Inserter capacity bonus (research)

Inserter capacity bonus (research)/infobox

Inserter capacity bonus research increases the stack size for inserters, i.e. the number of items they can hold in the arm at once.

• When moving items from one stack to another, the inserter takes as many items as it can (i.e. up to the stack size) at once, without any additional delay.

• When moving items to a belt, the inserter picks up several items and then drops those items on the belt one by one. While this takes longer than dropping a single item, the overall throughput is still higher because the arm doesn't have to move back and forth.

• When moving items from a belt, the inserter tries to fill its stack to capacity before moving the arm to drop them off. To do this, it waits for a short time for a new item to become in range. The wait time is long enough to make the inserter fill up completely on a fully compressed belt. It is shorter than the time to move the arm away and back, so even though it waits it is a net benefit for throughput.

However, the extra time to fill the stack and wait for more items mean longer delays, e.g. for a machine to get enough items to start working. Beginning with 0.15 it is possible to override the max stack size.

This means the bonus is more effective when moving from stack to stack than when moving from stack to belt or belt to stack. The increased throughput is still significant in any case though, especially for the Stack inserter that has a max size of 12.

A slow Inserter with stack size bonus of 4, which moves from chest to chest, can easily keep up with a Fast inserter, moving from chest to a belt. This is why it is recommended to move items that are required in high quantities at high speeds directly between machines.

A high inserter capacity bonus can break some constructions that use the circuit network; since an inserter can move more items at once an equal ("=") condition might not be met because the number of items "jumps" over the specified number.

In 0.15 it is possible to override the max stack size to overcome problems like that. It can also be controlled by a circuit network signal.

This bonus is is also often called "inserter bonus", "stacksize bonus" , or "stack bonus".

Technology	Cost	Pickup bonus (total stack size)
		Non-Stack Inserter	Stack Inserter
none	-	(1)	(2)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 1 Inserter capacity bonus 1	30 1 1 X 200		+1 (3)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 2 Inserter capacity bonus 2	30 1 1 X 250	+1 (2)	+1 (4)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 3 Inserter capacity bonus 3	30 1 1 1 X 250		+1 (5)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 4 Inserter capacity bonus 4	30 2 2 1 X 250		+1 (6)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 5 Inserter capacity bonus 5	30 2 2 2 1 X 300		+2 (8)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 6 Inserter capacity bonus 6	30 2 2 2 2 X 400		+2 (10)
File:Inserter-capacity-research.png 7 Inserter capacity bonus 7	30 4 4 3 2 X 600	+1 (3)	+2 (12)

See also

• Research
• Technologies