Belt buffer device

[Engimage]

As an alternative solution for belt loading/unloading problems I would like to suggest a new device.
This would be an 1x2 device like this

Belt buffer.jpg (3.12 KiB) Viewed 5927 times

In the settings of this item you can set a certain amount of items you want buffered inside it. It will fill its buffer from input and will let everything extra be unloaded to its output.

The main feature is that inserters should be able to interact with it like it is a chest. So you can tell this device to buffer say 10 units of certain item to be loaded by stack inserter into the machine as needed.
On the opposite you can offload items into this machine and it will unload everything in it that is higher than set buffer onto a belt making it an exellent belt compressing machine for end products.
If no filters are set it will accept any items from inserter immediately offloading them on the belt backing up its input if needed.

I think that you could add one filter slot per lane with a count slider/edit box each. Similat to matter source in Creative Mode but with numbers.

[xng]

+1

[Rockstar04]

This idea is really similar to the loaders https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-128. They decided against the idea, but left the mechanics in the core game for mods to enable.

[Engimage]

This idea is really similar to the loaders https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-128. They decided against the idea, but left the mechanics in the core game for mods to enable.

It is not quite like it as you will still need an inserter to do the loading/unloading. It only handles belt interaction.

[rldml]

-1

There is no need for a separate buffer, you can build highly advanced ones with the items vanilla has by default.

Examples:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6667
http://kovarex.com/wiki/index.php?title ... on_buffers
https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questi ... rom-a-belt

there's much more out there...

Greetings, Ronny

[xng]

-1

There is no need for a separate buffer, you can build highly advanced ones with the items vanilla has by default.

Examples:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6667
http://kovarex.com/wiki/index.php?title ... on_buffers
https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questi ... rom-a-belt

there's much more out there...

Greetings, Ronny

I am pretty sure you missed the whole point and based your text on just the word buffer.

[rldml]

I am pretty sure you missed the whole point and based your text on just the word buffer.

I cannot deny this, what's the sense of this device? In which situations does it help me to make my factorio more efficient what cannot already be done with stack inserters and chests in vanilla?

If you have to insert more items to a assembler in a short amount of time, you can just place two or three stack inserters (max. 24 or max. 36 items per swing, instead of 12). The blue belt gives you max. 40 items per second, so i just don't see a problem here.

The only advantage i can see, is that your factory looks a little more "smooth"

[xng]

I am pretty sure you missed the whole point and based your text on just the word buffer.

I cannot deny this, what's the sense of this device? In which situations does it help me to make my factorio more efficient what cannot already be done with stack inserters and chests in vanilla?

If you have to insert more items to a assembler in a short amount of time, you can just place two or three stack inserters (max. 24 or max. 36 items per swing, instead of 12). The blue belt gives you max. 40 items per second, so i just don't see a problem here.

The only advantage i can see, is that your factory looks a little more "smooth"

The OP is probably better equipped at answering this, but as I understand it, it is to help to compress belt without deoptimizing the entire belt/underground/splitter optimizations again. The buffering is just an implementation detail in how it possibly could be implemented. This could for example be placed at the end of smelting output lanes to enable compressed belts and there wouldn't need be any additional changes to belts or inserters.

The idea might come from the fact that loaders can compress any belt, and undergrounds basically worked like a combined tiered loader and chest (for belt and inserters only, not assembly machines) in 0.15.

[Engimage]

I am pretty sure you missed the whole point and based your text on just the word buffer.

I cannot deny this, what's the sense of this device? In which situations does it help me to make my factorio more efficient what cannot already be done with stack inserters and chests in vanilla?

If you have to insert more items to a assembler in a short amount of time, you can just place two or three stack inserters (max. 24 or max. 36 items per swing, instead of 12). The blue belt gives you max. 40 items per second, so i just don't see a problem here.

The only advantage i can see, is that your factory looks a little more "smooth"

This device's main purpose is UNLOADING. It will accept stacks of items from inserters and will spill them on the belt while backing up its input. This is a solution to currently exposed belt compression issues caused by fixing underground belt compression. This one would be used for inline compression.

As for buffering items the idea came up directly from reverse engineering previous idea. If the machine can hold a stack of items to spill them on a belt why can't it fill the same buffer from its input for inserter to take them from? And inserter would benefit from the speed of taking from a container.

[rldml]

This device's main purpose is UNLOADING. It will accept stacks of items from inserters and will spill them on the belt while backing up its input. This is a solution to currently exposed belt compression issues caused by fixing underground belt compression. This one would be used for inline compression.

Ok, perhaps i'm to dumb or my english knowledge are that bad. I don't know.

Let's assume you have standard belt, what is filled with items of a sum of assemblies with inserters. What you want is a device, that does the same thing that, what underground belts done until 0.16, right?

As for buffering items the idea came up directly from reverse engineering previous idea. If the machine can hold a stack of items to spill them on a belt why can't it fill the same buffer from its input for inserter to take them from? And inserter would benefit from the speed of taking from a container.

If i get this idea the right way, the buffering option is an addition to the compress functionality you desire, right?

If you split both up, i can somewhat agree with the first point.

Greetings, Ronny

[Caine]

So essentially it would be a chest, an unloader and a circuit condition. Sounds like an idea for a mod, but I don't think it really adds to vanilla.

I think it is a good idea to give the community some time to adapt to the loss of compression tricks before rushing out all kinds of specific solutions for it.

[Klonan]

I had a similar idea on the weekend, and I made a mod:
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Klonan/belt_buffer

[steinio]

I had a similar idea on the weekend, and I made a mod:
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Klonan/belt_buffer

Omg I love it.

[Engimage]

I had a similar idea on the weekend, and I made a mod:
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Klonan/belt_buffer

Great minds think alike
Nice mod
It also serves as lane balancer
I wonder if you implemented filter for each lane It would let you control which lane to unload specific items to (via inserters) as now it just spills everything to both lanes.
If you had a filer per lane (output) than it would also serve as a perfect sorter but this would probably be totally OP