Wired lamps

[timCopwell]

TL;DR

Ability to power lamps via copper wire.

What ?

Simply this.

Make possible to connect a single lamp to the pole via copper wire as alternative to placing it inside its supply area, but limiting to the wire reach of the pole you're connecting to.

Why ?

• As small feature this is, it would make your base look much more clear in many places removing unnecessary poles you placed just for a single lamp to add. Also providing a clearer look to your light signals or pixel art, idk. One might say just use substation instead, but the cost difference would be huge.
• Being an exception to electricity mechanic it remains balance still, since lamps don't affect any production they simply let you see more clear.

[ThreePounds]

firstly, lamps are special in the way they are handled by the electric network to account for their rolling start and shutdown each night. So this might not behave like you'd intent right off the bat.

Secondly, wouldn't that make the lamp the only entity unrelated to the electric network itself to accept copper wire connections? That would be rather strange.

You could as well use this argument for any other electricity powered entity, for example laser turrets, inserters and mining drills.

Since copper wire is essentially free due to blueprints this would totally change how the electric network funtions.

[darkfrei]

Make possible to connect a single lamp to the pole via copper wire as alternative to placing it inside its supply area, but limiting to the wire reach of the pole you're connecting to.

It's possible to make it as a mod, but all lamps in the electric power pole powered area will be steel powered.

Just hidden power pole under the lamp with powered area 1x1.

[timCopwell]

firstly, lamps are special in the way they are handled by the electric network to account for their rolling start and shutdown each night. So this might not behave like you'd intent right off the bat.

I'm not sure how factorio manages entity power states, but probably via an variable like "pluged" or "powered", so how they should behave differently if this method probably would simulate being inside poles range.

Secondly, wouldn't that make the lamp the only entity unrelated to the electric network itself to accept copper wire connections? That would be rather strange.

You could as well use this argument for any other electricity powered entity, for example laser turrets, inserters and mining drills.

Yes it would. Therefore I named it exception. Turrets and inserters are highly used entities and having same mechanic applied to those would break/ remake electricity system. How it is now is designed to minimize wiring gameplay and it's perfectly fine. Imagine connecting each of 1000 inserters manualy with a wire, it's madness. What I suggest is more designed for fine tuning and alternative for nothing but lamps, since they don't affect core gameplay aspects.

[netmand]

Does the proposed include the auto-wiring that all power distribution items have?

[timCopwell]

Does the proposed include the auto-wiring that all power distribution items have?

probably not since it would harm the default powering method. I see it as a neat semi-secret feature kinda like you can manually cut and place wires on poles by clicking with wire on them.
when i first time found that feature I was very surprised and since then it helps to keep my base as much cleaner place.
hope this one does the same job.

[darkfrei]

TL;DR

Ability to power lamps via copper wire.

Try this one:

WiredLamps_1.0.0.zip

(54.27 KiB) Downloaded 118 times

2020-09-03T19_46_46-Factorio 1.0.0.png (857.67 KiB) Viewed 4358 times

[Kyralessa]

If you use mods, here's an option:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/LightedPolesPlus

[netmand]

Does the proposed include the auto-wiring that all power distribution items have?

probably not since it would harm the default powering method. I see it as a neat semi-secret feature kinda like you can manually cut and place wires on poles by clicking with wire on them.
when i first time found that feature I was very surprised and since then it helps to keep my base as much cleaner place.
hope this one does the same job.

hmm. that sounds a bit limited, requiring more work since you need to lay the light then wire it up with copper cable.
with power poles you don't need to carry around copper cable in your inventory; it is automatically wired as a part of the build.
and with power poles you can do long runs easily. without automatic wiring, laying multiple lights would need to be blueprinted as a pattern of lights pre-wired which isn't as flexible (i.e. it couldn't follow curves of any curvature).

if you're just looking to use less poles why not just use substations?
should the proposal include automatic wiring? is there any reason against asking for that as well?
it might be nice to be able to lay a string of lights for something like making a highway, marking border visually, etc.

[timCopwell]

TL;DR

Ability to power lamps via copper wire.

Try this one:
WiredLamps_1.0.0.zip

Cool, that's almost what I meant. But could you fix those please, then I would totally use this:

• Lamps won't wire if inside of poles range.
• Lamps can't be connected to each other.
• Lamps can't be wired to substation, since wire length is anyways less than its range.
• Ability to cut the wires connected to lamps.

If you use mods, here's an option:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/LightedPolesPlus

It's kinda cheaty to me since it simply cuts one piece of the game out, but ty.

hmm. that sounds a bit limited, requiring more work since you need to lay the light then wire it up with copper cable.
with power poles you don't need to carry around copper cable in your inventory; it is automatically wired as a part of the build.
and with power poles you can do long runs easily. without automatic wiring, laying multiple lights would need to be blueprinted as a pattern of lights pre-wired which isn't as flexible (i.e. it couldn't follow curves of any curvature).

if you're just looking to use less poles why not just use substations?
should the proposal include automatic wiring? is there any reason against asking for that as well?
it might be nice to be able to lay a string of lights for something like making a highway, marking border visually, etc.

I tried darkfei's attempt on this mod and I guess, you were right, auto-wiring is better for this one as default since it's simply more convenient way of placing lamps. About substations, I've already told that difference in resource cost and space is too high. Yes, the game is almost infinite on resources and space but still.

[ssilk]

• Lamps can't be connected to each other.

If that would be possible, then lamps are just a kind of power pole. You could build connections between two networks,

And I doubt this will come into vanilla, even if I like it.

[darkfrei]

Cool, that's almost what I meant. But could you fix those please, then I would totally use this:

• Lamps won't wire if inside of poles range.
• Lamps can't be connected to each other.
• Lamps can't be wired to substation, since wire length is anyways less than its range.
• Ability to cut the wires connected to lamps.

1. Can be done with
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/Lua ... ic_network
2. Easy too
3. Automatically if 1. The substation it a electric pole too.
4. Very tricky. If you put the copper cable, then you must click on the hidden pole, but green and red cables must be clicked on the lamp, but not power pole. Other way is: you can click on the both, but you must click very precision.

[darkfrei]

[*] Lamps won't wire if inside of poles range.
[*] Lamps can't be connected to each other.

This two points are done.

WiredLamps_1.0.1.zip

(54.52 KiB) Downloaded 117 times

[darkfrei]

Update:
- Fixed extra debug spam
- The lamp has two selection boxes, one from hidden lamp

WiredLamps_1.0.2.zip

(54.7 KiB) Downloaded 105 times

[ssilk]

Darkfrei, is there a reason, why you don't put it onto mods-portal?

[darkfrei]

Darkfrei, is there a reason, why you don't put it onto mods-portal?

Today is first release: Wired Lamps 1.0.3
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/WiredLamps