Alternative to Inserters - Direct Resource Intake Gate

[Marcus Aseth]

One picture is worth more than a thousand words, so I'll start with it:



As you can see, the highlighted in green piece is a "Direct Resource Intake Gate", resources on the belt enter the Assembling Machine without the need to go trough a robotic arm.

Benefits:
Doesn't require electricity (it takes it from the Assembling Machine) so less poles/cables clustef*ck.
Has an internal storage capacity (it is a sort of chest, in a sense) so your belt won't fill up and production will keep going with less bottlenecks
Remove some of the sillyness of having 1 billion robotic arm for everything. This item should be preferred to robotic arms for direct intakes into an Assembling Machine.

Cons:
changes in Assembly Machine production could require the player to empty the internal storage of the "Direct Resource Intake Gate"

[daniel34]

Moved to Outdated/Not implemented.

You want something like this: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-128 (scroll down to "Loader")
It acts like an inserter (in regard to where it takes stuff from and where it puts it), but is able to transport items as fast as transport belts can handle them. The devs considered implementing something like this for 0.13, but they went with stack inserters instead, for balancing reasons.

Since they had already designed and programmed it (except for the graphics) the code is still in the game, and you can get them by using console commands:

Code: Select all

Normal:  /c game.player.insert({name="loader"})
Fast:    /c game.player.insert({name="fast-loader"})
Express: /c game.player.insert({name="express-loader"})

Or, preferably, you can use one of the many mods on the mod portal, which also include proper graphics:
https://mods.factorio.com/?q=loader

[Marcus Aseth]

Yeah, something like that, but in a more compact version, like this:


Well, if it is balance reasons, then it could be simply made more expensive to produce (and research) !

[Engimage]

Even in its current form Loader has not been added to vanilla game as debates around it being too cheety have not ended.
So currently this belongs only to mods.
The main argument here is that it trivializes the process making game's main goal - finding solutions and solving puzzles - more trivial and it is definitely not dev's intention.

[darkfrei]

Loader-Furnace
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/darkfrei/Loader-Furnace

[daniel34]

Loader-Furnace
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/darkfrei/Loader-Furnace

Close, but OP wants a furnace that has a loader already built in. Something like in Factorissimo (link) where you put the belt directly at the entry ("gate") of the machine and it accepts the materials.

It's probably never gonna happen in vanilla Factorio since as PacifyerGrey already stated, "The main argument here is that it trivializes the process making game's main goal". It's true for loaders and even more true if the loaders are already built into the furnace. Transporting and inserting items into machines are an integral part to Factorio (especially if you played earlier versions without stack inserters) and that change would just make it too trivial.

Having an assembler or furnace just accept any input from transport belts and output it to any other belt is (in my eyes) too cheaty. It might work well with some mods, but that would be a request for the Ideas and Requests For Mods subforum.

[Marcus Aseth]

I cannot follow the logic here because armies of logistic robots filling all the base with resources already makes things trivial, how is this "loader" item even competing with that?! *-scratch head-*

But regardless I'm not interested in the loader having a "chest like" behaviour, without it would probably be more balanced because bottlenecks would still happen, my only interest is to make the base more "simple/compact" looking with less "moving components", and placing arms only where it makes more sense, like to load a train wagon
In a sense, my idea is that this can be balanced to be equally convenient compared to an inserter, and then is up to the player visual tastes to choose which one to use in a given place

@darkfrei : that image is the opposite of compact!

To make an analogy, to my eyes inserters are like C++ naked new and delete, you don't want to see them all over the place - I'm just trying to cover them with a box