GreyGoo Mk I: A self-expanding factory

[DragonHeart996]

i just got a jam.

here's the save

EDIT: apparently pressing the button next to the sleep time arithmetic combinator on the right fixes it
EDIT: EDIT: it didn't fix it. it went one too far before the next corner.

[kalevkalev]

How does the factory sense where the ores are? I have tried making something like this and i got stuck on the mining.

[DragonHeart996]

How does the factory sense where the ores are? I have tried making something like this and i got stuck on the mining.

it tries to blueprint miners and if it sees any are removed from it's inventory, it knows the ores are there, because you can't blueprint miners unless they are on ore.

[NiftyManiac]

the smelters and assemblers could get some upgrades...
- LTN only considers a delivery order to be finished when the train is back again at any depot...
- you have 8 requester chests for every resource, resulting in 19200 storage in those chests, and you also have set this exact amount as the goal...
- the storage chests are located next to the requester chests...

The important thing to remember is that factory efficiency, in any scenario, is determined solely by the bottleneck. Yeah, the factory and trains can be more efficient. You can make lots of depots to optimize train speeds, optimize chests to decrease robot travel, but fundamentally the current scout never has to wait for resources. So feel free to optimize this kind of thing, but it's not going to help the goal of the factory. What could, though, is tinkering with how much inventory the scout is forced to carry at every movement. With regards to chest storage, yeah it's calculated to be roughly accurate. 19200 is the desired capacity to fill the requester chests. Overflow goes in storage chests, I don't care where. But when around 8 storage chests are full of a certain resource, the math should work out that all mines providing that resource will have ceased to operate (they better, since at this point the signal will be close to overflowing the 32-bit integer representation). A few train-loads in one direction or another is negligible, and the priority system means that when resources are really needed they'll be seen to.

i found an issue when factorio gave the supply station the same backer name as an existing station, which made logistic train network mark it as a duplicate. it's not something you can fix, but i think LTN makes the station output a signal when that happens, so maybe you could detect that and re-build the station when that happens?

Yeah, Optera commented on this when I was posting about LTN. All in all I'm not really happy with LTN as the train solution; it's the wrong (but only) tool for the job. I'd rather write a small mod to do the bare minimum of train-circuit interaction instead and do stuff with combinators. But it might be a while before I get to that, so maybe this really will be the limit of Mk I. Actually, my favorite option here is just fiddle with LTN a little to make the train stop names unique.

also, i found the issue with the trees: your power poles are only in construction range of the scout if the new copy's roboports still have power, so if trees take too long to deconstruct, the port loses power and will never regain it.

Are you sure about this? I know that the power poles must be placed before the initial roboports run out of energy, and in my experience they always are. In the bug mentioned on reddit, that did indeed happen, but restoring power didn't help: as you can see from the video, the issue is that there was no deconstruction order on the tree. A deconstruction order shouldn't ever disappear, even if power is lost: can you reproduce this? If the issue really is power pole placement that's easy to fix.

then there is the fact that occasionally trees are just outside construction range but still in the way, so i reccomend expanding construction range by two tiles to fix it

Really? This is exactly why my cell size is 96x96 rather than 100x100: it gives an extra two tiles in each direction to ensure this doesn't happen, and I haven't seen it ever be an issue. If you have though by all means share.

[DragonHeart996]

also, i found the issue with the trees: your power poles are only in construction range of the scout if the new copy's roboports still have power, so if trees take too long to deconstruct, the port loses power and will never regain it.

Are you sure about this? I know that the power poles must be placed before the initial roboports run out of energy, and in my experience they always are. In the bug mentioned on reddit, that did indeed happen, but restoring power didn't help: as you can see from the video, the issue is that there was no deconstruction order on the tree. A deconstruction order shouldn't ever disappear, even if power is lost: can you reproduce this? If the issue really is power pole placement that's easy to fix.

then there is the fact that occasionally trees are just outside construction range but still in the way, so i reccomend expanding construction range by two tiles to fix it

Really? This is exactly why my cell size is 96x96 rather than 100x100: it gives an extra two tiles in each direction to ensure this doesn't happen, and I haven't seen it ever be an issue. If you have though by all means share.

the trees thing that i mentioned was what has been happening to me occasionally, and after a closer look on the roboport ranges, you did get the size right, but the ports are offset from center by two tiles to both the north and the east, so it only happens when going south or west.

EDIT: the ports are not at max distance.

[NiftyManiac]

but the ports are offset from center by two tiles to both the north and the east, so it only happens when going south or west.

They're actually offset south and east, you can see this easily by the logistic network boundary sticking past the rails. This was made so the logistic networks always overlapped by 2 tiles in any direction. You could be right that this is the cause but I can't reproduce it. It should be possible to place obstacles in the starter save to cause it to fail if this is the problem.

[DragonHeart996]

but the ports are offset from center by two tiles to both the north and the east, so it only happens when going south or west.

They're actually offset south and east, you can see this easily by the logistic network boundary sticking past the rails. This was made so the logistic networks always overlapped by 2 tiles in any direction. You could be right that this is the cause but I can't reproduce it. It should be possible to place obstacles in the starter save to cause it to fail if this is the problem.

i see what you mean. i was judging by how far the logistic edges were from the rails when i looked at it

[NiftyManiac]

i just got a jam.

here's the save

EDIT: apparently pressing the button next to the sleep time arithmetic combinator on the right fixes it
EDIT: EDIT: it didn't fix it. it went one too far before the next corner.

That's a curious one, it looks like the thread of execution just up and disappeared. Not sure which button you pushed, but hitting the pushbutton to the right of "GOSUB power" should start it up correctly from the save you provided. If only you had saves from the moment before it screwed up .

P.S. That'a glorious train depot you have there.

[DragonHeart996]

i just got a jam.

here's the save

EDIT: apparently pressing the button next to the sleep time arithmetic combinator on the right fixes it
EDIT: EDIT: it didn't fix it. it went one too far before the next corner.

That's a curious one, it looks like the thread of execution just up and disappeared. Not sure which button you pushed, but hitting the pushbutton to the right of "GOSUB power" should start it up correctly from the save you provided.

P.S. That'a glorious train depot you have there.

i tried that fix, it went one cell too far before the next corner. (i literally tried all your buttons, one at a time XD) i found out where the memory cell is and decremented leg length by one and restarted it, watching it right now to see if that worked.

thanks for the compliment btw!

[DragonHeart996]

Not sure which button you pushed

to make it stop? i never pushed any buttons on that timeline of the save.

[DragonHeart996]

got it running again! decrementing leg length by one and then jump-starting it from the first UNTIL robots free for 180 line under the step label worked.

[DragonHeart996]

got it running again! decrementing leg length by one and then jump-starting it from the first UNTIL robots free for 180 line under the step label worked.

AAAND as soon as i say that this happens! typical! XD

[NiftyManiac]

AAAND as soon as i say that this happens! typical! XD

Ok, you were right . No tree deconstruction trickery there, we just need the powerpoles moved a bit in the blueprint so one of them is always within the previous cell's construction area.

[Anson]

the smelters and assemblers could get some upgrades...

..., but fundamentally the current scout never has to wait for resources.

for quite some time in the beginning, i saw the main supply train go back and forth a dozen times (or more), waiting for two fast inserters to be made and delivered, and the program was paused all the time. without the improvements to iron and copper bus and to the green circuits assemblers, there are lots of waiting times.
doing storage chests differently would reduce total travel time for the base's bots and also cut their energy usage roughly in half.

for a proof of concept, or if time is not important, you can forget about these suggestions.

the priority system means that when resources are really needed they'll be seen to.

if you use LTN, you should watch how it is used properly. and how you use it causes strange effects that i described. in the long run, the base will get resources one way or the other, but if you don't watch how trains should be loaded and given orders, why have 5 trains and 5 requester stations at all which do only 1k deliveries for one single type of resource at a time? why not simply have one single train that does 5k deliveries? sooner or later also that single train will get all the needed resources ...

but as the stations are built now, LTN will send either no train (when there are enough resources) or send all trains at the same time to get the same resource. maybe from several different providers, and that would be a small advantage, but it ignores any other missing resources at least until the first delivery has returned (and all five together will return with a total of 5k for a missing amount of 1k) and those other resources are then lower than the first.

LTN only considers a delivery order to be finished when the train is back again at any depot...

to avoid getting timeout messages for "lost" trains, you need to either put a depot stop behind each of the requester stops (doesn't even take 3 minutes to do this change) so that trains can finish their deliveries (see quote) or edit yet another value in config.lua: set "delivery_timeout = 18000" to a really huge number. currently you'll get such timeouts when a train went on a long route (let's say one minute to pickup, another to drop), and resources are plentiful enough to not start more orders during the next 3 minutes (thus not advancing to the depot during these 18000 ticks = 5 minutes after leaving the depot).

since the whole system potentially can expand indefinitely, this problem will happen in the far future anyway, when travel times of trains increase to 2-3 minutes per direction. to avoid side effects from those timeouts, maybe there should be no limit (or several hours :-) for endless travel times in an endless world.

of course, it is your factory, and even when the supply train (and thus also the scout) wait for items, when getting the same resource 5 times before getting the next, or with timeout errors, trains will get resources somehow and it somehow continues to do its work ...
when i saw your new video, i thought you would like to build properly and optimize everything !?

[aka13]

Maybe there should be an additional routine which places a copy of the main supply centre after a set number scout cycles and adds a scout, so that the "old" supply centres which timeout just die off with time.

[NiftyManiac]

for quite some time in the beginning, i saw the main supply train go back and forth a dozen times (or more), waiting for two fast inserters to be made and delivered, and the program was paused all the time. without the improvements to iron and copper bus and to the green circuits assemblers, there are lots of waiting times.

Oh, my bad! Didn't notice that happening. Fair point, then.

why have 5 trains and 5 requester stations at all which do only 1k deliveries for one single type of resource at a time?

Well having a few trains means the initial phase is nicer. When you need multiple resources, you'll have several trains going out and fetching them from different places, or even fetching a mix of resources if it's useful. You're right, once things get saturated it doesn't matter whether there's one train or 100. And at that point sending 5 trains for 1k resources each is something I'm not going to lose sleep over.

since the whole system potentially can expand indefinitely, this problem will happen in the far future anyway, when travel times of trains increase to 2-3 minutes per direction. to avoid side effects from those timeouts

True. As I mentioned in my last comment there's a lot of problems with the way I'm using LTN, and I'd rather move to something else rather than optimizing around this mod. Maybe Stringy Train Stops.

when i saw your new video, i thought you would like to build properly

Ouch! My main priorities when I have time will be:
1) see if we can get Mk I to be as infinite as possible, with the help of people reporting bugs; this might need some changes to LTN wrt. timeouts and unique station names. Maybe I'll bring up a server to test it on long term.
2) start on my ideas for Mk II.
If you want to play with production optimization here be my guest, but I'm probably not going to put much thought into that part.

[DragonHeart996]

I have managed to make this thing build rockets! I will upload the save tomorrow when I'm not banned from the computer for refusing to get off factorio. XD

[DragonHeart996]

also, i found the issue with the trees: your power poles are only in construction range of the scout if the new copy's roboports still have power, so if trees take too long to deconstruct, the port loses power and will never regain it.

Are you sure about this? I know that the power poles must be placed before the initial roboports run out of energy, and in my experience they always are. In the bug mentioned on reddit, that did indeed happen, but restoring power didn't help: as you can see from the video, the issue is that there was no deconstruction order on the tree. A deconstruction order shouldn't ever disappear, even if power is lost: can you reproduce this? If the issue really is power pole placement that's easy to fix.

it just clicked: the issue shown in the video is no different than what i described! the reason it seems weird is that deconstruction orders time out and disappear after ~30 minutes, and that was waiting for long enough for that to happen!

[NiftyManiac]

the reason it seems weird is that deconstruction orders time out and disappear after ~30 minutes

Hahaha, amazing. I'd have never found that, 30 minutes?!?

Nice job on the rockets; can't wait to see it in action.

[Anomoly2012]

This is by far the single most brilliant build i've ever seen... Endless hours have been spent watching this tick... GREAT JOB OP!!!




Now this could make for an interesting LP... but there are a few things i would like to discuss..

I am on no level with the network stuff that required this amazing job and as i have seen many of you talking about it, firgured i would ask...



Is it possible to have another 'brain cell' in say the top left segment in the original 9 blocks... That could be made to register a signal to another request-auto build blueprint set up already installed... that could contain builds that would fit within an empty cell that could handle drop off, pick up, smelting, small bot building assembly plants... for production.. green, red, blue circuits.. science stuff.. oil stuff..


My hope was to be able to place down 4 robo ports at the 4 corner big pole spots to make the network for just that cell... then place down a set up where i put in a blueprint i want built in the cell.. and then have another cell be storage for all the various goodies are stored have a train bring out the items and have the cell build it...


I am attempting to see if the current system can even handle small simple builds in some of the empty cells... as well as seeting up a mini smelting and train station-storage area... But i want to have 2 cells out past the first 9...


BUT THIS IS STILL AMAZING... and i can't wait for the next version of this... if and when you do another... Sub you on YouTube also...