Add option for stack inserter for how long to wait for items

[mrvn]

TL;DR

Make stack inserter optionally give up waiting for items after some time.

What?

There should be an option to have stack inserters drop whatever they have in hand on their target if they still lack items after a long time. An input field to specify a timeout would be great but just a checkmark to give up after a preset time would be better than nothing. In the former case maybe add this for all inserters as "Override wait time for items" or similar.

Why?

Stack inserter get stuck if you have 2 or more items on a belt or in a chest and one of them is rare. If they pick up a rare one they may never complete a hand full. I know this is intended behavior but it should have an opt-out. Especially on Gleba this happens with spoilage way to easily. Something spoiles and the stack inserter picks it up and then is stuck until more spoils. Unless you get very lucky and hit a multiple of the stack size the factory is then dead.

PS: A way to just flush the hand content once (without dropping the hand content into the logistic network) would be great too.

[Nemoricus]

The opt out is using bulk inserters instead.

[mrvn]

The opt out is using bulk inserters instead.

A) Lower stack size / speed.
B) They do not stack items on belts.

I want to stack nutrients and the biochamber needs the throughput. But one hickup and the inserter is stuck on spoilage.

[Nemoricus]

Stack inserters by design do not handle mixed items well. That's why bulk inserters are preferable for situations where you need to handle more than one type of item.

[mrvn]

Stack inserters by design do not handle mixed items well. That's why bulk inserters are preferable for situations where you need to handle more than one type of item.

Scratch preferable and insert "the only way". And with spoilage there never ever is just one type of item involved. That makes stack inserters incredible useless on the very planet they can be researched and built.

Problem is that it should be preferable and this option would make it so. It doesn't have to be fast, it should not be fast to switch items. But it should imho be possible.

I could wire up all stack inserters, set them to "Set stack size", set a constant S=16 signal on the wire except once every 600 ticks (10 seconds) I reduce that to 1. That would be about the effect I'm aiming for. But is that really how the game should be?

[mmmPI]

It is possible to use filter on stack inserter, and then they don't get stuck when used in Gleba, if you have one for each product. That's also something one can do when using foundries and quality, with one per quality level is the most straightforward, since those are 5x5.

[Stargateur]

it's a wanted constrain to force player to think around this problem... remove this constrain would be unfun. You must pay for this amazing throughput by using clever design. Use filter.

[mrvn]

it's a wanted constrain to force player to think around this problem... remove this constrain would be unfun. You must pay for this amazing throughput by using clever design. Use filter.

Filters don't help with stuff that spoil in the inserters hand.

[Stargateur]

it's a wanted constrain to force player to think around this problem... remove this constrain would be unfun. You must pay for this amazing throughput by using clever design. Use filter.

Filters don't help with stuff that spoil in the inserters hand.

I confess I did gleba all with bot, but yeah that clearly a big problem but that cause spoilage mechanism is unpolished, for example it's obvious that item in arm should be "frozen", or something like that, at least they should spoil on the belt not in the arm. But that information ruin my wish to use stack inserter on gleba... as you said on the very planet where you unlock them ironic and very bad design.

[mrvn]

it's a wanted constrain to force player to think around this problem... remove this constrain would be unfun. You must pay for this amazing throughput by using clever design. Use filter.

Filters don't help with stuff that spoil in the inserters hand.

I confess I did gleba all with bot, but yeah that clearly a big problem but that cause spoilage mechanism is unpolished, for example it's obvious that item in arm should be "frozen", or something like that, at least they should spoil on the belt not in the arm. But that information ruin my wish to use stack inserter on gleba... as you said on the very planet where you unlock them ironic and very bad design.

Might be a bug though. Someone else mentioned that stack inserters are supposed to wake up, by which I assume that includes swing and drop their items, when they spoil in hand. Can't say that is actually what should happen. Maybe it's already fixed even. Time to try again I guess. I was just very frustrated first time I tried stack inserters and they got stuck with 7 spoilage in hand because some nutrients spoiled and the recipe always produces multiples of 40. So it never got out of having spoiled stuff in hand.

If you make sure you start with nothing in hand and nothing in the biochamber/assembler and then set the stacksize to have a low common multiple with the recipe output you can probably avoid this as well. Or if you simply never let things spoil. Once I figured out to burn any left overs or recycle excess stuff so the factory always runs the spoilage problem went away. All items are always more or less fresh since nothing gets left to sit and rot. That's what you have to achieve on Gleba, just constant production even if you just throw it into the heating tower or recycler in the end.

[mmmPI]

Never had any problem of stack inserter stuck when i used them with filter, i guess that should be a tips and tricks for new players, because they are very useful on Gleba and it's also where you "learn" how to deal with their behavior.

[mrvn]

Never had any problem of stack inserter stuck when i used them with filter, i guess that should be a tips and tricks for new players, because they are very useful on Gleba and it's also where you "learn" how to deal with their behavior.

Please stop replying to my threads. Your replies are never helpful. It's nice that you don't have problems with stack inserters getting stuck, other people do.

[mmmPI]

I do believe it's in the challenge of the game to learn how to use the stack inserter, and using filter makes them very useful on Gleba, you said the opposite, from what i can imagine is due to lack of experience or skill , and you use your lack of skill as a justification to suggest changing the game in ways that i think would be detrimental as it adds bloat.

I'm giving my opinion because i think this is a non-problem when you use properly the tools the game offers and other players may find it useful to use a method that work instead of one that doesn't.

[Karbon14]

+1 on this, I've been trying to upscale my Gleba base and stack inserters have been the bane of my existence. As stated at a certain point they're basically mandatory to reach the throughput you need on even a small sushi belt, which Gleba pushes you to, but so often stuff will spoil or just not produce in the optimal ratios and the stack inserters will get stuck partially filled and deadlock the whole system. Honestly I wouldn't ask for an option, just make the stack inserter always stop waiting after a few seconds or so, I cannot possibly imagine a scenario where stack inserters not dropping full stacks when supply side is low is more problematic than them holding on to 12 items at a time and refusing to place them.

[BlakeMW]

Filters don't help with stuff that spoil in the inserters hand.

Stack inserter will prematurely drop its hand contents if they spoil. They work wonderfully filtered. An easy pattern for Gleba is a stack inserter filtered to the primary output, and a normal inserter with the same filter but blacklisted to eject anything else (spoilage, seeds). You could use the same pattern for quality since the lowest quality produced will represent about 90% of the output.

[mrvn]

Filters don't help with stuff that spoil in the inserters hand.

Stack inserter will prematurely drop its hand contents if they spoil. They work wonderfully filtered. An easy pattern for Gleba is a stack inserter filtered to the primary output, and a normal inserter with the same filter but blacklisted to eject anything else (spoilage, seeds). You could use the same pattern for quality since the lowest quality produced will represent about 90% of the output.

I saw a bug report about that. Maybe you played with a version that fixed it so they do drop the hand content. Or it only drops it when it has a filter set. I think I didn't have a filter because the output was supposed to always be just one thing. Until something spoiled.