Half-turn Inserters

danikov · Post by **danikov** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:04 am

Something that struck me as a little silly and inflexible is how inserters, despite the fact they seem fully capable of swinging in a full circle, can only take and place from in front/behind and move things in a straight line.

At first, I thought what's really missing is a half-turn type of inserter that turns 90 degrees to the left or right, but that would require 3 new inserters for each of the existing ones- a 'straight' one, a 'clockwise' one and a 'counterclockwise' one, which is a bit messy.

My second thought was, like rotating, be able to toggle through those 3 different orientations when placing or highlighting over an inserter (much like you can rotate belts after they're created), which is a lot tidier UI-wise. You'd probably need a new key for it, but at least it doesn't create all sorts of silly new items just so they can point in different directions.

SHiRKiT · Post by **SHiRKiT** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:16 am

For instant solutions, you can use this mod https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=3622 which is exactly what you suggest in the first section.

syneris · Post by **syneris** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:24 am

What if you just select the pickup and dropoff tiles from an UI you get by interacting with an advanced full-range inserter? This way you can configure it however you like. It could start out with only 1 tile range and no filter/network capabilities, but you could research upgrades to increase the range and add wireless/logistic functionality or even speed. Displaying Alt-info might be tricky as it doesn't have a fixed facing direction (maybe just a circle).

SHiRKiT · Post by **SHiRKiT** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:28 am

syneris wrote:What if you just select the pickup and dropoff tiles from an UI you get by interacting with an advanced full-range inserter? This way you can configure it however you like. It could start out with only 1 tile range and no filter/network capabilities, but you could research upgrades to increase the range and add wireless/logistic functionality or even speed. Displaying Alt-info might be tricky as it doesn't have a fixed facing direction (maybe just a circle).

Not currently possible due to game design choises and game mechanics. It can only be done if the whole system of defining entities is done, which I don't think it will be touched anytime soon.

danikov · Post by **danikov** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 4:41 pm

Man, I was looking through all the mods to make sure it didn't exist, I must have missed that one.

Still think it should be a core feature though- the mod has to hack it in via different item types, which explodes the number of inserters (burner, regular, fast, long, smart = 5 -> 15 with the variants, more if you start modding inserters).

Going by the animation, inserters can move between arbitrary points (if you're off center with a furnace or an assembler, the arm still moves to the center, so there's no reason we couldn't just have a circle and select an input/output location. The reason I suggested just the toggle is it's a lot simpler UI-wise- you only have 3 states and one key to cycle through them. Being able to pick spots means a whole new UI mode and storing those spots for each and every inserter...

Might make sense with a special type of long-armed inserter, perhaps, but for all the short-arm inserters you don't need something so complex.

Post by **ssilk** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:25 pm

There are mods for that.

DyTech implements many sorts of inserters,
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=3622, already mentioned
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=1631

ickputzdirwech · Post by **ickputzdirwech** » Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:24 pm

[ick] Moved to Outdated/Not implemented. See 454

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