A Question About Storage Chests on a Network

[Ren]

I'm building a recycle system on my map. The short of it - when I trash something in my personal roboport, bots from the network take the trash to one of several recycle stations. When the storage chests at these stations reach a certain capacity, a train is triggered to come to the station, pick up the trash, and take it to a recycle center. The intent is that the trash will be taken to the closest station.

The system works well, but I have one concern. It seems like the bots will take the trash to the storage chest which already has that item in it. For instance, if a storage chest on the east side of the map has 10 wood in it, the bots will carry any trashed wood all the way across the map, even if I'm on the west side, and there are plenty of empty storage chests close by. Is that how it works?

If I'm correct that this is how the storage chests on the network work, then is there a work-around to this? I know that I can set each station's roboport as a separate network, but this defeats the point of a network and other things I'm considering trying. Are there other options I'm not thinking of?

If I'm wrong in how the storage chests work, can someone explain the logic so I can better plan?

Thanks in advance. I'm just now attempting to start building "mega" bases, and working through the new challenges it presents.

[ratchetfreak]

I'm building a recycle system on my map. The short of it - when I trash something in my personal roboport, bots from the network take the trash to one of several recycle stations. When the storage chests at these stations reach a certain capacity, a train is triggered to come to the station, pick up the trash, and take it to a recycle center. The intent is that the trash will be taken to the closest station.

The system works well, but I have one concern. It seems like the bots will take the trash to the storage chest which already has that item in it. For instance, if a storage chest on the east side of the map has 10 wood in it, the bots will carry any trashed wood all the way across the map, even if I'm on the west side, and there are plenty of empty storage chests close by. Is that how it works?

yes

If I'm correct that this is how the storage chests on the network work, then is there a work-around to this? I know that I can set each station's roboport as a separate network, but this defeats the point of a network and other things I'm considering trying. Are there other options I'm not thinking of?

If I'm wrong in how the storage chests work, can someone explain the logic so I can better plan?

Thanks in advance. I'm just now attempting to start building "mega" bases, and working through the new challenges it presents.

buffer chests or checking on the requester chests where the trash will accumulate first

[dood]

Common beginner mistake.
Keep your robot networks as small and rectangular as possible.
No, you don't actually need it to cover the entire map.

[Aeternus]

I've ran into the same problem. Long story short - there's no point in having more then one "storage chest" cluster (without filters) per robogrid. While a single large network is handy for building stuff, it's difficult to handle logistics bots with it.

I would advise separating the robogrids, then create a round-robin garbage collector station per robogrid (along with a general supply station). Then simply have your storage chests at that station, along with an active provider chest to unload cargo of interest to that particular section of your base, along with a few storage chests with filters for those cargo types. This basically ensures a slow but steady reclamation of all stuffs. For your main/structure factory part I recommend fully unloading the reclaimer train prior to reloading it with the cargo that needs to go elsewhere.

[Ren]

Thanks for the replies. At this point, I have the recycle system in place and working, but I haven't set up the other systems that I wanted to take advantage of a map wide network. At least that means that I can now break the network into smaller sections, then work out how to do the other things I want to accomplish.

Thanks again for the help. Every map I try something new to increase my knowledge.

[dood]

What exactly are you "recycling" anyway?

[Ren]

Wood, stone, or anything that might be clogging up my inventory. Let's say I'm changing my belts in my iron smelting center and accidentally pick up some iron plates. It will be picked up, and eventually sent back into the system.

[dood]

Are you using bots or belts to make miners, rails, inserters and everything?
If it's with bots, you can just dump all the things into that network, preferably by unloading from a train into active providers so you can just send it there to get rid of trash.
Wood and coal can be burned in steam machines to get rid of it.

What you're doing sounds pretty complicated for something that could be simple.

[Ren]

I could do it that way, but I've done it that way on multiple maps. I'm trying new ways of doing things, not that it's better or more efficient, but because it's challenging and pushes me to think and learn new techniques. One of the things I want to start to learn this time through is circuitry. I'm going to use the recycle process that I'm working on to push me to learn that.

Besides, doing things the easy way all the time is boring.

[Aeternus]

Are you using bots or belts to make miners, rails, inserters and everything?
If it's with bots, you can just dump all the things into that network, preferably by unloading from a train into active providers so you can just send it there to get rid of trash.
Wood and coal can be burned in steam machines to get rid of it.

What you're doing sounds pretty complicated for something that could be simple.

Doesn't work in megastructures with individual logistic grids. For a smaller plant with a single logistic grid this is viable. Another option is to leave your initial small factory chugging along while transitioning to megaplant, and assign it the role of garbage disposal. A small science producing facility will eventually chew through even a big backlog of whatever raw materials sent it's way. And whatever structures get returned to it can be re-used, the initial factory usually also has the structure factory.

[JimBarracus]

A spread storage chest system is not usefull. Bots will try to sort certain items together
Build a central cluster of storage chests for unused stuff.
Place requester chests at certain points and request the unneeded items to reinclude them in the production line.
For example everything burnable goes to the power plant, intermediates go to the production chain.

Items you can't use for anything else stay in the storage chest.
If you offer items for construction limit the production with the wireless network so that you don't overproduce items.
Anyway robots should not be used for long distance transport, at least not for regular supply.

[SpeedDaemon]

My "solution" to this problem was to eventually realize that once your factory is big enough to start thinking about a recycling system for inventory trash, it's not really worth building any more (at least not for efficiency's sake - there's always the "because it's fun" reason ).

If I'm cranking out 1000s (or 10s of 1000s, in many cases) of plates per minute, I have no problem dumping a few (or a few stacks, even) into random chests and blowing them up to clear out my inventory. Even for more expensive stuff like obsolete assemblers, half the time I just trash them, because in the time it takes to deal with them, the factory will have made way more.

Unless I have tons of stuff like express belts on expensive mode that I upgraded to higher tier Bob's mod belts, I almost never bother any more.