Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

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Marconos
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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Marconos »

This change gives some very interesting options. Though I would like the circuit addition to be an addon to an existing object that can be removed so it doesn't change the space requirement.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Buggi »

Yeah, after reading about this I'm afraid I'm not jumping on board this bandwagon. I like the simple connect wire to a and b and set condition. I've never found a need to control assemblers, belts, or trains with conditions. Especially if I have to craft yet another box and make room for it.

With this sort of change, there is no need for the "smart inserter" at all, so will that be eliminated from the game entirely?
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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Xterminator »

Really enjoy these type of FFs. :D I can't wait to able to tell my trains to wait for a full load or half load etc.
Also having the circuit network be able to interact with the Logistics Network and know how many robots are in the network will be great for hopefully being able to limit production of robots based off his many are already in the network.
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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Twinsen »

nobodx wrote:And (since both are 1x1) I can use 1 connector to check the content of 4 chests (or control 4 whatever) ?
It's one connector for 1 entity. 4 connectors for 4 chests.
Olix wrote:you are very bad at naming things. 'Circuit Network Connector Writer'? It sounds like a class name from Java or similar.
That's what happens when you make programmers write games :D We are all bad at naming stuff. Actuator and sensor sounds better.
Buggi wrote:With this sort of change, there is no need for the "smart inserter" at all, so will that be eliminated from the game entirely?
The smart inserter can still filter things, so it stays for now.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Klonan »

Twinsen wrote:
Olix wrote:you are very bad at naming things. 'Circuit Network Connector Writer'? It sounds like a class name from Java or similar.
That's what happens when you make programmers write games :D We are all bad at naming stuff. Actuator and sensor sounds better.
The smart inserter can still filter things, so it stays for now.
What about "Input Bus" and "Output Bus"?

Also wouldn't it be possible to have them both as a single 'entity' and just change their type using rotation, so you place it down, and like "oh its an input! but i want it to be an output :O" so you just press 'r' and now its an output. Of course for things without an input/output just have rotate not work (And then have a single name like "Signal Bus")

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Peter34 »

The YouTube video you're linking to doesn't work in the iOS YouTube app. Right from it was posted, it hasn't. It does work when using a browser on a Windows computer.

I've never come across such a discrepancy before, but I suspect it's due to some rights issue, that somehow affects the app version of YouTube but not the web version. And it'll probably confuse a lot of people who read the Factorio Facts on an iPhone, to see an unavailable YouTube video being linked to in the most recent entry.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by regex »

I'm seeing the possibility to control train routes by factory demand here, sounds fantastic!

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Brambor »

You are awesome Robert! Keep going! Since I'm programming I love this stuff! (Even the connection to transport belts and reading their content and stopping them, I already know a few situations where to use it!) That is absolutely fantastic! Now I will finally use combinators and all this stuff and make a giant cross connected factory!

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Loewchen »

Could the smart-inserter get the same exemption as the lamp please?!
Placing this connector thingy aside every inserter that I want to control with the circuit network would use up lots of space, sounds tedious and looks confusing!

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by anmoch »

IMHO both smart inserter and smart chest need an exception. Train stations need both inserters and chests, and their throughput is bounded by the number of inserters you can place - IOW, by space. Having to add a 1x1 item to either inserter or chest will drop the throughput of the station by half, making it infeasible.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Brambor »

anmoch wrote:IMHO both smart inserter and smart chest need an exception. Train stations need both inserters and chests, and their throughput is bounded by the number of inserters you can place - IOW, by space. Having to add a 1x1 item to either inserter or chest will drop the throughput of the station by half, making it infeasible.
I don't think that you need any of these 1*1 boxes connected to a chest or inserter at train stations. Why would you need them here?

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by anmoch »

Brambor wrote:
anmoch wrote:IMHO both smart inserter and smart chest need an exception. Train stations need both inserters and chests, and their throughput is bounded by the number of inserters you can place - IOW, by space. Having to add a 1x1 item to either inserter or chest will drop the throughput of the station by half, making it infeasible.
I don't think that you need any of these 1*1 boxes connected to a chest or inserter at train stations. Why would you need them here?
Not sure which one you're asking - why I want smart train stations, or why I'd want it adjacent to the inserter/chest?

As for being adjacent - that's just my reading of the FFF. It may be that this is wrong, and the 1x1 connectors can be attached by wire? Don't know. My point is moot if they do not have to be directly adjacent.

As for smart train stations:
- Some builds don't deal well with a backlog, and the easiest way to avoid a backlog at an unloading station is to prevent the loading station from loading anything if there is enough.
- Instead of an elaborate balancing setup (with splitters) I like to have a setup where each inserter into the buffer chests only loads if that chest holds less than the average count of items (across all buffer chests). This makes for much simpler loading stations in particular at mining outposts, while maintaining loading throughput. The advantage of fewer parts (meaning faster setup with personal construction robots) is offset by the disadvantage that this logic does not work while the train is in the station.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by MeduSalem »

One obvious question for me is... why remove the Smart Chest?

If I am able to put a Circuit Network Connector next to a wooden/iron/steel chest one might as well remove the Smart Inserter as one might as well also put a Circuit Network Connector next to a Burner/Regular/Fast/Long-Handed inserter and with that also make things more consistent, easier and flexible in that department.


Then again I am quite interested in how a typical setup will look like then if I need a bazillion boxes next to everything when it has to be "smart" or if I am able to place just 1 box and connect it for example to 10 inserters which should work with the same conditions. :roll:

Seems like there are some advantages but also disadvantages to the approach.


Another thing bothering me right away is why the connector items for the circuit network to read or write can't be ONE and the same item with two tabs to switch in between the two contexts or is it because of feedback loops that may arise?
Last edited by MeduSalem on Fri Jan 29, 2016 8:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by jorgenRe »

Loving the upcomming circuit features :D!
Next thing to add got to be a computer which can be controlled :ugeek:!
Last edited by jorgenRe on Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by MeduSalem »

Twinsen wrote:
nobodx wrote:And (since both are 1x1) I can use 1 connector to check the content of 4 chests (or control 4 whatever) ?
It's one connector for 1 entity. 4 connectors for 4 chests.
Olix wrote:you are very bad at naming things. 'Circuit Network Connector Writer'? It sounds like a class name from Java or similar.
That's what happens when you make programmers write games :D We are all bad at naming stuff. Actuator and sensor sounds better.
Buggi wrote:With this sort of change, there is no need for the "smart inserter" at all, so will that be eliminated from the game entirely?
The smart inserter can still filter things, so it stays for now.
Oh well saw that post now (the lag :roll:). Clears some of my questions from the above post, though I take it with a huge grain of salt.
  1. 4 connectors for 4 chests = inefficient, unflexible and horrible mess contraptions.

    Sorry, but I won't even have to wait until the release to be able to say that. Half the existing contraptions suffer already from being space bound and now they will become a lot worse because an additional item would have to be right next to them where there might not even be space no matter how much one fiddles around. Some of the contraptions which are currently possible might become absolutely impossible to build with that approach.

    The attaching of a Connector piece to an item it reads from/writes to should work with a wire (make it a blue wire or a new color, or use either the green or the red one, the later probably being hated by most people) instead to make at least a few items controllable with one and the same Connector piece to save at least a little bit space.
  2. Make it one and the same item and name it Circuit Network Connector (CNC) and that's it (LNC = Logistics Network Connector respectively). There shouldn't even be 2 different items for reading from and writing to something with the circuit network anyways because it makes everything seem more complicated than it is and breaks your design rules of "not introducing unnecessary items"
  3. Smart Inserter stays for the reason of filtering items? Then might as well call it Filter Inserter again. Because basically a Fast Inserter (or any Inserter for that matter) connected to a Circuit Network connector will be able to do ALL of the current Smart Inserter jobs as well.

    Which is why I think if you guys are going to remove the Smart Chest anyways because the other Chests are able to provide the same functionality, then might as well remove the Smart Inserter completely because it only provides a redundant feature.

    That said there might be a compromise:

    Leave the Smart Inserter and rename it to Filter Inserter for the sake of people who do not want to fiddle with circuit network stuff every time they just want to filter out an item
    Leave the Smart Chest and rename it to Filter Chest (working similar to the train wagon slots), which is something long overdue anyways.
Last edited by MeduSalem on Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Supercheese »

Why do these new actuators/sensors need to take up any additional space at all? Can't you just make them entities with a different collision mask that can sit "on top" of the entities they connect to? Here's what I'm envisioning:
Currently
New actuators-sensors
This way the new performance and logic boosts are still achieved with no loss of space, and wiring up entities stays more or less the same as it is now.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by theamazingrando »

Removing the "smart" from smart chests and making it a separate item is a great idea. I expanded on that a bit further in an idea I submitted awhile ago https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=17564. Instead of having special requester/provider chests, you could have chests with module slots, and then requester and provider "modules" to be slotted in there. Those modules could then also be put into train cars and adv. assemblers, simplifying a lot of the tedium in building out a logistics system.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Kalanndok »

Well...in my train stations right now I have a row of smart chests chain-connected with red wire to get a storage count.

Does that change mean I need to find space to put a CNC-writer in between somewhere to get the storage count?
Why not leave smart chests in as chests with an integrated CNC?

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Khaim »

Make each connector link to a block of contiguous identical entities and I'm sold.

So four chests in a row (or square) would all contribute to the signal if any of them are linked to a circuit connector. Same with inserters. This greatly mitigates the space issue. As written, connectors basically make smart chests and smart inserters into 2x1 entities, which is horrible. Allowing connectors to link to a block means you don't have to blow up your designs, you just need to use an extra space on each row.

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Re: Friday Facts #123 - Better circuit network (Part 2)

Post by Hindenobyl »

Am I understanding correctly, that every single entity that we want to have a circuit condition is going to need its own circuit network condition writer? For example, if I have 32 red circuit factories that I only want working on a single network condition, I will also need 32 writers next to each assembler? If that is the case that sounds incredibly and unnecessarily tedious.

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