Summary

Experimental feature, based on 1.1.0 hidden "linked-chest" prototype.
Adds chests that when built next to each other, they are automatically linked to share the same inventory.
Useful for belt balancing and train station wagon balancing.

Introduction

Relying on tons of splitters for belt balancing?
Relying on large chests for belt balancing?
Needing large area in train stations for wagon balancing?

Thanks to the new 1.1.0 hidden "linked-chest" prototype, there is a better solution to these situations!
Here we proudly presents the "autolinked chest"! It is based on the hidden vanilla linked chest, but better!

Usage

Autolinked chest is unlocked by "Steel processing", the same technology for vanilla steel chest.

Autolink on Built

When built next to each other, they are automatically linked to share the same inventory.
One step, and they are already ready to use!
So no need for the tedious link ID setup, as what is required for the vanilla linked chest implementation.

By building a line of autolinked chests, you can easily assign multiple inserters and/or loaders accessing the same inventory. This is particularly useful for belt balancing and train station wagon balancing. Now you can forget about the blueprint book of N-to-N belt balancers!

Examples can be found in FAQ.

Autolink on Hotkey & Shortcut

It is also possible to link chests, through hotkey (default: Control-O) and shortcut. The linking will be applied to all selected autolinked chests, even if they are non-neighbouring.
In a train station, chests of different wagons are often not direct neighbours to each others. So this hotkey/shortcut can be used to link all of them up.

Display Link ID

Link ID of an autolinked chest (or vanilla linked chest) is a 32-bit integer. Each unique link ID corresponds to its own set of inventory. Chests of the same link ID will share the same inventory. Therefore, this mod linked chests by assigning the same ID to the chest cluster.

This mod automatically handles the link IDs for you, so normally you do not even need to know about that.
But in case you want to know, this mod allows you to read the exact values when selecting (hovering mouse cursor) the autolinked chests. This feature has to be activated first, through option "Link ID display" under "Settings" → "Mod settings" → "Per player" tab. Formats include decimal, hexadecimal, etc. We believe this is the better format than the 32 "checkbox patterns" on vanilla linked chests.

Important Note

The autolink feature will only modify the chests with empty inventories only. If there are multiple non-empty inventories in the neighbourhood (on built) or in the selection (on hotkey and shortcut), linking attempts will be cancelled. This is the safest way, to prevent any accidental item lost or undesirable merging.
The above limitation can be used retroactively to offer an important use. In case you want to have multiple chest clusters having different inventories, placing any item into a chest will "lock" its link ID.
Under mod options, the autolink feature can be individually toggled off for built, hotkey and shortcut. Particularly if you consider linking non-neighbouring chests as mild cheating on your multiplayer server, you can toggle off the hotkey and shortcut. This limitation will be applied to any players of any forces.
Note that player or bot mining (i.e., Deconstruction planner) will NOT pick up the contents within any autolinked chests (the same with vanilla linked chests). So watch out when mining the last autolinked chest of any chest cluster, or else items could be lost! To play absolutely safe, first take out the contents before any mining or mass deconstruction attempts.

Technical Details

Advantages

Built-in support by the game engine 1.1.0 onwards.
Can take any shapes or sizes.
No extra time on start up, as it adds only one new entity and simply uses the identical vanilla graphics.
No UPS impact, as it is supported by game directly.
Keeping normal storage size in chests, to maintain healthy UPS. (Operation time on item-chest interactions is increased with storage size.)

Additions

This mod is not just about the vanilla 1.1.0 linked chest, but several additions are also made.

Firstly, it is no longer needed to set link IDs (the 32 checkboxes within chest GUI) on your own! It saves you from the trouble of managing link ID for each chest cluster, or item lost when you change its link ID accidentally.
This mod automatically assigns a new link ID (randomly) to each newly placed autolinked chest, so you do not have to write down and keep track of the "checkbox patterns" on your own!

In vanilla, copying and pasting entity settings is the only way to quickly clone link IDs to other chests. It is easy to miss on some chests this way, when dealing with large numbers of chests.
It is nowhere as fast as our "autolink" feature. Not to say, you can hardly miss when it is done automatically (on built) or through easy-to-see one-click selection (on hotkey and shortcut).

Uninstallation

This mod do not modify the existing content in the save game. This mod should be safe to be disabled/uninstalled at any time.

Mods Related

Schall Inserters provides inserters of higher speeds.
Schall Belt Configuration provides belt speed changes and loaders for seamless (un)loading with chests.

Locale Supported

English (en)
German / Deutsch (de)
Traditional Chinese / 正體中文 (zh-TW)
Brazilian Portuguese / Português Brasileiro (pt-BR) by NickFury23
Russian / Русский (ru) by JohnTheCoolingFan

Non-English locale are provided by Schall Language Pack.
If you like this mod, and would like to provide other translations, please do not hesitate to send me a message. (Corrections on spelling and grammatical mistakes are welcomed as well.)

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Schall Autolinked Chest