Upgrading conveyors to the next tier

[Wig Bang]

Is there any kind of a streamlined approach to this process? Currently I'm running around for hours manually clicking the new tier onto the previous tier. This has two issues:

1. takes forever. I have like 100 km of conveyors atm lol

2. Sometimes I (I regret this now of course) have manifold arrays of splitters/mergers smushed up against the input/output ports of buildings, meaning there is like a little micro-chunk of conveyor connecting them, and there is simply no angle at which I can point at the existing conveyor to overwrite it with the higher tier. And tearing down those manifolds would take... forever.

(honestly if there were just a trick for dealing with issue #2, i'd be perfectly happy, since I work from home and during meetings I passively run around the world manually updating the conveyors which I enjoy lol)

[Gal Kraft]

MMB (copy the low tier belt), press E to next tier (or hold E for the wheel), left click to transform it. Helps.

As for micro belts... yeah. Surgical mouse hands help. I do the same thing. Though I'm starting to spread out my splitters more, heh.

Oh, and start at the "beginning" of the belt so you can run and jump on it while you do it.

[twifight]

I don't have a real solution, but I try to create my belts in as few chunks as possible, aka making long chunks. I put many poles in between, both for orientation and aesthetics, but you don't necessarily have to connect the belt to a pole, you can go over it to a later connection point.

The tiny bit in between factory and splitters/mergers is indeed very annoying.

[Evilsod]

Sadly no, there's no quick "upgrade this area" type function.

Do keep in mind though that unless you're exceeding belt limits already (which would've been poor design) you don't need to upgrade most things. Normally just the main runs from the Miner would do.

[Dirtyshadow]

You can minimise the amount of belts by knowing which belts need increased input or output.

If the factory isn't changing, no upgrade required.

Upgrade a conveyor if your upgrading the Miner or the output (manifold) lines. This will mostly only effect Coal Power and factory expansions.

The max input and output of most machines and recipes is Mk 3 at most... so only the manifold lines of your builds need upgrading and only should impact upgrades factories or new builds or blueprints.

ie if an Iron Ingot Smelter is 30 ore input, and 30 Ingot output... it doesn't need a faster belt... but if you add another 7 smelters... you need to just upgrade the conveyor between the miner and the Smelter manifold.

[damian2472005]

i use the dimensional storage and feed into the latest belt stuff. then i start normaly with the most north west buildings since i always start plains and use mostly west and south of the map and then i take patiance and some hours ^^.

[Gal Kraft]

The big change is a smart sorter for personal storage, and sink overflow, which does apply. I doubt OP was talking about making screws.

[Mister Fabulous]

Sounds like a great argument for vehicles vs. conveyors. You could trim a few 100km off your trip.

[Wig Bang]

Originally posted by Mister Fabulous:

Sounds like a great argument for vehicles vs. conveyors. You could trim a few 100km off your trip.

100 km doesn't mean a literal 100 km stretch lol.

But no. Vehicles are the worst most useless feature in this game.

(not counting trains)

[Tryyton]

Originally posted by Wig Bang:

i think you might have to play a little more. then you can plan differently...

joking obviously...

but a good idea would be the same thing you can do with marking things that you want to dismantle. that could work the other way around as well. not sure if there might be a mod already or some day. or a right-click on the conveyor to "update all" when you have enough materials with you.

i kinda skipped mk2 mostly, because mk3 is "cheaper" to make in my case. i have small factories with short distances, so not much to worry about when i have to upgrade. the problem with tiny belts is something we all know i think. there is no good solution if you want to build really compact. sometimes it is easier to dismantle the belt and place it fresh btw.

[Wig Bang]

Originally posted by Tryyton:

Originally posted by Wig Bang:

i think you might have to play a little more. then you can plan differently...

joking obviously... :lunar2019laughingpig::rrazz:

but a good idea would be the same thing you can do with marking things that you want to dismantle. that could work the other way around as well. not sure if there might be a mod already or some day. or a right-click on the conveyor to "update all" when you have enough materials with you.

i kinda skipped mk2 mostly, because mk3 is "cheaper" to make in my case. i have small factories with short distances, so not much to worry about when i have to upgrade. the problem with tiny belts is something we all know i think. there is no good solution if you want to build really compact. sometimes it is easier to dismantle the belt and place it fresh btw.

I actually ended up loading my save in the online map and mass upgrading all my conveyors from mk. 3 to mk. 4.

I felt dirty doing it. You know I don't like to use mods or cheat. But for this one, I had to bite the bullet for my sanity lol

[Nibbie]

There is no reason to upgrade belts at all unless you are upgrading other parts of that infrastructure. If a miner makes 120 ore per minute, there is no reason at all to upgrade the belts coming out of it from tier 2 to 3, it will still be transporting 120 per minute. Unless you are suddenly overclocking and rebuilding massive swathes of your factory after unlocking higher level belts, there is absolutely no reason to be upgrading everything.

[Tenebris]

Thing is, you don't NEED to upgrade every single one of your belts to the highest level, typically, you should only ever need your highest tier belts for directly out of miners, and for machines that produce very high parts per minutes (Steel Screw for example), but for 90% of the rest of your belts? mk3s should be more than enough

[Gal Kraft]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

There is no reason to upgrade belts at all unless you are upgrading other parts of that infrastructure. If a miner makes 120 ore per minute, there is no reason at all to upgrade the belts coming out of it from tier 2 to 3, it will still be transporting 120 per minute. Unless you are suddenly overclocking and rebuilding massive swathes of your factory after unlocking higher level belts, there is absolutely no reason to be upgrading everything.

Originally posted by Gal Kraft:

The big change is a smart sorter for personal storage, and sink overflow, which does apply. I doubt OP was talking about making screws.

More and more materials need faster and faster sushi belts. And I'll add, at least in my case, smart sorting into storage bins was where I had a concentrated amount of micro belts.

[TH3R4BB!T]

Lifts can be attached to splitters and machines without a belt, if you place them right. I place the lift from machine or splitter, then align a machine or splitter right before the lift where the output/input is. Then remove the lift and replace it, so it will 'snap' and attach itself right away.

[Wig Bang]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

There is no reason to upgrade belts at all unless you are upgrading other parts of that infrastructure. If a miner makes 120 ore per minute, there is no reason at all to upgrade the belts coming out of it from tier 2 to 3, it will still be transporting 120 per minute. Unless you are suddenly overclocking and rebuilding massive swathes of your factory after unlocking higher level belts, there is absolutely no reason to be upgrading everything.

1. I agree. But this doesn't solve my problem. Since my problem is spatial.

2. Regardless, I would upgrade everything, since i'm organized and obsessive in this game.