One belt, four kinds of goods

Inside the sawmill I first tried the strict way: every line of belts and inserters could carry one item only, and the game refused anything that would mix two. It worked, and it was no fun at all. Half of the puzzle was gone, because the game solved it for you by saying no. So the same day it went out again.

Now a line may carry whatever you put on it, and keeping it sorted is your job. In the belt workshop of the showcase town one belt loop carries plates, gears, planks and rollers all at once, round and round, and each machine along it takes off what it needs. A pile holds every kind its line needs, twenty of each, and the spots on the pallet are shared out between the kinds, so a pile half full of plates and half full of planks looks exactly like that.

An inserter takes whatever it can reach. One of the belt benches in that workshop wants planks, but its inserter had no filter, so it grabbed a plate off the loop. The bench would not take it, and the inserter just hung there holding it. That is a clog, and it is yours to fix. Click the inserter and give it a filter, and from then on it only takes that one kind. If it is already stuck, the card has a Clear hook button. It throws the item away, and it says so.

To see from across the room what goes where, little pictures of the goods turn slowly above everything: over a pile what it holds, over a machine what it needs and what it makes, and over an inserter what it filters.

Taking something apart inside now leaves its goods behind, the same as outside. I pulled a belt out from under a log to try it, and the log dropped on the floor where the belt had been. Then I watched Lottie Featherstone walk past it with five more logs, twice, and Hortense Stevens right after her. Nobody picked it up, because the sawmill was always busy being fed. Now a heap on the floor of a factory that is being fed goes into that factory’s own piles.