Storage Circuits
Storage Circuits are a useful mechanic for sorting crafted items automatically into selected storage containers without further player action.
Overview
All crafting stations and storage containers feature an option to setup a circuit. Setting up a circuit allows the crafting station to send crafted items directly into the assigned storage or pull resources from it. Multiple crafting stations and storage containers can be assigned to the same circuit, allowing the distribution of heavy items or large volumes. For example, a circuit can set a spice refinery to pull spice sand from a dedicated container and send the refined melange to another.
Each storage tab shows two lists for circuits and as standard, every crafting station and container is set to circuit 1. This results in any crafting stations to pull and send all required and produced items to any container of the base on the default configuration.
Input and Output
For any crafting station or container, the first selection handles the input and the second one determines the output. Both of these settings are important as they directly affect each other and for a circuit to work, In- and Output have to match in an opposite order: A crafting station's output goes to a storage container's input and vice versa, a container's output feeds a crafting station's input.
Setting up the input
The first button selects the input circuit for a crafting station or a container. When this is set to any other circuit than 1, the corresponding storages will need to have their output selection matching the selected input. For example, setting this to circuit 3 makes a crafting station only check for resources in storage whose output is assigned to circuit 3 as well. Neither setting is limited, as long as the player's base has sufficient capabilities, they can assign as many containers and crafters to a circuit as they wish.
Keep in mind that a crafting station can only be assigned to one input circuit. If the required resources are in different circuits, the station won't be able to recognize any resources from a circuit it is not assigned to.
Setting up the output
The second button handles the output. As mentioned before, in- and output selections need to match for crafting station and storage. If a crafting station is set to only pull resources from circuit 4, all storage containers with resources for this crafter need to have their output set to circuit 4 as well.
Vice versa can a crafting station be set to send produced items to another circuit. This works in reverse, the crating station's output is set to the specifc circuit while the container has the input matching said circuit.
Beware that crafting stations have internal inventory slots for products and will fill those first.
Circumventing the internal storage
This Medium Chemical Refinery was set to produce Industrial-grade Lubricant. While its output is set to circuit 4, it still proceeds to place any produced items in its internal storage first. Only after all five slots are filled, any further produced units of lubricant are sent to any storage container assigned to circuit 4.
Fortunately this can be prevented in a very simple way by blocking all internal slots of the crafting station; it is forced to send any produced items to the assigned output immediately.
Now the refinery will send all crafted items to storage circuit 4 directly, skipping its own inventory. This works with any item as long as all slots are filled and the chosen item doesn't match the produced one.
Notes
If all crafting stations and containers remain at their standard setting of circuit 1, all produced items will be sent to any free storage space assigned to circuit 1. The advantage of this standard setting is that all crafting stations can access every container to look for resources. Conversely this also causes the crafted goods to be placed randomly in any container that has available space, making an attempt to sort materials and items quite chaotic. To prevent this, the input of containers that should not receive any items can be set to a circuit that is not in use.
This container is set to circuit 8 for input. As for this example, circuit 8 is not in use and as a result, no crafting station is able to send produced items to this container and any other that has its input assigned to this circuit as well.
Mind that the container's output is still set to the circuit 1 standard setting, allowing crafting stations to use resources from this container without issues.
When using the "Refuel"-button on the Sub-Fief Console or Windtraps, circuits are ignored entirely and the fuel is taken from wherever it is stored.
Also important is a restriction for base building: The Construction Tool can only access resources that are stored in the circuit the sub-fief console is set to. By default this is circuit 1. If any building material is stored in a container whose output is set to any other circuit not matching the input circuit of the fief console, the construction tool won't be able to access and use those items.