Make circuit connection behavior configurable per wire

[boeljoet]

+1

[Hares]

Partially implemented in 2.1.
See the latest FFF #442.

[macdjord]

Partially implemented in 2.1.
See the latest FFF #442.

I don't see anything in that FFF about circuit connections?

[Hares]

I don't see anything in that FFF about circuit connections?

Screenshot_20260615_105718_Samsung Browser.png (450.74 KiB) Viewed 383 times

[Tertius]

This change means you're able to not contaminate one of the wires with the output, so you're able to separate input from output. It's not a full implementation where you're able to individually choose input and output for every value, but in its simplicity it's really good and will not confuse players.

Unfortunately, it's still not possible to "collect" the signal output of multiple connected machines on one wire and set individual values with the other wire since the output of some machine still act as input for another connected machine and thus still contaminate each other. You're able to just share the input wire now, but not the output wire.

Edit: According to FFF #443 it's also possible to select the input wire, so it's definitely the full behavior we players asked for. So it's possible to deliver one value per machine with separate (green) wires, for example separate recipes, and collect all values from all machines with one red wire connected to all machines, for example machine content, and not contaminate the input wire.

[Hares]

This change means you're able to not contaminate one of the wires with the output, so you're able to separate input from output. It's not a full implementation where you're able to individually choose input and output for every value, but in its simplicity it's really good and will not confuse players.

Unfortunately, it's still not possible to "collect" the signal output of multiple connected machines on one wire and set individual values with the other wire since the output of some machine still act as input for another connected machine and thus still contaminate each other. You're able to just share the input wire now, but not the output wire.

Maybe input wire would also be configurable as we see pipe connection only which can't read.

[MrFaul]

We probably know more next Friday and what exactly will be possible.

From what I understand from the collected information over the years that the implementation of the circuit system isn't straight forward and requires a lot of "work arounds".
So unless they rewrite the entire thing from scratch and probably break millions of safe games in the progress it won't be as easy to "simply" add that to the game.

I hope they expand on the details next Friday.

[Hares]

From what I understand from the collected information over the years that the implementation of the circuit system isn't straight forward and requires a lot of "work arounds".
So unless they rewrite the entire thing from scratch and probably break millions of safe games in the progress it won't be as easy to "simply" add that to the game.

They have rewritten it a lot for 2.0 release when added multithreaded computations.

[MrFaul]

They have, but more in a sense to cope with multi threading and not the underlying principle.
This often involves making a task chunkable that can run independently which circuit networks are by default.
Each network is a chunk, sort off.

To work reliably you have to collect all inputs first and then calculate the output.
I don't even know where the circuit update loop sits, but I expect it to be pretty much the last thing they do in a tick.
It should be a standard scan inputs - > eval - > update loop.
The crux hereby is how does that interact with the rest of factorio's code?

My current educated guess is that machines have only a single in and output buffer for circuit signals and can't distinguish between networks.
When you make a connection to a machine you tell the network "use this buffer in your eval loop".
It would be a major refactor for everything besides circuit devices that where designed for that from the get go to use multiple buffers.

[Hares]

[...]

Toldya!

[Erfar]

Recipe and content should be configured per wire or made recepie negative and content positive

[MrFaul]

Toldya!

It is still questionable if this is a rewrite or a "work around".
I never doubted that there is stuff coming they already confirmed changes a long while ago.

Frankly doing anything curcuit related modding wise is still a PITA and I was hoping that they started with a better more modular approach from scratch.
As far as I understand doing anything circuit related even in Factorios codebase is likewise a PITA...

It would be nice to have a reliable hook for modded circuits calculations but there is none, its all done "manually".