, computers.
The purpose is for local routing of items (or maybe signals). If a cell needs a specific item it can output that item as a value and the neighbors will learn about that and pass on the message to their neighbors. At each border you can now measure the relative need for an item and decide in which direction items of that type should flow.
- All combinators use "each" signals only so you can have a height field for every signal type all at once.
- You can have multiple signal sources in your network of cells for every signal type.
- The network has no memory, if you increase or decrease the input values dynamically then those values will propagate correctly through the network.
The constant combinator closest to the center is used to input values to the network. The power pole has the signals for all values of the network at that cell location if you want to mouse over and see the values.
The combinator that subtracts 1 on each signal gets as input the highest value that any neighbor (for each signal type) has, so you can see if an item is needed (1 or higher) outside the cell even if the need is 0 at this location. Eg. if the neighbor has a value of 1 for electronic circuits needed and we can produce electronic circuits then that can be used to decide when to craft more electronic circuits, instead of checking the value at our own location. So a "max of all neighbor values" that is used before we subtract 1 to compute the need at our own location.
The top 4 multiply combinators gets the neighbors values as inputs, these signals are what I will use and compare with the current cell values to decide when to route things from a neighbor cell to my own.
My computer broke so I can't access my other savefiles atm so decided on a miniproject. I was inspired by a simpler "cells of producers" design where items flowed on circular belts and moved from cells with filter inserters. But that one needed manual configuration of everything and could only send items to direct neighbors. My system should work at range, over unrelated cells. And it should generalize to cells of separate logistics networks as well instead of belts.
I'd love to see this actually used by others.