Improving Logistics, Part 1: Individualized Storage Limits

[goboking]

I think a big step forward in QOL pertaining to storage and automation is to change storage compactors so that we can limit stored quantities of materials on an individual basis.  To illustrate what I'm talking about, let's consider automating ceramic and refined carbon production. 

Say we want to always have 15t of ceramic and 5t of refined carbon on hand.  That means we need one smart storage compactor limited to 15t and set to only accept ceramic and another limited to 5t and set to only accept refined carbon, and we need to use not gates to connect them to separate kilns set to continuously produce ceramic and refined carbon, respectively.

Now imagine we can set a single smart storage compactor to accept no more than 15t of ceramic and 5t of refined carbon.  We just cut the number of smart storage compactors and kilns we need to build in half.  That's half the power consumption, heat waste, automation wiring, and space needed to run the same setup we were previously using.

Now let's swap kilns producing ceramic and refined carbon with metal refineries producing gold, tungsten, iron, and steel.  That's four refineries and smart storage compactors vs one of each.  You can see how much the benefits of my proposal scales based on how many products a refinery can make.

[Yannick Vachon]

The problem with this idea, from what I see, is that it means that automation wire would require to build able to carry more than one signal at a time. For example, it would require to display an "active" signal for ceramics and an "inactive" signal for the carbon. And then you apply a NOT on this, inverting both. That would become messy not only to code but just to display. And I am not at the Refinery or the Grill with that, where it would be worse.

I am not saying your idea is bad. I see some value in it. I am just not sure that the game could support that kind of thing easily as it is right now.

[goboking]

There's no need to change the automation.  If you've set a smart storage compactor to hold 10t of ceramic and 10t of carbon and your kiln is set to continuously produce both, it will make each until the compactor contains 20t of material.  This might mean you'll wind up producing more of one or other than the compactor can hold, but excess material can stored in normal storage compactors set to a lower priority..  For example, if you stared with 9t of ceramic and 1t of carbon you'll wind up with excess ceramic.  That's a slight system inefficiency, but I don't think it's one whose negatives outweigh the positives.