Factorio Forums

No doubt this is my fault somehow...?

Sarcastic responses about spaghetti and unnecessary splitters accepted...

So you're using burner inserters then? I'm going to bet the following happened:

1) Stone started running down the belt first
2) Burner inserters began taking stone since coal isn't available yet
3) Burner inserters would take coal, but they used that tiny bit of free fuel grabbing stone, so now they can't.

If you were to pick up and place the burner inserters again, or manually put one bit of fuel in them, I bet it would work.

I've always thought Factorio was a great litmus test for who has OCD and who doesn't...

Did the belt go dry of coal at one point? I haven't tested it, but I don't think burner inserters have a safety on them. So when they're moving two different items (coal and something else), and the coal dries up, I bet they'll keep on fulfilling the demand for the other item (i.e. the furnace's demand for stone) until they go dead. That's the only way I could see ALL the burners going dead like that.

Edit: Alright, mild OCD here - you have burner inserters going into the furnaces, but fast inserters going out?

Mehve wrote:I've always thought Factorio was a great litmus test for who has OCD and who doesn't...

Did the belt go dry of coal at one point? I haven't tested it, but I don't think burner inserters have a safety on them. So when they're moving two different items (coal and something else), and the coal dries up, I bet they'll keep on fulfilling the demand for the other item (i.e. the furnace's demand for stone) until they go dead. That's the only way I could see ALL the burners going dead like that.

Edit: Alright, mild OCD here - you have burner inserters going into the furnaces, but fast inserters going out?

Yes, perhaps burners would have worked on the output side as well as they would pull coal from the furnace. But I hadn't thought of that, I guess. I've simply replaced them with electric inserters in my save but I am surprised to hear that burner inserters are unable to bootstrap themselves once they run out of fuel. If that's right, that defeats the purpose of many of my usages of them and kinda gives me a headache to think about. Can anyone confirm this?

golfmiketango wrote:I am surprised to hear that burner inserters are unable to bootstrap themselves once they run out of fuel. If that's right, that defeats the purpose of many of my usages of them and kinda gives me a headache to think about. Can anyone confirm this?

I can confirm it. And it's fine IMO because they're pretty easy to guarantee they'll always run, so long as you make sure they are only loading coal. Or, you could go wonky and have another burner inserter inserting into them. That inserter would only grab coal and would always put it into the burner on the furnace. But in this case a far better choice is just use a non-burner inserter.

I only use burners loading coal into boilers. From yellow belts. If you don't know why the yellow belts, try faster ones

golfmiketango wrote: Yes, perhaps burners would have worked on the output side as well as they would pull coal from the furnace. But I hadn't thought of that, I guess. I've simply replaced them with electric inserters in my save but I am surprised to hear that burner inserters are unable to bootstrap themselves once they run out of fuel. If that's right, that defeats the purpose of many of my usages of them and kinda gives me a headache to think about. Can anyone confirm this?

When you first place a burner inserter, it has a limited amount of energy by default. Enough for a couple inserts, one of which needs to be a fuel item in order to keep it going after the initial energy runs out. After that, they'll always keep 2 fuel items in reserve for themselves, and prioritize that over giving fuel to their target. For them to actually run out in a situation like how you're using them, the coal half of that belt needs to stay dry for a fair bit of time, even while the stone keeps coming for the inserter to move.

Mehve wrote:

golfmiketango wrote: Yes, perhaps burners would have worked on the output side as well as they would pull coal from the furnace. But I hadn't thought of that, I guess. I've simply replaced them with electric inserters in my save but I am surprised to hear that burner inserters are unable to bootstrap themselves once they run out of fuel. If that's right, that defeats the purpose of many of my usages of them and kinda gives me a headache to think about. Can anyone confirm this?

When you first place a burner inserter, it has a limited amount of energy by default. Enough for a couple inserts, one of which needs to be a fuel item in order to keep it going after the initial energy runs out. After that, they'll always keep 2 fuel items in reserve for themselves, and prioritize that over giving fuel to their target. For them to actually run out in a situation like how you're using them, the coal half of that belt needs to stay dry for a fair bit of time, even while the stone keeps coming for the inserter to move.

Aha, that explains a lot, and also at least partially rescues the value-proposition of burner-inserters in my book. Although it still makes my brain hurt a little bit because it makes me want to find an early-game compatible way to re-bootstrap them if they have stopped in this way.

I usually use a dedicated fuel line, and Burner Inserters there only. So I don't run into this type of problem. Another possibility is that the Burner Inserters were too slow to grab the Coal off the belt on the first attempt (or 2?) and so they ran out of their starting energy before managing to fuel themselves. Burner Inserters are energy intensive while working, but have no drain, hence they are best used for tasks that are infrequent (otherwise regular Inserters are more energy efficient). It also needs to be the case that they can grab fuel for themselves hence I tend to only use them on my fuel line (and for train refueling).

I don't know the true precise aetiology beyond what's already been stated in this thread.

I do wonder, though, if the presence of the splitter just before the smeltery, played a part, either by reorganizing belt-sidedness in a way that caused stone to get favored over coal, or creating a spotty belt, making it more difficult to successfully pick up the coal. Obv. opportunities for some boring-but-useful science (which I may or may not get around to myself given (a) my tendency to use burners as a bootstrap for recovery from negative-feedback spirals but (b) my tendency to be lazy and do other things than factorio occasionally) lurk here.