Filter Inserters: INVERT filter.

[TheTom]

That one should be quite trivial to implement.

Allow me to research (or implement on higher inservers) a little checkbox that INVERTS a filter.

Instead of "take X as per definition" this turns into "take everything EXCEPT X", which can be useful to remove "crap" (like alien artifacts) from an ammunition belt.

[ssilk]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=14741 Inverse filter setting (Is not filter, take all except...)

[IV]

This can be done by a constant combinator set to a negative value (-8 should be enough) of the stuff you don't want to pick up. You run a normal filter inserter connected to this combinator and the belt where it picks stuff up (enable read value and hold for the belt piece). Set the filter inserter mode to 'select filter'.

[ssilk]

Sorry, what you describe here does not work.

[IV]

The attached gif should show what I meant.

[ssilk]

Ahh, hahaha, ok, learned something today.... thanks.

[Jürgen Erhard]

The GIF would probably show it if it wasn't unreadable.

But... yeah. It works. And it's marvellously simple if you understand the circuit system.

[Deadly-Bagel]

The belt is sending contents to the circuit network so anything on the belt becomes a signal for the filter inserter to pick up. You then add a Constant Combinator with a signal of say -8 (I assume this is max items of belt, can be more negative) so it negates anything of that item from the signal and the Filter Inserter will ignore it.

This is actually pretty clever and can be utilised from chests and maybe eventually trains as well once they send contents to circuit network, and only requires a single Constant Combinator.

[Slayn25]

So does this fall into the category of "already possible with existing tools so won't be implemented"?

[ssilk]

well, I don't know how other think about this, but for me that kind of filtering is IMHOthe main-case.
OPen for further discussion.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Hmm.. If it required more than a single constant combinator but it's such a compact and tidy solution and the usage cases are so rare I think it just needs a mention on the wiki.

Say in that example, have the filter inserter pick up the ammo and put it ON to the belt loop, rather than taking everything else off. There are a few ways of implementing this for different circumstances so don't see why it would need to be an option on the inserter.

[Optera]

using a negative number in a constant combinator as NOT filter only works if you can read the inventory of the source.
Vehicles or assembler don't report their inventory without mods. You'd have to poll through every possible item except the ones you don't want to unload, which takes quite a lot combinators for something a simple not filter could do.

[ssilk]

Ergo: We need a sensor for the inventory of vehicles etc.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Indeed, rather than add half the functionality of loading/unloading vehicles by implementing something we can already do, the whole issue of loading/unloading vehicles should be addressed by allowing us to read contents.

Just something like a little pad the car or tank can sit on (or under, or next to) would be fine, we can then use belts to guide the vehicle on to it without worrying about crashing into the inserters.

[Optera]

Why does it have to one or the other?
Reading inventory and inverting filters have their merit and would allow for sleeker builds.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Well they could do both, but they don't need to. Kind of like smart splitters, it would make a lot of stuff easier but detract from some of the logistic puzzles in the game.

As has been shown you can easily manage this with a single Constant Combinator, one tile per different filter. You could also use two Arithmetic Combinators for a more accurate filter (one does [Item] * -1 and the other is just to offset the circuit delay) but it's quite a compact solution. Also invert filters probably aren't used by the vast majority of players.

On the other hand I can only think of one way of loading a car properly. Park it on some belts that carry it to an unloading bay on some disabled belts, and fully unload the car. Once the car is fully unloaded (inserters stopped and chests not full) enable the belts under it to move it to a loading zone which has two chests that contain exactly what the car should be loaded with, and re-load the car. You then have to work out moving the unloaded items either back into loading chests or into storage and there's a lot of tedious circuit problems like how to know when inserters have stopped, how to load a chest to a point then only start loading it again a time after it's unloaded, etc. The setup to do this would be huge and take some time to process, a lot of it doing hacky workarounds rather than what you want to do directly. This is why we need a better alternative.

Compared to that, the filter inserter inverter is child's play. You've got a few ways of implementing it and all are very lightweight.

[Optera]

You forgot the problem of inserters keep holding to items if they can't insert all of what they picked up.

We could continue the list of more important to implement, more complicated or outright impossible things to do in base game forever.
I don't like weighting ideas down because there are more pressing matters. Inverting filters is an easy to implement little thing that can help in certain cases.

[MalcolmCooks]

couple of points
I can't think why anyone would want to automatically load/unload cars and tanks
Contents sensor for a cargo wagon WOULD be useful, but I think there are ways around it for now. What situation would you want to unload everything but a certain item from a train, except if you have multi-cargo trains (bad practice except for small supply trains) or are sending different trains to the same station (also bad practice). My point being, you should really only have trains stopping at a station if the station needs the goods that are carried on the train.

[Slayn25]

couple of points
I can't think why anyone would want to automatically load/unload cars and tanks

In lieu of vehicle logistic/trash slots I would definitely be interested in setting up SOME kind of system that stocks my car with what I need for outposts while taking the stuff I don't want out. This is a task I do often manually atm and it could use some automation love.

[MalcolmCooks]

ah that's very true.
well... inserters will load and unload the car if you position it correctly... and you can manually turn them on and off using a constant combinator. You could always unload everything, and filter out what you want to keep, drive it forward to a loading area where a chest is filled with the items you need... load in that whole chest and then have the filtered items from before put into the chest. Not very elegant though. A vehicle-contents-read pad would be useful then, I agree. Maybe people would use the car more if it existed