Centralized assembly loop controller for easy factory design
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2016 6:34 pm
AKA I found another use for the starting pistol after it becomes obsolete by making the submachine gun.
So I don't know if anyone's done anything similar to this but after doing a reasonable search I didn't find anything. The nice thing about Assembly Loops is that setting up a factory with them is in theory easy as you just shove all the items any factory would ever need down the same belt and then just put up factories to make the random knickknacks you need. Items like rail signals and mining drills that take a long time to build personally but you don't need to produce in massive volumes. However this doesn't end up being very efficient if you just jam items down the belt without any knowledge of what the factories actually need! You could wire up every belt in the entire system, or come up with a circuit logistic network to do this, but such processes make the factory design more complex when really all you want to do is just plop down an assembler, some inserters, and a chest and call it a day. Wouldn't it be great if you could just have a centralized control unit at the feed point of the belt that optimize the feed rates and then not have to worry about having anything intelligent in the factory section? Well I did exactly that.
The main trick is that I use the starting pistol as a marker, and have it constantly feed through the assembly loop. This gives a regular signal that can be used to define a cycle on the belt. For each cycle I read the items fed into the belt, then subtract the items that make it back out the other end. This gives the number of items consumed by the factories in that cycle, without needing to do anything special with the factories. Then all the feed system needs to do is to output the number of items consumed on the previous cycle, plus a minimum output to ensure that extra items are there to detect additional demand. The only other trick is the feeding system which allows the items to be fed at a smooth constant rate.
I made a quick video showing the design in action with an explanation of the various components on my channel on twitch (same username). I'd post the link but the forum isn't allowing it.
Also I should credit XKnight I believe for coming up with the super awesome 2-combinator memory cell that I used which was waaaay more efficient that what I had come up with. One problem that I did have though is that it doesn't seem to initialize off the single-tick clock signal that I use so that's why you'll see the extra constant combinator for initializing them, just turn it on and then back off if you use the blueprint.
Right now the design is just a proof of concept so I'm more or less just getting this idea out there for you guys to play with and possibly optimize. Let me know what you guys think!
And here's your blueprint string so you can actually play with it yourselves:
So I don't know if anyone's done anything similar to this but after doing a reasonable search I didn't find anything. The nice thing about Assembly Loops is that setting up a factory with them is in theory easy as you just shove all the items any factory would ever need down the same belt and then just put up factories to make the random knickknacks you need. Items like rail signals and mining drills that take a long time to build personally but you don't need to produce in massive volumes. However this doesn't end up being very efficient if you just jam items down the belt without any knowledge of what the factories actually need! You could wire up every belt in the entire system, or come up with a circuit logistic network to do this, but such processes make the factory design more complex when really all you want to do is just plop down an assembler, some inserters, and a chest and call it a day. Wouldn't it be great if you could just have a centralized control unit at the feed point of the belt that optimize the feed rates and then not have to worry about having anything intelligent in the factory section? Well I did exactly that.
The main trick is that I use the starting pistol as a marker, and have it constantly feed through the assembly loop. This gives a regular signal that can be used to define a cycle on the belt. For each cycle I read the items fed into the belt, then subtract the items that make it back out the other end. This gives the number of items consumed by the factories in that cycle, without needing to do anything special with the factories. Then all the feed system needs to do is to output the number of items consumed on the previous cycle, plus a minimum output to ensure that extra items are there to detect additional demand. The only other trick is the feeding system which allows the items to be fed at a smooth constant rate.
I made a quick video showing the design in action with an explanation of the various components on my channel on twitch (same username). I'd post the link but the forum isn't allowing it.
Also I should credit XKnight I believe for coming up with the super awesome 2-combinator memory cell that I used which was waaaay more efficient that what I had come up with. One problem that I did have though is that it doesn't seem to initialize off the single-tick clock signal that I use so that's why you'll see the extra constant combinator for initializing them, just turn it on and then back off if you use the blueprint.
Right now the design is just a proof of concept so I'm more or less just getting this idea out there for you guys to play with and possibly optimize. Let me know what you guys think!
And here's your blueprint string so you can actually play with it yourselves:
Code: Select all
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your still busy with stack size antibonus. mhh never mind 