Friday Facts #88 - Combinators

[n9103]

That's just a standard playthrough though.
A good deal of the fun many people get from Factorio is in the long play games, where they build the largest/fastest/most efficient factory they can, and a good deal of this is long after they could have won.

If none of that interests you, well, hope you had fun, since there's not much to do after you've won once if that's all you're interested in, since it's a pretty straightforward gameplay path if that's the only goal.

[Jarin]

Nifty items and all... but I think the programmers need to remember that the majority of their players... aren't programmers. Some less-complicated applications might be nice?

[Klonan]

Nifty items and all... but I think the programmers need to remember that the majority of their players... aren't programmers. Some less-complicated applications might be nice?

Haha I don't think its too complicated to just disregard these complex parts, but maybe if you experiment around you'll figure out some nifty logic

[Drury]

Nifty items and all... but I think the programmers need to remember that the majority of their players... aren't programmers. Some less-complicated applications might be nice?

Ahaha, that reminds me of that interview kovarex and tomas did for games.cz, where they said exactly that they're aware that a chunk of their community is programmers/developers.

Which raises the obvious question: are you not a programmer? :S

Don't worry. There are less nerdy uses than logic gates. For instance, you can have a train taxi. Each station has a symbolic item attached to it, you just select corresponding item to where you want to go and within moments a train comes to pick you up and drop you off at your desired place, then goes back to depot.

Still nerdy. No matter. You'll figure out a boring use.

[Nemoricus]

I'm finding it hard to get excited about this, I'm afraid, because it means dealing with wires, which are one of the most tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks in the game. If there was a way to more quickly and cleanly place red/green wire, I'd find this more useful, but if you still have to connect each wire to each item individually, I think I'm just going to end up ignoring what would otherwise be a very useful feature.

[ssilk]

So the logical next thing to avoid laying that many cables from an outpost to the center is
- wireless connections
- automatic cabling for that long distances or
- hidden connection within the railway...

If you have a mining outpost, chances are you're powering it from your base (I always do, it's so much simpler than setting up generators on the spot). You can just use the pylons, easy peasy.

Well, the trainlayer can do that pretty fast. The problem is then to lay the red/green wires by hand. Not fun.

[rampelstinskin]

I also need:
1)Smart tank. Just like smart chest but for fluids.
2)Circuit controlled pump or valve.
3)Import and maybe export information to/from logistic network.
4)Inverted filter for smart inserter. Just add one checkbox.

[Khyron]

>Rate, comment, or suggest better names for the combinators.
These are very abstract kind of machines so it is hard to imagine what game problems we might solve with combinators.

I like the idea of dispatching trains to resource bases when the resource base has a threshold of resources. But that is not essential and (as ssilk pointed out) if it's not easy to set up then wouldn't I just use trains the old way? There's a parallel with belts vs. trains. In most cases, due to the current map generation algorithm, players can get away with using belts and never get to experience the joy of trains. It would be nice if the game had some more complexities that provoke the use of combinators.

Combinators are designed to be universal tools: if you can make the 4 primitive logic gates, there's no limit. On the other hand, I feel that I have 'solved' factorio in its current state, at least the open world gameplay. It took hundreds of hours of playing and analysing and design/redesign but there are no outstanding problems on my 'todo' list, if you know what I mean. I'm hoping the new end-game content shakes things up a bit, and there are always mods, but at the moment I personally have no compelling need for combinators. I'm optimistic that newer players might use combinators to solve things in a way that is hard for me to imagine. Perhaps those solutions will be more elegant.

In terms of naming, the real world analogy is PLCs but I guess you know that and already ruled it out? What about simply 'Controller'?

[Zemerson]

WOOT! Finally the logic systems I've been craving!

[slpwnd]

There's been a blueprint sharing/saving mod for many months now.
Dunno if it's currently updated, but it's what I keep hearing people complain that they want in-game.

Mods are nice and all, but I like many players in the game see this as a core feature that should be in the base game.

At this point I prefer to mention things that hopefully the devs will see and put into the game.

A system for sharing mods in the core game might quite likely come in the future.

[slpwnd]

Looks nice, but I'd never find a use for them. ATM working on the last few tech items to get to end game, and haven't needed railways, green or red wire, plus a few other things.

Not everything in the game is for everyone=) The idea is that the game should be perfectly possible to finish without combinators. But they are there for people who want to play with them and optimize their factory to the limit.

[Zeeth_Kyrah]

I am quite happy calling these devices combinators. And I LOVE that they'll be in the game. Yay logic-driven production! It will be much easier to build a factory for the more complicated items now that I can specifically say "When this is done, do that" and so on.

I do agree that an upgrade from combinators which forms a programmable logic controller (or maybe just "signal controller") would be useful, letting players build a list of tests and outputs (as well as maybe internal variables/registers for data storage). Combinators look good, but incomplete, and that next stage up would let me rebuild complicated logic and materials routing into something even simpler.

So that means we'll be able to activate/deactivate transport belts, right?

[MF-]

"Steam backup is a huge mess" Why? It all fits under regular wiring pole AFAIK.

You basically answered that question yourself: "As a hack from inside of the game, even though its source code AFAIK didn't plan for it."

I'm for straight forward solutions, so I don't like hacks, workarounds and other ugly contraptions to emulate a lacking feature.

My bad, should have separated the response from followup thoughts clearly...
I was responding to the fact you called it huge, which it's not.
Regarding "mess", Well, if you can make a mess of a few belts, two inseters and a smart chest....

Using straightforward solutions is boring without space for creating and fun.

Actually, since we are getting ability to control power in 0.12, that gives us ability to control pumps at least indirectly.
And that will make steam backup setups pretty tiny. All you need to do is build that "power low detector"
and use it to control the pump feeding your steam engine farm.

What about providing a blueprint for that "power low detector" in some kind of "I don't want to think" blueprint pack?
Would that work for you (imagine/suggest less offensive name for the taget group) ?

[MF-]

So that means we'll be able to activate/deactivate transport belts, right?

Wouldn't that put unpredictable quantities of items on the target belt?
It may be more practical to load a time-shared belt by inserters to keep track of item count.

It might be more interesting to be able to switch recipes in an assembler based on a logic condition.
Together with time-based belt sharing it'll be the ultimate tool of creating small and spectaculary confusing setups.

[ssilk]

Nifty items and all... but I think the programmers need to remember that the majority of their players... aren't programmers. Some less-complicated applications might be nice?

I'm finding it hard to get excited about this, I'm afraid, because it means dealing with wires, which are one of the most tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks in the game. If there was a way to more quickly and cleanly place red/green wire, I'd find this more useful, but if you still have to connect each wire to each item individually, I think I'm just going to end up ignoring what would otherwise be a very useful feature.

I'm sure that we will in the end have blueprints, in form of a mod or a bp-string, and you need only to put the wire into the right ends. That are things, which are just have practical use, like a regulator, some step-by-step controllers and so on. There are hundreds of electronic IC's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit), that can be rebuilt. See list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_74 ... d_circuits

And there are many more.

[Drury]

>Rate, comment, or suggest better names for the combinators.

Combinator is a pretty good name, if lengthy. Wiremod calls them "gates" but we already have that thing as anti-biter hardware.

Constant Combinator I would rename to Virtual Chest. It looks like a chest, works like a chest (as far as circuit network is concerned to say the least), and is not really a combinator (does not do any actual logical operations, it just sends constant values). Decider Combinator seems serviceable, might also be Comparison Combinator (bit long though). Arithmetic Combinator is aptly named, but to make it less intimidating it could be Calculation Combinator or Computing Combinator.

[Tarks]

Guys, signed up just for this. It would be very cool of you if you don't put the wires as red/green. I'm sure there's more than just one color blind factorio player that this would make life a little tricky for

[Zeblote]

Although there's planned official mod with the HD graphics. It was in FF some time ego.

Hmm. I think a few HD items between the otherwise low res things would look out of place though.

Maybe just double the resolution on all textures together

[infinitehubgear]

I remember, the HD official mod was mentioned here.

[ratchetfreak]

So the logical next thing to avoid laying that many cables from an outpost to the center is
- wireless connections
- automatic cabling for that long distances or
- hidden connection within the railway...

If you have a mining outpost, chances are you're powering it from your base (I always do, it's so much simpler than setting up generators on the spot). You can just use the pylons, easy peasy.

Well, the trainlayer can do that pretty fast. The problem is then to lay the red/green wires by hand. Not fun.

Then update the train layer to add the option of adding the wires as well