Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Show inserter speed (moveable items / second) in tooltip.

What ?

The tooltip on the right side of the screen should show the speed of an inserter. It shows all kind of information, when hovering over an inserter, but does not show how many items per second it can move. Idealy the speed would take the current stack size setting of the inserter into account, but that is not strictly necessary. Its highest possible speed ususally is enough information.

Why ?

I like to know how many inserters I need to fill a blue belt. The tooltip of the belt tells me that it can move 40 items per second. But no one tells me how many items a fast inserter can move from a chest onto the belt per second. Of course the value does depend on the current state of research, i.e. stack size.

This is tricky, because it depends on parameters that are dynamic : an inserter takes more time to pick up an item on the opposite lane of a belt. Also, when you have stack upgrades researched, the way items are spaced on the belts have a direct impact on how many items per second a given inserter can move.

I agree that it is tricky. I believe (unfortunately I am not sure) that I am not looking for perfection here.

I like to resolve the design question: If I need to run 12 assembling machines which process 6 coal every 4 second each, I need to make 12*6/4 = 18 coal available per second. Thus a yellow belt is just not enough.
Yet, which inserter will be enough to put 18 coal on the belt per second?
Which one do I need to pass 6 coal into the assembling machine within 4 seconds?

I guess it would be enough, if I could put an inserter in one of three groups depending on my transfer demands:

• Will not make it. It is (currently) too slow.
• Is operating on its limits. Thus it might fail sometimes.
• Does clearly meat the requirements.

Of course someone else might see the numbers in the hint window and draw other conclusions: 30 coal/second on the belt, Inserter graps 3/s, thus I can expect 27 to be remaining.

I would suggest listing the box-to-box speed.
It may be higher or lower depending on where the parts are on the belt and how far it has to swing, but B2B is going to be consistent and measurable.

And with modded angled inserters the numbers are also changed, not to mention with configurable long handed inserters

There are a lot of factors, but you can probably get a lower-end or average or just a range.
Optimal value from chest to chest, worst value from chasing items on a belt (but not losing them, since that results in a speed of zero)

SuicideJunkie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:32 pm I would suggest listing the box-to-box speed.
It may be higher or lower depending on where the parts are on the belt and how far it has to swing, but B2B is going to be consistent and measurable.

Sounds good to me. Seems consistent and measurable and will scale with inserter updates. It can also adapt to the current stack size setting.
Any counter arguments?

I'm not sure showing "best case" speed is a good thing : if you expect exactly 18 items / s and build your factory accordingly, you may get significantly less depending the inserter /belt/assembling machine setup and recipe. It's good to give a rough estimate, not a precise planification (except for full bot based production where inserters always take from chest to insert into assembling machine).

Just seeing all the math and data here makes me think there's too many things to provide useful information on the tooltip withour overwhelming the player :
https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters

I was going to create a similar topic for belt, smelting, and others entities where the speed is not correctly displayed in-game.
As @Ormek clearly said, the goal is just to know if it will definitively be fast enough, if it definitively will not be fast enough, or if it's working at max capacity, and may or may not be fast enough. For the last case, it's totally understandable to have to refer to the wiki. For the "normal" case, the information should be in-game, IMHO.

I propose the following template for things that are too complicated (like inserter speed): speed: min-max items/s. For example, for a yellow inserter, it would be: speed: 0.83-0.94 items/s