Make inserters actually grab from the *end* of the belt

[TheCraiggers]

It seems impossible that this hasn't been asked before, but I couldn't find it through searching. Apologies if this is re-opening a can of biters.

Anyway, ever since the beginning of the game, I've always been *slightly* annoyed that inserters prefer an item around 3-4 places from the end of a full belt. I've never complained before because it was just my silly OCD and didn't actually effect gameplay at all; if the belt runs out of items the grabber will eventually grab from the end. No big deal.

However, this all changed with Space Age and the spoil mechanic.

Now it *is* a gameplay issue. The inserter will happily ignore the Jellycube at the end of the belt in favor of the one 3-4 places from the end. And it will keep doing this until the Jelly at the end spoils. Using the "Prefer Spoiled" option in the inserter doesn't help as the Jelly isn't in a container, and placing them into a container just moves the problem elsewhere; you still need to use an inserter to get the Jelly into the box and now you're back to the original problem.

The simple fix for this issue is to have inserters prefer to grab from the end of the belt first.

11-17-2024, 16-20-31.png (191.18 KiB) Viewed 1048 times

Notice the spoil time indicators. Also notice the inserter with the spoilage filter to grab items that eventually spoil while waiting patiently for their turn that never comes. I have probably 200 of these around my base and that's just silly.

[Luptoom]

This sounds like a good change to me.
I avoided the problem of things spoiling on the belt by using buffer chests and circuit conditions to turn of the machines before the chest is full.
But that's just my current solution which might change if I decide to scale things up.

Are there situations where the current behaviour is useful or even necessary for something to work?

[mike5533]

I am having the exact same problem with the agricultural science pack going into my science belt. The two at the front are never chosen and will go bad just sitting there. I can circuit this to stop feeding the belt if there's something there so it has an on/off belt system but I think it should be far easier to have the inserter just grab from the front of the belt. Thoughts?

inserter1.png (251.57 KiB) Viewed 935 times

inserter2.png (212.58 KiB) Viewed 935 times

[C-Otto]

I would like to add that I came here with the same issue. I'd love to see a fix/change, so that items don't spoil at the end of an actively used belt.

[mrvn]

This is a problem because "spoiled first" doesn't work when taking from belts.

This is most deadly with eggs, where aliens spawn when they spoil.

Are there situations where the current behaviour is useful or even necessary for something to work?

The current behavior is this way because when the belt goes past the inserter and it would try to pick up the last item it would not get there quick enough to pick up the item before it moves onto the next belt segment. So the inserter aims for items it has a higher chance of catching up to before they are gone. Even with this a yellow inserter has problems picking items off a red belt.

But a special case could be made for belts that end. If the inserter picks up from the last piece of belt the item will never escape. In that case it should aim for the last item, not the first.

I can circuit this to stop feeding the belt if there's something there so it has an on/off belt system.

You can set a filter on the inserter and then place 3 unrelated items on each (used) side of the belt. For example 3 deconstruction planners work perfectly fine. And you can program the inserters to blacklist deconstruction planners so you don't have to set each one individually.

For use cases like in the original post that has a separate spoilage inserter you can program the inserter to override stack size = 1 (only when spoilage is infrequent) and enable if spoilage > 3. That way it leaves 3 spoilage at the end of the belt. There is then only every 1 real item on the last belt tile and that is always picked up. But if more items spoil the 4th gets removed keeping the factory working.

[J-H]

I agree. This is a good change.

[deer_buster]

my OCD would appreciate this change