Transport belts
Overview
| belt-type | factor speed | speed (tiles/sec) | needed research |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
1 | 1.875 | none |
| |
2 | 3.75 | Logistics 2 |
| |
3 | 5.625 | Logistics 3 |
Technically the only difference of the belt-types is the speed (and color), practically there is some differences in density, awaited throughput and handling in conjunction with inserters. See Transport Belt/Physics to dig deeper into that.
Behavior
Transport belts (Conveyor belts) are used to transport Items. They don't need energy to do that, and this is one of the Mysteries of the Factorio World, but like any other mystery in Factorio this has just gameplay-reasons (there is no better playing when in parallel to a belt a cable needs to be laid).
Belts can be imagined as "moving ground". Everything on a belt is moved in the belts direction.
Technically an item is a small box (collision box) and moving means, that the position of an item is constantly changed but the items are not allowed to overlap. A picture can show you, the movement better:
Here you can see the items moving upward tick by tick. And when coming to the turn, they aren't rotated, but moved to the side.
Turns
It is guaranteed, that that turns keep the alignment of items. Inner side of the turn moves items at half the speed, meaning turns are likely to be bottlenecks. Using faster belts at the turns is recommended.
Belt Lanes: using two sides
Because a belt is much broader than an item, a belt has two lanes, that can be used for transporting.
Side inserts
When belts are crossing, items are inserted from the side, items stay on the side of the belt it came from.
Special behavior
Other Usages
- Transport Belt/Speedup Walking
- Transport Belt/Transport Car
- Transport Belt/Defense: Use the Express belt to slow down the enemies