[IDEA] Wire-based Mass Storage

[bigyihsuan]

I was taking in the /r/Factorio Discord today, and I got an idea for a wire-based inventory mod, similar to AE2 in modded Minecraft. This would be an "upgrade" to the robot logistic network, as this is instantaneous VS. taking some time to deliver items.

First off, in order for the mod to function, additional, modded circuit networks need to be implementable. I don't know if that's possible or not, but it's integral to the idea.

So these wires you could just attach to entities and power poles, similar to Red and Green Wire in vanilla. A main entity in the mod is a massive Hard Drive Tower, capable of storing some number of hard drives. When connected to the Inventory Network, it provides the entire network with items. With the new 0.13 API changes (item-with-inventory, to be exact), one can store items in Storage Drives.

So for every inventory you want to connect, you need to place a Network Extender next to it, and connect the Network Extender to the Inventory Network. In order to take items out, you place an Importer next to it, and connect the Importer to the Inventory Network. The method is the same for the Exporter.

Importers by default take all items from an inventory next to it, but when you set a filter, you can specify what items to import into the Inventory Network.

Exporters will only export when it has an item in its filter. You can specify an amount to keep as a buffer in the Exporter.

Inserters can put in items to Importers and take out from Exporters. Copy-pasting an assembler's recipe onto an Exporter has the same effect as copy-pasting from an assembler to a Requester Chest: It sets the filter/items requested to the recipe's items.

[LuziferSenpai]

Mhmm, good Idea and i think i can handle a bit, but for the moment i dont find the place where the wires are created ^^

But i will work on it, because that is a great Idea!

Greetz,

Senpai