Factorio Forums

Issue only appears when using modded inserters that have modified pickup/drop positions.

Issue observed when using this mod: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SharpInserters

How to reproduce:

* Pick up a modded inserter (or ghost) in your cursor.
* Press flip key - it doesn't flip.

Another way to reproduce:

* Place an inserter. (Or ghost.)
* Flip the inserter on the ground using flip key.
* Press pipette key.
* Your held inserter is now not flipped, unlike the inserter you pipetted.

Note flipping actually does seem to work when inserter is at 90 or 270 degrees rotated. Flipping doesn't work at 0 or 180 degree rotation.

Edit: actually this "flipping" at 90 and 270 degrees is a 180 degree rotation, not a mirroring. Also I have now found that I can no longer do the second way of reproducing the bug - pipetting now always gives the same rotation as the inserter on the ground. Not sure if I just looked at it wrong the first time, or if that way of reproducing it only works under some special conditions.

I figured out how to get the 2nd way of reproducing it to work - you have to press ctrl-C to copy it, instead of pipetting it. Thought I was going crazy!

1. Install Sharp Inserters mod, and start a new game.
2. Place an inserter or ghost, with default orientation (pick up north, insert north-west)
3. Press ctrl-C to copy, select the 1 inserter.
4. Press flip key to flip the "copy blueprint" you're now holding
5. Paste down the now-flipped inserter (pick up north, insert north-EAST)
6. Pipette this flipped inserter
7. The inserter in your cursor is now non-flipped (pick up north, insert north-west)

Step 4 here works, it flips the "copy blueprint" with 1 inserter. Whereas if you'd just pipetted the 1 inserter it doesn't flip.

Pipetted Inserters are just a Raw Entity “in your hand”; they do not have the Extra Settings associated with them, so you will always get the Default Pickup/Dropoff locations.

Ctrl-C creates a (temporary) blueprint, which does have these settings in it.

I use Bob’s Adjustable Inserters myself; not sure how different the Sharp Inserters are.

Good luck!

This is quite highly likely going to be marked as Not a bug or something similar. Only entity that truly supports flipping are crafting machines and in their case flipping and rotating are 2 separate actions. Inserters do not support flipping on their own so manual builder may try to pretend flipping by means of flipping the direction itself. An inserter that was already built will behave slightly differently since it has a dedicated function to flip sides which adjusts the custom pickup and custom dropoff vectors. There is a possibility of reworking how manual builder does entity flipping in cursor to also use the "flip sides" method instead of doing direction transformations only, so i will leave this for other dev to decide.