Circuit conditions for Labs/Biolabs, letting us set current research from circuit network

[griautis]

Now that we have many diff types of science, with different production chain, it feels like it would be cool to be able to dynamically change the research being done based on what research is available. Esp with stuff like gleba - I'd like to be able to set research to work on something for which I have the sciences available, while other science is coming in from space!

[Muche]

Also see Gleba science pack research micronmanagement solution.

[Clevlore]

Hello , made a forum account to post . was happy to see this post in the active topics.
in classic factorio stye there a mod for that https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Research_ ... Combinator

[Orum]

I want to give this a +1, because different researches have vastly different research speeds. I'm looking at you, "Research productivity!"

When I constantly switch between it and some other research (currently doing this manually, obviously, but that's why I want this to be implemented) I am fine with my current biolab count. But if I leave research productivity going, then research packs start to back up, so I'd have to massively overbuild my biolabs for whenever anything other than research productivity is going on.

Research packs backing up normally isn't a big deal, but with agricultural science spoiling, then I lose the science from those packs in the process.

[DavidEscott]

This seems really hard to implement. Like what kind of circuit output would you send to the lab? I can't even imagine how this would work.

I would instead suggest something simpler: Let each lab have an automatic stall condition that causes it to search forward in the research queue for something that it can work on whenever it runs out of items for the current research item.

So if you queue up A, B, C, D and a lab runs out blue science (needed for A and B), it will start to work on C and contribute some points towards C. Basically the queue becomes a list of "all the things we should be researching in priority order" but with the objective that each lab is always trying to work on something.

There would need to be adjustments made to the research system to allow progress on multiple sciences at the same time (a lab towards the front of the supply belt might be working on blue science techs, while labs further back are work red/green sciences), but it seems like it would be a lot easier to understand/implement.

There is a mod that already does this to some extent: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/simultaneous-research

[Khazul]

I would be happy with just being able to read the ingredients of the current research (including amount remaining) without knowing/caring what that research is. One can sort of do this by monitoring belts, but that doesn't cover a use case where you may not want to produce the science at all unless it is needed (ie gleba science).