TL;DR
Add another option for the decider combinators "output mode" that outputs the time the condition has been fulfilled for.What ?
I suggest what is in the tl;dr. A new output mode that makes the signal strength the amount of ticks the condition has been true since it was last false. This allows for a super simple way to do timing related circuitry.For example, if a decider combinator is checking if an inserter is not holding an item and that inserter hasn't held an item in 1 second, the combinator will output a signal of strength ~60. This signal will of course increase by one every tick until the inserter holds an item again, which resets the count and signal to 0.
Why ?
I love using combinators and circuits in Factorio and sometimes need to do timing related stuff. With my experience I can make a pretty simple timer with a few combinators, but I always find it a bit confusing to work with and it is not very pretty either.Then after hours of building with circuits I realized it, all of my timing related circuit problems could be boiled down into a simple question: "for how long has this condition been met?". Since the decider combinator already handles conditions and has multiple output modes, I think it would be very intuitive for both experienced and new players to use.
I think this would be a great addition since building and understanding timing problems like this is a bit too complicated for new players in current Factorio. This would make it much much simpler for them and introduce new players to an aspect of circuits that were previously too difficult for them.