Assemblers and logistic chests
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:53 pm
I am working to make my mall smarter. Could someone review my thinking and answer a couple questions?
Regular chests (wood or steel): Are not smart, so I plan to only use them as intermediates in a chain of builds.
Provider chests: Are fine to get resources to me or my trains, but do not help with excess.
Storage chests: I can set them to accept a single item type, and logistic bots can both receive and send items.
Buffer chests: Request a specific number of items and then makes them available when bots need them for construction or to deliver to me.
Questions:
(1) Is my understanding above correct?
(2) Based on the above, it seems to me that Storage chests are the best option for assembler output that needs to be stored and made available to me, my trains and construction.
(3) Coming out of an assembler it is common to limit the stacks of the output chest. For example, I might want to limit the output of the assembler that makes stone furnaces to 1 stack. What happens if I have 2 stacks of stone furnaces in my trash slots? Will they go back to the storage chest that has it as a filter, or will the 1-slot limit prevent it?
(4) I could work around issue (3) by wiring the output inserters and putting a condition there. While that is tedious, my concern is that a mall blueprint would break if I use it in the early game before I research circuit network, and any chests used (wood at that time even if they were to be replaced with storage chests later) would effectively have no limits. Is this correct? In other words wiring the inserters is not so good of a solution, except later in the game.
CONCLUSION?
Based on all of the above it seems to me that I should:
- Use Buffer chests with a stack limit and logistic request for that limit level.
- Setup a bank of generic Storage chests to handle excess.
- So... when I request items they will come out of Storage chests first, then from the Buffer chests next to the assemblers, and if a belt consumes items from the Buffer chests there will be an attempt to refill them from the storage chests if any of those items are there. And I should set any Requester chests in the area to "request from buffer chests" so that they don't ignore the buffer chests if the storage chests don't have the needed items.
Are my conclusions correct?
Is there a better way to do it?
Regular chests (wood or steel): Are not smart, so I plan to only use them as intermediates in a chain of builds.
Provider chests: Are fine to get resources to me or my trains, but do not help with excess.
Storage chests: I can set them to accept a single item type, and logistic bots can both receive and send items.
Buffer chests: Request a specific number of items and then makes them available when bots need them for construction or to deliver to me.
Questions:
(1) Is my understanding above correct?
(2) Based on the above, it seems to me that Storage chests are the best option for assembler output that needs to be stored and made available to me, my trains and construction.
(3) Coming out of an assembler it is common to limit the stacks of the output chest. For example, I might want to limit the output of the assembler that makes stone furnaces to 1 stack. What happens if I have 2 stacks of stone furnaces in my trash slots? Will they go back to the storage chest that has it as a filter, or will the 1-slot limit prevent it?
(4) I could work around issue (3) by wiring the output inserters and putting a condition there. While that is tedious, my concern is that a mall blueprint would break if I use it in the early game before I research circuit network, and any chests used (wood at that time even if they were to be replaced with storage chests later) would effectively have no limits. Is this correct? In other words wiring the inserters is not so good of a solution, except later in the game.
CONCLUSION?
Based on all of the above it seems to me that I should:
- Use Buffer chests with a stack limit and logistic request for that limit level.
- Setup a bank of generic Storage chests to handle excess.
- So... when I request items they will come out of Storage chests first, then from the Buffer chests next to the assemblers, and if a belt consumes items from the Buffer chests there will be an attempt to refill them from the storage chests if any of those items are there. And I should set any Requester chests in the area to "request from buffer chests" so that they don't ignore the buffer chests if the storage chests don't have the needed items.
Are my conclusions correct?
Is there a better way to do it?