Combinators: Huh? What are they good for?

[Lrbaumard]

This is the only part of factorio i've bounced off completely.
But what am i missing in my factories without them?

[impetus maximus]

a good example of an SR latch for backup steam power via combinators here.
*note i would use a power switch instead of a pump. also you don't need to use a second color wire for the latch. one color for all wires will work.

i use an SR latch similar to this to control heavy to light, and light to petrol cracking.

[Lrbaumard]

a good example of an SR latch for backup steam power via combinators here.
*note i would use a power switch instead of a pump. also you don't need to use a second color wire for the latch. one color for all wires will work.

i use an SR latch similar to this to control heavy to light, and light to petrol cracking.

But why?
I run completely on solar in late game
And why do you need to control heavy/ light cracking?

[impetus maximus]

when i start to get too much heavy and light oil it starts cracking heavy to light, and light to petrol.
when it gets lower and i want a reserve for lube, and flamer fuel, the cracking stops.

another use is balancing train loading, and unload chests. so chests are not favored, or ignored.

have a look around. if you still can't find a use, maybe combinators aren't for you.

[Yoyobuae]

There's one thing combinators are really good for, which can't be achieved any other way: pretty, colored lights. And soon it will also be possible to make sound with them as well.

Combinators and circuit network are meant to be a completely optional part of them game. So if you're searching for some concrete reason to motivate using them you ain't gonna find it. That's by design.

At best they can help make things go slower. So if you ever think to yourself "this machine is producing too much" or "it's consuming too much" then circuit network can help. If you have the perfect factory where nothing ever runs out of balance, then you don't need them at all.

[NoQ]

• Run your trains only when the goods are actually lacking at the destination station, with just a pair of combinators at the destination station, to reduce traffic dramatically.
• Maintain a good ratio of construction and logistic robots in your logistic network and auto-produce-and-add more droids of correct type when network load increases or during heavy construction projects.
• Make a wood chest near your fuel-consuming structures, throw redundant wood into it and prioritize it. Then, prioritize solid fuel over coal (or the opposite) but mix both when just one is not enough.
• Automatically turn off low-priority structures, such as radars, when you're low on electricity, and prioritize laser turrets instead; you can have multiple levels of alarm here, all indicated by colored lights all over the place.

As mentioned above:

• Load chests at the train station uniformly, so that the trains loaded almost instantly without waiting for that last chest and depart as soon as all chests are uniformly out of goods, with just a pair of combinators per station.
• Convert light oil to solid fuel when gas isn't necessary but fuel is lacking, or when gas is underflowing and light oil is overflowing, and the opposite, and a few more ideas here depending on how rich you are on crude oil.
• Save fuel during night by prioritizing accumulators over steam engines, as long as there's enough charge in the accumulators, then recharge to a higher level and switch to accumulators again.

While you wouldn't use all of these necessarily, you should be able to grasp the factorio-ish way of thinking behind those patterns, and find more uses that suit your playstyle.

[The Eriksonn]

And I am the one that builds massive combinator computer that make fractals for no reason whatsoever...

Hyped about reading trains and disabling trainstops in 0.15 btw

[Ishakaru]

And I am the one that builds massive combinator computer that make fractals for no reason whatsoever...

Yes, there is something seriously wrong with you

[AndrewIRL]

Problem: Trains arrive at small mining outpost and start loading ore. I want my train to leave the mining outpost as soon as the ore from the storage chests has been loaded.

My wait until state is "Inventory full" but the small mine doesn't fill the train so it takes ages. Add OR "Time passed" and now I have to guess how long the train needs to stay at the station to load all the ore but not leave much behind and not hang about waiting. Ore patch can shrink in size, I may add more drills or the train might be delayed by other trains on the line and take longer to arrive (more ore available).

Solution: Train - Circuit Condition, Green signal = 1 ; Outpost - One decider combinator needed. Green = Ore < 10. Wire the input to the chests, wire the output to the train stop.

Result: Train loads all the ore available in the station and leaves immediately.


Check out the: Circuit network Cookbook


I also do heavy/light cracking but wire the tank directly to the pump because it supports the comparison directly and there's no need for a combinator. There's actually no need for a combinator in my train example either, you could simply do Ore < 10 directly on the train but then you'd need to do it on each train and remember which ones are copper trains and which are iron. So all my stations emit green to go and trains all have the same logic.

[ssilk]

Andrew, that Cookbook is really great work. I already used it a lot.

What I miss is the balanced buffer/cleaner: viewtopic.php?f=193&t=23125

[AndrewIRL]

Andrew, that Cookbook is really great work. I already used it a lot.

What I miss is the balanced buffer/cleaner: viewtopic.php?f=193&t=23125

Your wording might give the impression that I had something to do with the Cookbook so I should clarify - I was not involved in the cookbook in any way, it is entirely the work of people cleverer than I. It is great work.

The cookbook appears to be a wiki under the Factorio domain so it must be under the control of the company. You can probably get read/write privileges and add your own balanced buffer recipe there.

[ssilk]

And no: the wiki is community driven. Everybody can join, he just needs an account.