Request: Add option to exclude buffer (green) chest inventory from the logistics network

[Hares]

TL;DR

Logistics network inventory manager (roboport circuit output & machine logistics network wireless connection) should have option to not count content of some buffer chests.

What?

I can see two QoL solutions to the described problem.

Solution one: Change Logistics Inventory input
On the buffer chests (or any chests which can provide items to the network), there should be a checkbox "Don't count in the network's inventory", effectively "hiding" inventory of that entity from the network inventory output. This does not prevent robots from picking up and/or delivering items.

Solution two: Change Logistics Inventory output
On the Roboports' circuit output, and/or on the machines connected to the logistics network, there should be a checkbox "Ignore buffer chests", similar to the one from the requester chests' requests menu.

I'd prefer the solution one as it's more flexible.

Why?

There are many use cases for the buffer chest in the game, some of them being as follows:

1. Collect garbage across the base in the one place while also being able to provide it back if needed (can be used on train unloading stations)
2. Logistics supply area (construction materials and personal requests) to reduce the Construciton robots' flight distance
3. Materials route buffer (intermediates buffer for malls and ammo buffer for the turrets) to reduce the Logistics robot's delivery time and handle the production/consumption spikes

There are several ways to provide items to the network, one being conditionally loading them depending on the number of items in the network's inventory.
However, when you do so, the use case 3 is also counted in the inventory, messing the network conditions.
See example for more details.

Example

Screenshot from 2023-09-20 16-20-50.png (363.8 KiB) Viewed 1277 times

Image 1: Artillery station

Here, you can see an artillery post which has one blue requester chest and four green buffer chests, each requesting and storing 48 ammo which allows to fire about 250 times without restock from the ammo storage area.
Near the ammo storage area, there's also a loading station for the large artillery train, which is needed to be restocked once in a while, thus requiring thousands of ammo in the storage.

Screenshot from 2023-09-20 16-37-42.png (1.42 MiB) Viewed 1277 times

Image 2: Ammo production & storage site

The storage is supplied from the purple active provider chest, being loaded by the network condition (let's assume it's "# of ammo in network <= 1500).
However, since this also counts ~200 artillery shells from each artillery post's buffer chests, the target quantity should be increased by approx. 200 (196 to be exact) for each artillery post in the network, and must be reconfigured each time you build a new one.

Edits

Edit #1
Updated to match TL;DR, What?, and Why? template

[morsk]

Yes!! I've wanted this for so long but was too lazy request the feature. Buffers break everything about counting storage. I view a buffer as already spent, already committed, for the convenience. I never want to count it.

If I buffer N solar tiles before building them, I still need solar buildings in my storage chests for the next buffer.
If I buffer train fuel at various stations, I still need to count central train fuel to know when to produce more.
If I buffer repair packs everywhere, I still need to keep making more.

edit: Buffers can't draw from buffers, so the only way to know if I have enough material to add another buffer is to count real storage.

Everything is fine if I use Passive Providers, without counting. But Passive Providers don't scale past 1 assembly machine. When I need many machines making solar panels or train fuel, into active providers, I need to count the storage. My workarounds are 1) wire all the storage chests together and count them with the wire, or 2) Use belts -> passive providers instead of active provider -> storage. In both cases I've stopped using the intended way of counting, since it doesn't work.

[Hares]

I was building a large city block base with multiple buffering storage areas. In order to calculate how many materials I need to export to the network there is a green wire which passes through the entire megabase grid and is automatically connected to all cells; cells with buffer chests increase the special counter in it while cells providing materials read that signal and mathematically deduce exactly how many of each machine or tile is required, with a only exception of nuclear fuel which is just thrown at red chests.

[morsk]

FFF #428 may solve this indirectly. I'd like to hear opinions on whether this is enough:

It outputs the amount of items needed to satisfy all the logistic requests in the system, including mobile entities like the player and spiders. Importantly (or unfortunately), it does not include items needed to build ghosts (construction requests).

If we build so many buffers that they can't all be satisfied, we'll be able to detect this.

Unfortunately I can't think of a way to specify "I would also like to have 1000 extra in storage." There is no warning for when it goes < 1000, only < 0. And adding another buffer for 1000 is not a solution, as buffers can't request from buffers. How can we make sure there are extras in storage?

[Hares]

FFF #428 may solve this indirectly. I'd like to hear opinions on whether this is enough:

It outputs the amount of items needed to satisfy all the logistic requests in the system, including mobile entities like the player and spiders. Importantly (or unfortunately), it does not include items needed to build ghosts (construction requests).

If we build so many buffers that they can't all be satisfied, we'll be able to detect this.

Unfortunately I can't think of a way to specify "I would also like to have 1000 extra in storage." There is no warning for when it goes < 1000, only < 0. And adding another buffer for 1000 is not a solution, as buffers can't request from buffers. How can we make sure there are extras in storage?

Buffers can't request from other buffers, but if any are unsatisfied, the signal would appear, and since you always dump your supplies to a provider chest of some kind (red, yellow, or purple), that would partially solve the problem.

[Kyralessa]

Why not just make the buffer in a normal steel chest?

You can request in the green (or blue) chest, and then use an inserter to move to the steel chest so the items are "committed."

You might object that then you'll end up with double the items buffered. True, but you could also use a combinator to set the requests in the blue (or green) chest, subtracting from the total the number of items in the steel chest, so the bots won't keep adding stuff.

[Hares]

Why not just make the buffer in a normal steel chest?

You can request in the green (or blue) chest, and then use an inserter to move to the steel chest so the items are "committed."

You might object that then you'll end up with double the items buffered. True, but you could also use a combinator to set the requests in the blue (or green) chest, subtracting from the total the number of items in the steel chest, so the bots won't keep adding stuff.

There's a problem with the items you need a lot of, like landfill or concrete. The required quantities easily bypass the capacity of not 1 or 2, but 20 or more steel chests. In my SE playthrough I used multiple 512 slots storages for each (so, 2k+ stacks). Imagine managing THAT many without bots and with only "small" 48-stacks steel chests?

[morsk]

Why not just make the buffer in a normal steel chest?

You can request in the green (or blue) chest, and then use an inserter to move to the steel chest so the items are "committed."

This is too imaginary for me. I can't tell what real situation it would mean for me. I would probably not be using a buffer chest if it were so easy to replace. If I'm using a buffer chest, it's to spread storage around, and I need it in a chest that can fulfill logi requests.

Buffers can't request from other buffers, but if any are unsatisfied, the signal would appear, and since you always dump your supplies to a provider chest of some kind (red, yellow, or purple), that would partially solve the problem.

I was hoping there was a full solution I wasn't creative enough to think of myself.

With the new circuit-configured assembly machines, there may be no dedicated provider chest holding extras of an item. It will be a dynamically-configured machine dumping items into active providers. And there is no way to turn it on early to stay ahead of shortages. But the FFF #428 feature is so close to what I wanted, it makes me hope there's a gimmick to it, or that we could get developers to modify the feature slightly.