Enable/disable mall parts
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2023 5:34 pm
I'm currently searching for the best method to enable/disable certain mall parts, for example to enable all nuclear power plant parts production only if I want it.
It's mainly intended for the building phase of the mall itself. While building, it should start produce only items required for building itself and omit all the expensive items not yet needed. It's for an endgame/megabase mall that's able to produce everything in high quantities. Not science, only production entities like inserters, belts, miners, modules etc. But to get it built up, it first has to focus on helping the existing mall produce the stuff to get the new mall up and running.
So I'm searching the best way to signal all the input inserters for the not yet needed assembling machines to not activate, so they don't steal all my steel and circuits.
Any idea how I can create and send arbitrary signals out of thin air into the logistic network, in a way I can do this with a constant combinator in the circuit network?
Are there better suited items than I already found? Can I somehow stack blueprint-like items?
I know it's somewhat misuse of the logistic network, because the signals are there for a reason: they only count items available to the network. They cannot exist without being backed by physical items. What cannot be carried by robots, cannot be present as signal in that network.
Any other, totally different idea, totally different approach?
It's mainly intended for the building phase of the mall itself. While building, it should start produce only items required for building itself and omit all the expensive items not yet needed. It's for an endgame/megabase mall that's able to produce everything in high quantities. Not science, only production entities like inserters, belts, miners, modules etc. But to get it built up, it first has to focus on helping the existing mall produce the stuff to get the new mall up and running.
So I'm searching the best way to signal all the input inserters for the not yet needed assembling machines to not activate, so they don't steal all my steel and circuits.
- I could create tiered copies of the mall blueprint and remove all assembling machines for the not yet needed items. So there is no signalling required in the first place. But tedious if I want to change the mall - all tiered copies have to be remade as well.
- I could wire them all and switch them on/off with a constant combinator. However, that requires tedious wiring, which would also create an ugly circuit wire web all over the mall.
- Or I could connect them to the logistic network and use information from the logistic network that's present anyway. No wire, instant connection. I could set the inserters to activate only, if there is some item available in the network. An item not usually present in the mall's logistic network but put manually into it by me. I came up with the blueprint (blue), upgrade planer (green) and deconstruction planner (red) items - they will never be created by an assembling machine, but I can create them manually. The only caveat: they cannot be stacked. So to send a red signal (deconstruction planner) with value 3, I need to create and put 3 distinct planners. (Idea: 0=only essential items, 1=essential+not so essential, 2=everything except optional, 3=everything. )
That's not too tedious, but I fear I forget about this detail some time later, and during some manual cleanup I remove duplicate items, so parts of my mall deactivate unintentionally.
Any idea how I can create and send arbitrary signals out of thin air into the logistic network, in a way I can do this with a constant combinator in the circuit network?
Are there better suited items than I already found? Can I somehow stack blueprint-like items?
I know it's somewhat misuse of the logistic network, because the signals are there for a reason: they only count items available to the network. They cannot exist without being backed by physical items. What cannot be carried by robots, cannot be present as signal in that network.
Any other, totally different idea, totally different approach?