Give Combinators Higher Power Priority

[AntiElitz]

Description:
When the factory’s power network runs slightly below full satisfaction (around 90%), combinators lose power much faster than other entities.
In this state, a decider combinator that should still have enough power begins missing input signals because its own power consumption drops to a fraction of the network average, sometimes down to about 10%.

This issue can be seen in the related bug report:
Combinators lose input signals under mild power shortage
Video: https://youtu.be/M-LJQGa6mi0

Since combinators are often used for critical factory logic, even short power dips can break control circuits and disrupt production. Players sometimes have to reload saves to recover from the resulting logic errors.

Combinators use very little energy, so it would make sense to give them primary input priority, or at least a higher level than normal machines. This would prevent small power shortages from disabling important logic.

[Rseding91]

I forwarded the suggestion to the combinator guy.

[AntiElitz]

Thank you <3

[thuejk]

I hope this is "fixed". It doesn't really make the game more fun, serve any gameplay purpose, if any low power situation breaks advanced circuit setups so horribly.

[_CodeGreen]

I'm surprised this isn't a thing already to be honest

[Brathahn]

+1

that one quirk is the only reason i use a mechanical (belt and wire) state machine for my kovarex processing.

[eugenekay]

From the Previous discussion:

I have to step into this discussion and stop it. This logic will stay as it is. Combinators are consuming energy and if there is not enough energy they will not update. With combinatorial logic this is all fine and good, no questions asked. In case of sequentional logic (when there are loopbacks) there is assumption that combinators are updating every tick for those logic to work. Combinators are not being updated when they have not enough energy. If a player knows combinators may not update because of loss of electricity (they are told about this by requiring electricity to be provided for them and by not updating until electricity is provided) and logic they are designing depends on them updating every tick, and purposefully allows them to enter into low power state and starts to complain "why are they not updating" then well...

Alowing them to update always even when no power would remove the need to power them. Trying to make them all update at the same time would cause implementation issues when there would be multiple combinators in the same circuit network logic but they would be powered by isolated electric network with different state of overload. If combinators not updating and so keeping previous output value are hard to notice, maybe i should change them to clear their output in case of low power condition?

And the obligatory there is a mod for that.

[Nosferatu]

Last time it was said this happens when power goes below 48,54%. Now it happens at 90%?
Last time there was a game play solution: Isolate your important combinators in it's own well backed up power grid.
How is this done on a space platform?

Link to last times technical explanation:
viewtopic.php?p=519785#p519785

Things might be different now.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with the same suggestion. Also unlocking the old thread, things having settled since.

[AntiElitz]

Please de-merge my thread. The merged topic is about consistent behavior under low power, while this one concerns power priority imbalance. That’s not about update logic, it’s about priority. These are different issues and should be tracked separately.
Old threads suggestion: I propose that at the very least, all powered logic devices on the same electrical network should behave the same way when suffering from low power.
My suggestion: Combinators should use primary input priority

Also that thread is from 2020 before Space Age and shouldn’t be revived.

[Koub]

Please de-merge my thread.

[Koub] Done.

[AntiElitz]

Please de-merge my thread.

[Koub] Done.

Thank you <3 . Seemingly this is now also implemented. viewtopic.php?p=683167#p683167

[Koub]

[Koub] Moved to implemented then.