[Mod 0.16] InstantLogistics

[jamuspsi]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/InstantLogistics

Requester and buffer chests instantly receive their requests from the same network, even if there are no logistics robots available. Logistics robots might task for these, briefly, before the request is auto-fulfilled. This does not create items out of nothing, but it is obscenely cheaty, and I recommend you play with this using some self-imposed restrictions.

Background:

I tend to play with replicators. In fact, I'm the original author of that mod. There are parts of the game I really love- optimizing throughput, designing self-contained blueprints, that kind of thing. Things I don't like: trains and biters. I'm just too dumb for trains, and biters are joy-killing because I just want to expand.

So this is a step down from replicators' "anything you want anywhere". You need more ore? Make it. You need more plates? Smelt it. But crafting insanely long belts or breaking your brain on trains, which always kills my runs and results in me copy-pasting blueprints, is no longer necessary. Link it up with roboports and the items will just move- in a tick.

UPS: this runs every 60 ticks. It checks every requester of every network of every force, finds how much they're short on every requested item. Then it pulls them from the network using the built-in api, and reinserts them right back in. I'm not going to say it's fast, but it's not too bad.

It is NOT balanced in where it delivers the items to. It's first come first serve, and if you're cheating this bad you can work around that. Smaller stack sizes are probably smarter- most of the distribution is handled by the base game rather than lua.

Future goals:

(UNIMPLEMENTED) Research to unlock specific items that are enabled for this- I.e., you unlock quantum logistics for iron ore and copper, but not circuits, etc. I think this is very likely.

(UNIMPLEMENTED) An optional setting for lossy transfer. Something requests 100 iron ore, but we'll pull 110 or even 200 off the network for it. The idea is that if you're going to build dumb, you damn well better build big.

(UNIMPLEMENTED) Separate chests for this operation, so that you can mix bots and lossy instant transmission. I'm not sure this is possible since I'm using the logistic network's apis for performance, and there doesn't seem to be a way to create a separate layered network.

I can't think of how to screenshot this, because everything is instant.

[jamuspsi]

Another goal: a fast-start option that gives you a stack of logistic chests and roboports. The game feels REALLY weird when your burner miners are depositing their stuff basically into your inventory. Deceptive though- you have so much stuff in your inventory you feel like you're ready to scale up before you are.

[astroshak]

Seems almost like you’re creating another version of Storage Energistics.

Its a little extra work in that mod, but it teleports items from one chest to another on demand, basically.