Smart Inserters/chests/logistic robots

[Ozo]

Hello!

I've been playing Factorio for about 25 hours now but i still can't figure out how the smart chests/inserters works ^^
Also the logistic robot, could any kind soul please explain to me how to set it up and maybe give an example? thank you!

Ozo

Edit: This should probably have been posted in the General section, oh well x)

[Risugami]

Use either red or green wire on a power pole, then link wires to both inserter and chest. Open the smart inserter and select the item to watch for, and then set the conditional and amount. Once the signal matches the condition, the smart inserter will turn off.

The logistics robots will move items from any producer chest to a requester chest, if the items in chest is less than requested amount.
Still haven't found any logical use for storage chest since they just screw up supply lines. A requester chest serves same purpose with far more freedom.

[Xinvoker]

For the the logistics robot: You set the requester chest to accept for example 50 iron plates. The logistic robots will look for a provider chest with iron plates and begin going back and forth carrying the iron. I think they will use the storage chest if the provider chest is full.

[slpwnd]

Once the signal matches the condition, the smart inserter will turn off.

Almost. The smart inserter will work as long as the condition is true. If the condition becomes false the inserter is switched off.

The logistics robots will move items from any producer chest to a requester chest, if the items in chest is less than requested amount.
Still haven't found any logical use for storage chest since they just screw up supply lines. A requester chest serves same purpose with far more freedom.

For the the logistics robot: You set the requester chest to accept for example 50 iron plates. The logistic robots will look for a provider chest with iron plates and begin going back and forth carrying the iron. I think they will use the storage chest if the provider chest is full.

Good job guys. You figured it out precisely. AFAIK This is not documented anywhere at all. I would be really curious what you think about the logistic robots as a concept. In a sense of whether it is a good design fit into the game.

The purpose of the storage chests was to have ability to centralize the goods from the providers when there are no requesters interested. However because they (the storage chests) are missing the filters the setup can get quite messy at the moment. I mean having storage chests with a lot of different kinds of goods inside and having little control over what goes in in general. Also when there is a request from the requester chest and no provider can satisfy it, the storage chests are searched. In this sense they are supposed to serve as an intermediate storage.

[Ozo]

Thank you for all the answers!

For the the logistics robot: You set the requester chest to accept for example 50 iron plates. The logistic robots will look for a provider chest with iron plates and begin going back and forth carrying the iron. I think they will use the storage chest if the provider chest is full.

How do you make a "requester chest" and a "provider chest" ?

[mrdormouse]

Thank you for all the answers!

For the the logistics robot: You set the requester chest to accept for example 50 iron plates. The logistic robots will look for a provider chest with iron plates and begin going back and forth carrying the iron. I think they will use the storage chest if the provider chest is full.

How do you make a "requester chest" and a "provider chest" ?

you need to research "logistic robotics" first
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... c-robotics

[( Tchey )]

. I would be really curious what you think about the logistic robots as a concept. In a sense of whether it is a good design fit into the game.

They are quite useless i think right now, because it's better to have an eternal loop with goods travelling on it forever, than to store them into a chest.

However, i like the robots as a concept, they fit well into the game.

Maybe you can extand their use if you go to a RTS concept. I don't really know what to do yet, maybe they could build walls, cut wood, or even better, terraformation, or even better, exploration and aliens's observation, and maybe even better, to trade with the aliens (see the Pollution ! suggestions https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... p?f=6&t=84).

[Xinvoker]

Τhey are not useless, their main use is to patch mistakes you've made in the transport system,a little extra capacity here and there, without any transport belts.

So basically they would seem useless if you've made everything good and spacey already.

[kovarex]

They are quite useless i think right now, because it's better to have an eternal loop with goods travelling on it forever, than to store them into a chest.

I believe, that the opposite is true, we are afraid they are too powerful
We are actually happy you don't use them too much and prefer transport belts, as factories with transport belts are just much more interesting and nice. Factory based on logistic robots may be quite boring. This is similar in TTD. Building trains and rail crossroads systems etc. was much more fun, than just building few airports and lot of planes ...
In the beginning, they are slow and useless, but when you do all the research (speed + capacity) and you have lots of them (like 500), they have several advantages:

• They scale well
• They solve situations, where one transport belt (even the fastest one, is not fast enough to transport all the stuff you need (this is problem when you production starts to be really big)
• They solve situations, where you have to transport just few items from one corner of the factory to another, but you don't want to build belts all the way just because this one little connection.

We plan to do one very convenient feature, that those logistic robots could supply the character, so you would say for example, you want to have 64 transport belts in your inventory all the time, and they would just provide it to you.
This would solve the annoyance in the very late game, where you just have central storages and huge factory, and you have come to the storage all the time because you miss something.

This will be also compatible with builder robots, as they would take the material from the logistic system.