beco wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2024 2:15 am
Chests are no good when they are emptied by another inserter.
It is also possible to "read" the quantity in a chest over time and sum up the variation, it is a bit more complex combinator usage because the chest doesn't get config settings to act as a pulse generator. You need to generate pulses from a chest, which one can do by "read the quantity" and "read the quantity with a very short delay", a delay that last the time of 1 pulse. I can develop if you are interested but as you say and i agree it can be an "unrealiable" way to count item produced, if an inserter take away some iron from a chest and put it on a belt, then maybe that belt loop around and another inserter is putting that same iron on the chest over and over, you would end up counting time, not iron, this is another purpose
The same risk of counting several time the item, or missing some item that can happen on belt is countered with more wiring, to all the inserters, which can be done in some blueprints with robots to make it less work, but that comes even later in the game than circuits.
beco wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2024 2:15 am
If you guys have any other ideas on how to count items, that would be great. Also, if the game is played correctly, the begin of the game we don't have access to red / green wires, and items that I want to count will already be running free on the belts everywhere. So there is that.
To me this is a similar problem of keeping track of exact number when redesigning belts, if there is "some place" where the counting is done, this is like asking student in a class to leave the room and count 1 for the first student, and then increment by one for every student, 2 3 4. Except it's not student in a room it's item produced but like student it's important to have a precise count. If you redesign belt, it's like the teacher that need to stop counting for a minute, to keep the number accurate you need to stop at precise number, and keep track of that number, and resume at that exact number while not allowing any item/student, to slip through the counting procedure. ( closing the door/ cutting the belts/ the power, and counting every single item that comes up until the counter stops).
If you need to keep track of things without circuits, you would need to do such things with a pen and paper i think, same as if you really want to account to everything that player could manually produce. I'm not sure what is the purpose, mods could do such things or console command for the purpose of tracking achievement, but that is not gameplay things and i figure not what you're after either.
I think from a gameplay side of things you can "know" how many item were manually crafted if you look at the achievement tab, for the "lazy bastard" one, i don't remember exactly how it is shown but it is made so that you know if you have failed it or not, so that can give you indications early game, but it's not as precise as to tell you which particular item were manually crafted, and for 113050 that would be a lot of pen and papering to do.
I think to keep the count accurate before and after circuits a combo of pen and paper early game, and "unreliable" circuit contraption introduction when possible is the way to go but i also think those are unsettling answers, my mind kept going at it like it's not good solution, but i couldn't find elegant one, it is difficult to work backward such as somehow use the blueprint item to tell you what is built on the map, and thus what was made and consumed for the construction of the factory, because of things that get wasted if you remove an assembly mid cycle, or if you shoot ammos and got some things destroyed.
The counting precisely all items in general is more difficult than in some situations. like only the science pack, you can find from your current tech level and if modules were used, and you didn't move the lab unless they were all empty.
TL DR :
Disclaimer 113050 plastic bar that's 113K plastic even for circuits, one does not read easily large number even with circuits :/ , it's possible to subtract 113000 so as to read the 50. There would be other usage of combinators ( or mods) required to display every digits of large numbers that's also a puzzle in itself which you CAN and NEED to do with circuits, whereas it's (unfortunately) not possible to see more precisely the numbers from the production tab, to my knowledge , and also not possible to get those numbers if not by some exhaustive wiring made even worse if one requires more precision and handling more cases.