Copy recipe output to filter of storage chest (QoL: Copy recipe From Assembling Machine to additional entities)

[plepper1]

edited topic to fit subject better — ssilk

TL;DR

I would like to be able to copy an Assembling Machine and have it's recipe paste to a Storage Chest filter or Circuit Network signal.

What ?

For this setup which is common to my bases:

assembly_setup.png (71.18 KiB) Viewed 7647 times

It would be nice to copy the Assembling Machine's recipe and paste it to the Storage Chest's Filter.

assembly_storage.png (163.73 KiB) Viewed 7647 times

Given that assembly machines already paste to Requester Chests, this falls in line with current behaviors.

I would also like to be able to paste the recipe to a wired inserter and have it default the circuit condition for that inserter.

assembly_inserter_filter.png (267.17 KiB) Viewed 7647 times

Why ?

I like to produce set amounts of things. As such, I'll set limits on my output chests for the things I am producing. In this example, I will never need more than 2 personal roboports, so I limit the inserter from the assembly machine to the provider chest to only allow storing 2 of them.
In the cases where logistics robots grab those from the chest and begin delivering them to me, and I go out of range, I want those returned to the production site, not lost in a storage chest dumping ground with dozens of others who have suffered a similar fate and do not contribute to the limitation on the inserter from the assembly machine.
This may seem like a silly use case, but I do the same for nearly everything I produce: Belts, Inserters, Rails, etc. In this manner, upgrading (or deconstructing) something does not result in yellow belts being flung to the far corners of my base where a random storage chest happened to live, they are instead returned to my belt production area for re-use as an ingredient to replace the red or blue belts I just upgraded to.

assembly_belts.png (317.06 KiB) Viewed 7647 times

These setups are tedious to create. Build the assembly machine (and inputs), set it's recipe. Then build a provider chest, a storage chest, and their inserters. Then run a green wire from the provider chest to the assembler's inserter. Even assuming that part was accomplished with a BP, you still have to then open the inserter and find the object which I just set the assembly machine to produce and enter my quantity. Then open the storage chest and again, find the same item - knowing that filters use a different 'remembered pane' than circuit network selections which is also different than the assembly machine's recipe pane.

Even late game, this would greatly speed up the placement of my bot-construction blocks. Since I am already able to copy the Assembly Machine and paste to the Requester Chest, each new item I tell the bots to produce would be decreased to one shift-right click, 3 shift-left clicks and then only opening the inserter UI to set the quantity I want the provider chest to contain.

assembly_bot.png (30.01 KiB) Viewed 7647 times

Mods

The only mod I found which is similar is the https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Autofilter but this operates by setting the filter of a Filter inserter, not the circuit condition of a standard inserter nor the filter of a chest.

[ssilk]

Why don’t you use a buffer chest for that case? Replace provider and storage chest with buffer chest. Limit input from inserter to be lower than requests in buffer chest. E.g. you produce pipe. Then I limit the inserter to 200 and the buffer chest request is 300. For production usage (so that you don’t need to request alway “take also from buffer chest”), you can use a similar setup: output of assembly to provider and buffer chest also fills into provider. Did I forgot something?

And in some kind I don’t understand this request, because I would never use it like so.

I put a storage (any storage) always on a more or less central place. I put some dozens storage chest in a Quadrat (Preferable near train stations). And that’s it. If I search something I know where to look.
I don’t spread the storage. The word storage itself makes it clear, that it shouldn’t be spread around.

Think to your home. It makes somehow sense to store the marmalade nearby the marmalade-machine. But I never saw that in my live. Instead I saw the marmalade in the cellar, or some kitchen shelf. Near many other stuff, that needs to be stored.

Back to Factorio. Because it will always end in problems as described by you: you’ll need either to search for the items around, or you need to setup all chest for the item you want in.

Well: my opinion, but based on lots of tries to make similar setups like you tried. Maybe you can explain it a bit more, why you feel, that you need to setup this as described.

[Pi-C]

I would also like to be able to paste the recipe to a wired inserter and have it default the circuit condition for that inserter.
assembly_inserter_filter.png

Use a constant combinator and set it to the item you want to produce, with the max amount that should be placed in the chest as negative value (e.g., "GEARS = - 200" if you want to have 200 gears). Hook up chest, combinator and inserters with red wire (or green, but use wires of the same color for all connections and set the inserters to enabled if "ANYTHING < 0". That way, you'll have to change the signal only in the constant combinator, not in all inserters. I use that in my mall a lot to shut down all inserters (input as well as output) if an assembling machine is idle. However, this won't work out of the box if two or more assembling machines working on different recipes output to the same chest.

[netmand]

Given that assembly machines already paste to Requester Chests, this falls in line with current behaviors.

- This is not true. The ingredients of most recipes won't fit into a storage filter indicator. I'm thinking you want the product of the recipe, not the ingredients which is what populates the requester chest.

It would be nice to be able to cross-copy assembling machine to storage chest, populating the storage chest filter with the assembling machine product.
It might nice to be able to cross-copy assembling machine to inserters, populating the left side of the condition with the product of the assembling machine, although I would want to see it populate on the left side of the wireless conditional too. I've got a feeling that this might be problematic though.

yes, it sure is convenient to copy recipes across assembling machines into requester chests, pre-populating the items in the request list. However, I'm never sure how it determines the quantities and usually have to tweak them. So really although I may use the cross over from assembling machine to requester chest, I usually wind-up changing the quantites then copying the requester chest.

[plepper1]

Why don’t you use a buffer chest for that case?

Until a certain point in the game, buffer chests are not available - only Passive Provider Chests and Storage Chests.

I suppose I could eliminate the provider chest and only use the Storage Chest, but I would still need to manually set the filter.

I put a storage (any storage) always on a more or less central place.

I have that too - for things that I don't care about - burner miners, stone furnaces, small electric poles, etc.

Near many other stuff, that needs to be stored.

Yes, but I do not keep my excess laundry soap in the same cabinet as my excess nutmeg nor the same cabinet as my excess paper towels. They are all located in different storage areas in different rooms - generally near where they will eventually need to be used.

Maybe you can explain it a bit more, why you feel, that you need to setup this as described.

A video is worth a thousand words:

upgrading_belts.gif (11.27 MiB) Viewed 7594 times

As the video begins, an upgrade planner has been used on a bunch of yellow belts, causing them to be replaced by red belts.
The bots swarm in, grab the red belts from the provider chest and rush off to replace the yellow belts.
Then, the bots swarm back in, dropping off the no longer needed yellow belts where they are re-introduced into the supply chain to make more red belts.

I could let them go off to some central holding tank, but then I'm making 50 more yellow belts in order to make 50 new red belts when really all I wanted was to replace 50 existing yellow belts with 50 red belts.

Given that assembly machines already paste to Requester Chests, this falls in line with current behaviors.

I'm thinking you want the product of the recipe, not the ingredients which is what populates the requester chest.

That is exactly what I'm asking for - to set the filter of the Storage Chest to be the Recipe of the Assembly Machine.

It would be nice to be able to cross-copy assembling machine to storage chest, populating the storage chest filter with the assembling machine product.
It might nice to be able to cross-copy assembling machine to inserters, populating the left side of the condition with the product of the assembling machine

Yup, it would.

[plepper1]

I would also like to be able to paste the recipe to a wired inserter and have it default the circuit condition for that inserter.
assembly_inserter_filter.png

Use a constant combinator and set it to the item you want to produce, with the max amount that should be placed in the chest as negative value (e.g., "GEARS = - 200" if you want to have 200 gears). Hook up chest, combinator and inserters with red wire (or green, but use wires of the same color for all connections and set the inserters to enabled if "ANYTHING < 0". That way, you'll have to change the signal only in the constant combinator, not in all inserters. I use that in my mall a lot to shut down all inserters (input as well as output) if an assembling machine is idle. However, this won't work out of the box if two or more assembling machines working on different recipes output to the same chest.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not asking for an easy way to shut off the assembler's output. I have that covered. I'm much more asking for an easier way to set a storage chest's filter given a handy assembly machine already making the same item. Setting the inserter would be a bonus.

[Pi-C]

[...]

I would also like to be able to paste the recipe to a wired inserter and have it default the circuit condition for that inserter.
assembly_inserter_filter.png

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not asking for an easy way to shut off the assembler's output. I have that covered. I'm much more asking for an easier way to set a storage chest's filter given a handy assembly machine already making the same item. Setting the inserter would be a bonus.

Sorry, got triggered by you mentioning inserters, I guess. I thought it would be possible to extend this to chests (like you can set filters on filter inserters), so modded combinators like Opters's Inventory sensor could be used to feed the signal from the assemblers' output inventory into the chain (it was just a thought, never tested). However, it seems you can't use the circuit network for anything with storage chests but reading their contents -- setting filters via circuit network is only possible for buffer/requester chests. My guess is this is intentional (because storage chests are the most basic logistic chests), so requests to set the filter of storage chests probably would be useless.

[ssilk]

Hm. Well, I looked at the video. Even I still doubt that this would be a useful feature; when you know you need to upgrade, why don’t you just wait for the bots to finish?
Other point: when the bots bring the belts to a central storage and you produce some 50 more belts, then the next time the bots will take it from storage and you don’t need to produce anything.
Other reason: the whole process and then refilling the belts back to the provider takes a lot of time, I which some belts being produced. No much win.

But there is a hard reason not to implement this: what should be done with recipes with two outputs? Like the Kovarex process? Or other mods. There is no correct solution.

[plepper1]

Hm. Well, I looked at the video. Even I still doubt that this would be a useful feature; when you know you need to upgrade, why don’t you just wait for the bots to finish?
Other point: when the bots bring the belts to a central storage and you produce some 50 more belts, then the next time the bots will take it from storage and you don’t need to produce anything.
Other reason: the whole process and then refilling the belts back to the provider takes a lot of time, I which some belts being produced. No much win.

So the first time I upgrade a string of belts from yellow to red, I have 50 yellow belts sitting in central storage.
The next time I have 100 yellow belts sitting in central storage.
The 3rd time, I have 150 yellow belts sitting in central storage.

And in that time, I've produced 150 unnecessary yellow belts which were used to produce red belts to replace those which were placed during the upgrade.

With my setup, I may produce an extra 50 belts, but the bots then drop the originally placed (and upgraded) 50 yellow back into the production storage where they are then turned into the 50 red belts for the 2nd upgrade run. The 2nd upgrade run then provides the yellow belts needed to make the red belts for the 3rd upgrade run, etc.

But there is a hard reason not to implement this: what should be done with recipes with two outputs? Like the Kovarex process? Or other mods. There is no correct solution.

I'll grant you the multi-outputs, but those are definitely a minority. (and not done in an assembly machine anyways)


Anyways, I don't think the point here is whether you believe my workflow to be valid or not. It's whether the ability to set a Storage Chest's filter by pasting is a useful ability.

[plepper1]

But I do want to thank you - you made me analyze my setup and realize that I don't even need the passive provider chest. The storage chest is a good enough dumping ground between the assemblers AND it collects the unwanted extras from the bot network.

storage_only.png (105.78 KiB) Viewed 7542 times

You've saved me a lot of provider chests/inserters. But I still have to filter them manually

[ssilk]

So the first time I upgrade a string of belts from yellow to red, I have 50 yellow belts sitting in central storage.
The next time I have 100 yellow belts sitting in central storage...

Ahh... ^ ^
but there are not so much items, where you can do that. Belts, inserters (but not all), steel chests, assemblies. I think that’s most of them... And meanwhile you will need more basic belts on other places... I mean: in the time you really need that you can rush for robot logistics to get requester and buffer chests.

But there is a hard reason not to implement this: what should be done with recipes with two outputs? Like the Kovarex process? Or other mods. There is no correct solution.

I'll grant you the multi-outputs, but those are definitely a minority. (and not done in an assembly machine anyways)
Anyways, I don't think the point here is whether you believe my workflow to be valid or not. It's whether the ability to set a Storage Chest's filter by pasting is a useful ability.

Well, i don’t doubt your workflow is bad, or wrong or something like that. Of course. I see my moderation as filter to find the best solution for a problem to bring the game forward. Yours is interesting. But the multiple output recipes are used a lot in mods. And there is no right way to include this feature without telling the recipe which item should be the preferred one (and even then it would be many times wrong). Well, I cannot know it, but from experience I can bet, that it would be considered as bug, or suggested to increase the number of filtered items for the storage chest. but that would go totally into the wrong direction.

[plepper1]

So the first time I upgrade a string of belts from yellow to red, I have 50 yellow belts sitting in central storage.
The next time I have 100 yellow belts sitting in central storage...

Ahh... ^ ^
but there are not so much items, where you can do that. Belts, inserters (but not all), steel chests, assemblies. I think that’s most of them... And meanwhile you will need more basic belts on other places... I mean: in the time you really need that you can rush for robot logistics to get requester and buffer chests.

This is true, but for those where it is, it is very nice to have them self-recycle. Even with a create limit of 400 yellow belts, I just deconstructed part of a defensive wall and currently have over 700 yellow belts sitting in my Storage Chest - belts that will go into whatever I make next be it red, yellow or blue in nature.

but that would go totally into the wrong direction.

Haha, yes. That is totally not what I'm going for!

But the multiple output recipes are used a lot in mods. And there is no right way to include this feature without telling the recipe which item should be the preferred one (and even then it would be many times wrong).

But, on a side note about that - filter inserters and stack filter inserters already allow copying from an assembly machine and pasting the inputs. In the case of say, a green electronic circuit, the regular filter inserter filters to both copper cable and iron plates. The stack filter inserter filters to only iron plates.

filter_inserters.png (21.03 KiB) Viewed 7538 times

I can see how there could be an argument made for copying an assembly machine and pasting to a storage chest's filter to use the first input vs the first output. However, given the Storage Chest's purpose of storing rather than actively requesting, an output seems to me to make more sense than an input.
Given that there is also precedent for how pasting a multi-item source to a single-item destination behaves, I don't think it'd be bad to assume one output or another - you can always manually fix it for the edge cases.

[ssilk]

But, on a side note about that - filter inserters and stack filter inserters already allow copying from an assembly machine and pasting the inputs. In the case of say, a green electronic circuit, the regular filter inserter filters to both copper cable and iron plates. The stack filter inserter filters to only iron plates.

filter_inserters.png

I can see how there could be an argument made for copying an assembly machine and pasting to a storage chest's filter to use the first input vs the first output. However, given the Storage Chest's purpose of storing rather than actively requesting, an output seems to me to make more sense than an input.
Given that there is also precedent for how pasting a multi-item source to a single-item destination behaves, I don't think it'd be bad to assume one output or another - you can always manually fix it for the edge cases.

Hm, yes, good point. But you also gave me the next argument: if you copy and paste then currently only the ingredients are copied, not the recipe output (already mentioned by someone? Didn’t find it). I think using the recipe output only for the storage chest and for anything else using the ingredients would make it non-intuitive. Nobody would understand that use case, because it would be much more logical to filter for what you need, and not for what you produce.

If you could live with that I would change it like so: if you copy/paste a recipe to a storage chest and it takes in that case the item in the order of where it is in the crafting menu (basic belt comes before wheels), then I would go with it. Even this is hard to understand, because it counters the behavior of circuits: The most needed number of items is sorted to the top - if you have 20 items as input for a requester chest, it takes only the 12 highest signals for requesting - which makes totally sense.

But I’m still quite unsure if that is really a good suggestion, because of the remaining illogical behavior.

[plepper1]

Hm, yes, good point. But you also gave me the next argument: if you copy and paste then currently only the ingredients are copied, not the recipe output (already mentioned by someone? Didn’t find it). I think using the recipe output only for the storage chest and for anything else using the ingredients would make it non-intuitive. Nobody would understand that use case, because it would be much more logical to filter for what you need, and not for what you produce.

That's not quite right. If it was truly only the ingredient list and not a reference to the recipe which was copied, then when you copy/paste from one assembly machine to another you wouldn't get the same recipe on the destination machine.

But I do want to thank you - you made me analyze my setup and realize that I don't even need the passive provider chest. The storage chest is a good enough dumping ground between the assemblers AND it collects the unwanted extras from the bot network.

You've saved me a lot of provider chests/inserters. But I still have to filter them manually

And now that the thing output from the assembler is going directly into the storage chest, I've discovered that simply opening the chest, picking up the first stored item and dropping it into the filter spot sets the filter on the chest. The same method can be used to set the circuit condition on the inserter.

I'd still like to have a simple copy/paste but I'm good with the drop an item workaround.

[Mylon]

I want to like buffer chests but I'm still not quite sure how they work.

For example, I have an array of 10 assemblers making a product. Ideally, bots will take from the passive provider chests first before touching the buffer chest, keeping all 10 assemblers working. Only when these passive provider chests are empty will it start drawing from the buffer chest that's storing the output of these assemblers.

What actually happens is that bots pull from the buffer chest such that several of the assemblers can have a full output chest and thus they're not working and the buffer gets drained while machines sit idle.

[ssilk]

That’s not how buffer chests work.
See https://wiki.factorio.com/Buffer_chest
Or should this be a suggestion? Then please make an extra thread.

[Amunidae]

Hi folks
it's already possible to copy-paste the reciepe for for the item, which is selected in the assembler, very cool!
But why do you have to select in the storage chests the specific item for locking it onto it?

Isn't it possible to copy via right/left klick onto the requester chests the reciepe and storage chest to lock it onto the special filter?

Thanks a lot and have a nice day

[netmand]

dupe of this

[Koub]

[Koub] Indeed. Topics merged.

[Makeyourselfnerd]

Would love to have the ability to copy from an Assembling Machine 1/2/3 and paste onto a Storage chest to set the filter quickly without having to click through menus. You can already do this from an Assembling Machine 1/2/3 to a Requester chest to set the requests to what the Assembling Machine 1/2/3 needs for 30 seconds worth of crafting, as outlined here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Requester_chest

Giving some of this quality of life capability to some of the other Logistic chests feels like a natural enhancement.