outserter priority

[Bleda]

when you have several inserters taking items from an assembler, which inserter has priority? does anyone know about this? to me it seems like there's no real logic behind it. sometimes one inserter gets all the items and the others wait forever.

my suggestion: when there are more than one inserters waiting for items from the same building, the inserter with the longest idle time is prioritized. this way the items are evenly distributed.

[ssilk]

With my experiments, the last inserter you place has the highest priority. And I like that, cause when you do such stuff you wont have an even distribution. You want for example deliver the next assembly, but only, if that doesn't need anything you want to put it into a chest with a simple stack-limit. You can make very cool constructs without the need of smart inserter like so.

[Teurlinx]

With my experiments, the last inserter you place has the highest priority. And I like that, cause when you do such stuff you wont have an even distribution. You want for example deliver the next assembly, but only, if that doesn't need anything you want to put it into a chest with a simple stack-limit. You can make very cool constructs without the need of smart inserter like so.

The problem is that this behaviour isn't transparent. It would be cool if this was somehow visible in-game, perhaps give the active ejector a green light and the other ones yellow for stand-by? Undocumented features without any in-game UI should be kept to the minimum imho. It's not going to be helpful for 95% of the players.

A good way to allow the player to change the default behaviour would be using the green / red wires.

[ssilk]

I think this is something like, that the left splitter input has higher priority, or that an inserter inserts on the far belt-side and those things come not from any "intent", but just from the underlying physic-simulation. And is somehow logical, if you know, how the simulation works.

Those thinks just needs to be known, it's just the same then left- and right-turning lactic-acid: One can be used for food, the other not.

[Teurlinx]

I think this is something like, that the left splitter input has higher priority, or that an inserter inserts on the far belt-side and those things come not from any "intent", but just from the underlying physic-simulation. And is somehow logical, if you know, how the simulation works.

Those thinks just needs to be known, it's just the same then left- and right-turning lactic-acid: One can be used for food, the other not.

And that is not logical to most people. Add a little visual indication so it is at least visible on closer inspection - hey those pretty lights actually mean something, cool - rather than expect players to know all the unwritten rules. And frankly there are a lot of unwritten rules, the game is already complex enough without making it artificially difficult. Exploration aspects do not mean, explore how the developers coded something.

[Khyron]

With regard to OP's solution, what that does is replace one set of behaviour with another which is different but not necessarily better.

I'm with ssilk on this one - the current behaviour is useful and I use it in varying ways. If I have a problem where I want to evenly split the output of one factory I can output everything to a belt and run it through a splitter. There are other ways too. That's a core part of the of this game - the design challenge. If my item pathing and output/input complexity reaches a certain point, I'll go upstream and redesign. For example, another way I might handle the case in question is by assigning two dedicated assembly machines. Whether I want them operating 100% of the time is another matter.

There's a parallel with logic circuits - you get four gates with which to design everything.

In my experience, splitting the output is really only desirable on some intermediate products like iron gear wheels. Since most intermediate products take 0.5 seconds to manufacture you can use a pair of yellow inserters (operating at 1 item / sec) outputting to two belts. For other situations you can use different solutions. Finding the right solution for the task at hand is what this game is all about. Finding elegant solutions from the limited set of widgets at your disposal is hugely rewarding. Less rewarding is the introduction of new widgets that magically solve some particular situation... (I'm thinking of the hoppers thread )

@Teurlinx
A lot of Factorio's gameplay is observational. We place things and figure out how they work. Now put in context the thing we're talking about is someone reaching a relatively advanced stage where they decide, from their own creative thinking, that adding a second inserter to take items from a factory might be a solution to some particular configuration they have. By this stage they should be well comfortable with the process of trial and error, observation and discovery. Now, more broadly I'm with you: undocumented features are often problems for games. But in this case and in this game I think it's not a shortcoming.

[Bleda]

Ok, I understand that the current behavior can also be really useful, if you want to put the overflow in a chest or something like that. what about a behavior like I described it, but add a "priority" option for smart inserters?

about outputting things on a belt first and then splitting them: I have built setups where for example one circuit assembly feeds up to five different assemblies directly. Of course, you can say, well, design differently. however, I find this solution much more beautiful, than having everything put on a belt and then splitted four times. but that's a meaningless discussion, I guess. I just think that an evenly distribution is what I would expect, while the last placed inserter having priority looks like accidental behavior, which it probably is.

The same goes for the fact that the splitter prefers left and that items inserted to a belt from the top snap to the left side. there's no logic behind it, and if you use it in a blueprint and rotate it, the design can break. the same goes for this. what if you copy the whole thing and the robots place the inserters in a different order?

[ssilk]

And that is not logical to most people. Add a little visual indication so it is at least visible on closer inspection - hey those pretty lights actually mean something, cool - rather than expect players to know all the unwritten rules. And frankly there are a lot of unwritten rules, the game is already complex enough without making it artificially difficult. Exploration aspects do not mean, explore how the developers coded something.

You're right. But not so much as you think and most "rules" are quite logical. For example this: There is the simple question, if you place to inserter for output what is the first. I mean, there must be a first and then a second, they cannot take it at the same time. So I would say, the answer is quite logical.

I think this "visibility" is something, which should be considered when polishing the game. Perhaps a lamp on it which tells "I'm ready and will be next", so when you place a second you see the lamp now on that inserter more, than on the first.

I mean for now we need to have it working, visibility not needed yet.