Consume chests from the end

[bonob]

Hopefully it hasn't been suggested already.

It's a very simple suggestion, it would be convenient if inserters consume chests from the end rather than the beginning.
The use case is that I try to balance the goods between several aligned chests, typically to load a wagon or to feed the ore belt from the train station.
To try to achieve this balance, I forbid part of the first chests, so that the following chests will get some goods.

For loading wagons, it's ok to wait until the first chests are full, it will balance by itself in the end. Although if you want to maximize the throughput without overcapacity from the miners, it is useful to restrict the first chests.

For feeding an express belt from a series of chests, it's definitely useful. E.g. I have 8 or 10 chests that get ore from bots at the train station, and unload on the belt to the smelters. The overall capacity is limited through circuits going to the mining outpost. The problem is that the chests closer to the smelting area will fill faster, because when the belt is full they cannot unload. So the overall capacity is reached when these mostly inactive chests are full, and the chests that are really active are almost empty. So I limit the available slots of the less active chests, it balances better, so far so good.

The problem is that just limiting the available slots is not enough, because only the first slots will be filled and emptied then, and the rest just sits there forever. So I also have to move the extra goods by hand before I get a proper balance.

If the inserters would consume from the end (including the red slots) then I'd just have to set the limit, wait, and see if I got it right.

[ssilk]

Well, I exactly know what you mean. I tried hours and hours to make balanced train stations. No way!

But ok, this idea might work. Or not. I'm not so sure. I every case I think: wtf, you are sitting there and try to balance the loading of wagons. Why? When I play, I try to feed so many items into the chests, that I'm lucky, that the train can carry all. And at some point the mines are depleted and everything changes.
Just don't understand it.

Well, eventually a tip:
The only way, and at the same time by far the best way to handle train stations, is by logistic bots. They are really made for that job!

This is how it works: the logistic area for the train station should be separated from the rest. Dependent on if you load or unload I place active provider or requesters chests. And many storage chests, very much. Then some roboports and about 100 logistic bots.
The input or output to this logistic area is by belts:

Input: smart inserters take from the belt into the active provider chest only, if there are not too much of that items in the train station logistic network (side comment: the maximum of 20,000 items is in my eyes much too low).

The input from a far outpost is just to take up every item in. I don't sort anything.

Output: Requester chests requests as much as possible of one item and blue inserters place them on the belts. The belt goes of course in some other logistic network where smart inserter take from that belt, if too less items are in.

This works of course only for low advanced items, I think maximum is electric circuits...

Well, not very good explained. You can lookup to the factory mentioned in this bug: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 845#p25845

[Garm]

You can balance train stations without bots, it will be ugly however. Using splitters it is possible to segment incoming material into even chunks and fill chests that way.

It is possible to have 1 belt per chest but it would take tremendous amount of space to pull off. Better to stay somewhere in the middle - 4 chests per belt + limitations on chests. In case of trains the normal amount of chests per wagon is 10 (5 on each side) assuming you wish to fill entire wagon at max time (10 fast inserters take ~9 seconds) you would need 4 slots open per chest.

[ssilk]

A well, yes, I forgot that, because building up that is really hard.

This is btw. not possible for unloading: I really found no way to create balanced output for every possible case. In general, if there is some jam, the whole system gets unbalanced.

[Garm]

Thats why 1st thing you do at unloading station is get it to some decent storage first ask questions later. With roboports it is much easier, but without I would go for a ton of express belts, preferrably long (extra buffer) and in many cases with double or triple intake (in case of a clog)

Current design

This is my current design. Notice that I have 6 independent express belts ( actually there is design with 7 - last one is split and then merges with other 6 in order to saturate them all). This is specifically to get rid of major influx of material. After that it goes right away to preliminary storage where it is unloaded asap (all 6 belts 8 inserters per belt = 48 inserters total) and then stored and slowly shipped to main storage (2 express belts)

Note that this design is made for 1 item alone.



Can I do that without roboports? yeah but not with 8 train stations being so close.

[rampelstinskin]

Balanced loading station not a problem.
Only problem with unloading station is inserters at center of wagon works much faster then inserters at ends.
Because of this chests at center of wagon receive more items than chests at ends.

[ssilk]

I doubt that.

[rampelstinskin]

I did some testing.
I feed output of unloading station to loading station.
And found some strange behavior. Loading inserters work with different speed and faster than unloading. Unloading inserters work with same speed.
Anyway my stations do almost perfect balancing and it good enough for trains.
Main problem huge difference in inserters speed when they unload wagon.

And if you don't mind abuse game mechanics you can use wagons for loading/unloading buffers. This way imbalance impossible because all inserters will work with same inventory.

[Garm]

Can you post a screenshot? I am getting lost of what exactly causing the slowdown. Are you by chance unload directly to the belt from the train?

[ssilk]

I did some testing.
I feed output of unloading station to loading station.

I'm not sure about it and maybe it's a bug:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=4046