Prototype property to stop inserters from "chasing" items

[Bilka]

Example of the chasing behaviours: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=61345

I want to be able to turn this off on a prototype basis.

[eradicator]

What would be the alternative? "take-only-from-near/far-lane"?

[lovely_santa]

Well, wouldn't that belt start to backup eventualy? if you're in a loop, the belt will get new items and the chasing stops, when there is no loop, the belt will start backing up from the end... I don't see the issue here except that another assembling machine down the line will work instead...

[Rseding91]

Well, wouldn't that belt start to backup eventualy? if you're in a loop, the belt will get new items and the chasing stops, when there is no loop, the belt will start backing up from the end... I don't see the issue here except that another assembling machine down the line will work instead...

It's a performance thing mostly. The cost to chase the item is very expensive.

[lovely_santa]

Well, wouldn't that belt start to backup eventualy? if you're in a loop, the belt will get new items and the chasing stops, when there is no loop, the belt will start backing up from the end... I don't see the issue here except that another assembling machine down the line will work instead...

It's a performance thing mostly. The cost to chase the item is very expensive.

I would say this is a bug then, but i like the idea of beiing able to select only one side of the belt, like eradicator said. Would even be a nice addition to the base game?

[Rseding91]

Well, wouldn't that belt start to backup eventualy? if you're in a loop, the belt will get new items and the chasing stops, when there is no loop, the belt will start backing up from the end... I don't see the issue here except that another assembling machine down the line will work instead...

It's a performance thing mostly. The cost to chase the item is very expensive.

I would say this is a bug then, but i like the idea of beiing able to select only one side of the belt, like eradicator said. Would even be a nice addition to the base game?

What? How would that be a bug? A bug is some bit of logic not working how it was designed to work. The inserter is working exactly as it was designed to work (chasing the items).

[lovely_santa]

Well, wouldn't that belt start to backup eventualy? if you're in a loop, the belt will get new items and the chasing stops, when there is no loop, the belt will start backing up from the end... I don't see the issue here except that another assembling machine down the line will work instead...

It's a performance thing mostly. The cost to chase the item is very expensive.

I would say this is a bug then, but i like the idea of beiing able to select only one side of the belt, like eradicator said. Would even be a nice addition to the base game?

What? How would that be a bug?

The chasing? the stack inserter/fast inserter not fast enough to pick from a blue belt? I would've guessed the fastest inserter beiing fast enough to handle the fastest belt? (vanilla speaking, there are mods to solve this like express inserters from bobs mod)

[eradicator]

The chasing? the stack inserter/fast inserter not fast enough to pick from a blue belt? I would've guessed the fastest inserter beiing fast enough to handle the fastest belt? (vanilla speaking, there are mods to solve this like express inserters from bobs mod)

If you watch the gif linked in the OP again you'll notice that the inserter to the left picks items with similar distance up just fine. It's just the middle one that somehow managed to get a very peculiar timing that just so happens to be ever-so-slightly too fast for the inserter because the items are in a perfect zick-zack on the belt. Similar things happen when you try to grab items from the inner (shorter) lane of a curved belt. It's not a bug, just meh timing.

[bobingabout]

Well, the inserter was already holding an item, but never dropping it in the machine because of chasing the zigzagging items on the belt.

There are a couple of solutions I have in mind to this specific issue...

1. I know inserters holding items do have a time-out if no other item comes by, perhaps a solution would be to also have a time out if holding an item, but failing to pick up another through chasing

2. Probably a better solution... just, increase the inserter's lateral movement(Extension) speed, but not rotation, that way it can quickly jump to the other lane of a belt to grab the item, without really effecting the items moved per second.

[Aeternus]

Or just increase the "collisionbox" size from where it can immediately grab an item, so it doesn't need to chase at all. Item magnetism/vacuuming of sorts. Make those inserters suck... in a good way
This would also make stack inserters run much quicker when grabbing stuff from a fast belt and make slower inserters be able to grab from a fast belt at all, helping with the bot/belt bias a little, and be more UPS friendly since the inserter would be moving less of the time.

[Bilka]

Or just stop arguing about this and let Rseding implement exactly what I want, since he knows what I want :P

[eradicator]

Or just stop arguing about this and let Rseding implement exactly what I want, since he knows what I want :P

Bleh. I was 99% sure this was just another "as per discussed on discord"-type request. But forgot to ask in the first post.
Please mark these accordingly in the future.

[raiguard]

I would like to add my +1 to this. I am creating an entity that will act similar to Creative Mode's matter source/void, the difference being that mine will use inserters with an infinity chest instead of control scripting. The inserters are (usually) invisible and move extremely quickly.

Because inserters can "chase" items, this means that they don't always pick up items at the location you specify. In this GIF, the green dot indicates the pickup position, the teal dot the drop position, and the tall skinny red box is the chest:

input loader exposed.gif (261.52 KiB) Viewed 8597 times

As you can see, not only does it not obey the pickup position, but it actually prefers the wrong side of the belt entirely! The functionality of my entity depends on being able to pick up from a specific side of the belt, and that can't be done without being able to disable the "chasing". The reason for this is I want to be able to set filters for each side of the belt specifically. For outputting onto a belt, this works fine, but it doesn't work for taking items from a belt.

So it's my hope that this can be added. Thanks!

[Optera]

I would like to add my +1 to this. I am creating an entity that will act similar to Creative Mode's matter source/void, the difference being that mine will use inserters with an infinity chest instead of control scripting. The inserters are (usually) invisible and move extremely quickly.

Because inserters can "chase" items, this means that they don't always pick up items at the location you specify. In this GIF, the green dot indicates the pickup position, the teal dot the drop position, and the tall skinny red box is the chest:

input loader exposed.gif

As you can see, not only does it not obey the pickup position, but it actually prefers the wrong side of the belt entirely! The functionality of my entity depends on being able to pick up from a specific side of the belt, and that can't be done without being able to disable the "chasing". The reason for this is I want to be able to set filters for each side of the belt specifically. For outputting onto a belt, this works fine, but it doesn't work for taking items from a belt.

So it's my hope that this can be added. Thanks!

Hasn't Therax solved this issue in Miniloader, or did he use a workaround?

[raiguard]

Hasn't Therax solved this issue in Miniloader, or did he use a workaround?

No, he hasn't. Inserters can place onto a specific side of a belt just fine, but when you have an input miniloader, they'll jump around just as much as mine do. It's just not noticable because miniloaders don't use per-side filtering (yet).

[Optera]

Hasn't Therax solved this issue in Miniloader, or did he use a workaround?

No, he hasn't. Inserters can place onto a specific side of a belt just fine, but when you have an input miniloader, they'll jump around just as much as mine do. It's just not noticable because miniloaders don't use per-side filtering (yet).

I see, then turning off inserter lane switching and chasing would really help you both implement these features without resorting to performance killing per line scripting.

[raiguard]

I see, then turning off inserter lane switching and chasing would really help you both implement these features without resorting to performance killing per line scripting.

Yes, precisely! It would be an enormous help.

[Therax]

I see, then turning off inserter lane switching and chasing would really help you both implement these features without resorting to performance killing per line scripting.

Yes, precisely! It would be an enormous help.

Created a new thread to track this, since it seems separate from whatever Bilka was referring to.