Inserters target full?

[Strifeboy]

They aren't working, so i'm new and I got set up belt>boiler and instead of filling up with coal it does one every now and again with some not working on the others. The other set up is assembly>assembly from gear to science and it just won't move them over.

Everything is powered, plenty of room for resources to be shoved in their.

[Glyph]

The buildings' buffers are pretty small, and if the output is full then they won't insert new inputs. Are the buildings making goods?

[Strifeboy]

Originally posted by Glyph:

The buildings' buffers are pretty small, and if the output is full then they won't insert new inputs. Are the buildings making goods?

Yeah, even when I dump the key resource it won't grab one say from the assembly and fill it back up to continue it. Do i need a chest in the middle or some other thing to make these work?

[Nico]

There are only 2 reasons why inserters don't grab items. Either the input of the building is full (aka it has like double the items required to make one item, or for boiler like 5 coal, don't know the exact value, but it's way less then what you can put in manually), or the output is full. Other than the obvious things like when on the belt is something that's of no use or when the inserter has something in its hand that it can't put anywhere.

I guess the best way to explain what you mean would be posting a screeenshot. Since there could be so many potential small problems that's it's rather hard to really say what it actually is.

[Quillithe]

It's probably that the buffer is full if I had to guess, boilers only hold a little coal and won't fill up until that burns.

Iron gear wheels get made much faster than science at one assembler can use them up so that will mostly idle too.

[Strifeboy]

ok i figured it, there is something called automated insertion limit, not sure why it exists or why it can't fill it up to make storage of building.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

ok i figured it, there is something called automated insertion limit, not sure why it exists or why it can't fill it up to make storage of building.

Basically it's to be helpful, if anyone plays satisfactory it's kinda unsatisfactory how the first manufacturer in a series steals far far too many resources in a buffer before the last one gets any. This avoids that problem.

If you really want to you can feed from the belt into a box and then from the box into the machine but there's very little point.

[Zukabazuka]

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

ok i figured it, there is something called automated insertion limit, not sure why it exists or why it can't fill it up to make storage of building.

Mainly because the first few inserter would take their sweet time filling their machines while the rest get zero resources. Once they taken enough to build stuff for at least 2 they will not take more. Only smelters can have inserter put in more to the point to them have max iron plates. but still only 3-5 ores.

[Strifeboy]

Haha that's interesting, I'm just use to everything jamming stuff into everything they can. Is it better to have flow factories without boxes for resources, like every comes straight from the miner to the furnace to the assembly, no boxes needed?

[Quillithe]

This would be really bad for things like modules or something where resources are small and production is slow.

The first assembler would collect enough blue circuits for 5 minutes of constant module 2 production before the second got started!

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

Haha that's interesting, I'm just use to everything jamming stuff into everything they can. Is it better to have flow factories without boxes for resources, like every comes straight from the miner to the furnace to the assembly, no boxes needed?

Yeah generally just put everything on belts by default.

Like the gear wheels? Put them onto a belt and run them elsewhere. Make more science or, bring them back near the iron belt and make some belts in an assembler.

Usually I use boxes for my pickup - like I'd put the belts in a box at the end to grab but I might not with the gear wheels (though picking a box off the belt for grabbing if you need some can be nice)

This can change later with robots but that's a different story, don't worry about that yet.

[Strifeboy]

Sweet ty for the help.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

Haha that's interesting, I'm just use to everything jamming stuff into everything they can. Is it better to have flow factories without boxes for resources, like every comes straight from the miner to the furnace to the assembly, no boxes needed?

Yes, Buffers mean resources just sitting there doing nothing; Resources you already spent electricity on, resources you already produced pollution to make. Bigger buffers means even more of that.

You always want to minimize buffers in Factorio for that reason. Stack up finished products, sure, so you can use them when you need them. But dont buffer if you dont have a very good reason to do so.

[Britty mitty]

The only items you want to stack up are one's that you need to use to expand your base, belts, assemblers, additional power buildings ect. Resource through put is significantly more vital (only exception being uranium since you want to stockpile some of that for enrichment purposes in preparation for your first proper nuclear setup.)

[Quillithe]

It can also be useful to have little stockpiles for hand crafting, especially as a new player.

Tip for this is that you can click the red X to limit the automatic storage size of a chest so you only put 200 gear wheels or something in the cheat automatically.

And then ctrl click will empty the chest and fill you up with 200 gear wheels if you need them.


Or belts or pipes or whatever but you might find 200 belts isn't nearly enough!

[Scout360Pyro]

Just had this issue, fixed it by by emptying the coal in the buffer.
Similar issue with an assembler, had to fix THAT by resetting the recipe it was making.