Proposal to fix: the pulse function on inserters (+belts?) is inconsistent under low power.

[Nosferatu]

I guess I'm a little bit late but still I want to contribute my findings.

After finishing my test setup to detect this I commanded my Lisp Wizard(TM) 4.8 GW Nuclear Reactor to shut down half of its reactors and waited what would happen.

Shockingly the Blue Screen warning came not at 50% as boskid predicted somewhere upthread it came at 3GW/4,5GW so at about 65% of total power.
I blame beacons and other drain type consumers because in my other tests I found out that they somehow have more priority than combinators.

The result of my test was severe:
As Theikkru predicted this wrecks havoc to combinator systems.
The feeding for my nuclear reactor completely failed which of course sent the power down even more.
I had to run around and insert fuel cell manually to restore my base.
To everyone reading this thread. Make sure your reactors control systems are guarded against brownouts !!!

But still: I don't think this mechanic should go away and the proposal in this thread sounds to complicated for me.
The only thing that is in danger by this are nuclear reactors because they spiral down when this happens.
But I think those that build nuclear reactors using tick based mechanics will also search the forums when they run into this and after that the solution is easy.

Btw: The reactor that I'm using would have failed even if the devs implemented your proposal.
It's feeding is driven by a clock - which would have slowed down - reactor consumption would not...

[foamy]

You're right to the extent that I didn't care at all until one person started saying the game was badly designed and a feature that literally hundreds of thousands of people are using should be removed because it offends their personal sensibilities when they have a terribly, terribly built power supply and their intricate house of cards falls down. Then I cared, for a millisecond.

Nonsense. You were spouting this same routine in a prior thread that made no mention of removing functionality whatsoever. I hesitate to call people liars, but your assertions here are not in alignment with publicly verifiable fact.

you're not ignoring the solutions? so what are you asking for it to be changed for? sounds like your problem is resolved.

A squeaky floorboard is not resolved by being stepped over.

I find it very odd that in a forum ostensibly supposed to be about improving the game, so much of the discussion appears to be focused on 'go find a mod' and/or 'it's your fault for designing a bad factory' even when the actual issue is in fact a game mechanic behaving inappropriately.

Also, inserters don't insert when not under power, train cars or not. See here:



So your example of 'other odd inserter behaviour that should be fixed first' doesn't even exist. I don't know why your inserters are misbehaving but it's not vanilla behaviour.

[foamy]

Btw: The reactor that I'm using would have failed even if the devs implemented your proposal.
It's feeding is driven by a clock - which would have slowed down - reactor consumption would not...

Yeah, but guarding against all kinds of slowdowns isn't the point. Logic slowing down and causing failures is fine. It's a sensible, intuitive thing with usually relatively clear signs of trouble: control lag, slowing clocks, and so on. It can be diagnosed and it encourages people to guard against brownouts or blackouts in their control systems.

The problem arises with mismatched slowdowns specifically, where the same logic inputs will result in different logic outputs because of the condition of a non-logic element. That's the thing to address.

[NotRexButCaesar]

So your example of 'other odd inserter behaviour that should be fixed first' doesn't even exist. I don't know why your inserters are misbehaving but it's not vanilla behaviour.

It does: you need to have an inserter be unable to insert one full stack and have some left over when the train leaves. Then when another train arrives, the items the inserter dropped go into that train even without power.

[NotRexButCaesar]

You're right to the extent that I didn't care at all until one person started saying the game was badly designed and a feature that literally hundreds of thousands of people are using should be removed because it offends their personal sensibilities when they have a terribly, terribly built power supply and their intricate house of cards falls down. Then I cared, for a millisecond.

Ooh, you’re so cool and punk/s. If you care so little, don’t “participate” in the discussion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverybadass/top?t=all

[foamy]

So your example of 'other odd inserter behaviour that should be fixed first' doesn't even exist. I don't know why your inserters are misbehaving but it's not vanilla behaviour.

It does: you need to have an inserter be unable to insert one full stack and have some left over when the train leaves. Then when another train arrives, the items the inserter dropped go into that train even without power.

Oh, that. You're right, my mistake. In my defense the statement of the problem was unclear :v

[Theikkru]

[...]
But still: I don't think this mechanic should go away and the proposal in this thread sounds to complicated for me.
The only thing that is in danger by this are nuclear reactors because they spiral down when this happens.
But I think those that build nuclear reactors using tick based mechanics will also search the forums when they run into this and after that the solution is easy.

Is this a complete thought? If this is saying "keep current behavior because workaround available and fix seems complicated", then it's no different as an argument from "fix ur power" in that it doesn't address the inconsistency directly and ignores the UPS boost. (In aside, the proposal isn't that complicated. It just looks that way because I enumerated very specific implementation steps.) If you have another reason to keep the inconsistency around, I'd like to hear it.

Btw: The reactor that I'm using would have failed even if the devs implemented your proposal.
It's feeding is driven by a clock - which would have slowed down - reactor consumption would not...

Ah, but the difference is that you'd be failing for the correct reason; the age old programming tenet that you should avoid using timers for synchronization if it can be done on a condition. Also what foamy said. What doesn't make sense is for a system like this one to fall apart due to arbitrary logic breakdown despite no dependence on timing. (I've fixed it by adding the cyan and yellow combinators to substitute for the bad inserter pulsing behavior.)

[ptx0]

you're not ignoring the solutions? so what are you asking for it to be changed for? sounds like your problem is resolved.

A squeaky floorboard is not resolved by being stepped over.

I find it very odd that in a forum ostensibly supposed to be about improving the game, so much of the discussion appears to be focused on 'go find a mod' and/or 'it's your fault for designing a bad factory' even when the actual issue is in fact a game mechanic behaving inappropriately.

Also, inserters don't insert when not under power, train cars or not. See here:



So your example of 'other odd inserter behaviour that should be fixed first' doesn't even exist. I don't know why your inserters are misbehaving but it's not vanilla behaviour.

I meant disabled by circuit, not powered off. try to fill a train cargo wagon with certain numbers of items from a mall without filtering the wagon slots - like a combined shipment that LTN will make, it'll go pick up first electronic circuits and then something else. or, make a multi-item provider station. you'll have contamination because the inserters are dropping the item still held in their hand from the previous run. but this isn't the end of the world! you just add a circuit condition to the train to not leave until GREEN = 0 and a combinator that sends GREEN=1 when any inserter is holding anything in their hand! you don't even have to use 'pulse' condition


this forum was about improving the game when it was in development, but it's done now. these mechanisms have had years for these problems to come up, and it has become an issue for one person only now after the game is released. that means it's not worth spending time on.

[ptx0]

instead of "game is broken, work with me" you should have come to the forum to brainstorm ways to avoid this problem. Wube doesn't need to spend money on fixing it (which is what you're telling them they should do).

[Theikkru]

[...]
this forum was about improving the game when it was in development, but it's done now. these mechanisms have had years for these problems to come up, and it has become an issue for one person only now after the game is released. that means it's not worth spending time on.

instead of "game is broken, work with me" you should have come to the forum to brainstorm ways to avoid this problem. Wube doesn't need to spend money on fixing it (which is what you're telling them they should do).

What is this!? "You got here too late so no fix for you"? If that really were the case, the entire idea/suggestion forum should be locked. It's completely absurd, but I'll give you credit for coming up with a new argument at least.

[ptx0]

What is this!? "You got here too late so no fix for you"? If that really were the case, the entire idea/suggestion forum should be locked. It's completely absurd, but I'll give you credit for coming up with a new argument at least.

that's not a terrible idea.

[Impatient]

To Theikkru: Kudos for pointing out the problem inducing behaviors of pulsing entities and combinators.

It seems I am a noob, despite playing this game for so long and even using designs, which rely on perfect counting. I never noticed. I probably just never ran low on power, while using vulnerable circuitry.

To a lot of the others who argued in this thread: I am baffled about your emotional, derisive and off-the-point argumentation. IMO Theikkru deserves respect for making the effort, no matter the opinion on the topic.
To the mods: Can you please move this to the ideas and suggestions forum? IMO that is where it belongs.

My opinion on the topic:

• The thought of the pulsing functionality being removed, makes me sick. The thought of having to add a pulser to everything, gives me a headache.
• The idea that the game designers intended the discrepancy in behavior of pulsing entities and combinators in that regard makes me lough. Or I probably missed the tutorial "How low power will snipe your combinator controlled factory". I suspect that discrepancy was more like embraced and stamped "problem to be solved - if you notice it at all".
• I would like to see this discrepancy addressed in another way than removing pulsing, despite boskids final remark in the other thread. Edit: Actually, now that I know of this potentially problematic discrepancy, I am split about, whether I want it to be removed or not. After all, I like the complexity in factorio.
  So? Now I will protect vulnerable circuitry with an accu and a logic, which shuts it down below a certain charge level, to make it waterproof? I don't know if that is cool or not. Looks like something simple and repetitive and therefor boring at the first glance. Sounds like the same headache as with the pulsers.
• I guess, it is not because everyone just plops double the power production capacity than needed, just plops vast energy buffers or ever uses complicated combinator setups, no, everyone probably is so pro and knew all about this, so nobody even cared about writing about it on the wiki. Me, noob, would like to have that discrepancy pointed out in some way though, if not addressed by the devs in the game engine. Maybe in some tutorial about the combinators?

[ptx0]

To the mods: Can you please move this to the ideas and suggestions forum? IMO that is where it belongs.

devs already said no, though.

[Theikkru]

devs already said no, though.

No, they haven't. The only post that could be construed that way was clearly a misunderstanding of the proposal, and possibly of the problem itself as well.

[Impatient]

To the mods: Can you please move this to the ideas and suggestions forum? IMO that is where it belongs.

devs already said no, though.

Devs say this and that. In the other thread Rseding91 made a remark only on the combinators and boskid wrote a reply that makes me suspect, there is some feeling of sickness, that players always point out one ever less common edge case. None of them addressed the discrepancy specifically. IMO it is only final when Kovarex takes notice, broods on it for a while and concludes, if it needs to be addressed in one way or the other or not. Even Kovarex reverted his opinion in some cases. But I judge the chances as low, that anything will be done about this. I requested to move this thread, just because I didn't want it to be burried in this subforum.

[ptx0]

To the mods: Can you please move this to the ideas and suggestions forum? IMO that is where it belongs.

devs already said no, though.

Devs say this and that. In the other thread Rseding91 made a remark only on the combinators and boskid wrote a reply that makes me suspect, there is some feeling of sickness, that players always find one ever more detailed edge case. None of them addressed the discrepancy specifically. IMO it is only final when Kovarex takes notice, broods on it for a while and concludes, if it needs to be addressed in one way or the other or not. Even Kovarex reverted his opinion in some cases. But I judge the chances as low, that anything will be done about this. I requested to move this thread, just because I didn't want it to be burried in this subforum.

alright, we will all wait.

[Nosferatu]

I still see no solution that has a chance to be used by the devs. The only one I could see happening would be to make combinators work without electricity at all. Sounds strange at first but belts move to without being powered and nobody cares...

They could be redisigned to look like steam punk machines.

[Deadlock989]

None of them addressed the discrepancy specifically.

They did in the other multipage mega-whinge that got locked.

I never noticed. I probably just never ran low on power, while using vulnerable circuitry.

Nutshell.

[Deadlock989]

Dear Texas Instruments,

I am paying customer. I have purchased and am operating one of your TI-2500 calculators. Certainly, 1972 is a glorious time to be alive.

However I have discovered a design flaw - nay, a veritable trap - that needs to be addressed immediately. I will detail my concerns over the next 19 pages.

To summarise, I found out that when you plug the Manhattan Island nuclear enrichment complex into the hand-held calculator, there is a possibility that a million lives will be lost in a terrifying blast of atomic doom if the calculator's battery charge falls below 50%.

This is obviously all your fault. I don't see why I should have to redesign my island-sized atom cracking facility just because your small and hastily improvised device, a literal step up from a vacuum tube really, is designed in some way that I assumed it wasn't. While it is possible that I could just realise my mistake and adjust the dim and fuzzy picture in my head of how it actually works, the obvious solution is to recall every calculator on the planet and make it work nice and simple so I don't have to. Perhaps it could be powered by fairy-dust instead. Obviously you haven't really thought about it.

If you can't do that, I recommend constructing a time-travel machine and travelling back to the 1930s to ensure that hand-held calculators were never even invented in the first place. This is the obvious remedy to my trivial and temporary inconvenience.

I now begin the rest of my presentation. Because Powerpoint hasn't been invented yet, I will be reading it off this 4 kilometre long scroll of papyrus.

<RECORD TERMINATED>

[Kyralessa]

I find it very odd that in a forum ostensibly supposed to be about improving the game, so much of the discussion appears to be focused on 'go find a mod' and/or 'it's your fault for designing a bad factory' even when the actual issue is in fact a game mechanic behaving inappropriately.

"Go find a mod" is very typical, because the entire rest of the world has more time at its disposal, collectively, than the developers do. An extraordinary variety of things can be modded in. A case that only a few people want and which would annoy most people can nonetheless be modded in, and then people are free to use it or not if they want. Even if it kills UPS!

If a mod becomes extremely popular, there's a possibility its behavior will be modded in. For example, there was a mod to have bots upgrade items that became very popular. Lo and behold, that ability made it into the game, well-integrated with the rest of the blueprinting and bot behaviors.

If this fix is something practically every player wants, the download numbers on the mod will reflect that, and that's more likely than anything to make the developers take another look.

Examples of mods whose features appear to have influenced the game:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Bottleneck and https://mods.factorio.com/mod/AutoDeconstruct - miners now show a red or green light to indicate whether they have materials to mine

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Squeak%20Through - a lot of items had their hit boxes reduced

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/long-reach - character reach was extended

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/auto-research and https://mods.factorio.com/mod/research-queue - the research queue was added

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/AutoTrash - request/limit was revamped to have a range on one screen

I'm sure there are many others. Not all of those game additions added everything about the mod. And that's OK! If you want the extra features...install the mod!