Factorio Forums

Tl;DR: Buffer chest should act as logistic storage target for their requests when they are between their minimum and maximum.

Right now, the problem
Right now, here is what happens when deconstructing besides a buffer chest that contains 50 belts out of its (Min 50)(Max 100) request. The main problem with this is that the storage chest might be far! Buffer chests are meant to act as buffer to make things go smoother. But think of when you move a big chunk of your base.

1. your 1k belts go to the storage chest that is super far (because it already contains belts or because it has a filter)
2. robots grab belts from the closer buffer chest which only has 200 because you don't want each buffer chest to contain 4k
3. once it's empty, it grabs from whatever buffer/storage is closest, which may be far again.

Sure, after all of that, the buffer chests will start requesting from the storage chest, but the buffer chest barely helped make the construction faster, and your storage now likely contains belts because you've been producing belts during the construction which probably in part filled the buffer chests.

The conclusion? It feels mostly useless to try to spread items around the base for easier access since when it matters most (when doing big constructions), they barely make things faster.

Suggestion
I believe buffer chests, when their content is between their minimum and maximum requests, should be treated as storage chests that only accept those requested content. This way, deconstructing or other activities near a buffer chest would still use it if it's not full.

Priority wise, I think it should be the same as a Storage chest with a filter. However, to be of any use, the robots must pick the closest buffer chest when there are multiple for the same item, which different from the often used strategy of "the first chest that was built is higher priority".

So in my base example, lets say the buffer chest is setup to 200/infinite. The 1k belts would be placed in the nearby buffer chest. And when rebuilding they would likely all be grabbed from the buffer chest since it's so close.

This would encourage trying to optimize the storage with some buffer chests for common things spread around the base, which right now, feels mostly pointless to do. (Altho I haven't made a megabase yet, I would assume they are more affected by this, but the scale of things might balance it out)

Past suggestion
There was an identical proposal in the past, but it was rejected. I'm reviving this because buffer chest now have a minimum and maximum, as the proposal asked, but what happens when the chest is between the minimum and maximum doesn't match and feels lacking.
viewtopic.php?f=71&t=98780&p=547864&hil ... um#p547864

Modding
Can such a thing be modded? I haven't made mods, but I did look into it a little. It felt that logistic stuff isn't easily tweakable from mods, but I may be wrong.

Um, I don't think that's the purpose of the 'maximum' part of a request (it prevents bots from bringing too much, and prevents stuff from being auto trashed)

What your asking is to actually 'request more, so why don't you just increase the minimum instead?

No, I don't want the chest to request more, as that would mean building more stuff. I don't want that extra content to come from other storage chests or passive provider chests. I only want it to come from robots that are looking for a place to put stuff.

200 belt is enough most of the time, except for when there are big changes. I don't want every buffer chest to contain a million things all the time.

HellzStormer wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 2:51 pm No, I don't want the chest to request more, as that would mean building more stuff. I don't want that extra content to come from other storage chests or passive provider chests. I only want it to come from robots that are looking for a place to put stuff.

200 belt is enough most of the time, except for when there are big changes. I don't want every buffer chest to contain a million things all the time.

If you can be bothered, you could use thr circuit network to set the requests on the buffer chest based on what's in the logistics storage, so as soon as something goes in a storage chest, a bot will take it to a buffer.

I usually have my buffer chests just request to fill themselves up, and if I don't want to make too muchtof something, I just use a simple circuit condition on the contents of the buffer chest.

IsaacOscar wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 2:55 pm If you can be bothered, you could use thr circuit network to set the requests on the buffer chest based on what's in the logistics storage, so as soon as something goes in a storage chest, a bot will take it to a buffer.

The content of buffer chests is part the logistic storage. So that option doesn't work.

The point of this suggestion is that I want the buffer chest to be filled up because it's needed for storage purpose (especially from a nearby location), not because a machine can produce enough to fill it up.

HellzStormer wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 3:11 pm The content of buffer chests is part the logistic storage. So that option doesn't work.

That's not a problem, just subtract from the storage what you're already requesting and you'll know how much extra there is.

You could also use two separate logistic networks if you really want.

HellzStormer wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 3:11 pm The point of this suggestion is that I want the buffer chest to be filled up because it's needed for storage purpose (especially from a nearby location), not because a machine can produce enough to fill it up.

Right, which is why I don't have my machines try and produce everything that's being requested by the logistics network, as half of those requests are just to organise storage.