Factorio Forums

Is there a mod or do I use vanilla signaling(combinators) to warn me (in a huge base) when items run short ?
(still signal virgin but it is next on my list)
e.g. I was so busy doing other stuff I only just realised green circuits were running out.
Thank

Ty, I'll have to learn signalling(which I want to do)

A trick I often use to evaluate if I am running low on something is to use the production screen (I set it to 10mins) and look at the rate that I am consuming materials and making plates if I notice any significant dips in consumption of materials (and corresponding drops in production) then that's usually an indicator that I ran out of materials. (This works pretty well for plates, but consumption of higher tier ingredients can be volatile sometimes).

Assuming that you have them stored in logistic chests, their amount can be read through roboport: Setting up speaker is easy too (I don't like it beeping so I turn volume to zero): If they are not in logistic chests then you need to connect speaker to some chest(s) or belt(s) where you want to measure their amount and set proper amount at speaker screen.

Note that the speaker can get annoying if it keeps going off...but you can set it to silent and still see the on-screen alert, along with a custom icon (e.g. iron ore) to know what's getting low.

I tend to track items coming off the main buss by reading the belt. For example, if I read the belt of green circuits going into my red circuit array off the main buss (early/mid game) and set that to warn me if it is below a certain amount ( I typically do <8 to show half yellow belt), then I know there is a problem.

I think there are definitely some tricks to setting the right thresholds for stuff. I was watching one YouTube video where someone connected the speaker to the transport belt at the end of the coal line fueling the boilers. Halfway through the video, he was out of coal but never heard the speaker go off. Hmm... Now that I think about it, in that case, I guess the best place to read the transport belt contents is the *ENTRANCE* to the belts feeding the boilers rather than the exit.

I know this is an old thread, but I wrote a visual guide that covers this question ("How to create a warning signal if there is a resource shortage?"):
https://www.3d4x.ch/swift/factorio_incr ... _time.html