Factorio Forums

Some tasks require manual insertion of a certain quantity of goods in a structure, e.g. filling ovens with coal or inserting ammo in a turret. Although one could automate this; in the early game manual insertion is the more viable option.

I propose to make the stack size held in hand adjustable with the +/- keys similar to the land fill size.

Then for example you can choose to have only 25 ammo in hand so that clicking on each turret while holding the ammo results in 25 ammo inserted as long as 25 ammo or more is available in your inventory. (similar for coal in ovens, modules in factories, etc.).

Upon clearing the hand, e.g. by pressing Q or running out of resources previously held in hand, the held stack size should be reset to the item stack size (e.g. you ran out of ammo or placed ammo back in the inventory clearing the hand, you pick the ammo up from your inventory and the stack size is the default 200).

I think this is a huge quality of life improvement so please consider implementing it.

Elegant solution to the issue (need to be able to handfeed with quantities less than half a stack).
Some other suggestions have been made in the past, I'll add the links when I have a little time

Try out https://mods.factorio.com/mod/even-distribution

@mrvn : the disadvantage is that you can't even-distribute amongst entities that are all around your base, or hand-feed a specific amount that doesn't total to a full stack.
By controling the amount of hand feeding, you address such needs.

I agree that it should be possible to quick-insert a precise number of items into multiple entities.

Related thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=66081 Quick insert exact number of items