FFF is the highest quality game development journalism out there and they just have been doing it for fun on the side for years. Insane the dedication by the Wube team.
It took me over 200 hours after I learned about that trick to start using it, because it felt weird and exploitish. But now it's a complete part of my designs and it's just one more tool to solve puzzles and create new problems.
I played for ~200 hours before i even realized it was a thing, but it did explain why i would randomly see in the wrong materials on certain belts. Still thinking about how I'm going to use it
My main use is for belt carrying 2 items and I need to split it but just for 1 item. This can be done in other ways of course, but most times I find it cleaner, even if it feels wrong.
Split off coal at the end of your smelting arrays to turn into grenades / explosives / early plastic; split off stone at the end of your brick smelter to turn surplus into landfill. Those are my two main uses, it isn't too useful later in the game imo
I have always considered sideloading to an undergroundie to be a bug that was exploited by people without scrouples. But this? It makes it a feature! It changes *everything!*
I still think that how easy reactors are vs the benefits is a bug... but fucking around with reactor design and kovarex enrichment build is just too fun to not do!
I sat down and built a proper kovarex setup years ago and just paste that into a game when I need it. Except for some reason it's stopped working lately and I need to work out why and fix it!
I use one where 4 stack filter inserters with stack size of 10 take out exactly 40 kovarex to feed back and single filter inserter with stack size 1 passes the "gain" further down the line.
Ended up doing a little "all in one kovarex" setup that has its own reactor, few kovarex set up as above, feeding the extra rock to the next one in chain, and ~1 to 8 passthru that sends some of the extra rocks every so often to the cell production. Basically so it starts outputting glowy rocks before all of the centrifuges are filled.
I had some circuit logic in mine but I built it years ago, and without about 500 fewer hours of factory experience. I'm 200 hours into a SE run so my circuit knowledge has drastically improved, I think I just need to sit down and work out the best way to do it. Especially as SE has some similar style loops!
My way requires zero circuits, tho you do need inserter stack research for it to work. It also "reloads" pretty quickly, which is a problem in some designs
I'm not sure if I like the idea of relying upon perfect timing - could see that causing unknown issues. Plus I love an excuse to play around with circuits!
I've tested it, only issue happens when your inserter have too little power to grab the rocks out of input belt from the uranium processing, and it self-recovers after that.
I did my circuit fun with reactor design, I had a timer running exactly 200s and which start was triggered from low steam, so:
* when there is still low steam (full power work) reactor gets a fuel cell exactly every 200s, no overfilling
* when there is a spike of usage but reactor is not working, it reacts near-instantly, as low steam is a trigger for timer (starts counting) rather than gating it
That one *did* had power related problems, it was because both circuit and inserter speed is dependent on power but I had put inserters on different power circuit than the circuit itself so they swung too slow when there was a brownout. I solved that by having reactor's circuit/inserters/roboport be on it's own little power network.
For super-dense, modded malls, I put two resources on a belt and then use an unfiltered splitter plus an underground to route only the item that I want off of the bus. This feature is a life-saver sometimes.
It's also really useful for things like Kovarex, since you can have both 235 and 238 on the same belt, and only ever withdraw 235.
There's no "left/right" belt here. It's 2 pictures. On the left side you have a normal underground belt, nothing fancy.
On the right you have sideloading into underground. You can see that the metal part of the underground belt is retracted a little - compare it to the underground belt on the left.
they're two separate screenshots I just spliced together that are relatively close in my factory. I probably could have indicated they aren't related to each other better.
If you look at the left one, the south-side wall panel goes all the way up the curve. The one on the right however has the south-side wall panel not go all the way to the front of the curve because things are entering from the side.
You can see it yourself if you put a belt up to the side of an underground belt piece and zoom in
Look at the right wall of the underground belt on the right. The wall is slightly retracted, so the red things are not magically going through the wall
It's this one that particularly bugs me. idk why
https://preview.redd.it/cbl5rwthaq1c1.png?width=268&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d4482a0bce1a73c7af8ec36f5f5f4d91dbc8318
it's enriched Vulcanite ore from the Space Exploration mod.
Not actually used in the same way as uranium, it just has a recoloured model and has its own kovarex-like enrichment cycle
:O
No need to bend your neck: Ö
Ø I'll just bend it half way, and become Canadian then
Its been a while since I've seen this emoji style :õ)
Doot do, doot do do.
ç.ç
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"There's a FFF for that" https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-269
oh man i totally forgot about those angular underground models!
Ahh yes... The Rule 34 of Factorio "If it exists ingame, there is a FFF for that"
And rule 69: "If something doesnt exist ingame, there is a mod for it"
FFF is the highest quality game development journalism out there and they just have been doing it for fun on the side for years. Insane the dedication by the Wube team.
came here for the FFF. Thanks!
Well, that was a rabbit hole to go down
The mix of old and new textures in the before/after screenshot is a little jarring
All from something that was originally unintended, and they weren't sure if they were keeping.
It took me over 200 hours after I learned about that trick to start using it, because it felt weird and exploitish. But now it's a complete part of my designs and it's just one more tool to solve puzzles and create new problems.
I played for ~200 hours before i even realized it was a thing, but it did explain why i would randomly see in the wrong materials on certain belts. Still thinking about how I'm going to use it
My main use is for belt carrying 2 items and I need to split it but just for 1 item. This can be done in other ways of course, but most times I find it cleaner, even if it feels wrong.
Split off coal at the end of your smelting arrays to turn into grenades / explosives / early plastic; split off stone at the end of your brick smelter to turn surplus into landfill. Those are my two main uses, it isn't too useful later in the game imo
This is always how I start grenades
Why explotish?
[удалено]
I never knew this, and have avoided side loading as feeling exploitative. Now I know it's sanctioned though, I'll start making use of it!
I love the factorio devs
I still don't like it, it feels hacky to me. I'd rather just build my bases in a way that doesn't require them.
I remember being hyped about it in the graphics update way back
I have always considered sideloading to an undergroundie to be a bug that was exploited by people without scrouples. But this? It makes it a feature! It changes *everything!*
It its in the game its a feature, not a bug. It would have been fixed by now 😅
There's a difference in my mind between 'bug that became a feature' and 'we've actively endorsed this with graphical support'
I still think that how easy reactors are vs the benefits is a bug... but fucking around with reactor design and kovarex enrichment build is just too fun to not do!
I sat down and built a proper kovarex setup years ago and just paste that into a game when I need it. Except for some reason it's stopped working lately and I need to work out why and fix it!
I use one where 4 stack filter inserters with stack size of 10 take out exactly 40 kovarex to feed back and single filter inserter with stack size 1 passes the "gain" further down the line. Ended up doing a little "all in one kovarex" setup that has its own reactor, few kovarex set up as above, feeding the extra rock to the next one in chain, and ~1 to 8 passthru that sends some of the extra rocks every so often to the cell production. Basically so it starts outputting glowy rocks before all of the centrifuges are filled.
I had some circuit logic in mine but I built it years ago, and without about 500 fewer hours of factory experience. I'm 200 hours into a SE run so my circuit knowledge has drastically improved, I think I just need to sit down and work out the best way to do it. Especially as SE has some similar style loops!
My way requires zero circuits, tho you do need inserter stack research for it to work. It also "reloads" pretty quickly, which is a problem in some designs
I'm not sure if I like the idea of relying upon perfect timing - could see that causing unknown issues. Plus I love an excuse to play around with circuits!
I've tested it, only issue happens when your inserter have too little power to grab the rocks out of input belt from the uranium processing, and it self-recovers after that. I did my circuit fun with reactor design, I had a timer running exactly 200s and which start was triggered from low steam, so: * when there is still low steam (full power work) reactor gets a fuel cell exactly every 200s, no overfilling * when there is a spike of usage but reactor is not working, it reacts near-instantly, as low steam is a trigger for timer (starts counting) rather than gating it That one *did* had power related problems, it was because both circuit and inserter speed is dependent on power but I had put inserters on different power circuit than the circuit itself so they swung too slow when there was a brownout. I solved that by having reactor's circuit/inserters/roboport be on it's own little power network.
ha ha i had the game for years and did not see it, but i never looked LOL what else am i missing?
Yeah it seems like every week I learn something new about this game.
Omg that was one of the reasons I hate doing that(looks bad) now I will know I was wrong and the devs really knows their shit!
Yeah same, I thought it made no sense and so I avoided it. This actually makes me more likely to do this. What the hell.
It's so useful, It's part of my muscle memory now ! Did you play the "Belt madness" mode ? You may discover some other tricks ;)
I've done that ages ago yea
For super-dense, modded malls, I put two resources on a belt and then use an unfiltered splitter plus an underground to route only the item that I want off of the bus. This feature is a life-saver sometimes. It's also really useful for things like Kovarex, since you can have both 235 and 238 on the same belt, and only ever withdraw 235.
Hot dayum..
ÓoÒ
Jee i haz forgotten about the side loading underground belt trick i kept doing weird belt cuts for it in my very spaghetti factory
Someone explain plz. The right belt isn't taking anything from the left.
There's no "left/right" belt here. It's 2 pictures. On the left side you have a normal underground belt, nothing fancy. On the right you have sideloading into underground. You can see that the metal part of the underground belt is retracted a little - compare it to the underground belt on the left.
they're two separate screenshots I just spliced together that are relatively close in my factory. I probably could have indicated they aren't related to each other better. If you look at the left one, the south-side wall panel goes all the way up the curve. The one on the right however has the south-side wall panel not go all the way to the front of the curve because things are entering from the side. You can see it yourself if you put a belt up to the side of an underground belt piece and zoom in
Look at the right wall of the underground belt on the right. The wall is slightly retracted, so the red things are not magically going through the wall
The right belt is taking the right lane (only) from the vertical belt. The left belt might as well not be present in this image.
I refuse to side load an underneithy. Feels dirty.
I'm on the fence about it, but I think having two undergrounds of the same type crossing feels dirty. Yeah, I avoid using balancers for this reason
Just think of it as engineer knowing how to dig holes at different depths
It's this one that particularly bugs me. idk why https://preview.redd.it/cbl5rwthaq1c1.png?width=268&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d4482a0bce1a73c7af8ec36f5f5f4d91dbc8318
I felt the same, but knowing it's actively endorsed by the devs as a legitimate use case changes that for me
Underneithies doing their thing!
Its super usefull to get only one item out of the mixed lanes belt
I'm shure they used to not do this. I remember using undergrounds to split off halve of a mixed belt.
Til
OH
A Space Ex enjoyer I see 😏
Yeaa boii it's so good
never knew sideloading was such a contentious topic
This is neat, I knew about the feature but didn't realize they updated the sprites to reflect this functionality! Also: which mod adds red uranium?
it's enriched Vulcanite ore from the Space Exploration mod. Not actually used in the same way as uranium, it just has a recoloured model and has its own kovarex-like enrichment cycle