How to pull items into multiple storages from shop module?

[Barteks2x]

I am currently playing on 2 player lan server, still learning how the game works, with pirates disabled (or as disabled as possible). On my station I use shop module for storage (it can be accessed from anywhere near the station, and it's easy to transfer items between shop and inventory, unlike with personal cargo, and I can still use my ship cargo as personal cargo). And I want to make automated crafting system.

The problem is that when I connect a storage to pull from my shop module, previously connected storage is disconnected. Is there any way around it? Or do I have to use normal storage instead?

 

[Malacodor]

Why don't you just connect one storage to the shop and then multiple further storages to the first one?

 

[Barteks2x]

Because then these items that would be pulled are not always going to be used, I don't want some factories to be running all the time (for example I made a factory chain that makes 50 black advanced armor blocks at once, and I don't want it to be always active), and if I would leave the main storage pulling items required for that - the storage would get full quickly with no space for anything else. And I don't want to always add/remove items to pull whenever I activate/deactivate a factory.
[doublepost=1472228014,1472226766][/doublepost]I got it working in a way I would consider a strange workaround.
I made a storage+cargo with enough space to hold $MAX_NEEDED amount of each resource I want to pull that pulls from shop module, and shop module pulls from that storage. And then I can link more storages to that looped storage, and they will take resources as needed. The interesting thing is that the big storage+cargo always remains empty.
[doublepost=1472229648][/doublepost]After more testing it turns out that this method sometimes work, and sometimes it doesn't. So I still haven't found a real solution to this.

 

[Lukwan]

Here is another angle to limit Factories. Keep a variety of cargo pads on hand, each of a different capacity. It is easy to quickly link your factory to the cargo pad of appropriate size so that the production will stop (automatically) when it gets full. You can then use other storage bins for a 'switch-able pull' to drain the cargo pads to whatever you want for an output.

 

[Barteks2x]

Limiting factories is not a problem, I can disable them manually or do what you said.

Giving raw materials to these factories automatically is the problem. My idea was to have activation module that starts/stops the whole factory chain (including auto pull for storage), while making it so that it only takes exactly the amount of materials it needs. I have chests that can automatically pull required materials, but I can't connect more than one of these to shop module.

And connecting/disconnecting is also problematic because I don't ant the shop module to be easly accessible, because if I accidentally destroy it - everything in that shop is gone (I didn't test it with cargo space yet). And accidentally destroying blocks with computer that can just barely run this game and when all beams randomly stop rendering for no reason isn't that uncommon.

I will probably use the one big storage for things I always want to process (processing things into capsules) and put materials everywhere else manually for now.

Problem begins when I want to automate producing carved blocks (to sell them for 30x price of the original resource). I definitely don't want to put all of that in manually. And getting many factories running concurrently with single central storage may be hard.

 

[Barteks2x]

I think I really got it working based on the previous one that only sometimes works, but it's also possibly fragile:
X --> Y = Y pulls from X

Shop --> Storage_1 (this one contains items) --> Storage_2 (this one is always empty) --> Shop
           \--> All other storages go from there

 

[Lukwan]

I use one main storage for most of my production blocks. I'm guessing your issue comes from using the shop module. I have no trouble pulling multiple factories from a single Storage-block.

It sounds like you may want to make a suggestion thread to get shops to act the same way.