Buffer chest dynamic source priority

[Gergely]

What?

Buffer chests should have the same source priority as passive provider chests IF there are no items in storage chests.

To be more precise...

When the game looks for items in a logistic network to satisfy a request that accepts items from buffer chests, the following logic should take place:

• Request items from trash slots or active provider chests.
• Let X be the number of items available in storage chests.
• Request up to X items giving storage and buffer chests the same priority. This ensures storage is depleted first. (As items will be moved into buffer chests later.)
• Request the remaining items giving landing pad, passive provider and buffer chests the same priority.

Pictures are worth a thousand words

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Screenshot_20260808_130532.png (152.52 KiB) Viewed 748 times

Screenshot_20260808_131005.png (144.77 KiB) Viewed 740 times

Why?

As I understand, the current system where buffer and storage chests have the same priority is the natural result of a few constraints:

• Storage chests have higher source priority than passive provider. This is for obvious reasons. Taking from a passive provider is more likely to result in the creation of new items.
• Buffer chests must have the same source priority as storage chests, because their purpose is making items be available closer, not farther.

This makes sense because depleting storage is to be prioritized. However, buffer chests are really only good at proxying storage. They are not as useful for proxying passive provider chests, because they take priority even on the other side of the map. It would be useful for them to not take priority when there is nothing in storage. Most manufactured items don't touch storage!

With normal requester chests, we have the "request from buffer chests" checkbox to disable this behavior. It is there as a workaround to the priority problem. However, silos cannot have a similar checkbox because it would require their automated request logic to take into account which silo requests from buffer and which doesn't, adding extra complexity.

The proposed logic, where buffer chests are the same priority as whichever of storage or passive provider would be used, eliminates this problem entirely. This would mean buffer chests would become suitable to act as a proxy for passive provider chests, giving way to them when they are the nearest ONLY when there is nothing in storage.