Balancing of Capacities of Containers

[Ranakastrasz]

Never said small player inventories suck, even if they do. Said small inventories in general suck.
I don't see any benefit to shrinking chest inventories. Might be mildly interesting, but I don't see the benefit to gameplay.

I suppose I could justify it if larger storage buildings were vanilla, like the 3x3 or 6x6 warehouse mod, but eh.

[leadraven]

I suppose I could justify it if larger storage buildings were vanilla, like the 3x3 or 6x6 warehouse mod, but eh.

Well, yeah... Of course big chest is better then small chest. But for me, so big capacity is just wrong.

[Oktokolo]

It isn't good or bad, just a change for itself. To fit better the game capacity balance.

Change for the change itself is most often bad.
Also there really is no such thing as game capacity balance in Factorio. You can put a tank in a tank...
Steel chests (other chests are not used that often anyway) are just right as they are.

[darkfrei]

One stuck chests can be better for UPS, but need much bigger stuck sizes.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older topic on the same subject.

[leadraven]

I've realized one more argument:
Fluid wagon has 25000 capacity. That value is aligned with a Cargo wagon full of barrels : 40*10*50 = 20000. Developers even emphasized this alignment.
Stationary storage tank has the same capacity of 25000. Stationary chest can hold 48*10*50 = 24000 barreled fluid, but occupies only 1 tile.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Just saying, but why not to reduce chest's capacity 8 times?

• Wooden - 2
• Iron - 4
• Steel - 6

That's too far.

I need to discuss two mistakes people are running into, and suggest a better course of action:

1.) The drastic increase of new chest tiers is part of the problem. I think the wooden chest is about right, and it is the later chests that hold too much. This isn't just for realism; it's so easy to upgrade your wood chests to iron, and it doubles the capacity? That's too much.
Existing storage values:
Wood chest: 16
Iron chest: 32
Steel chest: 48
Storage chest: 64

I propose new values:
Wood chest: 16
Iron chest: 24
Steel chest: 32
Storage chest: 32
Now the top-end storage is cut in half, but your early logistics hasn't been hurt much at all. Also upgrading chests is definitely worth the resource cost when you want more storage, but it's no longer revolutionizing your storage space. You could get through end-game fine with wood chests, if that's what you wanted to do. It'd be sort of like how some people use small electric poles in their mega-bases just because they're cheaper. If you need more buffer storage, that's what larger "warehouses" are for, more on that ahead.

2.) People often try to suggest a storage unit that takes up, say, nine times the ground space should have at least nine times the storage capacity. From a purely volume-based standpoint, such a structure probably has an even higher top and can hold 15-20x as much stuff. Theoretically. But realistically we're putting things in at one end with tiny inserters, stacking them neatly, and other tiny inserters are sitting at the other end of the unit and pulling them out. Whether you want to talk realism or gameplay, the results are going to be similar, and it means you get less than nine times the storage.

Consider an array of four chests separated, with inserters to deliver products across the chest array. It serves a similar function to a 3x3 storage shed and in the same space, albeit with a slight time delay, issues with not filling chests evenly, and no reverse capability without manually rotating the inserters or setting up complex logic. All that and it only has interface room for two inserters per side where the 3x3 storage silo has room for 3, and its net capacity is 4 chests. Were we to give the 3x3 storage unit five times the capacity of a chest, it would unconditionally be superior to the 2x2 chest array for almost every situation. It'll be worth using, it'll make for great logistical advantages, and if we want some realism we can pretend the thing has little boxes and logistic cranes inside for moving stuff around. After all, in real-world logistics we fill pallets and boxes completely, shipping containers and trucks maintain just enough room to get inside, but warehouses and shipping boats have lots of paths for machinery and are ultimately mostly empty space.

Here's my proposed values for 3x3 "storehouse" and 6x6 "warehouse":
Storehouse: 160
Warehouse: 400
This puts the largest single storage unit at 6.25x the space we currently have in the largest storage unit (the logistics storage chest), which in many ways actually gives more power to the player. But try it for yourself, I think you'll be impressed with the results. You simply need to get the Warehousing mod and either tweak the values yourself or get a mod to reduce/tweak chest storage space, such as the Reduced Storage mod (x0.16). The values I suggest are not about making the game harder, but rather about expanding the gameplay. As it stands, 64 storage per chest is fine. Players manage to fill up lots of chests anyway. But you'll never understand the gameplay value of having larger storage barns until you try it, and trust me, you'll never want to go back. The biggest provocation for reducing the vanilla storage chest amounts, I think, is because if you leave 1x1 chests at 64 and then keep the default Warehousing mod 6x6 warehouse at 1800 spaces, you're removing a lot of gameplay. You never have to so much as entertain the notion of expanding your storage space because with warehouses that big they never fill up. Then instead you spend a lot of wasted seconds trying to scroll through your warehouse to find something that got lost in the sea of storage slots.

So to sum up my point: it's all about making storage take up more space on the ground, not to make the game harder but to expand gameplay and make it more fun.

It isn't good or bad, just a change for itself. To fit better the game capacity balance.

Change for the change itself is most often bad.

It's not a change for the sake of change. The purpose is clearly stated.

I've realized one more argument:
Fluid wagon has 25000 capacity. That value is aligned with a Cargo wagon full of barrels : 40*10*50 = 20000. Developers even emphasized this alignment.
Stationary storage tank has the same capacity of 25000. Stationary chest can hold 48*10*50 = 24000 barreled fluid, but occupies only 1 tile.

It's also more realistic that way. If we want to set the train as the standard and base everything else off that, we could wind up with the following storage capacities:
Wood chest: 4
Iron chest: 5
Steel chest: 6
Storehouse: 30
Warehouse: 80

But I would leave a setup like that for a realism or difficulty increase mod. Vanilla should be challenging yet ultimately easy, and it should avoid tedium but rather keep the player constantly engaged in inventing new strategies and implementing them.

[Ranakastrasz]

If we are just avoiding annoyance, well....

Lets see.

What purpose do chests serve?

Player pickup/Dropoff points.
Robot interaction pickup/dropoff points.
Train Cargo Loader/Unloader Buffers.
Item Buffers in general.

For player pickup/dropoff, we will likely need the high capacity. Trying to get a thousand conveyer belts from a set of like 5 chests isn't much fun, nor is dumping your inventory over multiple chests for specialized construction. Having it all in one chest is better. Warehouses, that are 2x2 or 3x3 and have 30+ slots would be sufficient for this.

Robot Interaction. You honestly don't need more than one slot per item type here, on either side for basic functionality. It scales fine, given that robots happily take or deliver to as many chests as you have that match their settings. Honestly logistic chests, except maybe storage/buffer could get away with a size of 2-4.

Train cargo loader/unloader. Assuming we don't touch cargo wagon size, at absoulte minimum, you need 12 tiles with 40 capacity. So 1x1 chests with 4 slots minimum, or 2x2 chests (6x) with 7, or 3x3 (4) with 10. This assumes usage of all 12 slots. Anything less would heavily limit train loading/unloading capabilities. As is, you might want to be able to get away with one side, so double those values as minimums.

Item buffers in general. Usage of chests to store large amounts of resource X. This, admittedly, is only really useful as a shortfall-shield, or to help with fluxuations. However, belts usually do well enough for this. The only exception is for people who can't stand the idea of building over ore, and build big setups to let them mine entire deposits into chests so its all out of the way, even if you don't actually need a million stone for a long time.


Overall, I don't have an opinion on exactly how much capacity is needed. I can just point out the purposes we put chests to, and what might break if you lower it too much.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Overall, I don't have an opinion on exactly how much capacity is needed. I can just point out the purposes we put chests to, and what might break if you lower it too much.

Right. Really, the best way to discuss this is not to toss out numbers (regardless of how well-researched those numbers are), but to explain how all of these details play into each other.

I think for each player there's a balance in which if storage is too high, then increasing storage is a solution lacking a problem. But if storage is too low, then the steps you take to increase storage to adequate levels become themselves overly tedious and you start hitting uncomfortably low maximums. In the range in between, the size of inventory is a problem but the solutions are feasible--and that's the target goal. That range is going to be different for everybody depending on playstyle, but fortunately there's a lot of overlap between most players. The target solution should maximize the number of players who wind up with good inventory sizes, and leave the outliers to use mods to solve their difference of opinion. Fortunately the Factorio community has a lot of knowledge and experience on how players of varying skill levels tend to play the game, so I have no doubt the wonderful theorycrafters here can calculate up some solutions. We simply need to communicate the following:
1.) the problem, and its magnitude
and
2.) the mechanics of how the problem and/or solution can/will work

I think this is an important issue to tackle, and I implore those of you who haven't done so yet to try out one of the various warehousing mods out there. I recommend 'Warehousing Mod', maintained by anoyomouse, but another popular one is 'Angel's Addons - Warehouses', by Arch666Angel. And there are others as well. The important point is that you have to experience doing logistics with containers that are larger than 1x1 (other than trains). I had lots of ideas relating to such containers, but trying it for myself really transformed my opinion and gave me a proper understanding of it that I could not have gained through mere speculation and text.


P.S.: Ranakastrasz check your posts

[Ranakastrasz]

I would point out I have maintained the Large Chest mod for quite a while now. I do have experience with various chest sizes.

Those are the purposes I have personally used chest for. Basic math does give you lower limits id you want to preserve that functionality.

[Hannu]

Just saying, but why not to reduce chest's capacity 8 times?

• Wooden - 2
• Iron - 4
• Steel - 6

Need to store a lot of something? Design a warehouse (not too hard). Need some buffer storage? Place multiple chests. It will give better feeling of volume.
The only problem it will produce : it would be hard for player to empty his inventory into a chest. But if he needs to do it, he's doing something very wrong.

It's absolutely normal for player to have cheaty huge inventory. But chests have no reason to be a black holes.
What downsides of such change do you see? How will it affect your gameplay?

I try to avoid large buffers in most situations, but I could not make compact realistic like loading and unloading railyards. And destroying scrap would be much more tedious. I do not see any benefits to game. It would not give any interesting strategies but only increase tediousness. If you need low capacity, you can reduce maximum volume.

I would increase cargo wagon capacity at least with factor of 8 to fit with chests (I would accept decreasing of maximum speed to 100 km/h). Then trains could work like trains, slow but large volume transport system. Now they are more like toy trains, superfast short trains with unrealistically low capacity. I understand that devs try to get some special logistic challenge for megabases with jamming rail network, but in my opinion such unrealistic and non-intuitive behavior breaks immersion.

[SyncViews]

I would increase cargo wagon capacity at least with factor of 8 to fit with chests (I would accept decreasing of maximum speed to 100 km/h). Then trains could work like trains, slow but large volume transport system. Now they are more like toy trains, superfast short trains with unrealistically low capacity.

Train wagons already have an unrealistically massive capacity. 8 times capacity would make most trains only 1 or maybe 2 wagons long.

Look at a real train for say a coal mine or power plant, those things have dozens, even over a hundred of wagons. Not the 2-8, maybe 12 in Factorio with the current capacity.

If anything chests are unrealistically big, but from a gameplay perspective I don't think iof t matters. Realistically a loading/unloading yard is a lot bigger compared than a single track and a line of "buffer chests" (train parking, slower loading/unloading, etc. occasionally storage) but what does that add? Within the factory I routinely only use the first few slots of logistics chests because stockpiling say 2400 modules, turrets, etc. is not something I consider a useful use of resources.

As for the player inventory insane size, that is pure gameplay. The dev's want the player avatar building stuff directly, not have an RTS/Sim where a person wheelbarrows over a few stone bricks at a time.

[leadraven]

from a gameplay perspective I don't think it matters.

As I said, my main point is that "vanilla feels like a mod with huge chests". Nobody actually needs it.
The only real use for huge chests is to manually move huge amounts of crafting materials. And that is a wrong behavior. Moving items by hands must be uncomfortable to force player to automate logistics.

P.S. Intuitively, I think 4-6-8 would be optimal.

[Hannu]

Train wagons already have an unrealistically massive capacity. 8 times capacity would make most trains only 1 or maybe 2 wagons long.

Look at a real train for say a coal mine or power plant, those things have dozens, even over a hundred of wagons. Not the 2-8, maybe 12 in Factorio with the current capacity.

Yes, of course. But realistic lengths of rail transports are hundreds of kilometers, even thousands and it is impractical to model real size scale in the game. Short trains are acceptable modification to reality but typically even large factories handle only couple of trainloads at day (except some extremely huge throughput factories for low refined products, like steel smelteries or oil refineries, which process millions of tons in year, but Factorio does not model that kind of production). In my opinion there is no really good reason to modify time behavior. Iron smeltery should work at least 20 minutes with one long (10-20 wagons) trainload, but it is practically impossible.

I build a railworld and use 12, 8 and 6 wagon trains and probably I have to mod wagon size about 8 times higher to get somewhat realistic like traffic. And it is very far from those massive megabases which you can see in Youtube. About 500 science per minute or 4M iron plates per hour. I have some personal limitations which prevents really high throughput (like no beacons (unrealistic) and no bots for main material flow (boring and lazily modeled (no collisions between bots)).

I know that such long trains do not give significant advantage, because odd physics, but I want to get trains which look like trains. Those typical 1 or 2 wagon "trains" look like toys. Short, superfast and also curves are like from cheap toy train series (even more tight than 360 mm radius at 1:87).

[Hannu]

As I said, my main point is that "vanilla feels like a mod with huge chests". Nobody actually needs it.
The only real use for huge chests is to manually move huge amounts of crafting materials. And that is a wrong behavior. Moving items by hands must be uncomfortable to force player to automate logistics.

Nobody actually needs video games. Especially if you ask someone with different lifestyle than us gamers. Similarly, building large factories from large chest are different playstyle than yours, not wrong behavior. You can trivially restrict chest volumes to those values you like. It takes 2 hours to write a mod (or 15 minutes if you know basics) or vanilla game gives you limiters, if you prefer it. So, you have no problem to play with style you like. Why you try to prevent others play with style they like because you feel it "wrong"?

In my opinion it is very good thing that players can play and enjoy Factorio with so many styles. There are properties that feels "wrong", "useless", "overpowered" or "unrealistic" for everyone, but they make it possible to have many ways to play. In most cases one who does not like them can just avoid to use them. For example I never use beacons and do not like them, but do not demand that they should be removed or say that players who use them play wrong. Typically the games which have only one right way to proceed are quite boring, especially after first game.

[leadraven]

Why you try to prevent others play with style they like because you feel it "wrong"?

Following your logic, let's just enable God-mode in vanilla. It fits perfectly into your arguments. Infinite chest for everyone! Why not?! Just don't use it if you don't want to.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Why you try to prevent others play with style they like because you feel it "wrong"?

Following your logic, let's just enable God-mode in vanilla. It fits perfectly into your arguments. Infinite chest for everyone! Why not?! Just don't use it if you don't want to.

I can make a better argument against your suggested 2, 4, 6 slot chests. When you play that way, it matters little what strategies you use--while there are surely many ways to play that way and it's not strictly limiting--it is a fact that you spend more than half of your time dealing with basic logistics. If you, personally, find logistics to be the most engaging part of the game, then there are mods to support that. It's an entirely valid way to play the game. But most people don't play that way, which is why it shouldn't be that way in Vanilla.

I think the game would be better with a whole bunch of dev resources spent on ecological functionality, with players free to choose their own path or morals, complete with drastic consequences. But apparently not a lot of folks agree with me. I asked for these things a few times, but, lacking support, I relented and agreed that it's not likely to happen. Thus I moved my proposals to the modding community.

You've said your piece. You've made your arguments. We've all responded. Each person holds their own opinion of it. I personally agree with you for the most part and have actually played on those settings. But you're just driving the point into the ground now, and it's time to take it to the modding community.

[leadraven]

But most people don't play that way, which is why it shouldn't be that way in Vanilla.

Imagine that since earliest versions of the game chests have low capacity (4-6-8, for example). And on the forum someone suggested to increase it 6 times (to current values). Would you support such a proposal? Or will you refer him to modding?

I'm just looking for at least a single good argument that will justify current scale of chests, but will not justify infinite chest, or rifle with 99999 damage, or impenetrable shield, or any other god-mod things.

[SyncViews]

Train wagons already have an unrealistically massive capacity. 8 times capacity would make most trains only 1 or maybe 2 wagons long.

Look at a real train for say a coal mine or power plant, those things have dozens, even over a hundred of wagons. Not the 2-8, maybe 12 in Factorio with the current capacity.

Short trains are acceptable modification to reality but typically even large factories handle only couple of trainloads at day (except some extremely huge throughput factories for low refined products, like steel smelteries or oil refineries, which process millions of tons in year, but Factorio does not model that kind of production). In my opinion there is no really good reason to modify time behavior. Iron smeltery should work at least 20 minutes with one long (10-20 wagons) trainload, but it is practically impossible.

...

I know that such long trains do not give significant advantage, because odd physics, but I want to get trains which look like trains. Those typical 1 or 2 wagon "trains" look like toys. Short, superfast and also curves are like from cheap toy train series (even more tight than 360 mm radius at 1:87).

I don't follow your logic here. You make wagons have 8 times capacity, people will build even shorter trains than they do already, but then you don't want short trains? because they look like toys?

If the goal is having longer trains, increasing capacity will not do it. You need to remove the advantages of the 1-4 wagon train in the first place, cap it's speed, cap it's acceleration, let one locomotive pull 10+ wagons at a comparable speed, let wagons have breaks keeping long trains stopping distance in check, which would be a different suggestion.


The reallife reasons for long freight trains is not "high capacity", indeed if in real life they could somehow squash 8 times the load into one wagon (on existing lines accounting for height, width, and weight restrictions) and have a shorter, more manageable train they would. But in real life a couple of locomotives are powerful enough to haul that, speed limits mean a short train is not much faster, train separation rules mean you can't run two short trains on a line instead of 1 long, one driver for a long train is cheaper than multiple drivers for short ones, etc.

[SyncViews]

from a gameplay perspective I don't think it matters.

As I said, my main point is that "vanilla feels like a mod with huge chests". Nobody actually needs it.
The only real use for huge chests is to manually move huge amounts of crafting materials. And that is a wrong behavior. Moving items by hands must be uncomfortable to force player to automate logistics.

P.S. Intuitively, I think 4-6-8 would be optimal.

I recall like the first time I played Factorio I wasted too much iron to build the train to the other ore patch. Driving the car there and back again a few times pretty quickly convinced me I wanted to automate that.

So mostly it just means ore buffers are either a little smaller or I build even more chests. Almost nothing else are many stacks generally desired (short of a mega base I guess, where trains are getting filled with intermediates as well).