Make inserter speeds simpler (for 2.0?)

Post your ideas and suggestions how to improve the game.

Moderator: ickputzdirwech

secelt
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2022 3:00 am
Contact:

Make inserter speeds simpler (for 2.0?)

Post by secelt »

i think inserter rotation speeds are much too complicated to reason about, especially for new players. for example, without looking it up, how many full turns per second does the regular, basic, yellow inserter make? (equivalently, what is its chest‐to‐chest throughput, without any capacity bonus?)
it’s 0.8333…
, which you would have to pull out a calculator (and round a bit) to figure out given the in‐game tooltip “
rotation speed: 302°/s
”.

right now, rotation speeds are defined in the game’s files as full turns per tick (where a tick is 1/60 of a second). to find the effective rotation speed, you might think that you could just multiply that number by 60, but no, since the game is tick‐based, inserters have to pick up and drop items on a tick boundary, so inserter speeds must be adjusted to compensate; you must divide 0.5 by that number to find how many ticks it takes to make a half‐turn, then round up to account for tick boundaries, then double it and divide 60 by that to get the final throughput. it’s madness!

even after that, the various speeds have no pattern to them: the burner inserter (0.01 turn/tick) is half the speed of the long inserter (0.02 turn/tick), but is 0.72 times the speed of the basic inserter (effectively 0.013888… turn/tick), which is itself 0.36111… times as fast as the fast inserter (effectively 0.0384615… turn/tick). it kind of seems like they were picked at random.

i propose that yellow inserters have a rotation speed of 1 full turn per second (360°/s): this would make them move like a 120 bpm metronome, diligently keeping time in the precise clockwork that is your factory. it would also make them much easier to understand, with them having an unboosted throughput of 1 item per second (or 60 items per minute, if you prefer).

the other inserters’ speeds can be defined as easy ratios to this basic inserter: 0.5 turn/s (180°/s) for the poor burner inserter, 2 or 3 turn/s (720 or 1 080°/s) for the fast/stack/bulk inserters and 1.5 turn/s (540°/s) for the in‐betweeny long inserter.

the only downside i can think of is that the turn/tick values of these speeds are mostly non‐decimal fractions, with the basic inserter having 0.01666… turn/tick. i’m sure the developers can figure something out and i hope they agree that inserter speeds should be simplified! thank you!

Rseding91
Factorio Staff
Factorio Staff
Posts: 14122
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2014 5:23 am
Contact:

Re: Make inserter speeds simpler (for 2.0?)

Post by Rseding91 »

The thing is… inserter speeds don’t have any meaning except “it’s fast enough” or “it’s not so add more inserters.”
If you want to get ahold of me I'm almost always on Discord.

secelt
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2022 3:00 am
Contact:

Re: Make inserter speeds simpler (for 2.0?)

Post by secelt »

Rseding91 wrote:
Fri Jan 19, 2024 1:24 am
The thing is… inserter speeds don’t have any meaning except “it’s fast enough” or “it’s not so add more inserters.”
i’m just saying that it’s quite difficult to calculate when a certain number of inserters is “fast enough”, even for chest‐to‐chest transfers without any items‐on‐belt inconsistency.

sparr
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1425
Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2014 5:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Make inserter speeds simpler (for 2.0?)

Post by sparr »

Rseding91 wrote:
Fri Jan 19, 2024 1:24 am
The thing is… inserter speeds don’t have any meaning except “it’s fast enough” or “it’s not so add more inserters.”
Plenty of players like to make ratio-perfect builds where possible. Some of them include inserters in those calculations.

Post Reply

Return to “Ideas and Suggestions”