Space Route Icons as Signals

soupDirect · Post by **soupDirect** » Wed Jul 29, 2026 10:24 pm

TL;DR

I would like to be able to use the icons which are currently used in the factoriopedia entries for Planet-to-Planet space routes as signals.

What?

The current options on the "Space" tab of the "Select a Signal" element are as shown.

: circuitsignalicons.png (36.92 KiB) Viewed 171 times

However, when you look at the factoriopedia "Space" tab, there are more options.

: spacetabicons.png (69.26 KiB) Viewed 171 times

I would like to be able to send signals using these icons.

Why?

I thought it would be interesting to use Alarms on my space platforms to display the current location of each platform as alerts on the alerts section of the hotbar. Initially only using them for current location, this was easily achievable because as shown, you can use the planet icons as signals whenever you want.

: currenthotbariconexample.png (12.18 KiB) Viewed 171 times

Biters at the door, entities needing to be built, and my first space platform's current location: Vulcanus

I then thought about taking it a step further and displaying the current route the platform was taking as a possible state as well. I can achieve this fine with text, but the actual icons, which already exist in the factoriopedia "Space" tab for the respective routes' entries, are not able to be selected as signal types and thus I cannot have the Alarm show an alert with that icon. I would like to be able to.

For my purposes, this would be entirely cosmetic. But, I can imagine a player who would appreciate being able to use those icons as signals in some larger logical system, perhaps for buffering resources nearer to rocket silos or the like. Either way, if "Plateau Edge" made the cut for signals, I don't see why the planetary route icons couldn't join the club.

eugenekay · Post by **eugenekay** » Thu Jul 30, 2026 5:21 pm

126765 discussed this previously including the reason why these are not available as a "Signal". Somebody was nice enough to create a mod on GitHub which creates Virtual Signals! I have forked it and released to the Mod Portal. It is not perfect, but it works for sending a Signal over the network / Map Tags / Display Panel.

I do not think there is a way to blueprint-edit the "space-connection" type Signals into a Combinator without a Mod? Attempting with a Blueprint like below gives an "Unknown signal type" error.

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