Idea: Time based provider limit

[mrvn]

I have lots of LTN station providing goods with a provider limit of 40 stacks.

Some stations, like iron plates, can fill a train every minute. So there is constant activity and every requester gets some iron plates on a pretty regular basis. Other stations, like for example the blue circuit boards, take much longer to fill a train. Say 30 minutes. With 4 requester for blue circuit boards it might take 2 hours till a train arrives. Which is no fun if you request some blue circuit boards to build your power armor mkII.

Now the obvious solution would be to lower the provider limit on the blue circuit boards so partially filled trains are used to deliver more frequently. But then I can't just blueprint each station. I have to adjust the provider limit to the production speed so that trains are send to frequent but frequent enough.

That made me think. What I actually want is to have a train arrive somewhere between a minimum and maximum frequency. So my provider limit shouldn't be the amount but the time between trains. At least partially. A fast producer should be able to get more frequent trains. If the station has the goods for a full train then it should be send no matter the time between trains. But a slow producer should get a train after some time even if not full.

Given that LTN stations are circuit controlled I have an idea:

1) A timer counts the number of ticks and is reset every time a train is at the station.
2) if timer < 2 * 60 * 60: provider stack limit = 40; provider limit = 25000
3) if timer > 10 * 60 * 60: provider stack limit = 0; provider limit = 1
4) else: T = 11 * 60 * 60 - timer; provider stack limit = 40 * T / 9 / 60 / 60; provider limit = 25000 * T / 9 / 60 / 60

For the first 2 minutes after each train the provider limit is set to a full train. Between 2-10 minutes the limit falls linear. After 10 minutes the limit is set to 1 (no stacks).

Note: multiply by number of wagons for the station obviously.

Comments?