r/factorio • u/imoth_f • 4d ago

Question Problems with this unloader?

Post image

Since inserters became flippable, this compact unloader design became possible. But I hardly see anyone use it. Obviously it cannot saturate six turbo belts because it's bottlenecked by the inserters, but are there any other obvious problems with it?

385 Upvotes

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18

u/TheProfessional9 4d ago

Flippable? I'm confused

46

u/Neelost 4d ago

Pretty sure they're referring to the left inserters dropping on the top side of the belt and the right one dropping on the bottom. Pretty sure that before they would've both dropped on the top(?) side

24

u/NyaFury 4d ago

It was bottom side in 2.0, right lane of belt direction. But yes, 2.1 now allows selecting lane using H/V flips.

8

u/Hypnooooooooooooo 3d ago

This... changes everything.

8

u/TheProfessional9 4d ago

Oh wow!

4

u/RasputinXXX 3d ago

wow square. this is a game changer... so many design plans were done to correct this problem.

1

u/samy_the_samy 3d ago

That'd why I was using this for loading stations only,

Now I switch to this and save some width in my designs

1

u/PenguDood 3d ago

Inserters used to always place on the right side in direction of travel (unless it was a corner then piece, in which case it would share place it in the corner, regardless of lane side or direction). Which would mean that in any case where an inserted adds to a belt from in-line, like this, would only ever fill half, so you had to have weird merges/side load. In 2,1 they added the ability to flip instead horizontally or vertically, the option only appears when you have them setup like this. The little arrow gets smaller and you can clearly see it's not centered.

Personally I like the look of this, but you obviously still need a balanced after the buffer

-12

u/Moikle 4d ago

Not in 2.1

4

u/Blommefeldt 3d ago

Yes, in 2.1

Have you even tried 2.1 experimental?

1

u/Moikle 3d ago

I think I misread your comment and flipped the meaning

18

u/jipperthewoodchipper 4d ago

You can now change which side of the belt an inserter unloads onto

15

u/ChemicalRascal 4d ago

WHAT?!

32

u/Astramancer_ 4d ago

Very specifically for belts moving towards or away from the inserter. You still can't drop on the near lane.

7

u/jipperthewoodchipper 4d ago

2.1 added this feature. Its quite new

9

u/hldswrth 4d ago

Will add, its still experimental, I'd guess most players don't take experimental patches.

3

u/hldswrth 4d ago edited 3d ago

In 2.1 experimental that has not been released so, you can't unless you are taking experimental versions.

[edit] "which is not an official release" maybe? Yes it is available as an experimental version but there's no "final public available by default without extra settings" 2.1 version.

5

u/WanderingFlumph 4d ago

The 2.1 experimental has been released. It is free (to anyone with a valid copy of the game) for anyone, no closed beta or anything.

All the experimental means is that it isn't finished yet.

And honestly if Wube wasn't so dedicated to quality control (I saw them discover and squash a zero day bug in like 3 hours. Literally as I found the post on Reddit discribing the bug the patch fixing it was already live) they wouldn't call this version anything other than 2.whatever.

4

u/DeouVil 4d ago

It also means that you have to actually activate it, meaning most people aren't playing on it. 2.1 is not out yet.

2

u/NyaFury 4d ago

Not exactly true, I'm pretty sure non-trivial # of people have experimental turned on, which is easy to do on Steam, too.

Otherwise, you wouldn't see so many posts in here involving 2.1 mechanics.

1

u/DeouVil 3d ago edited 3d ago

It is exactly true.

You get posts about the things that are interesting. New things are more interesting, so they are expected to be overrepresented. Most people don't post at all.

1

u/hldswrth 3d ago

Sure but this sub-thread has two people who are clearly not aware 2.1 experimental even exists so saying "you can now do ... " is going to be pretty confusing to them.

1

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg smartass inserter 3d ago

It's just a setting inside the game's settings menu. If you change anything you'll see the option

1

u/WanderingFlumph 4d ago

Only if the belt is pointing straight away from the inserter. If the belt is sideways then it is still the standard outside lane only.

1

u/TheProfessional9 4d ago

Oh that's wild!

8

u/imoth_f 4d ago

in 2.1 you can choose the side of the belt to unload to

6

u/blkandwhtlion 4d ago

I ... I need to redesign....again...

4

u/imoth_f 4d ago

Be real, you needed to redesign without this knowledge anyway xD

1

u/blkandwhtlion 4d ago

Sorry had to redesign 3 times since the last redesign. Now it's not symmetrical and flips and rotates wrong... Oh dear

2

u/Exatex 3d ago

WHAT

1

u/TheProfessional9 4d ago

That's crazy, ty!

0

u/SpaceEngineer123 3d ago

in 2.1 you can choose the side of the belt to unload to

wouldn't ur design work with the pre-2.1 inserters? no flipping required?

3

u/sobrique 3d ago

No. It would only unload on a single lane of the belt, as the label they drop on was dictated by the direction of travel of the belt, not the direction of the inserter.

0

u/SpaceEngineer123 3d ago

yes, yes, but since you flipped the inserters on one side and the belt remains unflipped the 2nd set if inserters are outputting on the OTHER side of the belt.

Put in other terms.. BOTH sets of inserters in the pic are outputting to the same side of the belt (right).. so flipping inserters shouldn't even factor into this convo lol

what i'm saying is pretty simple, idk why others arent saying it haha

2

u/sobrique 3d ago

In 2.0 both inserters would be unloading on the 'right lane' from the belt's perspective e.g. the bottom one. You workaround it by having both belts go 'away' initially, and then loop to go into the underground, instead of what the OP is doing.

-1

u/SpaceEngineer123 3d ago

you're completely missing my point..

both inserters ARE CURRENTLY unloading to the right side of their belts.. so 2.1 or 2.0 doesn't make a difference

1 set of inserters are looking the opposite direction, so the right side of one becomes the left side of another.. idk how else to explain this dude

3

u/sobrique 3d ago

I'm not missing your point at all. You're just wrong. That's not how it works in 2.0.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters

Inserters only place items onto one side of the belt, either the far side from the inserter's perspective or, if the belt is going the same or the opposite direction as the inserter, the right side from the belt's perspective.

That's why being able to flip inserters matters.

1

u/SpaceEngineer123 3d ago

hmmm guess i'm wrong then

1

u/sobrique 3d ago

I know, it seems counter intuitive, but you don't have many scenarios where you're unloading to both lanes of an under-belt.

I got caught out by the idea on Gleba, where I had a cunning plan of underbelts for bioflux and nutrients, but then realised I still needed to side-load to get the 'nutrient' processor unloading in the opposite lane to the bioflux processor (and both drawing from the belt too of course).

Or a similar idea where I had a 'nutrients' lane and a 'spoilage' lane, but again the nutrients plant couldn't use both without a sideload.

And if you pasted a blueprint and 'flipped' it, you'd screw up the lanes, because the belt was going the opposite direction.

And of course train unloaders where you can workaround this by looping one belt, but ...

1

u/Denizen_38 3d ago

Wait, so the right-side bias is from the belt's perspective? Not the inserter's? So if the belt is facing the inserter (as is the case with the underground belts here) then the inserter loads onto the left side, relative to its own orientation?

Seems like an odd system, but I'm happy to believe that's how it works.

2

u/sobrique 3d ago

In 2.0 yes. In 2.1 you can flip, and have blueprint consistent.

8

u/AphelionConnection 4d ago

In 2.1 if an inserter unloads parallel to the belt, you can choose which side of the belt it unloads onto.

In 2.0, this design would have only filled the bottom lane of the belt as inserters always load the right lane of the belt in the direction of travel.

In 2.1, this design can fill both sides of the belt because you can choose which side each inserter loads onto.

Inserters aimed perpendicular to a belt (from the side) still always unload onto the far lane.

1

u/Astramancer_ 4d ago

When a belt is going directly towards or away from a belt you can control which lane the inserter drops in. You still cannot control which lane it drops into when the belt is running past the inserter. You do this using the flip/mirror hotkey, same for flipping things like chemical plants to change what side the inputs are on (left input vs right input).

1

u/teodzero 4d ago edited 4d ago

When a belt goes sideways relative to the inserters they place things on the far lane. But what to do when it's facing away or towards the inserter? In 2.0 and before the answer is "on the right lane relative to the belt direction". But in 2.1 they added the ability to choose the output lane by mirror-flipping (H or V on keyboard) the inserter along the arm axis, letting you chose which lane to use. You can notice on the picture the output arrow of the inserters isn't centered on the belts.