Concept: Rework of the Logistic Chests (Unified Logistic Chests)

[mrvn]

How about having just one chest and then set filters for the minimum and maximum number of desired items.

Without filters anything can be stored just like a storage chest now.
A filter of anything or everything would keep the chest as general storage but limit the amount.
If an item is below the minimum then more of it is requested. This would be like a requester chest now.
If an item is above the maximum then it is moved to some other storage chest that is below maximum. This would be an active provider chest now.

The problem with a 'single unified chest' system is that there are some behaviours associated with the different chests besides just 'what does it request and what does it provide':
-How do you designate a provider as active?
-What chests does logistic trash go to? (impossible/aborted jobs, trash slots from player, items from active provider)
-What chests does construction trash go to? (deconstructed items, impossible/aborted jobs)
-What chests can construction bots take from? (construction, repairs)
When you add it all up and slap them on a single item it becomes too many flags.
With the Unified Logistics Chest concept, a new, unspoiled player can put down, without any configuration except setting what a requester requests, providers, storage and requester chests and get the behaviours of the old logistics chest system, and only need to touch the checkboxes once they have need for more advanced behaviours.
WIth a 'single unified chest' system, said new unspoiled player will not have presets for the different behaviours of provider, requester and storage. They'll have to somehow figure out what the point of the logistics system IS with less hints to go off of. Obviously a tutorial could help with this, but tutorials shouldn't be necessary to learn how something works on a basic level.

A provider goes active when it exceeds the amount specified for passive storage.

As for construction bots I would say they should always use the nearest chest possible. Maybe with some fudge factor to prefer chests that already store a partial stack of an item within reason. That bots go completely across your base to deposit some wood is just insane as your base grows.

As for player figuring out the system there is one thing to consider: There are techs you need to research for different chest types. So you don't get all the features at once. You start of simple and then you research more and more features get unlocked. Maybe techs should have more text, a help section that describes what they unlock.

[Patashu]

I'm still not sure if gating checkboxes behind technology fixes it.

With current logistics network and suggestion of OP, you place down different kinds of chests based on what you need, the game makes it obvious what the overall categories are and it's intuitive as a result.
Even if you gate checkboxes behind technologies, you still have only one chest. Intended purpose of different combinations of checkboxes is unclear, since they aren't given names and there aren't different presets.
Ideally it should be possible to understand how an item works reading no less than a line of text about it, or by being able to get immediate feedback from experimenting (conveyors, inserters), or by being able to follow visual cues (boiler's steam and water indicators on the different pipes).

[MeduSalem]

Before too much additional discussion arises I want to say that I made the suggestion more than a year ago by now... I almost forgot that it even exists.

Also I made the suggestion back when the Devs were still up to new big ideas/features. But now I think that since they are working towards finishing the game my idea may be abandoned as well... at least I have no real intention to get much further involved in it or invest more time/resources for something that by 99.99% chance isn't going to happen anyways.

I might also mention that in several other threads all over the place there were small discussions with Rseding who made it clear that they don't really want to fiddle around with Logistic Bots code that much anymore except for optimizations, but especially not with adding additional complexity due to the problem of decreasing performance if they'd do so. They just want to keep it simple and fast and that's something I find understandable.