[0.17.72] Inserter deadlock trying to overfill assembler

[mrvn]

I'm playing Industrial Revolution + Angels Warehouses.

The Warehouse requires 100 stone bricks, 100 iron plates and 50 steel plates. Each has a stack size of 100. So the inserter fill insert up to 200 stone bricks, 200 iron plates and 100 steel plates into the assembler before it stops.

My inserters have a carrying size 3 and there it runs into problems inserting items from a chest. It will insert 198 stone bricks and then once more pick up 3 stone bricks. 2 of them can be inserted but then the inserter is stuck because a maximum of 200 stone bricks can be inserted into the assembler. At this point iron plates and steel plates are still missing so everything deadlocks.

Shouldn't the assembler allow a few more stone bricks to be inserted than 2 recipes worth? I'm not sure if this is something wrong with the modded assembler or because the amount in the recipe exceeds the stack size.

[Ranakastrasz]

By any chance, did you dump Extra items into the assembler? I do that a lot with furnaces and sometimes it clogs the system.

[mrvn]

By any chance, did you dump Extra items into the assembler? I do that a lot with furnaces and sometimes it clogs the system.

No. I thought so too the first time but it keeps happening. Limiting the inserter to 2 items also solves the problem so far because the it will go 198 stone bricks, 200 stone bricks, 2 iron plates, ...

[Ranakastrasz]

Huh.

This requires science....

Lets see. Manually put in 198 items, and an inserter with access to the items. See if it puts in 3.
Do it again, with 195 and two linked inserters. As in circuit enables. See if it tries to put in 3 twice.

Try the same with a recipe that doesnt limit break.
Try it again with a recipe that DOES limit break.
Try it inserting from both chest and belts.

[mrvn]

Huh.

This requires science....

Lets see. Manually put in 198 items, and an inserter with access to the items. See if it puts in 3.
Do it again, with 195 and two linked inserters. As in circuit enables. See if it tries to put in 3 twice.

Try the same with a recipe that doesnt limit break.
Try it again with a recipe that DOES limit break.
Try it inserting from both chest and belts.

My question is rather: Why does the assembler only accept exactly 200 items? Why isn't it 2 * recipe + <max stack inserter bonus> (212)?

At other games (Bobs+Angels) I've seen assembler accepting 212 items for a 200 stack size. Is that something Bobs assembler changed? Or is it max(stack_size + <max stack inserter bonus>, 2 * recipe)?

[Rseding91]

Thanks for the report. The issue comes from the assembling machines crafting speed and the time the recipe takes to finish. It just happens to max out at exactly 2x the stack size in this case due to the math used.

There's no hard-coded system that says an inserter swinging to drop an item into an assembling machine must always be able to put all of those items into the assembling machine. The game makes an attempt to avoid the issue but if the attempt fails it's up to you (the player) to use filter inserters to make it work.

[mrvn]

Thanks for the report. The issue comes from the assembling machines crafting speed and the time the recipe takes to finish. It just happens to max out at exactly 2x the stack size in this case due to the math used.

There's no hard-coded system that says an inserter swinging to drop an item into an assembling machine must always be able to put all of those items into the assembling machine. The game makes an attempt to avoid the issue but if the attempt fails it's up to you (the player) to use filter inserters to make it work.

That is horrible. And filter inserters don't help. It's the inserter bonus that's relevant here. And you can't override the bonus until you have at least one bonus. Which means as you research inserter bonuses assemblers for certain recipes will suddenly deadlock.

Please increase the assembler slot sizes to prevent such deadlocks.

[BlueTemplar]

And you can't override the bonus until you have at least one bonus.

I think that there has been a suggestion to be able to do that before ?

[DaleStan]

And filter inserters don't help.

That's what I thought at first, but they actually do. One inserter per ingredient.

Not great, but it does work.

[mrvn]

And filter inserters don't help.

That's what I thought at first, but they actually do. One inserter per ingredient.

Not great, but it does work.

Well, ok. But how to you make them all pull items from the one chest that has them? Where do you place them all?

PS: I now had the same problem with oil refineries. 400 cement and the inserter was left with some in hand unable to insert them.

[Dkir]

Unfortunatly, this still seems to be a problem going around, especially when constructing malls.
It can often make for a frustrating experience of having to look trough your entire factory for that one inserter being stuck.

Any chance this could be revisited?