Self-feeding/self-fueling burner inserter

[Phantasm]

It would be nice for burner inserters to be able to fuel themselves if they are moving coal or other fuel. Obviously you would have to insert the first item yourself still.

[ssilk]

+1, thought often that it is not possible to build an automated burner inserter assembly line and that would match the steam punk theme so well.

Hm. Maybe the burner inserters could also be that smart, that it recognizes if coal is left or right of it (a belt, a chest, a mine...) and can turn 90 degrees to fetch that. This would make burner inserters much more useful.

[ficolas]

This has alredy been proposed, and I also agree.

Hm. Maybe the burner inserters could also be that smart, that it recognizes if coal is left or right of it (a belt, a chest, a mine...) and can turn 90 degrees to fetch that. This would make burner inserters much more useful.

Thats too smart for a burner inserter I think.

[LoSboccacc]

It can accept coal from sides if a belt is pointing toward it (immagine a big opening that collects coal)

Should be annupgrade over the standard coal inserther.

[ssilk]

It won't be needed if you have very early basic robots.

(constists of just a burner-inserter and two belts on which it is rolling). A robot-control-station tells the robot where to go to and what it should make there. Here: walk to coal resources, dig, take, walk to inserter, put, return back to controller, refill own coal, ready.

See this: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=964

And I think it is needed, because it takes too much time to cut wood.

[Hyena Grin]

Joined into this older thread -- ssilk
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The problem with burner inserters is that there is absolutely no way to set them up in such a way that you don't need to manage their fuel. And then you reach electricity, and they go into the junk box.

Something which would make them much more appealing is that if a burner inserter picks up a piece of coal (or any fuel), it will first check its own fuel. If it is <5 then it will add the coal to its own fuel until it reaches 5, before moving coal to another object. In other words, the inserter would feed itself before feeding other objects.

This would let us design a few different self-sustaining coal-burning setups. Such as a burner drill generating coal onto a belt, which splits via a splitter into two belts. One goes on to other production, and the other belt loops back around to a burner inserter which feeds the drill. The inserter would then keep itself and the drill fueled. Alternatively, you could combine ore and coal onto one belt for servicing furnaces, and use burner inserters instead of electrical ones. They would use up additional coal, but would feed their own needs.

It just wouldn't be terribly fuel efficient. Which I think is a fair trade-off, and would extend the life of burner tech for use in harvesting small, remote resources, or simply avoiding electricity usage when coal is in abundance.

[Colombo]

Bump, sel-fueling burner inserter could be usefull. It could be just the think required to make sort of automatically-running coal-powered operations without need of water to set up electricity or advanced research.

You just go to coal, slap burner-inserter, slap burner-miner etc. and you have self-sufstaining source of coal. Ideal for train stops.

[slpwnd]

Bump, sel-fueling burner inserter could be usefull. It could be just the think required to make sort of automatically-running coal-powered operations without need of water to set up electricity or advanced research.

You just go to coal, slap burner-inserter, slap burner-miner etc. and you have self-sufstaining source of coal. Ideal for train stops.

This looks like a good usage of this miniconcept. I have put this as an idea to our TODO list.

[quinor]

[necro] Implemented.