Yellow Inserters are too slow or red ones too fast in 0.17 ?

[Darkghost]

Hello Factorians, Hello Devs,

I started playing Factorio very intensive again, after a longer break

My main issue is, there is a empty gap between yellow and blue inserters:

The most lvl 1 Assembling recipes are produced within 1 sec. ( 0,5 x 0,5 ). However, the yellow inserters can't handle this, they are a bit too slow.
- The Blue insertsers need to much Energy for this job and cost to much. The speed is not needed.
- Building 2 yellow insters is not always possible and is wasting space & ressources.

It turns out, that a Long handed inserter has exactly the right speed, a fair energy consumption, and the resources cost/production effort is also cheap/fair. However, they are not useful in many situations or waste of space. So they don't are a solution.

In addtion, i think its wrong that the Long handed inserter have a speed bonus in addtion to the increased range (in comparison to the low production effort and low energy consumption. ) This makes no sense in comaprison to yellow inserters.

There are two/three possible solutions for this in my opinion.

- Buff the yellow inserter speed, so that it can handle lvl 1 assemblies or add a Red/Green Science research which gives this buff.
or
- Add a new inserter, which has the ressource and energy costs of the red one and increase the costs of the red one a bit.


If this issue is intented to increase the complexity of the Game, please let me know this. Otherwise it would make no sense.

Note:

For a new player or someone coming back, it would be very helpful if there is a speed indication for respective inserters in the Game.
I know that the calculation seem very complex https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters .
However, a rounded / the worst value indication in my opinion would be enough.

Cheers!

[BlueTemplar]

If you're interested in this, you should *really* try bob's mods - in particular Bob's Adjustable Inserters and Bob's Logistics !
https://mods.factorio.com/user/Bobingabout

[torne]

For a new player or someone coming back, it would be very helpful if there is a speed indication for respective inserters in the Game.
I know that the calculation seem very complex https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters .
However, a rounded / the worst value indication in my opinion would be enough.

There's a lot of variables and simplifying it to one value seems likely to be more confusing than it is helpful - since even for a single type of inserter with full power it depends on the speed and direction of the belt, which lanes of the belt are being used, how full/compressed the belt is, whether it's an underground entrance, exit, or splitter...

It's this complex because the inserters actually animate to pick up the item from its real position on the screen, rather than just swinging back and forth in a predetermined time, and have their speed defined in terms of the different parts of the animation. The worst case for some combinations is even zero: there's a few cases where the inserter will never succeed in picking up anything at all.

[Zavian]

The most lvl 1 Assembling recipes are produced within 1 sec. ( 0,5 x 0,5 ). However, the yellow inserters can't handle this, they are a bit too slow.
- The Blue insertsers need to much Energy for this job and cost to much. The speed is not needed.
- Building 2 yellow insters is not always possible and is wasting space & ressources.

It turns out, that a Long handed inserter has exactly the right speed, a fair energy consumption, and the resources cost/production effort is also cheap/fair. However, they are not useful in many situations or waste of space. So they don't are a solution.

Red inserters are slightly faster than yellow inserters. They also cost more than yellow inserters. Personally I think this is fine. Once you get to recipes that take 3 or 4 resources, then there are plenty of builds that need the extra reach of red inserters.

I think your analysis is oversimplified. Firstly whilst many of the early recipes take 0.5 seconds, there are plenty of other recipes that take longer. eg red circuits take 6 seconds of craft time, which in a blue assembler takes 8 seconds. Yellow inserters are fine for early game smelting and things like red circuits, engines, many science builds etc. For the recipes which do take 0.5 seconds, then a single red inserter is fast enough for a level one assembler, but it isn't fast enough for a level 2 (blue) assembler. Indeed for something like iron for a gear assembler or output of wire from a copper wire assembler, even a single fast (blue) inserter isn't fast enough to keep up with a blue assembler (at least until you research Inserter capacity bonus 2).

I think your maths ignores the fact that whilst blue inserters use more energy whilst swinging, they also complete the swing faster, and hence spend more time idle, for the same items per second. This effectively means that they need less power than a cursory reading of the stats suggest. Yellow inserters also can't keep up with items moving at full speed on express belts, and sometimes have trouble picking up from red belts, if they are attempting to pick up from an underground entrance or curve. You ignore inserter stack bonus, (Inserter capacity bonus 2 is only red + green science, so it is something I might research whilst getting oil + blue science setup). Overall there is a ton of complexity and subtleties which you seem to gloss over or ignore.

[BlueTemplar]

IIRC faster (non-stacking?) inserters still consume more energy per item, but not dramatically so.

[leadraven]

The most lvl 1 Assembling recipes are produced within 1 sec. ( 0,5 x 0,5 ). However, the yellow inserters can't handle this, they are a bit too slow.

It's a very good point. Basic assembler, basic recipe, basic inserter. I think yellow inserter must handle this demand.
+1 to buff yellow inserter up to red's meters.

[Vaaz]

This is really only a problem really early, once you get the inserter +1 bonus(only takes some red/green) they can keep up with most basic tasks.