What's the intended use of the spark activator and itemizer?

[Prometheus0000]

I thought maybe it's to get them to 'carry themselves' faster over a long distance rather than be carried by something, but then I noticed that it keeps churning more out regardless of how many are on the path. If I let it run, I might have dozens or hundreds of them uselessly gadding about, not exactly good for lag when that becomes a concern, and not as good as just carrying them with carry sparks. There doesn't seem to be a way to limit the number on the path, so I can't understand what the purpose is, unless you just assume it'll never back up.

[MMT Brenden]

So sometimes what you need to carry from one place to another is just the Sparks themselves. For example, the Crafty Spark requires Stumpy Sparks and Wooden Panel.

Instead of having two paths, one carrying stumpy spark tokens and one carrying wooden panels, you can just have stumpy sparks carry the wooden panels! Of course for something like the Crafty Spark, that's not really needed, but for some of the later Sparks, where you have to bring woodland sparks into the mountains, this can be a useful way to merge what would be multiple lines into a single line!

[Catso88]

Thank you! I was sitting here racking my brain trying to figure out the use for them. I got the transporting themselves bit, but did NOT think about them transporting the other necessary ingredients. NIFTY. Now my woodlands factory needs a small efficiency makeover :)

[Falk]

Originally posted by MMT Brenden:

So sometimes what you need to carry from one place to another is just the Sparks themselves. For example, the Crafty Spark requires Stumpy Sparks and Wooden Panel.

Instead of having two paths, one carrying stumpy spark tokens and one carrying wooden panels, you can just have stumpy sparks carry the wooden panels! Of course for something like the Crafty Spark, that's not really needed, but for some of the later Sparks, where you have to bring woodland sparks into the mountains, this can be a useful way to merge what would be multiple lines into a single line!

Having the sparks basically transport themselves saves on a ton of transport workload. However (unless there's some logistics up the tree that helps alleviate this) if the destination starts stagnating, e.g. if the Crafty sparks themselves have filled up an inventory and the spark workbench goes idle, a conga line of Stumpies eventually builds up all the way to the Stumpy production area, which ends up a lil excessive, lol

Even moreso if it's a conga line across the mountains.

Out of paranoia of hitting potential performance bottlenecks I've reverted to having Haulers carry the tokens around.

[Xanada]

Originally posted by MMT Brenden:

So sometimes what you need to carry from one place to another is just the Sparks themselves. For example, the Crafty Spark requires Stumpy Sparks and Wooden Panel.

Instead of having two paths, one carrying stumpy spark tokens and one carrying wooden panels, you can just have stumpy sparks carry the wooden panels! Of course for something like the Crafty Spark, that's not really needed, but for some of the later Sparks, where you have to bring woodland sparks into the mountains, this can be a useful way to merge what would be multiple lines into a single line!

Can't really understand how it works. I build Activator and Itemizer. One on one mountain another on another. Put carry spark on the road, put one carry inside Spark Activator and it is still not working.

I mean, I realize how it can jump inside with item and another is taking it, but what is the sense in it? I though they should teleport with some distance. So the main use is just to transfer two items (one spark + item)?