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Active provider chest (purple) forces logistics robots to come and empty it as soon as there are items in it, it has the highest priority as a source.
Storage chest (yellow) can both be a source and a destination, it is used to accept items that don't have specific places to go but need to be transported (usually it will be construction robots and active provider chests that will fill them since they don't "request" items).
As a source it shares the same priority as buffer chests, as a destination it is the lowest priority (items will only end up in it if there is no other place for it).
Buffer chest (green) serves as both a requester chest and a passive provider chest, it is mostly used as a buffer to store materials closer to the destination that usually requires it in order to make the trips shorter when they are needed.
They can also be used to make it so that some parts of your factory only have access to materials for crafting when the more important places (with requester chests) are satisfied.
As a source it has the same priority as storage chests, as a destination it comes after requester chests but before storage chests.
Requester chest (blue) can only be a destination and will only get what it requests, making it a good pick for "end" points (near crafting places, near a train stop...).
They are top priority to receive items, those with "request from buffer chests" have higher priority than the ones without.
In most cases you just need red, yellow and blue, the rest is provided to you to deal with finer details when and where needed.
1) For construction robots, most people will use storage chests because they also allow the construction robots to bring back whatever they need to bring back.
2) You put a passive provider chest and feed the output of the first assembling machine to it, then you put a requester chest that will feed your second assembling machine and set it to request items.
Depending on the case, active provider and storage chest can also be used instead but I don't recommend advanced setups until you understand what everything does because clogging your system with active providers is a sure-fire way of making your whole factory crawl to a stop.
Logic wires are optional, when you want a very specific action.
1. Yellow or red chests, anywhere in logistic range, hover over a roboport to see the range.
2. Output from machine 1 to a red chest, blue chest requesting it at the second assembler.
Some info was left out to avoid confusion, what I said is likely to be true 99.99% of cases.
For the same reason you connect anything else to the circuit network:
1. to use the output value in calculations to control your factory
2. to control the connected entity
Yes. That is literally the entire point of the logistic system.
The main reason the yellow is different from the red chests is that the yellow chests will bots to drop miscellaneous trash items that you put in your player trash slots. The red chests don't.
The purple chests try to get rid of their contents and send them anywhere else that will take them asap. Purple chests are handy for when you have some chests full of items that are in your way that you want to move. For example you can upgrade a regular steel chest to purple and your bots will clear out the chest and move the items to your yellow storage chests that you have placed somewhere else on the map.
For blue chests. Robots will deliver items to blue chests, but robots can't take from blue chests. That is what green chests do (can request items and then provide those same items).
Green chests: A possible use for a green chest might be the following: Say you are building rail system and every now and then you need to come back to your base for supplies. Without a green chest near your base station, bots take time collecting re-supply items from around your base to give you. With a green chest at your base train station the bots can fill that chest ahead of time with items you request and then quickly transfer them to you when you arrive at the station.
Connecting chests with wires to the circuit network is something you may want to do as you get more experienced. Some people like to automate inserting logistic or construction bots into roboports. Then use circuits to disable the inserting of logistic bots if the abount of bots in the network is over a certain number. The cool thing about this is if some bots get killed, more bots will be built as needed and inserted into the network.
Your goals questions:
1) Create some yellow chests in a central location. Start with a group of 8 or so and add more if needed. When placing roboports normally you should spread them out across your base, but keep them so that they are connected by the yellow dotted line when placing. Orange area is the range for logistic bots, the green area is the range for construction/repair bots.
2) Hopefully I already answered this above. The most basic setup is to use a red chest where an item is being made and a blue chest where you want the item to go.
That being said, I will say that every other comment here both better explains it and is worth reading/remembering. Logistics is VERY powerful in this game - arguably TOO powerful. Depending on how invested you are in learning about it, it's been pretty much proven that bots will beat the speed of moving products over belts at a certain tech level (the level to accomplish this was raised in .17 though if memory serves)
Personally I only use bots for building and keeping me topped off with supplies, but they can be used in a ton of ways - have fun!
Important to note about green too, is that they don't get anything unless asked for. Getting things without asking seems to be the main difference between storage and buffer. Another way I'd describe green is it's a source for blue chests that opt-in and only those.
Those were some flow-charty elements I didn't grasp straight away.
Also, about the relative power of logistic chests making layouts easy peasy.... I found that using drones to fix my garbage setup of my early game area (from when I was figuring things out) took over a hundred drones, which required new boiler/steam engine, which in turn made me panic about fuel supply and prioritize reaching out to a new oil field. So while they can shrink a footprint and simplify a layout, it isn't for free. Belts cost no power, only space.
> Like the "Passive" Red and the "Storage" Yellow, what's the difference"?
Bots never puts item into Passive provider chests, You can only insert to provider chest with inserters or manually.
> Why do I need a Purple "Active" why can't I just put it in the Red or Yellow?
Purple chest pushes the item out of the chest as soon as possible, you use Active provider chest when you don't want to pile items in the chest. On the other hand, Passive provider chest acts as a storage, bots only take items from it when there are item requests.
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Provider chests is mainly used on the output side of assembly line (assembler, trains, belts, chemical plant, furnaces, etc, from now on, when I say assembly line to mean all of those), you'd use inserter to insert item to a provider chest. I mostly use Passive provider chests, the use of Active provider chests is usually more situational.
Requester chest is mainly used in the input side of an assembly line. I use requester chest mainly to request low volume, expensive items that has to be delivered from faraway, as belting those would mean the belt would buffer a lot of those expensive items.
Bots can pick up and put items into Storage chests. Like its name implies, it's basically general purpose storage space. I usually scatter Storage chests around the factory to store items I don't currently need. Storage chests can't really be used immediately around the assembly line, as bots will often drop random items into it, which can stop the assembly line if the Storage chest is filled with the wrong items.
Buffer chests is a bit more difficult to use, it basically acts like a combination of Storage chest with an item filter but it will also requests items like Requester chests. I use it mainly to buffer construction items. Logistic bots can carry large number of items through long distance more efficiently than Constructor bots, so I create buffer chests to transport construction items from production malls to areas that will be needing them in the future (e.g. the frontline, where construction bots need construction materials to repair destroyed buildings, or near expansion areas where I'm planning to plop down some large blueprints in the near future for automated constructions like Solar farms).
Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeechnically, you can get more than 10 in a chest with that kind of request. Bots are dumb, and as SOON as a chest dips down into 9 focket fuel sends out a request. The nearest high priority source of the fuel will be found. Then a robot near the source will be found. Then the robot picks up AS MUCH AS IT CAN HOLD of the fuel, and delivers that. The good news about this is that it means if another fuel (or 2) are requested while the bot is enroute, another bot will not be sent because there's already one enroute with enough to satisfy the request.
The bas news is that - in general, your requester can have up [drone inventory - 1] more in them than you asked for. Keep that in mind if you are restricting chests with the X button in the UI. Always assume you will have an item or two more than you really want.
Proper use of requesters should mean that you don't request more than a stack of an item, and should NEVER limit the chests OR insert items into them. To prevent clogging.
Red Chests - Make the items available to the logistic network, but do not force it onto the network. bots will pick it up from here if another chest or the player is requesting the item
Purple Chests - Force items onto the network. logistic bots will take items from these chests before any other chest, and will transport items in these chests into storage (yellow) or buffer (green) chests or blue chests.
Green Chests - both request items from the network and provide it to the player or the construction robots. Logisitc robots can deliver items to these chests but they cannot take items out. This is useful for large construction projects, like reactors. or for defensive wall repairs.
Blue Chests - request items from the logistic netowrk. They will take items from purple, red or yellow chests, in that order.
99.99% of the time you will only use red yellow and blue chests. You shoudl never use purple chests except for isolated bot networks, since it can flood your entire storage syste with items and leave bots idling with those items, unable to recharge, and unable to unload the items.
Another example is on the output of artillery shell assembler if a big stockpile is wanted. You can only put 48 shells in a chest, so putting a purple chest is like outputting directly into the whole storage. Simply control the max stock with the inserter network condition.
It can all be done differently, but it works well this way.
Easy way is to link the inserter to the local logistics net & set a limit (eg; "activate if {item} less than {minimum wanted}"). Works the same as wiring an iron chest to the inserter & using the circuit network to set the activation limit, however it checks the contents of all the chests in the local network rather than just the single circuit-wired chest.
Active Providers are fantastic at train stations (assuming you set limits on the inserters): they will auto-balance unloading regardless of number of wagons; require much smaller local item buffers; & can achieve higher sustained throughput than a passive-based system (unless you add circuits, but even then using actives is simpler). Minimal footprint for maximum throughput. Example pic.[i.imgur.com]
They are also great in player shops, and for any production output that is not required nearby ~ items can be "pushed" to a central storage area automatically as they are produced (on-demand, to "top-up" the local buffer to the wanted amount).
They are a little tricky to use well (active-push), but they can often be more efficient than a passive-pull system.
Belts are passive-pull by default, unless circuit network, which probably explains why many players seem to have some trouble with active providers at first ~ ie; it is inverted behaviour to other systems encountered ingame up to that point.
Trivia: They are my #2 most used logi chest, right after requesters, with storage in a distant 3rd & passive in 4th. (I'm still figuring out good uses for the new buffer chest.)
I'm not so much concerned about "runaway production", but rather with active chest it is difficult to control where specific items gets stockpiled. With active chest you don't have any control over where the bots will pile the items on. Using passive chests with buffer and requester chest, it is much easier to specify the precise flow of items, rather than leaving to chance with Active chests.
Buffer & requester chests work the same either way (pull), but actives give an extra control method in addition (push and pull) ~ this allows more control over the bot network.
I actually find the reverse to be the case: Using actives means I can precisely control where items are held inside the network at all times. (Active-pushed into the right storage location, automatically placing them closer to the destinations for easy requesting / collection / stock-check.)
Passives mean items stay where they were produced, and always have to be summoned to where they are needed. (Passive-pulled via requester / buffer chests only.)
As active-push automatically balances output production (same as train unloading), this avoids some issues that can occur with passives ~ items clumping can often cause production or throughput slowdowns, requiring larger buffers to compensate / hide the issue.
I do use some passives, but only for items that need to be left where produced because they are also being used nearby ~ pushing those items eleswhere would be less efficient.
A more useful way of controlling item distribution is using buffer chests. These are set up as if they were requesters, but can also provide their contents to blue active chests. In essence, they are the same as what you want, but without having to use wires and counting. You can set a buffer chest to request a full chest worth, or just half, without having to set chest filters.