Balanced holmium solution input

jaylawl · Post by **jaylawl** » Sat Dec 28, 2024 8:18 pm

So this for engineers that have some scrap mining operations running using quality upcycling, leading to the issue of having mixed quality holmium ore and stone.

This blueprint contains an input balancer which is basically just a counter. Its very simple:
-> Count the amount of holmium ore passing through using the pulse reader
-> For each x2 holmium ore of a certain quality, allow for x1 stone of the same quality to be sent towards the chemical plants
-> For each x1 stone allowed it, the counter is balanced by pulse reading the output of the inserter
-> Repeat cycle

x2 holmium ore, x1 stone is what is needed for the holmium solution recipe.

There will always be surplus stone - lots of it. That surplus is released onto a third belt, to be processed differently.

This thing works like a charm, but has throughput limitations.

: holm.png (297.5 KiB) Viewed 309 times

Please improve this. Surely this can be done with less combinators...

the_potty_1 · Post by **the_potty_1** » Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:19 pm

I feel like I'm on about your level with combinators, that is, with a bit of effort, we could become utterly mediocre

So I can't improve your design, although I assume it should be improvable. I'm posting a similar problem I have a bloated long winded non-solution for. It's also for Fulgora, where it's an obvious advantage to use quality modules to indiscriminately upgrade scrap. The downside is you then need 5 tiers of processing for three specific recipes. They are water from ice, holmium ore processing, and to a lesser extent, rocket fuel production.

I've been playing around with the 'set recipe' function in order to address this. I had some success processing asteroid chunks, mainly because the crusher only accepts one chunk at a time. I tried it with ice melting, but clearly I need 5 instances of that RS-latch logic that I'm just not getting to play together nicely.

: Fulgora_ice.png (1.12 MiB) Viewed 172 times

: Fulgora_holm.png (1.16 MiB) Viewed 172 times

SuicideJunkie · Post by **SuicideJunkie** » Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:30 pm

I've been using the new sorter combinator for that job.
My use case is the iron/steel overflow. It goes into a bin of mixed quality plates.

The sorter combimator chooses the largest quantity item.
I then have a red/green lookup table constant+decider that maps plates to bins of the same quality level, and puts that in as the recipe.

I include the assembler contents so the recipe doesn't thrash, and it churns away making the plates into nice bins to recycle back down efficiently.

I imagine it could be done more efficiently but I'm using two lookup combinators in sequence for the plate-to-bin translation.
Selector Combinator outputs 44x Q3 plates is the biggest stack of stuff we have to process

: Lookup_A.png (29.25 KiB) Viewed 161 times

3-dot plate gets translated to signal quantity 3

: Lookup_B.png (29.42 KiB) Viewed 161 times

Signal quantity 3 turns into 3-dot bins.

Steel to bins can take indexes 6-10, and copper to wire can take the next 11-15, and so on until the assembler gets too busy for the flow.

the_potty_1 · Post by **the_potty_1** » Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:20 pm

Yes. So. I swear I am quite smart. Plus I write code for a living, and this is just another language. Still, large chunks of what you just said .. just don't mean anything to me. Sorry. If you posted a blueprint I could drop it down and see it run, which would help.

In any case, I got it working. It's not pretty, and it occasionally leaves product in the machine when you switch recipe, and it's so very tedious to set up and prone to user error, basically I hate everything about combinator logic and control.

: Fulgora_ice.png (708.39 KiB) Viewed 122 times

: Fulgora_decider.png (397.25 KiB) Viewed 122 times

jaylawl · Post by **jaylawl** » Fri Jan 03, 2025 9:30 pm

the_potty_1 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:20 pm Yes. So. I swear I am quite smart. Plus I write code for a living, and this is just another language. Still, large chunks of what you just said .. just don't mean anything to me. Sorry. If you posted a blueprint I could drop it down and see it run, which would help.

In any case, I got it working. It's not pretty, and it occasionally leaves product in the machine when you switch recipe, and it's so very tedious to set up and prone to user error, basically I hate everything about combinator logic and control.

Hey there! You've inspired me and i've found a solution to requiring less combinators. Its funny because it uses a selector combinator instead, which costs 5 deciders to craft

This will consume any quality input of ice. Had to learn more about the weird ways of the selector combinator for this.

: lessC.png (103.65 KiB) Viewed 81 times

the_potty_1 · Post by **the_potty_1** » Sat Jan 04, 2025 7:09 am

Ah. That's brilliant. Thing is, factorio allows at least the same level of control as something like oxygen not included, and possibly more, I don't know. Trouble is, ONI has a different sensor for each use case, so it's relatively easy to choose which sensor to use in any given control scenario. Factorio has 3 controllers, but they are massively more configurable, so the barrier to entry is quite a lot higher. I really don't mind about the manufacturing cost, because the actual logic you need to set up drops from .. 35 distinct checks to .. one? Fantastic! I still don't know what that constant combinator is doing, but it immediately breaks if you remove it.

Did you figure out your original problem as well?

EDIT I upgraded my ice melting because I'd actually run out of water, but holmium's still a horrible mess. That said, the tank is full, so I'm leaving it for now.

: Fulgora_holm.png (741.92 KiB) Viewed 36 times

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