Yellow Storage Chests

[jonbrave]

Having just completed my 3rd game to Satellite Launch without daring to get into Robots/Logistics(!), I'm just playing around a bit at the end to get the idea of Logistics, potentially for next time...

As I do the research, the first thing I get is Red (Passive Provider) & Yellow Storage Chests. I've built my Roboport & Logistic Robots. I am feeding a product into the Red Chest. I have figured to be able to request the product for my character's inventory (dues to whatever it was I researched).

The bit I don't get is the purpose of the Yellow Chests, at least at this time? I'd like to get robots to move the commodity from the Provider into amother chest to supply an Assembler. I think I understand that for that I will actually need to wait to research the Blue Requester Chest, right? Which does not come till more research.

So what is the current Yellow Storage Chest for, precisely? The robots aren't interested in putting anything into it for me (whether I set its product filter to the desired product or not). Am I supposed to put stuff into it myself?? When is it supposed to get filled or emptied? Until I get the Blue Requester Chest, what "network" can I make out of just the starting Red & Yellow Chests?

[The_Mell]

Yellow storage chests serve as alternatives if there are no requester chests demanding the stuff you 'force upon robots'.
Most common for their use is either deconstruction of base or player's garbage slots.

[jonbrave]

So, just so I understand, and as an exercise, I'm trying to see what I can achieve with just the initial Red + Yellow, before I get the later Blue. (Once I get Blue, I think I understand how straightfoward it will be to get robots to move product from Red to Blue.)

I set the Passive Provider to be filled from a producer. I set my own Logistics to request that product. The robots bring it to me, good.

Now, I set me to want to "trash" the product, which is being brought to me. At that instant, sure enough robots take the product away from me and dump it into the Yellow Storage Chest! And as that is next to an Assembler, it gets used to build something.

So, given just Red & Yellow (and no deconstruction) that makes the only possible robotic produce-supply network, right? I'm sure that's not what I will want to do in the long run, like I say I'm just trying to understand functionality.

[KatherineOfSky]

Keep in mind that you can also filter the Storage chests so that dumped products will automatically go to those for recycling. (Sort of a pre-Requester chest solution for clearing up storage chests).

[Warlord]

Originally posted by The_Mell:

Yellow storage chests serve as alternatives if there are no requester chests demanding the stuff you 'force upon robots'.
Most common for their use is either deconstruction of base or player's garbage slots.

For me, they'd most commonly be used to drop off materials that the robots try to bring me when I use character logistics slots, but I then run out of range because I am busy doing something else.

Since robots cannot place an item back into a provider chest they got it from, they must put it down somewhere. If there isn't an active request, storage is the only other option.

[SwaggerC4]

yellow chests (storage chests) are mainly used as a storage in case you have an active provider or if you put an item into your dump slot but the items in the chests can be used by requesters.

[jonbrave]

Thanks everyone.

My point was: it's not obvious to me why they would be one of the first two Chests to be available. I had expected that to be the Red Providers & the Blue Requesters, which work as a pair. But I now understand that's just how it is.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by jonbrave:

Thanks everyone.

My point was: it's not obvious to me why they would be one of the first two Chests to be available. I had expected that to be the Red Providers & the Blue Requesters, which work as a pair. But I now understand that's just how it is.

I understand your complaint. We've had this conversation about the annoying gate between basic logistics and the requester chests before. In the past, the separation between the two was not so extreme, but neither was the science that difficult (blue science was the most advanced kind, and it was simpler than today's blue science).

Red chests still have a slight use before blue. They can be providers for construction bots, and for personal logistics requests. But their main use (in my opinion) is tied to blue requests, which is a bit further on...

I think the devs basically wanted you to prove you can do without bot-based production lines at least for a bit, to make sure you know how to make efficient designs. It sucks if you ultimate goal is to go all in, but being able to make the other science without just logistics is a useful knowledge to have.

[jonbrave]

@Warlord Perfect explanation, thanks.