Would be nice if I could flip direction on the sorters...

[XLjedi]

...similar to how we can do it with the belts.

[pemmons1]

Perhaps this isn't done because a sorter must belong to a particular building, so if the building is deleted, so are its sorters. If a sorter connects two buildings and were flippable, to which of the buildings would it belong?

[XLjedi]

Originally posted by pemmons1:

Perhaps this isn't done because a sorter must belong to a particular building, so if the building is deleted, so are its sorters. If a sorter connects two buildings and were flippable, to which of the buildings would it belong?

I suppose the devs would have to program a routine to allow the ownership to flip from one building to the other.

I typically dismiss the "it's too hard" argument as a red herring. Rather, I take the position that the devs are smart folks; they could figure it out if the community asked for it.

[Rekal]

Originally posted by XLjedi:

I typically dismiss the "it's too hard" argument as a red herring. Rather, I take the position that the devs are smart folks; they could figure it out if the community asked for it.

In this case the sorter is an actual powered building and depending on which direction the sorter is set determines which side needs to be powered. You can see the sorter power connections in this image. The sorters on the left are directed toward the asssembler, while the three on the right are dropping off into the belt.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2962215384
So, it's not impossible to switch directions. It is a bit more complicated than belt swapping though. If added it'll most likely be around the time we get splitters to drop and connect directly on top of belts. It's a matter of programming a script to remove the old direction and automatically place the new direction while reliably remaking all the appropriate connections.

I think that's why we don't splitters placing down on top of belts. It requires deleting the old belts, placing the splitter, and then reconnecting the belts

Personally I don't see the need for the sorter direction swaps so I'm kind of meh on the idea. It can save you a few mouse clicks and a keyboard press if and only if you screwed up your sorter placement in the first place and in just the right way that reversing it would be useful. I feel the same about the belt direction swap, just not something I see myself using.

[XLjedi]

Originally posted by Rekal:

Personally I don't see the need for the sorter direction swaps so I'm kind of meh on the idea. It can save you a few mouse clicks and a keyboard press if and only if you screwed up your sorter placement in the first place and in just the right way that reversing it would be useful. I feel the same about the belt direction swap, just not something I see myself using.

I find it more noticeable and a lot more mouse-clickety when dealing with premade blueprints with 8-10 factories setup to produce an item, each having 6+ sorters and deciding you'd like to change a belt loop from an input to an output. Belt direction swap would be a huge PITA if it were not a thing.

[josmith7]

Originally posted by pemmons1:

Perhaps this isn't done because a sorter must belong to a particular building, so if the building is deleted, so are its sorters. If a sorter connects two buildings and were flippable, to which of the buildings would it belong?

Hmm. But if you've got sorters going between a pair of buildings the sorters already get deleted no mater which of the pair of connected buildings you delete. So the game might not even need to switch ownership of the sorter (however that's tracked) if you somehow flipped its direction.

Originally posted by Rekal:

Personally I don't see the need for the sorter direction swaps so I'm kind of meh on the idea. It can save you a few mouse clicks and a keyboard press if and only if you screwed up your sorter placement in the first place and in just the right way that reversing it would be useful. I feel the same about the belt direction swap, just not something I see myself using.

Oddly I do end up using the belt direction flip much more than I thought I would.

But it's usually when I'm about to be tearing a section of factory down and want to limit the amount of inventory overflow I'll have to deal with (but don't want to just mass delete said overflow because I want to recover the destroyed buildings; it's only the other items I'd be willing to nuke). Flipping the supply belts' direction moves things back into the ILS/PLS and helps the factory quickly finish burning through its cached supplies, and empty out as much as possible before the mass delete tool sweeps through it :D