resource pump

[EvilTesla]

I would like to suggest a resource pump that can pump electricity, fuel, or red/blue/yellow resource from tanks that are below/above in hierarchy to tanks above/below, depending on how they are activated. 

 

This will be very useful if fuel and power tanks made by factories start empty (which I hope happens), and are very useful on autonomous hopper drones.

On my mining drone I like to have my hoppers held on autonomous drones that then disconnect and fly back to the nimbatus. If I had this pump, I could keep collecting resources when the factory is recharging, then pump all resources to the hopper drone when it is ready.

 

[Lurkily]

You could put a magnet on the drone, and decouple/reprint your ore tanks, have the drone carry the first ones off.  I put all my ore tanks onto a courier sub-drone, so I reprint the whole drone, tanks and all, when harvesting is done.

[EvilTesla]

That's what I do as well.

This one example I was giving, what do you do right after you print and send off your hopper drone. If you're collecting a lot of resources fast, then I find I have to wait for the factory to recharge before I can continue collecting resources. The pump could solve this problem.

 

Not that this one little problem warrents an extra part. Mainly I'm hoping that fuel and power tanks will start empty when constructed by a factory, eventually. This is the case where the pump would be most useful. 

 

[Lurkily]

Well, while you're coupled, new fuel and energy parts will be filled by other tanks' regen, if I'm not mistaken.

As for ore tanks . . . what about an accumulator tank?  It would just hoover in resources from other tanks, no other function.  On a single drone it'd be a bit useless, but the drone mentioned above could use it to take on resources before strutting off home to the mothership.

[Zixvir]

On 11/25/2018 at 12:29 PM, Lurkily said:

Well, while you're coupled, new fuel and energy parts will be filled by other tanks' regen, if I'm not mistaken.

As for ore tanks . . . what about an accumulator tank?  It would just hoover in resources from other tanks, no other function.  On a single drone it'd be a bit useless, but the drone mentioned above could use it to take on resources before strutting off home to the mothership.

maybe vacuums do that?