Factorio Forums

Hello,

I am trying to make a sorter for 5 different types of items, and the problem that I am running into is that in order to keep the belt unclogged, I have to use either a LOT of filter inserters that have 2-3 filtered items apiece, or some relatively complex combinator magic. Then I thought, "A filter inserter takes 4 extra electronic circuits for 5 filter slots, and a stack filter inserter takes 5 extra electronic circuits for 1 filter slot. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

Could we have stack inserters that have more than 1 filter slot in vanilla please?

According to this post by a Factorio developer, that is intentional.

I assume the reason behind this is that inserters can only pick up one type of item at once. For example, an inserter with a maximum stack size of 5 can only pick up 5 iron or 5 copper but not a mixture of both (e.g. 3 iron and 2 copper) at the same time. Therefore, it is normally more efficient to have at least one dedicated filter stack inserter for each item. Non-stack filter inserters can then be used for filtering anything that the filter stack inserters may have missed. Since non-stack filter inserters can't carry much anyway, it is not important for them to collect a large amount of the same item, so there is no harm in letting them randomly collect items of different types by setting several filters for the inserter.

In certain situations this may not be the most efficient thing to do, for example when you suddenly have a large amount of a specific item on the belt that is to be filtered. Such cases can however be detected by the circuit network and the filters of the filter stack inserters set accordingly. Also, if necessary, the entire belt can be stopped with the circuit network, to prevent the filter inserters from missing an item.

Also, it is possible to effectively give a single stack filter inserter more than one filter slot, by using the circuit network. This technique is described in this thread. Also, this thread offers a solution, but it is less elegant.

If you don't like handling all of this with the circuit network, you may prefer to use a mod (e.g. BeltSorter) which allows you to do all the sorting with a single easy-to-use entity.

EDIT: This post was made at a time before splitters were given the ability to also filter items.

i feel "more efficient" should be decided by the user and the game map. i do not see a valid reason for limiting the filter stack inserter to one if other filter inserters can do more. yes it can only pick up one type of item at a time. but so can the regular filter inserter. stack just picks up more of them.

Metalface7 wrote:Could we have stack inserters that have more than 1 filter slot in vanilla please?

The vanilla experience is tuned to give you lots of different puzzle pieces for the logistic puzzle. If filter stack inserters had the exact same amount of filters as normal ones, then they would completely replace standard filter inserters (via stack size override you can make them smaller -> faster). Changing the number of filters is a trivial mod to either make yourself or chose one of the many already out there. And please spare yourself the time of arguing about "pure vanilla experience" or disabled steam achievements :P.

with the advent of filter-able splitters for output, it's easy enough to split out any desired element from a mixed input belt. also, splitters are cheap, and don't require power...