help differentiate them.
  • Splitter - Again, the arrows could be larger to make them easier to see and maybe color coded as well.
• Does the teleporter have to be so large? It takes up too much space especially when following a wall and you want to turn into and across the wall.

   
• The splitter gets stuck sometimes. I understand you consider this bug a feature now, and I agree it's fitting as a feature, but that means all splitters need to be accessible. When an inaccessible Splitters get stuck in my set up I have to save then reload to get it moving. If I have to do that, instead of sending someone over to clear it, then it's no longer a quaint feature but an annoyance. So I'd rather it just be fixed.
• Sometimes the belts can get stuck. This only happened twice to me so far. This is not so easy to clear. I had to power down the belt. send someone over to clear it, save the game, reload, clear the belt again (as there was more items there), then it would go. So I agree, as was previously reported, that it is due to too many items on the belt. How it happens I'm not sure.
• I know you should be able to make any set up with the components currently available but catering to the limited orientations of the parts takes up a lot of space. We really need more orientations of the parts. I know you can't have a button for every orientation of every part but maybe you could have a control on the placed parts that allow you to change the orientation. Consider it a manual control. I assume real conveyor belts have ways to manually control the flow to deal with emergencies and such. By orientation I mean different patterns of input and output for the Splitter and selector.

I hope this is helpful and doesn't make me seem like a know-it-all. 

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[noone]

Hey Rock5,

Thanks for the feedback, always appreciated. I fear I have no time available for any major upgrade these days - at least not until March anyway. But this being said, here are a couple of points:

   
• The textures need to be clearer;
  
  
        
  • Curved Belt - the dots make it look like there are lines opposite to the ones that are there, sort of like an optical illusion. Needs to be clearer. Maybe take the outer corner off altogether. A real conveyor belt corner wouldn't have a pointed corner like that.
  • Selector - The numbers could be bigger. Maybe have different colors for the numbers and arrows to help differentiate them.
  • Splitter - Again, the arrows could be larger to make them easier to see and maybe color coded as well.

Agreed, some textures could be upgraded. I'll happily consider any suggestions - I will also happily share the existing textures as SVGs if anyone feels like improving on them. Just PM me. A quick note on the Curve: I tried 'chopping off' the corner before, but then the shadows would not look really good, hence my full square current design. I could not live with myself knowing that there was a square shadow for a round corner ...

   
• Does the teleporter have to be so large? It takes up too much space especially when following a wall and you want to turn into and across the wall.

Well, teleporters are awesome because they allow you not to break walls. And given how the raiders tends not to attack walls if they're complete, that's a huge strategic advantage. So, the size is my way of balancing this a bit by forcing you think about your belt design

   
• The splitter gets stuck sometimes. I understand you consider this bug a feature now, and I agree it's fitting as a feature, but that means all splitters need to be accessible. When an inaccessible Splitters get stuck in my set up I have to save then reload to get it moving. If I have to do that, instead of sending someone over to clear it, then it's no longer a quaint feature but an annoyance. So I'd rather it just be fixed.
• Sometimes the belts can get stuck. This only happened twice to me so far. This is not so easy to clear. I had to power down the belt. send someone over to clear it, save the game, reload, clear the belt again (as there was more items there), then it would go. So I agree, as was previously reported, that it is due to too many items on the belt. How it happens I'm not sure.

Features, features, they're all features Again, conveyor belts are awesome, but can be a pain if they get stuck, and these 'features' are good balance to me. Also, again, it forces you to think about your design to allow for 'repairs', making it soooo much more rewarding when it finally works the way you intended ...

   
• I know you should be able to make any set up with the components currently available but catering to the limited orientations of the parts takes up a lot of space. We really need more orientations of the parts. I know you can't have a button for every orientation of every part but maybe you could have a control on the placed parts that allow you to change the orientation. Consider it a manual control. I assume real conveyor belts have ways to manually control the flow to deal with emergencies and such. By orientation I mean different patterns of input and output for the Splitter and selector.

That sounds overly complicated to me. Especially if one would need to set each belt component individually. Plus, that's beyond my current programming skills. I don't see this becoming reality anytime soon. Frankly, I like better the idea of forcing the user to think and cope with the limitations of the existing system, rather than give him full freedom to do what he wants. Sounds much more fun to me

[dareddevil7]

would it be possible to make the belts be able to output onto a belt like in factorio, also, i find it hard to use the belts because they make walls and block off rooms, is there any chance in the future that that could change?

[Rock5]

A quick note on the Curve: I tried 'chopping off' the corner before, but then the shadows would not look really good, hence my full square current design. I could not live with myself knowing that there was a square shadow for a round corner ...

You could make it a square table with a curve on it. So no empty corner but it would be a different color.

Well, teleporters are awesome because they allow you not to break walls. And given how the raiders tends not to attack walls if they're complete, that's a huge strategic advantage. So, the size is my way of balancing this a bit by forcing you think about your belt design

Except belts are walls so I don't use the teleporters to go through walls. I just punch through the walls with the belts. I try to only use the teleporters to create a path for colonists to go through. So why did I bring up the point about using the teleporters to go through walls, you say? Good question.

Features, features, they're all features Again, conveyor belts are awesome, but can be a pain if they get stuck, and these 'features' are good balance to me. Also, again, it forces you to think about your design to allow for 'repairs', making it soooo much more rewarding when it finally works the way you intended ...

You are sort of forcing people to only be able to use belts if they plan on using them from the beginning. If someone already has a base or they want to extend the belt to a section they weren't initially intending to put belts, it will be practically impossible to do so if they haven't got the room for these huge complex belt structures. If they could be more simple in their design they could use them in more places.

That sounds overly complicated to me. Especially if one would need to set each belt component individually. Plus, that's beyond my current programming skills. I don't see this becoming reality anytime soon. Frankly, I like better the idea of forcing the user to think and cope with the limitations of the existing system, rather than give him full freedom to do what he wants. Sounds much more fun to me

Here is a simple example to show you what I mean.

To have 4 loaders is fairly straight forward and uncomplicated.


It would be great if having 4 unloaders could be just as simple and space saving but it's not.


Image #1 is tight but ugly and access to a splitter is blocked.

Image #2 is neat and all splitters are accessible. Hm... not as bad as I thought but still takes up too much room. And 2 unloaders share an unload spot.

Image #3 I tried to design 1 that is only 2 wide. Managed it but it was so long that I could only fix 3 unloaders in the example because I ran out of room.

What I'd want to do is something like this.


I actually had a think about how many extra button would be needed and I only came up with 3. I thought it would be a huge number. The only extra buttons you would need are;


But I suspect you are not going to be convinced.

Edit: Just had a great idea. Why not have just 1 splitter that splits 3 ways? Any belt connected to one of the 3 ways will be included  in the splitting. Then if you want to only use 2, you connect to the 2 you want to use. With the added bonus that you can split 3 ways which will reduce the number of belt parts needed. You already have code in the splitter that checks for blocked belts right? So it shouldn't be too much work to check 3 paths instead of 2. You could even use it instead of a corner.  Hell, you could even make the belts modular like Modular tables and Modular Hydroponics and have wherever there is a join, it either turns or splits. I don't know if that's beyond your skill or if it's even feasible, probably not. I'm full of ideas today.

Edit 2: It's probably been mentioned before but there needs to be a Merger part. 2 reasons why selectors are not good as mergers; 1. a selector is a complex specialized piece of machinery that, in theory, should be expensive and use more power. A Merger would be a simple component that shouldn't cost more than a splitter. 2. A selector can only merge 2 lines. So a general purpose Merger could be made that merges upto 3 lines.
 

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[noone]

Interesting ideas ... I sort of like the concept of separating the splitter and the merger into their respective functions, and turn them into "3 sides + 1 side" items. I combined them initially to limit the number of components to a minimum ... but I see why it could be nice and elegant to separate them ... I shall ponder over this choice ...

But as a counterpart, I would then restrict the Selector to a single entry, and perhaps make it 2x1 in size for the fun of it. That would add one belt item (the "merger"), but I suppose it would indeed allow for more efficient designs ...

If someone already has a base or they want to extend the belt to a section they weren't initially intending to put belts, it will be practically impossible to do so if they haven't got the room for these huge complex belt structures. If they could be more simple in their design they could use them in more places.

I think you are mistaken on the intentions of the A2B company: we don't try to make your life easier, we're trying to make money. Forcing you to expand your base means more digging means more colonists means more stuff to carry means more A2B Belt systems required. You call them "huge complex belt structures", we at A2B think they are beautiful work of art generating money

would it be possible to make the belts be able to output onto a belt like in factorio

Nope. That's why we have the "Selector" with two entries.

i find it hard to use the belts because they make walls and block off rooms, is there any chance in the future that that could change?

Yes, this hopefully will change in the future. I'm waiting for A9 right now to see how temperatures will fluctuate through walls and so on.

[Rock5]

Interesting ideas ... I sort of like the concept of separating the splitter and the merger into their respective functions, and turn them into "3 sides + 1 side" items. I combined them initially to limit the number of components to a minimum ... but I see why it could be nice and elegant to separate them ... I shall ponder over this choice ...

The way I see it we currently have the splitter and selector. To be truly versatile I think what we need is a 3 way Splitter, the 2 possible selectors and a 3 way Merger. That's 4 components where there was 2.

But as a counterpart, I would then restrict the Selector to a single entry

Not a good idea. The current Selector is in effect 2 Selectors (who uses both inputs of the selector?). You can use it as a left turning selector or a right turning selector. If you make it 1 input then you would need to make it 2 components, 1 that turns left and 1 that turns right. It's fine the way it is. If you make the other Selector I suggested then you could make that 1 input because it would be the same either side (assuming no one has a use for both inputs).

You could theoretically make a universal selector that has 1 input and 3 outputs of which only 2 can be connected. Then depending of which is connected, the left would be path 1 and the right would be path 2. But I think it would just confuse people.

I think you are mistaken on the intentions of the A2B company: we don't try to make your life easier, we're trying to make money.

Which reminds me, I never payed for these belts. How much do I owe you? Where do I send the check?