Add more devices to Circuit network

[positive]

Hi,

please add more devices to Circuit network. At least all devices which can have some counts items (iron, steel and so on) inside for reading their amount as in case of chests. The reason why I suggest it is currently there is no possibility how to detect attacks from bitters and use speaker with that.

The speaker is a thing that is offering directly for using to detect attacks and trigger an alarm through the speaker. BUT currently there is not good solution for it. Because walls are not possible to connect to circuit network too to check attacks. The second option is to use detection in turrets via decreasing number of Piercing rounds magazine. BUT it is NOT possible too So the last option which I have is to use chests which have possibility to read the content of magazines. BUT it is not user-friendly to have for each turret inserter and chest. So there is also possibility to have only the one chest and check decreasing of the number magazines for all defense in each base, but it is not also good solution which is 100% working.

I also searched the solutions other people on the internet, but there are similar solutions:

1) https://imgur.com/a/1cDp0yr
2) https://imgur.com/a/8icQG0q

I know that there is the detection by default in the right corner, but we want to develop an own solution via circuit network with the speaker. And mainly the speaker contains many sounds alarms and there is no possibility to use them to the real purposes

-----

The second thing is a work with date time in circuit network. So for example I want to start some processes always in 8:00 PM or each a hour or to use speaker as alarm clock, because the factorio is the best game and there is not possible to close it in the time, so there is a need to develop an own alarm clock which will start alarm and show text "go to sleep due"

Thank you for your understanding of these requirements.

Bye

[ssilk]

Try
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Inventory%20Sensor
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/radar-signals

[positive]

Hi,

thank you for your answer. I'll try it. Do you have any idea how to get the exact date time in the game and then to react to specific the time ? Is it possible at all?

Thanks

[Deadlock989]

Hi,

thank you for your answer. I'll try it. Do you have any idea how to get the exact date time in the game and then to react to specific the time ? Is it possible at all?

Thanks

It's impossible to get the system date/time and all requests to have access to it have been refused for valid reasons.

Mods can access the in-game "daytime" value and the game tick count.

For your use case, just about every device in the world that knows the time can have an alarm set if that's all you need. e.g. your OS, your phone etc.

[positive]

yeah I know that I can use my phone or something else of course. But I had an idea to realize it in the game my own alarm clock from for fun reasons.. So do you think that there is a possibility to get "some" game ticks ? Maybe it could be useful for this case.. Do you have any idea how to use game ticks in the circuit network ?

Thanks

[Deadlock989]

Do you have any idea how to use game ticks in the circuit network ?

You can't access the literal game tick without mods, and there is a performance hit from doing it.

You can set up "clocks" and counters though. Look for a combinator tutorial, there must be several.

[ssilk]

thank you for your answer. I'll try it. Do you have any idea how to get the exact date time in the game and then to react to specific the time ? Is it possible at all?

I think you mean the time of day - aka is it day or night?!

You can do that in several ways. One that deadlock already suggested is for example to use a counter that counts every tick and measures the time. A day is 25000 ticks, the rest is simple. See https://wiki.factorio.com/Day and https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Circ ... 2F_Counter
(Instead of Inserter you need a constant combinator)
Disadvantage is the mentioned usage of CPU. But I think one of that is really no problem.

A simpler way to know daytime is to measure the accumulator load: in a separated electric network (no connect to you main network), you need a radar, an accumulator and a radar (something which needs constantly power). Then place as much solar cells as it is needed to load the accumulator during day. When night falls the accumulator empties and you know it’s night.

Similar to that is to use lamps. Lamps turn on at night, but you need some lamps to measure the night.

And the simplest should be to use a mod, like https://mods.factorio.com/mod/light-detector
(That mod is for 0.17, but should be updateable by changing info.json in the zip)

[positive]

Thank you for all your answers. It is good idea to use accumulator for testing of night, but my original request is really to set the alarm of the speaker to 10:00PM (real time) to warning that the person should go to sleep And I don't know how to get the real time in the game.

I also don't understand why there is not possibility to get it, because I don't think that it is a security issue only getting some ticks or time from 1.1.1970 for example.

Thanks very much.

[ssilk]

Ah! That's not possible because of determinism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_algorithm

See also this viewtopic.php?f=71&t=13299

In short: Date is on every computer different, so you cannot base calculations on date and make at the same time sure, that this game is able to be replayed in the same way, if nothing else changes, but the date. That is because the game-engine is based on that, https://wiki.factorio.com/Desynchronization

[MakeItGraphic]

Hi,

thank you for your answer. I'll try it. Do you have any idea how to get the exact date time in the game and then to react to specific the time ? Is it possible at all?

Thanks

I use clockwork and timetools for this. clockwork allows the time to be modified

[dpacbach]

BUT currently there is not good solution for it. Because walls are not possible to connect to circuit network too to check attacks. The second option is to use detection in turrets via decreasing number of Piercing rounds magazine. BUT it is NOT possible too So the last option which I have is to use chests which have possibility to read the content of magazines. BUT it is not user-friendly to have for each turret inserter and chest.

It would be really nice to have the game support a solution to the problem of detecting when a turret is engaged via circuit network. A big problem that I have (and I have not seen any acceptable solutions to it in forum searches) is how to detect when a laser turret is engaged with an enemy. I would like to do this so that I can use the circuit network to then delay the deployment of construction bots that then go to repair the walls. As it is now:

1. Biters come toward wall with laser turrets behind it.
2. Laser turrets engage.
3. Bites damage a few walls.
4. Construction bots immediately deployed to repair walls.
5. Construction bots arrive at walls while the biters are still there and/or while there are still flames on the ground.
6. Construction bots consistently die.

Has anyone from a robust solution to this? If we could read the status of a laser turret via circuit network then I think this problem could be solved. I've seen some elaborate workarounds including e.g. detecting laser turret engagement by monitoring accumulator discharge rate but they seem too complicated.

[ssilk]

They die normally from the spitters sitting in the back. One spit is eventually enough.

Solutions:
- improve robot speed, invest in tech-tree
- build mixed weapons, different ranges should overlap. Aka gun turrets in front, then lasers, then flamethrower
- much more lasers instead if weapons mix
- wall with much more distance to the next roboports
- experiment with mines
- experiment with mods for energy shields
- using the radar described above to measure if enemies are in sight.

I would not try to hold repair bots behind, because when they come through the wall, they will destroy your lasers first. You really want the walls to be repaired ASAP. If I cannot hold back you with that idea, I would like to hear your solution.

[dpacbach]

Should also mention for context that my situation is an end-game situation where biter waves are always killed off completely with minimal damage to walls. I have two rows of walls + a bunch of sharks teeth + many advanced laser turret power upgrades from science. The only issue I have is the bots keep getting killed because I have no way of telling them "wait about 15 seconds for the biter wave to get killed off before going to repair the walls."

How about something like the following:

* First, allow a roboport to be enabled/disabled via circuit network. When it is disabled (regardless of whether it has charge) its green area will be ignored by construction bots.
* Also allow a laser turret's engagement status to be read via circuit network.
* Then, connect the roboport to the laser turrets in its vicinity possibly with some combinators.
* Roboport is off by default. When a turret engages then a timer will begin that lasts about 15 seconds.
* When timer expires, roboport will be enabled and thus deploy bots to repair damaged walls. By this time, biters are gone and thus no damage to bots.
* After a period of e.g. 30 seconds, when bots are finished repairing the wall, the roboport disables again and remains disabled until the next wave.

[ssilk]

Might work. but I have my doubts...
Doesn’t need to be in vanilla, because I also doubt that more than 1 or 2 promille of players will ever use this. Because experience shows, that there might be a point, when it is a good idea to repair/replace walls, even if you loose a robot.

How about repair turrets mod? https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Repair_Turret
How about mine layer mod? https://mods.factorio.com/mod/landmine-thrower

[dpacbach]

Yes those mods are relevant and one of them might indeed solve the problem... I understand that when mods are considered, all things are possible... but I'm a pure vanilla player, I don't like to use any mods With mods I feel like I am creating my own game and then playing it, which for me takes some fun away...

[ssilk]

In that case...

The problem that your construction bots are too fast can be eliminated by this: put a filter inserter to each roboport near to the borders and catch all construction bots out and collect them in the center. But as said I cannot recommend that.

And you can try to measure usage of lasers by this:

- a bunch of lasers is not directly connected to the electric network, but has their own network
- the standby power is created/inserted into that own network by putting a long row of accumulators in both networks. The power flow is then limited to the sum of accus (sum of accu power input/output must be more or less equal to to sum of laser standby)
- which means when the charge of that accus goes down, the lasers are firing.
- that is a signal to switch full power into the laser network and other stuff, like re-inserting construction bots/repair packs into the roboports near the border, when attack is over.

[dpacbach]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.