Dynamic Stack Sizes - an alternative to Even Distribution

[thereaverofdarkness]

I noticed that several players don't appreciate the Even Distribution mod. It's very useful in the early game when you're trying to put coal into all of your furnaces and burner mining drills but you don't have enough coal to put a half stack into each. It's useful even longer when you have larger stack sizes. Any time you want to put an even amount of items into several units, and that amount is not a half or full stack, Even Distribution can help. But some people don't like the way to forces you out of the default functionality.

So here is my alternative proposal: Dynamic Stack Sizes. Your stack sizes would change as you go through stages of the game, or you could edit them on the fly. I don't know if this is possible to implement, but it could be a very nice mod. Here I will propose some milestones for stack size upgrades:

Start: coal/wood stack size 20
After harvesting a total of 250 coal/wood: stack size 50
After harvesting 1000: stack size 100
- - - - -
for those who have a higher maximum stack size:
After harvesting 10,000: stack size 250
After harvesting 100,000: stack size 500
After harvesting 1,000,000: stack size 1000

[Cribbit]

I think part of the issue will be changing stack size would also change stack size in the machines. I want to put 50 coal in something to run for a long time, while also being able to put 5 coal in something to run for a little bit of time.

What I've always wanted was something like shift + number + click to drop that amt * 10 in, right click to drop * 5 the number. That gives you 5-50 easily accessible on the fly.

[thereaverofdarkness]

What I've always wanted was something like shift + number + click to drop that amt * 10 in, right click to drop * 5 the number. That gives you 5-50 easily accessible on the fly.

Howabout shift + number + lclick to drop 1 * number (1-10), or shift + rclick to drop 10 * number (10-100).
I imagine the way you'd perform this feat (without being any sort of contortionist) is as follows:
* hold left shift down
* press a number and release it
* click and hold either mouse button, drag mouse across a line of entities
* alternatively click mouse on each entity

[Cribbit]

What I've always wanted was something like shift + number + click to drop that amt * 10 in, right click to drop * 5 the number. That gives you 5-50 easily accessible on the fly.

Howabout shift + number + lclick to drop 1 * number (1-10), or shift + rclick to drop 10 * number (10-100).
I imagine the way you'd perform this feat (without being any sort of contortionist) is as follows:
* hold left shift down
* press a number and release it
* click and hold either mouse button, drag mouse across a line of entities
* alternatively click mouse on each entity

I'm not really sure if you can actually do tapped modifiers, I think it has to be held modifiers.

I can easily reach 1-5, maybe 6, while holding shift. Is that not normal?

If I were to actually build this I would probably be a dick and quasi-fibonacci it. Left click would be 2, 8, 21, 34, 55, 89. Right click would be halves - 1, 4, 11, 17, 27, 44. This gives you a good spread while clustering around the lower numbers.

In real use, I feel like the lower numbers are much more important. I would even ignore everything over 25.

[steinio]

Just take amount of item in hand and Even Distribution puts this amount in all selected entities.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'm not really sure if you can actually do tapped modifiers, I think it has to be held modifiers.

I can easily reach 1-5, maybe 6, while holding shift. Is that not normal?

I was picturing using one hand to hold down the shift, and the other hand to hit the number. You release the number and put that hand on the mouse to start clicking. It's holding the shift key with your off-hand that allows you to release the number and yet keep the function in the buffer as you maneuver your hand to the mouse.

Just take amount of item in hand and Even Distribution puts this amount in all selected entities.

Sure but in order to pick up any size other than a whole or half stack in your hand, you have to either shut off auto-sort or make the right size pile in a chest. It's far from quick and easy for those of us (I assume the majority of players) who love to keep auto-sort on.

Maybe we need an auto-sort auto-suppress mod which makes it so that stacks will become temporarily sort-immune when you separate them directly from inside your inventory.

[jockeril]

Maybe we need an auto-sort auto-suppress mod which makes it so that stacks will become temporarily sort-immune when you separate them directly from inside your inventory.

A kind of auto-sort without auto-stack

[mrvn]

I noticed that several players don't appreciate the Even Distribution mod. It's very useful in the early game when you're trying to put coal into all of your furnaces and burner mining drills but you don't have enough coal to put a half stack into each. It's useful even longer when you have larger stack sizes. Any time you want to put an even amount of items into several units, and that amount is not a half or full stack, Even Distribution can help. But some people don't like the way to forces you out of the default functionality.

So here is my alternative proposal: Dynamic Stack Sizes. Your stack sizes would change as you go through stages of the game, or you could edit them on the fly. I don't know if this is possible to implement, but it could be a very nice mod. Here I will propose some milestones for stack size upgrades:

Start: coal/wood stack size 20
After harvesting a total of 250 coal/wood: stack size 50
After harvesting 1000: stack size 100
- - - - -
for those who have a higher maximum stack size:
After harvesting 10,000: stack size 250
After harvesting 100,000: stack size 500
After harvesting 1,000,000: stack size 1000

I think you would have to add multiple items for each resource with different stack sizes. Then on some trigger (tech researched, amount harvested, whatever) a lua script finds all coal-20 and replaces them with coal-50.

[thereaverofdarkness]

A kind of auto-sort without auto-stack

That's a great idea, actually! I did a quick search and found a relevant mod similar to your idea: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/manual-inventory-sort