Connecting radars to circuit and logistic networks

Post by **Koub** » Fri Jul 27, 2018 1:15 pm

Showing support for the idea and hoping is the best thing you can do. Also having a PoC (if possible) via a mod is a plus : it shows if the concept works as expected.
The devs rarely answer when there's not much to be said, but be assured avery post in this forum is read by at least one dev.

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Fri Jul 27, 2018 6:48 pm

Here a a few related suggestions:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=61350 Alien Detector
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60736 Entity Sensors i.e. detecting bugs before an attack
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=40784 Pressure Plate (and other Dwarf Fortress things)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41805 Sensors and such.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8011 [Electronics] - Sensors
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13127 Wire sensors
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43771 Motion sensor
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45956 Player detection for circuit network

Hive · Post by **Hive** » Fri Jul 27, 2018 9:27 pm

is there a lua function to get the information needed to make a mod with it?

im not into modding so i dont really know what im looking for, i'm wondering that there is no mod for that yet

Post by **Koub** » Sat Jul 28, 2018 6:55 am

I'd say there must be some way :
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/folk-radar
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/radar-signals

mrvn · Post by **mrvn** » Mon Jul 30, 2018 9:39 am

I believe the way those mods work is that they get a filtered entity list for the radar range and sum up the results. Something that is rather costly to do. The second mod only does it every 4 seconds, or every 240 ticks, and hopefully will distribute the scan for multiple radars across different ticks. Otherwise the game would pause every 4 seconds.

Having this scan happen internally in the C++ code that updates the map anyway would be a huge performance gain.

Not to mention radars could report on the scanned chunks as well.

SuperCato · Post by **SuperCato** » Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:50 am

TL;DR

Radar's would send a single out with red/green wire(s) if they detected an attack on the base.

What?

When you click on radar it would open a GUI menu where you can select the certain single it would send on.
You would be able to choose the value (int) of the single getting sent.

Why?

I think would increase the value of the game because you would be able to make custom alerts to fit your own style(s)

BlueTemplar · Post by **BlueTemplar** » Sat Oct 12, 2019 10:32 am

It's one of Factorio's challenges to build an "attack detector" without using any mods...

Post by **Koub** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:15 am

[Koub] Merged into older topic with same suggestion.

nafira · Post by **nafira** » Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:53 pm

Idea to solve radar range issue and help with performance :
* When a Radar finishes to scan his area and no enemies has been detected, it put's itself in "standby", using only 10% energy and stop trying to refresh all tiles.
* If an enemy enters the radar zone, the stand-by mode stops (detected by entering one of radar border tiles) and have to scan the whole area again.

This doesn't mean that the map should not be updated but only that you can stop the process of in background and keep it simple.
Because if you have 1000 Radar scanning your map, you'll always have a big amount of resources dedicated for scanning the map, which is useless.
If there's no enemy, there's no need to run these scan.

It's only a proposition for performance improvement, not a real change in radars. The energy cost is just how the player is rewarded

BlueTemplar · Post by **BlueTemplar** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:40 am

How a radar should know that an enemy entered its long-range zone if it's not scanning it ?
One reason to have the radars is that they ultimately provide a long-range warning against new biter settlements (that are outside of your pollution cloud, otherwise you're going to have a much sooner, much more aggressive warning !

)

mrvn · Post by **mrvn** » Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:47 am

nafira wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:53 pm Idea to solve radar range issue and help with performance :
* When a Radar finishes to scan his area and no enemies has been detected, it put's itself in "standby", using only 10% energy and stop trying to refresh all tiles.
* If an enemy enters the radar zone, the stand-by mode stops (detected by entering one of radar border tiles) and have to scan the whole area again.

This doesn't mean that the map should not be updated but only that you can stop the process of in background and keep it simple.
Because if you have 1000 Radar scanning your map, you'll always have a big amount of resources dedicated for scanning the map, which is useless.
If there's no enemy, there's no need to run these scan.

It's only a proposition for performance improvement, not a real change in radars. The energy cost is just how the player is rewarded

It makes no sense for the radar to magically wake up from energy saving mode when an alien enters the scan range. If it can do that it could simply refresh that chunk whenever an alien enters instead of scanning.

I don't think radars should stop scanning at all. But make the scanning cheap if nothing has changed. E.g. for each chunk record the last tick something (relevant for radar) changed. Then if changed < last_scanned then scanning the chunk simply updates last_scanned and is done.

foamy · Post by **foamy** » Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:23 pm

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:40 am How a radar should know that an enemy entered its long-range zone if it's not scanning it ?
One reason to have the radars is that they ultimately provide a long-range warning against new biter settlements (that are outside of your pollution cloud, otherwise you're going to have a much sooner, much more aggressive warning ! )

I mean, before you get artillery, or before you produce a real pollution cloud... ever see what happens with gigawatts of boiler power going? :v

EDIT:

I really like the idea of outputting, on colour signals, the number of hostile/neutral/friendly entities within the radar's LOS.

BlueTemplar · Post by **BlueTemplar** » Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:25 pm

Nope, I don't wait to need gigawatts to switch to nuclear...

foamy · Post by **foamy** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 2:13 am

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:25 pm Nope, I don't wait to need gigawatts to switch to nuclear...

Heh. The point is, heavy duty pollution clouds can easily exceed a radar's scan range unless you have your radar installations way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. Artillery is a better spotting mechanic for 'nests being established near your walls' since it outranges radar considerably after even a small number of researches and simultaneously kills the dang things.

BlueTemplar · Post by **BlueTemplar** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:45 am

Sure, but artillery is end-game.
And long-range radar coverage is pretty... long (but very slow compared to new nest creation).

nafira · Post by **nafira** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:41 pm

mrvn wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:47 am
nafira wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:53 pm Idea to solve radar range issue and help with performance :
* When a Radar finishes to scan his area and no enemies has been detected, it put's itself in "standby", using only 10% energy and stop trying to refresh all tiles.
* If an enemy enters the radar zone, the stand-by mode stops (detected by entering one of radar border tiles) and have to scan the whole area again.

This doesn't mean that the map should not be updated but only that you can stop the process of in background and keep it simple.
Because if you have 1000 Radar scanning your map, you'll always have a big amount of resources dedicated for scanning the map, which is useless.
If there's no enemy, there's no need to run these scan.

It's only a proposition for performance improvement, not a real change in radars. The energy cost is just how the player is rewarded
It makes no sense for the radar to magically wake up from energy saving mode when an alien enters the scan range. If it can do that it could simply refresh that chunk whenever an alien enters instead of scanning.

I don't think radars should stop scanning at all. But make the scanning cheap if nothing has changed. E.g. for each chunk record the last tick something (relevant for radar) changed. Then if changed < last_scanned then scanning the chunk simply updates last_scanned and is done.

We're quite on the same page here, even if you don't think so.
My way is just : "Hey, let's roleplay a bit, and tells that the radar only scans borders, so it consumes less" (call it whatever you want)

Anyway we are going the same way => Radar should only scan needed areas, and only update the map for the rest of it.
My idea of detecting aliens is because it's the only thing on the map that is relevant. The rest is pure update and should not need a specific update from radars

Example :
* an ore is not going to magically disappear or move
* trees are not going to move
* neither the cliffs
* neither water

The map is already constantly updating what's under radar (actual) range so why on earth the radar should search for something else than aliens once scanned once ?
It would save a lot of : CPU, energy (in-game), process of synchronisation, complexity, server behavior, etc.

Is it still a non-sense ?

If not, it resolve the issue of the number of update needed, and so, we can work on a good solution to enhance radar range properly. IMO.
The main thing limiting radar range is how they update : change it and you'll be able to do some good stuff with it.

And on the other topic, I don't wait for long for having nuclear. Generally it comes @300MW needed constantly, then I start building it unless my map is quite clean of bitters and without much lasers.
In long term, you'll need artillery, because no lasers or fire turrets are going to kill giant worms (range 36 if I remember well). I start with static once, and then switch to a train protecting the perimeter.

leadraven · Post by **leadraven** » Wed Feb 12, 2020 10:21 am

Allow Radar to raise circuit signal if here are Biters in sight range.

Post by **Koub** » Wed Feb 12, 2020 3:18 pm

[Koub] Merged into older topic with same suggestion.
Also related :
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=62384
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=64807

stoicfaux · Post by **stoicfaux** » Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:00 pm

TL;DR

Add circuits to radar. A red signal is output if enemies are in radar range; otherwise a green signal is output.

What ?

Add circuit conditions to radar. A red signal is output if enemies are present, otherwise a green signal is output.

Why ?

This suggestion was motivated by artillery outposts that have bots. When biters damage the outpost walls, the repair bots rush out and wind up dying in droves due to lingering biter acid and biter attacks. If the radar circuit was red (enemies present) then the bots could be removed from the roboport. If the radar circuit was green then the bots could be added back. There would still need to be some kind of timer/delay to allow any biter acid to dissipate.

However, it could be unbalanced in that it would also allow laser turrets to be kept powered off until radar detects enemies.

edit: My apologies for not realizing this suggestion already existed.

mrvn · Post by **mrvn** » Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:38 pm

Radars have a permanent region and a scanning region. Those should have different signals. For usage with modes like AAI vehicles X/Y coords of the detected aliens would also be desirable. Could be just the center of the chunk with aliens or any random one if there are multiple. Just make it a steady signal and not flicker from alien to alien every tick.

PS: This idea has come up in the past and I think the devs shot it down as too CPU costly.

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