Miniloaders

This mod introduces miniloaders, 1x1 entities that efficiently transfer a full belt worth of items into and out of containers, including train cargo wagons.

They use no Lua when running, keeping your factory's UPS healthy.

You can use them to feed your high-speed assemblers,

or put them in your bus as single-belt lane rebalancers.

Belts from the following mods are fully supported:

• Bob's Logistics
• FactorioExtended Plus
• Space Exploration
• Ultimate Belts
• Xander Mod
• Random Factorio Things
• Plutonium Energy

Videos and Spotlights

Xterminator has spotlighted Miniloader. Seeeno has created a video tutorial in German for Miniloader.

Balancing

Miniloaders require stack inserter research, are relatively expensive to build, and consume approximately the power of two fully-upgraded stack inserters.

How it works

Each miniloader hides a set of very fast invisible inserters, one for each lane of the belt. Lua scripting adjusts pickup and drop points accordingly when the direction of the miniloader is changed.

Since item movement is handled by inserters, there is no on_tick handler, no Lua impact on UPS, and miniloaders will benefit from any future improvements to belt and inserter performance made by Wube in the Factorio core.

Filtering

Versions of miniloaders with and without filtering are available once the appropriate technology has been researched. As you would expect, to build a miniloader capable of filtering, you must use filter inserters as ingredients.

Note that filter miniloaders behave like filter inserters, and not like vanilla loaders: if no filters are set then no items will be moved. You must set at least one filter.

Localization

Interested in translating Miniloader to your language? Visit Crowdin and the changes will be integrated into the next release.

Known Issues

• The power usage UI counts each miniloader multiple times, since it shows the power used by the inserters, not the miniloaders themselves.
• Miniloader arrows don't always appear correctly in blueprints.

Acknowledgements

• Arch666Angel — for the original 2x1 loader graphics, cut down to 1x1 with permission in versions through 1.5.x.
• Articulating — for the original Loader Snapping.
• Optera — for Loader Redux's revised and improved loader snapping code, adapted here for Miniloaders with permission.