I got an idea of a mass storage that can accept any item types with no direct access to its content. The items are outputted in LIFO or FIFO manner, which can be set by screwdriver (it could be another instrument). It can be used to load machines or take their outputs. I would use such thing definitely.
Also, it can be used as a dump by greedy people like me.
You know you can just set the Mass Storages and Item Barrels to NOT keep their Filter, right? That will definitely do a FIFO if you just stack 2 or 3 of them with Auto-Out to bottom.
Also Queue Hoppers do exist if you want a Slot based FIFO.
Edit: And I cant really think of how to do a proper LIFO though
That’s not what I was thinking of. I mean a storage that can keep all the different items in itself. Just like a chest, but with no GUI and a much larger volume.
They have too little slots.
36 Slots for the higher tiers is too little? You can even chain Queue Hoppers so they are expandable dynamically.
Those hoppers are very expensive.
The point is too have it in one block.
Anyway, I feel like you don’t like the idea. Why? Do you think it’s imbalanced?
I have a mass storage for pumpkins, it loads a fermenter. Sometimes I want to load in the fermenter something else. But there are always pumpkins in that storage. A LIFO mass storage that is not bound to item type would solve this problem.
Also, a cheap variation of this block could be used to load and unload machines. It could be made of plastic and could store up to 1000 different items.
I once had a Block like that with 256 Slots that did not have a GUI back in GT5. It was very unhelpful due to the lack of GUI, despite its obvious utility in piling up Dusts and Ingots.
Unless ofcourse the Input Slot contains a partial Stack of Pumpkin that has not been processed yet. This sort of thing is why LIFO does not work well without manually taking out the previous Input.
Oh, I didn’t think of it. Anyway, even if it were only FIFO, I would dump the other thing on top of the pumpkins and forgot about it.
I would use such a thing.
Another issue is efficiency, each distinct item takes more and more memory, where in the mass storage it does not grow in memory the more items are used. Remember that if a chunk’s storage gets too big then the chunk will fail to properly save/load, thus corruption. This is why basically no mod stores many items like that even excepting the lack of a useful GUI for them, and which is why things like AE2 make it be a distributed storage.