So I'm thoroughly annoyed with the factory stuff. Once again it's a couple of stupid oversights that turn the whole thing from being fun to being a pain in the arse.
For starters there are two types of conveyors, powered conveyors (an actual converyor belt) and rollers (which only allow things to move under their own momentum).
Now most of the time you'll be using the conveyor belts, but may have to use a roller (likely because of another issue).
However, when a belt meets a roller you will find that the belt does not impart enough momentum on the carried items to move along the roller for even a short distance. They simply stop on contact.
The only time that an item has enough momentum for rollers is when it rolls down a ramp (but not a belt ramp). This means rollers are only of use if moving items downhill, which makes sense but is not helpful given another issue;
There are two ways of turning a corner, one belt and one roller.
However, the belt corner is longer in one direction than the other, and is of a length that is not standard with the other straight pieces. As such using it will make your conveyor out of line with any other sections of it.
This means that should you have a conveyor that splits into two paths you will find that they become out of line with eachother and can't be put together again.
Now the roller corner is the perfect size, great for tight spaces and is standard size so it fits with other things. But because of the earlier issue it can't be used next to a belt, only a ramp from above. Speaking of;
There are two ramps that change elevation by a small amount, one belt, one roller.
However, the ramps can only be used to take things downhill.
Obviously the roller ramp can't push stuff uphill, as it has no power. But the belt ramp does.
But, the belt ramp will only roll downwards, and this can't be toggled. Which means the belt ramp is entirely useless as it uses power to do the same job as the roller ramp, only slower.
Speaking of moving stuff downhill;
There are powered conveyor belt lifts which move items upwards with very little horizontal space taken up, good for tight spaces.
However, the lifts cannot transport items from high to low, despite being an identical use of a lift.
Instead the only way to move things from high to low is to build a ramp going down. The ramps though are very shallow, so any chain of ramps going down will be 3x times as long horizontally than a belt lift of equal height.
This means you need an extremely large area to build in, no matter what. Building your factory vertically will not save you space, as you require that space to get your product/materials down again.
It really just feels like Bethesda didn't playtest any of this stuff.
It seems impossible that they could miss these issues, given I've encountered them in less than an hour of playing with them.
Also, the earlier issue I had of elevators not snapping to floors (but floors snapping to elevators) is a bug and only affects the 4-story elevator. The 2/3-story ones snap as intended.
Poll