Factorio Forums

Current loader behavior is that it inserts the maximum number of items into the target entity.
Be it a chest or an assembly machine.
Inserters, on the other hand, limit the number of items they insert to twice the number of items necessary for the currently active recipe.
The inserter behavior seems better, as it reduces the amount of unnecessary buffering.
And speeds up removal of the assembly machine by bots.

I assume the discrepancy could be due to loaders not being part of the vanilla game.
As otherwise, loaders are actually described as being the inserter alternatives.
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/pro ... otype.html

It would be great if loaders would follow the same logic as inserters, when the target is an assembly machine with a recipe.

It's not twice for inserters. The amount changes with the speed of the assembler and modules. It also changes when the output is above a certain limit as the inserters then stop too.

With fast assemblers and quick and cheap recipes that actually becomes a problem as the inserters stop when the output is above the limit, then the output gets cleared and suddenly the assembler lacks inputs because the inserter didn't refill anything. Suddenly everything is a stop&go action instead of a continuous production.

Luckily in such cases you can switch to loaders which ignore the limitations. It's also the only way to get assemblers to produce a large amount of output before it has to be cleared. So you don't have to remove the output in batches of 2 or 4 but can use a stack inserter and batches of 12. So I would be against a general limit of how much loaders insert. When and where you use them is usually for a reason and the large buffer plays into that too.

If this is implemented, it should be as an option.

If anything, I'd probably advocate for the input and output buffers on assemblers be increased some with inserters to help avoid and mitgate the exact situation mrvn described.