Start and stop supply in the logistic robots

[sword2410]

Is there any plan to add in the logistics system an upper limit to stop the supply of items and a lower limit to restart the supply?

Suppose that at some "requester chest" iron is needed, and that can be programmed to a minimum of 100 to start supplying and a maximum of 150 to stop the supply.

I consider that possibility should optimize the performance of logistics robots.

[n9103]

As long as you don't use Storage chests, it's easy to rig your logic system to maintain a certain amount in the logistic net.
Have your provider chests green/red wired to a smart inserter. However much you set there, plus the amounts in all your Requester chests is the target amount.

Defining an upper and lower limit, rather than a target, would take some fancy rigging, similar to the time-delay circuit elsewhere.
I imagine some setup would incorporate the greater than op on smart inserters to remove an indicator item from a toggle chest to switch the production on or off.
Such a layout is beyond me at the moment though.

[Nirahiel]

I want to talk about this :

As long as you don't use Storage chests.

That's the point.
There should be a 3rd line, below green wire and red wire, which is "logistic network".
If robots know about the network without any sort of wiring, and the chest themselves know about it (tooltip when mouseover), why can't they use the data unless connected by cable ?
Devs, you should add this ! (Or i'll do it by mod if i figure out how (Don't make a mod to do this ! I was first ))

[kovarex]

I want to talk about this :

As long as you don't use Storage chests.

That's the point.
There should be a 3rd line, below green wire and red wire, which is "logistic network".
If robots know about the network without any sort of wiring, and the chest themselves know about it (tooltip when mouseover), why can't they use the data unless connected by cable ?
Devs, you should add this ! (Or i'll do it by mod if i figure out how (Don't make a mod to do this ! I was first ))

I wanted it myself when I was playing, Tomas didn't understand the urge for this until he played the game with robots for some time as well.
This should be quite easy thing to do, and I will consider implementing it to some bugfix releases.

[Nirahiel]

This should be quite easy thing to do, and I will consider implementing it to some bugfix releases.

Yes yes yes !!

[slpwnd]

I agree that it is needed. Actually I think we should go even further and remake the logistic system to be fully wireless. The red and green cables were the first experimental version created a long time ago. They are quite tiresome to setup (especially for longer distances) and the lucidity of the whole system is low. The only problem would be the localilty. Now a red wire setup is local to the wiring and independent of a red wire setup couple of blocks away. However having a combination of colors and maybe shapes (red triangle, green square, etc.) should provide enough combinations to safely work with. Then a single "wireless channel" for the logistic channel would be just a special case of this.

[Nirahiel]

The only problem would be the localilty.

Well, not really.
You can leave cables for local stuff, they are fine.
Also check minecraft's mod Logistic Pipes, they are awesome, and can give you some pretty cool ideas.
Actually, if you want, I can be the one who redesigns the logistics system entirely, not the code, but how it's supposed to behave. ( Me >> )

[ssilk]

Locality could be achieved by agreement. Lets say we have 5 different colors and 5 shapes. So we have 25 "channels". Now you can say the "circle-shape" can only be connected via wire and doesn't send any wireless signals at all.
Or the sending radius of the yellow is limited by 20 tiles in diameter.
Or a "sender" can be used to plug into local wires and send/receive some filtered information, it can also make some simple calculations like "copper in red triangular minus iron ore blue square"....

Many possibilities, I mean it depends on internal structures.

[drs9999]

What about just adding an antenna?

So you just can create your LLN (local logistic networks) with red & green wires, but if you want to connect different networks in different places you can use WLN (wireless logistic network).

The WLN contains a (limited) number of channels that can be used and assigned in a small UI.
(Nothing special is needed here, just red wire goes to channel x, green wire is connected to channel y)

Just as an example you have 3 storages around your base and want to connect them into one logistic network, you have to connect all chests in each storage with wires (like now), then place an antenna at every storage, connect them with the LLN (local logistic network) and assign them to channel 1. Et voila.


Also as an addition the antennas might have a limited range so you have to build WLN repeater to connect far networks.

[ssilk]

Sounds like a déjà-vu.
I'm sure we discussed that already.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 064&p=7471
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=984
And some other threads I hadn't found yet.