Stack size limiter upgrade

Uristqwerty · Apr 12th 2019

Players generally don't like the idea that if they set up a component production line, it will consume inputs until every machine input and output along the way has a full stack of intermediate products. As a result, they tend towards overly-smart logistics networks like AE, where the network is in charge of putting exactly the right inputs in so that nothing gets wasted, but I think that it would be nice to have the Factorio-like option of letting full inputs produce natural backpressure with an acceptably-low overhead, so everything can pull directly from storage.

So, I suggest a "stack size limiter" upgrade. If N > 0 are present in a machine, then it will only accept N * one craft items in each input, and will not process if any output has more than (N - 1) * one craft items. Having modes to only affect input or output would also make sense.

I don't know how best to handle cases where different recipes take different counts of the same input item, perhaps a "recipe lock" upgrade would also be useful.

KrisBigK · Apr 13th 2019

Quote from Uristqwerty

Players generally don't like the idea that if they set up a component production line, it will consume inputs until every machine input and output along the way has a full stack of intermediate products. As a result, they tend towards overly-smart logistics networks like AE, where the network is in charge of putting exactly the right inputs in so that nothing gets wasted, but I think that it would be nice to have the Factorio-like option of letting full inputs produce natural backpressure with an acceptably-low overhead, so everything can pull directly from storage.

I don't like item stacking mainly because if hoppers are involved, they will create a tremendous amount of lag (often more than 100 μs per tick per hopper). However, I personally like to use redstone to lock the hoppers when they aren't needed to reduce the lag, and I avoid using other mods whenever possible. Also, no thing is wasted - the items there just don't get used.

Your idea about the stack size limit is great, but I think that the accept limit is better to be (64 - N) * one craft, and the output threshold (63 - N) * one craft, otherwise only 1 upgrade is enough.

Quote from Uristqwerty

I don't know how best to handle cases where different recipes take different counts of the same input item, perhaps a "recipe lock" upgrade would also be useful.

I believe an IC2 machine only take one recipe at a time. I like the recipe lock idea as it can act as a item filter.

Uristqwerty · Apr 18th 2019

Quote from KrisBigK

Your idea about the stack size limit is great, but I think that the accept limit is better to be (64 - N) * one craft, and the output threshold (63 - N) * one craft, otherwise only 1 upgrade is enough.

Each upgrade reducing space makes sense if you assume that a) the upgrades are less expensive than letting one extra input/output accumulate in a single machine, and b) that the player knows about the upgrade and is willing to go to the trouble to make them at all. If the incremental advantage of a single upgrade is too small, it would never advance beyond a very niche feature. So I figure that the common case should be one upgrade, and allow multiple as an advanced option. It's also easier to reason about how much space there is when you have 5 upgrades and a recipe like 1*A + 2*B = C.

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