Iron Chests, An Idea for Conversion and Re-Use

[darkfrei]

Iron chests are far more efficient in the midgame however. You know, that long time period where you're still using yellow belts because red and blue belts are too expensive. Wood cannot be mass produced. And since a modest train-station requires so many chests (ex: a 2-4 train will want 24-chests, maybe 48 if you're double-sided), cheaper iron-chests are certainly a strong option to use in the midgame.

Are you playing storage'orio?

[bobucles]

And since a modest train-station requires so many chests (ex: a 2-4 train will want 24-chests, maybe 48 if you're double-sided), cheaper iron-chests are certainly a strong option to use in the midgame.

Buffer chests are a convenience, not a requirement. A full 24 steel chests will cost 960 iron, which is enough for 42 mining drills. It is an investment, but if resources are THAT tight just go chop down a dozen trees. Or use 4 chests per train. A pile of wooden boxes are just the right storage capacity for an early game outpost where you don't need a mountain of buffered resources.

There is no point in factorio where iron chests are necessary. They are barely useful at best and a nuisance at worst.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that there are other approaches to early game chests as well. One possibility is to remove steel chests, and make all the logistic upgrades demand steel. Another option is to defer the full cost of steel chests and make the cost half steel now and half steel for the logistic upgrade. But those are all tweaks to a game without 2 tiers of metal chest.

[dragontamer5788]

And since a modest train-station requires so many chests (ex: a 2-4 train will want 24-chests, maybe 48 if you're double-sided), cheaper iron-chests are certainly a strong option to use in the midgame.

Buffer chests are a convenience, not a requirement.

Buffering is unnecessary. The important bit is throughput, especially as you research +inserter stack capacity. Wagon -> Chest is far more efficient than Wagon -> Belt. As you switch to stack-inserters, it becomes important to start using chests for the maximum train throughput in the mid-game.

It is an investment, but if resources are THAT tight just go chop down a dozen trees. Or use 4 chests per train. A pile of wooden boxes are just the right storage capacity for an early game outpost where you don't need a mountain of buffered resources.

Wooden chests can't be automated. Even in the late game, to gather a large supply of wood requires you to use deconstruction planners and logistic bots. But every deforestation command requires clicks from the user. Iron is incredibly well automated throughout the game, and is a far superior resource to base you low-tier chests off of.

There is no point in factorio where iron chests are necessary. They are barely useful at best and a nuisance at worst.

Nor are burner inserters, green wire, red wire, combinators, or heck... even trains, logistic bots, electric furnaces, nuclear power or modules. At the end of the day, Iron Chests have 1/5th the cost of steel chests. That's quite a big jump. A speed-runner will prefer to mass-produce iron chests instead of steel chests under current settings. Heck, a speed-runner will probably NEVER use steel chests. Indeed, in "Expensive Mode", its a bigger 1/10th difference !!!!

A lot of the tools int eh game are designed for different people and different builds. Speed runners will NEVER use electric furnaces, solar panels, nuclear, or steel chests even. While megabase builders will long-forget about steam power, iron chests, and other "inferior but cheaper" items.

Heck, a speed-runner will never use logistic bots, and basically has no use of any chest beyond the Iron Chest. And woord is too time-consuming to gather.

[bobucles]

As you switch to stack-inserters,

Stack inserters are literally more expensive than steel chests. The argument for saving resources on "cheap iron chests" is completely invalid when stack inserters are in play.

I've seen plenty of train outposts that do straight belt to train. They don't cripple a growing base, in fact they work out just fine. The addition of chests to a cheap early game outpost is a convenience, not a need, and those 2 or 3 green science train stations are easily satisfied with wood chests. Or you could just fork out the extra TINY bit of resources to get the extra value because chests (even steel ones) are one of the smallest expenses for an outpost. An early game outpost can survive not having every single gun turret loaded to bear with 200 ammo.

I'm not seeing any balance issue here. None of your arguments change the fact that there is no need for iron chests in Factorio. Compare this to:

Nor are burner inserters, green wire, red wire, combinators, or heck... even trains, logistic bots, electric furnaces, nuclear power or modules.

Burner inserters are needed for early game.
Wire adds new mechanics.
Combinators, trains, bots, nuke power, modules and electric furnaces add new mechanics.

What do iron chests add? That's right, they add the exact same thing that steel chests add. Except worse. And they make a mess when they become obsolete, which is less than 30 minutes after they get introduced. They're 100% unadulterated junk.

P.S. Keeping iron chests in the game because "they save 5 seconds on a speed run" isn't a good argument. Factorio isn't a game where players are tested on split second decision making.

[LukeM]

Stack inserters are literally more expensive than steel chests. The argument for saving resources on "cheap iron chests" is completely invalid when stack inserters are in play.

Sure they do cost more, but using steel chests instead of iron still isnt insignificant, it would approximately double the iron cost of loader/unloaders. In fact, you could even have loaders / unloaders without stack inserters if you wanted, and having a buffer chest that can hold at least one train load would still massively increase the efficiency of your train system.

I've seen plenty of train outposts that do straight belt to train. They don't cripple a growing base, in fact they work out just fine. The addition of chests to a cheap early game outpost is a convenience, not a need, and those 2 or 3 green science train stations are easily satisfied with wood chests.

Adding small buffer chests (as long as they can hold the whole contents of a train) pretty much halve the number of trains you need, as if you don't have them you need two sets of trains so theres always one there to be loaded/unloaded so you don't run out while the train isnt there. I'm pretty sure that if only one train was used then it would cripple the base. And again, wood isnt automatable, so iron is the cheapest solution (especially if you're not building in a forest).

[dragontamer5788]

Burner inserters are needed for early game.

Burner Inserters are literally unnecessary. Burner Drills can directly output into stone furnaces, or in the case of coal, into other burner drills. In both cases, you easily and automatically buffer up resources as long as you have a reliable source of fuel. With this, you can feed your boiler with coal manually to "Bootstrap" electricity production.

Iron Chests are still more useful than steel chests for stockpiling all of the items you want to automate before researching Steel Processing. Or hell, after steel processing. Its not like 48-stacks is really that much more useful than 32-stacks. Even after Steel Processing, iron chests are 1/5th the cost / save 32 iron per chest. That's hardly insignificant, especially at the early stages of the game.

With regards to wooden chests... do you somehow have spare wood for some reason?? Personally speaking, all of my wood-cutting efforts go towards small electric poles in the early game... either that or its burnt up as fuel somewhere. You really don't want to waste time chopping down trees.

What do iron chests add? That's right, they add the exact same thing that steel chests add. Except worse. And they make a mess when they become obsolete, which is less than 30 minutes after they get introduced. They're 100% unadulterated junk.

"Worse"? If you're actually filling up chests, you're doing something wrong. Chests are needed for optimizing wagon offloading and loading. They are also useful for storing the output of your "malls". Under no circumstances should you let your mall automatically build 32*50 == 1600 Electric Mining Drills (storage capacity of Iron Chest). Such a feat is comparable to launching 1/3rd a rocket in iron costs (36800 Iron). Hell, building ~150 at a time (3 stacks) is probably more than sufficient for the great majority of the game. Proper chest usage rarely uses more than ~3 stacks. Hell, my train-stations only have ~5 stacks per chest, even in the post-game / megabase stage. (12x5 stacks == 60 stacks of storage. And wagons only have 40-stacks. So I can hold more than a train delivery with just 5-stacks per chest).

If anything, Wooden Chests are the "awful" one. You can't automate wooden chests, because you can't automate wood production. So any use of wood implies player interaction, and player-time is the most expensive time in the game. Furthermore, the early game is throttled by small electric poles (which need a ton of wood). So why would you use wood when iron is plentiful and automatic?

P.S. Keeping iron chests in the game because "they save 5 seconds on a speed run" isn't a good argument. Factorio isn't a game where players are tested on split second decision making.

Generally speaking, the early game is limited to roughly ~1 yellow belt of iron production. Assuming this holds, then EACH Iron Chest you use saves you 2.4 seconds. (If you're unable to max-out a yellow-belt in the early game, then each Iron Chest saves you more). Use 50 Iron Chests (aka: a "stack" of chests) 120 seconds. That's 120-seconds production seconds saved every time you pickup your 50-stack from the mall.

8-stacks later, you're already at 16-minutes of production saved. Sure, 2.4 seconds saved per chest is small, but it adds up quickly. I think you're severely underestimating the utility of iron chests in speed runs.

I've seen plenty of train outposts that do straight belt to train. They don't cripple a growing base, in fact they work out just fine. The addition of chests to a cheap early game outpost is a convenience, not a need, and those 2 or 3 green science train stations are easily satisfied with wood chests.

At what point in the game is 48-stacks "needed" instead of 32-stacks? Even then, 32-stacks of storage with 8-iron is more cost effective than 48-stacks for 40-iron. So in the late game when you're doing uranium processing (searching for that rare U-235), additional iron chests are numerically more cost-effective for building up large buffers. I'm not entirely sure what you use steel chests for, or why you have so many locations where you need more than 32-stacks of storage. Please, tell me where 33+ stacks are "needed" and not simply a "convenience".

[bobucles]

Burner Inserters are literally unnecessary.

Whoops! I read that as drills for some reason. Burner inserters have a niche use for rebooting coal power but they indeed aren't great and could certainly use some love. They are slightly too slow to work on red belts and need a substantial speed boost to work on blue belts. I liked an old suggestion where burner inserters get faster with fuel upgrades (acceleration%), since it would boost burner inserter speed as the game progresses.

Iron Chests are still more useful than steel chests for stockpiling all of the items you want to automate before researching Steel Processing.

That all fits in your inventory. Every single item needed to research steel processing fits in your inventory. Iron storage brings nothing to the table. In fact:

If you're actually filling up chests, you're doing something wrong.

is a pretty telling blow against building early game chests in the first place. Even wood chests have limited use early in the game. However they are fully capable of satisfying base storage needs until steel chests are on the table.

With regards to wooden chests... do you somehow have spare wood for some reason??

Of course! In fact you also have spare wood. You said so yourself:

either that or [the wood is] burnt up as fuel somewhere.

The amount of spare wood available to the player is enough to store literally anything they need before steel chests come into play.

Chests are needed for optimizing wagon offloading and loading.

Chests are handy and make train stations more efficient. They aren't NEEDED. They never were. Nothing about train buffers qualifies as being NEEDED until the player is already so wealthy that the cost of chests is irrelevant. How irrelevant? If you have more than 2 stacks of red belt in your base, you have already spent more than the cost of a full stack of steel chests.

That's hardly insignificant, especially at the early stages of the game.

If you have even a quarter of your base covered in red belt, the low cost of steel chests is completely insignificant.
If you have one single yellow belt worth of steel furnaces, the low cost of steel chests is completely insignificant.
Everything before that point is a minor expense at best. Steel is 5x as expensive as iron, but 5 times a very small number is still a small number. It's not a big deal.
You're arguing over pennies. If you want to save every last ounce of resources, that is exactly why wood chests exist. They have what you need and will save resources when it matters most. There is no need for two cost saving options.

8-stacks later, you're already at 16-minutes of production saved. Sure, 2.4 seconds saved per chest is small, but it adds up quickly. I think you're severely underestimating the utility of iron chests in speed runs.

Don't feed me that BS. This is a world record speedrun. How much excess wood does this world record speedrun have?

rain 335.jpg (309.13 KiB) Viewed 8706 times

All the wood was already there, on hand, screaming for an excuse to be used. Would you like to know what happened to it?

speedrun wood.jpg (419.07 KiB) Viewed 8706 times

There it is!150 wood turned into waste and stuffed in a box never to be seen again. The existence of iron chests didn't do a damn thing. There was enough wood to replace every single chest for the entire run. Not as though either option would have helped very much:

caboose chest.jpg (318.41 KiB) Viewed 8706 times

Because cars are clearly the superior speedrunning chest.

TLDR: Iron chests are literally not important.

P.S. Have some more wood, on the house.

moar wood.jpg (326.72 KiB) Viewed 8706 times

[dragontamer5788]

However they are fully capable of satisfying base storage needs until steel chests are on the table.

Bobucles, you still haven't told me what you're using steel chests for, or why there is ever a need to upgrade above iron.

As far as I can tell, steel chests exist solely as an ingredient to be used in Logistic Chests. Logistic chests are certainly useful, but their utility comes from outside of the 48-stacks they provide.

Don't feed me that BS. This is a world record speedrun. How much excess wood does this world record speedrun have?

Now imagine him NOT chopping down those trees. Either through save-scumming (for a desert start for example for fewer trees) or through a design that didn't need him to chop down those trees (building around forests)

Each tree is like 3 to 5 seconds of player time. Excess chopping is certainly a "mistake" for in the speedrun meta. Indeed, he upgrades to grenades and starts to blow up trees asap, because its literally not worth your time to chop wood in a speedrun.

EDIT: It also looks like he's using iron chests. Sooo... yeah. There's that. With regards to buffering: I don't think that car-chests are the best strategy. A car costs 117 iron to make for 80 total stack-space. The primary advantage is the 2x2 square that it takes up, so that its useful for like train crossdocking (or if you cheese: the "car-belt" strategy), as well as a "warehouse" like strategy when combined with filter-inserters. But I have my doubts to whether or not its an effective buffering strategy.

There might be a layout and/or clicks-per-second advantage I'm not necessarily understanding. My best guess is that cars act more like a "balancer", while iron chests or steel chests would require a circuit / averager + configuration to remain balanced (or maybe a splitter).

[bobingabout]

I use burner inserters to power my boilers.

Because I do that, I have no issues making simple automation in the burner stage, because I'll re-use the inserters later.

Why do I power my boilers from burner inserters? it's not much of an issue if you keep an eye on things, but, assume for a moment you expand your base but neglect your power plant, everything runs slower, even electric inserters. if your boilers are fuelled using electric inserters, then these slow down too, and you might end up where the inserter doesn't add coal before the previous has burned, this results in even less power. over time this adds up, and everything slows more and more, and eventually, you've got no power. Burner inserters would not have this slow down issue, and therefore, the power will not shut off due to a brown out. it will still shut off when you run out of coal though.

seriously, this exact scenario HAS happened to me before, admittedly in my early days of playing the game.

[Deadly-Bagel]

I get the logic behind it but if you have a brown out the next thing you generally do is expand your power supply. Oh, hey, you're already at your power plant, takes 5 seconds to drop a stack of coal across a few Boilers to jump start everything. Burner Inserters are also incapable of keeping up with chained boilers passing fuel to each other so it's in addition to LH Inserters anyway.

The other scenario is when your supply, usually coal, runs out. In this case you expand your coal mining with Electric Mining Drills - oh wait they don't work because there's no power. In this case Burner Inserters are actually detrimental, as they will keep feeding coal from the belt into the failing power network until there is nothing left. You then need to supply enough coal to get the miners running long enough for the coal to reach the boilers, so it's wise to keep a few stacks in a nearby chest. Inserters fail a bit earlier, sure, but they generally leave enough coal on the belt to kick things off again.

Back on topic, I think the solution is to make Steel Chests 2x2. This would solve certain rail stop problems (train > chest > train) and you could make Storage Chests build out of Steel (also be 2x2) and the rest Iron. Or maybe have them all 2x2? Would make for an interesting logistic network drawback.

[bobucles]

Bobucles, you still haven't told me what you're using steel chests for, or why there is ever a need to upgrade above iron.

The same thing I use iron and wood chests for. To store things. Oh no, I use iron chests! What hypocrisy?!?! Or maybe it's because I have used them that I know just how not important they are.

Now imagine him NOT chopping down those trees. Either through save-scumming (for a desert start for example for fewer trees) or through a design that didn't need him to chop down those trees (building around forests)

(for a desert start for example for fewer trees)

a desert speed run

Yes, I'm definitely getting trolled here. Tell us what you think the requirements are for a world record spawn because we're clearly not on the same page here. Be very careful to explain why the requirements are important!

It includes TREES

EDIT: It also looks like he's using iron chests

It also looks like they're completely utterly unnecessary. The wood is there, the spare hand crafting time is there, and the wood storage capacity is good enough for everything that's going on. Watch what he does with them. The simple fact is those iron chests can be completely pruned from that speed run to minimal effect. They are 100% not a necessary item in any capacity. Compare that against belts or inserters or assemblers which of course are 100% necessary.

Each tree is like 3 to 5 seconds of player time

Literally WAT. Have you never chopped down a tree in factorio before? It's less than a second on steelaxe. It's even LESS than that because most chopping happens during the slowest downtime of the early game. Not that it matters, because Factorio isn't a game that tests players on their split second decision making. It tests players on their ability to build stuff.

Of course every last detail matters in a speed run and runners exist to exploit every second they can get. How much time did the iron chests actually save on a typical run? A minute? Maybe two? Maybe less? I don't know about you, but I don't find "iron chests are literally worth a few minutes out of hours. sometimes. maybe" a compelling argument for keeping them. The wood was already on hand from the very second that iron chests were getting used, so the actual time difference is much closer to zero.

I get the logic behind it but if you have a brown out the next thing you generally do is expand your power supply. Oh, hey, you're already at your power plant, takes 5 seconds to drop a stack of coal across a few Boilers to jump start everything.

Burner inserters are a great newbie tool for players learning the game. They do save a base from brownouts. The only annoyance is they're too slow to function on red and blue belt so the player has no choice but to give them up. That's a real shame. I'd love to see burner inserters scale up with bases.

[dragontamer5788]

Bobucles, you still haven't told me what you're using steel chests for, or why there is ever a need to upgrade above iron.

The same thing I use iron and wood chests for. To store things. Oh no, I use iron chests! What hypocrisy?!?! Or maybe it's because I have used them that I know just how not important they are.

Then explain the situation where you use a steel chest over an iron chest.

YOUR argument rests on the fact that "steel chests obsolete iron chests". But you haven't proven this yet. All you've done so far is demonstrate that maybe wood chests are more useful for a longer-stage of the game than maybe I expect. But I'm personally of the opinion that wood is better used on power-poles or early-fuel. If your argument is that 16-stacks are enough for a speedrun, then I'm more or less in agreement with you. Its just that wood isn't automatable and that wood takes up player time. Wood is certainly a major timesink, but not because you need the wood, but because the trees are "in the way" and need to be removed somehow.

I find it strange that you put so much energy into proving that wood chests are the superior chest. Because if so, you clearly understand my argument with regards to stack management and storage space needed. The only step left is understanding that iron chests can be 100% fully automated, while wooden chests cannot. That's a major advantage to iron.

Literally WAT. Have you never chopped down a tree in factorio before? It's less than a second on steelaxe.

You don't have a steelaxe in the beginning of the game. And if you have steel, then you are long-past the electric stage of the game, which means you have electric drills digging for coal and thus no use for wood aside from small electric poles. So you shouldn't be chopping down trees anymore because its an utter waste of time. The only reason you chop trees at this point is because they're in the way, but grenades are researched soon so you can start killing trees properly and efficiencly soon.

And btw: don't forget the seconds you need to spend walking up to a tree, and then walking back to where you need to go. You really don't want to go out of your way to kill trees, grenade point-and-click is the way to go.

I use burner inserters to power my boilers.

Because I do that, I have no issues making simple automation in the burner stage, because I'll re-use the inserters later.

Why do I power my boilers from burner inserters? it's not much of an issue if you keep an eye on things, but, assume for a moment you expand your base but neglect your power plant, everything runs slower, even electric inserters. if your boilers are fuelled using electric inserters, then these slow down too, and you might end up where the inserter doesn't add coal before the previous has burned, this results in even less power. over time this adds up, and everything slows more and more, and eventually, you've got no power. Burner inserters would not have this slow down issue, and therefore, the power will not shut off due to a brown out. it will still shut off when you run out of coal though.

seriously, this exact scenario HAS happened to me before, admittedly in my early days of playing the game.

As noted by Deadly-Bagel, the elecctric mining drill problem is more severe. Power goes out, electric mining drills eat up power (indeed, they are one of the biggest consumers of power), and then your coal stops being produced. Inserters require 400W of idle power. 10,000 yellow inserters will idle off of 1-coal / second (400W per yellow inserter, 4MJ of coal energy from 50% boiler efficiency). You pretty much never have to worry about yellow-inserters causing a "death spiral" in energy. Indeed: burner inserters actually eat up more energy than yellow-inserters, even after you factor in idle energy and boiler-efficiency of 50%. Burner inserters can only swing 57 times per coal and have an effective power usage of 188kW. Yellow inserters have an idle of 400W and 13kW of swing power (x2 boiler inefficiency). So in effect, burner inserters eat up more coal in a "death spiral" scenario.

The solution to the death spiral is to have emergency solar panels powering your mines, probably on a power-switch isolated network.

[Meddleman]

The solution is to minimize the gameplay-time with iron-chest usage.
Use wooden ones until no longer feasible, then burn.
Use steel chests afterward, and then collect and convert into logistic chests.

Adding a recipe or amending current ones to nullify all "dead-end" recipes reduces the game into some weird tree.
Some recipes are more useless than others (I'm looking at you, pistol/handgun), but thats what gives the game flavor and diversity.
Live with it. Amend your gameplay rather than the game. Waiting for a change that affects Vanilla will take longer than changing your outlook. If that is too much effort, download a mod, it's what they're there for.

[bobingabout]

Use wooden ones until no longer feasible, then burn.
Use steel chests afterward, and then collect and convert into logistic chests.

yup

[BlakeMW]

I'm also a player who mainly uses iron chests unless I specifically need steel chests to make logistic chests, or for some reason need the higher capacity. It's the same reason I use basic inserters rather than fast if I only need a basic inserter, I'd prefer to use the cheapest option which is fully effective even if I can easily afford the more expensive alternative and like the basic inserter vs fast inserter, the steel chest offers literally no efficiency enhancement under many circumstances, like except a minute one if you're specifically storing large amounts of stuff in full chests (steel chests require fewer inserters for storage) for example storing solid fuel for later producing rocket fuel. In terms of normal buffers iron chests are just fine. The steel cost of steel chests also carries an opportunity cost, 8 steel is more than a steel furnace or a pumpjack, and for standard train stations using steel chests would mean the chests require more steel than the locomotive and wagons, this probably isn't something you'd be concerned about in all settings, but I play a lot of marathon deathworld and iron/steel is always in limited supply.

The chest I don't use is wooden chests (with the sole exception of disposal of waste items). Why don't I use wooden chests? Partly because I don't cut much wood (I leave most trees to absorb pollution and build around forests), but mainly because they are so frail, call it paranoia but I don't want stuff to be wiped out by clumsy car driving or a stray biter or my love of the personal flamethrower for damage control (when there's suddenly a mob of biters in your factory, one of the quickest ways to eliminate them is to set them on fire with the flamethrower, most buildings have enough hitpoints and fire resist to withstand a brief fire patch, wood chests do not). Iron chests are at least for my intents and purposes as durable as steel chests, that is they can survive being rammed by the car or set on fire. I might occasionally use a steel chest for things that are really valuable and I want every layer of security but otherwise it's just a waste of valuable steel until at least the mid game (and for the most part, I treat the steel chest simply as a component for logistic chests).

[Hedning1390]

Use wooden ones until no longer feasible, then burn.
Use steel chests afterward, and then collect and convert into logistic chests.

Only "problem" with that is that wooden chests are feasible at any stage of the game. You never have to switch from wooden to steel.

[bobucles]

Amend your gameplay rather than the game. Waiting for a change that affects Vanilla will take longer than changing your outlook.

That's a silly outlook. Despite all the years and polish this is still a beta. The entire point of a beta is to give feedback on what is good or not good. Nothing is written in stone.

Then explain the situation where you use a steel chest over an iron chest.

All of them? When I'm done with the steel I soak them up and make logi chests. Easy.

Whether or not I CAN find a use for iron chests is irrelevant. My point is that the absolutely slim, nearly nonexistant utility behind iron chests does not justify them taking up space in the game. There are tons of things that have a viable place in Factorio and Iron chests weigh in near the dead bottom of that list. Even speed runners get nearly no real utility out of them due to iron chests being redundant with the typical speed run's abundance of wood (protip: Speed runs take place in forests). That's how bad they are.

But iron chests are cheaper than steel chests!

Isn't that an argument for steel chests being too expensive? That's a fair bit of feedback. I certainly wouldn't mind if steel chests were just a bit cheaper (5 steel seems good). The extra 3 steel can even be an ingredient for logi chests.

It's a pretty damning tale when the only tangible value of an iron chest hinges upon steel chests being too expensive. If steel chests are cheaper, then iron chests disappear entirely.

Adding a recipe or amending current ones to nullify all "dead-end" recipes reduces the game into some weird tree.

Let's be fair here. How many "dead end" recipes are ACTUALLY in Factorio?
- Burner drills
- Burner inserters
- Stone furnace (kinda)
- Steel furnace (at late/post game)
- iron chest

Wooden poles/chests can be burnt into nothing and just about everything else is either already useful or can be upgraded into a final useful form. Factorio is already 90% towards making every item consistently useful all game. Transforming the rest of the "dead end" items is really nothing more than a handful of balance tweaks at the most. So why not go the extra mile and finish it off? It would definitely help polish the experience.

[dragontamer5788]

Wooden poles/chests can be burnt into nothing and just about everything else is either already useful or can be upgraded into a final useful form. Factorio is already 90% towards making every item consistently useful all game. Transforming the rest of the "dead end" items is really nothing more than a handful of balance tweaks at the most. So why not go the extra mile and finish it off? It would definitely help polish the experience.

Iron Chests remain useful even in the endgame. Steel Furnaces remain useful until Prod3 + Speed3 beacons are cheap. Which for the vast, vast, vast majority of players never happens. Prod3 / Speed3 literally needs to go everywhere else before electric furnaces become worthwhile.

Efficiency2 and Efficiency3 modules, despite being endgame are completely useless outside of building Power Armor 3. Its always better to build solar panels + accumulators instead of using Efficiency2 or Efficiency3 modules.

Pistol should never be handcrafted. Ever. Literally never.

If you want to talk about "useless" items, there are plenty of better examples. But Iron Chests being cheaper and more cost-effective than steel chests means that they're actually the superior choice in every case except for (as BlakeW pointed out) large-scale buffering like Solid Fuel or Uranium.

----------

But even then, there's a good reason why useless items exist in Factorio. So that the player can learn. "Bad Options" HAVE to exist in a game if you wish for players to learn. And right now, the "bad option" in most cases is actually using Steel Chests (not Iron Chests). Ironically.

But iron chests are cheaper than steel chests!

Isn't that an argument for steel chests being too expensive? That's a fair bit of feedback. I certainly wouldn't mind if steel chests were just a bit cheaper (5 steel seems good). The extra 3 steel can even be an ingredient for logi chests.

It's a pretty damning tale when the only tangible value of an iron chest hinges upon steel chests being too expensive. If steel chests are cheaper, then iron chests disappear entirely.

Nah, its actually a tale of how players can improve as they perform efficiency calculations that go against their biases. Just because Steel Chests are higher in the tech tree doesn't necessarily make them better. The same thing happens with Steel Furnaces. Many, many, many players think Electric Furnaces are better until they run the calculations. This is a good thing and a hallmark of good game design. You leave options on the table for the players to figure out on their own.

Just like how Iron Chests are more cost-effective than Steel Chests and how Iron Chests should be preferred. Ditto with Yellow Belts vs Red Belts, and Red Belts vs Blue Belts.

[RiiDii]

My two cents... Watching Nilaus and KoS play through on Death World gave me an appreciation of when Iron Chests are valuable: Steel chests were just too expensive.

Here's how I recycle my iron chests: I run a recycle chest that sorts and outputs materials to various areas of the base (using filter inserters and filterable splitters). Ores get fed back into smelting and plates get put onto my bus. Any wood my bots collected and middle ingredients like copper cables and gears (sometimes) get sent to a trash box, which is - you guessed it - an iron box. I do this because, until I have Requestor Chests, trying to weave belts into where gears or cables are needed is too much work and planning. Once the trash box iron chest is nearly full, I run it over with a tank and replace the iron chest. I call this a trash compactor . The iron chest served a second purpose and is now gone, just like burning a wood chest or wood power pole.

[adjl]

Bobucles, you still haven't told me what you're using steel chests for, or why there is ever a need to upgrade above iron.

As far as I can tell, steel chests exist solely as an ingredient to be used in Logistic Chests. Logistic chests are certainly useful, but their utility comes from outside of the 48-stacks they provide.

In my experience, it's typically as storage until logistics chests, and then as an ingredient for logistics chests. When you replace a steel chest with a logistics chest (as a mall gets upgraded, for example), you get a steel chest in your inventory that can be turned into another logistics chest. When you replace an iron chest with a logistics chest, you get an iron chest that's only going to be useful if you're using iron chests for buffers.

That's not the end of the world, certainly, but using iron for buffers in the later game means you've got an assembler dedicated to making them and you're carrying them around in your inventory. Why not cut that out, and just use the steel chest assembler that's providing your logistics chest ones, and carry around just the one type of chest (which can be handcrafted into a logistics chest in a pinch)?