Talk:Conveyor Belts

Merging Mk.1-6

Could we merge all the belt pages into one, similar to the Korean version of the page: Conveyor_Belt/ko. So it'd have most of the info up top, then the 6 infoboxes in the middle (which could hopefully be made more condensed at a later date), and then other tips and trivia at the bottom.
✏ A marshall (talk) 10:38, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Yea, I like that. As it is right now, the higher you go into the tiers, the less information the pages contain... The info that is on there, is mostly just copy-pasted. We'll just have to see about how we mark a belt as "unreleased".

I've added a proposal.
--CerbrusNL (talk) 09:12, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

That looks nice. It might be useful to add which resource each belt uses in the speed table for quicker reference. Or maybe an infobox on the side like this: Template:Infobox belts.
✏ A marshall (talk) 12:35, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

The template isn't necessary, I've (moved and) updated my proposal
--CerbrusNL (talk) 17:56, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Right I figured I had done something wrong with the infobox, so that template can be deleted. Anyway, maybe ask on the discord if anyone has objections to the merge, best way to gauge it I suppose. The only odd thing I've noticed is the resource breakdown opens for all the infoboxes at once, and can get messed up because of it.
✏ A marshall (talk) 23:13, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Merge looks good. I made a minor change at Conveyor Belt/sandbox of replacing the float:lefts with a group div and adding some specific css for infobox groups to align them better.
--Mr Pie 5 (talk) 00:13, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Conveyor Transportation Speed

I set up a Mk 5 conveyor belt exactly 1km (125 foundations) long. Standing on the belt, I traveled the distance in 64.0 seconds which is a speed of 56.25 km/h. Running that distance with Blade Runners took 74.3 seconds for a speed of 48.5 km/h. Running on the Mk 5 belt with blade runners on took 34.5 seconds for a speed of 104.3 km/h. I did take multiple timings. As a sanity check, 56.25 + 48.5 = 104.75 km/h which is very close to the measured speed of 104.3 km/h.Jongensregeren (talk) 14:56, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I tested Mk 4 and Mk 3 belts also. The speeds achieved by standing on the belt is as posted on the page. Running with Blade Runners increases the speed by 48 km/h in both cases.Jongensregeren (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

As the information doesn't match what's in the article, a 3rd person will have to do the measurement to provide verifiable information. --Ondar111 (talk) 13:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, 843 items fit on a conveyor belt that is 1000 meters long. Jongensregeren (talk) 18:24, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Added, thanks! --Ondar111 (talk) 13:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Belt length

Testing this in build 136408 (Early Access), I am able to build belts of length 56 meters or exactly 7 foundations.Jongensregeren (talk) 14:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Mk. 1 conveyorbelts

I read the "Small LED's every 2 meters" on the information about the mk.1 conveyorbelts. When in reality it more looks like 20 centimeters. Idk, what's your opinion?

Corrected. Btw, it is 50 cm, not 20cm. Remember your character is 1.8m high.Kwjcool321 (talk) 14:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Accessibility and linking to other pages

- Added links to other pages in top right infobox
- Further clarified 'Iron Ore' instead of 'Iron'
- Links to the pages for the raw resources

Possible Glitch: Crossing Belts cause Items to move from one belt to another (?)

I build a factory where I was forced to put belts in a very narrow space so that they cross each other on various sections. Now the strange thing. Sometimes Coal seems to jump from its own belts onto the crossing bauxit belt which causes to blockade my refineries inputs regularly.To fix that I have to manually clean out the coal. I checked If I have somewhere a merger on the bauxit which is linked to the coal. But there is non. I checked the path of the Bauxit if it can be poluted somewhere with coal on the way from the miner to the factory. Nothing there either. Coal runs on a mark 2 belt. Bauxit on a mark 5. 212.110.239.229 16:52, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Section on "relative cost" is poorly thought out and meaningfully misleading for players

I removed the section on relative cost. The definition of "how many meters of belt can be made with an equal quantity of inputs" is not a sensible definition of relative cost, at all. There are two primary issues:

1. The calculation does not take into accout per-item cost, which is what is important. If you need to move 480 items/min, you can use either 1x mk4 belt or 8x mk1 belt. Yes, the mk4 belt is more expensive per meter than a single mk1 belt, per meter. But it is not more expensive than 8x mk1 belts per meter.

2. The calculation does not take into account input scarcity. Bauxite is the most limited resource on the map. Every other conveyor type uses iron, limestone and coal. Of these 4 types of inputs, bauxite is the only one that it is plausible to max out. On this basis alone, the mk5 inputs should be weighted as much higher-cost.

The whole section is a questionable analysis and is meaningfully misleading for newer players. It should either be significantly reworked or more ideally left removed. The definition of "relative cost" is not sensible, the definition of cost as per length instead of per item throughput is also not sensible. It's poorly thought out.

1of42 (talk) 00:44, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

No, frankly *that's* a silly definition. You're not going to max out anything just making belts, and neither should max builds be the primary consideration. What it's talking about is, I would imagine, how easy it is to build belts from your inventory. What's your argument here, that newer players should be discouraged from building Mk. 5 belts because they use a valuable material, rather than just advised that belts are the most "expensive" at Mk. 4? Evil Tim (talk) 05:57, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

If that's what it's talking about, then perhaps that is what it should actually talk about? Relative inventory space required for different belts is a super reasonable thing to compare. But that's not what is being compared here. This is more like a "meters per unit of basic input", holding the amount of basic input fixed. Which is an analysis that is not useful to anyone. Nobody carries around coal and iron ore to make their mk3 belts. Meanwhile, bauxite is a late game input. It is gated by geography, hazards, and has a more complex processing and logistical chain. Any analysis that starts by comparing an equal amount of bauxite and iron as if they are interchangeable is incoherent.

And no, I wouldn't suggest that anyone be discouraged from building any type of belt. In fact, the point about the cost per item throughput I made above would actually tend to make mk5 belts *more* advantageous on a per-item cost basis, not less. But generally I just don't think the section as a whole is very useful at all. It's called "relative cost" but it's nothing of the sort. It could be helpful as an analysis of inventory space required for belts but it doesn't really address that issue either. 1of42 (talk) 10:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm who originally added that section there. The original thought was really just to compare "how many raw resources does it take to build each belt Mk. of the same length". It was meant to be some sort of factory complexity metric, not that the materials would be crafted from raw ores. Regardless, the points you bring up are valid. I agree with it being removed. Comparing inventory space isn't really a useful metric when the materials all stack to either 100 or 200. -Ondar111 (talk) 13:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Ondar111. I realize in retrospect that I should have sought consensus here before nuking the section. So I'm sorry for that. It may be useful to note somewhere on the page that mk1/3/5 belts use 200 stack count items while mk2/4 use 100 stack count items, so players may find it convenient to choose the odd numbered belts in terms of inventory space required. I think that's about as far as we should go in terms of cost/inventory space analysis. 1of42 (talk) 23:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)