Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Add filtering option to inserters/splitters to only grab/change lane of items with specific freshness level conditions fulfilled.

What?

Splitters/inserters get the filter option "freshness threshold", which works similar to the decider combinator: a constant (or even more potent, a circuit network signal!) is compared with item's freshness timer, and only items that fulfill the condition are put in the filtered lane (splitter) or grabbed (inserter). It doesn't matter too much if the threshold is defined in percent or time (ticks or seconds), but as an example, let's assume it's implemented using "ticks left until spoiling" as threshold:

Example 1; a circular belt is constantly filled with new yumako mash, and next to the belt are biochambers that produce bioflux for agricultural science, as well as some more biochambers to make carbon fiber. The inserters to move yumako into carbon fiber production are set to filter "freshness < 7200" (will spoil in less than two minutes of ticks) and the inserters to make bioflux are set to filter "freshness >= 7200" (to only use the freshest yumako).

Example 2; a belt of biter eggs is headed towards a productivity 3 module sub-factory. Near the actual production of the modules, a splitter with the filter "freshness < A" splits off biter eggs close to hatching to be burned in heating towers, depending on the value of the circuit network signal "A". ("A" could be calculated by some combinators to either be "a huge number", sending all biter eggs to be incinerated when there are too few ingredients to make more productivity 3 modules, or "one minute of ticks" under normal operation, to get rid of eggs about to hatch if there's some overproduction of eggs).

A new symbol/signal to represent freshness would be intoduced in the filtering GUI, perhaps something like a spoilage item with a timer on top? This new symbol/signal would make up the right-hand-side of the decider-combinator-like GUI, while the other side would be a constant or circuit network signal selected by the player. (Inspired by the quality filter GUI).

Why?

I think adding more control to freshness levels adds an interesting new dimension to the Gleba-/spoilables-puzzle (as far as I'm aware, there's only "freshest/most spoiled first" on inserters next to a container at the time of writing). The incentive is the possibility to get spoilable items of better-known freshness and greater resource utilization by turning almost-spoiled ingredients into un-spoilable items instead of spoilage. I also like the idea of being able to automate disposal of "dangerous" spoilables (biter eggs/captive nests) in a more elegant way than "put up a bunch of turrets and repair bots to clean up the mess if there's a stall in certain areas of the factory".