Factorio Forums

Hi all,

I am trying to make a new mod about inserters, so I have looked into the inserter prototype.
I found the "long-handed-inserter" has an unique line of: What does it do exactly? Such property line only exists for "long-handed-inserter", so I assume all the others are using the default value.
By searching, all I can find is the prototype definition page. Here is what it described:

hand_size
Type: Types/double
Default: 0.75

Surprising, there are no queries at all on what it does. May I know what it does exactly?
(If saying about the length of arm, then long-handed inserter should be exactly 1 tile longer, so should be 1.75 instead?)
(If saying about the size of the clamp, actually long-handed inserter has the same size as the starting inserters. Only the stack inserters and its filter variant use a larger clamp, according to the sprite sheets.)

If I want to add a even longer inserter than long-handed inserter (say range of 3 tiles), what value of hand_size should I use?

Best regards,
Schall

it increases the physical size of the 2 arm pieces of the inserter.

you'll notice (if you use a mod to set the positions to the same place) that the long handed inserter will then be bent over more.

this changes the arm extension calculations, as they can reach further with less extension effort, and therefore move laterally faster if they have a higher hand_size value.

Thanks for the explanation!
Just tested with doubling the hand_size, the arms become very long and angled up like a fishing rod.

(Although some exact description from devs would be nice. Now I can only empirically find out what value "looks best" by testing.)

The hand_size is cosmetic only and does not affect movement. The math in the code to do the drawing with the hand size goes a bit over my head, but the base game is using the hand size "reach * 0.75" (if you think about the numbers a bit) so that might also work for you.

Thanks for the answer!
So now I will apply: for my extra long inserters.