[MOD 0.12.x] Nixie Tubes - numeric display elements

[Peter34]

I'm gonna post a pull request and an unofficial binary once I'm sure everything looks right.

And done, pull request and Nixie Tubes v0.1.8 unofficial (direct download). Please prefer GopherAtl's actual release, whenever he gets around to making one.

Thanks for updating this! I really love Nixie Tubes!

[Hexicube]

Personally, I think nixie tubes don't fully suit the aesthetic of Factorio. Not sure what it is about them, maybe the fact they're very rounded?

Also, perhaps large 7-segment displays would better suit the flat display currently being used? Here's something I threw together:



I may have modified how it works, too. I like all digits being used, so I made it fill in 0s and push the - right to the end, though typically you won't have a - in the first place.

Also, it appears that the shadows are being double-rendered, which seems to be due to the digit render code. It's not there for a split second during/after a number update, and isn't there at all until a condition is set.

[GopherAtl]

I prefer them as nixie tubes rather than 7-segs personally, and I really can't imagine why you would want leading 0s, but :shrug:

Since I've largely abandoned maintaining this mod, you're welcome to release your own version. Might want to check with GotLag for permission to modify his sprites, I doubt he'll object but just on principle.

[Roktaal]

Personally, I think nixie tubes don't fully suit the aesthetic of Factorio. Not sure what it is about them, maybe the fact they're very rounded?

Also, perhaps large 7-segment displays would better suit the flat display currently being used? Here's something I threw together:



I may have modified how it works, too. I like all digits being used, so I made it fill in 0s and push the - right to the end, though typically you won't have a - in the first place.

Also, it appears that the shadows are being double-rendered, which seems to be due to the digit render code. It's not there for a split second during/after a number update, and isn't there at all until a condition is set.

Any chance you could upload your "nixie-digits.png"? Really like the look of it.

[Alexs]

I personally like the original display better.
But it is not possible to teach tubes alphabeth that?
Each letter gets simply assigned a number.
A = 1, B = 2 ....
(But please with "Ä, Ö, Ü;-))

Train stations etc could be finally labeled ...
The label for the style tubes would match.
For the letters might be a different color, such as the old-style use of green or blue ....

[Speadge]

i like the 7-segs-variant. would love to try that out.

Also letters would be great ... that would be awesome!

[Peter34]

I like the 7-segments, but really for me it's mostly about easy numerical output. I really dislike the idea of having to build my own numerical displays out of a multitude of Lamps set to on/off. In the balance, I think 7-segment may look better than "nixie", but I'll go for whichever one gets continuous support, and "nixie" has always been quite easy to read for me.

[binbinhfr]

in the description, it is written "The comparison (<,=, or >) and the right-side value for comparison specified in the gui will be ignored".
But the fact is, that if I do initialize the Tube with something else than ">0", it does not work... For example, if I put "=E", then some other value is displayed in the tube...

An explanation ?

[justarandomgeek]

I found some bugs with using nixies on multiple surfaces (like with the Subsurfaces mod), and sent a pull request last night to fix it by adding the surface index to the nixie_map collection, so they won't try to link across different surfaces if you accidentally place them in overlapping positions.

[sparr]

Sent a pull request to add half-size two-digit nixie tubes.

[justarandomgeek]

In case you didn't see on github, I've updated my multi-surface pullreq to cleanly merge on top of the mini-nixies update!

[justarandomgeek]

Is anyone working on updating this for 0.13? Don't want to duplicate effort

Edit: It was easier than I thought. The changes on my github master bring it up to 0.13.

[Peter34]

Is anyone working on updating this for 0.13? Don't want to duplicate effort

Edit: It was easier than I thought. The changes on my github master bring it up to 0.13.

Can you put it up on the mod portal, please?

[justarandomgeek]

I hadn't wanted to step in and do that right away since the mod was never really declared officially abandoned. But as it looks like I'm the most-recent-active dev here, I guess I'll take over maintenance of this mod and post it up there shortly, barring any direct objections! (I mean, MIT license technically already gives me permission anyway, but I don't want to step on any toes...)

Edit: I went ahead and did it, go forth and build many tubes!

[dee-]

I really would like to see hitzu's graphics included, they're my favorite



But beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

Good work everyone!

[justarandomgeek]

GotLag is actually making me some new graphics for alphanixies, which hopefully will be ready soon.

Also, it's simpler for me if requests/bug reports go to github in the future, to keep everything in one place, though I will be remaining subscribed to this thread regardless.

[Anson]

VERY NICE to have the pixies in 0.13 too !
THANK YOU !

but as always when something new is invented (colors in 0.13, complete A-Z in 0.13, alphatubes, logistics and circuit network for most entities, etc), something needs to be adjusted until it is not only "working well", but "working perfectly" :-)

here are some things (some good, some bad, and some ugly :-) ) that i noticed on a short first test that i did with nixies on 0.13.13:

• when using only the old features, everything works fine. thank you.
• numerical tubes never use color, even when "use color" flag is set in the gui
• alphatubes always use color, even when "use color" flag is cleared in the gui
• alphatubes need no condition and thus immediately display letters and colors even when the condition is false. it would be nice if i could enable or disable an alphatube without having to clear the letter signal (to enable it for any letter, or always, it would be possible to use a condition like "anything > 0")
• numerical and alpha nixies look the same. they should get a minor optical difference (maybe a slightly different tint of the frame color, or just another of the 150 different shades of grey, black or blue for the bar at the bottom of the frame) to more easily distinguish between a connected block of nixies for a number display and unconnected neighboring alpha nixies (while building, as well as later when the alpha nixies display eg a "fake" number, or something else).
• logic for using colors is the reverse of vanilla: vanilla always gives priority to the first color (red > green > blue > yellow > magenta > cyan) while alphatubes reacts to the last color (red < green < blue < yellow < magenta < cyan).
• and (just like in vanilla) white, grey and black are no colors at all.
• having more than one letter signal on alphatubes lights everything (maybe only the "highest" signal should cause a display, eg A=1, B=3, C=2 causes "B" to be displayed)
• nixietubes only work with circuit networks although the logistic network can be enabled on them, and nixies can be connected to it (but then nothing happens after setting a condition). please either remove the ability to connect to the logistics network, or (better) make nixies react to values from the logistics network.

and one wish for the far future: small alpha nixies could display abbreviations of what a numerical nixie next to them displays, eg "io" for iron ore, "ip" for iron plates, "co" and "cp" for copper, "c" for coal", etc). there is another mod that displays values and text (even on the M-map), but i came back to the prettier nixies :-)

btw: i belong to the few people that have seen "real" nixies when LED and LCD were not invented yet and like the cathode-numbers better than the 7-segment numbers. I also find the mixture of flat items with tube numbers/letters quite matching for factorio, better than 7-segment displays that look too "modern/futuristic" for a big oldstyle (cyberpunk?) factory. To me, the alternate tube graphics look better as long as there are only few of them, but the current flat frames make up nice blocks of numbers which are easier to read. Maybe their height could be reduced a bit to allow walking between rows of nixies and to optically separate such blocks of numbers which are located above each other.

[justarandomgeek]

numerical tubes never use color, even when "use color" flag is set in the gui

Probably not gonna happen unless someone pullreqs it. Not 100% sure on this though, maybe one day...

EDIT: To clarify, this is due to the fact that numeric nixies and alpha nixies read signals in different ways currently, and the numeric way only fetches the requested signal, rather than the full set. There's nothing preventing it, but it would be more than a little rewrite of number-handling. I'm not hugely opposed to it, but couldn't come up with a good reason to do it.

alphatubes always use color, even when "use color" flag is cleared in the gui

Intended behavior. I'll probably just disable the UI for alpha tubes.

alphatubes need no condition and thus immediately display letters and colors even when the condition is false. it would be nice if i could enable or disable an alphatube without having to clear the letter signal (to enable it for any letter, or always, it would be possible to use a condition like "anything > 0")

Same as above, intended behavior. Don't write a letter if you want a blank display.

numerical and alpha nixies look the same. they should get a minor optical difference (maybe a slightly different tint of the frame color, or just another of the 150 different shades of grey, black or blue for the bar at the bottom of the frame) to more easily distinguish between a connected block of nixies for a number display and unconnected neighboring alpha nixies (while building, as well as later when the alpha nixies display eg a "fake" number, or something else).

I don't graphics, so again, this will probably not change unless someone does it and sends a pullreq for it.

A block of alphas will have a wire connection on every unit, a block of numerics probably won't, since only one of them reads the wire anyway.

logic for using colors is the reverse of vanilla: vanilla always gives priority to the first color (red > green > blue > yellow > magenta > cyan) while alphatubes reacts to the last color (red < green < blue < yellow < magenta < cyan).

It's actually weirder than that - it's the last signal to be read when enumerating the circuit network, which may or may not be the last in signal-panel order. Oh, and red wire is always before green wire, for performance. Given that this is on_tick for every single alphanixie, I'm reluctant to add more complexity to this code. Just don't send multiple signals to it at once

and (just like in vanilla) white, grey and black are no colors at all.

Working as intended.

having more than one letter signal on alphatubes lights everything (maybe only the "highest" signal should cause a display, eg A=1, B=3, C=2 causes "B" to be displayed)

Working as intended. Don't do that.

nixietubes only work with circuit networks although the logistic network can be enabled on them, and nixies can be connected to it (but then nothing happens after setting a condition). please either remove the ability to connect to the logistics network, or (better) make nixies react to values from the logistics network.

Not sure how much I can do about the lognets, I'll look into that. I'll probably end up disabling lognet connection though if I can. Wire it to a roboport if you need it.

and one wish for the far future: small alpha nixies could display abbreviations of what a numerical nixie next to them displays, eg "io" for iron ore, "ip" for iron plates, "co" and "cp" for copper, "c" for coal", etc). there is another mod that displays values and text (even on the M-map), but i came back to the prettier nixies

Small nixies will probably never have letters unless someone graphical provides me appropriate letter sprites for them.

btw: i belong to the few people that have seen "real" nixies when LED and LCD were not invented yet and like the cathode-numbers better than the 7-segment numbers. I also find the mixture of flat items with tube numbers/letters quite matching for factorio, better than 7-segment displays that look too "modern/futuristic" for a big oldstyle (cyberpunk?) factory. To me, the alternate tube graphics look better as long as there are only few of them, but the current flat frames make up nice blocks of numbers which are easier to read. Maybe their height could be reduced a bit to allow walking between rows of nixies and to optically separate such blocks of numbers which are located above each other.

I too have seen a few real nixies, and I like to imagine these are just a tube inside a little protective housing, so they don't get smashed by... industrial accidents

The alternate graphics do look a bit more tubular, but since they don't have letters, they're not really a drop-in replacement anymore. The graphics will likely not significantly change unless someone pullreqs it (see a pattern here?).

Thanks for all the feedback!

[Anson]

if you want, read a somewhat long answer to your somewhat long reply on my somewhat long list of observations ...

somewhat long answer to your somewhat long reply on my somewhat long list of observations

>> numerical tubes never use color, even when "use color" flag is set in the gui
> To clarify, ... numeric way only fetches the requested signal, rather than the full set
>> alphatubes always use color, even when "use color" flag is cleared in the gui
>> alphatubes need no condition
> Intended behavior. I'll probably just disable the UI for alpha tubes.

sounds reasonable.
i only was surprised by seeing the option to enable/disable color and no effect of that flag on the numeric and the alpha tubes. color on numeric tubes would be kind of luxury (eg to indicate low/normal/high values instead of putting a lamp besides them). thus no need to add color handling to numeric tubes, but (if possible) please just disable for both types of nixies such a flag that is not used, or at least add that fact to some "known isssues" when posting that there is a new update. best would be to have the first post in the thread include such hints or a pointer/link to the message that has that info.

>> numerical and alpha nixies look the same. they should get a minor optical difference ...
> I don't graphics ...

don't feel pushed to do it. what i wrote are only observations and ideas while i tested the mod. if i would do a mod myself sometime, i probably would have a problem with graphics too. most people are either programmers or artists, and we are lucky that there is someone who programmed the nixies and keeps them well usable along all the updates of factorio.

> A block of alphas will have a wire connection on every unit, a block of numerics probably won't, since only one of them reads the wire anyway.

i try keeping the wires on displays as invisible as possible to make them look nicer, eg by using the dimmer green wires instead of the brighter red wires, and by arranging the wires so that they align with other objects etc :-)
the first time that i noticed the same looks of alpha and numeric nixies also was not on the map, but in the user interface where i kept selecting the wrong tubes, and right after placing new tubes where i had to count them before they were connected to wires.

>> logic for using colors ...
> It's actually weirder than that - it's the last signal to be read when enumerating the circuit network, which may or may not be the last in signal-panel order. Oh, and red wire is always before green wire, for performance. Given that this is on_tick for every single alphanixie, I'm reluctant to add more complexity to this code. Just don't send multiple signals to it at once ;)

quite interesting.
when i know such details, i immediately can better understand and use something.
i still have problems with how colors were implemented in factorio. when i read for the first time about colors of lamps being available in 0.13, i already had imagined setting a signal to some value like a hex colorcode #RRGGBB and doing big screens with such lamps, or at least being able to select green/yellow/red by computing a number 1/2/3 and send that value as a single signal (eg "color=2" instead of "color1=0, color2=1, color3=0, ..."). but as it is implemented now (needing a different signal for each color, watching for priorities, etc), this task is quite difficut and requires a lot of overhead (additional combinators).
there is no need to sacrifice more performance to get easier color handling on alphatubes.

>> having more than one letter signal on alphatubes lights everything
> Working as intended. Don't do that. ;)

what you wrote above also explains why i get the "light everything up" display not only when displaying "A=1 and B=1" on one alphatube at the same time, but also when displaying "A=1" on a red wire and "A=1" on a green wire, both wires connected to the same alphatube. at first i had thought you accept only A=1 and not A=2, but it was caused by a green and a red wire with the same A=1 signal. it's a very important hint that in contrast to factorio's general handling of red and green wires, they are NOT added first, and then using the sum to perform actions on an alphatube.
as above: as long as it's documented and programmers (i mean "people programming the tubes ingame with combinators") can adjust to those rules, everything is fine.

>> nixietubes only work with circuit networks although the logistic network can be enabled on them ...
>> please either remove the ability to connect to the logistics network ...
> Not sure how much I can do about the lognets, I'll look into that. I'll probably end up disabling lognet connection though if I can. Wire it to a roboport if you need it.

yes. in 0.12.x we had a mod that made signals of a logistics network available to be used in circuit networks, and in 0.13.x we can use roboports to make those signals available.
thus no need to support the logistics network on nixies, but (just like the option for using color) when the option to connect to a logistics network is shown on them, that should work. and if it doesn't, the option shouldn't be shown.

>> and one wish for the far future: ...
> Small nixies will probably never have letters unless someone graphical provides me appropriate letter sprites for them.

hehe, as i already said: "for the far future" :-)
there is also the problem how to supply two different letter signals to a single item. maybe first letter on red wire and second on green wire, but that would leave the factorio principles even further (see above, not adding red and green wires before using the signals). that's why i limited the idea to the names of items/resources which eventually could automatically be derived from internal names, like "cp" for "copper plates", so that there is no input of letter signals neded.

and some idea about using all those big numeric, big alpha, and small numeric nixies :

examples.PNG (152.71 KiB) Viewed 11129 times

when i used the small nixies right next to a wooden unconnected chest with just one dummy item in it, it made up a really nice display, giving the item type for that number pretty and easily to see. i only had difficulties reading the number, thinking of 19 million or 19 thousand when a number like 19 72 35 showed up. what i didn't need and didn't want on the big numeric nixies (a "thousands separator") would be quite useful on the small nixies now, when they optically group digits by hundreds instead of thousands (19.72.35 instead of 197.235) (the top two displays in the example picture)

btw: I'm currently trying to do a display that automatically adjusts the order of numbers, always showing a fixed small number of leading digits and an exponent (either as E1 to E9, or just only E3/E6/E9, or only a colored letter 3/6/9, or as number followed by K/M/G). but currently, my setup for that is either too large to look nice and be easy to setup, or it is not variable enough (only steps for E3/E6/E9 or K/M/G and not also for E1 etc), or both. "12E1" might be a bit hard to read at first, but would allow the same "4 nixies" setup (eg xxEy) for any value from 0 to 99999999999, or "5 nixies" setup (eg 1234K, 1234G, 1234M) for any value from 0 to 9999999999999. (the bottom three displays in the example picture)
did anyone already try this and have a nice blueprint ?
or would it even be possible to append a letter nixie for K/G/M/T/etc to a number display and let the mod do the calculation ? (hehe, with a few more options and abilities, there immediately are new ideas for even more options and abilities :-)

> I like to imagine these are just a tube inside a little protective housing, so they don't get smashed by... industrial accidents :D

yes. the other graphics look like the "naked tubes" themselves, too fragile to be openly put down between assemblers etc, and the current nixies that we have, are the working units to be installed in a secure way.

[justarandomgeek]

I'm not gonna go point-by-point again with quotes, but you'll find some of the stuff I said I wasn't gonna do is actually done now in the latest release! Most notably, color is supported on everything but small tubes (where I don't have the right sprites to do it)!

The options are because the entity you're interacting with when you configure a nixie is actually just a lamp, so it tries to do all the things a lamp could do, but the display is actually a second entity stacked on top, so nothing works automatically. We don't really get control of what circuit UI we get beyond what type of entity something pretends to be. This is also why lognets display but don't actually do anything. It should be *possible* to query lognet values, but a wired roboport seems a sufficient workaround for now.

and some idea about using all those big numeric, big alpha, and small numeric nixies :

examples.PNG

when i used the small nixies right next to a wooden unconnected chest with just one dummy item in it, it made up a really nice display, giving the item type for that number pretty and easily to see. i only had difficulties reading the number, thinking of 19 million or 19 thousand when a number like 19 72 35 showed up. what i didn't need and didn't want on the big numeric nixies (a "thousands separator") would be quite useful on the small nixies now, when they optically group digits by hundreds instead of thousands (19.72.35 instead of 197.235) (the top two displays in the example picture)

btw: I'm currently trying to do a display that automatically adjusts the order of numbers, always showing a fixed small number of leading digits and an exponent (either as E1 to E9, or just only E3/E6/E9, or only a colored letter 3/6/9, or as number followed by K/M/G). but currently, my setup for that is either too large to look nice and be easy to setup, or it is not variable enough (only steps for E3/E6/E9 or K/M/G and not also for E1 etc), or both. "12E1" might be a bit hard to read at first, but would allow the same "4 nixies" setup (eg xxEy) for any value from 0 to 99999999999, or "5 nixies" setup (eg 1234K, 1234G, 1234M) for any value from 0 to 9999999999999. (the bottom three displays in the example picture)
did anyone already try this and have a nice blueprint ?
or would it even be possible to append a letter nixie for K/G/M/T/etc to a number display and let the mod do the calculation ? (hehe, with a few more options and abilities, there immediately are new ideas for even more options and abilities

I love this idea! I would probably just make a series that check for >1000, >1000000 and >1000000000, each overrulling the previous to output the divided-off prefix and the letter suffix. Maybe now that numbers can be colored, color code by the number scale also! Also, I like using constant combinators to make signs next to things when I need to label something - a row of CCs can make two rows of text/icons!