Factorio Forums

About every single time I want to place a pipe, I find that all my pipes have just been consumed by crafting the machines I want to connect with them.

So I'd be very happy if someone could make a very simple (I hope) mod:

• The vanilla Pipe item cannot be placed anymore.
• A new item is added that can be used to place pipe entities in the world. Its recipe is just 1 Pipe item.

I'm undecided on the result of deconstructing a pipe entity. Both placeable and unplaceable pipes make sense.

Sounds like there's no reason to disable pipes from being placed and picked up normally. As long as the non-ingredient pipe is added and also has pipe entity as place_result you would have all that you need.

There are many ways to solve your problem (not having a stockpile of pipes available) that don't require any mod. This is one of the intended puzzles of Factorio.

Buffer logistic chests are filled at higher priority than requester chests and can only be emptied for player or construction requests (or priority-enabled requesters). Splitter priority can divert production to logistic providers before allowing it to be used in other assemblers. And most commonly, a separate pipe-making assembler can be added for each production line, with a dedicated one assembling pipes for logistic requests and construction.

robot256 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:28 pm

There are many ways to solve your problem (not having a stockpile of pipes available) that don't require any mod. This is one of the intended puzzles of Factorio.

Buffer logistic chests are filled at higher priority than requester chests and can only be emptied for player or construction requests (or priority-enabled requesters). Splitter priority can divert production to logistic providers before allowing it to be used in other assemblers. And most commonly, a separate pipe-making assembler can be added for each production line, with a dedicated one assembling pipes for logistic requests and construction.

I could be wrong, but my interpretation of the OP's post was that they are having this issue in handcrafting. So, it's not so much that their production is all being consumed, but that they're grabbing up a stockpile of pipes and other materials, running out to an area they want to expand, then handcrafting what they need to then realize "oops", not enough pipes for the whole thing because the items they just crafted used more than they expected.

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 13, 2022 1:50 pm

I could be wrong, but my interpretation of the OP's post was that they are having this issue in handcrafting. So, it's not so much that their production is all being consumed, but that they're grabbing up a stockpile of pipes and other materials, running out to an area they want to expand, then handcrafting what they need to then realize "oops", not enough pipes for the whole thing because the items they just crafted used more than they expected.

You're right, and I have had the same problem before automating everything. You don't have to make a whole mall, just an assembler that you can grab 1000 pipes from every few minutes.

Edit: but of course this was a request for a mod to make handcrafting simpler. Don't let my comments stop anyone from trying that if they like it!

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 13, 2022 1:50 pm

I could be wrong,

No, that's exactly right.

And having a mall to craft pipes (chem plants, refineries) is nice, but there's always the issue of inventory size. I could grab everything in excess before walking 5 minutes to where I need to add 2 chem plants, but just handcrafting them on demand from a generic supply of materials I carry with me all the time is more time efficient. Even if I have the buildings, underground pipes need 10 normal pipes to craft. So "oh, I need an underground here, right-click craft---where did all my pipes go?" is the norm.

And btw, this gets worse with mods. More items fighting for inventory space and more different buildings that need pipes.

Logistics network isn't all that helpful. For one you need to be in range, and even then supply speed over longer distances is still poor (unless you spam buffer chests all over your base).

About disabling placing the original pipe item: The idea here is to nudge myself (or anyone using this) to decide which pipe item to craft. Otherwise the usual laziness could take over...