Logistical Transport Belts

[Chaos_Therum]

So I've had this idea floating around in my head for quite a while now. It seems that is would be somewhat simple to implement but I have had quite a hard time reading through the games modding docs.

So basically my idea is to add 3 new items. The first new item would be a belt item router, 2nd is an import inserter, 3rd would be an export inserter.

So how I imagine this would work you would have import, and export inserters that act similarly to the current import export chests but instead of using bots it would check the belt logistics network that would then find the nearest export inserter request the item then it would be sent through your belt logistic network hitting routers along the way the would direct them onto the correct lanes. I imagine that you would have two opposing lanes that each connect to routers one going in and one going out on each side. The idea came to me because I want something with the simplicity of the logistic robots but with the speed and coolness factor of the belts. I was thinking of something along the lines of logistics pipes from the minecraft mod. But instead of having Full Duplex lines you would have 2 opposing Simplex lines. Does this sound doable in the current system and if it is I would be eternally grateful if someone implemented it.

[Chaos_Therum]

So it's been a while and I would still love to see this implemented. Or even know if it is possible. Actually if someone could even point me in the right direction in the modding docs would be great as well. I only have minimal lua experience but maybe I could put something together.

[Koub]

The fact is I don't really understand what you're describing, especially

you would have import, and export inserters that act similarly to the current import export chests but instead of using bots it would check the belt logistics network that would then find the nearest export inserter request the item then it would be sent through your belt logistic network hitting routers along the way the would direct them onto the correct lanes. I imagine that you would have two opposing lanes that each connect to routers one going in and one going out on each side.

[Adil]

I believe something like sorting conveyor belt connected to network is described here or two of those running side by side in opposite directions.
And I'd like to note that it's not quite "simple"

[daniel34]

I think he is describing something like this:



Imagine the logistics parts in the screenshot are parts of the logistic transport belt system (shortened to LTBS).
Red chests are LTBS Provider and blue chests are LTBS Requester.
Green inserters are LTBS Import/Export inserter.
Accumulators are LTBS routers like explained in the first post.
The system is right-side traffic ("driving on the right").

Basically, you can imagine the network as city, the items as cars and the accumulators/routers as intersections.

Sample process:
The LTBS requesters in the smelting area request iron and copper ore.
As copper ore is present in the LTBS providers at the copper field the inserters will put them on the belt until the amount requested is on its way. At R1, the items make a turn towards R2 (on the right side - bottom belt), then go north to the furnaces, where they are put in the LTBS requesters (as the inserters know which items are to be delivered into which chest), smelted and the plates are put in the LTBS providers. The copper plates then pass through R2 and go north at R3 and R4, where the import inserter puts them into the LTBS requester and the fast inserter into the assembler. Copper cables are made and go into the LTBS provider.

Later, the LTBS requester at the bottom requests the copper cables and also iron plates, which are delivered the same way. Copper cable is put on the belt and travels through R4, R3 and R2, while iron plates come from the smelting area and only go through R2. Both are going down and into the requester chest, where the assembler makes electronic circuits and puts them into the provider, ready to be delivered to any new assembler connected to the transport belt network.

While interesting in theory, this gives a lot of problems and I'm not sure something like this could even be implemented as mod.
Problems:

• Items have to be tracked from start to finish and the algorithm always needs to know which item goes where - (1) huge performance drain and (2) I don't think items can be tracked one-by-one with the current Lua API
• Items go by faster then the inserter can pick them up - what happens to them? are they rerouted?
• The player manually adds/removes items to/from the system
• "Traffic jams" - building a second parallel road to relieve the system would require the algorithm to implement advanced pathfinding to balance the traffic.

[Chaos_Therum]

daniel34

You've got that pretty much exactly right. But I don't think I might have explained 100% correctly. Not every item needs to be tracked. The chests just needed to be monitored for changes. So the way I was thinking of having it setup it to have a logisitc belt manager a single item that would be used for an origin point it would then map the network. It would log which routers are connected to other routers and in which direction it would then only update if another router was connected to the system. Then the mod would just monitor all the logistic chests for new items or requested items then if it finds that it needs more items it would check for let's say crafting inserters. They would list inputs and outputs. Once it saw that there was an available crafting inserter it would send the needed ingredients to the crafting inserter and it would add the items to the necessary factories and then you just add the items back into the network however you want and the network would recognize that the items were ready to be used.


Like I said if anyone has every played minecraft with logistics pipes they will get the concept I'm basically talking about the same thing here.

On point four that could be easily solved by using sub networks so basically you have a crafting inserter insert into another crafting chain then output to the main network.

[Koub]

OK now, thanks to the efforts of both of you and the very illustrative construction Daniel provided, I get the grasp of it.
As I understand it, it would be a short-to-middle range transportation system acting somehow as a mix between the logistic bots for adaptability to offer and demand and transport belts for throughput.

I guess it could have its uses along a main bus, for items that are very rarely needed, but honestly, I think the mix of bots (for occasional needs where belts would be too much) and belts (for the massive throughput) are just the right mix.