Items "disappearing" in trash slots.

Post your ideas and suggestions how to improve the game.

Moderator: ickputzdirwech

Post Reply
User avatar
SyntaxTerror
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:18 pm
Contact:

Items "disappearing" in trash slots.

Post by SyntaxTerror »

Hello.

I'm quite new to Factorio, and I recently encountered an issue when items I picked up directly from an assembling machine or a furnace didn't go in the main slots of my inventory (e.g. I pick up 10 stacks of 100 iron plates and nothing went into my inventory).

I discovered that the items went into the trash slots (it's new to me because I never really used this feature before, and I didn't notice that it went into the storage chests of my roboport/storing area because I have hundreds of logistic robots and it's quite a storm when I come close to it).

This is not really a problem, I can learn to deal with that, but the thing is if I use some of the items, the ones in the trash slots don't replenish the inventory slots that have designed filters (e.g. I have 3×100 iron plates in reserved filtered slots and 2000 iron plates in the trash slots, when I put 100 in an assembling machine needing them, I only have 200 left in the main inventory slots and I cannot see the trash slots filled with iron plates when I'm on the machine inventory window).
To get my filtered slots refilled, I have to go near my roboport/storing area so robots pick up the trash, put it in the storage crates, then pick again these items to fill my inventory.

I think it would be better if the trash slots were filled only when I come into the 50x50 supply area of my roboport, OR that the trash slots could be used to refill the main inventory filtered slots (the last option would be better as the trash slots would be kindof an extension for the inventory)

I hope that I have been clear enough, thank you for your attention.

User avatar
NotRexButCaesar
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1121
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 12:47 am
Contact:

Re: Items "disappearing" in trash slots.

Post by NotRexButCaesar »

If you are in logistics range, bots will take items from trash slots and deposit them in the inventory if there is a request.
—Crevez, chiens, si vous n'étes pas contents!

User avatar
valneq
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1150
Joined: Fri Jul 12, 2019 7:43 am
Contact:

Re: Items "disappearing" in trash slots.

Post by valneq »

Reserved filtered slots do not represent requests for bots. You have to explicitly set a request for logistic robots to bring you 300 iron plates. Once this request is set, they will first fill up the 300 iron plates from your logistic trash, then get additional ones if logistic trash is not enough or take all excess plates to logistic chests. Thus you will always have either the iron in your trash (outside logistic range) or in your inventory (inisde logistic range), and no need to manually pick up more plates from any chest.
By the way, it sounds like you don't actually want robots to take items away from you. If you don't want them to take Iron away, remove the auto-trash setting.

User avatar
SyntaxTerror
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:18 pm
Contact:

Re: Items "disappearing" in trash slots.

Post by SyntaxTerror »

It seems I haven't been clear enough.

I'll try with an example:
  1. I set my main inventory to have 2 slots filtered for red belts (i.e. 200 belts)
  2. I set my auto trash to take every red belt if I have more than 200 in my inventory (so I have 200 red belts on me when I go away from my roboport).
  3. I then pick up 500 red belts produced by one of my assembling machines, the red belts go in my trash slots.
  4. I don't go back near my roboport and I start using my red belts, I am in a spaghetti frenzy so I use the 200 from my filtered slots from my main inventory, but I want more!
  5. The 500 belts in my trash slots dont go in my main inventory and I either have to pick them up manually in my trash slots, or go back to my roboport to have my robots pick them up, put them in some crate, then put them back in my inventory.
I just thought that it would be nice that my trash slots could fill my filtered main inventory slots if they have the items needed (or that the items go in the trash slots only when close to a roboport, so otherwise they would stay in the main inventory, so they would be used before the ones in the filtered slots if needed).

User avatar
valneq
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1150
Joined: Fri Jul 12, 2019 7:43 am
Contact:

Re: Items "disappearing" in trash slots.

Post by valneq »

Alright. Consider this observation:

Whenever you pick up items that exceed the set limits, they are automagically trashed and put into trash slots. This happens irrespective of presence of robots, or filtered inventory slots. However, the only automagic way that items move *out* of the trash slots are logistic robots. So if anything is in the trash slots and you come into roboport range, the bots will take it away.

Logistic robots do *two* things for you: they empy your trash, and they bring items that you set as logistic request.

You said you have 2 slots filtered for red belts, however these filters are no requests, neither for robots or anything else. These filter are more like an "if I happen to have red belts, put them here." If you want to have 200 red belts in your inventory (which you appear to want), you need to set a logistic request for red belts. This can be exactly 200 or even more. The request is entirely independent from your filtered inventory slots.

If you set a request for at least 200 red belts, and trash everything that exceeds 200, when logistic robots come to you, they will pick up the red belts from your trash and first refill your inventory to the set amount – without flying away! If the red belts in your trash are not enough, they will bring more. If you have too many red belts, they will take them to storage.

If you are out of roboport range, you will still be able to manually pick up the belts from logistic trash. As you commented yourself.

Your suggestion appears to force copy filtered inventory slots into logistic requests, which I don't think is a good idea.

Alternatively, your suggestion could be interpreted as adding another way of automagically moving items out of logistic trash: whenever you drop/place down items while having a logistic request set, while it is also in trash, should refill your inventory automagically without presence of bots. This might be more likely to be implemented, but I don't see a big practical difference from the solution I described above.

Post Reply

Return to “Ideas and Suggestions”