spent the last few days doing a modding

[obtuse spade]

Looks amazing! Let me know if you need compat with the numerous pipe mods in existance, i should be able to help there.

[pulsar breach]

as in pipe connections? textures?

i wonder what kind of compat issues/suggestions you have in mind

[obtuse spade]

Theres probably a few crashes to be had on startup... other than that, mostly "we want x mod with y" requests

[pulsar breach]

hmm i very much doubt this mod will cause any startup crashes

[obtuse spade]

Pipe connections, jankery, etc

[obtuse spade]

Probably not this mod, im worried about other ones crashing when this is installed

[pulsar breach]

well if you'd like the current version to test privately with for the mods you have in mind i have no objection to dming it to you

[obtuse spade]

That would be great, thanks

[pulsar breach]

allright sent 👍

[desert wigeon]

What's the max distance between supports?

[obtuse spade]

i assume just an underground connection with a max_distance value?

[pulsar breach]

yeah the tower has 4 underground connections of length 10

technically speaking i could probably reduce the building back down to 1 entity by just having a furnace, but selecting that instead of a storage tank makes the user experience rather ugly

[thick crown]

I had the thought of giving them double the length of undergrounds, to distinguish them more. But on their own they serve as a 3rd layer of pipes so that might be enough, what do you all think?

[obtuse spade]

seems fine as a third layer, although i might question making them longer than undergrounds. i dont think a single pipe can support multiple cubic metres of water suspended between two supports

[thick crown]

Thats a good point haha

[obtuse spade]

me persionally would definitely make it the same length as normal undergrounds

[thick crown]

I just really liked the idea of using them for long distances, they look pretty cool next to each other haha

[obtuse spade]

they do look cool

idk, i kinda see them as more 'versatile' cause they have omnidirectional connections

[pulsar breach]

if longer distances are needed they should just place more towers, they only take 1 vs the usual 2 of underground to extend range, makes the user appreciate the graphics more if there are lots of them ;3

[obtuse spade]

i think somewhere in the 4-7 tile range is appropriate

[thick crown]

true, I just worried it might look too busy with such high tower density

[pulsar breach]

something to figure out when the graphics are finalized

[thick crown]

but youre most liklely right, for balance sake too

true

[obtuse spade]

i think it'd look like the mindustry bridges, where they kinda spam everywhere but look super cool running over everything

and since they're 1x1 they kinda just go... everywhere and spaghetti with them is super easy

[pulsar breach]

didn't expect to head a mindustry reference today :D

the throughput of those felt so obscure

[obtuse spade]

how????

mindustry is an amazing game

[pulsar breach]

oh its just that their throughput felt slow at times and chaining bridges to the same output could lead to diminishing returns

and yeah i know, i have fond memories of the game too, was there in its somewhat early days, i designed the plastanium conveyor

[obtuse spade]

woah cool

i found the game early, idk if i found it that early lol

[thick crown]

Heres a new idea for the graphic, I am not sure if its "factorio" enough

of course still not textured

its definitely going to look a lot more on par when I add rust and such to it, but I wonder if I should "bend" parts of the frame, to make it look a little damaged or imperfect in its design

it will definitely look a lot more hand made.

But on the other hand adding detail like that on a sprite that will likely be repeated often right next to one another will make it actually look worse haha

[pulsar breach]

i think the spiked collar is a bit too detailed

and the top is a bit too bright

[thick crown]

aww really? And I liked that detail a lot :(

well once again, color is irrelevant right now, textures havemt been done yet

[pulsar breach]

you're free to keep it, but i can imagine when players play on a normal zoom level the detail is lost

[thick crown]

but other then that do you think it looks good?

I'll keep the collar for now, it migth look betterwhen its textured more subtly , removing it after is not hard

[pulsar breach]

yeah overall i like it

[thick crown]

Yay

[obtuse spade]

i do think some shift/rotation to the structure would look nice, so you can actually tell that it's a frame and not just two sticks holding a square

[thick crown]

I tried to mimic the big electric pole in its design. I am gonna try shifting it a bit but I am not sure if I can make that look good

[pulsar breach]

well since pipes are inheritly connected in straight axis you probably won't have that much wiggle room

[thick crown]

I can do a slight shift like this...But I worry this might look weird when a lot of them are on screen at once

[obtuse spade]

hm true

[pulsar breach]

i think the shift won't look good at all as long as the top is recognizable as a square

and honestly the space between the front pipe and either leg is just a tad ocd triggering

[thick crown]

fair enough

[pulsar breach]

shower thought, the weaving issue might be nicely solvable by having either horizontal or vertical lower or higher on the tower

not that i personally mind

if you do consider that route then having the horizontal one a little lower would probably look best

[thick crown]

but what if you want to connect a horizontal and vertical line?

3rd version that with both heights?

[pulsar breach]

the tower will still just have connectors on both heights

they'll merge in the tower's vertical pipe

essentially something like this:

[thick crown]

I am not a fan of that tbh

[pulsar breach]

fair enough

[tough umbra]

So you have a second layer of pipes a bit like sky rails?

[tough umbra]

do you plan to have the pipes aligned on the same grid? or slightly off so that you'd technically still see a ground pipe behind yours?

I'm curious to see a screenshot of the pipes going vertically

[pulsar breach]

you can see vertical pipes on that pic

[tough umbra]

BTW i prefer the smaller one too, I worry that such a height might be confusing visually!

[tough umbra]

I understand this pic like I understand what happens in MC Escher drawings

I think it'll be less visually confusing once the shadows are projected at their correct length

also, let me suggest adding a visual element to the air pipes to better understand how high they are, just like trains do

[pulsar breach]

yeah that was an old development screenshot

[pulsar breach]

what specifically?

[thick crown]

I am not a huge fan of these textures, will probably redo them tomorrow, definitely too dark and doesnt use the proper colors for factorio.

[rotund tiger]

What would you say about requiring pumps to transfer fluids to elevated pipes?

[thick crown]

but its an okay start

[pulsar breach]

standlone quite nice, alongside the normal pipes its indeed waaaay too dark

[pulsar breach]

realism over usability is probably too much in this case

[tough umbra]

Here's what I would do if it was my mod (it isn't, don't feel like it's criticism)

so: a height of 1.5 tile, so that potential pipes behind are visible, some alternating support in the air,

btw the project is great, which is why I'm pitching my suggestions

[obtuse spade]

idk, i feel like it needs to go higher like over assemblers and stuff

[tough umbra]

Ah yes, I didn't think about other machines, only lava and other pipes ^^

[obtuse spade]

something like that would work

[pulsar breach]

yeah and blocking that is pretty much out of the question since the mod isn't designed to block by anything getting in the way

[pulsar breach]

a little bridge might be nice yes

[warm tartan]

This is cool

I don't really see why it would be needed though

Sure it'd be nice on Vulcanus for getting around lava but everywhere else can use undergrounds

[obtuse spade]

its omnidirectional, that's the other calling

[pulsar breach]

yeah the footprint is just 1 tile instead of 2 (or 3+ if you need to branch), other than that the normal undergrounds will work just fine

[warm tartan]

Fair point

[tough umbra]

Also in space. Also, it's cool as hell and would make spaghetti more visually spaghettified

[warm tartan]

Ah it could go over gaps in platforms?
Interesting

[tough umbra]

No idea, @pulsar breach can it?

[pulsar breach]

well i certainly didn't block it

[thick crown]

I am gonna be 100% honest the main reason why I got this idea was because I had a lot of pyanodons machines that had a gas or fluid output that I put a vent on, but now I wanna make use of that gas so I needed a 1 tile solution to transport it out

it was literally lazyness

[warm tartan]

Hah

Amen to that brother
playing Py with friends, just about to get trains
there's so many random fluids you wanna do stuff with but can't get it there

[thick crown]

YUP!

[pulsar breach]

[heady epoch]

Ever since elevated rails were spoiled, I've wondered what elevated pipes and elevated belts would look like. Cool to see one of those ideas being explored.

[pulsar breach]

^-^

[thick crown]

elevated blets could also work in a similar way, but they would have to be covered up, since I dont think theres a way to display items on a belt like that

[pulsar breach]

i am not gonna dip my toes in elevated belts 😆

[thick crown]

the simplest would literally just an underground belt reskin

but I think it would be cool if you could have multiple belts in the same tile, like a tower of betls satisfactory style

but I dont have the slightest idea on how that would be possible to implement

[pulsar breach]

without items rendering on it it wouldn't just look good

[thick crown]

yeah

[obtuse spade]

I plan on (eventually) getting around to writing an AUP style version of beltlayer, which will accomplish a very similar thing. Iirc wouldnt be too hard to render 'belts' aboveground if desired

[obtuse spade]

beltlayer

[thick crown]

oh thats sweet as heck