0.12 New Circuit stuff (from the FF)

[GewaltSam]

From the new Friday Facts:

He visited us month ago for a week, and the circuit network extension was his test task. He made a prototype of light-based progress bar indicator of the amount of items in the chest. In that moment, my head exploded from the possibilities it can bring. This will enhance the possibilities in Factorio by A LOT. I can't wait to get my hands on it when its done.

I have some difficulties grasping what this ("light-based progress bar indicator") exactly means and how one would use it. Would someone mind elaborating a bit?

Also, feel free to discuss some of the other new circuit parts, as some of the concepts behind using them seem to be pretty abstract:

Sensors

- train station sensor (sends items in the train in the station)
- light/daytime sensor
- accumulator capacity sensor
- electric network energy sensor
- enemy sensor
- manual switch

Receivers

- light, condition can be specified, can be colored depending the singal
- gate
- electric network switch, can disconnect segments of electric network based on signal condition.
- pumps

What are your thoughts?

[Rahjital]

I really hope we'll have timers and something akin to train (and car) pressure plates in addition to what was mentioned in FF. That way, we could finally make safe train crossings!

I have some difficulties grasping what this ("light-based progress bar indicator") exactly means and how one would use it. Would someone mind elaborating a bit?

It's a bit vague, but I think it means he just plopped down a few colored lights and hooked them up to some combinators and a smart chest to make the lights display how full the chest is (in a fashion like a progress bar, where the more lights are on, the fuller the chest is).

[ssilk]

I want to point to this article: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=5276
I think, that includes some very basic ideas from the current way, they plan to implement it.

Also https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ic_control

which is not a reference to the game, but tries to clean up some definitions (circuits vs. logistic net), which are basically the same, but bit unclear yet, and introduces the concept of "smart-bus" (which are not really in the game yet, but I think it should).

Note for me: For this page https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ol/Devices the wiki needs to change the definitions... (Sensors instead of Sender).

[MF-]

I've originally posted this into another thread, but fits here better:

A couple more sensors/actuators come to my mind
Many aim to provide custom railroad automation instead of fully relying on the autopilot.

Sensors:
Generic pressure plate: entity sensor - player, biters, items on ground
manual push button - toggling a switch back and forth is annoying
in-rail weight sensor: Would report a type of carriage passing over (locomotive/wagon) and %age of it's load.
rail signal (as sensor): To detect the state of a block/signal (red, yellow, green)

Actuators:
rail signal (as actuator)
railroad switch motor -> Allow us to operate trains as model trains, instead of them running in full automatic mode

Signal manipulation:
Integrator: Would add up measurements of each carriage from the in-rail weight sensor

[MF-]

Regarding the light-based FILL progress-bar-like indicator for chest:
It would be a strip of CCnet-controlled lights that would light up from one side as the monitored chest fills up

[Aardwolf]

A sensor for whether there is an item on a transport belt would be very useful. You could manage so much with it related to managing item flows. Smart chests don't allow this because they are only useful when being fillet, not to measure active transport.

Please consider a belt sensor. Thanks!

EDIT: and the counterpart: belt that can be toggled on and off

[onebit]

It would be cool to turn off an entire section of your factory if certain conditions were met. For example, if blue potions are backed up turn off the section of the factory that makes blue potions. Resources would back up back onto the main line and be utilized elsewhere.

[MF-]

OT: Belts sensors & enabling-belts-with-CCnet reminded me of a game called "Tile factory"
It would perhaps also allow for "packetized" item delivery on a belt (i.e. 50 copper ore, 5x space, 50 coal, 5x space, repeat)

[Aardwolf]

OT: Belts sensors & enabling-belts-with-CCnet reminded me of a game called "Tile factory"
It would perhaps also allow for "packetized" item delivery on a belt (i.e. 50 copper ore, 5x space, 50 coal, 5x space, repeat)

It would allow tons and tons of awesome stuff, and personally I like belts more than trains and robots, so such a simple mechanism allowing so many possibilities would be great

[MF-]

Well a "belt sensor" should be now possible via the 0.1.16 feature
"Added LuaEntity::isitemonbelt read - returns true/false if an item entity is on a transport belt variant entity."

[ShenJingBing]

OT: Belts sensors & enabling-belts-with-CCnet reminded me of a game called "Tile factory"
It would perhaps also allow for "packetized" item delivery on a belt (i.e. 50 copper ore, 5x space, 50 coal, 5x space, repeat)

This would be really cool. Repackaging items. Perhaps we could use an assembler to do that. Instead of churning out something else it churns out a little box with the specified input ingredients. That way you can use a single belt to ship multiple items. Only thing then is that the next assembler creating the actual output should be able to recognize the contents of the package OR you would have to unpack the package and then insert them the old way. I guess that would be fine too. It'll save belt space which you can use for other things.

[MF-]

That's a different idea called "boxing/crates".
There is already a mod for that (+ also cars could be used as belt-transportable boxes)

My suggestion was about not separating items on belts by which side are they on,
but based on what time they arrive at.
With a "multiplexer" sending copper for 2s and iron for 1s
and a "demultiplexer" separating those based on world time.