Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Recycler should output the item that is closest to its stack limit from its internal storage first to reduce stalling and utilise stacked belts better.

What?

With high crafting speed and recycling productivity recyclers outputting on a belt quickly becomes a bottleneck. The belt isn't being used fully because the recycler outputs the items from its internal storage in the order they are shown in the GUI, wasting belt space with mostly unstacked items.


While the belt is filled with unstacked items, the recycler reaches the storage limit on one of its outputs and stalls.


I propose the recycler output from its internal storage the item that is closest to reaching stack limit (and thus stalling the recycler). This will reduce stalling because the recycler can still work on increasing the items with lower counts in its internal storage while outputting full stacks of the highest count item on the belt.

Why?

This should improve recycler belt stacking behaviour, pretty much guaranteeing that it's using stacked belts to their full potential.

Fully agree. Sorting scrap with belts becomes really annoying when you start doing it at a larger scale and this would make it much more viable. Maybe there could also be an option to force it to only output a certain stack size like with inserters.

stacking is a nerf of sushi belt

100% agree, i have a line of recyclers and only like half of them are running even though barely anything is stacked on the belt. Belt sorting already has to compete with just recycling directly into active providers, and this would at least help with that. Trying to wait until the recycler can drop a full stack of something before doing so would also help, similar to how (non-stack)inserters try to pick up a full hand of something before they swing.

My understanding is the "intended" way to deal with this is like this: The decider combinator is set to:...which is then linked to "Set filters" on the inserter.

Orum wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2024 9:01 pm My understanding is the "intended" way to deal with this is like this:
recycler.jpg

The decider combinator is set to:

Code: Select all

if each > 15 send 1 of each

...which is then linked to "Set filters" on the inserter.

Good one, but this is just a good hack. This doesn't mean the problem shouldn't be fixed.

Concur on this suggestion... obvious improvement & streamlining.

+1

I assumed they did it this way to add a "puzzle element" to recyclers -- i.e. pay attention to your design so it doesn't lock up, especially if it loops.

But the behavior is inconsistent with the other entities that output directly to belts/chests (mining drills), and frankly it's more annoying than fun to deal with. Once you understand the problem, it's trivial to solve in a number of ways. But every solution is just unnecessary extra entities that add to the UPS load.

spacedog wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 1:30 am But the behavior is inconsistent with the other entities that output directly to belts/chests (mining drills) [...]

As far as I know, miners behave exactly the same - if the belt is too slow for miner's speed+prodbonus (i.e. their internal storage fills up), miners stop working.

But it's true I haven't tried to put a big mining drill on a patch of 12 different ores.

Muche wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 3:34 am

spacedog wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 1:30 am But the behavior is inconsistent with the other entities that output directly to belts/chests (mining drills) [...]

As far as I know, miners behave exactly the same - if the belt is too slow for miner's speed+prodbonus (i.e. their internal storage fills up), miners stop working.

But it's true I haven't tried to put a big mining drill on a patch of 12 different ores.

Big drills always output in max stack size even on mixed patches even with quality

tho i can see issue with recyclers holding to 1 legendary blue circuit for several hours or getting clogged up with a bunch of rare items of different qualities

Agree, I'd rather have this over needing to deal with the cost (performance) of adding a combinator and inserter to make up for an issue that every recycler has by defailt -- I thought the whole point of it outputting contents directly was to use that, not just slap on an inserter and treat it like any other building!

PureTilt wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 4:02 am tho i can see issue with recyclers holding to 1 legendary blue circuit for several hours or getting clogged up with a bunch of rare items of different qualities

You can just pull it out sooner with an inserter if that kind of latency is an issue.

It's actually weird to me that recyclers have tons of output slots, but they completely fall over if you put quality modules in them to e.g. upcycle ore or plates. They should just buffer each quality separately, then output stacks of a given quality once a full stack is ready.

PureTilt wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 4:02 am tho i can see issue with recyclers holding to 1 legendary blue circuit for several hours or getting clogged up with a bunch of rare items of different qualities

Clogging up wouldn't be a problem with OP's suggestion, which isn't to wait for full stacks, but just to output the thing that's closest to a full stack.

Good point about legendary items, though. It could take *forever* for that to be the item closest to a full stack.

Now recyclers are bad working together int the same belt. First ones contaminate a belt laying items by one, while last ones don't have space to place.
Just let recyclers work like big mining drills. They don't lay ore on a belt until they have a full stack.

kitters wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 6:44 pm Now recyclers are bad working together int the same belt. First ones contaminate a belt laying items by one, while last ones don't have space to place.
Just let recyclers work like big mining drills. They don't lay ore on a belt until they have a full stack.

With quality modules that could result in a jammed recycler.

I think this issue just have to be addressed. Maybe put in in bug section, I don't know.

Nemoricus wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 6:47 pm

kitters wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 6:44 pm Now recyclers are bad working together int the same belt. First ones contaminate a belt laying items by one, while last ones don't have space to place.
Just let recyclers work like big mining drills. They don't lay ore on a belt until they have a full stack.

With quality modules that could result in a jammed recycler.

Increase amount of slots. Or rather have invisible slots, like an assembling machine, they dump their ingridients in invisible slots if their recipe is switched by logic. Or biochambers, they dump spoiled ingridients and fuel as spoilage.

It's a bug because now you literally can't benefit from belt stack size bonus in one of three builds - recyclers. Like you do in two other - big grills and stack inserter.
For example, recycler gives 1.5 items/s, but you can't place more than 5 of them on one side of yellow belt even if you have belt stack bonus.
And people talk about quality, high speed modules, productivity bonuses...
Literally unplayable

Thanks @Orum for the trick for temporary fix with combinators for each recycler.
Basically using working stacking mechanic of stacking inserter instead of broken of a recycler.

Is it fixed in 2.0.30? Right?

kitters wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:17 pm Is it fixed in 2.0.30? Right?

It is not fixed in 2.0.30 - it just makes it more likely for recyclers to stack based on what they have.

TBH I like this - the reason Factorio is great is because the game doesn't do everything for you, and you really get to dig in and optimize where you want to optimize in a way that other games don't.

Either do the chest combinator stack inserter setup; or add more belts to handle unstacked capacity. If recyclers handled it for you there is a UPS cost to that as well, so it is not like the chest setup is going to be much more UPS intensive.

"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game."
https://www.designer-notes.com/game-dev ... s-a-crack/