set demand in percentage for player logistic slots

[nosports]

TL;DR

set logistic-request automatically to a certain percentage of a stack

What ?

when choosing what to automatically fetched to the player via logistic slot there should be a certain percentage of the full stack requested.
my idea is a slider at the bottom of the logistic slots 0-100%, set by default to 80%, so that the player can choose a full stack or just the percentage of the slot(s)

Why ?

as i recently got more into the logistic network i tried out the player logistic slots.
I find them nice because you get automatic delivery of the items instead of fetching them by yourself.
Only problem appear if i (test)-build anything with the requested items the network will get into highgear to deliver the items.
This will lead to two problems :
* if i breakdown after some altercations or saving the blueprint for later use i am stuck with some excess items which will fill my inventory
* the network sometimes will lack the possibility to store the excess items

so if i construct with 2 assemblers of a stack out of 50 set to 80% the network should not deliver new items

(i know you can set the exact number on the slots, but its somewhat tedious for a little hysteresis which i think is natural for such cases. )

i think its a very usefull feat and i feel it should be easily done by such a high-tech network

[Trebor]

The current slider at the bottom let’s me select 10 stacks. Are you suggesting changing its range or adding another slider?

[nosports]

The current slider at the bottom let’s me select 10 stacks. Are you suggesting changing its range or adding another slider?

Yes i am aware of that, but you need do this for every item then....
I want a automated setting instead of setting every item for each item.

I want somethink like if it falls below the (80%) threshbold then it will be filled up then....

currently if you take one item out of your storage the bots will fly...

[Trebor]

If a stack is 100 and you set it to 80% as soon as you use one the bots will still fly. Or do you want a min and max slider? Fetch when below min then fill to max?

[nosports]

If a stack is 100 and you set it to 80% as soon as you use one the bots will still fly. Or do you want a min and max slider? Fetch when below min then fill to max?

No it should be filled to the 80%, because if i have 85 items of a stack (of 100), i can place down up to 5 before triggering the bots.
If i now place down 6 items one bot will be triggered and flying, but if i dig the items later up again, the one bot is still on the way to delivering one item, but all the items will at last count up to 86 so still fits into a slot with 100 items.....

[Darinth]

Okay, I think I understand what you're asking for and why you're asking for it. You want what you consider an easier way to make sure you've always got a bit of a storage buffer to pick items back up.

I'll be honest, my thoughts are that this is a nightmare. Now I have to memorize the stack counts on all of the items in the game in order to be able to make precise requests. If you want to leave a bit of a buffer in your inventory for items, leave a bit of a buffer by reducing the request amounts numerically. There's just no good reason to switch from the requests being an exact item quantity to a percentage of stacks.

[nosports]

There's just no good reason to switch from the requests being an exact item quantity to a percentage of stacks.

If the standart slider position is 100% so there is no change for thouse how want always a full slot......
If you want more of one slot-amount you can move the slider to more than 100%....

So i think this will not break anything for now, but will add improvement because you don't need to check into for every slot if you want a number different from one slot

[JimBarracus]

+100
this needs to exist for every request
its like the waiter comes running to you when yoe had one sip of your drink and he instantly gives you a refill

another thing:
set stack size to 1 when setting up a request
because bots start to deliver stuff instantly and you end up with a stack of red chips even though you only wanted to have 10 in the chest
especially annoying when you're tight on resources.

[Koub]

set stack size to 1 when setting up a request

Options > Interface > Set logistic request count to 1 instead of stack size.

[Darinth]

I'm worried that there's a language barrier that is simply preventing me from understanding the reason behind the request.

Right now, if I need 50 iron plates I tell the logistics system to get me 50 iron plates. All is well.

If the system is changed, I'd now have to memorize the stack size of every item in order to make requests. So if I want 50 iron plates I'd have to make a request for 25% of a stack(I'm pretty sure iron plates stack to 200, but I've not been playing for a few months... so my memory may be faulty)

How is this an improvement? I'd much prefer to just request the 50 iron plates I need then have to convert that over into a percentage of a stack every time.

[Koub]

I'd prefer a merge of "logistic trash" and "logistic requests" and an integration of this "logistic" panel as a tab in the crafting window (the right part of what appears when you hit 'E'). I'd call caption the tab "Auto supply/trash".
I'd see this tab show you every item you have discovered the technology (as it is currently for crafting). For each item, you could choose not to give any logistics directives, or set a minimum and/or maximum number you want to carry.

No need to praise my photoshop paint skillz, I'm aware I'm naturally gifted

quick and dirty mockup

Factorio - Logistic request-trash suggestion.jpg (129.29 KiB) Viewed 3962 times

[JimBarracus]

I'm worried that there's a language barrier that is simply preventing me from understanding the reason behind the request.

Right now, if I need 50 iron plates I tell the logistics system to get me 50 iron plates. All is well.

If the system is changed, I'd now have to memorize the stack size of every item in order to make requests. So if I want 50 iron plates I'd have to make a request for 25% of a stack(I'm pretty sure iron plates stack to 200, but I've not been playing for a few months... so my memory may be faulty)

How is this an improvement? I'd much prefer to just request the 50 iron plates I need then have to convert that over into a percentage of a stack every time.

The 80% are the trigger to restart the delivery of the item.
you have ordered 50 plates
you get 50 plates
you handcraft some stuff and use 6 plates, 44 left
no new delivery
you use 6 more plates, 38 left
bots fly out and refill your ordered material back to 50.

If you change the value to 50%, resupply begins when you have less than 25 plates (50% of the ordered amount)

the point is not having to react on every tiny change of your ordered items

[Darinth]

I'm worried that there's a language barrier that is simply preventing me from understanding the reason behind the request.

Right now, if I need 50 iron plates I tell the logistics system to get me 50 iron plates. All is well.

If the system is changed, I'd now have to memorize the stack size of every item in order to make requests. So if I want 50 iron plates I'd have to make a request for 25% of a stack(I'm pretty sure iron plates stack to 200, but I've not been playing for a few months... so my memory may be faulty)

How is this an improvement? I'd much prefer to just request the 50 iron plates I need then have to convert that over into a percentage of a stack every time.

The 80% are the trigger to restart the delivery of the item.
you have ordered 50 plates
you get 50 plates
you handcraft some stuff and use 6 plates, 44 left
no new delivery
you use 6 more plates, 38 left
bots fly out and refill your ordered material back to 50.

If you change the value to 50%, resupply begins when you have less than 25 plates (50% of the ordered amount)

the point is not having to react on every tiny change of your ordered items

Even though I disagree, that at least makes the request make sense. I'd rather my factory always react and make sure smaller requests are fullfilled, generally factories are more able to respond to many small requests over time than they are to a single massive request. If there are concerns over the factory having sufficient storage for items 'sent back', build a few more storage chests or maybe figure out what you've got such a massive amount of gumming up your existing storage chests. I'm not inherently opposed to this as an available option, but I wouldn't even want it turned on by default and I honestly don't think this is worth the development time.

[Avezo]

Wouldn't this be a much more useful in this case?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47645&p=373863&hili ... er#p274785
Or this:
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=60463&start=40#p363411

[fessoric]

In programming, this is often referred to as high water mark and low water mark. Commonly found in buffers and the like, which makes sense because the logistic request system is basically a buffer system.

The bots already do something similar to this, but not controllable, and not on a large scale. The requests act as the low water marks: If you have a request for 100 iron plates and use one of them, your bots may deliver between 1 and 4 plates to you.

Having an implicit low water mark at 80% would probably make the bots behave much more politely for most players under most circumstances, even without adding an addition GUI element. There are certainly use-cases where the user would find it desirable to be able to fine tune it too.

But there is a foreseeable complication. Adding memory to the logistic requests would complicate things for the programmers considerably. Adding a 1-bit flag per logistic request wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would need to be checked and updated pretty often - every time the logistic system fired or an item entered or left your inventory.

Say that you have a request for 10x Speed Module 3, with the low water mark at 8. You have seven in hand, and your factory is producing them every couple of minutes. What happens in this hypothetical example when the 8th module is delivered and there are none more available for pickup? If the logistic system has memory, it knows that it is in the "fill" half of the cycle, so it keeps the request open until it hits 10. But without memory, the logistic system sees that the low water mark has been satisfied and it stops, so if you actually wanted 10 of the modules, which are not in inventory but must be claimed from future production, you should have asked for 13 of them.