Smallest possible Kovarex?

[mmmPI]

But you took out the recycle gear, leaving the first centrifuge susceptible to a permanently-starved state, where it never buffers up 40 extra '235 to keep running 100%, even without an external '235 trickle, and if, in your youth or childhood, you never did anything good, that external 0.7% trickle might actually *hurt*.

Not sure what exactly is being refered to by "recycler gear", however, i can still see there are 3 incorrect assumptions entangled x) :

1) With a red belt for output and no beacons or module, it achieves mechanical trhoughput magic and doesn't starve, as long as you have stack size researched fully, it works fine

2) If there was a risk of starvation, unlike what you suggest, it would not just be the first machine, it would progressively be all the others 1 by 1.

3) if there is additionnal trickle of unfiltered "good" uranium alongside the bad one, the 0.7%, they just get passed along, and certainly invalid the other 2 points even more ( not that has anything to do with my age).

I try my best to do the good things ,cuz i'm still young in my head !

mmm, I was too lazy to put the autostart machinery back in 'cause it's optional, and wasn't the point, I just wanted to show that nice compact recycle arrangement.

I thought the point was to make the smallest possible Kovarex and my acute sense of competitiveness was irremediatly triggered by your design being declared the winner in what was consider in my a view a premature attribution. (/sarcastic tone).

I try to act my age too and can't blame you for that

[quyxkh]

Including references to 30-to-60-year-old classics ("somewhere in my youth or childhood" and "one small fraction" and "stay a while, and listen" are still widely recognized) seems not to have been as fun as it sounds in my head. Sorry 'bout that.

When I started on the Internet the tongue-in-cheek "rule" was the best way to get good answers was to post bad ones, and it pretty much worked, because people were largely posting in good faith.

I've never minded anyone, especially not on game forums or anything else not particularly serious, posting how they thought things worked even if they were wildly off target, I just assumed they'd put in however much effort to learn as they had in them and were posting hoping someone would help them along further if it turned out they needed it. Anyone who's been here a while knows I've needed it at times. It's a good rule.

But I'm starting to suspect I understand some of a reluctance I've seen. The desire to learn or help doesn't seem to be what's going on here. This exchange isn't productive of anything I recognize as helpful or fun, so I'm out.

[mmmPI]

Including references to 30-to-60-year-old classics ("somewhere in my youth or childhood" and "one small fraction" and "stay a while, and listen" are still widely recognized) seems not to have been as fun as it sounds in my head. Sorry 'bout that.

I felt there was a joke somewhere, i even tried to answer with one even labelling it as "sarcastic tones" just to make sure it wouldn't be taken too seriously but seeing the tone of your message i guess it didn't get accross.

When I started on the Internet the tongue-in-cheek "rule" was the best way to get good answers was to post bad ones, and it pretty much worked, because people were largely posting in good faith.

I've never minded anyone, especially not on game forums or anything else not particularly serious, posting how they thought things worked even if they were wildly off target, I just assumed they'd put in however much effort to learn as they had in them and were posting hoping someone would help them along further if it turned out they needed it. Anyone who's been here a while knows I've needed it at times. It's a good rule.

I don't see how it could be good faith to post bad answers if you want a good one, nor claiming something that works fine doesn't, if you want the explanation of how it works you can just ask ...

I posted tested circuit-free answers for smallest Kovarex in good faith because i saw improvements to add to the designs that were posted and it's the title of the thread and is what's in the thread

[MBas]

There is one particular thing I have always wanted to ask but never did until now. I apologize in advance for asking it in this topic

What I never understood is why people use belts for internal uranium transfer. I mean, it is fine to use them for a few pieces of U238 input and one piece of U235, but for the rest (a lot of U235), I do not understand the reason behind using belts at all.

I assume there is something important I am missing, but I just use one or two Kovarex setups with a couple of chests or something similar, and it always works for feeding a lot (I mean really a lot) of nuclear power plants.

My usual solution is:
Two output inserters, A and B. Inserter A simply takes everything out. Inserter B is limited to holding only one item, filtered to U235, and its working condition is whenever inserter A is holding any U238. You may use similar logic for input inserter limited to 3 U238.

And thats it. Simple as that. All you need is a few chests around.

It is much better to work with chests in my opinion, because unpacking onto belts slows the process down, even though it is not that bad now with stack inserters. And if you have more Kovarex setups that can feed themselves, you dont need chests at all!

[Loewchen]

And thats it. Simple as that. All you need is a few chests around.

I would say that is the reason people generally use belts instead: The bot solution is simple, universal and just boring.

[MBas]

And thats it. Simple as that. All you need is a few chests around.

I would say that is the reason people generally use belts instead: The bot solution is simple, universal and just boring.

Oh dont take me wrong. I am not using any bots. Nor any combinators (since this is circut-free section). It is just an inserter putting material into box and another inserter taking it out. Technically it may work without chests (just put items onto ground). And as I said, if you have at least 4 kovarexes, you dont need any chests too. Just inserters from one machine to another.

Edit: Ups, something happen, I am sorry for breaking forum it turns out there were duplicite posts and I am cannot delete them for a reason...

[mmmPI]

And as I said, if you have at least 4 kovarexes, you dont need any chests too. Just inserters from one machine to another.

If you do that you can't use fully beaconned setup though.

Chests are nice, but cars or tanks too, because they are larger chest, so you can easily have 2 inserters attached to the same machine, 1 dropping on them and the other one picking up from it.

Edit : I noticed the use of belts was not so well understood so i thought i may as well explain why they are necessary in this design =>

whybeltsandcar.jpg (146.7 KiB) Viewed 86 times

Here i don't use chest but car instead for most of the material that will be reused by the centrifuge because you then require only 2 inserters and not 3 which i usually prefer.

Some of the reused material is placed on a belt because it allows the excess to slip through toward the rest of the design, that's the purpose of the belts, to make sure the excess good uranium from the first centrifuge can reach the 2nd and the 3rd and so on, so you can tile this design as a lane following the input belt.

[MBas]

If you do that you can't use fully beaconned setup though.

Why would I do such thing? That was efficient before space age. With new beacon mechanics this setup is very obsolete and you should use green modules in your beacons mostly if you really seek for the best setup.