[Idea] Ore hopper.
Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:35 am
So currently the only way to buffer a belt is to use inserters and chests. This tends to hurt bandwidth without some convoluted splitting and merging and isn't very "realistic"/neat. So what I propose is a building that has belt input and belt output and can store ore only. The input and output bandwidth is limited only by the belt type used, and different versions of the hopper could have different capacities.
I am considering making this myself but, although I am a programmer, I have never made a mod for factorio so thought other people might have some ideas of if this is possible. I haven't ever seen a building that has direct input/output on a belt without an inserter before (edit: just realized that miners do this). However I know Dytech has item collectors, so a similar idea might work as input/output for this hopper I think?
/edit
After a bit of a look it seems that this should be quite feasible. The teleport belts mod already does something similar, I just need to add the buffer in between the belt ends, and make it a single entity.
I am considering making this myself but, although I am a programmer, I have never made a mod for factorio so thought other people might have some ideas of if this is possible. I haven't ever seen a building that has direct input/output on a belt without an inserter before (edit: just realized that miners do this). However I know Dytech has item collectors, so a similar idea might work as input/output for this hopper I think?
/edit
After a bit of a look it seems that this should be quite feasible. The teleport belts mod already does something similar, I just need to add the buffer in between the belt ends, and make it a single entity.