What are good Circuit Network Designs/What is the point?

[Griffon0129]

Haven't been playing long but I've never used the Circuit Network, mostly cause I didn't know how to use it until I just now read this: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14556 (only the initial post though)
Now I see how to use them (I think) but still don't see the point of it except possibly doing something to balance out the oil processing. I'm almost always low on petroleum so I add cracking but then I run out of light and heavy oil with a full supply of petroleum then turn the cracking off again, etc.

So I'm wondering if anyone has any designs they'd care to share, tutorials they know of, or just explain how you use it to make the factory more efficient (i.e. a practical use, not just explaining how it works, and why it's a good use).

or just say there is no good use and be done lol

[twepy]

Remember, its not mandatory to use circuits however it can be handy.

An easy way to automaticly stop cracking heavy and light oil is to put a pump in front of the chemical plant and connect the pump with a signal cable (red or green) with the storage tanks and set a condition to stop or activate the pump.Ive made screenshot of a basic implementation of circuitnetwork.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/584 ... xample.png
You can see that ive connected the three different storage tanks with a red wire and looped it to a electricity pole (is not mandatory in this case as the distance is limited). Storage tanks (and smart chests) always tell the entire network their contents if they are connected to the network (like women ) and when i hold my mouse on the pole it show the fluid levels of the three tanks.

Next thing i connected the pump also into this same network with a red wire so i can receive the signals from the tanks. When you double click on the pump u can set a condition when its true the pump will run and otherwise the pump is stopped and prevents oil to enter the chemical plant. Ive set a condition that if petroleum gas is below 1300 it turn on the pump and start cracking oil and when the petroleum level rises above 1300 it stops the pump and the cracking. At the moment the condition is false because the petroleum level is at 2500 and the pump isnt running.

Negative root has some youtube tutorials on basic and advanced circuitnetworks.

[cswiger]

Another good thing to control is the flow of sulphur either to a chem plantmaking explosives, or for sulphuric acid for batteries & blue circuits.

Connect a smart inserter which moves sulphur to the explosive chem plant to the crate holding your explosives (or maybe cannon shells), so that it will make 200 - 400 (or however many you like), and then stop.

Nothing fancy, but it helps focus your production on the stuff you want to keep making, but also let you accumulate an inventory of stuff you want to keep around but not fill a crate with.

[Griffon0129]

Connect a smart inserter which moves sulphur to the explosive chem plant to the crate holding your explosives (or maybe cannon shells), so that it will make 200 - 400 (or however many you like), and then stop.

Basically if < desired amount of explosive weapons then batteries get all sulfer? Interesting

And thinks @twepy for picture and explanation

[MalcolmCooks]

I start using circuit networks almost as soon as I can. The most useful thing you can do very easily is create smart buffers, I'll go through some examples.

Science packs:

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When the belt carrying science packs is saturated, the smart chest starts to fill with science packs. It sends the signal to smart inserters, which only feed the assembly machines if the number of science packs is below a certain number. I find this incredibly useful because the consumption rate of science packs is highly variable, and sometimes I am doing no research at all, and this way I only produce as many science packs as I need, and resources are not wasted.

Another smart buffer, this time for coal, and it's only purpose is to keep the red belt from becoming saturated. Why, just because I prefer not to have saturated belts, except in places where they are being unloaded.

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Now, a little more complicated, this is what I do for smelting. Since I prefer not to have belts running all over my factory, I just stick to using input and output chests. It means I have to go around emptying and refilling these manually, but that's not much of a bother to me. I found the problem with my smelting though, was that if the output chests filled up or the coal ran out, the belts fill up with ore and plates and it takes a lot work to return the system to normal status. So here, using combinators to combine the signals, if either of those cases is true, the smart inserters stop feeding the belt with ore and the mining stops.

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Basically what these all boil down to is matching production rate to my needs. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing, but for me using circuit networks is the easiest.

[Evan_]

And of course you can leave a flashy memento of your presence while visiting unknown servers.

[Griffon0129]

Literally just started Oil Processing in this map so not everything is researched or connected yet but I got the circuit network set up.

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I just connected all the tanks and pumps with 4 decider combiners. The decider combiners and pumps look like:

Code: Select all

if(petrol < 500)  //combiner
    output 1 A
if(light oil > 1000)  //combiner
    output 1 A
if(A == 2)  //pump
    start pumping light oil to oil crackers

if(light oil < 500)  //combiner
    output 1 B
if(heavy oil > 1000)  //combiner
    output 1 B
if(B == 2)  //pump
    start pumping heavy oil to oil crackers

(I'm a Computer Science major so it helps me think about it better as pseudo code, hope you can understand it)
also they need a <= and >= (less than or equal to and greater than or equal to) options for it but you could also do: if < 501, if you want: if <= 500, and: if > 999, if you want: if >= 1000

EDIT: I just now thought about checking if the lubricant is low. I added an arithmetic combiner and 2 decider combiners. What was weird is the arithmetic combiner didn't stop it's operations after 1 cycle so that's why I had to add 2 decider combiners. The input of 1st decider is connected to system then output is only connected to arithmetic, it says if lubricant is < 1000 output 1 C. The arithmetic does B - C output B. The other decider's input is connected only to arithmetic output and decider's output is only connected to arithmetic's input and it does if B < 0 output 1 B. So it looks like this:

Code: Select all

var B
var C
While(1)  //infinite loop
    if(lubricant < 1000)
        C++  //adds 1 to C
    B -= C   //takes B - C and stores outcome in B
    if(B < 0)
        B++  //adds 1 to B

To me this is an overly complicated way to do: if lubricant < 1000 then B -1, so the pumps still need B to equal 2 before they work, but if previous conditions are met then they still won't work unless there is enough lubricant in tanks.

(hope your following, tell me if you need pictures for this last part)

[twepy]

Im not a programmer but can read some programming languages, but i have a hard time figuring out what you are trying to accomplish.

If you want to maintain a certain minimum level it enough to connect both pump and tank to the network and set the pump to: Lubricant < 1000. However im suspecting u want to maintain lubricant level between 1000 and 2000 and for that u need a S/R latch (look in GopherAtl's Combinators 101 topic) to toggle the pump.

[Requia]

Another good thing to control is the flow of sulphur either to a chem plantmaking explosives, or for sulphuric acid for batteries & blue circuits.

Connect a smart inserter which moves sulphur to the explosive chem plant to the crate holding your explosives (or maybe cannon shells), so that it will make 200 - 400 (or however many you like), and then stop.

Nothing fancy, but it helps focus your production on the stuff you want to keep making, but also let you accumulate an inventory of stuff you want to keep around but not fill a crate with.

You can also just tell the chest to only accept x number of stacks. Limiting number is more important for centralized storage robotic designs where you would otherwise get jammed with all chests full of bullets (or whatever else) and no room for anything else.

[TheWesDude]

i use circuit networks ALL the time.

so freakin useful.

mostly to control the flow of my output. i am a set-it-and-forget-it type person.

some important uses for circuit networks:

for fluid consumption its critical. you only process crude oil if you have somewhere for all 3 to go. after watching anti-elite and his speed run throughs i learned that the steam engines will consume the liquids input into them. so early to mid game what i do is setup 2 pumps connected to light and heavy oil each running to a steam engine. the first condition for each pump is if each respective storage tank setup is over 2.2k fluid. my storage tank setups are 4 storage tanks connected to each other, so 4x 2.2k = 8.8k light or heavy per storage section. so if the tank setup for heavy or light is 2.5k, you wont be producing petroleum which means no plastic, which means no red circuits. so first pump is checking if the heavy/light is over 2.2k. the 2nd pump checks if petroleum is under 500. this makes sure that if i have lots of heavy or light, they will output to the steam engine which will "consume" the excess which will allow the processing plants to keep producing the needed petroleum.

i also use circuit networks for when im doing module production. because each subsequent level of module requires 4 of the previous, and there is no benefit for too many other than speed 1 modules, what i do is regulate my construction. first is the requester chest that requests the base materials. then i have smart inserter. then i have the assembler. then i have regular inserter. then i have another requester for the next tier additional mats. then i have smart inserter. then i do 2nd assembler. then regular inserter. then next requester chest for tier 3 modules. then i have smart inserter #3, then assembler, then regular inserter, then finally passive provider. i connect all the smart inserters, and each chest to the poles to create the actual circuit network for that module.

then, i set the 1st smart inserter circuit condition to tier 1 module less than 10. 2nd smart inserter to tier 2 module less than 10. 3rd smart inserter to tier 3 module less than 10. this setup ensures that i will only spend resources to build up first 10 tier 3 modules in the passive provider, then that will stop inserting materials shutting down that assembler. then the tier 2 smart inserter will only insert materials until i build up a reserve of 10 tier 2 modules in the tier 3 requester, then stop inserting materials into the tier 2 assembler. then the tier 1 smart inserter will see the tier 2 requester hit 10 tier 1 modules, and stop inputting materials. now, because in the late game for the rocket you need tons of tier 1 speed modules, what i will usually do is add a 2nd smart inserter feeding off the tier 2 speed requester chest to siphon off tier 1 speed modules into another chest once it sees greater than 9 speed tier 3 modules set with a filter of only speed 1 modules ( so it doesnt suck up the materials too ) to build up a store of tier 1 speed modules ahead of time.

now, because of how the factories work, this will usually end up in me crafting 11-13 of each module for each tier.

i am sure there are tons more examples of how useful circuit networks are, but these are the primary ways in which i use them. of course there is also the typical stuff like "craft 200 rockets, then stop" and such, but that is pretty minor.

[Griffon0129]

Im not a programmer but can read some programming languages, but i have a hard time figuring out what you are trying to accomplish.

If you want to maintain a certain minimum level it enough to connect both pump and tank to the network and set the pump to: Lubricant < 1000. However im suspecting u want to maintain lubricant level between 1000 and 2000 and for that u need a S/R latch (look in GopherAtl's Combinators 101 topic) to toggle the pump.

Basically if Heavy oil is in high amounts and light oil is low turn on pumps for heavy oil cracking, but then I rethought it so it would maintain over 1k Lubricant. I guess I could have done if > 1k Lubricant turn on pumps, but I did just the opposite. So if < 1k Lubricant shut off pumps if they're running. I also wanted to experiment a little with arithmetic combiners.

[twepy]

Ah, i now i get what trying to solve. The most simple and straight forward solution to your problem would be to implement 3 decider combiner and only when all 3 conditions are true the pump will run.

Code: Select all

if light oil < 500
    output A = 1

if heavy oil > 1000
    output A = 1

if lubricant > 1000
    output A = 1

// heavy oil cracking pump
if A == 3
    run

[Griffon0129]

Ah, i now i get what trying to solve. The most simple and straight forward solution to your problem would be to implement 3 decider combiner and only when all 3 conditions are true the pump will run.

Exactly, except I thought it'd be easier to just subtract 1 when lubricant was low except the arithmetic combiner in the game overly complicated it.

[vanatteveldt]

I've not found much use for circuit logic yet, except for only cracking heavy oil when it is above a threshold (to leave some oil for lube).

I don't use circuits to stop output when a buffer is full, I just use the belt as extra buffer, and output will stop automatically when there is nowhere to put the products.

For flaring off light/heavy oil: when I get oil running, my first research priority is generally advanced oil processing (since petro is almost always a bottleneck). If I set up 2-4 tanks for light and heavy, I will have advanced processing before they fill up, and then I just crack all the stored oil to petro. If you leave a 1-tile gap between the first tank and the rest you can later place a small motor to pump everything into tank 1 so you can easily delete the other tanks.

(I do use a lot of smart inserters conditioned on the logistics network as soon as I get that set up)

[Griffon0129]

After reading all the comments it seems like oil processing is the only useful thing for logistic network unless you want to buffer items or prevent belts from being loaded up with items 24/7.

The other use which is just for fun is to make light shows lol.

I did sorta try the item buffering to only make 100 electric engines to keep the belt clean, but I could have just as easily set the output chest to 2 slots and have a full belt. Main problem is that it stops when 61 are in the chest (100-61 = belt capacity), so if I have 62 or more then it won't put more on the belt; still kinda pointless.

[Marvin]

I use circuit network for a lot of things. One nice thing is to set up exact limits. For example my locomotive assembler outputs via a fast inserter on the ground, it is then picked up by a smart inserter and put into a smart chest / passive provider if that chest has less than 2 locomotives. If it outputted directly via a smart inserter or was limited by limiting the chest it would always have stacks of 5. Now I don't have to fiddle with the stacks, I can right click the chest to pick up one or left click to pick up 2.