Factorio Forums

Normally inserters prefer pulling from the near lane.

If a belt that is placed perpendicular to the inserter, it can either be straight or curved depending on whether the belt leading into it is going straight or coming in from the side.

If the belt is curved, the inserter will prefer pulling from the far lane instead. (I guess this is okay.)

If the belt was curved, but the incoming belt changes to make it straight, the inserter will unexpectedly continue to pull from the far lane. Removing and replacing the inserter will revert it to pulling from the near lane as expected. (This can also be done in the opposite direction to make an inserter that pulls from the near lane of the curved belt.)

I guess the inserter remembers which lane to use, but this doesn't update when the source belt changes indirectly (as a result of surrounding belts even though it hasn't been touched itself). Making inserters pull from the desired lane can be useful, but this is quite an awkward and unexpected way to achieve this result.

Thanks for the report. Issue is now fixed for 1.1.93.

Inserter caches side from which it should pick items however in that specific case since transport belt was curved it defaulted to Left side causing the inserter at the beginning to take from the inner lane of the belt and it only revalidates the side when belt changes direction. My fix here was to ignore the transport belt shape and always follow the correct logic of selecting left or right side. That means that regardless of the current shape of that transport belt, in your specific case it will be always taking items from the right lane. That means there will be an observable behavior change when inserters take from the incoming curved belt that turns left as the inserter will now prefer the outer radius which is closer. I am considering this to be the correct fix since the outer curve is closer to the inserter so it should be taking from this lane instead to begin with.