Two new logistics chests

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patmo98
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Two new logistics chests

Post by patmo98 »

While I've played Factorio there's always been two logistics features I've been missing:

Passive requester chest:
This chest is used for clearing extra items out of your storage chests without taking from your provider chests.

For example, imagine that you have iron ore in a provider chest, that you want to keep available, for the production of concrete, but you also have an extra 10k iron ore in storage, from deconstructing stuff, or using the character trash slots. This chest will allow me to drain the extra ore from yellow chests into my smelters, but leave the iron ore in my red chests available for concrete


Relay Chest:
This chest acts like a requester chest, combined with a provider chest. It is used for pre-transporting materials to where they might be needed. It can request from provider chests, but other relay chests can't request from it. For instance, if I have a giant base, it might take a long time for repair packs to be transported out to the front lines. To solve this, I could put a relay chest on the front lines and set it to request repair packs and spare wall, that way my construction robots don't need to fly across the entire base and back to get spare parts.

(No, this can't be accomplished with a requester and provider chest connected with an inserter, because they would form a loop instead of actually working.)

Instead of creating a new chest, this could also be done by allowing the storage chest to request items. There would just need to be logic to make sure you don't fill up the "request slots" with junk. So, if my yellow storage chest is requesting 5 stacks of repair kits, and 1 stack of walls it wouldn't be allowed to drop wood or other "trash" into the first 6 slots.

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MeduSalem
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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by MeduSalem »

patmo98 wrote:Passive requester chest:
This chest is used for clearing extra items out of your storage chests without taking from your provider chests.

For example, imagine that you have iron ore in a provider chest, that you want to keep available, for the production of concrete, but you also have an extra 10k iron ore in storage, from deconstructing stuff, or using the character trash slots. This chest will allow me to drain the extra ore from yellow chests into my smelters, but leave the iron ore in my red chests available for concrete
If I remember right the Requester Chests already work this way. Bots already try to empty up Storage Chests first if they can and if there is nothing storage chests then they look for stuff in Provider chests.

patmo98 wrote:Relay Chest:
This chest acts like a requester chest, combined with a provider chest. It is used for pre-transporting materials to where they might be needed. It can request from provider chests, but other relay chests can't request from it. For instance, if I have a giant base, it might take a long time for repair packs to be transported out to the front lines. To solve this, I could put a relay chest on the front lines and set it to request repair packs and spare wall, that way my construction robots don't need to fly across the entire base and back to get spare parts.

(No, this can't be accomplished with a requester and provider chest connected with an inserter, because they would form a loop instead of actually working.)

Instead of creating a new chest, this could also be done by allowing the storage chest to request items. There would just need to be logic to make sure you don't fill up the "request slots" with junk. So, if my yellow storage chest is requesting 5 stacks of repair kits, and 1 stack of walls it wouldn't be allowed to drop wood or other "trash" into the first 6 slots.
The relay chest doesn't sound too bad though. I ran into the case of needing something like that myself already.

If Storage chests could request items and if they would provide filters for stacks then it could work with Storage chests probably instead of adding a new item.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by patmo98 »

MeduSalem wrote:
patmo98 wrote:Passive requester chest:
This chest is used for clearing extra items out of your storage chests without taking from your provider chests.

For example, imagine that you have iron ore in a provider chest, that you want to keep available, for the production of concrete, but you also have an extra 10k iron ore in storage, from deconstructing stuff, or using the character trash slots. This chest will allow me to drain the extra ore from yellow chests into my smelters, but leave the iron ore in my red chests available for concrete
If I remember right the Requester Chests already work this way. Bots already try to empty up Storage Chests first if they can and if there is nothing storage chests then they look for stuff in Provider chests.

You've sort of missed the point. These are requester chests that NEVER take from a supplier (red) chest. These are for emptying stuff (like iron ore) out of your storage chests without touching your supplier chests. If I have a mine that's belting ore to a smelter and keeping a supplier chest full, I don't want to use robots to move the ore. That would just be a waste of robots an power if I already have a belt.

It's like the reverse of an active supplier. It's used to drain from storage chests (and active suppliers I guess) without touching the red chests.

MeduSalem wrote:
patmo98 wrote:Relay Chest:
...
The relay chest doesn't sound too bad though. I ran into the case of needing something like that myself already.

If Storage chests could request items and if they would provide filters for stacks then it could work with Storage chests probably instead of adding a new item.
Agreed. That would obsolete the "relay chest" and be better in every way.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by MeduSalem »

patmo98 wrote:You've sort of missed the point. These are requester chests that NEVER take from a supplier (red) chest. These are for emptying stuff (like iron ore) out of your storage chests without touching your supplier chests. If I have a mine that's belting ore to a smelter and keeping a supplier chest full, I don't want to use robots to move the ore. That would just be a waste of robots an power if I already have a belt.

It's like the reverse of an active supplier. It's used to drain from storage chests (and active suppliers I guess) without touching the red chests.
Ahhh... yes... now I get the idea. :)

Basically a Requester Chest that doesn't accept items from (Passive) Provider Chests.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by patmo98 »

MeduSalem wrote:
patmo98 wrote:You've sort of missed the point. These are requester chests that NEVER take from a supplier (red) chest. These are for emptying stuff (like iron ore) out of your storage chests without touching your supplier chests. If I have a mine that's belting ore to a smelter and keeping a supplier chest full, I don't want to use robots to move the ore. That would just be a waste of robots an power if I already have a belt.

It's like the reverse of an active supplier. It's used to drain from storage chests (and active suppliers I guess) without touching the red chests.
Ahhh... yes... now I get the idea. :)

Basically a Requester Chest that doesn't accept items from (Passive) Provider Chests.
Exactly!

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by ssilk »

I would like such options, but I see a problem with new chests, we would have then 6 different logistic chests. That doesn't make things really easier - especially for beginners this is kind of big hurdle. (Added complexity should be much lower than added gameplay, which is with 4 chests difficult, but with 6 really not the case :) )

I see the need, but the implementation in this way (just adding into the game) is for me a big question. I would like to try that out first, before I can say this will work or not.
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MeduSalem
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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by MeduSalem »

ssilk wrote:I would like such options, but I see a problem with new chests, we would have then 6 different logistic chests. That doesn't make things really easier - especially for beginners this is kind of big hurdle. (Added complexity should be much lower than added gameplay, which is with 4 chests difficult, but with 6 really not the case :) )

I see the need, but the implementation in this way (just adding into the game) is for me a big question. I would like to try that out first, before I can say this will work or not.
That's why I came up with this suggestion over here a few hours ago: viewtopic.php?p=134621

Basically the concept would reduce the amount of chests while increasing the possibilities.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by xale »

I like this idea and was thinking of submitting it here myself. Especially the relay chest. It is also useful when you what to store a specific goods in a specific area. Eg. yellow belts should be upgraded if we have a storage (so the should be stored in a chest by the upgrade assembly). But still if we want to request some yellow belts this should still be possible.

However I've never missed the first type of chest( The passive requester)

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by patmo98 »

ssilk wrote:I would like such options, but I see a problem with new chests, we would have then 6 different logistic chests. That doesn't make things really easier - especially for beginners this is kind of big hurdle. (Added complexity should be much lower than added gameplay, which is with 4 chests difficult, but with 6 really not the case :) )
If your goal is to make things simpler, why not just put it higher up on the research tree? What if it's a new tech that depends on "Logistics System", "Robot Speed +3", and "Robotic construction"? (I'm probably getting the names wrong, but please pretend I got them right)

What I'm suggesting is something that would only be used by massive bases, so getting them later isn't a problem, and by putting them later in the tech tree, it's likely that people will figure out they should start using the more usual ones before they even see these new chests. (Also, if we go with MeduSalem's suggestion, this only adds 1 extra chest, not 2 chests)

Would that address your worry of making things more confusing?

MeduSalem wrote:That's why I came up with this suggestion over here a few hours ago: viewtopic.php?p=134621
I'm not ignoring you, but it's taking me a while to work my way through your post and the implications.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by patmo98 »

xale wrote:However I've never missed the first type of chest( The passive requester)
I never actually found myself missing it until after I started playing Bob's mods. It might be because Bob has a lot of stuff that are bi-products of a reaction that you keep around because you'll need them later.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by bobucles »

Honestly everything the passive requester does, can be done by giving 'logistic slots' on yellow chests. That's all the information the game needs to provide the "middle ground priority" to place items there before using other chests.

Relay actions can be handled by dumping items from a blue chest into a yellow chest.

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Re: Two new logistics chests

Post by Gouada »

+1 for adding filters to storage chests and then reserving those spots so that they may be used as relays. The passive requester chest is interesting but I don't think that we should add new entities to the game unless if there is a very good reason...
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