Factorio Forums

Hi,

is there a way to control where logistic robots put material in storage?

I have a train station where material is unloaded into active provider chests. Right next to them are a number of storage chests and close by a number of requester chests.

My intention is to have the active provider chests unloaded to the storage chests as a buffer, from where the requester chests are to be supplied when the need arises.

Instead, part of the material (not all) is taken off by robots to some other storage area half a map away - only to be brought back again a few moments later when the requester chests run low.

Can I prevent this pointless flying back and forth that is not only unnecessary but also slows things down and uselessly ties up robots?

Regards

Buffer chests or filtered storage chests

How so?

For filtered storage chests I can only filter what item _can_ be stored in it. This doesn't prevent the item from being stored in another storage chest that has no filter.

Buffer chests would activly draw their item from any other storage chest on the map. This would mean the material could never be stored anywhere else.


What I need is a way to tell the robots not to transport material to a storage across the map, but use the one right next to the source and the consumer. (Actually, I'd have expected this to be default behaviour.) Is there no way to accomplish this?


Regards

Build a storage chest where you want it, then insert 1 of each item so bots know to use that one.

150d wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:21 am What I need is a way to tell the robots not to transport material to a storage across the map, but use the one right next to the source and the consumer. (Actually, I'd have expected this to be default behaviour.) Is there no way to accomplish this?

Split the logistic network into smaller cells.

I mean you are already using trains to carry stuff around. Why do you still need to have a single huge logistic network?

If there is already a storage chest holding one of the item, bots use this chest to fill up more of it until it's full before using a storage chest with filter applied.
The filter on storage chest works fine, but ONLY IF there is no other storage chest has that item already in and is not full.

If you have the item in other storage chests by default, then I think buffer chests could be a way to solve your problem.

150d wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:21 am For filtered storage chests I can only filter what item _can_ be stored in it. This doesn't prevent the item from being stored in another storage chest that has no filter.

Buffer chests would activly draw their item from any other storage chest on the map. This would mean the material could never be stored anywhere else.

Nowhere else in the same logistic network. The best solution is to split the network (in which case storage chests, perhaps with filter set, may suffice), as suggested by Serenity.

150d wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:21 am What I need is a way to tell the robots not to transport material to a storage across the map, but use the one right next to the source and the consumer. (Actually, I'd have expected this to be default behaviour.) Is there no way to accomplish this?

The Wiki describes Priorities of robots. The way a storage chest is chosen as a destination for a given item avoids increasing the number of chests containing that item where possible, which improves storage space efficiency; distance is not considered. In contrast, when choosing between possible storage (and/or buffer) chests as the source for a requested item, the closest will be chosen.

Note that for storage chests, the Wiki says "order they were built in" is used to choose the destination when there is no chest with space that already contains the item or is filtered to it. It also seems to be used as a tie-break in other cases, eg chests with space that already contain the item.

I see; thanks for the pointers. I should have known that with Factorio there is no such thing as "just take the next one", but that there is a full-fledged algorithm behind it. Of course there is!

Though in practice, I find it difficult to handle. For example, you can't just put one item into the new box to "mark" it - the item is gone in a second, because the bots are still in take-it-away-mode. The priority for earlier-created boxes is also not exactly what I would have expected.

From what I've understood now, creating seperate logistic networks really is the way to go here. This however would also take some managing to set up properly. My base has grown, it wasn't designed. I guess it would be different if you started a large base from scratch where you could arrange the different sections at will.

Ah well, I'll live with it.

Regards

Your main base is going to, unless planned with malice aforethought, be a big mess eventually, where bots are doing things that don’t make much sense because of the way you built things and it grew. Outposts, on the other hand, tend to be nice and neat, as they tend to be singular in purpose (mine this, or turn these materials into that, or provide power).

Honestly, as long as you have spare bots, I would not worry too much about the flight paths of bots in your main base. The Active Providers are doing their job (making sure that the junk train always has room to deposit its load into) and the material is being used up anyway, so what’s the worry about where the Storage Chest the stuff is in for a second lies?

Depending on what type of mall you have you could build in a "recycling" aspect into it.

My mall is bot-based so I have the few storage boxes in the network wired to requester chests that inserters take from and refill the passive provider chests of the production. Keeps everything neat and tidy.

Trains move things between the different networks and back to main production lines or where the items might be consumed.