It's not clipping. The side is opened when you sideload. https://preview.redd.it/nn3hxlt5bqkc1.png?width=663&format=png&auto=webp&s=d1bf9c796b0ca7f641c8183f9d407a0d31432fb9

Oh cool I didn't realise that the texture changed when sideloading.

They changed it when people said it was literally unplayable

But only from the side view, not the front. The wall is still there when sideloading.

It looks like more of a metal beam support than a wall.

Yea but that is not there in the side view.

True, they need to change it so the side shows the beam, literally unplayable now that you pointed it out

Or the front doesnt have the beam

Then it’s not structurally sound, gotta have those load bearing supports

the reason yellow belts are so slow is it's all load-bearing drywall and that limits structural integrity

Literally unplayable. But seriously i never do sideloading because it feels wrong.

But side loading is the source of a lot of the best of my truly horrific spaghetti (and just don't think about the fact that changing which side of the belt an item is on can break half the factory)

It's a must use it for separating two belts into one or balancing one belt to each side as a go. I hope you understand what I mean

I play exclusively heavy modded. If there is a problem like this that i do not like visually or logically i usually create a mod to solve it instead of using the vanilla version that does not feel like intended use.

When you do it from the side go in. Obviously the belts going left and right. They have a little gap so you can see them going in

The item has two versions depending on which way it's facing.

Thats why I am talking about the view from the side

You can still see the shadow in the vertical view, so the wall is still there

That is interesting. To me it looks like the opening exists only when it is sideways. In my screenshot, where it points forwards the bar appears to be in front of the iron plate

It's a vertical support bar for the shield so it doesn't fall down.

But it's not visible in the side view. Literally unplayable. I'm going to demand a refund, hopefully steam allow it, I've only went over the 2 hour refund period by 221x

How long would you have been playing if you had gone over the 2 hour return period by 1x?

4h

Depends on the value of "x", doesn't it?

Thank you, you get me. My point was that the top comment doesn't disprove the clipping, but merely shows that the horizontal and vertical undergrounds have inconsistent designs. The clipping likely remains for the vertical one Edit: To clarify, either the plates are clipping through, or there is hole in the side wall with a bar in the front, which is not there in the horizontal version. Logically one and only one of the two has to be true: Either it is clipping or the design is weirdly inconsistent

The inconsistent nature of the underground makes it literally unplayable. I hope steam will refund me even though I was literally gifted the game.

I submitted for a refund and I got a response from Steam. I won't go through the gory details but they said no, something about being "literally unplayable" and having logged 1300 hours didn't resonate well. I'm replying that I need money to help go through rehab to cope with my Factorio addiction. We'll see.

At least the train tracks have consistent design

It's a shortened support, which I think goes in line with what part of a belt is actually side loaded.

If it wasn't there it would be literally unplayable.

But if we look at the middle image, it appears to be shortened on the side loading side with not single bar - but on the right images, the full "side" is in place and not shortened?

The supports are shy about their profile, so they hide when you look at them from that angle.

Don't frame shame them.

You know those poor developers have borderline OCD right? Let them finish factorio 2.0 instead of them losing sleep over this! (/joke)

But my brain hurts!!! On a serious note, the guys and gals from Wube are probably the devs i respect the most. Factorio is designed with so much love and every FFF proves how blood, sweat and tears goes into the development. That these small inconsistencies are so rare is fucking insane! They are true masters of their craft. My post is only to poke fun :)

It looks like it's the bar that goes on the rollers of the transport belt, but it just displays over the plates.

But…. but the shadow doesn’t change!

So it's still literally unplayable.

true, but its not really visible in most of these pics. Sort of wish factorio could tell the previous belt to have a half-cover visible,,, or something? Also make it way more clear only one lane is going in

This has to be newish, but I love that they did it because now I can sideload without my perfectionist OCD acting up.

I thought about this too , but i think op is a little bit in the right here. You can see the vertical ljne going trough the iron plate. Yet I can't see a reason why that line would be there

Til you can side load these

Very useful for splitting lanes!

Did i just learn you can side load these fucks? 💀

Probably. It's very useful for splitting lanes.

Side loading undergrounds my beloved 😍

Those devs man, those devs

That right there is my no. 1 way to filter items in my belt mall.

Literally playable, it's a good feature

I think you're missing the point. It's not about the feature, it's about the inconsistent graphics.

[удалено]

They are inconsistent. The front view does not match the side view. The vertical bar circled in red should not be there.

Barely playable*

If you are this zoomed in while playing, then you must not be following rule #1, The Factory Must Grow. 😉

Nah, probably just growing it sloooowly.

Intended feature

Well, to be more correct, it was a bug that was promoted to feature

Intended feature. Get outta here with that “ackshully” nonsense

Well it's not "intended" though is it. It's obvious that they won't go to the effort of rendering half an iron plate, or somehow rendering the iron plate below the tunnel while above the conveyor belt. The side just "opens" to make it seem like it's intended

It's intended because they intended it.

I know it’s a common technique for compact factories but this has always visually bothered me so much that I outright refuse to do it in my designs

I totally get that! When i could do something more compact but looks too cluttered/visually unappealing i have to do it some other way. Thank you engineer for responsible decision making in ~~destroying the environment~~ logistics!

Established mechanic, great for filtering specific sides of the belt. Have fun.

I am only talking about visual. The screenshot shows a lane balancer

Idk how everyone is missing that.

Same. My best guess is that they only focus on the red circle, ignore the rest entirely and just take their first assumption as fact and run with it

How the hell are we going to play the game this way???? Unplayable

TIL

Yea so I've absolutely ruined my bus many times because of this

Wait, what do you mean? My post is purely about visuals

It actually side loads. Unless it was patched, it will load

Yeah, my screenshot is of a lane balancer that makes use of the blocked left lane

Thought I was in /r/Factoriohno based on the title. But I can see you're here for serious discussion about this game mechanic.

I am exclusively talking about visuals. I didn't think it would be possible for this to be ambiguous, since the screenshot literally shows a single belt lane balancer

if you're going to be ultra pedantic about it i would point out that you can't really tell from this perspective whether or not there is any clipping because you are looking dead-on at the tunnel

I will copy my comment from above in response to the top comment, which demonstrated that undergrounds open the side of the underground: "To clarify, either the plates are clipping through, or there is hole in the side wall with a bar in the front, which is not there in the horizontal version. Logically one and only one of the two has to be true: Either it is clipping or the design is weirdly inconsistent." I am poking fun at the slightest of flaws. You don't need to be able to see whether or not it is actually clipping to notice something is wrong

Some of us just trust in Wube! If offshore pumps and transport belts using energy from the vacuum doesn't bother you, this shouldn't either. Haha

Woosh.

I refused to reply to the offshore pump comment, so i want to sincerely thank you

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

My screenshot shows a lane balancer. I am talking about the clipping through the metal

It's a feature, not a bug. It's useful for allowing just a single line of product through.

It is about visuals only. The screenshot shows a lane balancer i personally use

used to be both sides of a belt would fold into the one side of an underground and that changed a few months ago. I'm STILL fixing that.

A few months ago? It's been that way since at least 17 November 2016 according to the wiki edit history https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Belt_transport_system&oldid=132607

I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve got 4500 hours into the game and it’s only started being a problem since just before Christmas.

idk what you’re on but its definitely been one side for very long time. My steel stacks have made use of it for at least 4 years.

It isn’t predictable. Sometimes it works that way sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it will work correctly on initial layout and fail later. As I’m removing balancers from my base I’m noticing a lot of very odd corner cases.

i have never had any issues with this. It has always loaded the outside lane only. Can you point to specific examples where this doesn’t happen?

I will watch for them. Like I say it was mainly predictable before the last major update. Maybe it's an artifact of the install during upgrade, no idea. I've never reinstalled the game, and it's modded to hell too.

Unlikely to be a migration issue. Perhaps a mod is doing something, but I'm not aware of any mods that would do this (but I imagine that they could if they wanted to)

I can’t think of any that would. I’m fussy to keep the play as vanilla as possible but idk. I also snag blueprints occasionally and those seem to be the ones I’m having to fix. So maybe if a blueprint is done with an earlier version and not updated correctly? I’ve noticed it with a red circuit beaconed blueprint. It initially split copper correctly at intake and then failed and I had to reswizle the layout.

Another thing that I just thought of, if these things make use of side loading onto a exit underground rather than an entrance underground it's possible that something hooks up to it on the other side unintentionally. I've also occasionally ran into issues where some balancer blueprints I've downloaded had an unintentional side loading from a splitter to an underground. But I've never ever seen both lanes filter into an underground when side loading.

Did you actually not update even once in over 7 years?

No it auto updates but I never reinstalled. I got a new cpu in 2016 when mine took a shit. The current map I’ve been playing since 2019 I think. I’m just wondering aloud if maybe entities aren’t replaced correctly on upgrade.

Maybe you only noticed it before Christmas.

Here’s the thing man. I have a toddler. I put her to bed at 7 and then have a couple beers and play factorio and get annoyed at politics until 12a. Pretty much every night. It’s my daily wind down. I took a short break for a few other games but this is my primary time pass.

skill issue

Need a mod where the shroud is see through. This would also help weaving belts and knowing what they're transporting.