[0.8.4] Increase assembling machine buffer

[Ardagan]

Hi,

Default buffer for assembling machine (lets say for Electronic cirquit) is too small. Basically, for some small periods of time factory stops producing because of no materials, and inserters stop because of overfill. Not sure what causes this, but most likely there is about 1sec timer before starting production/inserting items.
On the other hand producing takes less than 0.5 secs.

Turns out there is some small period of idleness in the process.

Wonder if it is possible to make the default items buffer configurable or how can I increase that one.

[Coolthulhu]

It's an important part of the game. You're supposed to use chests as buffers and fast inserters at bottlenecks.

With inserter upgrade 2, all but the fastest (copper cable producing machine 3) assembling machines can be emptied even by a regular inserter, as long as the inserter's destination is not a belt.

[Ardagan]

Yes, I'm using boxes and fast inserters. And still think even fastest should not be emptied. Actually, if inserters didn't stop working, even fastest will get overfilled eventually. The issue is that inserters stop at some point and do not start fast enough.

[ssilk]

I mean this is because of the internal buffers. They must be emptied first.
Try using two inserter for input/output. If that doesn't go away, make your example more concrete. What type of assembly, what modules, what you are producing, which inserters, in which situation.

A bug is only a bug, if it can be reproduced. If not it's just something strange.

[SilverWarior]

When you are producing Electric circuits you need 1 iron plate and 3 copper wire. Inserters first fill the iron plates into asemby machine usually keping 2 uron plates in inventory (inserters try to keep input inventory for production of two items). But since electronic circuit requires 3 copper wire single fast inserter won't be able to load these fast enough for assembly machine to be producing items at full production rate.
So I recomend that you use two fast inserters for loading the input resources from belt. But you might prefer to use two seperate belts (one for iron plates and one for copper wires). If you decide to go for two belts design make sure that the belt with copper wire is the close one to assembly machine so that you can use fast inserters for fetching items from it. You can easily use long handed inserter for fetching iron plates from second belt. It will be fast enough.
But probably the best solution is to fetch the input resources from chests as this way your inserters can even grab three items at once. But you will have to keep these chests full which might require athleast two fast inserters filing them from a belt or even better using logistics bots.

Anywhay my biggest problem in my current gameplay is not how fast can I fetch copper wire from belt into assembly machine but how fast can I bring copper wires to my assembly machines. Fast belts (red ones) are not fast enough to fully provide enough copper wires to feed more than four level two assembly machines producing electronic circuits.

[ssilk]

Then you do something wrong. A fast belt transports more than 1000 items per minute or more than 16 per second; you need 7 fast inserters to handle that and 8-9 assembly II only for the copper wire.

[FreeER]

Anywhay my biggest problem in my current gameplay is not how fast can I fetch copper wire from belt into assembly machine but how fast can I bring copper wires to my assembly machines. Fast belts (red ones) are not fast enough to fully provide enough copper wires to feed more than four level two assembly machines producing electronic circuits.

The best method I've found (actually saw as a comment on a youtube video) for long belts is to actually transport copper plates and craft the wires right before the circuits...not quite as nice but you don't have as much of an issue with the belts not transporting enough wire, I think it's the fact that you have to transport 3 (i think? maybe 2) wires instead of a single plate and they are used so quickly.

[ssilk]

Ahh... Yes. I forgot. I'm so used to it, that I never think about it: transporting wires with belts won't work One plates gives two wires. I always built the wire assembly directly before the el. circuits, so that a simple inserter with updates is able to handle it from wire assembly to circuit assembly. Spares also some energy.

[malokin]

a youtube comment? wait, not me right? not ZWHMalokin's comment right?

i like to view the products of my machines for their histories. steel isnt steel, it is x amount of iron ore + smelting energy + smelting energy again + the pains of transportation in between these stages; including the costs of storages and red/green wire control systems.

If you have 1 single steel smelter or even just a few, you need a GIANT storage to store up that electrical (or coal) effort over time. Your not really storing the steel in this instance, you are trying to capture and store the effort of that single smelter.
If you have 20, 50, 100 steel smelters hooked to many iron smelters, then there is almost no need for storage buffers, your machines can output right to the ever hungry production belts.

If you keep these logistical principles in mind, you wont ever make certain mistakes, like building a mine over every single bit of a resource field. (That new train map in the campaign has absolutely bonkers coverage of resource fields with mines, YUCK!.) Trying to create a system with no bottlenecks by using 1000 mines, 1000 iron smelters, 1000 steel smelters etc etc is a guaranteed way to create a terribly terribly inefficient factory.

Does anyone else know of any other obvious logistical tips like the copper plates/copper wire thing? I'm currently investigating in-game to see if logistic bots are actually ever worth the effort, considering you have to have very developed non robotic facilities first, and then make the changeover. Blueprints (constructing new and redundant base sections) will probably be the only thing that logistics bots (dreadfully named) are useful for.

[Ardagan]

Ok. Just about origin issue:
try getting 2 boxes with infinite plates and one empty (for output, u can use 2). Suggested to add productivity module.
Put assembly plant 3 making wires. (i have upgraded inserters)

The picture will be approximately following:
buffer fills with plates, inserter stops.
Factory starts to process plates, and does that pretty fast.
Factory stops.
In 0.2 secs, inserter starts to add more plates.
In 0.2 secs, factory starts processing.

(I invented time myself, don't think it to be real number, but close)

This happens/important only for plants that produce items really fast. I guess the reason is that inserters wait for output buffer of assembly plant to empty before adding more source items.

[Ardagan]

Regarding wires and circuits.
1) you can use 2 fast inserters to output cables to fast belt. that works, but not optimal. Also use 1-2 inserters to input plates.
2) you can use direct moving of cables to circuit plant. That works, but is restrictive on space and I'm not sure if most effective.
3) You can use logistic bots for that. That works always, distributes cables, but most of the time takes toooo much extra energy.

As for myself I usually try to use option 2 with upgraded fast inserters. Possible to use 2 fast inserters to improve factory performance.

(why I always want to call assembly plant "factory"?)

[ssilk]

Ok. Just about origin issue:
try getting 2 boxes with infinite plates and one empty (for output, u can use 2). Suggested to add productivity module.
Put assembly plant 3 making wires. (i have upgraded inserters)

The picture will be approximately following:
buffer fills with plates, inserter stops.
Factory starts to process plates, and does that pretty fast.
Factory stops.
In 0.2 secs, inserter starts to add more plates.
In 0.2 secs, factory starts processing.

(I invented time myself, don't think it to be real number, but close)

This happens/important only for plants that produce items really fast. I guess the reason is that inserters wait for output buffer of assembly plant to empty before adding more source items.

Hm. I nearly understand.

What level of inserter item stack size?
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... stack_size

[Coolthulhu]

2) you can use direct moving of cables to circuit plant. That works, but is restrictive on space and I'm not sure if most effective.

This is probably the best solution.
Once you get inserter stack size upgrade 2, a single non-fast inserter can move new cables faster than they can be produced in assembly 2.
Try not to use belts when dealing with large stack sizes, it really helps.

More: once you get assemblies 3, you shouldn't use long-range inserters to grab iron from belts in circuit factories, they're simply too slow.
My circuit factories look like this: copper belt -> fast inserter -> cable assembly -> fast inserter -> circuit assembly <- fast inserter <- iron belt
Output can be either fast inserter outputing on a belt or a regular inserter outputing to a chest. Both work perfectly (no downtime).

With a setup like I just described, the bottleneck is the input copper belt or iron belt, the factory is fast enough to keep up going at full speed even with productivity modules.