Circuits for Supply and Construction Trains

[rcp27]

I'm working on automating my outpost supply and construction trains. I have it set up now that each outpost has a disconnected logistics network, and at the supply station there is a constant combinator that specifies the logistics network must maintain a certain number of certain items spare in that logistics network. I send that signal along wires back to the supply base and use it to set a requester chest and filter inserter to make sure the supply train gets loaded with the necessary stuff. This is particularly useful for keeping trains that run between stations with no local fuel supply topped up with fuel. What I really want to do, though, is to make this a "smart" request. What I'd like to do is read into the circuit network some signal for "unfilled" requests. In my mind, it would work like this: I have a requester chest that wants 20 coal. It has 5, and there is none in the local logistics network. It therefore generates a signal of "15 coal" (or perhaps -15 coal) that I can send back to the base saying "send 15 more coal". My real objective, though, would be to extend this to construction robots. Say I build a new mining outpost, where I have laid down blueprints that are asking for 30 miners. Ideally I would extract a signal for "send 30 miners" to the supply train and have it feed into the circuits so that when I drop the blueprint, the supply train gets loaded up with the relevant stuff, drives out to the base, and the bots build it for me. I haven't found a way to do this. Is this possible?

[iceman_1212]

Not possible AFAIK for construction network. I would also love this feature. Logistic network does report negative values but I don't think it shows a persistent negative value if something is out of stock.

[rcp27]

Thanks, It's a shame we can't do this, but at least you've confirmed that I'm not missing some feature of the game.

[IV]

If it is acceptable to you to have some miners (and other construction material) lying around you could hook up you storage chest to a circuit and interpret the fact that you have 0 miners as '-10 miners'. Your system will deliver 10 miners and if they are all used, it will request an other 10.

So no you can not truly read unfilled requests, but you can request some spares to lie around in the stations if you have none at the moment.

I, for example, enable a local station to request a train with some rocket fuel, when the local storage of rocket fuel is below 50.

[Aeternus]

When you read out the Logistics grid (hook a circuit connection to a roboport) it should already report negative values for items that are requested, but not present in the local logistics grid. Not sure if that works though, I never tried such a system.

My own supply train usually consists of a very simple train that has reserved slots in the wagon, gets loaded at the main factory (supplied by the logistics network) and then loops between all outposts - usually I make a limited number of big ones. That supply train, short and fast, then zips past all the supply stations, unloading a limited amount of cargo, determined by connecting a circuit connection to a filter inserter to halt the inserter if enough of the supply type is in the buffer. Construction bots are fed into a nearby roboport, with the count being read out from that roboport to prevent overfilling. I rarely find myself needing more then 11 cargo types (11 to the outposts, wood/stone via a storage chest back to base for garbage disposal)

Construction train's a little bigger, 3 wagons long. If I want to build an outpost, I manually lay down rail and then rename the station to "Outpost-ToBuild" which calls the builder train to that station. I set a wait condition that can never be met, so the train won't go anywhere until I manually send it back home. I load it up with more then enough supplies, and once kicked back to the builder depot, it'll automatically get fully reloaded (not very fast, but frankly, you're not usually mass-building outposts anyway, it takes time to clear biters).

[torne]

When you read out the Logistics grid (hook a circuit connection to a roboport) it should already report negative values for items that are requested, but not present in the local logistics grid. Not sure if that works though, I never tried such a system.

It does not. You sometimes get negative values temporarily when items are in transit because the counts are calculated in a weird way, but requests that aren't being fulfilled because of a lack of supply just don't count at all.