Factorio Forums

I use storage chests because I want to have my stuff stored in one central place. This applies especially for ores and raw materials (iron/copper/steel).
The central storage point is also easier to defend more heavily so I don't loose important stuff, and I can get the items I need there as well.
If I would like to have buffer of items larger than the one chest it wouldn't work as well with the passive providers.

The most obvious place for active providers is the central train station, where you want the receiving chests to be always ready for more items without having enough capacity to burst-process an wntire trainsworth of cargo.

slpwnd wrote:This has been brought up multiple times already (https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=2680 https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=2433 https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=2549 and maybe more). We talked about this and so far we like the solution proposed by @immibis I believe (correct me if I am wrong).

The change would be:

• Provider chest is renamed to active provider chest and it still behaves the same.
• New kind of chest called passive provider chest would be added. This chest works the same
  as active provider chest, but with the difference that logistic bots don't carry items from this one to storage chests.
• Passive Provider and Storage would be at the green science pack level tier and Active Provider and Requesters on the blue science pack tier.

This should result in:

• Storage chest can be built for deconstruction bots without the blue research.
• Full fledged logistic system still requires blue science packs.
• There are more ways to arrange the logistic system. For instance passive provider chests can be used for limiting logistic robots work for very active inputs (chests that hold iron / copper plates).

The downside is addition of a new entity (passive provider chest) and slight complication of the system.

Minor issue: passive provider chests are useless without requester chests, so there's no reason to make them available with different technologies.

kovarex wrote:I use storage chests because I want to have my stuff stored in one central place. This applies especially for ores and raw materials (iron/copper/steel).
The central storage point is also easier to defend more heavily so I don't loose important stuff, and I can get the items I need there as well.
If I would like to have buffer of items larger than the one chest it wouldn't work as well with the passive providers.

This can be done more effectively via filtered smart inserters (or a requestor chest to pre-filter) and steel chests without needing sloppy Storage chests that bots will fill with random junk. The last thing you want is for your Iron storage to get choked out because the bots decided to fill it all with plastic.

Zourin wrote:

kovarex wrote:I use storage chests because I want to have my stuff stored in one central place. This applies especially for ores and raw materials (iron/copper/steel).
The central storage point is also easier to defend more heavily so I don't loose important stuff, and I can get the items I need there as well.
If I would like to have buffer of items larger than the one chest it wouldn't work as well with the passive providers.

This can be done more effectively via filtered smart inserters (or a requestor chest to pre-filter) and steel chests without needing sloppy Storage chests that bots will fill with random junk. The last thing you want is for your Iron storage to get choked out because the bots decided to fill it all with plastic.

steel chests not included in any networks.
also bots try to place same items in same storage chest.

immibis wrote: Minor issue: passive provider chests are useless without requester chests, so there's no reason to make them available with different technologies.

Not true, as they work for the personal supply. The reason to restructure it was partially this, to enable personal supply sooner, so the player doesn't have to run around getting basic resources all the time while building, while still keeping logistic robots for logistics quite late game technology.

It's ok as it is now. I think most is old (and bad) habit.