why is logistic so inconsistent and complicated?

[Dedmoin]

I don't mind it is not possible to directly link buildings with convoyer belts and I have to use those sorter... if it would be following a consistent scheme and the most importantly... if it would work.

It is so frustrating for new players to figure out themselves how belts, sorters and buildings work. I rage quit the game 3 or 4 times because of this.
Connecting miners to storage is one of the first things to do. Easy, right?! I can place the start of the conveyor belt inside of the miner, the end I place in the storge... that does not work. I try to place a sorter at the miner, does not work. So the help text was wrong and I cannot use sorter to directly connect buildings, at least not miners. Why? I don't know.

Why do I have to use sorters at the storage? But I can directly connect liquid sources to a fuel tank (with conveyor belts.. I guess the oil extracter also bottles the oil and the fuel tank empties the bottles again?!)
So if I can directly connect liquid sources to tanks why I cannot directly connect solid sources (miners) to storage facilities???
I can directly deliver liquids to the tank but for getting it out again I have to use sorters, why?

Ok, this is all just confusing mechanics that don't make any sense but if it is the design decision to use sorters (which could be removed and splitters could be used instead) and if it is the decision to make similar building behave differently... I can get used to it.

The aboslute worst in this game is that one of it elementary mechanics, deliver things from A to B, does not work reliable. I have built several supply lines just to notice I have to rebuild them because they simply don't work, no clue why they just don't do anything.
There are some things to consider like filter and direction of the conveyor belt but beside of this I expect it to work. So why do those sorters sometimes not work?

[dhitch89]

Keep in mind that the dev's second language is English, so the help stuff is going to be a bit oddly-worded by default. If you feel it's incorrectly saying something, a bug report would be more helpful, either in-game or on the Discord (since unfortunately, the devs can't read discussions here due to their country's censorship laws).

As for the "figure it out yourself" angle, that's... well, one of the main aspects of not just this game, but the Factorio-inspired game types of its kind. Some people would even argue it's the main fun of such games, being able to just build, explore, figure out, and do your own thing without much help. Though if that's not for you, then there's not much that's going to help out.

That aside, for the more specific stuff you listed, belts transport stuff and sorters put them in/pull them. For the most part, you transport materials with the former and then put them into buildings with the latter, yet some specific buildings will transport their stuff out(-or-in-sometimes) with belts rather than sorters (ie, miners, logistic stations, liquid storage, etc).

[Nekogod]

I can directly deliver liquids to the tank but for getting it out again I have to use sorters, why?

That's not correct. You can belt directly out of liquid storage tanks.

As for sorters sometimes not working, in over 1800 hours I have never had that happen, that's not to say it's never been an issue for anyone, but I'm inclined to thing it's human error most if not all the times it has happened. IE wrong filter set or sorter in the wrong direction etc.

I'm not sure why you can belt directly into/out of certain buildings but not others. I do agree that is kind of annoying. I get it for splitters and gathering buildings (so you don't have to upgrade sorters on thousands of miners and water pumps and oil pumps as you upgrade veins utilisation) and logistic stations but everything else should use sorters for consistency.

[Dedmoin]

I love figuring out things myself but things that needs thinking and not things that are purely based on trial & error, like it is with conveyor belts.

Originally posted by Nekogod:

That's not correct. You can belt directly out of liquid storage tanks.

Yes you are right. It is possible to directly link oil extractor -> storage and then directly connect the conveyor belt to the storage. And for some reason the oil refinery need a sorter because it does not allow direct input.



Unfortunately i cannot post a screenshot since I don't own the game on Steam (yet).
I could not find the broken conveyor belt for solid materials but I found the reason why my the liquids from the oil refinery are not delivered to tanks.
I have an oil refinery and one tank on each side to receive the produced goods. On each side it looks like: oil refinery -> sorter -> conveyor belt -> tank
The liquids are on the belt but the tank rejects any incoming. Now I know why. The tank can only hold one type of liquids at a time and the belt brings alternating hydrogen and refined oil. Why? I don't know as the sorter going out of the refinery has set a filter.
This does not make any sense...
What did I do wrong?
Am I supposed to send out all product on one conveyor belt, passing by tanks with sorters to fetch the right liquid as it passes by? Is there any way to make things more complicated?

[Nekogod]

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

I love figuring out things myself but things that needs thinking and not things that are purely based on trial & error, like it is with conveyor belts.

Originally posted by Nekogod:

That's not correct. You can belt directly out of liquid storage tanks.

Yes you are right. It is possible to directly link oil extractor -> storage and then directly connect the conveyor belt to the storage. And for some reason the oil refinery need a sorter because it does not allow direct input.



Unfortunately i cannot post a screenshot since I don't own the game on Steam (yet).
I could not find the broken conveyor belt for solid materials but I found the reason why my the liquids from the oil refinery are not delivered to tanks.
I have an oil refinery and one tank on each side to receive the produced goods. On each side it looks like: oil refinery -> sorter -> conveyor belt -> tank
The liquids are on the belt but the tank rejects any incoming. Now I know why. The tank can only hold one type of liquids at a time and the belt brings alternating hydrogen and refined oil. Why? I don't know as the sorter going out of the refinery has set a filter.
This does not make any sense...
What did I do wrong?
Am I supposed to send out all product on one conveyor belt, passing by tanks with sorters to fetch the right liquid as it passes by? Is there any way to make things more complicated?

Hmm that is odd, sorter filters should work I've got quite a few builds that rely on them, mostly oil refining. Having a separate belt for hydrogen and one for refined oil with filtered sorters outputting to them is the most compact way to do it, but if that's causing you issues then output both to a single belt and split to 2 separate belts with a filtered splitter.

Was it a build you did yourself? I have seen filters not applied correctly sometimes when building from a blueprint, particular blueprints that I didn't make myself. Also do you use any mods? As some of them can interfere with the game sometimes.

[josmith7]

One risk of sorter filters is items getting out before you set the filter. Even a single hydrogen getting out and into the storage tank you intend for refined oil before you set the filter will mess things up.

(I don't think you've gotten there yet, but you can also get issues when building blueprints that rely on splitter priority/filtering to separate products. The splitter doesn't apply the blueprinted filter until the corresponding output belt is built -- so it items show up while the filter belt doesn't exist but another does then they'll go out the belt that exists -- and 'poison' that belt; leading to hard to track down issues later)



As for sorters not working (or not working as intended). I've seen a few things that can cause that.
1) The sorter lacks power. Yes, it's entirely possible to have the building powered but not quite have the sorter within range of a power source; leading it to sit there with a very subtle warning icon (or none at all if you turned those off in the UI) -- leaving you to wonder why things aren't working.

2) I installed the sorter backwards. Sorters are directional; they always grab items from the A side (the first you specify) and deliver them to the B side (the second you specify). Accidently mis-click and run what's supposed to be an output sorter from the belt into the building instead of the other way around and the building will fill up with it's production and stall without ever outputting anything.

3) I installed the sorter wrong. In a different type of mis-clicking the sorter I'd intended to connect building to belt (or vice versa) instead bridges two belts (or two buildings) meaning it's not moving items where I expect and if the destination is full or can't accept that item type may not be moving anything at all.

4) The sorter doesn't have a valid target. Say you'd placed it and then messed with the belts; leaving it handing in midair with no place to drop the item. You get a subtle red broken link icon warning you. And because the sorter ports on buildings don't always perfectly align with the grid it's possible to have a sorter that visually looks like it connect to a belt, but only half the belt (or less) is under it; making an invalid connection.

Hope that lengthy set of details is helpful.


But yes, the sorter vs direct belting could definitely use greatly improved tutorialization. I had to resort to youtube to figure it out way back when I first started playing.

[Dedmoin]

I didn't use blueprints but set up everything on my own.

There were wrong liquids on the belt and in the tank and I fetched everything into my inventory. While doing so, I saw the sorter putting new items out of the refinery and those items were mixed and not according to the filter.
So belt is working correctly.
Sorter works but does not use the defined filter
The belt works and delivers liquids to the tank.

Everything seems to be fine and powered except it does not do what it is supposed to do.


Thanks to all of you for your support!

[Dashiell]

Since nobody has asked, which ver of the game did you pirate since for all we know you might be running something years old.

[Dedmoin]

version 0.10.30.22292
This should be the same version as on Steam.

I got some free time on Game Pass and do some play testing of games that I might buy after my free time has expired.

[Dashiell]

It is the same ver, and lol I didn't know its on game pass, I don't think devs has even announced that it's here.

Ok so have you tried to redo sorters? It's much easier than checking every single one for accidental item stuck inside.

Lastly you can upload screenshots to imgur which will help greatly to figure out what can be wrong.

[Dedmoin]

I think I found the issue.

When clicking on a sorter I can see the material above the 'filter' button.
If no filter is set then the material shows what is currently passed through the sorter.
Probably I didn't pay attention to set the filter when I built the supply line. Later when checking the sorter, I saw the material and expected the filter is set already, while it wasn't.

If the filter is set then the 'filter' button changes to the name of the filtered material.
Why df does the sorter show the passed material and not the filtered material?

[josmith7]

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

I think I found the issue.

When clicking on a sorter I can see the material above the 'filter' button.
If no filter is set then the material shows what is currently passed through the sorter.
Probably I didn't pay attention to set the filter when I built the supply line. Later when checking the sorter, I saw the material and expected the filter is set already, while it wasn't.

If the filter is set then the 'filter' button changes to the name of the filtered material.
Why df does the sorter show the passed material and not the filtered material?

That can be confusing. I wish the filter user interface was a bit further away from the icon of the item and was clearer about when the filter wasn't set. (e.g. instead of saying "Filter" or "Refined Oil", say "Filter: None" or "Filter: Refined Oil")

But I assume the sorter shows the item currently in iteself because:
a) all buildings show the items they're holding
b) that lets you extract the item to clear the sorter should it have picked something up it's not able to put down.
c) checking that sometimes helps with troubleshooting

But none of that is a good excuse for confusing user interface around filtering

[robfilrhijar]

Yes very simple mistakes are quite often difficult to spot,like outputting to a belt but mistakenly outputting it to an opposite assembler.

[Dedmoin]

aside of the confusion about basic logistics, the game seems to be quite fun

[幻虚道长]

You can connect the [4-way splitter] with the [conveyor belt].
Then you can place the [storage box] on top of the [4-way splitter].

[pemmons1]

A sorter may stop working if you change the recipe of the machine that receives its material. Click on the sorter and see whether a product is showing in the circle on the left. If it is a product not used by the new recipe, then click on it to add it to your inventory and clear the sorter. This happens often in my "personal workshop" area, which has a smelter and an assembler used to make small amounts of something needed early in the game.