Any way to switch "Request from buffer chests" option for all Requester Chests in an area?

[leeux]

Hello all,

First of all: modded game, A&B specifically... in case it matters.
Second, I don't know if this is a common issue/request... I searched the forums for the phrase "Request from buffer chests" and I skimmed over the first ten pages that appeared, but none of the matches there seemed relevant. Also searched the same phrase as before but added the word "bulk" and it reduced the matches to just two, but they had nothing to do with what I'm asking for here.

Here it is: I would want to grab all requester chests in a big area and have their "Request from buffer chests" set to ON in bulk without affecting their specific requests. I can't use the copy function, since each requester is different and that would override them.

The situation is: I have a big manufacturing hub full of machines that use logistic bots for requesting mats needed for building items, there are at least 300 of them. When I made the hub initially, I used passive provider chests to provide the mats since that's what you have first, until you can unlock buffer chests, and I completely forgot to tick that option when I made the initial blueprint I used to stamp all the machines in the area (sadly... )

Now, at this point in time, I'd like to start recycling plates and other mats that have lying around in storage chests (due to A&B plates -> sheets transition, mostly) and in order to do that, I'd like to replace the passive providers that hold the plates that the machines in the HUB request with buffer chests, so I can set each of them to request a small amount of plates from the global storage, so I can start using the big pile of plates I have in the before chopping new ones.

Things is, I'm kind of lazy and I don't really want to go one by one for each chest ticking the option manually... that's insane! There has to be a better way to do this...

Is there some kind of mod that anyone knows that allows to do this? Luckily, Factory Search is a godsent here, since it allow you to search 'requests', so the few changes I already had to do manually, I used the help of that mod in order to see where requests for a given mat are.

If there's no mod, then... perhaps using the console? Is there some kind of script I could use in the console that would allow me to switch each and every one of the requester chests in the HUB (aka mall *ugh*) area to request from buffer chests?

Besides all of this, let me add that I think the base game should allow bulk changing of properties, maybe via some kind of restricted copy operation that only applies a partial change... it could be also useful in other situations, i.e. for example: changing the condition property of an inserter without affecting its drop/pick up locations (w/adjustable inserters) or applying a reduced inventory size (closing slots) without changing filters (for storage chests.) There's probably other uses too.

[Khagan]

I'd like to start recycling plates and other mats that have lying around in storage chests

Fair enough, that's a reasonable thing to want to do ...

and in order to do that, I'd like to replace the passive providers that hold the plates that the machines in the HUB request with buffer chests, so I can set each of them to request a small amount of plates from the global storage, so I can start using the big pile of plates I have in the before chopping new ones.

... but this is a rather roundabout way of doing it. If your global storage is in storage chests and your new production is in passive providers then logistic bots will automatically prioritise taking items from storage over using newly-made ones.

[leeux]

... but this is a rather roundabout way of doing it. If your global storage is in storage chests and your new production is in passive providers then logistic bots will automatically prioritise taking items from storage over using newly-made ones.

Yeah, you're right. But is a bit more complicated than the simple example I gave, I just didn't wanna to bog down the post with unneeded details.

The thing is, as you say, for the particular case of the the HUB/mall area requests: it's enough as it is and the massive reserve of old left-over plates from before the transition it's actually being consumed bit by bit. But I would want to distribute those plates to other parts of the base that also needs them, because there blocks that require much more of the leftover plates than what the mall uses, and so they'll be much more quickly done by that way. The manufacturing HUB only consumes them in bursts and even then, only for the particular stuff you need to grab in order to complete some build, while other areas of the base (like science, or the belt maker, or some intermediates) consume them much more constantly and reliably.

As it is now, I can't put buffer chests on the factory blocks that use the left over mats for the purposes of recycling, as that would create a robot loop when they start taking mats from the passive providers in the mall area to fulfill those requests (when the storage area runs out.) In order to do that I'd first need to convert the particular passive providers for each plate choppers in the mall area to buffer chests, and then I can place requesters anywhere I'd need to consume any old plate. But if I do that, ALL the requesters chests that are already placed on the mall area that request that particular plate will need to be changed to allow requesting from buffer chests. And believe me, there are many many... for example, I just recently did that manually for aluminium, and had to go one by one each requester chest and tick on the option of ~50 requester chests. Granted, aluminium is one of the most used resources for making machines, in A&B... but for other plates like iron or steel there are many many more!

I anticipate that maybe you'd say: just put the requesters and use up the plates that way, and then when they are done, remove them! Yeah, true... but I'd want for them to stay, as, really, in A&B there are no better places for inv-trashed plates to go and be used in the normal course of the game, because ALL of the distribution of mats in done via sheets in A&B, and plates are only created where they are needed.

If I only limit myself to recycling the 6 or 7 plates types that are normally left over after the mid-game transition, it maybe wouldn't be too much work... perhaps I'd need to flip approx. 50 to 100 requester chests by hand one by one, and they are often closer together. But at this point I want to systematize recycling and I'd want to do the conversion for ALL resources so everything has a place to go somewhere (I personally aim to 100% recycle everything in my games and keep my storage slots garbage free!)


To give a clear example of the kind of task I'd have to go and do manually, I counted 657 requester chests in total in the mall area of my base:

screenshot showing the total number of requester chests in the mall area

20240401152717_1.jpg (602.98 KiB) Viewed 208 times

Now, probably, judging from that screenshot, about ~30 to 40% of those are still empty (i.e. the machines to which they are attached are still unused. pistol machines in that screen count as empty too, except one! I used the pistol as a marker for 'reserved' slots) and a small extra percent (say, no more than 80 chests, that I already toggled) are already converted, so that would mean I'd have to go and toggle the setting of ~350 chests or so, maybe... give or take. I mean, is too much to do it manually, not to mention also it's error prone (I'd certainly skip some by error, or forget to toggle some!) and also it's really stressing for the mouse hand to do that many repetitive tasks in bulk!

In addition to that: there are 165 passive providers:

screenshot showing the total number of provider chests that needs to be converted.

20240401152741_1.jpg (588.53 KiB) Viewed 208 times

Among those, there are many repeats and some of them belong to unused slots, so, say perhaps 80 or so of them would need to be converted to buffers, and that means each time you convert a group of them (that have the same mat provided) you need to go and recheck each requester chest that asks for that mat (because it's impossible to remember which ones of the requesters you already did previously!)

Hope this give you a better idea of why I'd want to do this in bulk.

I think maybe the game needs some sort of command language in the console that gives limited access to selections and modifications (i.e. same access the player has restricted to the same actions you can do via UI) and then allow you to do stuff like this more easily and without needed a specific feature in the UI to do it. (Maybe some kind of subset of the SQL language, or maybe something like a restricted LINQ-like api made in lua for writing selection->modification chains. By restricted I mean that it doesn't require you to use the '/c' full blown scripting access and in turn it doesn't disable achievements.)

Best wishes, and thanks for the reply!

EDIT: typos