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Maybe that should be in gameplay help, but if there's no solution i'd be also interested to read the suggestions/proposals and i have nothing to show for my current attempts at synchronizing programmable speaker accross different planets, so they would ring one after the other, with a precise/known amount of tick between them.

Previously you could synchronize such circuits accross Nauvis using :

1)trains with the same schedule
2) solar pannels starting the same day everywhere at the same time
3) very long wire accross the map

But i don't think any of those applies for synchronizing circuits on 2 differents planets. I'm quite certain for the 3).

for the 2), i'm not sure, because maybe it is possible to calculate when/if a day start the exact same tick on 2 different planet. That sound likea lot of math and calculation similar to ecplises prediction.

for the 1) i figure it may just be that i'm not seeing how to do it with the interrupts, i don't really see how i can have platforms on different planets reacting to the same trigger simultaenously on each planet. I wanted to use them somehow.

I also may be forgetting things so was wondering if anyone has an idea ?

(yes i know there are mods for this, i'm going to use one if i can't find a solution )

You can set up a tick timer on each planet, and sync them using a space platform with requests? With something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Time_Protocol, they should eventually sync up after a round trip. Everything else can then sync to the per-planet timer over radar.

h.q.droid wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 5:34 pm You can set up a tick timer on each planet, and sync them using a space platform with requests? With something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Time_Protocol, they should eventually sync up after a round trip. Everything else can then sync to the per-planet timer over radar.

Ah yes ! thanks you that is food for thought, like a 4rth proposition which would be measuring the time a platform need to move from point A to point B , and somehow use this information for the synchronization of circuits, or at least having a well-known differential in between both ,and maybe offset it....

I'm back to the drawing board ! x)

As far as I see, the game was deliberately made to prevent communication between planets and just limited exchange between platforms in orbit and planets.

How about this to find a common point in time everywhere. You hinted at this already, this is an actual proposal:

The idea is to find actions with predictable and as short as possible durations. One such action between platform and planet is dropping a requested item from a platform to the planet without any requests being serviced from the planet up to the platform. The item is dropped a soon as the platform arrives in orbit and has the chance to process requests, for example waiting condition "1 second elapsed". The item arrives exactly 30s later (or what the duration was, I don't remember exactly) and its arrival can be detected in the local logistics network. The dropping of the item takes no time, but you need a waiting condition of 1 second elapsed, otherwise the platform will just proceed to the next planet without dropping anything.

The platform has a fixed schedule and will visit all planets, one after the other. If we design the platform to always fly with maximum speed, we know exactly the time the platform needs from one planet to the next.

So we visit Vulcanus first. It gets its item. The next planet is Nauvis. When Nauvis gets its item, we know how much time has elapsed since Vulcanus got its item: it is the time required to drop the item down to Nauvis, plus the time required to fly from Vulcanus to Nauvis, minus the time required to drop the item down to Vulcanus, plus 1 second (the second the platform waits on Vulcanus to allow processing the item request).Which makes it the time from one planet to the next plus 1 second. The duration for the item arriving on the planet is constant and always the same, so it can be omitted in our time calculations.

So every planet just has to count a known amount of ticks since item arrival, then knows when the item will arrive on Aquilo as last planet. Aquilo doesn't need to add any offset. In this moment you can ring your bell everywhere, and I guess it's at the same moment. You just have to precalculate the constant time offsets.

mmmPI wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 5:27 pm 3) very long wire accross the map

Space wire across the solar system!

Selector combinator in "Random input" mode of operation, when set with positive update interval does updates at a fixed interval synchronized by the entity tick counter as long as selector combinator is fully powered.

I use a Solar Panel / Accumulator / Combinator-reading-state-of-charge mechanism to create a “Dawn” pulse on each Planet. This then triggers Item Semaphores (using a unique item, like a Legendary Shotgun) to be sent to a Rocket Silo —> Space Platform —> Move to Another Planet… I have not tried to extend this mechanism to encode additional Bits of data (eg, in the Item counts) because of self-induced Bugs in my binary en/decoder - thinking of trying again if I can find a real Use for it.

boskid wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 7:17 pm Selector combinator in "Random input" mode of operation, when set with positive update interval does updates at a fixed interval synchronized by the entity tick counter as long as selector combinator is fully powered.

So this is why my auto-crafting Malls all "flicker" between recipes at the exact same time everywhere!

This only serves as a Synchronization primitive though? IE, detect the signal "Change" at the same time across Surfaces..... there is no way to transmit True/False Information this way, like you can via an Item Semaphore.

mmmPI wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 5:49 pm

h.q.droid wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 5:34 pm You can set up a tick timer on each planet, and sync them using a space platform with requests? With something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Time_Protocol, they should eventually sync up after a round trip. Everything else can then sync to the per-planet timer over radar.

Ah yes ! thanks you that is food for thought, like a 4rth proposition which would be measuring the time a platform need to move from point A to point B , and somehow use this information for the synchronization of circuits, or at least having a well-known differential in between both ,and maybe offset it....

I'm back to the drawing board ! x)

I imagined this as a clock on a platform. This would output its tick as, say, a request for red squares. This signal could be intercepted from a silo reading orbital requests (there may be signal delay to compensate for), so as the platform travels round it synchronises Clocks on every planet.

Edit: spelling x

Tertius wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 6:13 pm How about this to find a common point in time everywhere. You hinted at this already, this is an actual proposal:

I think i understand the steps that you describe, or at least the purpose of it, i think it's slightly different than what i understood from the link by h.q.droid.
In one way i saw a "master time/slave" and architecture and in the other it's relative adjustment of clock between peers ( at a conceptual level ).

I think some of the steps you describe can be simplified if the plan is to 'only' manually synchronize all the planets at least once, using the read request on silo, or setting up the timer right on the platform and reading its speed/position once the clock has stopped ticking for the 2nd trip. I had in mind this idea that each planet could play an instrument, in "global" and then it would the symphony of the universe or something, regarding this plan some 1 time recording of offset for a platform can work 'well enough', planets would then all be synced for playing music, there would be a clock on each planet a self reseting timer.

More advanced goal was to make it so that every 20 minutes or each planet is allowed to say its name and some items whose quantity in the logistic network is significantly lower than the threshold for the 2nd time in a row without reset. I have made a mod to adds the custom sounds for the speakers already so that sending a signal can trigger a planet "saying" : "iron ore" , "steel plate" .But such plan implies that planet B "talk" sooner or later depending on the amount of different item planet A would call, in a perfect world. It's a bit more advanced than simply synchronizing signals once, it require doing it automatically for it to happen every 20 minutes as a reminder. I know this could be solved more "easily" with mod but i keep in mind your descriptions for if i can implement it in the game. ( Although for now i'm going to use what boskid mentionned ).

Makka77 wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 8:59 pm I imagined this as a clock on a platform. This would output its tick as, say, a request for red squares. This signal could be intercepted from a silo reading orbital requests (there may be signal delay to compensate for), so as the platform travels round it synchronises Clocks on every planet.

That's what i tried to do right after i read the first answer, but i couldn't find a way to transmit the amount of time to the planet. One can't set request from circuits, nor 'trick' the platform into believing item received as signal are real item to influence the amount of item requested to act as a proxy for "time spent travelling to deliver the message". I try to imagine that too, thinking it would be the easier method, send a platform with a clock, and when the platform arrive at destination it tells how much "item" is requested, but that quantity is in fact just the time it took for the platform to move, and the planet start a counter with that amount of time/item offset. but i couldn't make this work.

boskid wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 7:17 pm Selector combinator in "Random input" mode of operation, when set with positive update interval does updates at a fixed interval synchronized by the entity tick counter as long as selector combinator is fully powered.

Ha ! This i may have forgotten, because i'm sure the other things are new to me x) but this is possible i was told or it was mentionned but i couldn't think of it for this particular purpose and it just solve my main goal for synchronization ! Taking this option for now ! thanks !

eugenekay wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 8:47 pm I use a Solar Panel / Accumulator / Combinator-reading-state-of-charge mechanism to create a “Dawn” pulse on each Planet. This then triggers Item Semaphores (using a unique item, like a Legendary Shotgun) to be sent to a Rocket Silo —> Space Platform —> Move to Another Planet… I have not tried to extend this mechanism to encode additional Bits of data (eg, in the Item counts) because of self-induced Bugs in my binary en/decoder - thinking of trying again if I can find a real Use for it.

That made me think : you can encode bits of data as item, take 32 different "epic" that you don't have available for regular silo. Only a single isolated silo can be fed with inserter those items. This way you can send only the 1's and decode on another planet. It may be possible to do on a platform to try and send the amount of time it needed to travel. If a planet request those 32 items, and only 5 are available from the platform, then it means there's only 5 1's and 27 O's in the amount of time, and the type of item code for the position of the bits. I had made something somewhat similar for trains to carry in a wagon some item that would code for certain bits. That may be a way to "communicate data between planets" too. But it would be too "slow" for my purposes unless it is transmitting once a value that is the offset value.

eugenekay wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 8:47 pm This only serves as a Synchronization primitive though? IE, detect the signal "Change" at the same time across Surfaces..... there is no way to transmit True/False Information this way, like you can via an Item Semaphore.

I think too that it cannot be used directly to transmit messages that wouldn't have the latency of a platform physically moving. I imagine this as different persons in different houses seeing the same big monumental clock from their house, they can sync their own watch, and they will have the same time, but they can't send messages to each others just using their comon sight of that monumental clock.

First of all, why? And how precise do you need it to be?

mmmPI wrote: Tue May 06, 2025 12:48 pm

Makka77 wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 8:59 pm I imagined this as a clock on a platform. This would output its tick as, say, a request for red squares. This signal could be intercepted from a silo reading orbital requests (there may be signal delay to compensate for), so as the platform travels round it synchronises Clocks on every planet.

That's what i tried to do right after i read the first answer, but i couldn't find a way to transmit the amount of time to the planet. One can't set request from circuits, nor 'trick' the platform into believing item received as signal are real item to influence the amount of item requested to act as a proxy for "time spent travelling to deliver the message". I try to imagine that too, thinking it would be the easier method, send a platform with a clock, and when the platform arrive at destination it tells how much "item" is requested, but that quantity is in fact just the time it took for the platform to move, and the planet start a counter with that amount of time/item offset. but i couldn't make this work.

You can do that (sort of). Platforms transmit only the requests of real items, so the only way how to do this is by manipulating the physical number of real items on a platform. If you use something, that isn't available anywhere else, something that can't be made in your bot network and you don't have stored nor use anywhere else, but can still produce (legendary shotgun, quality ice, legendary burner inserter, etc), you can make few of these items and put tem on the platform. Then use two inserters to take it out one by one - then put it back. If you set requests for this item for all planets (have to be in different group for each planet), you can effectively transmit this as a clock signal to those planets. The limitation is in the number of ticks it take for the inserter to pull/put those items in/out. If you use 12 or 16 items, you can put them all back at once.

I've used something simmilar to transmit signals from the platform to planets earlier, but I use it as a static control signal.

mrkev wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 8:11 pm First of all, why? And how precise do you need it to be?

I was wondering the same, why would you insult me on topics, ignore private message, an necro topic that were already answered without reading them !

You should read the topic before answering ! you would see that the reason is explained, the precision too, and i have even received an answer by boskid.

Also the system you posted was already described :

That made me think : you can encode bits of data as item, take 32 different "epic" that you don't have available for regular silo. Only a single isolated silo can be fed with inserter those items. This way you can send only the 1's and decode on another planet. It may be possible to do on a platform to try and send the amount of time it needed to travel. If a planet request those 32 items, and only 5 are available from the platform, then it means there's only 5 1's and 27 O's in the amount of time, and the type of item code for the position of the bits. I had made something somewhat similar for trains to carry in a wagon some item that would code for certain bits. That may be a way to "communicate data between planets" too. But it would be too "slow" for my purposes unless it is transmitting once a value that is the offset value.

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 2:01 amAlso the system you posted was already described :

eugenekay wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 8:47 pmI have not tried to extend this mechanism to encode additional Bits of data (eg, in the Item counts) because of self-induced Bugs in my binary en/decoder - thinking of trying again if I can find a real Use for it.

I’m still working on improving this mechanism. I have taken a few days off from Factorio combinator fiddling to work on some real-world projects… and thought about how to use this for a fun purpose. I think it would be useful as a way to pass “messages” compromised of a few Bytes of data between independently operating Combinator CPUs on the different planets. Any Item/Quality combination which has a Rocket Capacity of at least 256 or 1024 works well - but I am sticking with a 8 bit Word size for mathematical convenience. I am using Iron Sticks / Copper Wire of Uncommon Quality to represent the values to be transmitted over the Red / Green wires on the way up, holding this value in a Memory Latch Combinator, upcycling an equivalent amount of Rare Quality Sticks/Wires for the Downgoing signal at the next planet, and then Requesting 256 of these items at each Landing Pad, reading into the Input buffer of the next CPU (currently, just a set of Lamps for the Decoded bits).

The problem I am currently running into is that using multiple Platforms (to increase the Data throughput) with the same set of items results in a “bus bunching” effect at the home port, and corruption of the data due to items being sent to wrong platform. I think I can solve it by using Interrupts with Circuit conditions to dynamically control the Platform schedule, but that is taking even more time. I am trying to get a reliable Clock circuit using the Random-Input trick mentioned by boskid - something is off by 1 tick and I’m pretty sure it’s one of my wires…. I’ll come back to it another day and post the setup in the Combinator Creations sub forum.

But the point is: this goal is definitely “possible”, and has probably been independently reinvented a couple of times now.

eugenekay wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 3:29 am I’ll come back to it another day and post the setup in the Combinator Creations sub forum.

That's probably better because it doesn't serve the purpose of synchronizing circuits between planets, this can be done easily with the selector combinator ^^

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 2:01 am

mrkev wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 8:11 pm First of all, why? And how precise do you need it to be?

I was wondering the same, why would you insult me on topics, ignore private message, an necro topic that were already answered without reading them !

You should read the topic before answering ! you would see that the reason is explained, the precision too, and i have even received an answer by boskid.

Also the system you posted was already described :

That made me think : you can encode bits of data as item, take 32 different "epic" that you don't have available for regular silo. Only a single isolated silo can be fed with inserter those items. This way you can send only the 1's and decode on another planet. It may be possible to do on a platform to try and send the amount of time it needed to travel. If a planet request those 32 items, and only 5 are available from the platform, then it means there's only 5 1's and 27 O's in the amount of time, and the type of item code for the position of the bits. I had made something somewhat similar for trains to carry in a wagon some item that would code for certain bits. That may be a way to "communicate data between planets" too. But it would be too "slow" for my purposes unless it is transmitting once a value that is the offset value.

Week old post is hardly a "necro" and that description, as i understand it, is a bit different than to what I proposed, because it's moving items between the planets and platform, adding aditional delay. I am talking about a clock on a platform, which is encoded only on the platform and transmited via platform's request signal.

Also, i don't have any private messages from you, and I have never insulted you on any topic...

mrkev wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 3:25 pm Week old post is hardly a "necro" and that description, as i understand it, is a bit different than to what I proposed, because it's moving items between the planets and platform, adding aditional delay. I am talking about a clock on a platform, which is encoded only on the platform and transmited via platform's request signal.

Also, i don't have any private messages from you, and I have never insulted you on any topic...

As i understand your post is useless, because the question was already answered and you are just repeating one of the way that didn't work.

You do ignore message that are adressed to you because you were told to read topic before posting and obviously you didn't :

mrkev wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 8:11 pm First of all, why? And how precise do you need it to be?

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 5:52 pm As i understand your post is useless, because the question was already answered and you are just repeating one of the way that didn't work.

So you don't understand my post...

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 5:52 pm You do ignore message that are adressed to you because you were told to read topic before posting and obviously you didn't :

Ignore what message? I didn't get any. And I did read the topic, you haven't really answered any of that. But I see that it's pointless to spent my time arguing with you, because all you wanna do is to argue about nonsense and lie about stuff that didn't happen.

mrkev wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 6:48 pm So you don't understand my post...

I don't understand why you'd ask what precision is required and what is the purpose when it's expressed in the first post, which precision is necessary for the purpose explained a little later of synchronizing speakers, just the day after i told you to read topic before postings in them, sounds like on purpose you want to show you can't progress.

And also a week after i finished my project using the selector combinator since there exist something in the game that matches perfectly my needs.

I don't understand indeed why you'd try to help me when it appeared already in several topic that you were not able to communicate with me without calling what i write stupid. I don't understand what you want me to do with your post ? ignoring it could do , but i thought it may be more useful to let you know so you don't waste your time.

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 7:51 pm I don't understand why you'd ask what precision is required and what is the purpose when it's expressed in the first post

It isn't expressed anywhere, but it doesn't matter. Your description in the reply to Tertius was somewhat vague, so i asked, I don't understand why you were so buthurt about it.

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 7:51 pm And also a week after i finished my project using the selector combinator since there exist something in the game that matches perfectly my needs.

I didn't think it did, but ok.

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 7:51 pm I don't understand indeed why you'd try to help me...

Yeah, why would I. Why would I provide a possible solution that might help someone in a "game help" forum...

mmmPI wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 7:51 pm ...when it appeared already in several topic that you were not able to communicate with me without calling what i write stupid. I don't understand what you want me to do with your post ? ignoring it could do , but i thought it may be more useful to let you know so you don't waste your time.

It isn't my fault, when you write something stupid... And yeah, ignoring it would be fine.

mrkev wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 8:32 pm It isn't expressed anywhere, but it doesn't matter. Your description in the reply to Tertius was somewhat vague, so i asked, I don't understand why you were so buthurt about it.

I believe you are not trying to help, but to argue for attention, i have my answer already so you are not helping by adding anything, i'm not buthurt, i'm letting you know , and also other people who may come and not understand.