Big (2x2) inserters
Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2024 4:11 pm
It has been known for a long time that moving items from 1 train to another is not possible with regular inserters because rails leave a 2 tiles wide gap between them. Long inserters can do the job slowly, but you need 6 or 12 of them and that would not be good for UPS for megabases where such bulk transfer would be even remotely useful.
So i investigated if there was a mod for that yet, and answer is yes:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/nco-InserterCranes
It has also taken a long time to arrive to the idea again to have it sink in that it's something we would really like in the base game. But it would make it possible to use separate railway networks for example, 1 for base area and other for mining outposts. Well, creative ideas are probably endless. It doesn't remove the need for any other inserters nor trivialize the game in some way. How engineer would probably say, right tool for the right job, and in current game we have to workaround with less efficient ways.
I'm not proposing to copy "Inserter Cranes" to vanilla game exactly as it is. Naturally some balance and maybe functionality changes should be made. This topic is for principle of 2x2 (or 2x1 rotatable to 1x2 ?) inserters to exist. I would prefer the 2x2 with more insert capacity because it is computationally cheaper.
I'm also aware there are loaders but their purpose is entirely different and absolutely not replacement for 2x2 inserters.
So i investigated if there was a mod for that yet, and answer is yes:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/nco-InserterCranes
It has also taken a long time to arrive to the idea again to have it sink in that it's something we would really like in the base game. But it would make it possible to use separate railway networks for example, 1 for base area and other for mining outposts. Well, creative ideas are probably endless. It doesn't remove the need for any other inserters nor trivialize the game in some way. How engineer would probably say, right tool for the right job, and in current game we have to workaround with less efficient ways.
I'm not proposing to copy "Inserter Cranes" to vanilla game exactly as it is. Naturally some balance and maybe functionality changes should be made. This topic is for principle of 2x2 (or 2x1 rotatable to 1x2 ?) inserters to exist. I would prefer the 2x2 with more insert capacity because it is computationally cheaper.
I'm also aware there are loaders but their purpose is entirely different and absolutely not replacement for 2x2 inserters.