Crafting machine, yes, it will always fit. Other things, not always.

I just saw another idea that it would also fix:

viewtopic.php?t=121235

Yes! You end up with contortions that are probably CPU eaters because we have no parenthesis.

TL;DR
If an inserter ends up holding something that can't be put in the destination have a bot pick it up.


What?
There have been various discussions as to what to do when an inserter can't do it's job. Putting it back has been rejected because sometimes it can't. And we have the related ...

Second this, and when selecting "Best" it should understand related items. Modules come in both quality and level, all 15 should be considered when selecting "best". Some mods add things with even more levels.

I came looking for this with a different use case: mining platforms. Resources are coming in, if space runs out you only want to keep the best ones. Sitting in orbit you don't collect a lot, but if you're moving you can't drop them until you get someplace. Full, have power: upcycling is effectively ...

It needs to be possible to decide of the rocket is full before launching. Don't shoot it while it's still filling.

Small ones are a walkover with a full-up blue tank with Fulgora science and several shooting/damage upgrades. Just got done clearing what I could--small ones were dying to three shots. The same tank killed all the medium ones but that took some care.

It's a stochastic process, in the long run completely predictable but in the short term the imbalance could get arbitrarily large.

I generally just get rid of any excess product from it, much easier than trying to balance it perfectly. It's not like scrap is in short supply.

[edit] One more ...

Upcycling green chips on Fulgora. A factory of each quality, a few recyclers. It should run completely unattended and remain approximately in balance. Yet I keep having to dump wire in it to balance it. Likewise, upcycling supercapacitors--I'm feeding it red chips which should stay in balance, yet ...

It's possible to research the laser turret without first having researched gun turrets.

There are cases where putting it back will fail and leave the inserter holding the item--but that's what we have now. I do agree that putting it back on something that's moving isn't a good idea, but if the source is fixed I see no harm in the inserter making the attempt.

Related, if I change the ...

We can see the range of our rifle. Please, instead, the range of the currently selected weapon and the range of any thrown weapon we are holding. It's hard to eyeball it because it depends on the zoom level.