Logistics

[MysticForces]

There seems to be an inconsistency when it comes to when a gac(or any machine that makes another product) can take input from a conveyor or not. Sometimes it requires a hopper and sometimes it can take it directly from a conveyor. There also seems inconsistency about where the input and output of the items are. Some can side-load, some can input and output to the same direction even thought visually it looks like it should go only in one direction.

Is there a known pattern for knowing when a gac should be loaded from hoppers?
My assumption is always that if a gac needs more than one of a particular item, then it should be loaded via hoppers, but what stops the game logic from also making it accept from conveyors?

I would prefer only loading from conveyors as this will simplify the situations where two hoppers are placed diagonally next to each other and now a conveyors can't be placed next to both of the hoppers because one of the hoppers will dump it's goods onto the conveyor. I know there are directional hoppers, but what about directional logistics hoppers then?

[Exgene]

Unfortunately I don't believe there is any hard and fast rule or pattern (other than trial and error). If there is, I have not found it. And there are exceptions to rules:

For example: Coal enricher. Can take in/out from conveyors - out conveyor must point away from it (right-angled conveyors don't work). Exception: if there is an adjoining (but unavailable) hopper it will stall and refuse to output to a conveyor in front of it, instead waiting for the hopper to be free.

[Robert]

Yeah, this is pretty annoying. And there seems to be no pattern. I know exactly what you mean, lots of machines look like they will output into the opposite direction, but they don't and will fill the input hopper, wtf. You can work around that with setting the input hopper to "remove only", which is part of the tutorial right at the beginning (when you get introduced to the smelter). Still, the visual appearance of many machines is misleading.

The general rule, however, is that if a machine needs more than 1 single item, you can't feed it with conveyor belts, you need a hopper. Which is fine.

[Paranoia]

Machines that do not require power and act as a conveyor typically don't require hoppers; machines that require more than one unit of a particular item do indeed require an input hopper. You can actually find out whether a machine requires an input hopper or not either in the description or by placing it and reading the tooltip.

Sometimes this can get confusing though. Say you want to set up a conveyor that produces PCBs, so you place 3 machines in a row to turn bars into PCBs, but that wouldn't work, because machines that interface with conveyors need space to output their finished product. So for that setup to work, you'd need to have at least one conveyor between each machine.

But that's not all, what if you need to make a line that has both hoppers and conveyors as input/output? And that's where your question about input/output inconsistency comes in.

Basically, while machine can look like a conveyor belt with a clear direction, what's actually happening is that a machine can interface with anything that's attached to any of its sides. So yeah, you could have a hopper inputting your desired product while being directly on top of a machine, for example. Not sure if it works with stampers and machines like that, though.

With that in mind, you can set up your hoppers in a variety of ways. In most cases you don't want to use add+remove on hoppers because that's bound to clog your system eventually, so instead set up clear permissions. It's especially important if you have a conveyor -> machine -> hopper setup, leaving the hopper in add+remove mode will make the machine think it needs to both input and output from the hopper and will ignore the conveyor.

Just to clarify: if you set an add+remove hopper adjacent to a machine, it will both take from and deposit into that hopper, regardless of how the machine appears, while also ignoring input/output conveyors. The tutorial teaches you to clearly set up add/remove permissions for a reason, so when going for automation, don't leave your hoppers on the default setting.

You can attach multiple hoppers to a machine and it will work, but if they're set to add only, said machine will typically pick one hopper and stick with it until it fills up.

Directional hoppers would 100% solve your problem in that case. The way they work is that they accept all input from conveyors aimed at them, but only output in one direction, so just one can make a difference in such a system.

[MysticForces]

There is a definite need for directional logistics hoppers and directional mini hoppers. Or am I just not seeing them?

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by MysticForces:

There is a definite need for directional logistics hoppers and directional mini hoppers. Or am I just not seeing them?

Oh, my bad, didn't see you were asking specifically for logistics hoppers, but no, there's only the 100 slots version of those.

[Robert]

Directional hoppers exist. Although I'm not sure if they are vanilla or got added from one of the mods I installed, because I'm a noob.

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by Robert:

Directional hoppers exist. Although I'm not sure if they are vanilla or got added from one of the mods I installed, because I'm a noob.

They're part of the base game.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Paranoia:

Originally posted by Robert:

Directional hoppers exist. Although I'm not sure if they are vanilla or got added from one of the mods I installed, because I'm a noob.

They're part of the base game.

Ah, thanks. :)

Either way, MysticForces, your problem can easily be solved by using directional hoppers or setting proper permissions (add only vs remove only). And with those permissions you could use logistic hoppers or mini hoppers as well, if you want.

[MysticForces]

My goal is to make logistics as tight as possible. This is made problematic when some machine need hoppers and hoppers tend to interact with everything next to them. Sometimes this is intentional, but a lot of the times it's unwanted. Directional hoppers is what is required, but many times a 100-slot hopper is just complete overkill when a 10-slot or even 2-slot will do.

Most of my troubles would go away if all machines had a predictable output direction, just like directional hoppers, but perhaps this isn't feasible.

[Robert]

Originally posted by MysticForces:

My goal is to make logistics as tight as possible. This is made problematic when some machine need hoppers and hoppers tend to interact with everything next to them. Sometimes this is intentional, but a lot of the times it's unwanted. Directional hoppers is what is required, but many times a 100-slot hopper is just complete overkill when a 10-slot or even 2-slot will do.

Most of my troubles would go away if all machines had a predictable output direction, just like directional hoppers, but perhaps this isn't feasible.

I agree 100%, but I guess we have to live with the situation. It's completely feasible, and would take DJ a few hours to fix, or maybe a day or two, considering there are lots of machines which behave unpredictable. But it werks if you obey the unwritten rules, so there's that. "Never change a running system" is one of the mantras programmers have. And this is a good example for that mantra.

[Paranoia]

Compact setups are absolutely doable, and like I've mentioned in my original reply there's a more or less clear general principle of how most machines operate. In addition to that, you could always check the handbook to clarify whether a particular machine requires hoppers. If that fails, placing the machine usually gives you precise information about its desired PPS, type of input etc.

From my understanding, handbook entries are going to be more informative in the next patch, so hopefully that will help clarify such details at a glance.

[DjArcas]

There's simple rules!

There are 2 types of machines. GACs and Assembly Line machines. Assembly Line machines have a magenta outline, and their handbook entry says that is is a Conveyor with a module attached on top.

Assembly Line machines act like conveyors under ALL circumstances, but will upcraft things they understand (Bars into Plates, for example) - that's stampers, coilers, PCB makers, extruders and pipe makers, I believe.

GACs (Generic Auto Crafters) cover everything else - they will load from a Conveyor IF their recipe is a single item, else they require loading from a Hopper. GACs will ALWAYS offload to an away-facing Conveyor for priority, otherwise they will look for any other valid offload target.

Other than the Macerator (sorry!), there are NO EXCEPTIONS TO THESE RULES - If there are, and I quote 'Lots of machines which behave unpredictable', then I need to know these so I can investigate. I do not believe it to be the case, however.

Changing any of these behaviours would break thousands of existing setups, so it's not likely to change.

[MysticForces]

I didn't know about the 'away facing conveyor' priority. That helps. I've now already asked this in another thread, but I'll ask it here as well. If the away facing conveyor is full (backed-up), the the gac output to the hopper as well?

[Robert]

Originally posted by DjArcas:

There's simple rules!
Other than the Macerator (sorry!), there are NO EXCEPTIONS TO THESE RULES - If there are, and I quote 'Lots of machines which behave unpredictable', then I need to know these so I can investigate. I do not believe it to be the case, however.

It's mostly a problem with misleading visual appearance. Many machines look like they have an internal conveyor belt, so as a new player you assume "alright, they will output into that direction" ... but they don't. Quick examples which come to my mind are iron gear and lightweight machine housing crafters because I had some wtf moments with them when I first placed them. Once you get used to it it's ok, but it's really confusing for new players who expect something to happen based on visuals, then it doesn't.

[Timeslice]

Yes, it's the visuals that are the problem. Too many GAC's have conveyor belts modeled in their internals. However, FCE has notoriously inconsistent art direction and it's not something that's going to be rectified in the regretably small mount of development time we have remaining.

Unless someone is going to start paying DJArcas a full time salary to develope FCE. Anyone? Please?