Provider chests - only above logical limit

[JoshLittle]

It would be nice to have the ability to set a logical limit* to the existing passive and active provider chests. The interface could be like the one for the requester chests. A provider chest without any logical limit acts just like today. With the logical limit, this type of item is only provided if there is more stuff of it in the chests then the limit. The items within the limit would not count for the sum in the locistical network.
(*perhaps limit is not the right word. It is more the "minimal remaining amount")

[n9103]

You just need to set a smart chest between your sources and the provider chests.
Wire up a smart inserter to the chest, and have it only work when there are more than 5 of that item in the chest.
Done.

[JoshLittle]

I want to use it for the unloading of trains. I use logistic bots to level the chests (because inner chests get more stuff because the inserts in the middle of a wagon work faster). But if the middle chests are provider chests they get empty and the belt they fill is again not filled over the whole unloading timespan.

[n9103]

Probably not a great idea to combine the belt and bot unloading styles at the same time.
If you want to use a bot system, unload the stuff onto belts at the secondary site.
As for balancing the unloading, I've got an untested theory you could try.
Try putting plain inserters in the middle two slots and long inserters in the next two, and ending with the usual fast inserters. Means moving the 2nd and 5th station chest out one from the line.
Just an idea, but with the extra delay that the outer ones get, it might end up closer to balanced overall. It will end up being slower though.
*shrug* just a thought.

[JoshLittle]

The combination worked fine, but it can not be scaled up. It really depends on the amount of trains arriving. From the six inserters per wagon, if I put providers in position 2 and 5, then I have four empty chests in the timespan without a train where everything could flow out, but isn't put on a belt (also with additional inserters for the gap filling), and if I put requesters on position 2 and 5 they stack up too much if the trains arrive too rapidely and even on this position the inserter loads out more (with stack bonus) than the other could get on the belt.

By connection the unloading zone with the storage zone the way for the robots gets too long and the amount of available robots drops down dramaticly and I get huge traffic jams for recharging even with multiple roboports.

[n9103]

Sounds like a much closer storage zone is called for then.
Perhaps making the zone just a few tiles over and having all the storage/requesters there unloading onto a belt as well?
Would cut down on travel and recharge times, increase your throughput, and be scalable if you also included a roboport in the pattern.

PS, I would never put a requester chest on an unloading line, and sounds like you didn't address my idea of using different inserters at all, but since you seem more interested in throughput than balancing, I can see why.

[JoshLittle]

Experimented a bit and the logistic system alone can't handle the throuput needed for 2 trains x 3 1/2 wagons. Even with 4 roboports they jam up for recharging.

If I also use belts, then I get again the system I already had. Third try would be to use the bots also for a direct transfer over border-chests. But then again, it would be nice to be able to limit the ouput boxes of the wagons to ~200 items per ore so they can get some amount on the belt and don't get emptied most of them fully by a not strong enough logistic system and the belts transport only a few items.

[ssilk]

Experimented a bit and the logistic system alone can't handle the throuput needed for 2 trains x 3 1/2 wagons. Even with 4 roboports they jam up for recharging.

Well, you need much bots and much roboports... It's an easy calculation:

With full robo-stacksize each robot can take 5 items. Every wagon has 1000 resources. To unload a wagon on the first move you need 200 bots. If you have 3 1/2 wagons you need 700 bots.
They unload the chests, if you place the source and target chests well enough, in under 10 seconds, cause every bot needs to run only once.

The point is now: Cause they need so short, they don't take much time to recharge. They fly to the next roboport, load for a a fraction of a second and move into the port, until the next train comes in within under 10 seconds. I estimate you need about 6-8 roboports for that.

If you use storage chests, this pic changes a bit, cause the items have then to be touched eventually twice: one rush from the incoming wagons and one constant stream from the steady loading of the inserters on the belts (or whatever). This needs some more bots/ports.

[JoshLittle]

If I want not to connect unloading and storage area then I can't have the roboports in the flight to the border. Nearly every wagon is nearer to the border than the roboports

At the moment I have three "productiv" (= not protective) areas separated from the main logistic network.

• Unloading, which needed around 170 bots at max (two long trains at the same time) to make the unloading balance when the stuff is taken out to the storage area on four red and two yellow belts.
• Storage/sorting: where 100-150 bots are more or less constantly putting the stuff from the station belts, directly on four slow outgoing smelting belts or into storage chests.
• Plate storage/base processing: After smelting in the main area without any additional bot the stuff is taken to the third area where iron and copper plates are stored, normal circuits, copper cables and some other stuff made in masses and provided to the main network. After shuffling around half a million copper cables and other stuff in, there are also working around 150 bots.

The second and third area are working fine. Perhaps I buy it with some additional power (but power I have in masses from solar), but specially the second area is so nice to have because I don't have to worry anymore about unbalanced, empty or jamming smelting belts. 40 iron and 40 copper smelters are fed constantly and the ore is still stacking up.

Only the unloading zone has everytime another issue to solve. I don't get it to work constantly. The only other thing I can think of is to totally disconnect the outgoing belts from the wagons and transfer it the short distance like in the storage zone to get it on the belts. Or with the suggestion for the chests that could solve some problem