Separate signals to/from red and green wires

[Illiander42]

That's a neat trick.

I will have to remember it

[reallyLost]

Here is another use case for the decider combinator: if green wood > 1000 then output red each. Currently you have to first transform the green wood into a signal not present on the red wire, possibly add another combinator to delay the red signals to match the timing. Then use the transformed signal in the decider combinator. And if you want a clean output signals you need another 2 combinators to remove the transformed signal from the output again. That's a total of 5 combinators and 3 ticks signal length.

Just as an aside, you can avoid having to clean the output by using an active low control signal. I.e. The control signal ("transformed" green) would be "If wood < 1000 then x=1", and then for the actual filter "If x == 0 then output everything".

[ssilk]

I guess developers think this ( to choose the wire color) has been tested during development and they found the current solution to be good enough, because you can emulate most things without it - just needs more combinators.

[Impatient]

I guess developers think this ( to choose the wire color) has been tested during development and they found the current solution to be good enough, because you can emulate most things without it - just needs more combinators.

This is a feature request. As simple as that. It is something others and me would like to have in the game.

Now, one of the reasons is to have to use less combinators (a lot less) and other things can not be done at all without this feature.

Do you like the requested feature?

[ssilk]

Yes!
Sorry, I wrote it so that it could be misunderstand. Fact is that I would also like to have that implemented. Really : it could make some things a lot easier (and some even possible) and I would be one of the first that would use them.

In my former post I played around with the thought why it isn’t implemented yet.

BTW: another possible reason not being implemented yet is that the game has severe problems to properly show circuits in an understandable way. Connections will overlap, it’s difficult to follow the wires. And so many more that it could be never be fixed (because most comes from the angle how you look on ground). Adding this new color separation would make the circuits completely unreadable from above; in doubt you need to click on each combinator to understand how that circuit works. Negative gameplay value. Sorry again.

(IMHO we need a new display mode, where the circuits are displayed and edited as a circuit-plan. But that would be a complete new suggestion.)

[Optera]

Yes!
Sorry, I wrote it so that it could be misunderstand. Fact is that I would also like to have that implemented. Really : it could make some things a lot easier (and some even possible) and I would be one of the first that would use them.

In my former post I played around with the thought why it isn’t implemented yet.

BTW: another possible reason not being implemented yet is that the game has severe problems to properly show circuits in an understandable way. Connections will overlap, it’s difficult to follow the wires. And so many more that it could be never be fixed (because most comes from the angle how you look on ground). Adding this new color separation would make the circuits completely unreadable from above; in doubt you need to click on each combinator to understand how that circuit works. Negative gameplay value. Sorry again.

(IMHO we need a new display mode, where the circuits are displayed and edited as a circuit-plan. But that would be a complete new suggestion.)

I guess you mean the mouse over tooltip.
With recent changes to how those look it'd look very in line to group signals by wire. I'd want to collapse groups but that's a different suggestion too.

[Pi-C]

(IMHO we need a new display mode, where the circuits are displayed and edited as a circuit-plan. But that would be a complete new suggestion.)

Nice idea, at first glance. If you're cramming lots of combinators in limited space (and then noticed you forgot something and need to put down some extra combinators wherever there is room instead of next to the combinators they logically belong to), it's really hard to see whether a certain wire connects to a combinator or the pole in front of it, so a circuit-plan display would help a lot there. But how big would that circuit-plan have to be? Have a look at this outpost:

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There are several tightly crammed small networks at each train stop (A), for ordering trains and controlling the inserters. Here's a close-up:

circuits-closeup.png (4.13 MiB) Viewed 5760 times

A needs to get input from a wire on the main rail line (the two lower rails going through C), marked in the close-up with "Network orders". Both the train stop entries (B) and the branch-off from the main rail line (C) need input from A, marked in the close-up with "Cumulated guidance signals". A, B, and C work as one system, but it's several chunks wide. So, should such a circuit-plan display show all connections in the system (A+B+C), should it show just the connections from each subsystem (A|B|C), or should it even be just for parts of each subsystem (e.g. the circuitry for each individual train stop in A)?

I think that question alone will make it hard to get this feature implemented. There's also the question how the representation in the circuit-plan is in regard to the actual lay-out on the ground. Life now is hard because you can't easily see what an entity is connected to. Will a circuit-plan make that even harder because you'd also have to map a certain combinator from the plan to one on the ground so you can change settings there?

[ssilk]

You made it more complex than I think it is. I would implement it by marking an area and all circuits in that area will be translated as an engineer has drawn it on a white sheet of paper. A simple graph, a circuit plan. Something which looks quite similar to electro plans or the circuit plan of electronics. And for such plans it works as always: You don’t need to see all, just think in black boxes and you need just to know what happens not how it works. good enough.

Well in a next step it would be kind of useful to say “this circuit belongs to plan F and this to plan G”. But that would be not needed for first implemented.

And the connections to the outside are drawn as always in such plans: as an arrow to the border of that sheet.

And for the first implementation I would just draw the plan, and the current state of the wires and conditions.
Maybe you see how the circuits are currently switched (and can slow down the world to see that working step by step), maybe you can change the conditions, maybe you can rewire (so it might be a good strategy to built some circuits outside, change to the plan and connect everything), maybe you have a simulation mode to simulate some types of signals from outside.

[mrvn]

What has any of this got to do with how wires connect and combiantor networks are shown?

Two simple things would already achieve this feature:

Adding special signals "each green" and "each red" that would act like each but only pick signals from one of the wires.

I fail to see why it being difficult to see how wires connect combinators has any bearing on those two signals. Except I think this feature would reduce a number of combinator constructions making them easier to understand simply because fewer combinators are needed.

[Impatient]

... another possible reason not being implemented yet is that the game has severe problems to properly show circuits in an understandable way. Connections will overlap, it’s difficult to follow the wires. And so many more that it could be never be fixed (because most comes from the angle how you look on ground). Adding this new color separation would make the circuits completely unreadable from above ...

The requested feature would not affect the wiring on the map at all. It only affects the GUI of the combinators. As shown in the mockups in the op, there would only be the options to "color" the outgoing signals and to chose from which line color a signal is taken for the calculation. Edit: and in fact it would reduce the ammount of combinators and wiring for more complex circuits.

(IMHO we need a new display mode, where the circuits are displayed and edited as a circuit-plan. But that would be a complete new suggestion.)

Oh, I am with you on this one. I would like to have only one combinator that, when opened, shows a circuit board where everything can be done (for free?) plus has unlimited space. That would remove the wire and combinator spam from the map forever. But yeah, that is another topic and I am pretty sure, that suggestion has been made several times already elsewhere.

[BlueTemplar]

"Just" make a LabView plugin for Factorio !

[leadraven]

Tried to send contents of the Requester Chest by red wire, and set request from green wire...

[jamiechi1]

"Just" make a LabView plugin for Factorio !
Or something like the older fpga or pld design tools I.E. one of the earlier versions of the Xilinx FPGA ISE.
And a new entity like a 4,14 or 16 pin IC blocks to put the logic in.
And give me the option to disable the 'wired-or' function of combinators.

[junhinhow]

TL;DR

requests chests can be set by red wire and read by green wire (or vice versa by check/mark on dialog screen what wire is for setup and whats for read)

What ?

the blue/green chests been enable both set and read the contents by the setup of logical wires.

Why ?

imagine that you have a 2 separate boarders and want transfers itens from one logical to other, you must setup a bridge with a passive chest on one side, and a requester on other sidem and a inserter/loader on middle. for simple setup, that works like a charm, but factorio is a game of automation things, and factory expansion (Factory Must Grow!) and for make a smarter choices, you have in some most of mega bases cases, use amounts of combinators and setup smart bridges and smart loaders/unloaders/expansion points/etc. so in this situations you need infill exactly X amount of Y, Z, K products on that "Bridges" and for dont overflow a chest, you need or setup 10/20/+ chests (depends of your building) or a sushi transfer system (T-T sad for that way of do things, prefer even the spaghetti). so, to dont overflow the chests, you can configure minimum amounts for itens for requests (niceee!!) but even so, if some item clogs the chest system, you dont have how to know... because, or you setup by wires for read the contents of setup for set the itens amounts!

little setup to exemplify (Sorry, i try put on spoiler mod, but cant make it happens... T-T)

Pics inside

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[junhinhow]

pretty much the same of this other thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=96035 but this is for filter inserters

TL;DR

filter inserters can be set by red wire and enable/disable by green wire (or vice versa by check/mark on dialog screen what wire is for setup and whats for read)

What ?

the white/purple filter inserters been enable both enable/disable and setup the filters by the setup of logical wires.

Why ?

imagine that you have a 2 separate boarders and want transfers itens from one logical to other, you must setup a bridge with a passive chest on one side, and a requester on other sidem and a inserter/loader on middle. for simple setup, that works like a charm, but factorio is a game of automation things, and factory expansion (Factory Must Grow!) and for make a smarter choices, you have in some most of mega bases cases, use amounts of combinators and setup smart bridges and smart loaders/unloaders/expansion points/etc. so in this situations you need infill exactly X amount of Y, Z, K products on that "Bridges" and for dont overflow a chest, you need or setup 10/20/+ chests (depends of your building) or a sushi transfer system (T-T sad for that way of do things, prefer even the spaghetti). so, to dont overflow the chests, you can configure minimum amounts for itens for requests (niceee!!) but even so, if some item clogs the chest system, you dont have how to know... because, or you setup by wires for filters the contents of setup for enable/disable the inserters!

[ssilk]

moved the two similar threads to older and more general topic, fixed spoiler

And I don’t understand the pictures

[NotRexButCaesar]

Maybe this can be added for the expansion? It seems like an expansion-y feature.

[ssilk]

I thought about adding a new board, like “Expansion features”, but who of you don’t want to have his/her suggestions not there? It is too difficult to decide, what would be really worth of an expansion pack. And the devs see all of that even more from a different angle.

So I would keep this as that what it is: a source of ideas.

[junhinhow]

a simple way to bypass that is, anything from green -> A and anything from red -> B, then use the math you want for give the results... this should works for 80% of the cases...

[SakretonTheSecond]

Basically what the title says,

highlight the Signal icon based on the wire type it comes from, like on power Poles but in combinators.