"Kovarex Enrichment" needs a rethink -- catalysts!

[brunzenstein]

I really don't know why people are insisting on using combinators with the Kovarex Enrichment... it's totally do-able without using any combinators at all. The setup from the youtube video above wastes like 50% of the space just for the weird combinator setup.

Here in this thread are a lot of setups that are fine doing without (though some Circuit Network conditions on inserters): viewtopic.php?f=208&t=45528


And if one is abusing a priority setup (where the order in which items are added onto a belt matters) then it's completely do-able without any circuit network stuff just by relying on the good old belt tricks.

I can tell you why using a combinator setup is especially in this tricky situation (the process takes the same stuff as raw material as it puts out) essential:
To pull material out of a module only to check its content and fill it back in immediately after is simply bad design.
´Factorio deserves better then this cutting corner approach - and I'm myself a math illiterate, still I prefer to learn to understand combinator setups to lame "solutions"

[MeduSalem]

I can tell you why using a combinator setup is especially in this tricky situation (the process takes the same stuff as raw material as it puts out) essential:

Combinators are not essential for the Kovarex Process. As I said, you can do it without. I even posted several setups myself on the forum which show how to do it without.

Like this ugly initial contraption of mine: viewtopic.php?f=208&t=45769

[Taipion]

I really don't know why people are insisting on using combinators with the Kovarex Enrichment... it's totally do-able without using any combinators at all. The setup from the youtube video above wastes like 50% of the space just for the weird combinator setup.

Here in this thread are a lot of setups that are fine doing without (though some Circuit Network conditions on inserters): viewtopic.php?f=208&t=45528


And if one is abusing a priority setup (where the order in which items are added onto a belt matters) then it's completely do-able without any circuit network stuff just by relying on the good old belt tricks.

I can tell you why using a combinator setup is especially in this tricky situation (the process takes the same stuff as raw material as it puts out) essential:
To pull material out of a module only to check its content and fill it back in immediately after is simply bad design.
´Factorio deserves better then this cutting corner approach - and I'm myself a math illiterate, still I prefer to learn to understand combinator setups to lame "solutions"

And exactly how is my simple setup without any combinators not sufficient?
For the belt lovers, it could also be done without requestor chests and belts only, and a few wires between insertes and chests and that's it, no complex solutions needed at all.

[edit:] And I still say the fastest setup is to fill mostly from one centrifuge to the next.

[AndrewIRL]

Here in this thread are a lot of setups that are fine doing without (though some Circuit Network conditions on inserters): viewtopic.php?f=208&t=45528

This one is nice:

Double extendable voila!

And if one is abusing a priority setup (where the order in which items are added onto a belt matters) then it's completely do-able without any circuit network stuff just by relying on the good old belt tricks.

Which one is that?

[MeduSalem]

Which one is that?

For example this one:

Like this ugly initial contraption of mine: viewtopic.php?f=208&t=45769

[mrvn]

I found a very attractive setup - only - I don't understand how it works. And to understand, its what is all about:
https://youtu.be/UcWJH48ZpX0
Probably one of the masters will step in?

That does not look all too good, and quite slow with re-filling.
You can just take mine from my previous post, it's about similarily space efficient, but much faster,
you can take it as a "block" and paste it besides each other.
Simply wire all the inserters that point towards centrifuges and control them with one signal/setup to be able to quickly set it on/off or automatically on certain conditions like good uranium Vs bad uranium or plain number of good uranium.

[edit:]
Regarding the last post before this one: I can't understand why you would even need complex circuit network setups or "belt tricks" to make a fast and scale-able centrifuge blueprint.

I haven't researched Kovarex Enrichment yet so I have to ask instead of trying:

How many reactors can you run with a single centrifuge for Kovarex enrichment? Is speed really a problem here?

Similar why not just have have 3 stack inserters in an U with buffer chests to refill the centrifuge. Then one inserter with wire to the second chest in the U to refill the chest when it is low and one inserter with wire to the second chest in the U to empty the chest if it has processed enough excess? So 1x centrifuge, 3 stack inserters, 2 inserters, 2 cables, 2 wooden chests. And if reloading speed is a problem you can replicate the U 4 times.

[AndrewIRL]

Which one is that?

For example this one:

Like this ugly initial contraption of mine: viewtopic.php?f=208&t=45769

Looks like you are overloading the Kovarex machines, I want a solution with 40 per machine and not one U235 more.

[Taipion]

I found a very attractive setup - only - I don't understand how it works. And to understand, its what is all about:
https://youtu.be/UcWJH48ZpX0
Probably one of the masters will step in?

That does not look all too good, and quite slow with re-filling.
You can just take mine from my previous post, it's about similarily space efficient, but much faster,
you can take it as a "block" and paste it besides each other.
Simply wire all the inserters that point towards centrifuges and control them with one signal/setup to be able to quickly set it on/off or automatically on certain conditions like good uranium Vs bad uranium or plain number of good uranium.

[edit:]
Regarding the last post before this one: I can't understand why you would even need complex circuit network setups or "belt tricks" to make a fast and scale-able centrifuge blueprint.

I haven't researched Kovarex Enrichment yet so I have to ask instead of trying:

How many reactors can you run with a single centrifuge for Kovarex enrichment? Is speed really a problem here?

Similar why not just have have 3 stack inserters in an U with buffer chests to refill the centrifuge. Then one inserter with wire to the second chest in the U to refill the chest when it is low and one inserter with wire to the second chest in the U to empty the chest if it has processed enough excess? So 1x centrifuge, 3 stack inserters, 2 inserters, 2 cables, 2 wooden chests. And if reloading speed is a problem you can replicate the U 4 times.

1 Reactor block uses 18 fuel per hour when running nonstop, which you should not do, but that's a whole different topic.

1 "good" uranium is enough to produce 10 fuel, so a single centrifuge may very well fuel all your reactors, BUT... you may want more for other things... like bombs, they do cost a lot more, each.

For your setup suggestion, you don't need chests in between inserters for the "U", inserters can hand to each other without chests.
So for a really simple and ugly little setup, you could make 1 "U" with 3 stack inserters and one chest before the last inserter, then use a filter inserter with stack override set to 1 and wired to that chest to only take out 1 when there is more "good" uranium in the chest than the stack inserters stack size, and another inserter wired to that filter insert that inputs 3 (stack size set to 3) bad uranium (from belt or chest) whenever the filter inserter takes out 1, therefore set the filter inserter to also "read hand content" and "pulse" and set the inputting inserter to react to that.

[edit:] So when, after the first round, there is 1 remaining good uranium in the "U" chest (if the centrifuge is full, so yea a little unused material here), and the 2nd run finishes, there will be,for a moment, exactly 1 more good uranium in the chest that the stack inserters stack size, which will be taken out by the filter inserter which then triggers the other inserter to input exactly 3 bad uranium.

[edit2:] Another super simple 4 centrifuge setup would be, to have 4 centrifuges in a circle with 3 stack inserters forwarding material from one to the next, now each centrifuge has also 2 more inserters on the side, one filter inserter is wired to all 3 stack inserters and therefore reads their combined hand, when this at whatever they can hold together, it takes one good uranium out, which in turn trigger the 2nd additional inserter to input 3 bad uranium.
This setup would run without any unused material and output 1 good and input 3 bad per centrifuge per cycle.

[MeduSalem]

Looks like you are overloading the Kovarex machines, I want a solution with 40 per machine and not one U235 more.

And for what reason do you want it to be exact?

There's absolutely no point in being stingy other than to satisfy your own inner demons, especially if you end up with 50k U-235 anyways.

At least that's why I don't give a damn about there being 80 U-235 in the buffer of each Centrifuge. I'm not exact at other machines/recipes as well, so why start with the Kovarex Process, the one where it is the most difficult to do?

[Taipion]

If you want to be exact with that, take this setup.
You can switch the requestor chests for some fancy belt setup if you want to, but it's super simple:

The filter inserters are wired to all 3 stack inserters (actually, 1 wire would do here), and activated whenever they hold 1 or more good uranium,
then the filter inserter takes out exactly 1 good uranium.
The fast inserter inserts exactly 3 bad uranium whenever it sees a good uranium signal.

Trick is, the stack inserters are so fast that it works as it is, there never is any excess material in any of the centrifuges, and it never stops as long as the material flow holds, use a power switch to turn on/off all centrifuges and inserters at once,
no further magic needed.

[AndrewIRL]

There's absolutely no point in being stingy other than to satisfy your own inner demons, especially if you end up with 50k U-235 anyways.

The demons are powerful and demand sacrifice. I've spent more time mucking around with my little train system than it takes a speedrunner to finish the entire game!

If you want to be exact with that, take this setup.

If all I wanted was to be exact then why wouldn't I use the design I posted myself earlier in this very thread?

Double extendable voila!

It is a great design. But the question was:

And if one is abusing a priority setup (where the order in which items are added onto a belt matters) then it's completely do-able without any circuit network stuff just by relying on the good old belt tricks.

Which one is that?

I thought there was a U235 perfect design with no circuits at all floating around and I am curious to see it because I couldn't figure out how to do it.

[Taipion]

There's absolutely no point in being stingy other than to satisfy your own inner demons, especially if you end up with 50k U-235 anyways.

The demons are powerful and demand sacrifice. I've spent more time mucking around with my little train system than it takes a speedrunner to finish the entire game!

If you want to be exact with that, take this setup.

If all I wanted was to be exact then why wouldn't I use the design I posted myself earlier in this very thread?

Double extendable voila!

It is a great design. But the question was:

And if one is abusing a priority setup (where the order in which items are added onto a belt matters) then it's completely do-able without any circuit network stuff just by relying on the good old belt tricks.

Which one is that?

I thought there was a U235 perfect design with no circuits at all floating around and I am curious to see it because I couldn't figure out how to do it.

What you mean by "U235 perfect design"?

[AndrewIRL]

Taipion.png (730.27 KiB) Viewed 5596 times

If you want to be exact with that, take this setup.

So you use a power switch to start them all in perfect sync and they stay that way?

This might be the best design I've seen yet because it eliminates the downtime where the U235 is out of the processor and on belts or in chests etc that other designs use. Nice.

[AndrewIRL]

What you mean by "U235 perfect design"?

Hold exactly 40 U235 per Kovarex enrichment process and dump the extra one out for immediate use. Basically exactly like yours (which is brilliant) but somehow (I don't know how) doing it without circuits. I was just curious to see how such a thing worked.

Yours is really slick and a couple of circuits is no limitation at all. Needs a name: Taipion's Enrichment Circle?

I was just curious to see it done without circuits while also not hold any more U235 than strictly necessary.

[MeduSalem]

The demons are powerful and demand sacrifice. I've spent more time mucking around with my little train system than it takes a speedrunner to finish the entire game!

Yeah, I get where you are coming from... with some things I'm like that too or at least I used to be, but the older I get the less I give a damn. Thought I'd always be a perfectionist till the day I die, but as it turns out it's possible to starve the demons out.

I thought there was a U235 perfect design with no circuits at all floating around and I am curious to see it because I couldn't figure out how to do it.

I guess if it has to be a stingy, count perfect design then it's not possible to do it with at least some circuit network stuff. Only relying on belt/inserter priority alone oviously doesn't work for count perfect because of how the inserters will always fill up the buffer.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

I agree with the OP that catalysts would be an interesting addition to the game and make for some more realistic recipes. But the Kovarex process is perfect just as it is as far as I am concerned and I would not want to see it changed.

The devs should leave the Kovarex process alone, implement (degradable) catalysts, and then do nothing with them, leaving Archangel, Bobingabout and others to make some cool mods with the ability.

[Taipion]

What you mean by "U235 perfect design"?

Hold exactly 40 U235 per Kovarex enrichment process and dump the extra one out for immediate use. Basically exactly like yours (which is brilliant) but somehow (I don't know how) doing it without circuits. I was just curious to see how such a thing worked.

Yours is really slick and a couple of circuits is no limitation at all. Needs a name: Taipon's Enrichment Circle?

I was just curious to see it done without circuits while also not hold any more U235 than strictly necessary.

Uhmmm, thank you.

Yes, for perfection you need to manually load it exactly, or fully load it, start it, and then remove all excess material before it finishes.

I remembered I find power switches ugly as things keep flashing the "me got no power!"-sign, so to make it a little more neat, see this setup:

new.png (2.41 MiB) Viewed 5589 times

(ignore the power switch)
I simply put a red wire (whichever is not the colour you used for the actual process) only on all stack inserters to activate them with either a constant combinator (=manually) or with a decider combinator that gets input from a roboport so I can use the count of good uranium, bad uranium, or (with more combinators) a relation of both to turn them on/off without the flashing "no power"-sign.

If they are turned off this way, the cycle will finish and all material will simply stay where it is, as the filter inserter (for output) and fast inserter (for input) won't move as long as the stack inserters don't move either,
turn them on again and it's just as before, no excess material, all running smooth.

[Taipion]

I guess if it has to be a stingy, count perfect design then it's not possible to do it with at least some circuit network stuff. Only relying on belt/inserter priority alone oviously doesn't work for count perfect because of how the inserters will always fill up the buffer.

I think it is doable, but potentially unstable and not really neat.

- Use a cycle of 4 or more centrifuges
- use 3 stack filter inserters between each, only taking out the good uranium
- use a single filter inserter set to stack size 1 to take the good one out, it should work by itself that the filter inserter can only ever get one before the stack filter inserters have emptied the centrifuge
- use a "U" with 3 filter inserters set for bad uranium to transfer that from one centrifuge to the next, have only one requestor chest in that "U" set to request 5 or so bad uranium

This will work, likely, never contain more than the needed good uranium and output all newly produced good uranium immediately, but contain a slight excess of bad uranium, which I say is good enough, as... well, I think it does not get any better than that without any circuits.
And if you'd want to pause/stop it, you'd have to freeze it with a power switch, as ...no circuits. ^^

[Deadly-Bagel]

What you mean by "U235 perfect design"?

Hold exactly 40 U235 per Kovarex enrichment process and dump the extra one out for immediate use. Basically exactly like yours (which is brilliant) but somehow (I don't know how) doing it without circuits. I was just curious to see how such a thing worked.

Yours is really slick and a couple of circuits is no limitation at all. Needs a name: Taipon's Enrichment Circle?

I was just curious to see it done without circuits while also not hold any more U235 than strictly necessary.

Well you could probably utilise some Inserter mechanics especially with the new stack size config but it's not going to be simple. Come on, Factorio is a game where you've got "working" and "efficient", and the latter is rarely simple AND circuit-free. It's supposed to give advanced players an edge, the more you utilise circuits and high-level mechanics the more efficient you can get everything running.

However why do you want exactly 40 U-235 in the Centrifuge? Once you have the Kovarex process it's not exactly a rare resource anymore, a single Centrifuge (no modules) can provide enough U-235 for 30 Reactors indefinitely. At a guess I'd say you don't have 30 reactors, especially if you insist on a circuit-free base, and the cost-per-unit is only 3 U-238 so excess is not a problem.

[Wakaba-chan]

Oh no, no catalysts, please Kovarex process as it working now is very fun to automate. True, it is not looking like anything else in the game, but this is the point. It is boring to automate the same processes with different names. We have regular production cycles, we have liquid production cycles. Now we have uranium production cycles! We need to deliver acid to the miners and this is awesome. We need to deal non-load-follow reactors and this is awesome. We need to deal with Kovarex Enrichment Process and this is awesome too! I think, this is the Game - when we need to automate different processes and to figure it out how to do it better.

Devs, don'n simple it down, please.