Combinators 101

[BlaatMekker]

A simpler S-R latch design: two binary (0/1) signals (A and B) being fed into one signal decider combinator which feeds back into itself. Because the signals need to be binary you require additional decider combinators when hooking up chests.

Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 13.15.14.png (311.09 KiB) Viewed 20581 times

The condition on the light is "A > 0". It holds the S or R signal, which ever was active first. I don't think it can flicker either.

I think that I copied it from one of the FFF, though it might have been this forum itself.

[BlaatMekker]

I use the setup from my previous post to control how much cracking is going on at my chemical plant. The output of the S-R latch (C1) is attached to a pump (C2) which controls how much of the cracked product is put into the next storage tank. By controlling the output of the cracking plants instead of the input the system becomes more responsive.

Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 13.23.08-1.png (887.85 KiB) Viewed 20581 times

I have added some extra components to not make it jumpy when the fluid levels keep changing. The lights are used to see if Set, Reset, or Output is active.

Signal A (set) is defined as "Light Oil > Petroleum Gas", outputting A = {0,1}. Before the amount of Light Oil is put into the decider I first subtract 500. This creates a small buffer so that the oil refineries can have some time to catch up.

Signal B (reset) is defined as "Petroleum Gas > 2.4K", outputting B = {0, 1}. The reason that I create this signal using a constant is to ensure that a reset signal can be generated, by not including the ever changing levels of Light Oil.

I could have probably used a couple fewer wires if I hadn't used the storage tank contents as the binary output signals, but had actually used A/B.

[Malkasphia]

Here is a video demonstrating Combinator clocks, I know it is a couple of months late but it might help the wiki with a video for the clock segment instead of text - https://youtu.be/r1o73wvdZr8

[Bizz Keryear]

Hi I was reading this and it helped me a lot (since RS latches will never go into my head ... not here not in minecraft ... not in RL), but I stumbled over the

[...]
a blueprint string[...]

H4sIAAAAAAAA/9WS0WrDMAxFf6X42SmNuz4V7UfKCJ7tDIEjB8cZDSb/PscJo+3WtRuDsUcn0tXV0dVuZZ2SdlVBNBQwoOkgRpKNAaYcdUFSKJRrnpFkcJ7x
1nWpyhHEIxRiveMDFJv1buQ12mD81N3hC0kLMQxtUnlFH3ppGZ9F55/Fho1cuZ4CbDiSNkcox3Hky2RtFGrjrw4u36dq9EblzyLpEc2P5OLASvYE0RudHOXV
hgo17LhCr3oM00OkiS/eGDoryUYOTNxsnwqnLUjjMnTxDbFG34XqfhAz6MQibdxKP20MDBh3fWj77wi1Q5WxVrV3TYWUuoHV0naGnfDtGmltYWXTnnPd5ntm
sJ/B/MjqEucFj+XnL/F4PF3h3nCWf5HN8ifRFLej+fBFNMVFND9p3/67wI4cVTYal0Pwq0dIB5prBL+ekKS49yb0nlbV3pB+A7+5AAsABQAA

How do I use this? Was a whole lot time wondering if I can transfer blueprint data made in one save into another.

[ratchetfreak]

Hi I was reading this and it helped me a lot (since RS latches will never go into my head ... not here not in minecraft ... not in RL), but I stumbled over the

[...]
a blueprint string[...]

H4sIAAAAAAAA/9WS0WrDMAxFf6X42SmNuz4V7UfKCJ7tDIEjB8cZDSb/PscJo+3WtRuDsUcn0tXV0dVuZZ2SdlVBNBQwoOkgRpKNAaYcdUFSKJRrnpFkcJ7x
1nWpyhHEIxRiveMDFJv1buQ12mD81N3hC0kLMQxtUnlFH3ppGZ9F55/Fho1cuZ4CbDiSNkcox3Hky2RtFGrjrw4u36dq9EblzyLpEc2P5OLASvYE0RudHOXV
hgo17LhCr3oM00OkiS/eGDoryUYOTNxsnwqnLUjjMnTxDbFG34XqfhAz6MQibdxKP20MDBh3fWj77wi1Q5WxVrV3TYWUuoHV0naGnfDtGmltYWXTnnPd5ntm
sJ/B/MjqEucFj+XnL/F4PF3h3nCWf5HN8ifRFLej+fBFNMVFND9p3/67wI4cVTYal0Pwq0dIB5prBL+ekKS49yb0nlbV3pB+A7+5AAsABQAA

How do I use this? Was a whole lot time wondering if I can transfer blueprint data made in one save into another.

blueprint string mod:

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 92&t=13651

[goku90504]

I only recently bought the game (had it about a week or two now) and I've gotten a free play map to all research complete but I can't find combinators in my production list ?

[Bisa]

I only recently bought the game (had it about a week or two now) and I've gotten a free play map to all research complete but I can't find combinators in my production list ?

What version of the game are you playing? If you are on the "stable" branch you will not have access to them, try this link to download the experimental (but currently pretty stable) builds https://www.factorio.com/download/experimental

and welcome to the world of Factorio

[Brambor]

If you have 1 copper and 10 iron, the "everything>10" test will fail, but if you take away that 1 copper, the test will pass.

You have a mistake there. The test will not pass cause 10=10, you ment 11

EDIT: Oh sorry, it is in the 5th spoiler, right under Everything

[PadaV4]

Big thanks to the OP for making this guide, very useful, i just made my first network(an alarm system to warn when coal runs low in the boilers). A few hours ago i thought i would never understand what those combinators do

[Commander Keen]

The guide is great! Thank you!
How about we do some sketches like the attached one. I think that makes it easier to understand.
How you think?
I used this Programm (free) for it: https://www.yworks.com/products/yed

[zerohourrct]

I tried to textually describe some of the basic logic gates over on the wiki here https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... r_Tutorial. It should probably be moved into a new page with a different title, so that it will show up well in wiki search results. Or maybe merge the entire 4 pages on combinators into a single page wikipedia style. I plan on adding to it over the next couple days, please ask questions if anything confuses you, or anything appears wrong.

I'm shooting for a layman's description of the gritty functionality of the combinators. I feel like a lot of the major users of combinators already have in-depth understanding of logic gates and higher complicated digital circuits and that makes it hard for those of us that don't already have that knowledge. Not that the concepts are impossible to understand, it just seems like a lot of the explanations are from a higher conceptual understanding down towards that of how combinators work. I'm trying to create a description that teaches in the other direction; starting with the simple mechanics of combinators and going upwards from there.

[DaveMcW]

Logic gates are a step backwards. You could build a computer using a NAND gate on 0's and 1's, but that's only useful for theoreticians. Delete the whole logic gate section from the article.

There should be 2 articles, one on practical ways to integrate combinators into a factory, and one on advanced combinator programming.

For the programming article, give them more useful building blocks. For loop. Delay loop. Array lookup. Modulo operator.

Every paragraph should have a picture of a sample build.

[brunzenstein]

I tried to textually describe some of the basic logic gates over on the wiki here https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... r_Tutorial. It should probably be moved into a new page with a different title, so that it will show up well in wiki search results. Or maybe merge the entire 4 pages on combinators into a single page wikipedia style. I plan on adding to it over the next couple days, please ask questions if anything confuses you, or anything appears wrong.

I'm shooting for a layman's description of the gritty functionality of the combinators. I feel like a lot of the major users of combinators already have in-depth understanding of logic gates and higher complicated digital circuits and that makes it hard for those of us that don't already have that knowledge. Not that the concepts are impossible to understand, it just seems like a lot of the explanations are from a higher conceptual understanding down towards that of how combinators work. I'm trying to create a description that teaches in the other direction; starting with the simple mechanics of combinators and going upwards from there.

thank you indeed for your dedication focusing on the 90% of folks here not born programmers but eager to learn- without easy understandable basics (and that's badly lacking) this whole game will end up in an ivory tower for a few..

[zerohourrct]

There should be 2 articles, one on practical ways to integrate combinators into a factory, and one on advanced combinator programming.

For the programming article, give them more useful building blocks. For loop. Delay loop. Array lookup. Modulo operator.
Every paragraph should have a picture of a sample build.

Yeah, the article was pre-existing with no text written for anything. I just want to focus on the simpler practical applications, and get progressively more complicated. I try my hardest to not delete stuff for the sake of deleting it; it should generally be moved into a different page or different section within that page. It's wiki principle that you don't delete information unless its superfluous. Like I said it probably would have been better to just start a new page, but someone had already made that one

[brunzenstein]

This page is incredible valuable indeed! More pictures would be highly appreciated as not everyone is a programmer but many laymen eager to learn

[rufflezau]

Yea way to complex for me requester chests and logistic robots with limits seems to do just as well XD

[garlicbug]

Thanks for the write-ups, especially to zerohourrct. I signed up to the forums to ask how to make what is basically the Set-Reset switch. Of course, a few minutes ago I realised the problem I was trying to solve would be much better solved by building a better assembly line rather than creating a circuit network, but learning new things is fun

[brunzenstein]

There should be 2 articles, one on practical ways to integrate combinators into a factory, and one on advanced combinator programming.

Exactly!
I kindly ask you ( I stand for many laymen here who are not born programmer but look for extending their understanding how stuff works) to extend the documentation with real world examples with easy to follow pictures like:

- "I have enough robots so lube production may be reduced"
- "switch chemical production to another product before the whole thing shuts up bcs all tanks are soon becoming full"
- "Power gets low, so switch the auxiliary steam engines on, put a warning light up until the problem is solved, and then shut the helper steam engines down"

Something like that

Thanks in advance.
A lot...

[Serenity]

Even if you've studied computer science and electronics, the way this is implemented in the game is overly complicated once you get beyond the absolute basics. There is a whole layer of abstraction and changes between theory and practice. Some of the signals and conditions have weird names like "anything" instead of "or", "each" instead of "and". Other things aren't straightforward and have to be worked around and implemented with other stuff. It's just confusing.

Also, given how important latches are for advanced circuits, they should just make that its own component. But instead of the RS-FF maybe the JK-FF. That doesn't have the undecided state and can also be used to toggle.

[EnderTheXenocide]

I'm trying to figure out a way to use this to make a splitter that uses a different ratio than 1:1

For example, for every 7 plates that come down a belt, I want 6 to move onto one belt, and the 7th to go onto a second belt.

I'm very new to this but did manage to make a setup in which I could fill chests to the desired ratio using arithmetic on the chest quantity. However the system completely falls apart if I want to be able to keep filling the chests to that ratio while also using the stored material. It seems to me that what I really need is a way to respond to inserter events.

Is there a way to do this that isn't really complicated?