The past few days i've been looking into making use of the new blueprint parameters to optimize old and new blueprints, but i've run into some issues with circuits, and i can't figure out if i'm missing something, or something is actually weird.
For a long time, i had a blueprint you could use at train stations to show how full/empty they were. This relied on multiple things like
- The item you are transporting
- The amount of chests available
- The amount of wagons on the train
- A max amount of trains you'd want inbound, so you don't flood the station and starve every other place
I thought this would be a good way use for parameters. Especially when i noticed you can easily use formula's to get the stack-size of the item chosen, for easy calculations.
Now on to the issue at hand.
I have noticed that Values in blueprints are done in a way, so if you set multiple things to the same value, changing that value through a parameter will change it every single place that value is used, even if they're not related at all. For example, i have a default max of 2 inbound trains. If the station is empty and wants 5 trains, it's still being limited to max 2, because we don't want to starve everywhere else.
I made this configurable through the parameters, but the problem is, if you change this to 4, it will also modify the lamp that has
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if limit >= 2Code: Select all
if limit >= 4Currently, my work around has been to set the lamps to L >= 10, 20, 30, 40, and then use a formula to overwrite that value to 1, 2, 3, 4 when you place it.
It seems weird to me you need to come up with random values that are only used in one place, and then overwrite them with static value using a formula, because you can't use 2 several times, without modifying both because one of them is a parameter.
Is it just me that's missing something, or does that seem highly unintuitive?
Buggy version:
"Working" but weird version:
It's the same if you use a constant combinator. If you put down a constant combinator with different signals, i'd expect to be able to configure the value on each signal.
For example, my idea was to use one to say "I want X items of this and Y items of that", but with 10 parameters (0 to 9). The funny thing is, you can't set them all to 0 by default, and them modify the value when you put it down. You need to give them separate values, otherwise they'll all end up with the same value, and you don't really want to set them to something higher than 0, because that will turn on the inserter if anything > 0, unless you afterwards remove all the signals you didn't actually use. You could set them to -1, 2, 3.. but it still feels odd to me you can't just set them all to 0, and then change each 0 to whatever value you actually want.
Buggy version:
A few screenshots for both issues: https://imgur.com/a/Al2TjGo
To me, it would make a lot more sense if - when you put down the blueprint - you could pick the item, and add the count at the same time, similar to when you add a request to a requester chest or something, with the exception being: there's a formula that will calculate the value it instead.
