Is there any use for hoppers?

[I'm Mr. Meseeks, look at me!ݴ]

It seems to me like hoppers increase the amount of effort to use machines in every situation. You could just use the extra space and time you get by not making hoppers to put twice the machines and have to come back to use them half as many times. It seems like its always more optimal to just add a chest in a room with more machines just to hold the stuff to be processed. Also with many hoppers you need to evenly divide everything you're putting in.

Is there any valid use or they're just worthless and expensive? Not sure what to do with radioactive ore and bars besides galaxy souls I guess.

[I Kinda Fail]

I think it's to prevent you from having to withdraw a bunch of stuff from a chest, then put it back in?

Like if you've got a stack of 50 milk, and 10 cheese presses, you'd either have to manually withdraw 10 milk, or withdraw half the stack then fill the presses than put them back in.

With hoppers, you'd just load them every few weeks and be done with it. No chests needed... depending what they're for.

Personally, I used them to feed deconstructors. I had a beach obelisk and a return sceptre and just spent all day going to Willy's, buying fishing tackle, then loading them up into hoppers. Then every morning when I went to check my furnaces and wood chippers, I'd have a bunch of iron and gold bars waiting for me.

Alternatively, I suppose they could be good for people who just hate processing stuff. So you'd just need to empty the kegs rather than refill them as well? I dunno.

[Avilyn]

I was hoping they'd store the finished product, so you could load them with e.g. ore & coal, and come back to a stack of metal bars. But no, they don't start producing the next item until you've cleared the finished product, so I agree they're worthless as they currently function. I've never bought them after that first one.

[I'm Mr. Meseeks, look at me!ݴ]

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

I think it's to prevent you from having to withdraw a bunch of stuff from a chest, then put it back in?

I mean I get that the idea was to make it easier but the thing is if you have 10 cheese presses and you put 10 hoppers behind them and you want to process 40 milk you're going to have to click each hopper, then click 4 times to measure out 4 milk for each hopper leading to 40 clicks to load it, versus just taking 4 clicks to open the chest each time and then put stuff back in at the end and then you can hold right click to load as you take out the product. It seems like hoppers will actually always increase the time the player has to be clicking to process compared even to blank spaces.

I suppose their just improperly implemented and don't have any benefit.

Originally posted by Avilyn:

I was hoping they'd store the finished product, so you could load them with e.g. ore & coal, and come back to a stack of metal bars. But no, they don't start producing the next item until you've cleared the finished product, so I agree they're worthless as they currently function. I've never bought them after that first one.

Yes this was what I was thinking. I guess I expected the most in game items to have a purpose but it really doesn't and heavy tapper is technically useful if you maxed out your tress but meh when you consider I have unused space and could more easily just plant more trees.

[CookedMeat]

Personally I feel like most Island upgrades are either useless or too expensive to prove any useful. Never planned to use any of them.

[I'm Mr. Meseeks, look at me!ݴ]

Yeah I thought since I was spending time split between the island where a large year round farming plot and my already developed farm I could use some automation on the old one but guess not. Hopefully they get reworked to have a use.

[Queen Droxxanna]

while I have the automate mod for most machines to get items directly from chests, I still use the hoppers for the wood chippers.
I place stacks of hardwood into the hopper, which then gets fed into 3 wood chippers on a continuing basis.
At the end I placed a chest for the chopped wood to go into, and then I placed 3 furnaces to turn the wood into coal, fed automatically. The coal goes back into the center chest.
I have more coal now then I will use in a long time, and the whole setup looks nice.

If you don't use mods, then the hopper is very useful to automate some of your production.

[I'm Mr. Meseeks, look at me!ݴ]

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

while I have the automate mod for most machines to get items directly from chests, I still use the hoppers for the wood chippers.
I place stacks of hardwood into the hopper, which then gets fed into 3 wood chippers on a continuing basis.
At the end I placed a chest for the chopped wood to go into, and then I placed 3 furnaces to turn the wood into coal, fed automatically. The coal goes back into the center chest.
I have more coal now then I will use in a long time, and the whole setup looks nice.

If you don't use mods, then the hopper is very useful to automate some of your production.

You can't do that at all without mods... You literally can't automate anything.

[CookedMeat]

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

The hopper only feeds one item at a time, and product from machine have to be removed manually for the hopper to feed again, even if the output products are the same. This is why hopper are quite useless.

[Queen Droxxanna]

Originally posted by CookedMeat:

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

The hopper only feeds one item at a time, and product from machine have to be removed manually for the hopper to feed again, even if the output products are the same. This is why hopper are quite useless.

that's why I have the automate mod. The hopper feeds at one end, and the chest takes it out on the other end.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2677509211

[I Kinda Fail]

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

Originally posted by CookedMeat:

The hopper only feeds one item at a time, and product from machine have to be removed manually for the hopper to feed again, even if the output products are the same. This is why hopper are quite useless.

that's why I have the automate mod. The hopper feeds at one end, and the chest takes it out on the other end.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2677509211

I haven't used the mod, but can't you also just put the chest next to the chipper and it'll automatically fill it with wood...? Like, if you use it for crab pots, doesn't the chest re-bait them? So wouldn't the chest auto-fill AND empty the chippers?

[CookedMeat]

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

I haven't used the mod, but can't you also just put the chest next to the chipper and it'll automatically fill it with wood...? Like, if you use it for crab pots, doesn't the chest re-bait them? So wouldn't the chest auto-fill AND empty the chippers?

Since when is this a feature in Vanilla? I'm new to Stardew Valley. Can't even find it on Wiki.

[Queen Droxxanna]

Originally posted by CookedMeat:

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

I haven't used the mod, but can't you also just put the chest next to the chipper and it'll automatically fill it with wood...? Like, if you use it for crab pots, doesn't the chest re-bait them? So wouldn't the chest auto-fill AND empty the chippers?

Since when is this a feature in Vanilla? I'm new to Stardew Valley. Can't even find it on Wiki.

While the hopper will load items into machines, you still have to empty machines manually UNLESS you have an automate mod installed. Automate is NOT a vanilla feature, but is a great helpful mod to have, There are a couple of different automate mods, depending on what you need it for. I have both installed for all my machines.

If you are only using vanilla, you can place up to 4 machines around a hopper for it to work with.

[CookedMeat]

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

If you are only using vanilla, you can place up to 4 machines around a hopper for it to work with.

What? doesn't hopper only dispenses item to machine in front of it?

[Queen Droxxanna]

Originally posted by CookedMeat:

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

If you are only using vanilla, you can place up to 4 machines around a hopper for it to work with.

What? doesn't hopper only dispenses item to machine in front of it?

IN front, behind, beside, as long as its touching

[CookedMeat]

Originally posted by soaringfreedom:

IN front, behind, beside, as long as its touching

Just tested in my game, it only feeds to item directly below. You are confusing vanilla with modded game again.