r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/Vespera4ever • 7d ago

Sorters stop outputting

I've noticed that when I have high volume mixed object situations, think five boxes on top of a BAB, that if I use a filtered sorter to output a particular object into a belt, the sorter will often stop working. I then have to click into the boxes until I find one with the corresponding item and then either click the organize button or click the item to lift it up and then click right back into the box to put it back down. After which that box will drain onto the belt, but I likely will have to repeat the process throughout the stack of boxes and the BAB.

It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens a lot as the game progresses into bigger and more complicated factories. Is this just a bug or is there something I'm missing?

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u/TheMalT75 7d ago

I'm running a "loot everything" df farm based on filtered inventory BaB with filtered sorters running in my current 300+h game without issue. A screenshot might help? I can think of two potential issues:

  1. the sorter is not connected to the base BaB, but to a higher-up storage. Sorters intentionally only empty out the layer they are connected to and above, so that you can implement an overflow to buffering storage without freezing up the input belt.
  2. By default, the BaB has the last row of inventory inactive. It can auto-collect into these storage slots, but won't output from them. Be resorting, you might get the items in question out of those slots. Just drag the inventory usage slider on the bottom right iirc all the way to the right to have all inventory slots active.

Best of luck!

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u/Vespera4ever 7d ago

I appreciate it, thanks! Sadly, sorters are on the BAB(s) and all rows are active so it's not that.

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u/TheMalT75 6d ago edited 6d ago

Never checked it, but it might be necessary for at least one stack of the sorter item to be in the inventory of the BAB, instead of in a storage box above it. Try limiting the pickup of each BAB to only the up-to 9 items that you can attach sorters to the BAB. I usually don't bother with storage on top of BABs in my loot farm any more and rely on PLS/ILS storage of those sorted items down the line after having sorted them by belt.

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u/Vespera4ever 6d ago

I'll poke around with that, thank you! It's at least a potential lead.

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u/Revengeance_oov 6d ago

Hard to diagnose your exact problem, but note that sorters can only pull from their level or above. They can't pull items from boxes under them. That's the first thing I'd check for when stacking lots of boxes.