Add "quality priority" to inserters

Splitframe · Post by **Splitframe** » Sat Oct 26, 2024 12:04 pm

Similar to the spoilage priority, please let us select "high quality first" and "low quality first".

maharvey · Post by **maharvey** » Sat Nov 30, 2024 2:21 pm

+1

How come this post has no other answers. I tried many combinations with the new selector combinator but could never get it to work...

MRDGH2821 · Post by **MRDGH2821** » Tue Dec 10, 2024 4:42 pm

I didn't find an upvote button, but this is definitely useful

Tinyboss · Post by **Tinyboss** » Tue Dec 10, 2024 10:04 pm

What's the use case here? I very often filter inserters on quality, but I'm not sure where I'd want one that could move any quality depending on what's available.

terradus · Post by **terradus** » Fri Apr 17, 2026 10:51 am

I support this idea

Add a setting for inserters to prioritize items based on their quality tier, mirroring the existing "Freshness Priority" logic used for perishable items.

What?

Currently, inserters can pick up any quality if not filtered, or a specific quality if a filter is set. I suggest adding a "Quality Priority" dropdown menu in the inserter GUI with the following options:

* None (Default behavior)
* Highest quality first
* Lowest quality first
*

When enabled, the inserter would scan the available items (on a belt or in a container) and prefer grabbing the tier that matches the priority setting before taking others.

Why?

In Space Age, managing quality often requires complex circuit logic or multiple filtered inserters to ensure that high-quality intermediates are used where they matter most, or that low-quality items are sent to recyclers first.

1. Consistency: Since we already have "Freshness Priority" for Gleba's mechanics, adding a similar logic for Quality feels like a natural and intuitive extension of the UI.
2. Simplification: It would reduce the need for "circuit spaghetti" in quality-filtering setups, especially when unloading mixed-quality belts into machines or chests.
3. Efficiency: It allows for better management of valuable high-quality fuel or ammo without needing to strictly separate belts for every single quality tier.

mmmPI · Post by **mmmPI** » Sat Apr 18, 2026 12:11 am

Tried to make it with combinators, it look like this :

: high quality first.jpg (34.39 KiB) Viewed 109 times

1 filter combinator per quality level to isolate signals, and a decider paired to give them ordered values, 5000 for legendaries , 4000 for epic, 3000 for rare, 2000 for uncomon and 1000 for no-quality signals, the last filter combinator is used to only pick the first signal in descending order to set filter on the inserter, if there is anything legendary in the chest, it will be the filter since it will have the highest 5000 value, if there is no more legendary, the highest signals are the epic , at 4000, and so on until everything is gone.

There may be a better way, because it's a lot of combinators , and i'm still unsure about the use case though. "freshness first" doesn't apply on inserter picking from belts, only from chests.

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