Factorio Forums

At first I wanted to suggest just a simple pressure plate entity after playing Dwarf Fortress a lot (there actually used to be a mod for that, but couldn't find it anymore). First idea was that it would simply send selected signal when you stand on it, which would be useful when you build big circuit networks with controlled input done by weird things like manually putting something into a crate. Walking over something is much easier than that.

Than I started having even more ideas:
-Instead of single output, why not make it act like a constant combinator with multiple outputs that is activated when you step on?
-Why not let it read what is on top of it? Imagine riding a tank or car ontop of it and have automated fuel/ammo/cargo inserter activated by condition from pressure plate.
-If it could read what is on top of it, why not let it activate various defenses if it detects biters on top of it? Or with incoming speaker, why not use it as an early alert stations when incoming wave is nearing the base?
-If it could activate defenses, why not add all kinds of defenses similar to those in Dwarf Fortress? Imagine floor spikes activating when biters make a wrong step, or drowning them in a walled off pit if we could fill things with water like that. This last one might be too much for vanilla though ;p
-Think about entire RTS direction. Imagine introducing stealth. Imagine pressure plates detecting them.

Either way, I think simple pressure plate with single output is basic enough to be in vanilla.

In vanilla Factorio, you can already connect gates to the circuit network. They can be programmed to send a signal when the player is near or approaching it. This is similar to the "pressure plate" that you are proposing.

However, as far as I know, they cannot detect anything else except the player. I know of no entity that can detect enemies, other than radar. But that can't be connected to the circuit network.

I agree with you that it would be nice to be able to program weapons to trigger based on circuit network conditions and to set these conditions based on enemies being detected by entities on the circuit network (e.g. pressure pads). This would expand Factorio's sandbox elements, by allowing you to "play around" with the enemies more creatively.

how about pressing a key on keyboard to send a signal? (Maybe power armor could have a wireless signal transmitter and some entities could be programmed based on reception of such signals)

This would make things like controlling tetris on a light matrix much easier (very high priority thing, yes?)

AFAIK in planning. See also viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30853 Circuit network features for 0.15
(which is not up-to-date)

Eventually there are mods, that does this. (I found just this https://mods.factorio.com/mods/justaran ... pushbutton )