Nice game. Just one small suggestion regarding mechanics.

The multimixer is a really frustrating piece of equipment because of its processing time of 2. Unlike 2-processing-time pieces of equipment with 1 input and 1 output, there is no way to group these together in 2s to keep the line from backing up. I changed the processing time to 1 and I urge you to consider the same change for the official version!

It is true this is very frustrating. While other machines use two or even three processing times, the problem with the mixer is that as you say it’s impossible to pair them up without using an extra port, meaning you need 3 input ports to produce one product rather than “just” two.

One solution is of course to reduce the processing time, but another might be to implement bridges/tunnels so that pathways can cross.

Not necessarily impossible.

(source of gif)

Crossroads (4 way junction of belts) is a type of “bridge” in the game, so pathways CAN cross. Tim specifically noted they would help pair up 2 input machine like Multi-Mixer in his VLOG when he released the patch with “Crossroads”.

And of course the clever use of T-Belts that coldkiller x noted. A key to that set up (noted in the forum post, IIRC) is that the dissolver in upper left is needed (or some machine) to tell the T-Belt at the input of the Mixer in upper left that it is a “SPLITTER”, otherwise that belt won’t move.

Maybe not impossible then, but very non-intuitive given the requirement for the evaporator, plus lucky positioning of input lines.

Given the pain and grief I get from T junctions not working, I’ve never been bold enough to try crossroads, I figured they’d be buggy too. It’s the only real bug I’ve come across, but it’s very annoying. :frowning:

coldkiller x, that is very clever. Nice.

Too bad 4-way junctions are bugged. As soon as I get a working setup, the belts freeze up.

Do you have a screenshot? Then someone who understands these things may be able to suggest what’s going on.

Well it seemed to me that X-junctions work as “bridges”. So that stuff that goes in always leaves the opposite direction, they never turn in the X. If this is true, it would be good if Tim confirmed it, even better to mention it in the tutorial. It always worked for me so far though.

Knowing this, I can cross two “sparse” belts, so 2 belts that only have an ingredient on them every second square, without penalty. Multimixer inputs should be like that, so it works for them.


Here, I’ve colored my “top” line, and it’s inputs red, the “bottom” line is yellow, and junctions are blue. In the middle there is an X-junction, where one input of the top line crosses one input of the bottom line, without any problem. Everything is at 100% efficiency.

I’ve used this trick several times, it always worked reliably for me. (Well, I’ve only played 4 games so far, but still :slight_smile: )

Yep, I just use crossroad to cross multimixers. I do it in this vlog here: youtu.be/fDsL-M0IwHA?t=45m6s

I talk for quite a bit so you can skip to here to see it in action: youtu.be/fDsL-M0IwHA?t=51m54s

Yep, that confirms that crossroads work as “bridges”, thanks! I still think that’s important information that could be included in the tutorial or somewhere. I just thought they might work that way because it’s more useful, but I wasn’t sure. I could see some use cases for crossroads that allow “turning”, Where I have 2 inputs across from each other, and I want both to turn, for example, but I’m limited by space. So it’s not obvious from the information in the game that crossroads work this way, I only found out by guessing.

Actually, does this mean that a crossroad can’t be used for merging 3 lines from 3 packers? Or does it know that it’s a merger if it has 3 inputs?

P.S. : You also say in the video (https://youtu.be/fDsL-M0IwHA?t=3386) that you’re gonna make sockets “suck” by default, I notice that still isn’t in the game, or you changed your mind sadly, I still run into this problem. Of course I know there are more urgent things to do now with the recent release :slight_smile:

Okay, I tested, and 3 way mergers do work, which is great. But if I did the other thing I suggested, something like this:

v | <-+-> | ^
That didn’t work, stuff just got stuck in there, even when the two inputs were just every 2 turns. So I guess the rule isn’t that simple. Still, the fact that “crossing” crossroads work reliably is good to know :slight_smile:

I’m guessing you don’t see it in the Tutorials b/c they were made way before the Crossroads function was released.

I made a MOD that does this (but you lose your analyzer). The one called “AngleCrossroads_NoAnalyzer.zip”

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