Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Turn items into landfill.

What ?

Currently the recipe for landfill is 20 stone. I suggest changing the recipe to be 10 stone and 10 any, where the any slot prefers any item other than stone, but will still accept stone. If this priority would cause too much extra programming for filters etc it could just be a second landfill recipe you select for the machine where the any slot is anything but stone.

Why ?

The topic of recycling has come up many times and a major sticking point often seems to be preventing cheesing by recycling products from modules that could actively gain more resources than were put in. Yet the main reason for wanting recycling is to better dispose of unwanted items rather than filling and shooting a box.

The reason I think this proposal works better than others previously suggested is:

1. Landfill is not a key resource so avoids the issue of cheesing to have a positive feedback loop with modules
2. It still requires some stone so doesn't eliminate the need for this resource
3. You could add a polution penalty for non-stone items to further discourage cheesing if it was a concern still
4. It mirrors real life where often the solution to waste is burying it in landfill

Interesting concept, but it would have to be a second, assembler-only recipe, because I foresee problems with determining what items to pick for the "any" part if someone tries to handcraft with that recipe.

In addition, I think 19 stone and 1 "any" would make more sense, since it strengthens your points 1, 2, and 4, while avoiding complications of either trying to shove 10 different items into an assembler (if you allow different items for a single recipe) or trying to filter/belt/circuit/spaghetti your setup in such a way that trash items only arrive at the assembler 10 at a time (if you don't allow different items for a single recipe).


An alternative would be to introduce an item type "trash" that is simply generated by a 1:1 recipe that processes any item (stone included) into "trash", and then use "trash" in the landfill recipe instead of "any". Productivity cheese could be further avoided by designating "trash" as a logistic item instead of an intermediate item, and giving it a 1-square entity (negligible HP of course) so you could aggravate biters by dumping garbage in their yards!

I suggest that we should be able to process old tech into landfill .... so old furnaces/ burner inserters/ burner mining drill, boilers (anything that becomes obsolete) can be processed to landfill. This could, depending on preference, be extended to any item. if you have built too many reactors ... landfill ... built a chest full of fluid tanks ..... > landfill. Basically, I see no logical reason why I should not be able to landfill any item.

This seems like something that should exist as a mod, but I can't find one right now.

For a completely different solution to this problem, try Recycling Machines or Reverse Factory; these will allow you to turn things back into their ingredients.