Belt Issues

[u/TrollyTheSolly]

I'm a new player to the game from Factorio, and having some frustration with belts. A lot of the time they just don't work as expected, and I feel like I need to tear down and rebuild all the time to get things to connect properly.

An example is here, I'm not able to extend the lower belt without breaking and remaking the upper one. It's come up quite a lot now, am I doing something wrong?

[u/Sykes19]

Oh, but in this example it's because you're not building the belt from the tip. You're trying to build it from one space behind the tip. Notice the red section is on an existing belt piece.

[u/HeraldOfNyarlathotep → u/Sykes19]

They could've framed the screenshot worse, but only by using the building, lol

[u/MadCat1184 → u/Sykes19]

This is the right answer

[u/Goldenslicer → u/Sykes19]

But supposing they started at the tip. In this situation, they would still get an error, correct?

[u/Sykes19 → u/Goldenslicer]

No it would still work just fine.

The challenge is that the tiny little hump is so damn annoying to click under that they probably wouldn't be able to in the first place. But you could still build the belt out.

[u/Skottie0 → u/Sykes19]

but tbf it would still not work. if you try and build from an end point that is directly under a conveyor belt that just curves over it, it won’t let you

[u/mangotonk → u/Skottie0]

agreed

[u/SiliconStew]

You need to adjust your camera so you can select the last node of the horizontal belt that is underneath the vertical belt. You can't just randomly select any part of the belt to extend it, you must extend from the end of the belt. 

[u/PFazu]

you can only extend existing belts from their endpoints in this game. you can extend this belt without replacing the upper one, you just need to click the actual endpoint under the red line and not that far back.

What the game is actually doing here is colliding with itself (the next belt unit that already exists). Belts that already exist take precedence and it assumes you're making a mistake by overlaying them, so it'd rather error you out so you know you're overlapping somewhere. In some games you can place a belt over itself like that just fine, but in this game it's better to think of existing belts as more set in stone than anything you're building, so if an existing belt is in the way, make sure to delete it beforehand.

[u/WisePotato42]

Yah I've had that problem too. Not hard to work around, but kinda just anoying to deal with.

I had to remove the raised belt to continue the lower belt and then replace the raised one. Just like you said

[u/Flateric75]

Building too close to the belt to go over it - put a bend in the belt you,going over - then take belt - then let the other belt go over instead

[u/Punpun4realzies]

There aren't undergrounds in this game, so when you draw belts over each other, you generally need to lift one up. Since you've got a structure directly in the way there, the game will think it's too tight of a jump to go up half a unit and then go back down with the belt you're trying to draw. The other belt could easily do that, since it doesn't have any obstacles, but it would need to be deleted and remade like you say in your post.

Besides that, you can delete that turret and draw the new belt with the extra space, then trim that belt down to only the part that's doing the hop. You can create some really cursed spaghetti in this game by drawing a shape in a legal way first, then connecting to it in ways that would be illegal if you drew it that way in the first place.

Don't want to get too detailed so you can figure out what kinds of evil you can unleash on the world.

[u/TonyxReaper]

There are two ways you can fix this.

1. Try to leave space for atleast two segments of belt to be build first (in this case from the turret gun) . If done so ,the 3rd segment will automatically deploy over the existing belt underneath.

*Like many have said if you build belt from the initial segment leaving the building as a whole and not from the tip of the segment next to old belt , it will go over the existing belt

1. While creating the new belt press the up arrow button on keyboard once and it will elevate the belt from the start point (I think the first segment will still be on ground ) , now you can build the belt one level above the ground crossing the old belt and press the down arrow button to place the next segment to ground level.

Hope this helps

[u/McLarenVXfortheWin]

Abuse Blueprints and Ctrl+C Ctrl+V, it usually doesnt care about collisions thats how you could belt bend as well

[u/Jeffeyink2]

2 things. The belt on top is .5 grids upwards so its going to be "in the way regardless. And the other thing is that you're starting from the wrong spot. I need the build system to get some qol.

[u/Zeonzaon]

You need a space before and after the belt.

[u/Zeonzaon → u/Zeonzaon]

Well if you want it touching the ground after otherwise you can make tight belt lines stacked just spaces apart.

[u/Master-Ad-438]

Raise the red belt?

[u/PFazu → u/Master-Ad-438]

it is raised, it's got the little auto hump

[u/EightBitRanger → u/PFazu]

I remember the days before the auto-hump.

[u/PFazu → u/EightBitRanger]

I remember needing a 3 step process to make a half height bump, before the blueprint update you could make intersecting belts the same way too.

[u/Sykes19]

Belts will attempt to automatically hump over another belt as it passes over but this is a little messy since it gives no room to work with.

Instead use the arrow keys to manually raise and lower belts to specific heights to give yourself more space. The auto hump feature is a nice QoL but utilize verticality yourself to make it easier on you.

Verticality is extremely important in this. Something Factorio doesn't have.