Friday Facts #428 - Reactor & Logistics circuit control

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-428

[Gergely]

Thank you for such a great event. From now on after every FFF you should all imagine the applause of the crowd. It's deserved.

[Ecconia]

Nice logistics changes :)
Still awaiting the announcement, that the rocket silo gets the same treatment of logistics circuit love~

[husnikadam]

I thought that adding missing logistic requests would be as simple as adding negative amount of the missing items to the currently existing logistic system report

Missing construction material is now, while you have mentioned it and improved everything else around it, a significant drawback. We get a flashing icon on our screens yet bots can't automatically fix it. Bummer.

The release is getting ready and you keep ton of expansion info unrevealed. Please share more

[GregoriusT]

Some of the teams finished in the 50 hours we played

Really curious how the "finish the space expansion" achievement is gonna be timed.

(I am certain Spoonless will only refer to launching the first Rocket)

[Terrahertz]

All in all a set of very awesome changes, as always

The reactor thing is nice, although I am not sure if the thermal mass of reactors, pipes and heatexchangers is enough to make sure nothing is wasted, but we will see, the last sentence was quite interessting

Anyway... reading the heat and contents from the reactors may prove to be quite useful when you get to the final planet.

We already know this one is going to be cold, so is there something going on like in the Arctic Biome in Anno 1800?

Importantly (or unfortunately), it does not include items needed to build ghosts (construction requests). This is mostly a technical restraint on our behalf, as logistic networks do not track ghosts in a way that would make it performant to include.

That's quite sad, but I am sure there is a way to engineer around this in the game, any ideas?

[ledow]

Roboport and reactor stats always was an oversight, it took far too long for such a simple thing!

Now... how about a signal for if a gun is out of ammo ?

[gnutrino]

Anyway... reading the heat and contents from the reactors may prove to be quite useful when you get to the final planet.

FrostPunktorio confirmed

[burninghey]

Reading temperature feels easy, true.
What is this little R / G at the decider combinator interface?

[Terrahertz]

Reading temperature feels easy, true.
What is this little R / G at the decider combinator interface?

Red and Green, so you can choose the signal input.

[burninghey]

Importantly (or unfortunately), it does not include items needed to build ghosts (construction requests).

Oh please, try again!

There is a mod for this, but i was hoping you may include it in the game.

[burninghey]

Reading temperature feels easy, true.
What is this little R / G at the decider combinator interface?

Red and Green, so you can choose the signal input.

Oh well, why not using the red/green wire icon instead

[BrainlessTeddy]

Thb that are some small but kinda game changing things at least for me, I can spend hours on end figuring out those small details. (Edit: How certain things work, mostly circuitry, and how to monitor and control whats going on in the factory, things like always having the right amount of bots in the system.) Rn this FFF feels most impactful since the reveal of the planets or combinator overhaul.

Also what did I miss? What is the request group in the requester chest?

[Terrahertz]

Reading temperature feels easy, true.
What is this little R / G at the decider combinator interface?

Red and Green, so you can choose the signal input.

Oh well, why not using the red/green wire icon instead

They might get a bit tiny ey?

[Muche]

What is this little R / G at the decider combinator interface?

Also see https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-384.

[Justderpingalong]

Thb that are some small but kinda game changing things at least for me, I can spend hours on end figuring out those small details. (Edit: How certain things work, mostly circuitry, and how to monitor and control whats going on in the factory, things like always having the right amount of bots in the system.) Rn this FFF feels most impactful since the reveal of the planets or combinator overhaul.

Also what did I miss? What is the request group in the requester chest?

The 'group' is... well, a group. It was announced relatively early on, when they talked circuits 2.0. It's essentially a preset list of requests. Instead of having to either A: Make a blueprint of just that one requester chest or B: Keep track of the location for copy/pasting, you can now just make a group, and then add the chest to that group. Requester chest group settings are automatically updated as well if you change the group, so you can bulk update a bunch of chests.

As for the new features... I agree with the others. I understand it's a technical limitation right now. But it'd be GREAT to be able to read construction requirements.

[woytaz]

Oh well, why not using the red/green wire icon instead

Because there are people who are red-green colorblind.

[Muche]

Also what did I miss? What is the request group in the requester chest?

See https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-382.

[Justderpingalong]

Roboport and reactor stats always was an oversight, it took far too long for such a simple thing!

Now... how about a signal for if a gun is out of ammo ?

Already a thing: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-410 Just hook up a programmable speaker to your turret and have it send an alert if ammo < desired.

[Tooster]

Nice changes.
However I still find the UI of the combinators confusing. I can't remember what those checkboxes mean and they are not immediately obvious. Also color coding would help a lot. White text on bright green is barely visible. Those checkboxes suggest impossible states, I think you should have used radio buttons or other kinds of toggles. 4 checkboxs for inputs only suggest 2^4 possible states, which is not even possible. I think the combinators would be much easier to learn and use if they were single channel. Current multi channel is just a bit too coofusing.

Another highly reuqested feature I see missing is outputting another constant than than "1" from the combinator, which is a shame.

I still wonder why was combinator designed like that with both green and red channels, when in reality they are two entities in one, cross connected with wires to sum their output in the end?